MS3 MazdaSpeed 3 Turbo Upgrade

A month prior to this, we removed a turbo from a Mazdaspeed 3 so it could be sent in for a rebuild. Well the turbo came back a few weeks later all cleaned up, freshened up and a Corksport downpipe as well. The turbo looks and feels new with no shaft play and some decent looking ports. The downpipe by Corksport looks well made, is much lighter than stock, fit’s perfect and appears to be a high quality piece. I can easily recommend the Corksport downpipe.

The install started before I even arrived by setting the hood out in the grass and getting the front end of the MS3 off the ground for easy access to the bottom part of the car. With my trusty wrench and 6 point deep 14mm socket, I started in on the many exhaust manifold bolts. Torqued them down and from that point we were able to then mount the turbo. The turbo goes up through the exhaust tunnel up to the exhaust manifold. We started out by me handing the turbo up to Phil, which we decided was no longer a good idea once he snapped a plastic fuel line. Other than that one snag the turbo bolted up easier than expected. Once installed, we simply slid on the intake, connected the water and oil lines and were ready to progress.

From here we slid the downpipe up and struggled with the bolts a little as they are difficult but not impossible to get to. The o2 sensor however was not so nice to us. The threads were damaged from simply removing it from the stock downpipe and would not go in without first being repaired. Unfortunately without a die big enough to fix the threads, we were unable to reinstall the o2 and also the manifold heat shield which first require the o2 be connected.

Under the car, we could bolt up the rear section of the CAT pipe, but the front section would not hook up to the Corksport Downpipe with the supplied bolts as the bolts are too long.

With that, we called it a night. The car is less than 30 minutes from embarrassing much more expensive cars, but without some new bolts, replacement fuel line piece, and repairing the o2 it will have to wait.