1996 Mazda MX3 1.6 supercharged review from North America

Well my head gasket blew at 93,000 km. $2000 for repairs.

This car is a very fast car on the base 110hp 1.6 engine. The specs indicates that the 0-60 mph is in 9.8 seconds.. well that is not true. My car did it in 8.2 (5 speed), I timed it myself and this was before I supercharged it.

I looked for upgrades for a long time and there?s not much out there in the 1.6 MX3 market that could dish out serious horse-power, but I finally found a supercharger that fit on the 4 cylinder engine and because the RS is so light, the 0-60 was a dynamite 5.1 seconds at approx. 210-215 hp.

The first week with the supercharger I was afraid of opening the engine, but one night I came to a red traffic light and there he was in a "sooped" Honda Prelude, both our engines reved. When that light turned green I put the pedal to the metal and the engine went to 6500 rpm and slowly advanced, heh I burnt out my clutch.

I replaced it with a racing one, had to get new and bigger performance tires. Now the car is fast and because of the new tires, it never cornered like it does now, I mean the car had super handling, but if you get 215/50/R16 (must get new rims) the car sticks like it's on a rail.

Now my car is close to 170,000 km and it still runs great, but the one thing I hate about this low priced car is the little things that are coming loose or the knobs that are falling off etc...

You MX3 owners should really try the car on dirt roads, the car is so light that you glide your corners, it's a really good FF rally car.