Drove it for two weeks then took the motor out, hot start issue. Now it has sat in the garage for the last three weeks waiting for a new motor. By thetime its in my summer car will be out of storage so the 8 will only be driven in rare cases.

 

ouch, what is your summer car?

 

hahah yaaaaaa last 2 months havnt even drove it........ bought it then everything went to hell..... Engine, clutch, starter, exhaust, rust rust RUST....... but today ima finally get it fully done XD only cost me $1000

 

I've had mine for about 2 weeks now. Bought an 04 with 90k miles.

I got nice tires.
I cleaned the MAF, now idles like a champ.
Took apart the passenger tail light and drained it, then resealed it with weather stripping and RTV.
Ordered and installed a new driver side sun visor as the original one was cracked.
Painted and assembled a little front license plate bracket for down low on the driver side.

Other than that, been hitting the backroads pretty hard and spending a lot on gas, lol. April 21st I'll break the car in at an autocross, then it's first track appearance will be a Hooked on Driving event at Mazda Raceway in late May.

Still to do:

Better starter.
Transmission rebuild (it's crunchy in the mornings).
Black Halo Racing coils.
Cooling system beef-up (radiator and pump, mainly).
Replace coolant level sensor.
Get a new hand brake handle/boot.
Fix the dings.
Motegi Racing wheels (MR116).

Should be fun. :D

 

My first couple of months was: BFGoodrich KDW2, Mazdaspeed front strut brace (sold for GTSpec), Mazdaspeed rear strut brace, Redline fluids, and RacingBeat intake. Then proceeded to AutoX.

 

I purchased my 09 R3 back in September 2012, in October 2012 I did this:


I decided I did not like the understeer (some of it is probably tire related) so I had a more agressive alignment done and put in a stiffer front sway bar.

Then in November 2012 I did this:




I declared the understeer gone, I picked up a set of RPF-1's and plan on putting some nice sticky tires on them for AX and mountain run duties.

Power? I had a 500+ HP RX7 where I could barely hit the gas pedal in AX and in the mountains, this R3 has proven to be a delight to drive and not wrestle with all the power. Having had it, I am enjoying he pure driving experience of this R3 and not having to fight with the power.

Future plans? Possibly coil overs but I am in no hurry, outside appearance of a 4x4, there is nothing wrong with this car. All weekend long I was running with very fast Porsche 911's and keeping up easily. One 996 was chasing me and had to give up because he boiled his brakes trying to keep up. Yup, this R3 aint broke, nothing to fix.

The 996 that overheated his brakes is right behind me here, I took a friend who is a huge Porsche fanboi in my R3 (you can see him in the pictures) he owns various years Turbo Porsches and he was blown away by how well behaved the R3 was and how it railed, he was amazed we were running away from the 996.

 

Very Nice!

 

I'm still in my first couple months with my 2009 R3 - I've had it for just a few days short of 3 months now, but I've managed to put some miles on it (bit over 4k - now has 29,1XX on it total).

First thing I did was drive the hell out of it! Spent the first few days getting it rev'd up and making sure that everything in the engine was as clean as possible - which might have been more for me than really for the car now that I think about it lol. Then I did an oil changed - using conv 5W-20 but will be swapping that out for 10w-30 in the next few weeks as it now above freezing outside and autocross season is starting. After that was BHR ignition system, and just started premixing in my last tank of gas with idemitsu 0.5 oz/gallon (gotta figure out a better measurement method because the current 3 oz syringe is a bit messy). Have transmission fluid (Motorcraft full synthetic - loved it in my miata, so it should be the same story here since it has the same transmission) waiting to go in, but I just have not had the time to do it yet, same goes for changing the diff fluid. Oh, and of course got a few sets of tires - 2 sets of snow tire, since one came with the new wheels I got (some used 17x8 inch Moda's) and is still use-able tread wise. But currently those wheels have my Star Spec II's on them, ready for autocross (with the stock wheels having the worthless all season junk I got on them from the dealer and doing the daily driving on - man do the stock R3 wheels look nice but 19 inch performance tires prices are absurd).

And that about covers what I've done in the last 3 months. Basically just routine maintenance for a 30k used car.