2k4_8

Replaced L + T plugs bc they were worn out and showing tracking lines, plus I am at 28k miles now. They were a perfect cardboard brown however....so that was a plus. I did a compression test on Saturday....and although I didn't have a rotary tester, I came up with 95 on the rear and under 90 on the front. I then did a test using a battery charger set to jump start since my battery was sorta weak. This turned the motor over faster than you would ever get under normal conditions, but wasn't much better, coming in at 95 and just over 100. I think I have a bad motor now, and will try to get a remanned under warranty. This would also explain the abysmal 140 rwhp on the dyno a couple three months ago.

I was down in salt lake 2 weeks ago and stopped at a light....after driving on the freeway and a bit around town...I didn't have enough power to get out of one of the depressions that car tires make at a light. I even slipped the clutch...took it to 2500 rpms, then 3500 rpms and slipped it to make it out of the hole. Keep in mind that this is a rare occurance, but when it gets really hot after driving down the freeway, especially if I have the A/C on.....it happens.

I did still autox the car this past weekend though, and will start another thread in that section regarding that. : )

C Ya L8r

Did you have the throttle floored while cranking? not doing so will give you low #.
unless you see large dif in psi for each side of the rotor it is tho hard to diagnose a bad engine.
With your other symptoms it sounds like you have enough reason to bring it to the dealer for the tsb.

2k4_8

I did have it floored and cranked for 5-10s just as the mazda states to test compression... : ) I also understand that since I cannot see each individual side's compression that I am just getting the highest recorded between the three, but with that low of numbers and the symptoms...I am 90% sure it's bad... I will also update with how mazda treats it, and the results of taking it in.

C Ya L8r

You can remove the valve at the plug end of the tester to see the pulses of each side. Here are two videos first one has a bad seal (two low pulses followed by one strong). The second is even for all three.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTRJm1OAEXc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQoK_mHZHQc