Mazda3 Forums banner

More HP

5592 Views 27 Replies 12 Participants Last post by  vaBooM
The Ford Focus' 2.3L Engine only has 144HP but thats because it's restricted for pollution and Emission Reasons. But what did they do to the 2.0L SVT to get 170HP out of that engine? if they can get 170 hp out of a 2.0L then the Mz3 should easily have more than that.
1 - 20 of 28 Posts
Im sure there is some headwork.. free flowing exhaust and manifold.

We can easily hit 200hp with some headwork and bolt ons. DPR Racing guarantees a 20whp gain with their Stage 4 and up heads which all include stainless gear and a 3 angle valve job.
well, on the svt, they made the changes vaboom mentioned in addition to a better ecu and a much higher redline.
More aggressive cams, higher compression ratios. There are a ton of things a car manufacturer can do to make HP but there are trade offs. Mostly, cost. But same displacement cars with big HP numbers are usually accomplished by reving the hell out of the engine. So, the trade off is, you have no low end power and got to run the engine to the high RPMs to get anything... i.e. S2000

The 2.3 seems to have a good balance of low end power (for normal driving) and high end power (even though it is still way too weak in my opinion). But for now I'm more concern with daily driving.
The 2.0 in the Focus SVT requires premium gas.

The engine is essentially a very highly tuned version of the 2.0 Zetec that was in the Focus until 03 (actually still is in most states).

If Mazda did half the work to the 2.3 that Ford did to the 2.0 to get 170Hp we'd be close to or over 200Hp.
I think we could get a lot of power by swapping to higher compression pistons, I think our 2.3 is only 9.7:1, give us 11:1!
Lower compression means opportunity for more boost!
See less See more
Yah, but we probably would not need to lower compression on this car, it is low enough for the amounts of boost the engine can hold anyway, but that uis just my speculation. Even though I would like to see an 11 second M3.
A good hint on seeing how high you will have to rev the car to get some good horsepower out of it is look at the torque. If the torque is about equal to the horsepower then you should get some good low end grunt. If the torque is significantly less than the horsepower, higher RPMs are required to get the desired performance.

Example: Ford Focus SVT has 145 lbft of torque compared to 150 lbft on the Mazda3. This doesn't exactly mean the 3 will accelerate faster, it just means that the Focus SVT needs the higher RPMs before the horsepower curve kicks in.

Horsepower = (Torque / Engine RPMs) / 5252

In this equation you can see how torque directly effects horsepower through engine RPMs. Some cars make up for low torque by increasing the red line so they can get higher RPMs to make the desired horsepower. In day to day driving this may not be desired because in stop and go traffic you want to be able to pick up faster at lower RPMs.
See less See more
which is why they upgraded the s2000 to a 2.2L to make the power achievable at lower RPMs its still a really high revving motor.
Anarkraft said:
which is why they upgraded the s2000 to a 2.2L to make the power achievable at lower RPMs its still a really high revving motor.
Also the reason they dropped the redline from 9000 to 8000 RPM's in the newer model.
Yah but even with the lower redline some guys on S2KI.com are finding the 04's put down more power to the tires then previous model years.

But the engine itself is not the only change with the new S2000, its really just a better car inside and out now, I didn't think they could make a more enjoyable shifter then they had but the new one feels awesome with the addition of carbon composite gear synchros.
budgy said:
Even though I would like to see an 11 second M3.
No, the M3 won't go 11 seconds, and neither will the Mazda3.
I was using M3 as an acronym for Mazda 3, yes I know an M3 is a beamer, which runs 13's. And dont say a Mazda3 won't do the quarter in 11 seconds if we are talking about heavy turbo charging, any thing is possible when there are 9 second civics ;)
Back in the day, when distributors were around, a quick and easy way to gain a few ponies was to advance the timing. With the typical bolt ons, including cams and gears, advancing the timing and intake and exhaust cams could gain as much as 20hp.

Although advancing and retarding the cams only move the powerband up or down the spectrum, there was also a peak at some point. And playing with those changed the ways the intake and exhaust valves overlapped each other.
The whole "M3" thing seems kinda sacreligious to me, the Mazda3 is a great car but it it's still a few classes away from an M3.
raitchison said:
The whole "M3" thing seems kinda sacreligious to me, the Mazda3 is a great car but it it's still a few classes away from an M3.
Oh please...let's not start that whole M3 debate again. M3 in the mazda forum means mazda 3. Get over it. :roll:
M3-GT said:
raitchison said:
The whole "M3" thing seems kinda sacreligious to me, the Mazda3 is a great car but it it's still a few classes away from an M3.
Oh please...let's not start that whole M3 debate again. M3 in the mazda forum means mazda 3. Get over it. :roll:
Unlikely, and I must have missed the "debate". Perhaps a thread reference is in order?
vaBooM said:
Back in the day, when distributors were around, a quick and easy way to gain a few ponies was to advance the timing. With the typical bolt ons, including cams and gears, advancing the timing and intake and exhaust cams could gain as much as 20hp.

Although advancing and retarding the cams only move the powerband up or down the spectrum, there was also a peak at some point. And playing with those changed the ways the intake and exhaust valves overlapped each other.
Who says you need distributors? We Miata owners have been bumping timing for over a decade, and we don't have distributors...

Jump TEN to GND to put the car in diagnostic mode, slightly turn CAS (crank angle sensor) while using a timing light until desired timing is found (usually 14deg... +4 from factory 10), tighten the sensor back up, fill up with premium, and enjoy your shifted power curve :)
The ECU on the 3 is likely completely different than the ECU on the Miata.
1 - 20 of 28 Posts
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top