RMM, APV3, and Internals. Guidance/Next Steps
 

OK, this is a long one, but I have so many questions flying around in my head and just want to dump all of this crap out there. Hopefully it's met well and receives a little guidance from some of you guys who are far more knowledgeable and well versed than I.

I have read a great deal on MSF over the last few weeks, and feel that I have a much better understanding of my Speed3, but at the same time it has also raised more questions (which is great). I absolutely love the feeling of wanting to know more!!
I haven't felt this excited or inspired by something for several years at least, so thank you all for that.

THE STORY SO FAR
In short, I've had my Speed3 for almost a year now. Just recently, as I approached and passed the 20K mi. mark, I decided it was time to start doing some light performance modding. I'm completely foreign to engine work, so I started off with the widely recommended JBR 88 Duro RMM, and just got my Autotech internals and APV3 installed, with the help of SFWD 1934, a little over a week ago (have to remarry the AP today because I had to bring my car by the dealership yesterday)...and now I feel like I could use a bit of guidance on where I should make my next steps and in which direction I should take those steps.

TUNING
Should I tune? Should I wait and get an SRI/TIP, and then tune?
I tried the COBB Stage 1 91 Octane 231 map, and it felt very restrictive in first and second gear and like the turbo would immediately jump up from -10/11PSI almost instantly to 7+PSI...just didn't feel like there was much of a gradual lead in to it. Maybe that's standard for this map, maybe it just takes some getting used to, maybe it's just me...I don't know. I'm also, new to all of these terms, so should anyone respond to this or try and give me advice/tips/etc., try to lay it on me in layman's terms please. But that's one of the reasons I'm asking, and why I'm on MSF, to learn. ;)

In regards to tuning, I'm noticing that some of these more widely popular tuners (Freek, Rich) are not geographically close to where I live in the bay area, and even some of the COBB approved dealers, the closest appears to be over 100mi away (when I select Mazdaspeed as the filter search option from the COBB list of approved tuners/vendors). That having been said, is a tune something that I can do online by sending a log, a list of my mods, and then sending my driving wants/needs and getting a map in return sent electronically? Sounds ridiculous, but maybe it isn't. Maybe this is a better solution than running the default COBB map..?

THE ACCESSPORT V3
Related to tuning, I also really want to get to know what all of the features and gauges on the AP are really telling me, not just what the acronyms stand for.
I feel like I should learn what those numbers represent and what ranges I should stay within. I downloaded the COBB Accesstuner (not to self-tune) so that I could at least read through the manual with the hopes of getting a better understanding of all of this, but perhaps there's a "So you Just Bought an Accessport V3, Here's What you Need to Know..." thread somewhere. I did find this one: http://www.mazdaspeedforums.org/foru...cronyms-79573/ Thanks, Abilor
But before reading that thread I didn't know anything about MAF Cal, which I should probably start doing I'm guessing? I hope I wasn't tearing up my car with that COBB Stage 1 map! :frown:
I can be a major car hypochondriac (I have had total shit luck with them over the years).

WISHLIST
I have a relatively small list of things I want to get/do, but I also have to keep embedded my head that this is my DD, and not a racecar, but I do love driving aggressively, I can't deny that.

Some things on my list of wants (not all directly performance related):

• New tires (needed badly - getting this weekend - having hardest time trying to find something that is a good mix of DD-ready and can offer decent street performance. Suggestions welcome)
• Spacers - Just bought two sets of 5mm spacers from JBR - should be here in time for new tires
• EGR Delete Kit
• Intake (SRI/TIP)
• Downpipe
• Exhaust
• COBB hood struts
• CP-E Towplate

I am very new to engine mods, and I really wish I was this excited about cars and wanting to work on them when my father was still around (passed when I was 16 - didn't even get to see me drive with a lic. :sorry:), he'd have loved to help me with all of this, but I can't really do anything about that now, so I am looking for a little nudge from MSF to keep me going in the right direction. :05:

Sadly I have shit for tools, no garage, and have to park my beloved speed3 on the street at night, which pains me, but I have no choice. Hopefully I'll be out of my current 10'x10' cell inside of that Air condition-less house in Livermore before summer officially hits.

I am ready to learn

Your next mod should certainly be an SRI/TIP. Just go with a full 3" setup to maximize flow and avoid having to upgrade later. JBR and HTP make nice setups.

As far as tuning goes, a generic OTS map is meant to be a starting point. The performance of which can vary greatly across different mod setups. They are not quality tunes.

I would get in touch with @Justin@Freektune; and get yourself an E-tune. He is one of the best tuners for this platform and has tuned hundreds of speeds without ever seeing them in person. He offers a great OTS+ option that is fairly cheap and will get you a solid, reliable tune to run while you acquire more hard parts and get ready for a full blown custom tune.

Thanks. I was terrified after hitting that submit new thread button that I was gonna get brownie-chewed-out. I really appreciate you taking the time to read through all of that and for giving me a couple pointers.

After I posted, and because I had a $50 VISA gift card burning a hole in my pocket, I went and ordered the hood strut kit from Cork Sport - figured it'd come in handy seeing as how I'll be spending some time under the hood in the future. Come next paycheck I'll look at getting intake and that tune. Thanks!

Your welcome.

Can't flame you for wanting to learn.

Keep reading.

IMO you started a good thread by admitting you want to learn about your car and not asking about bov's and loud exhausts.

I'll give you a quick run down of important parameters.

Afr: at idle and cruising should be around 14.7 or so wot should be in the 11.8 range. You will see an occasional 9.x which is fine it's just the ECU dumping fuel for something like swas. (Steering wheel angle sensor).

HPFP: idle should be around 420 and not under 1600 when going wot. Cruising it will constantly fluctuate.

Knock retard: always want zero but you will some values while just driving. Only time KR really matters is when wot. You don't want to see anything more than 2.0 that is generally accepted as the number if any higher would be something to worry about. Partial throttle you can see all kinds of values again this is nothing to worry about.

Ltft: this is affected by your maf cal. - numbers are richer and + are leaner. Don't worry about trying to reach 0 because weather and various other things will always cause it to change. Good rule is to keep values +7/-7 anything more than 7 and you should do a maf cal or check for vacuum or boost leaks. You'll see pretty high numbers if you have a leak. + values would be a vacuum leak and - would be a leak between the turbo and throttle body.

Wgdc: this tells you how hard your waste gate is working to increase boost levels. Higher % equals how hard the ebcs is having to adjust spring pressure to increase or maintain boost. 0% Wgdc for example is running on spring pressure and you shouldn't have boost higher than your wg spring. (Ko4 spring is 7lbs).

spark advance: this will display the timing of your tune. When going wot depending on your tune it will start small and gradually increase. If you get KR readings your ECU will decrease timing to compensate for what it thinks is rod knock.

Boost air temp: pretty self explanatory the temp of your boost or air in your intake manifold. It's a good idea to stay out of boost with high boost temps (115* for me but this number varies for everyone).

This is all I can think of at the moment. IMO from here I would purchase a 3in intake so that k04 can breath up top and get a custom tune from one of the tuners here. I'm currently on my second stratified tune and highly recommend them. If you have E85 around I highly suggest getting a tune for it the benefits are huge.


Sent whilst bojanglen.

Wow! I can't thank you and Agent Orange enough for taking the time read through my post, and respond with such valuable information. It's all very helpful!

Now I just have to commit this stuff to memory, start pricing out the SRI/TIP (think it's worth getting a box to cut out the hot air from the engine block/bay?), and get the ball rolling with Freektune. That probably won't be for another month or two before I'm able to do that though as I have to get new tires this weekend and just gave $400 to the IRS...bastards. :headache:

Personally I say no a 3in SRI will be all you need with a good tune to really open up your cars potential on stock turbo. Which I will say is a blast to drive daily


Sent whilst bojanglen.

no fucking way im reading all that shit. bro, keep it simple. blow off valve, wheels, lowering springs, camber, fucking done bro.

@PapaBruno; I'm in the same boat as you, should have my AP/RMM/Internals in any day now, I'll be following this thread.
@Goodrich27; thanks for posting, that is very valuable info for a noob like me!

Haha!
I made this Sidekicks gif a while back and have been waiting for an opportune time to use it.
http://i.imgur.com/V3fcxNx.gif

If you don't have someone to assist you, and/or you're a mod noob like me, I highly advise taking your time to install the internals or see if someone can lend a hand. I learned a hell of a lot just from that little install. Oh, and try to be very delicate with the blue and yellow clips.

It's your wishlist, but might I suggest you wait for @Mike@Stratified;'s results from this discussion before opting for the much more difficult and expensive downpipe swap versus a simple test pipe (replaces 2nd catalytic convertor).

A test pipe will free up plenty of flow for some really nice performance gains, and they are cheap and easy to install / stock out for smog or dealer visits.

I do have someone to do the internals, thanks for the heads up. Soon I'm gonna get an intake, pretty sure I can handle that myself, I do have some questions about a tune, I'll be contacting one of the e-tuner guru's on here for sure.

Well I pulled the trigger and went with an all black 3" Power Series intake from CorkSport for a number of reasons - one of them being CorkSport's great community interaction and customer service. Can't wait to get it early next week!
Next up is an e-tune from FreekTune

@2zooms did you get your internals installed?

Good choice.

@PapaBruno; yeah got them installed last week.

Nice Intake, I am still trying to decide what intake to get, the 3in negates the need for a TIP right? I am leaning towards a CS over COBB, but not certain.

Hello
For tires, the best from what i read is the michelin pilot sport 3 in summer or all season depending on your location, the best but expensive

You can go 235-40-zr18 from what i read, on stock wheels.

I have the generals G-max as 3 , cheap, good grip, good under rain but hard ride.

just my 2 cents :biggthumpup:

Put summer tires on, no all seasons. Check out Nitto 555's, I may go that route when I need new rubber.

Thanks, and yup, you got it. Don't need to buy the TIP separately with this one. Beat myself up all week trying to decide. Should be here on Tuesday. Now off to Pit Row in San Jose to slap on my JBR 5mm spacers. :3

Sent from my HTC One X+ using Tapatalk

CS made themselves relevant in the intake game with their true 3" ID. It's a great option that won't leave you wanting if you turbo swap in the future.

So it looks like you're 1 catalyst removal away from getting a tune. Have you been giving that some thought?

Yup. I initiated an email conversation with Justin at FreekTune a couple weeks ago. Once I get the CS intake installed, I'll push forward with the tune. Good lookin' out. :)
It's my DD, so is it OK to drive with the intake installed for a bit before I get the e-tune? I'm sure I'll probably throw a code or two, but I gotta' get to work and public transportation sucks...I mean, I could take the bus, but it's a bitch.

Not with a true 3" ID. That's a pretty radical difference, and installing it should literally take less than an hour, maybe two for a complete novice.

If you've already committed to Freek Tune, ask Justin if he'd be kind enough to provide you an OTS map with the appropriate scalar for the CS until you're ready for the real deal. Just toss that map on the car right after you finish bolting it up.

I've found him to be *very* easy to work with and the results have been impressive.

I have the regular stage 2 sri/tip by Corksport. I like it but the clamps are all rusty already and the intake is less than 2 years old. Sort of pisses me off. I actually didn't buy this intake, it was on the car already when I bought the car last fall. I like the intake alright but the rusty clamps look like shit. Hopefully yours don't get rusty as quickly as mine did.

That's great advice/help. Thank, you I really appreciate it. Sounds like I've got my work cut out for me this week then. :D

Have you tried hitting them up and asking for a replacement set? Their customer service seems to be outstanding! Even if you can't get it for free, I'm sure that it won't cost much. Give them a ring and/or post some pics on their FB page and let them know what's going on.

You can also follow the instructions on the CS site for modifying an OTS Cobb map

http://corksport.com/support/instruc...alibration.pdf

Just saw FreekTune posted that on FB earlier today. Maybe I'll try it myself. Again, thank you. ;)

I haven't. I'm not sure I want to pay for another set if they are just going to rust to shit after a year. LOL

As far as your wishlist goes, my order would be:

-New tires, I am running Michelin Pilot Sport A/S3's which are all seasons with good grip and good reviews. They are no super sport but I took the car to the tail of the dragon a couple weeks ago and was really surprised by the grip from these all seasons.

-Intake - 3" for sure. I have CorkSport parts on my car and they are fine. I for some reason really really wish I had went with JBR for more of my mods.

-Downpipe or Testpipe... imo, I would just buy a downpipe just to be done with it or a full turboback but if you are on a tight budget a test pipe would be an improvement. A lot of people actually really like one of the Ebay Downpipes, I believe its called the M2 or something close to that.

-Lowering springs/Rear Sway bar are cheap mods that help handling tremendously.


I think the BIGGEST piece of advice I can give you is to contact your local Nator Chapter and get to meet some of the local guys. They can guide you in the right direction and will help you install mods/teach you how to install mods. That way you get hands on experience and can help others later.

Awesome post, glad I didn't see negative offset wheels and cheap coilovers in your list of mods.

I got excited when I read Bay Area. Sorry about your dad, mine passed away too when I was 9. good lucl

Wasnt sure how many people were from this section of the Bay. I am located in Fremont myself and it would be great to meet a few of you guys from the East Bay area. Would make the work on all/some of our cars much more fun to have other fellow enthusiasts around to lend a hand, or a wrench.

I personally am about to bite the bullet on the Autotech internals as the next performance upgrade. Currently only have the CS stage II power series SRI, test pipe, and resonator removed. Im thinking the next logical step is the planned one for HPFP internals and then AP to see where I'm at before continuing on down the road of fun :)

Thanks man, I appreciate it. And my condolences to you as well. It's always tough, but hey, at least we've got good buds to be there for us throughout our lives, right? :D

So I received the CS Power Series 3" intake on Friday, but didn't get around to installing it because of the whole scalar MAF Cal thing.
Been trying to read through this thread: http://www.mazdaspeedforums.org/foru...torial-121334/ but goddammit, I hate math! Stuff scares the shit out of me because I suck at it, always have. I even have like math anxiety nightmares where I'm back in HS taking a math test (no joke). I've always been an English/History person, hated Math/Science.

Well, I guess I better give it a shot.

No need to mess with the scalar brother.

http://www.mazdaspeedforums.org/foru...ntakes-124734/

Just follow the instructions, copy and paste the MAF curve for the CS 3".

Once you've flashed, drive for about 40 miles, highway, stop and go, all the gears.

Then, follow the rest of the MAF cal tutorial.

Rad! The math is already done for me! Woo-hoo! I will give this a try when I leave from work today, and maybe I can even get this installed tonight. I'll just go post up in the back of the parking garage downtown Livermore. >:3

Nice new avatar BTW. I love Aeon Flux, and so dearly miss MTV Oddities.

Yeah man, I'd love to meet up some time with a bunch of members from the east and south bay area.
Even if it's just to chill, grab a drink or go see a flick. Sadly, I don't have a place to work on my car outside of a single car driveway and streetside. And that's IF the owner of the house doesn't have his car in the driveway.

Also, don't even waste anymore time thinking about buying the internals. Do it this instant. From everything I've read here, the HPFP Internals and the AP are the first things you should get before any further, serious modding.

@PapaBruno; post pics when you get it installed. I'm thinking an intake for my father's day present is a good idea :)

Thought I downloaded the Accesstuner Software already, but I guess I didn't, so I've gotta wait for that confirmation email and download URL again. Damn. Gotta' wait another day. So anxious now :D
EDIT: Well, since I ran out of daylight I just ran my first closed-loop MAF Cal.
I think I did it right...I hope I did.

Hey guys. Just got my MS3 and would like to meet you guys in the bay area

This is what I did. Saved up $1900

Got everything in my sig including freektune minus ddm and led kits.

YOU DO NOT NEED DOWNPIPE! Not unless you are going big turbo. Get you a TMIC.

DONE!

Yeah, I've been eyeing that cp-e TMIC. It's damn sexy in black! Can I borrow 500 clams, please? ;P

Also, I managed to get the intake installed last night. Took a few hours, but it was fun! I'm sure that I'll blow that time away the next time I have to get back there. Pic for ya', @2zooms

Thanks again @Agent_Orange for pointing me in the direction of Lex's MAF Cal/temp map thrad, and to everyone else for all of the help and pointers thus far. :hug: You guys are making my time here enjoyable and educational!

I think I will try and plasti-dip the rear bumper valance area this Friday while I'm waiting on a package to be delivered. Then hopefully by the end of the month I can get an e-Tune from FreekTune.

Nice dude, I gotta get me one of those soon...

I have 555's on right now and I'm less than impressed. Both rears bulged a sidewall in less than 5k miles and we're replaced under warranty. I guess they do stick pretty good but a tire that has a bulge or in my case is prone to getting them is now friend of mine.

To the OP I just got an OTS+ tun from Justin and it is the best 75 you can spend.. That dude is a magician.

@bryancregger; that's not good to here, i've read a bunch of good reviews on them. I may try them when I need new rubber...