Toymans generosity (a tale of a 2004 Mazda 3 manual)

Oh boy.  Just lost the post.

Car was grot. (to be expected for any car in SC that sits for more than 2 weeks)

Now it's not!

Rx8 wheels fit.

More details tomorrow.

Oh dang, those RX-8 wheels look really good–like the 3 came from the factory with them.

Oddly enough, the also fit the Elantra N and Veloster N, they are popular for winter setups. 

So, some more deets (as the kids say).

The car is a 2004 Mazda 3 2.3 manual.

It's got some pretty cool seats!  There was a weird stain on the drivers seat that looked like a piece of metal had rusted there.  There were even chunks of rust like material embedded into the seat. 

All gone now!  The wetness is not a stain, that's just from using some "tough stuff" cleaner.

Unfortunately,  I was a bit distracted when Toyman and son dropped it off for me.  I didn't get a picture of them, or of the car being unloaded. Dang.

So, here is a picture that Toyman took in his giveaway thread:

As you can see, it did clean up fairly well.

So, what do we need to do? 

Step 1: see if it runs

Step2: see if it will drive.

Step 3: clean it

Step 4: diagnose it.

Step 5: see if rx8 wheels fit.  This is really important, because I plan to bring it to the challenge and don't want to buy more tires.  The Rx8 and the Mazda3 are going to share wheels for this year's challenge.

Step 1 and 2 were verified when the car was unloaded off the trailer.  However, it ran poorly, wanted to stall, and made some rather "interesting" noises...  not from the engine, but seemingly under the drivers feet.  Weird.

Step 3 was taken care of with my kiddos and I.  You can see my oldest helping clean up mommas car (a Mazda 5).  You can also see the grot under the roof rails.

Step 4 is ongoing.  It sounds okay when you hold your foot on the accelerator.  It is just trying to idle at like 3 rpm.  Silly car, that's your model name not your target idle speed!  Maybe I should add a 6 and a 2 to the model name (623) so it will idle at that speed?  Dunno.  More realistically, I'll clean all of the carbon out of the throttle body and do an idle relearn.  There are no codes stored or pending.

I drove it around the neighborhood and it won't go above about 3k rpm.  It is like it is choking.  I'm thinking the weird noise near the drivers feet might be an exhaust restriction that is causing some flow "difficulties".  Nothing a Sawzall can't correct.

The passenger side rocker mounding is missing and there is a helacious dent  in that area.  Me thinks they are related.  I will need to find a replacement mounding to make that side of the car presentable.

The drivers tail light is askew.  It is missing one of the fasteners.  I can't find a suitable fastener at the moment.  Might need to do a junkyard run.

I hope y'all have a blast with it!

If it needs a battery, I have an old one in the garage I can let go for $3.

Battery seems fine right now.

I also confirmed that the charging system is working.  I thought maybe that was why it was idling poorly.  Alas, it was charging just fine.

The charger was on there to maintain it while I was cranking and diagnosing.

bbbbRASS said:

If it needs a battery, I have an old one in the garage I can let go for $3.

However.....  I think I have 20$ in my rx8 budget for a battery.

So, I cleaned the throttle body, which is usually the issue with poor idle.

Before:

After:

I did the relearn procedure...  

And!  It's now the same...

However, it took a long time to get to the same.  I really think the exhaust is clogged.  I'm gonna take out the o2 sensor pre cat and see if it idles better.  If it does, I'm gonna make a free flow exhaust.

If it doesn't, I'm doing a compression test (Toyman thought it had a headgasket issue due to overheating anyway).

More results later this week.

In case yall missed the other thread, Toyman suggested a donation to a charity of my choosing 8n payment for the car.

We gave a donation to a church (which is a plant church so its trying to stand on its own).

I can also be convinced to give a donation to Brasssssssssssss's School as it is a non profit and he is my very dear friend and neighbor.

I mention this so when it shows up on the challenge budget, yall are all confused. 

Nice to see a build thread on this. They're fun and I think I was just behind you in line.

I'm a pretty big fan of the 2.3, mine were dead reliable in my 3 and 6. Will be interesting to see what's causing the issues

Subbed to watch the shenanigans 

Was it your RX8 that had the mystery vibration? Maybe with a new "spare" set of wheels you can try the 3 wheels to see if the vibration disappears. 

In reply to OHSCrifle :

Yep.  Still there too.  Ugh.

The rx8 has had 5 different sets of wheels on it and the vibration remains.  It's fine below 63mph and above 71 mph.

The tires on the 17" Mazda 3 rims are best described as "garbage that probably held air at one time in the distance past".

Cooper_Tired said:

Nice to see a build thread on this. They're fun and I think I was just behind you in line.

I'm a pretty big fan of the 2.3, mine were dead reliable in my 3 and 6. Will be interesting to see what's causing the issues

It's funny you said this and it didn't occur to me before...  my wife had a 2006 mazda 6 2.3 manual.  I loved that car!  It's gotta be the same drivetrain.  It really didn't click that this is just a slightly smaller version of that car until I reread your post.

Thanks for bringing back the memories! 

wvumtnbkr said:

I have been fortunate enough to have a beer (or two) standing just about where this pic was taken from. 

My vote is to cut the exhaust off even if it's not clogged...

wvumtnbkr said:

In reply to OHSCrifle :

Yep.  Still there too.  Ugh.

The rx8 has had 5 different sets of wheels on it and the vibration remains.  It's fine below 63mph and above 71 mph.

The tires on the 17" Mazda 3 rims are best described as "garbage that probably held air at one time in the distance past".

Bummer. 3 sounds like clogged cat.

Makes me wonder.. Are catalytic converters still valuable if they're dead?