Slinz AKA Tom, new to Mazda!

Hey OzMPS!

Name's Tom as above, and I've just moved into a 2006 3 MPS - my first Mazda.

To be honest I had only a very vague interest in the Mazdas during my search for a car. I was 95% sure I wanted a Mk V Golf or Jetta. I'd been in Vietnam for about a month, returned to Adelaide, spotted a 3 MPS for sale and decided hey, a test drive can't hurt.

Cannot believe the chasm of awesomeness between the MPS and the 3 Maxx Sport that I'd previously been in (family car). The fact that they share a name is something that just seems wrong now. Anyway, as you'd guess by the thread, I put a deposit down very quickly after reviewing the necessary documents!

No pics yet as I'll be picking her up tomorrow, but it is a pretty cool blue shade (I'm sure there is an equally cool name just like every other car paint) and is just the standard non-luxury model.

I've come from OzVR4 having owned two modded Mitsubishi Legnums over the past few years. I'm very interested to see the performance gains to be had in this car after reading some bits and pieces here and having a loose interest in the JDM scene for many years. Anyway, that's a big enough rant!

Welcome Tom, blew my mind too when I first drove one. Glad you made the jump.

Enjoy

Sent from my Huge Samsung Note 2

Welcome mate! There's a decent number of SA members floating around.

welcome! congrats on your new MPS! i'm sure you'll love it ever more when you get used to driving it :) keep an eye out in the SA forums for the next cruise/meet up, something should happen happen late next month, hope to see you there :)

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Originally Posted by slinz

I've come from OzVR4 having owned two modded Mitsubishi Legnums over the past few years. I'm very interested to see the performance gains to be had in this car after reading some bits and pieces here and having a loose interest in the JDM scene for many years. Anyway, that's a big enough rant!

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Hi and welcome :)

Do you know Adam (aka Eyecandy)? He's Adelaide-based and I've seen him detail a number of Legnums for the car club (I assume OzVR4)

Thanks everyone! Yeah I have seen a couple cruising around Adelaide.

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Originally Posted by Caffeine Fiend

Do you know Adam (aka Eyecandy)? He's Adelaide-based and I've seen him detail a number of Legnums for the car club (I assume OzVR4)

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Yes I know Adam, he detailed my Legnum (the first one he did) as a bit of an opening to the VR4 market - looks to have taken off for him.

I'll do my best to attend any local events - this car is absolutely bone stock though so may have trouble keeping up with the serious boys! Will go for a good drive tonight to get to know it a little better. Certainly a reasonable amount of torque steer even with stock power, although nowhere near as much as the Honda I had as a teenager, so the front end must have plenty of engineering measures to lessen it.

If there are any threads that a newjack like me should read ASAP then point me in the right direction :)

Hah nice. Figured you'd probably know him. He's posted a few write ups on Legnum's he's done on Detail Paradise. :)

Anyway, welcome again. How are you finding the differences between the Legnum and the MPS?

Yeah he does a great job, and it's his 'hobby' not his full-timer so you know he likes it. I'll probably even take the MPS to him eventually.

I've only driven about 30 minutes maximum now, and all in really built up areas...so haven't stretched the legs too much in the MPS. So far, it stacks up well! The Legnum was quite modified so there are some refinements that I am enjoying for the time being, like not having to brace myself for every tiny pebble and bump on the road, and not having to do weights with my left leg to depress the clutch. With that in mind, the MPS still seems to go very hard for a stock car. Turbo isn't too noticeable either which I can only put down to Mazda's torque limiting for the first couple of gears - haven't been anywhere to give it the beans in third yet.

The seats are surprisingly good (Legnum had Recaro Raptors out of an Evo) and the interior build quality is better in my opinion. Car overall feels less heavy and there are fewer rattles, which is probably a product of it being almost six years newer. Acceleration through corners is probably worse, or feels worse, but tough on the MPS to compare that aspect since it's a bone stock FWD versus an AWD with swaybars, strut braces, coilovers, etc.. Anyway, overall I really love the car and I'll probably be able to enjoy it stock for quite a while before considering spending any money on go fast bits!

don't worry about being able to keep up, alot of us aren't serious modders in SA, nor would i try to make any cruise a case of "who can get from a to b the fastest" type thing, it's spirited driving, but definitely not trying to hit our top speeds, don't worry, but most of our mods consist of mostly just intakes and exhaust, i've had the car about 6 months and have done a full exhaust, intake, front mount intercooler and tune getting the stock power level at all four wheels, lol, but the lessened torque steer in your 3 MPS is probably due to the limitations Mazda put on the engine for the 3 MPS to limit torque and overall power to prevent torque steering, a tune can get rid of those limitations so you can up the boost and have loads more power :p take a look around the forums and see what others have done to get an idea of what you can do to yours, but for now i hope you're enjoying it! :)

quick question, did you go looking for an AWD 6 MPS as well when you decided you wanted an MPS? most people who like driving modified cars tend to go for AWD over FWD and considering you've driven modified legnums and are obviously into tuning, i just interested to hear why you went with the FWD over the AWD option :)

Thanks Baz.

Yeah I've been doing plenty of reading and the Cobb AP unit looks very useful. The intakes and CAIs etc. for this car are far cheaper than for the Legnum so that was a pleasant surprise - the benefit of a big USDM market I suppose. Plenty more reading to go but I'm getting some idea!

To answer your question, I didn't even really look for an MPS at all! I test drove one on a whim while I was focused on hunting for a VW Golf/Jetta. I did some research about common faults and checked out the going prices online, worked out that the one I had driven was quite a bargain. I did kind of look at the 6 MPS but I don't really like sedans (more of a wagon/hatch guy, hence the Legnums :p ) and to be honest they were too expensive for my budget. AWDs are awesome, and if they'd made a 3 MPS with AWD I might've saved up for longer to get one, but yeah - my budget was quite limited and I was without a car :)