Performance upgrades and... stuff...

[transcendtient]

The 2000 mazda 3.0l manual I have is something like a 150hp engine. It was cheap and decent, fits my needs for daily driving but sometimes I have to tow up to 2000lbs. I've done a major tuneup on the truck and cut off the muffler, but I wanted to know what else I could do to increase the on demand hp of the truck without killing my highway mileage for daily driving when not towing. I've seen the homemade cold air intake info and will be making it and was also thinking about a msd ignition box and coil.
I tow a core drilling rig for work sometimes and I have a popup camper and I'm finding myself having to ride the hills (85mph down and sometimes 55mph up), and was wondering what else I could do to minimize this. I also don't really know what running low rpm's in a gear does to damage a vehicle if anything.
Also another question to this long string is what damage if any do I do to the vehicle when slowing down using the transmission to minimize brake heat when in the mountains.
Long post I know, thanks in advance to anyone willing to help.

 

[partsguy84823]

1. What did you do for a "tune up"? (What did you replace and what brands did you use?)

2. Put a muffler back on, it's not helping anything.

3. CAI won't help a whole bunch for what your trying to do... but hey, they sound cool!

4. Don't waste money on the MSD, the DIS 3.0s have plenty of spark in them.

5. When towing, stay out of OD(5th) . The 3.0 is a revver, so... rev it. It is happy at 3500 + RPM, so if you are towing and need more power don't be afraid to use the gears and make it rev a little (keep it under ~5300) . Much better for it than lugging it in OD with it losing speed at 2200RPM. (That causes all kinds of nasty problems)

6. Once again, make those gears work for you! Down shift, down shift, down shift. Keeping off the brakes is very important when towing in the hills.

 

[transcendtient]

1) Gunk in the oil before the oil change, dropped the oil pan and cleaned the screen.
2) replaced oil with high mileage synth blend and lucas
3) plugs and wires
4) sucked half a can of seafoam through the vacuum system and threw the rest in the tank
5) replaced the pinion seal and the diff fluid
Will be replacing the fuel filter after this tank of gas
It was cheaper than an aftermarket muffler to cut mine off, and serves the same purpose.

 

[partsguy84823]

What brand plugs did you use? These trucks seem to be kinda picky about their spark plugs. Autolite Double Platinum or Motorcraft are best!

As far as the exhaust, you didn't gain anything by cutting the muffler off except a lot of noise. The range in which you increased your power output is theoretically un-reachable by a stock 3.0. What you likely did was move your power-band up which is bad for towing.

<long_post>

A lot of times people will tell you that you need "back-pressure" in your exhaust to make torque. This is not 100% correct, but is on the right path. Big power numbers come from being able to get large amounts of air into and out of an engine, period. This is where you see things like high-rise intakes and open headers. You are able to get lots and lots of air through an engine, but there is not much velocity to it. What you wind up with is an engine which needs to turn a very high RPM to use all of the air available to it. (See drag racing)

Big torque (at low RMPs) numbers come from being about putting velocity in that air. So say you take the same engine that had the high-rise and open headers, but you put an intake on it with long tuned runners (say like a mopar cross ram since I am going with extreme cases here). And you put a set of long tube headers, and an exhaust system on it. What you have done is decreased the volume of air the engine can inhale/exhale at high RPMs, but you have put some pepper behind that intake charge (velocity). You have built an engine which will be able to make its power much lower in its RPM range, which is where you want it for towing.

Now I realize this is a small truck engine, its probably not a real big deal either way, and I have used extreme cases. But the point is that you didn't gain anything that you will be able to use by removing your muffler, and you infact probably did more harm than good to your towing ability. You would be marginally better off putting a muffler back on the truck. So take from that what you will...

Not trying to be a jerk by harping on this... just letting you know.

</long_post>

Back on subject, with only 2,000# behind the truck I see no reason that you couldn't run 65-75 if you downshift. But we all like more power, so for more of that low-end grunt you are looking for to tow with. I would look at a set of underdrive pulleys (works by reducing parasitic drag on the engine by slowing down some of the accessories). Also, a tuner (CLICK!) with a "torque" setting would do you some good, but really... use your gears.

One other thing I will say is if you are looking to save money, dont bother with the high-mileage oil, or the aditives. Just keep it full, changed, and a good quality (Morotcraft, Wix, or Puralator (no Fram )) oil filter on it.

-Chris

 

[Beanmachine7000]

Downshift... Let the transmission do the work... All that other crap will just waste money... Core drill? For what, might I ask?

 

[nooberiffic]

dont tell me you work in the Jonah...

 

[transcendtient]

Core drill is for verifying concrete and asphalt thickness and/or strength/stability. Lotsa fun.
Now peep this then... lets say I knock out my fog lamps and throw ram air tubes in there. Give me a scenario where I'm not an idiot for cutting off my exhaust.

 

[Tony Raine]

i agree with the above. I once ran my truck down a makeshift 1/4 mile with stock exhaust, then no muffler (i was having a flowmaster put on the next day). with the "no muffler" run, I noticed a big drop in low-end torque. flowmaster was slightly better than stock muffler, but i got it for the sound.

I've seen a LOT of street races where the stock civic blows the doors off the civic with the "add-ons" like cold air induction, fart can muffler, etc...


what size tires are you running? if you are running larger than stock, either step back down, or get lower gears. gear ratio is key. i just stepped back down to stock size tires on my explorer from 31's, and it feels like a damn hot-rod compared to before. i can break tires loose on dry pavement again.

ram air will gain 0.

the best thing you can do for your truck is keep it in good mechanical condition. stock replacement parts will help the most. stock spark plugs, for example. i switched to fancy spark plugs and gained 0. you will probably get a little more uumph out of underdrive pulleys and an electric fan, though.

don't be afraid to rev up the motor. the 3.0 has pretty high torque and hp peaks (anyone have specs?).



if you want a big jump in power, don't get any cheap crap, save it all towards a supercharger or a motor swap

 

[graff104]

I would suggest underdrive pully and maybe even some 1.7 roller rockers.

 

[Beanmachine7000]

Core drill is for verifying concrete and asphalt thickness and/or strength/stability. Lotsa fun.
Now peep this then... lets say I knock out my fog lamps and throw ram air tubes in there. Give me a scenario where I'm not an idiot for cutting off my exhaust.

Ah, I was thinking a different type of core

 

[partsguy84823]

I would suggest underdrive pully and maybe even some 1.7 roller rockers.

OH! Good call, I forgot.

 

[partsguy84823]

Ah, I was thinking a different type of core

To the center of the earth! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

[transcendtient]

I just got some ngk v-power plugs. I looked all over and the only reason I read you'd need special plugs is for heat tolerance. I know the plat and iridium last longer, but I really don't have a problem changing spark plugs a little more often. Especially since the platinum were 10$ and the regular plugs were 2$.
Back on the performance crap, I saw an electric turbo type thing that you switch on to force more air through a cai http://www.superchargerswarehouse.com/.
I'm going to go ahead and guess thats bs too.
I found a knob type chip that runs through the maf that you can set to economy or performance http://www.performancechipsdirect.com/ , but I'm guessing the programmer is probably a better idea.
And this is the only one I found... http://www.autopartswarehouse.com/d...ipsQQPower_ProgrammerQQ19992007QQS541516.html
It says its upgradable to flashpaq, but I didn't find any information on that subject. And the description says its the mileage xs programmer so I'm afraid the settings are limited...

 

[86isuzu]

http://www.superchargerswarehouse.com/.
http://www.performancechipsdirect.com/

But the 3rd one is ok...

 

[transcendtient]

something told me it was. what about the upgrade on the programmer? i found another snippet saying to call to upgrade, but I don't want to pay extra for a download on top of the 320 for the programmer