By Mazda builds fun cars. That’s what their cars have been since the demise of the FD RX7 in the early 2000s. Only a few vehicles since have breached the border between “quick” and “fast.” But that’s what makes them fun. The Mazda Miata practically invented the phrase, “it’s more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow.” Every one of Mazda’s cars has been designed to give the driver maximum enjoyment behind the wheel. The Mazda 3 is no exception. Its sporty, turbocharged, 6-speed-manual hatchback model, the Mazdaspeed 3, began to break into the “fast” side of things too! The key to Mazda’s excellent driver focus has always been handling. If you’re looking to make your Mazdaspeed 3 feel better on the road or around a track, these simple mods are a great start.
How does any of this matter?
Your suspension system has a few major jobs. Firstly, it needs to maximize the amount of contact that your wheel makes with the ground. Your tires can’t do their thing if they’re cambered at some ridiculous angle. Suspension also needs to provide stability. If you’re cruising on the freeway at 65 miles an hour and hit a bump, you want to feel the bump, but not get bumped off the road out of control! Last, it needs to ensure your comfort. Because if we didn’t want to ride in style, we would still be going everywhere in covered wagons.
Springs
Springs absorb the energy created when your vehicle hits a bump. When you’re driving along the highway or crawling over rocks, the springs in your suspension compress. This lets the wheels move up into the body without creating body roll or upsetting the balance of the car. Upgraded springs use different tensile strength loads and length to change the way your vehicle rides. Shorter springs let your vehicle sit lower, which increases stability while cornering. Longer springs lift your vehicle up, allowing for more suspension travel and ground clearance. Higher loaded springs will stiffen the ride quality and make your vehicle more responsive. Looser springs will soften bumps and make things more comfortable at the cost of some body roll.
There are tons of performance spring options for the Mazda 3. If you’re looking for an upgrade without too much of a drop, Eibach’s Pro Kit spring set lowers you a little over half an inch from stock while increasing spring stiffness. You’ll still be able to clear the driveway with these ones. If you want prime static fitment and a stiff ride for harder cornering, Corksport’s lowering springs will drop you around 2 inches, and advertise themselves as the “lowest safe springs on the market.” If that’s not a ringing endorsement, I’m not sure what is!
Shocks
Springs are great at absorbing energy, but bad at dispersing it. Shock absorbers, also called dampers, absorb energy from bumps and convert it to heat. When a shock absorber is compressed, a piston moves down into a tube full of hydraulic fluid, softening the blow from compression and then responding with like rebound (thanks to the magic of vacuums). Shocks determine the amount of travel– how far up and down your wheel can go on the suspension– as well as how the suspension responds to both compression and rebound. Tighter valved shocks will be slower to compress, leading to a firmer ride and flatter cornering; loosely valved shocks will compress faster, making things smoother but a little more wallowy. Upgraded suspension usually offers more travel and different valving, which changes the way your vehicle handles over bumps and uneven surfaces. High end shock absorbers sometimes have remote reservoirs for hydraulic fluid, or trade fluid-filled shocks for gas ones. Both of these systems can end up saving you unsprung weight.
For the Gen1 Mazdaspeed 3, Koni and Bilstein offer complete suspension kits that include struts and performance springs. Koni’s Sport Lowering Kit (https://sparktecmotorsports.com/i-30504303-koni-1145-sport-lowering-kit-07-09-mazda-mazdaspeed3.html) uses their Yellow series struts and Eibach Pro Kit lowering springs: this combination gives you a suspension setup with adjustable bump damping and an overall 1.5” ride height drop. Bilstein’s B12 Suspension Kit (https://sparktecmotorsports.com/i-30575353-bilstein-b12-2007-mazda-3-mazdaspeed-front-and-rear-suspension-kit.html) also uses the Eibach Pro Kit springs alongside their B12 front and rear shocks, but only lowers the car about 0.8” overall. It’s not as low, but it’s way stiffer, so you can expect a very stable ride but a slight decrease to ride comfort.
Sway Bars
Sway bars (aka anti-sway bars, anti-roll bars) work as a lateral brace between the left and right side of a car. The front and rear swaybars attach with links to the wheel hubs, and use torsional stiffness to keep the vehicle as close to level over its axles as possible. This allows the outside wheels to force the body and the inside wheels back down towards the ground. Aftermarket sway bars are usually both thicker and lighter than the OEM parts. Most aftermarket sway bars have adjustable end links as well as locks. The adjustable end links give you even more ways to tune your ride stiffness. The locks keep your sway bar from shifting left and right inside its bushings, increasing torsional rigidity.
Hotchkis’s Performance Sway Bar Set includes front and rear sway bars for your Mazdaspeed 3, as well as greaseable polyurethane bushings. The new front sway bars are just over 28mm in the front, and 32mm in the back; this makes the front about 35% stiffer than stock, and the rear almost 95% stiffer. This loose-front/tight-rear setup is ideal for high-power front-wheel-drive cars like the Mazdaspeed 3, as it keeps the front wheels on the ground during hard launches.
If you’re looking for suspension upgrades for your Mazdaspeed 3, check out the Motoroso Marketplace! There are tons of high-quality springs, dampers, and chassis reinforcement parts for your Mazda hot hatch, as well as any other vehicles you need to set up for the road, track, or dirt. If you’re looking for some help putting things together or need some inspiration, take a look at the Motoroso YouTube channel. There, we’re upgrading tons of install guides, must-have-mod lists, and build showcases to help you figure out exactly what you want to do with your vehicle.
