I know this might be a really stupid question but ill ask anywas haha.
I know colorado alltitude hurts cars perforance wise. I have a SRI and will shorty have a MS3 exhaust on my 2.0 3. My question is i've heard of getting your car tuned so is this possible for my car and would it make a difference at this alltitude and with these mods? Thanks

any tune makes a car run better or faster. an apexi safc will be fine since your not turboed or any of the sort. just installed and tuned mine a couple days ago and i feel a slight difference in power as well as better fuel mileage. this is all on a completely stock setup on my 2.3

I thought you couldn't tune a 3???

I have been misinformed. I must look into this.

any car can be tuned as long as you either have the software for it otherwise if your ecu can be tapped openly, but if oyu have a mazda 3 i would wait until you have all parts you wnat for the engine or exhaust

You could get a tune and it would help a little. Don't expect much in the way of HP gains. You may be able to help the power band though.

To get any power out of an N/A car you need to work on the intake mani, head, and cam. I don't know if anyone makes larger cams or if anyone has done porting work.

I would say don't waste your money.

That's what I was thinking. Hopefully I can buy this intake and exhaust soon... Until then... screw a tune.

well technically you cant really tune a 3. an safc only fine tunes a/f ratio and does maf/map compensations while tricking the ecu to read want it wants to. it was pretty much free from a friend so no money wasted lol. but ive been driving the car all week and used up only a 1/4 of gas as before id be about at half.

edit: this is with stock everything fyi

^^ I need that kind of fuel efficiency.

DPtune offers a ECU flash for the 3... You need to get dyno'd with A/F and some data logging then overnight ship your ECU with the reports to them ... they flash and return, $550.00 plus shipping one time no charge for reflash. You will be without your car for about 2 days. Option two is get a group of people together (usually 5 or more) and they will fly out and do a group tune on the dyno possibly get a group discount. I brought this up awhile back but no one showed interest. They have a tune for the Mazda3, Mazda6, MX5 /Miata, CX-7, Protege, and RX-8. Then Hypertech has there Max Energy Sport unit for the 2.3L Mazda3, and Speed3 about $400-500 depending on where you buy it, also There is MazdaEdit from epifansoft for certain models. It requires a laptop, Tactrix Openport 2.0 cable, and knowing what your doing! I dont know the price on the MazdaEdit software...

http://www.dptune.com/index.html
Dynotronics Performance Tuning
Atlanta and Texas Offices
678.488.1011 office
678.897.4692 fax
dyno@dptune.com


http://www.hypertech.com/products-max-energy-sport.aspx

http://www.epifansoft.com/phpBB3/mazdaedit-discussion-f17.html

I wouldn't bother. The gains won't be noticeable and the cost to tune and get a flash far exceeds what other mods would cost to put on your car. I came from tuning several N/A Honda's and trust me, it's not worth paying to tune with those mods. It's generally only worth it on N/A vehicles with heavy mods like cams, pistons/shaved head, porting, intake manifolds, header(s), etc. Even basic bolt-on's for most cars at this altitude will not exceed the fuel limitations and adjustments that the factory ECU can make. Tuning will certainly make things a bit more efficient, but in terms of more power, you might see a couple peak hp over your current setup is all.