Next Mod - Downpipe or Accessport?

[SMOKEY]

just do some investigating on what intakes are supported - but eh, obviously Cobb SF is one of them.

muffler and resonator shouldn't make any difference to flow - just sound -so you should be fine - that thing must be pretty raucous though!

[cargle]

Thanks Smokey, if I can get hold of the Cobb SF cheaper I might do away with my current SRI and change.

Nah, its quite loud on startup but once upto temp, its only got a slight note... nothing at all like my r34 skyline used to be :-D
From memory the MPS 3 has 3 mufflers and a resonator? Alot of the sound muffling must come from the 1st and 2nd mufflers.

[2XS]

The Gen 1 has 1 muffler and 2 resonators.
It also has 2 cats.

[velocityfactor]

here is a good article i found on the natural path for upgrading your mps

Stage 1

2007-2011 MazdaSpeed 3 Performance Upgrade Guide – Stage 1 | Velocity Factor


Stage 2

2007-2011 MazdaSpeed 3 Performance Upgrade Guide – Stage 2 | Velocity Factor

Hi everyone. Thanks for linking to our blog, Smokey. I'm glad you found it helpful.

There is a reason why we recommend Cobb products so highly for the MS3. We have been working on performance cars for many years. Velocity Factor is a factory authorized dealer for many many brands and a professional install facility. We have tried almost every part available, certainly all of the more popular ones. In our experience the Cobb Downpipe and AccessPort have been the most reliable and provided the best and most stable power gains. We wouldn't be recommending it if that wasn't the case.

Regarding the original question, ideally you would get both at the same time. However, money is always a factor in any purchase, and if you can only afford one right now, we HIGHLY recommend going with the AccessPort before getting the downpipe. The factory calibration is not intended to work with the increased flow that an aftermarket downpipe gives you. What happens when you install a downpipe without a tune is your engine starts to run lean. This is not a good thing. It will significantly increase your chances of detonation and causing damage to the engine. This greatly lowers the reliability of your car. This problem will be even greater now that summer is coming up and temperatures are rising.

The AccessPort will give you significant gains just by itself. You can always install the downpipe later when you are able to afford it and reflash with the AccessPort at that time. It doesn't cost you any money to reflash as many times as you want, and it only takes a few minutes.

When you do get the downpipe, we generally recommend the one with the high-flow cat. We have installed both types of downpipes, catless and high-flow cat. The cars that went with the cat version have been more reliable.

Also another thing to consider when thinking about a downpipe is your fuel pump. When you start making more power, you need more fuel. If you keep your stock pump, your injectors will be forced to to run at a significantly higher duty cycle than they were designed for. This causes them to burn out much sooner than they otherwise would. If you decide to go with a downpipe, we would recommend also going with a high performance fuel pump. The one from CP-e is by far the best we have come across. It is the one we recommend to all our customers who are making any kind of significant power (see we're not just all about Cobb ;-).

I hope you noticed from this post that reliability is a major thing that we strive for when tuning a car. Especially if it will be a daily driver. It doesn't matter what the dyno says if you cant get your butt to work ;-). I hope this post shed some light on your question. I don't want to post our contact info into this post since we are not sponsors yet, but it is shown on our blog. If you have any questions or would like to discuss the available options further, fell free to give us a call. We are all car guys, and love sharing our knowledge with others. If you are in the South Florida region, we can even work something out with install if you need.