CorkSport Mazda Performance Blog
Keeping you up to date with the latest CorkSport Mazdaspeed news!
Masahiro Moro, president of Mazda USA, recently called the Mazdaspeed 3 “childish” in execution. Most press took this as a kiss of death for the car and speculated that we might never see the model in the market again. I tend to agree. The “Mazdaspeed” brand looks like it’s on the way out the door, but not the performance model itself. I’ll explain.
Good day fellow boosted enthusiast, Vincent here with CorkSport Mazda Performance. Today, I want to share some expert advice with you on diagnosing boost control issues with your turbocharged Mazdas.
I’d venture to guess that about once or twice a week, my team and I get a phone call related to customers that are trying to diagnose a boost control issue with their electronic boost control solenoids (EBCS). Whether it’s too much boost, not enough boost, or random and sporadic boost signals, a boost control issue can have you digging around your engine bay for quite some time if you don’t have a good diagnostic procedure.
This blog is intended to function as an aid in diagnosing boost control issues. If you’re interested in a more thorough understanding of how an EBCS works, check out this white paper that one of our engineers wrote. Now let’s get to it!
The EBCS is a unit composed of an electrically operated solenoid housed in its own little manifold designed to regulate and route boost signals to the appropriate area in the engine bay. The EBCS is not the mechanical device that physically moves the wastegate flapper to re-route exhaust gases around the turbine wheel, that’s the job of the wastegate actuator.
Now that we cleared that up, let’s look into some possible causes for poor boost control issues.
I can’t stress this one enough. I would say a bad or improperly routed vacuum hose is the root cause for about 70% of all issues. When diagnosing a boost control issue, start with a visual inspection of all vacuum hoses in the system. Any hoses with nicks, tears, rips, or cuts should be replaced with a good quality silicone vacuum hose. Silicone is preferred because it has a longer life than a traditional rubber hose and tolerates engine bay heat better. Also, check to make sure the hoses are not pinched in between anything. I’ve seen cases where a signal hose gets trapped between a nut and stud of some sort, causing it to be completely pinched off and rendering it useless. So make sure your hoses go from point A to point B clearly and perfectly with no stops.
Since we’re on the subject of hoses, let’s also be sure that we’re routing them correctly. Each hose is meant to take some air from one place to another in a particular fashion. Often times guys and gals get in a rush and just start plugging in hoses wherever they see empty spots. This is especially evident on the EBCS unit itself considering there are 3 ports on it that are all very close to each other and it’s quite easy to put the wrong hose on the incorrect port. This is where a good set of high-quality instructions becomes helpful, so you always have something to reference.
Important note: Make sure to reference instructions specific to the brand of EBCS your vehicle is equipped with, not all controllers designate the same letters and ports.
If you’re dead certain that the above two points check out, then the next logical step is to isolate the problem. What I recommend is to set your turbocharger to run off of spring pressure only. What you would be doing here is run a hose from the compressor cover to the lower nipple on the wastegate actuator (WGA) and then put a vacuum cap on the other port of the WGA. When this is done, what you’re doing is isolating the mechanical side from the electrical side.
If we perform this and our car runs 100% hitting the targeted spring pressures, then we can check off the turbo or WGA as being the issue and we can return our focus to the solenoid and its components. If we’re in this set-up and still experiencing a boost control issue, then we want to check out the turbo and its related components. Things to check are the WGA flapper for any binding or contact, and the turbocharger itself for any mechanical issue such has damaged wheels or housings. Also, we want to check any boost tubes, intercooler piping, connections, etc. to make sure it’s not skewing any of our signals.
If you get to the point where you feel the EBCS unit itself is the problem, a simple thing to do (if you have the ability to) is to bug a friend. Say your buddy is running the exact same EBCS as you, ask him to borrow it for half an hour and swap it in. If we leave everything as we had it and swap solenoids, and our problem goes away then we have a really strong reason to believe the controller is the issue and it should be inspected. This is the point when you would want to contact the manufacturer so you can send it to them and have them test it. Don’t try to take it apart yourself! Almost all solenoids have really tiny and precise O-rings that can break easily if mishandled.
These are just some of the most obvious and most likely things to check. Before going too crazy, you still want to be sure that you have a healthy engine and no other forced induction problems such as a massive boost leak somewhere that can skew results.
I hope this blog was helpful and can be useful to some of you. I leave you with some last minute points.
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Guys, we know you know how to take care of your Mazda.
If you’re mechanical enough to mod your baby out, you’ve probably been changing oil filters since you were yea high *hovers hand about two inches off the ground*
That said, we also know there are a lot of noobs just getting into Mazda maintenance, and that even the best drivers among us don’t always know how much it pays off to take care of your Mazda yourself.
So, to illustrate the point (and a helluva lot of statistics), we created this handy Mazda maintenance infographic. In the small chance you’re not already doing these Mazda fixes yourself, you should be; and in the big chance that you are a DIY Mazda guy, here’s a nice graphic to share with all your new Mazda driver friends.
So, behold, the DIY Mazda maintenance you better be doing if you consider yourself a car guy:
Cheers,
CorkSport
Last month, when The Smoking Tire featured our turbocharger in a beta tester’s Mazdaspeed 6, we loved watching how the car handled switchbacks as much as we loved hearing the turbo purr every few seconds.
It got us thinking, What are the best West Coast road trips to take a Mazdaspeed?
That isn’t the most objective of questions, but all the same we wanted to share a list of some of the spots we found—as well as why we love them. Tell us what you think, and what we missed.
Did we have a choice to list anything else first? These 123 miles of highway may be the most iconic in the whole country, much less the West Coast. If you like curves and the thrill of driving right up against a cliff face, you can’t do much better than taking your Mazdaspeed here. It should take about 5 hours at a leisurely pace, but you can probably cut that down to 3.5, right?
Called one of the 7 Wonders of Oregon, the Painted Hills in Eastern Oregon make for a breathtaking destination. They also offer some great vistas and stops along the way. There are rivers, fossil fields, and plenty of little towns to stop and grab a bite, as well as Mount Hood National Forest if you’re coming from the West, which always makes for gorgeous driving.
There’s still no road that traverses the interior of the Olympic mountains, but that’s okay: Just driving on the loop around them on highway 101 gives you a thousand beautiful views. Most people only ever see one angle of the Olympics, from Seattle, so take a road trip in your Mazdaspeed to gain an experience few people ever do.
No, we didn’t forget about our friends up north. This drive should be on every nature lover’s bucket list, though you may not be able to cross it off till you retire or earn a long sabbatical if you plan to take your own Mazdaspeed. The whole route, Anchorage to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, takes you along Alaska 1 (Glenn Highway), Alaska 10 (Edgerton Highway), and McCarthy Road, which of course doesn’t include the trek up through Canada. While we’d love to see some #CorkSport shots on this drive, be careful about driving your baby all the way. Once you get to Wrangell-St. Elias, you face a 59-mile gravel road to reach the heart of the park.
Have fun, wherever you choose to drive.
Cheers,
Corksport
We’ve got something your Mazdaspeed engine bay has been needing for a long time: Our new exhaust manifold heat shield—or as some folks like to call it: The Pimp Shield.
A new heat shield, you ask? Isn’t that just aesthetic?
Sure, you could stick with the OEM shield, but ours is manufactured from 5052 aluminum and ceramic coated, made to be durable and guaranteed to clean up the look of your engine bay.
Your current OEM shield sticks out like a ratty POS. Pop your hood and imagine this instead. The difference is clear:
Our Mazdaspeed exhaust manifold heat shield was CAD designed specifically for the MZR DISI engine, so it’ll fit over the stock manifold like a glove. Whether you drive a 2007–2013 Mazdaspeed 3 or a 2006–2007 Mazdaspeed 6, you need to order this for your bay today.
See more specs and photos and order here.
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