After pulling terrible numbers at the track i decided to pick up something fun and new to play with while the Cavy is my daily driver. I bought a 1988 Mazda 323. Now your probably wondering, "Well wtf is that and how is it any fun? It's just an old Mazda!" To properly understand this car you must understand where is came from. In the late 80's Mazda of Japan wanted to get into the SCCA rally racing in America but by their rules the cars they raced had to be sold in American markets as a complete mass produced car. So Mazda homologated the GTX and GTR 323's. The GTX being a 1.6L and the GTR being a 1.8L. They were both DOHC and both were Turbo'd, intercooled, and AWD. I picked up my GTX for 3K off of Long Island and boy does it haul some serious ass. Their 185HP stock on 10lbs of boost with forged crank and connecting rods and mine's got lots of aftermarket goodies and runs 15lbs. And It weighs just over 2400 pounds. For an AWD car that pretty light. Like Civic Territory in terms of weight. She's two toned blood red on top, and grey on the bottom with a 3 peice wing. She's a hatch/liftback 5 speed and its super fun to drive! When the server with my pics come back up, ill post em. Just interested if anyone has actually heard of these cars cause Mazda of America only sold about 1200 of them in the 5 year production they were made! And ill be very surprised if anyone has actually owned one of these on the forums here! C&C welcome!
i wanna see it... tell ur server to hurry the #$%^ up... sounds hot...
edit: looked at some pics on google.. hot hatch... wanna see ur two tone tho
Edited 1 time(s). Last edited Friday, November 03, 2006 12:49 PM
Saw one at Fred Meyer yesterday, I had no idea they ever came as a turbo/awd version until I saw the stickers on the side. Cool stuff.
the people demand pictures! go upload them on another site or something!
Yeah.. they're the only 323's worth looking at.
And now for something completely different... Click the Minister.
Wait, you paid 3k for a car thats almost 20 years old and pretty beat up?
Yes i paid 3K for a car thats been known to hand Evo's and STI's their asses at Rally events!
145K on the body, 30K on the rebuilt motor and new tranny
I have always wanted one of those.
That one appears to be in fairly good shape.
FieryOne wrote:Wait, you paid 3k for a car thats almost 20 years old and pretty beat up?
Honestly if you don't have a clue on the car look it up before you try to talk @!#$..
Nice find man Looks to be in decent shape for how old it is.. 145k miles isn't that many for a car over 20 years old since you find most new cars 1-3 years old with about that.
A while back I found a old mx6 Turbo for around 1500 not a bad little car either.. But then again it's not a AWD hatch.
I'd say get it on the dyno and get it tuned =)
Had to change sig because some dickhead is mad it went 1 letter over size
I very much plan to get it dyno'd atleast, but I dont know how much tuning i can do because i believe it is OBD0 and i really dont know much about that other than its not as acessible as OBD1.
Thats things @!#$ ugly....BUT its also SERIOUSLY badass, and i would totally drive the @!#$ outta it!! Awesome find!
Nice find....
I remember back when I was in high school and had an 85 Mazda 626 LX and found out from a repair book that they also made a turbo 626 too and saw one in person....wish i had that instead of my LX.
Later
Redrider02
"big boom big boom"-Adam Savage. "quack damn you"-Jamie Hyneman "mythbusters"
my coworker got a 323 for 500$...
it didnt run.....
somehow the ECU got unplugged.. owner didnt want to get it fixed..
said " you fix it, you get it for 500$"
my friend went to the bank on the clock took out 500$
pulled the car inot the shop.. checked like three things, noticed harness
plugged in.. bam ran.
yes he is a bastard!
it is a freaking rediculous piece of total awesomness! its looks to old and Pooy
yet owns like a good number of pos's on the road. with little mods it can own alot of road going sports cars.
very nice ride yo, your a luckly lil bia.
emArto0 wrote:my coworker got a 323 for 500$...
it didnt run.....
somehow the ECU got unplugged.. owner didnt want to get it fixed..
said " you fix it, you get it for 500$"
my friend went to the bank on the clock took out 500$
pulled the car inot the shop.. checked like three things, noticed harness
plugged in.. bam ran.
yes he is a bastard!
it is a freaking rediculous piece of total awesomness! its looks to old and Pooy
yet owns like a good number of pos's on the road. with little mods it can own alot of road going sports cars.
very nice ride yo, your a luckly lil bia.
Well lets keep in mind this car was in the late 80s.. Mazda knew how to built turbo motors back then.. So did dodge.. Hense the turbo mini van.. God I wish I could find one of those.. Any time I see a old Caravan for sale I start franticlly checking to see if its the turbo model.
Had to change sig because some dickhead is mad it went 1 letter over size
learn somethin new every day
If they only produced this car in such limited numbers, how available are the parts? I know with the Dodge turbo engines they are very plentiful, but not really familiar with Mazdas. None the less good find and good luck with it.
Replacement parts a prety few and far between, but luckily aftermarket is still just enough to get by on. Also, it has most the the things replaced that go bad on them, like 90% of the suspension, the Tranny and Axles, and its a forged bottom end so no snapped rods at 15pounds!
i cant say its a nice car cuz it aint, but thos things can @!#$ move... nice find.
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i keep it gully like im havin a old friend for lunch
Yeah...its pretty fugly...but the look on faces when you totaly pull on them would be priceless
