Soo. I just picked up my car today and drove it for LOTS of hours...Question..
 

Well this is my first manual car, and actually, im doing pretty damn good learning. I learned downshifting, starting etc, only stalled 2 times, guess it could be worse. Well we drove the car for about 6 hours today. Poor thing needs to rest. I have a question though, is it normal for the cabin to start to heat up? Or is something wrong?

If you're just driving around town, yeah. I've found my transmission tunnel gets a little warm, and it seems the vents always blow a little warm unless I get it over 30 mph.

...did you leave your heat on? Even if the air is not on, my car tends to still blow air in and the temperature varies on where the dial is temperature wise (obviously). Check that, see if it is on the highest heat. If so, try putting it all the way to the coldest setting and see if the problem still occurs

Well vents were blowing fine. Its just that the cabin started heating up a little. It could have been partially from the sunny day, but I think its also from the engine or something...like the hand brake was warm, and the sides of the center console were warm too...normal?

Welcome to the concept of heat soak. Normal on this car. Normal on a lot of performance coupes.

After hours on the highway I parked for brunch and experienced a lot of heat soak (no sunshine) when we all got back in the car. Everything was hot from the tunnel to the cup holders to the hand brake. I guess I just got used to it; I kind of miss it in the winter.

The cupholder get very warm and the boot of the shift knob tends to as well

On the bottom of the AC dial, not the one where you can turn to cold or hot, the one inbetween the fan speed, and temperature, that dial on the bottom there are the 2 buttons. One is on at all times, if I press the left one, the other side will turn off, etc, they both wont be off at the same time...could that be the problem or is that normal? I wish I realized they forgot to give me a User Guide a tad bit sooner heh..

No problem. It just likes to spit hot air at you when you rev it up. Open a window.

Oh ok :) As long as im not the only one getting this i'm fine...started to get a little nervous for a second. Anyway, MT is pretty damn fun, specially once you start getting the hang of it. I was nervous to pick up the MT, but I figured it really isnt worth the money for the AT..

When I picked up my car for the first time, it was a sunny day in April. I drove it to a friend's work down a busy road. All the way there, I couldn't believe how hot the cabin was. At first I had the sunroof open, the windows rolled down, and the vents opened up, but that made no difference. Then I closed all the windows and put on the air conditioner full blast.

That's when I discovered that the seat heater was turned on. Doh!

its normal for the area around the cup holder and cigarette lighter to get hot, because theres a very very hot about 1500~1600f Catalyst Converter sits right under it. if you have a straight mid pipe you will not get much heat. but thats illegal and very harmful to your and the environment

Not to mention the engine sits right next to your foot. (driver's right side, passenger's left side)

You can take your center console out, and seal it with heat insulate pad. thats what Im going to do before the summer hits.

and dont forget to shield your A/C line. I did it couple weeks ago. getting rdy for the summer baby !

I think that the button you're describing switches between fresh air and recirculate air.

that button changes between blowing air from outside and sucking it in from the vent at the windshield, it's either one of the other, so it'll never go off.

You will notice if you leave it on the outside air setting, even with the fan off, that air will blow through the vents with the car moving, so if the heat is up, it'll blow on you with the fan set to 0

If you're cabin is heating up, you might wanna set it to cold and have it blow on your feet, but the center console area will get warm from the transmission being a few inches away

And it should be set at fresh—or what Mazda calls "outside air"—as the default position. The only time you need "recirc" is when you're entering a dusty area (like a construction site), or when you need maximum cooling.

When using A/C, a lot of people mistakenly leave it on "recirculated air" all the time. Yes, for maximum cooling, Mazda says "set the temperature control dial to the extreme cold position and set the air intake selector to the recirculated position, and set the fan control dial to position 4". But that's meant just for a) cooling a hot interior down as quickly as possible, and b) hot, humid, "it's a real scorcher" type weather. In less severe hot weather, you'd switch to "outside air" once the interior cools down and is comfortable. The downside of using "recirc" is that you're breathing the same air over and over and it gets stale. Not healthy—can start to make you feel drowsy.

Outside air position: Outside air is taken into the vehicle. Use this position for normal ventilation and heating.

Recirculated air position: Outside air is shut off. Air within the vehicle is recirculated. This position can be used when driving on a dusty road or in similar conditions. It also helps to provide quicker cooling of the interior.

Finally, Mazda warns against using "recirc" in cold and rainy weather, as it causes the windows to fog up.

I leave my vents open and on defrost with the temp setting at dead nuetral. If I do some hard driving, I'll be pumping hot engine compartment air into the cabin. In the winter, you don't have the heat on. If you put it on recirc, the amount of heat coming into the cabin decreases a lot.

Does the transmission work less on highway
 

The heat issues is so much less on the highway. I had a question for those who know. Does the transmission cooling work more efficient on highway speeds compare to city driving? I drive an AT that heats up a bit much during stop and go traffic.

On the highway you get a LOT more air flow, so everything stays that much cooler.

Cupholder = coffee warmer:)))

yep, the prob shaft and transmission tunnel gets warm

Elaborate? Is this when you line your a/c line with aluminum foil, or something like that? I want to do this but don't know how to start.

Search "Altspace"

I believe he did it. Under the hood of his car looks like something out of the ScyFy channel. Its gorgeous.

Just wrap up the a/c line that is by the firewall with some heat resistant material. I have seen people using aluminum foil so I assume that this works. However, if you want to feel better about this mod you can go get some material from an autoshop. Home Depot has some heat resistant tape that you can use as well.