Quote:
Originally Posted by SVTwithMPG
Mazdas are generally mediocre vehicles at best, and because of this he should not be suprised when one falls short of his expectations.
This was in response to him wondering why it wasn't performing as well as he was expecting.
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I highly disagree with you
my old 93 MX6 LS (with a 2.5L V6)
cost me $1700.0 w/ 120k miles on it, lasted more than 4 yrs and 35,000 miles with 0 engine problems and 0 maintenance in those 4 yrs, not even an oil change.
yet I managed to beat many boosted cars as well as some V8's with it, bone stock, and still averaged 30mpg hwy.
if I dropped the protege 5th gear in the trans (direct swap) I could push that up to 33mpg hwy, with no aero mods at all, and only limited hypermiling.
Im a pretty big Mazda fan, have been ever since the first gen rx7 days, Ive also NEVER been let down by any of the Mazda's Ive owned.
Ive owned/own an '88 323, a '94 mx3, a '91 b2200, 2x '93 mx6 and currently own a '94 protege and 1 of the 93 mx6.
back on topic:
swapping the parts between ford, mercury and mazda are super easy, and instead of going for a full trans swap, think about just doing a gearing swap, as 85% of the internals on the eng/trans are swappable.
as mentioned above, I could have swapped the 5th gear from a protege or 626 (both have the same 5th gear) into my MX6 which would have dropped my hwy RPM by 500-700, bringing it down around 2200/2300 @ 70 mph (local hwy speeds) where previously it would avg about 2800 @ 70.
there is also tons of potential for aeromods.
I think the MX3 with the 3.4 drive could easily net you 40mpg, my old mx3 with the 1.6L 5 spd 34mpg hwy most of the time, and I could net about 28 city (depending on traffic)