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So I just thought it was how the car was supposed to drive but I always had to rev over 3k rpms to get it to start moving from a light without bogging down. If I didn't, it would bog down and then clear up around 2500 or so. I had no idea what could be causing.

So one morning I went out to my car and I didn't start. Mind you I only had this thing like a month. So I pulled the spark plugs and saw there was no spark. I went to autozone and bought a new rotor and cap in hopes that could fix it. Well it didn't and spark was still weak if any at all. WHile I was autozone, I had them look up the distributor and it was $200 plus core I think. Ouch. So while I was walking around the store, the guy came up to me and said if I needed the dist he would give it to for $100. Whoa thanks I said.

So we went back to the car and It still didn't start after putting the rotor and cap on. So we figured the coil died inside the dist so we took it off and went back to autozone. We had it in a plactic bag. The guy took it and a min or two later gave us the bag back with the new dist. FOR FREE!! It was awesome. So I ended up giving him a $20 for helping me out. 90% discount is still pretty cool.

So we went back to the car again, put it back together and got it to start finally. Gas mileage has stayed about the same but there was no more bogging in low rpms.

Speaking of gas mileage, I get 26-27mpg mostly highway. How can I improve that?? I reeally don't want to spend $160 for 2 new o2 sensors though unless there is a cheaper source.

26 27 is about right in my car. Just fine tune it, new sopark plugsm, filters and so on. reset tps.

How about weight reduction? What sorta things have people done to lighten these cars?

Those are universal though. I'd prefer to plug it in.

O2 sensors are rated to last only 60k-75k miles - it is recommended to change them after that.

The plugs are already in the car - all one has to do is take out the sensor - unplug it from the harness - cut the wires close to the (old) sensor and connect the new one making sure the length of wire from the connector to sensor is same as before cutting - and voila you have a new oem like sensor with the plug.

But its your choice if you want to pay $110 extra for those 2 plugs - somebody's got to keep the mazda dealerships in business right....

Are you saying the colors match up correctly to ensure proper splicing?

well i did that to mine aznd i dob t know... didnt work for me lol

noreaga0221 wrote:How about weight reduction? What sorta things have people done to lighten these cars?

Weight reduction won't do anything for a 'constantly' held speed such as 65 mph for an hour or whatever. Weight reduction is mainly focused on getting up to speed faster however, You can go with lighter rims and lighter rotating components to increase your gas mileage but it will only be like 1 - 2 mpg at the most off a set of rims. I am installing some enkei rally 15" rims today as soon as I go pick them up. They are weighed in at 12.6 lbs a piece over factory OEM rims which were like 19.5 so I should see some difference for peel outs and torque

I'll let you know.

Well it will but now that I think about it, 100-200 lbs won't help much.

Think about a truck towing something, it gets much better mileage when not towing the trailer.

On our cars there really wont be anything noticeable by feel from 100-200 lbs out but 1/4 mile numbers may say differently which is why I stick mostly to rotating parts because you can feel it without seeing official numbers.

hgallegos915 wrote:well i did that to mine aznd i dob t know... didnt work for me lol

What went wrong? Did you go by the wire colors of the previous o2 sensor or did you trace it from the engine harness? You have to go by the engine harness wire colors because if the factory sensor was ever replaced with an after market part before - it will have different color wires. So for example, red/blue from the engine harness may become black/white after the connector.