Stratified had an early fall tuning day with a couple of local Mazdaspeed3 cars here in Vancouver, BC. The weather cooperated and everyone had a great time. It was such a great time that we had some unexpected visitors join us – the famous Tuning Cats!
Actually the poor creatures were homeless and we made sure they were picked up by the local SPCA before the day ended. A win for everyone!
Now on to the tuning. Vancouver and the Lower Mainland unfortunately suffer from some of the poorest gas quality in North America in terms of octane. Although stations here sell “94 octane” fuel, it is actually poorer than the 91 octane found just over the border. It is really a shame that we pay 30% more on top of this but I digress.
What this means in terms of tuning is that it’s an exercise in knock management. Off the showroom floor the Mazdaspeed3 vehicle will pull about 4 degrees of timing STOCK in the lower mainland due to this. A COBB Off the Shelf (OTS) map that is considered conservative will rattle the engine on the local gas and this is both dangerous and detrimental to performance. While these cars would be able to pick up 20whp easily with different gas, they were tuned for peak performance while also staying below the knock threshold. These cars were also on the stock high pressure fuel pumps so we had to be careful with this as well. It’s not great making less power, but it’s even worse having to buy a new engine!
The results were consistent for these mildly bolted MS3s (TMIC, COBB AP, Intake, TIP) and the owners left content with smooth power bands and cars they know they can safely “romp on” from here on out even with the stock cam driven high pressure pump (CDFP/HPFP) and our sub-part fuel. Click on the virtual dyno graph below to enlarge.
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Happy Tuning,
The Stratified Team