The steering feels like my dads Protege 5 .
My 2000 with big wide tires isnt nearly as quick.
The mp3 had faster steering.
Depending on your preference it can be good or bad.
It does feel like the front of the car is in your hands thoe,on rails.

Actually, 1st should be longer than that. That short a 1st gear is just about useless, unless you are towing.:) The 1G Protege's 2nd biggest gearing fault is the size of the gap between 1st and 2nd. (The biggest is flaw is the short gearing in 5th).

My V-6 Altima is geared too short in 1st, and it's 1st is good for about 43 mph. With that much power, you really have to work to keep it off the rev limiter. With a lot of torque, short gearing isn't necessary or beneficial.

You sure 1st gear should be longer ?

Sometimes you need to get to 30 mph real quick you never know.

Cant roast the tires when you have no boost under 3500 rpm

;)

yeah I wouldn't think 1st was way to short. If it was a whole lot longer than that it would get into some really annoying lag and useless torque around town. If you don't stand on the throttle you shouldn't have to much trouble with grip. Actually I am suprised to see that the decent boost isn't noticed untill 3500rpm. Thats pretty high. VW 1.8T's get noticable boost at around 1900rpm, and it builds almost all the way to redline

Exactly, Which was my point about why I wouldn't think the Mazdaspeed would need a 6speed. Actually you don't even need a whole lot of it as long as the torque curve is fairly flat, and the power band isn't tiny (like toyota's VVTL-i engine in the Celica GT-S.)

this aint no , VW engine.

That THING HAS LOADS OF TORQUE everywhere.

Not true on our engine , true the tq curve is flat and across the board.

True. The 1.8T was develped to be turbocharged and the FS was not. That still seem like a good bit of lag. I rode in a 2.5RS that had a aftermarket turbo setup (one of the only naturally aspirated gone turbo I have ever riden in) and it hit hard around 2800rpm. The t-25 is tiny and should spool faster. I don't know. Was is a surge at 3500 and dead before that, or was it just really noticable after 3500 revs?

The FS was originally developed to be a truck engine. The Mazdaspeed had power, but it felt more like a N/A type power. I was able to chirp the tires in 2nd, no problem.

Re: Mazda Speed Pro - My review
 

For those interested in offical numbers: Car and Driver pulled 0-60 in 6.9 sec- and their times are generally high.

I kick in really wasnt felt, It was like all of a sudden the revs jumped straight to redline. No sensation of a surge of speed.

I want to offer my opinion. The T25 should spool slightly sooner. The problem most likely lies in the fact that the Cat is shoved half way up the turbo's ass..... the first mod anyone should do on this car is either eliminate the cat or move it further down the line to reduce back pressure (with a new exhaust). BP is bad....helps keep the lag up on turbo cars. Here in Indiana we don't have emissions...guess what I am doing.....

-Jeremy-

PS..if you are a tree hugger don't worry, my car is going to be in the garage for the majority of the year!

I'm not a major tree hugger, but chances are that your turbo setup sans cat used 1/4th of the year will probably yeild higher emissions then 10 cars with a cat, you'd be surprised how effective they are.

Yes but it robs hp, which is not nice. :)

Yeah, but for about 100-150 you can get a carsound highflow cat that flows 96% of a straight pipe. I'll be doing that and relocating it downstream, which will cost additional, plus finding a place for it, of course I live in WA and we have emmissions so its not like I have a choice.