Sweet Mazda pic.
I started with a Honda S90 and Hodaka Super Rat.
Be thankful you never owned a Harley.
I'm an atheist but I maintain my vehicles "religiously", so to speak.
I never do "performance driving" with my vehicles and the "paddle shifters" in my CX-5 are purely for looks
On my third replacement I finally converted from the stock 2-speed auto in my Lemans to a 3-speed auto and I had no more issues.
Timing chain broke when I went to start the car one morning, at less than 60K miles.

 

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KOOL! I had a RAT it was well used. Spent more time pushing it home. Its interesting you smoked a power glide and twice? I was learning torque converter dynamic's and strapped a power glide on the Transmission Dyno (*one of only about 3 in the USA). Never could get it to blow. And in one of my other cars I had just built a TH350 to swap out the power glide and spent all day long performing neutral drops and it never complained. Gave it to a friend and he used it for years? Your timing changed broke likely because on the engine 60k miles was a lot or you had a back fire. And for that engine both were not uncommon nor what we could technically call a reliability issue. Remember at one time 100k miles was a old engine. lol


My MAZDA thread you might be interested?
Mazda3 Things I like to do - Mazda Forum - Mazda Enthusiast Forums


Back on topic....
About my only quark I have to say about Skyactiv MAZDA is that the ECU access for aftermarket programs to Performance Calibrate the ECU is limited and also most none existent for a NA Mazda Skyactiv gas engine. And the few that claimed to be "toooners"(OV) were hacks! I am looking forward to what Versa will have available in the next few month?

 

Thanks for the tread link.
Yeah, back in the day you rarely saw100K and generally would look at a used vehicle that over 25K on it.
Subaru and Honda have much more power mods available to them.
I'm "guessing" it's because of a much larger number of vehicles which means within that owner's group they have a large "performance base" for aftermarket businesses to make money from?
But then I have no idea how good Mazda engines are at handling engine tweaking.
I had a 2004 Honda Accord V6 coupe that I was easily able to tweak more hp out of with aftermarket items, not that I really needed it.
The high race spoiler alone gave it an additional 25hp

 

The old school of thought,
If you want cheap instant HP just add a RED part on your vehicle.

 

Don't forget the old JC Whitney Go-Faster Mudflaps.

 

Hey nothing wrong with JC Whitney. They sold one of my parts waaaaaaay back in the mid to late 70's and I had a small income from them. You may have even have seen them if you received their catalog in that time frame?
But hey lets not forget the some of their engine restore wonder products. Maybe some high mileage MAZDA 's can find some?

 

Back in the BC days (before computers) I always looked forward to my Cycle World and my JC Whitney catalogs.
That liquid solder type stuff actually worked pretty good for at least a few thousand miles.
Or at least long enough for me to sell a couple of my cars...

 

I still have most all my subscription's of Cycle World and Hot Rodding from about 1973- around 1978. Sadly I am not sure I have any JC Whitney catalogs? Maybe I do IDK. Been a while since I opened that sealed stored box of magazines? I think I always thought that there will always be another JC Whitney in the mail. At some point I replaced them with McMaster-Carr and Dultmeier, which for me and what I do for a living more practical.

LOL

* JOKE!

 

I used JC Whitney quite a bit for parts when I was in college and couldn't afford anything better. Once I was commissioned and went on active duty in the Army, I used the facilities on various bases available to troops to do their own maintenance and could get good parts at good prices through there. After my six year tour, I went to law school and while paying for that and trying to live, I went back to Whitney. Once I got into practice, I didn't have time to do much of my own work, so I don't think I've seen a Whitney catalog since the late 70's.

 

2013 CX-5 Touring bought with 73k in Dec. 2018 now at 88k as of today.
2004 Mazda 3 bought new totalled @ 145k in Dec. 2018
2004 Mazda 3 bought in Jan. 2019 with 139k now @ 170k

As a Honda and Nissan owner in the past, (current daily driver is an Odyssey) I can say that Mazda are great 👍 cars.