What it's like living with a unicorn sleeper.

Have you ever owned, or wanted to own, a sleeper? Well, there’s two ways you can get one. The first way is to get an old Volvo and put a whole lot of love and effort into it. The other, easier way, is to buy one. I’m not talking about finding an old Volvo that someone before you has put a lot of love and effort into, but to find a performance version of an economy or family car. I’m not talking about a WRX STi or an Evo MR. Oh no, people know what those are. I’m talking minimal changes to the body, and maximum changes to performance.

Take my car for example. I own a 2006 Mazdaspeed 6. A normal Mazda 6 is a nice, fuel efficient family sedan. In fact, the first generation you could get many options. My buddy just bought a wagon with a 5 speed and a 3.0L V6. Or you could get it with a 2.3L with port injection, and I’ll get to why the injection is important, later.

I think it’s important before getting into why you should buy a factory sleeper is so great; we touch on what really is a factory sleeper. There is not a huge selection of factory sleepers out there, right? Exactly. Most of them are the best cars you’ve never heard of. I don’t really consider a performance version of an economy car that has huge wings and hood scoops a sleeper. Looking at you, Subaru. They look fast. And a car like a Mustang with a V8 isn’t really a sleeper either, they’re assumed to be fast. Let’s take my Mazda for example. The visual differences between a Mazdaspeed 6 and a Mazda 6 sedan are minimal. There’s the hood which has a small bulge in the middle, the duck tail spoiler which is low key, and the bumpers are slightly different. Before I found my car, I couldn’t point out the differences between the two. That’s something that you really start to pick up on either after you buy the car, or if you’re a die-hard fan boy of the car, which usually happens after you buy one.

Enough about the outside, it’s all about the inside. Ever heard the phrase, “beauty is only skin deep”? Yeah, well that doesn’t apply to sleepers. While the normal 4 cylinder Mazda 6 has a 2.3L MZR, the Mazdaspeed 6 has a 2.3L MZR DISI Turbo, which is good to boost the engine from 154hp to 274hp and 154ft-lbs to 280ft-lbs of torque. Let me explain what this means. The MZR really doesn’t mean anything. Well, it does, but by the same way a 2JZ means something. It’s just the family of engines that stands for Mazda Responsive, and is also known as, wait for it, a Duratec engine. Yes, that’s right, the 2.5L engine that’s in your dad’s 2005 Ford Ranger, is the same engine found in a Mazdaspeed 6. Sure, it’s a little different, but the same difference between those engines and the one found in the 2015 Ford Mustang EcoBoost. Anyway, the MZR means nothing to my car; it’s the DISI Turbo that means the world. It stands for Direct Injection Spark Ignition. Remember when I said the normal Mazda 6 had port injection? If you don’t know what port injection and direct injection is; port injection is when the injectors are in the intake manifold, so the fuel and air get mixed before the valves. Direct injection is where the injectors are in the cylinder, so the fuel and air gets mixed after the valve. Why is this important you may ask? Well, with some weird sciencey magic, direct injection is more direct throttle control. This is nice when you’re going 60, drop it into 3rd gear, and mat it. There’s only as much delay as you allow. Compare that to a WRX of that year, that used multiport or multipoint injection, which is more like an advanced port injection, there’s a slight delay when you want to floor it. So yeah, among the manifolds, inter-cooler, and of course the turbo, that’s the only change they made. Which is bad. I mean, it’s great that they made it direct injection, but it’s bad that they didn’t change anything else. This includes the already weak connection rods, the horrible HPFP (high pressure fuel pump), among other things. But it works when it’s stock, and that’s a good thing, because Mazda was very poor when they made the Mazdapeed 6 so they couldn’t afford to spend huge amounts of money redefining the engine, so the owners have to redefine them.

The turbo is great, the engine is pretty good, and I have no complaints in that department. But my complaint is the fact that they didn’t do anything to the drive train to make it better. Wait, no, that’s wrong, they did do exactly that. I didn’t mention before that it’s all-wheel drive, and oh is it an amazing all-wheel drive system. Let me explain. Usually, an awd system includes a torque converter, but the Mazdaspeed 6 does it all in the 6-speed transmission. It really depends what’s going on in the front differential whether the rear differential gets power or not. To paraphrase Mr. Regular, if you’re just cruising around, the front wheels are going to get all the power, but once you put your foot down, the rear wheels will receive up to 50% of the power. To go further on that, I can turn the rear diff off. And to do that, I simply pull the hand break to the first notch. The emergency break won’t grab, but it will tell the rear diff that something’s up. And I know all of this is true, and not just some mumbo jumbo off the internet. If I’m in 2nd gear in the wet holding it around 3k rpm (because that’s when boost kicks in), have the hand break up, and floor it, I get wheel spin and torque steer. Lots of wheel spin and torque steer. But, if I don’t have my hand break up and do the same thing, no wheel spin, no torque steer, and it takes off.

So really, what’s it like to live with this unicorn? Amazing. No one knows what I have, and that’s partially because there was only 9,700 of them made between 2006 and 2007. Or 10,400 of them. No one really knows to be honest. Mazda has never officially released a number, but all I know is my personal one is the 4,933rd off the production line, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.