I have an 88 323 gt and I love the car. I smile whenever I drive it. This is my second Mazda so im not too familiar with places to get any parts or help with it. I believe my car is stock. However it does have a GReddy Full Auto Timer, airfuel ratio, and boost gauge. I have a few problems with it that I need to get fixed. They are a must!

First: The car runs ok when idling or when it's in the boost.....When it's cruising (maintaining speed) it spits and sputters and the mixture drops to a very scary lean... What could be the cause?

Sencond: What is stock boost psi for these cars? From what I understand the ecu shuts it down at 11psi. My car hits that all of the time and it's no fun. Serious buzz kill! lol. So where would I go about getting the ecu upgrade for this car?

Third: What the heck do I do about the shifter?! It's so sloppy. When it's in gear it still moves around like its in neutral. Downshifting is just short of a miracle with that thing too!

Fourth: Just parts in general, where do I get them? I want to do some preventative mantenance and I can't seem to find parts anywhere for it.

 

Yo fellow 323GT owner! You should try the www.mazd323performance.com website. That's the forum I tend to be on the most and there are some extremely smart guys when it comes to the 323GT. There is also a good protege website that made room for us 323GT guys where you can get some assistance. And, of course, there's the yahoo group that has many GTXers on it that know a ton.

Regardless, here's some advice for your questions.....

Your sputtering problem could be a whole lot of things. If it were me, the first thing I would do is change the fuel filter. When was the last time that was done? It could be a boost leak somewhere in the intake pipng.... a loose hose clamp or something. You should check to make sure your system is air tight. How clean is your air filter? Beyond that, I'm not sure without driving the car myself.

Stock boost? I think it's supposed to only be 5 or 6 lbs. The boost cut (for safety) is at around 11 lbs. Yeah, it's not fun when you hit it either. Kind of scary.... LOL. If you want to run higher boost, you'll need a modified ECU so that you don't damage the engine by starving it of fuel. The stock ECU will make it run too lean if you try. Bad news. Eventually, if you're going to run gobs of boost and try to create a monster car, you'll disconnect the boost cut vacuum hose so that you'll never have to worry aobut hitting boost cut again! Fun! Don't do it until you get a modded ECU. ReichRacing sells them as well as www.corksport.com (in Vancouver, Washington). I love corksport. I have never dealt with ReichRacing, but I know they can provide good stuff too.

Sounds like your shifter bushings are worn out. Get the parts from the dealer. They're not expensive and that's a good place to start. Another option is to get a short-shifter set-up. I think corksport still carries some, but you'll need to email Derrick at corksport.

Fourth... parts in general? The junkyard.... Yea, you heard that right. Unlike Honda where you can buy virtually anything you want, it has always been difficult to get cool, aftermarket parts for this car. Lots of us have made custom parts from other cars. My car has parts from Isuzu, Mitsubishi, Ford, etc. Go to www.mazda323performance.com and check us out. You'll see what I mean. it's not as scary as you think. It's even more rewarding knowing that we didn't (couldn't) just go to a aprts store and dump our wallets out.

Have fun.

Larry
1988 Mazda 323GT
15 lbs. of boost
Lot of mods.....
Catch me if you can!