his rod had to have been bent, theres no way he was out of boost that much vacuum and blew up

Sorry to hear that man! a buddy of mine just blew up a couple weeks ago too. all he had was a cobb intake and inlet and AP flash!

This worries me... Unfortunetly, this seems to be happening a lot lately. Hopefully somebody can figure this out. If my engine does blow, i am sure in hell NOT buying a 2010 because they look like shit... Did you notice anything odd about driving around before it happened? Shooooooot man sorry about it.

Yeah, as someone mentioned, at zero boost like that cruising, the rod/s must have already been bent to some degree, and just decided that it was a good time to blow a hole through your block. One sever ping or instance of pinging could have caused a slight flaw to appear in the rod, and then its just a grenade with the pin pulled.

And I am sorry for the loss and inconvenience, hopefully everything goes smoothly from here on out!

i check the oil every two weeks and before long trips, it was full before i left

car didn't feel different or strange

being towed back to cleveland right now, was told by several people the dealer it's at is awful. Was given the option to trade it in so I'm thinking about that and minimize what I have to spend/lose.

what did they say they would give you on trade in? lol

I would grab all your parts off the car btw!

no numbers yet, just the option. If I go that way most of the parts come off so I'll have different parts in my FS thread

guaranteed this cars damage was done prior to him popping. No way in hell it would pop from just cruising on the highway.

quote Phantom3 What exactly should Mazda be held accountable for?? There is no proof (as of yet) regarding a flaw in the engine. The car comes with a warranty under the premise that it will stay stock. If you are stock and you blow then it is covered. If you mod your car then it's your own damn fault. Why should Mazda pay for your fuck up? Mazda engineers don't sit around and design an engine with increasing the HP with aftermarket parts in mind. In fact it wouldn't surprise my if the engine was designed to pop on purpose... I"m just saying

You no i bet Mazda enigineers do no why some of these engines are popping and i bet it is not JUST from the BSD. and honestly Phantom theory is not so far out i bet the Mazda engineers took this car to the grenading point and probably have popped a few to see where the popping point is... and i bet its not to far off stock levels...Mazda clearly knows how much this engine/ecu can take before a failure happens,,,and indeed when a engine pops that has mods...Mazda is off the hook...and at this point they probably are happy when a cars has mods so they not held accountable..IMO it is a combination of all the mods putting the engine in stress because it was not designed to handle extra boost/power as well as the ECU not being able to compensate for the changes that the mods have created, especially when boost is increased..We no the car can handle a CAI and CBE as Mazda has them from the factory.....and i would bet a TBE may put this thing at its line for safe power upgrades...any more than that especially with boost over stock and it's only a matter of time..without meth...
Not trying to be negative about folks buying mods as many vendors make a living selling them, but this friggin platform can't handle more than a few light bolt-ons and stock boost. My recc is drive in balance, shift by 5500 tops, keep the boost at stock levels and do not over mod this thing...TILL it's built for more power first...otherwise stay close to stock levels. I am...and so far no issues.....I like my car and as much as this shit pisses me off i am keeping it and driving it a we bit more aggressive than normal....but not by much LOL

drive the hell out of it. Runs better that way.

driving the hell out of it with too many mods is why this thing is popping...the damage is done when driving the hell out of it and it pops when you would never figure...it like Phantom right Phantom?

i often drive the hell out of my car and its just fine so yeah its hit or miss.

LOL... You never know when it's going to jump out.

Id like to see a fund put in place to get one of these popped engines in the right hands to find out REALLY what is going on. Personally I'm leaning towards crank walk / thrust bearing problems. A heavy duty aftermarket thrust bearing would be nice. Or a forged aftermarket crank. :fing02:

with those mods meth would be your ony hope...btw my clutch vibrates since i put ptp tranny mount so this i can't be factor before your engine will blow mine is like that for 3 k mileage....

Sorry for your loss bro.....

Thats a good offer...

..and sorry for your loss mate

Doc

Since no one really knows whats causing the failures, it could have absolutely nothing to do with mods. We don't know yet until someone does a complete teardown.

this is why I love the standback... Have a fun setting and just run really conservative whenever you arent ragging on it

This platform is cursed...it reminds of final destination...who's next?..

quote smakdown..Since no one really knows whats causing the failures, it could have absolutely nothing to do with mods. We don't know yet until someone does a complete teardown.

True...but 99% of the cars popping are moded and the more mods on our car generally have a higher failure rate...maybe coincidance but something is creating this "overload" somewhere that is grenading these engines that have mods. True, there have been a handful of stockers with issues...but if it was a defect there would be more stockers blowing....it is a chance that the "defect" what that may be is failing faster because the car with mods are making more boost or power and stressing the "defective" part or parts....but facts are facts ATM and the stockers of lighly bolted cars are have way less issues...so a mod or a combinations of mods is putting this car into a failure position or making the questioable defect react with a failure much sooner than if the car was stock......Mazda knows what is happening and they no when this engine will fail and why...they are just not sharing the info....they may want moded cars to fail....but IMO this is a un-wise business decision....honesty alway's prevails. but they must feel that if kept stock the failure rate is very low so they will not open up.....now if stockers were popping that would be a different story. Or as Phantom mentioned, maybe they did put a grmlin in the ECU !!!!!!!!!

99% of the cars WE SEE on here are modded or they wouldn't be here.

damn gremlin. i should install my cat into the ECU. she eats rabbits, mice, birds, and other shit too. maybe she could show that little bastard what's up.

BUT srsly, IMHO the engine should be stout. it's got rods comparable to those in an Evo X yet those same rods are snapping at much less power than the Evo's are capable of.

as far as 'good business' goes, if Mazda has minimal issues with the stock cars, and the owners of stock cars love the MS3/6, then why give up the secret of why modded cars blow? although if they did give up the secret and these cars were laying down 400whp easily, they'd prolly sell a TON more of them..

one thought - let's say Mazda knows what the problem is. what are the odds that they've 'fixed' it for the 2010 MS3?

other thought - any smart Mechanical Engineers around here? we need to place a spy inside Mazda corporate!

How do you know 99% of the cars popping are modded?

how do we know how many people blow this engine and AREN'T on the forums to tell us about it... and aren't modded.

indeed i am not positive that 99% of fialures worlwide have mods....but i was the 1st Speed3 that was bought at my dealer in Nov,06 and i have been active on 2 forums and frequent 2 other just to keep up on whats going on. Stock or moded, if you are a enthusiast wanting to improve your platform chances are you are going to be involved in one of the forum...and if my engine popped and i was stock or moded holy hell would break loose on a form...but i have only heard of 2 stockers popping, thats why i said a handfull....but 99% of the time they are moded and have been driven very hard frquently....now very hard to me is fine and safe if driven in the sweet spot of this car...but going WOT on every drive day in and day out with boost set at 18 or better...taking it past 6000 rpm on a all to often basis IMO will hurt this car especially if the mods have you near or over 300whp....driving correctly and shifting at 5500 and not beating the living shit out of it ALL the time will benefit this platform for longevity stock or moded...

I wouldn't have a problem sending you the parts, IF (that's a big if) mazda pays for it then I'm sure they'll keep em but otherwise you can have them

I still think were looking at a small percentage of cars that are blowing compared to the number that are modded, look at how many high hp/tq cars have stayed together with meth, i really think a lot of the blown motors are detonation caused.

Not sure the community as a whole has enough guys running meth to say with any real certainty that it has done something to save X number of motors from detonation. (same thing for the balance-shaft argument)

its not power or mod related. I'm not a lucky guy and im still around unblown up for now. I've boosted and beat on this car 7 ways from sunday. I have meth and I still have my BSD. The way dudes are blowing up im sure its a design flaw not a power related issue.

^I'm with you on that one. If it was power related, guys wouldn't blow cruising on the highway. It just doesn't make sense.

BTW, how many miles are on your car?

Someone said mazda has a new part # for there thrust bearings so that may be part of our problem..

33.000 miles

If it was a flaw, it seems pretty damn unlikely that it would take 33k miles before failing.

What's wrong is that everybody sits around these forums saying "I'm sorry to hear that" and others speculate on the reason... BUT NO ONE IS INVESTIGATING THE CAUSE CORRECTLY. Hell we should all pitch in and send a few of these blown engines to experts who can investigate and find out why this is happening.... It would be worth it, and I would not have any problem paying my share for it.

But no body does that. All everyone likes to do is GUESS... and that hasn't helped ONE BIT ever since the introduction of this car.

Every single case of incident (fatal, or just a minor one) in the aviation industry gets investigated to find the EXACT reason for why it happened, and most of the time they do find out the exact leading cause, or multiple causes of an accident. This can be a 30 second investigation, or a year long investigation, but the cause is almost always found.

This is a car people... not only that, its the engine in the car. I'm sure there is enough money in this community to investigate such a common problem with it.

Funky

Well, if they found the cause and know this part may be causing an issue, then they need to issue a massive fucking recall. And I have to cross my fingers that when my dealership tears my car apart that they dont fuck it up.

And I agree that the cause needs to be found or at least investigated. This scenario is a classic case of a "what the fuck?" engine failure. OP if you can get that engine into competent hands to see what went wrong, please do so...you'd be doing the community a huge favor. However, if financial reasons prevent it (having to trade the car in, mazda keeping it) then its understood.

But I can tell you right now if Mazda covers this under warranty then theyll be taking that engine and doing their own investigation, and then keeping a lid on it and the info will never get back to us.

Also, I highly doubt mazda is intentionally popping our engines using planted gremlins. With companys like Cobb out there digging through ECUs they run a huge risk of being found out....then what? I highly doubt it.

bummer.. sorry to hear it...
thanks for all your info my friend.
keep us posted!!!!

So, there's never been a proper examination of a grenaded motor, by any other than Mazda?

I thought I read DCR had some blown motors they were looking at? And somebody send one to Forzda!

35k in 1 year 4 months. I've had meth from 6k miles and ive been over 300whp since about 11k

If it was power or abuse related me and many others would be LONG ago blown up.
If it was tune related I would be blown up LONG time ago cause I've been on stock ECU this entire time.

boosted 30+ psi blew turbo and injector seals but still here

Boosted 27psi on the dyno 3 times still here

raced the car on 19-24 psi for over 9 months still here

Threw a 60-1 on the car cranked it up to 27 psi made no big power BUT still here.......

Trust me its not power or abuse related cause my motor would be the first one called home to mazda heaven if that was the case. That's why there's no sense fearing the thrown rod gremlins cause its all a gamble.

Enjoy your car mod it how you want to and drive it how you want to. When your time comes it will come. If you don't want it to come leave the car stock, stock the car out, or trade it in.

And thats the best advice that can be given, until this "problem" is found out.

haha i love how phil puts it. "when your time comes"

Are you really going back to stock? My clutch is slipping some so when I get ACT clutch/flywheel put in im going back to stock. I may leave the cobb sri in since it's so easy to swap (gotta have something) I think Ill have more fun with my car overall stock than having a little more power and worrying all of the time every time I step on it.:indifferent: