Feature:: 2007 Mazdaspeed3

Not Your Average Stanced Car: Jakes Mazdaspeed3 from NC

I met Jake about a year ago. He was driving a newer model Eclipse that was his first car. This Eclipse had a few power modifications and aesthetic modifications but was on the border of rice and okay. A few of my friends quickly talked him out of this car. One day he showed up with a built Mustang Cobra Vert… It was a great start but shortly into it he cracked the pan and it sat in a shop for four months but eventually came out with a Ford Racing NA motor… it was fast, had all the suspension mods it could ever need, and looked stock. He shortly realized it just wasn’t for him. Who wants to drive a car that stalls all the time because of the ridiculous clutch, has a roll bar that makes anyone over 5’8’’ unable to ride in the car, and was just a pia because the mechanics didn’t do the swap properly. It always had something wrong with it after that motor swap.

Jump forward to this spring. Jake picked up the MS3 with some Gram Lights that just didn’t work. They had the worst offset and could use an extra two inches of width. With that the build began. Jake started throwing parts at the car and this time did it with the help of friends. I actually helped him a lot in exchange for his help on my car, as I have a very bad back and cannot turn a wrench anymore. I actually think Jake knows more about nitrous and G35 coupes than his own car. As Jake added parts and made it his car, despite the words from fellow MS3 owners on the forums, people noticed it. We started seeing images popping up from meets or random shots I took spreading on tumblr. Jake was pretty happy with that. He was glad someone finally realized his hard work in both performance and stance.

This MS3 makes 280whp 328ftlbs and weighs in around 3450 with driver and fluids making this car a very quick little hatch. To put this into perspective my G35 Coupe makes a little over 400whp and has some weight pulled out of it and it can barely shake Jake’s car on a highway roll. The main reason for this is his tire choice. Most people over look this when building a car. His tire size being smaller then the oem tire makes his final drive jump to 4.29. His car basically spins tires all the time.

Jake already has some future plans for this car. He already has another turbo for it kicking around and almost everyday we are tweaking something. He is moving to Cali at the end of the summer and plans to pick of a rwd daily driver so he can make the MS3 the car he always wanted. Look for a new front lip as the old one was destroyed by a deer, a cleaner engine bay, and a bigger turbo coming in the near future.

The one thing I would like to add is that Jake bought this car and his last two with his own money and on a high school and first year college student budget.