I appreciate the attachment of the schematic for the transmission, but it's kind of hard to really make sense of it. I understand that there is always a way to service "lifetime" parts - but the manufacturers certainly don't make it easy. Removing the airbox to check the f___ing fluid? That's like Ford with some of their vans in the 1990s making you go through the wheel well with a long socket extension to change the spark plugs or other auto makers putting the fuel filter inside of the gas tank.

Great that you have a local chap who does transmission services, but driving to California is not in the cards for me right now. LOL!! What I am curious about is to whether the filter inside needs to be totally replaced or just removed, cleaned and re-installed. It's above my sill level, but I'd at least want to have an idea of what to tell the shop before they drop the pan. Also, is there a specific fluid that is designed for the CX-30? I remember back in the day when you had Dexron ATF for GM cars and Fords had to use Type F in their automatic transmissions.

Horsepower standards are probably like fish stories sometimes. I remember when horsepower ratings when from gross to net in 1971 or 1972. That also coincided with low-lead gasoline, reduced compression ratios, emissions control devices, etc., so the numbers dropped very quickly. I think they used to call it SAE Gross and SAE Net. The net ratings make more sense, though, because nobody uses an engine without a fanbelt, transmission, alternator, power steering or A/C running off of it. My first car was a 1964 Cadillac Sedan deVille with a 429 V8 engine. Gross rating for horsepower was around 340 with 490 lbs/ft of torque - so I know the net would probably have been around 250 to 270 hp and 380 lbs/ft of torque...........give or take. Finding 96 octane leaded premium gasoline today would be quite a feat!

 

Removing the airbox is a 10-15 minute job the first time. The filter is available through a couple of retailers other than Mazda OEM. As for checking the fluid once you change the fluid it really only needs to be checked during the service and if you have a oil leak.
Example only: Automatic Transmission Filter Kit - 2020-2024 Mazda CX-30 - Vaico W0133-3592768
The old power rating SAE Gross and SAE Net was also exaggerated back then as well.

 

So removal of the airbox is necessary in order to do a "drain & fill" on the automatic transmission? The filter is one that replace and do not clean? Do you have to use one kind of fluid exclusive to the CX-30 or is it more of a universal type?

Interesting about horsepower ratings. Some auto makers overrated the output of their engines, but others were obviously underrated (Chrysler Hemi, 455 Buick Stage I, etc.). My guess is that they were trying to mollify the insurance companies.

 

Re-read… removing the airbox ,access to the dip stick and also refilling . You can do it IMHO based on what you have posted about yourself.
Castrol Trans max. Can be mix with Mazda FL -22 . Once again see my thread on all this information as well the before and after removing the air box.There is even a bit about a true air intake I was designing.

I have pretty much owned from one time or another all the most common American V-8; from 265 - 455. And all the makes . Although mostly Chevrolet I still owned all the other usual suspects except AMC.

BTW the Stage names was a sales gimmick to promote the interest of popular upgrades even to this day that hinted the possibility of stage II , Stage III etc. I mean hearing the bragging from people owning a Stage I whatever was the thing to do as well as it seemed ever Hot Rodder had a 500 hp engine? 😂
Hey don’t get me wrong it’s all fun and BTW my Mazda is a Stage 1 . It even has the visor decal claiming so .

 

Re-read… removing the airbox ,access to the dip stick and also refilling . You can do it IMHO based on what you have posted about yourself.
Castrol Trans max. Can be mix with Mazda FL -22 . Once again see my thread on all this information as well the before and after removing the air box.There is even a bit about a true air intake I was designing.



I never tried to remove the air box, but maybe it is within my abilities. I will have to try to consult with YouTube sometime about how to go about doing that. Is there an actual dipstick underneath it with a tube where you can add transmission fluid to it? I doubt I would try to do a transmission service myself - but I could at least be able to explain to the shop tech where to look for the tube. Seems to me that removing the pan and draining the fluid is the first step. Then take off the filter & install the new one. Replace the pan and install a new gasket, tighten it up - then refill the fluid. I suspect that it would have to run for a minute or two to circulate what is in there (you will never get all of it out like you do when draining the crankcase), recheck the level and top it off before putting the air box back on. Does that sound right to you?


I have pretty much owned from one time or another all the most common American V-8; from 265 - 455. And all the makes . Although mostly Chevrolet I still owned all the other usual suspects except AMC.


I have owned that rusty & ratty '64 deVille with a 429 V8, a '70 Datsun 510, a '73 Montego with a 400 (quite briefly), a '78 Chevette (gag!), a '78 Oldsmobile Ninety-Eight two-door with a 403 (big, beautiful car in near mint condition), a 1988 Mustang GT (my first new car) - the first of four Mustangs in my life plus two Corvettes more recently. Now, we just have the CX-30, our CR-V and my old F-150 pickup. I have driven a few Nissans, a Silverado and a Ford Ranger + an Accord that my stepdaughter now has. Maybe thirty cars in my lifetime + a Ford Econoline work van and a 5-ton International diesel truck that I used for business eons ago.

BTW the Stage names was a sales gimmick to promote the interest of popular upgrades even to this day that hinted the possibility of stage II , Stage III etc. I mean hearing the bragging from people owning a Stage I whatever was the thing to do as well as it seemed ever Hot Rodder had a 500 hp engine? 😂
Hey don’t get me wrong it’s all fun and BTW my Mazda is a Stage 1 . It even has the visor decal claiming so .


When I was in high school, a guy in a class ahead of me had an original 1970 Buick GSX (painted Apollo White) - only one of 678 ever built. His had the 455 "Stage I" V8 - which was rated (I think) at 375 horsepower and 510 lbs/ft of torque. It obviously had more than that because he'd run neck and neck with a '70 Chevelle SS good for 450 gross horsepower. Both were equipped four-speed manual transmissions and very "short" rear axle gears. The Skylark and the Chevelle were similar in size/weight since they shared the same platform. Another guy had a '70 or '71 (Cutlass) 4-4-2 with an Olds 455 engine hooked to a TH400 automatic. It was not nearly as quick in the 1/4 mile as the Chevelle or GSX and had "taller" gears, but that damn thing would haul *** on the highway.

I think back to some of the 'common' cars of the early 1980s which you could get for next to nothing ('69 Roadrunner, '70 Nova SS, '71 Javelin, '68 Impala SS, etc.) - and consider what they bring at auction today. Holy smoke! A huge problem with those hot rods from the "muscle car" era was the primitive tire technology. All that horsepower just meant lots of wheelspin and burnouts and many cars that were hot back then would get smoked by a V6 Nissan Maxima or an EcoBoost Ford Explorer today. But those classics have a certain 'cool' factor that new cars lack. Nobody 50 years from now is going to go bonkers over finding a nice Corolla stashed away in a barn. Haha!!

Sounds as if you turned a lot of wrenches and had some amazing cars in your lifetime!

 

I keep recommending NOT to use youtube or other DIY posted videos or non professional mechanic's etc., portals and to get a real service guide . See ALLDATA. I am sure when you see that it is extremely cheap for a one day use it is well worth it. Also when you see how inexpensive it is you will understand why I smile when there always is resistance to paying for a service like that.
Draining the transmission pan has nothing to do with needing to wait for any oil to circulate. Even on an engine. The pan is an oil sump wich only supplies the oil pump. there is not even any oil pressure in either sump area.
After starting my decades Professional drag racing career in a 1965 Olds station wagon with a 330 and in 1976 turn high 12's I never looked back and just started to smile when the bragging of power trains was the topic of conversation with the gearhead crowd. Yet it was always hard to get any of them on a Friday or Saturday night to run stoplights against me. lol Yet if I showed up in my 69 Goat , 68 Chevelle or even my GTX they were cruisen me for a run. I would often have my Wagon parked on the street and would simply say sure we can run but you gotten first beat my station wagon.
As for the tire technology you got it all wrong... if anyone was serious they had tires that world stick very well if the power was applied correctly. The thing was "amateur" drag racing and not knowing how to drive their cars. The uncontrolled adrenalin raising and when everything happens, they do the #1 mistake and nail the throttle to the floor. If they had anything higher then 3.50 gears once the traction broke the tire would spin to fast, if the had lower ratio gears the most common was 4:11's then again there launch technique the car would bog and fall flat on its face for about /12 second which in drag racing is forever.

I thought you would get a LOL out of this on my Mazda visor?

 

Love the sun visor sign. You must have known somebody at a print shop or else you have some cool software to make it look so professional.

That Olds wagon must have been a sleeper. When I mentioned tire technology being primitive, it most certainly was. Yeah, there were always the guys with the G60-15 skins and the ones who ran hard at the strip often had the Mickey Thompson rubber on their rear axle. A friend of mine with a super hot Chevelle (over 600 hp running an aviation gas) used different tires at the strip (illegal to use on a public road). He had holes drilled through the bead of the tire to keep the wheel from spinning inside the rim! Radials were not even all that common and were all the rage when cars began coming standard with them.

I never had a really quick car for stoplight brawling, although I have owned a few that had a V8 with tall gearing which could get down the highway fairly well if there was enough room With some of the crazy stuff we did back then, it's a good thing that we lived through those wild years.

If you ever want to see a good car chase scene, watch the one from "The Seven Ups" (1973) on YouTube. More than a few technical & location errors, but it was still darn good. Roy Scheider was a NYC cop in a Pontiac Ventura (looks like a Chevy Nova) chasing bad guys who were in a huge Pontiac Grand Ville. It's fun to watch the body roll from the archaic suspensions, skidding from the old school tires and mediocre brakes of that era. Roy Scheider pursues the bad guys over the G.W. Bridge into New Jersey - but Uh Oh! - they magically end up on the Taconic State Parkway in Westchester County..............perhaps 15 miles away and on the other side of the Hudson River. They pass a big bus and Roy Scheider runs into a parked semi. The only problem is that commercial vehicles are not allowed on the Taconic (or the Palisades) because the overpasses are too low for them. ( I lived in Upstate NY as a kid in the late 1970s and my dad drove our big Caprice wagon on all of those roads a few times. ) Still a great movie!

I am going to keep that AllData web site in mind for the future. I have had pretty good luck with YouTube videos for not just car stuff, but even household repairs. Some people are excellent at explaining how something is done. I subscribe to YouTube Premium just to avoid all of the stupid commercials + YouTube Music is included, which is totally awesome.

 

ya so here is the thing about tossing around unconfirmed and advertised power ratings. My 1965 olds F85 Station wagon with a standard rebuilt engine all stock OEM parts a simple Offenhauser 360 intake and Carter competition 625cfm carburetor (rare even for that time period) Hooker headers designed for a Olds 4-4-2 and glass pack mufflers, with a TH350 with a B&M trans pack and B7M 3000 stahl speed a Old 4-4-2 10 bolt posi with 4:11 with Ansen Sprint and Indy tires I turned consistent high 12's in 1975 -1977 at Fremont Raceway. Completely street legal.
The factory claimed it had 250 BHP (184 KW) @ 4800 RPM. I never Dyno it because back then only professional Racers with big bucks could afford or be able to journey to the few shops that had them.

My point is how badly all those reported power figures were and for some that know better or learn very fast that they are HYPED and high questionable. As I said the world finally said enough of the BS and require that auto manufacture MUST comply with a certification to post REAL power output of any model they offer.

BTW back in the day my Station wagon was banned for my high Scholl parking lot and was also known in 2 counties and at least 4 cities. I actually had local police pull me over back then just to see my license and ask what my plans were in their city. Oh and we are not talking about southern comfort states but right here in the dictator controlled communist copied state of California. LOL

While I actually owned a couple or more of the cars you mentioned none were anywhere near as quick as my Oldsmobile.

Aviation fuel was not only a MYTH among most auto users but also VERY bad to use in a non aircraft unless you mixed it with normal gasoline or added some type of fuel additive to protect the valves.
Hot Chevelle well I always thought I had one of those and it never IMHO developed what your buddy claimed on his?

The Seven Ups i know and liked that movie as well as Vanishing Point. But I also like the original and the remake of *The Italian job. Cant really say why this one still nets me a small(very small) income every time a couple in the series is shown

My 12 second Station wagon
My shop (one of them) This one I managed
One of my several owned and various years my Chevelle (dont think it was 600hp but it was far far from stock in every sense regrading the running gear.) !

 

It is obvious that bench racing led to some tall tales - not unlike fish stories. I was lucky to grow up when I did (a few years behind you) and got to see some good "home made" hot rods. People in the 1980s were finding creative ways to hop up most anything. Oddball cars - such as a 1978 Chevette with a 3.8L turbo V6 from a Buick Grand National, a '70s Pinto station wagon with a 302 and even a 350-powered Chevy Vega coupe were seen cruising around Central PA forty years ago. One chap even had a 1970s Datsun 240Z with a Chevy small-block stuffed into it.

I had my "Rattlecar Cadillactica" 1964 Sedan deVille that was very fast, but only in a straight line. My friend's dad had a 1971 Buick Electra that we used one night to outrun the local police, who were stuck with a 1983 Dodge Diplomat. LOL! You could have a rolling jukebox on wheels with that land yacht. The 455 was no joke, either. That old "Deuce and a Quarter" was so big that it was in two different time zones

Sometimes it is amazing that our generation survived!

 

The 80’s for me was 215 ( actually a stroked which made it a 235) Buick V8 in MGB GT. 1960 MGA with a 289 Ford and my street ODDER ROD 1968 MGA with a B&M 671 Blower with Crower fuel injection and run on alcohol only for street driving .There are pictures of both MGA on this forum. Then there is my Nissan 260 Z with an all aluminum small block 391 Chevy with a Dougnash 5 speed. Another street only car. And misuse include my 482 BB In my 57 Chevy also pictures of it on this forum. I suppose we could include my actual race only 68 Camaro S/G NHRA 9.90 or 8.90 1/4 miler sporting just over 1200 ponies and 3 stage Nitrous system . lol also pictured on this forum. That’s just the 80,s And I must also mention lastly my 2 AC Cobras both with Chevy power plants . And yup there pictures.

Now I think Iam bragging sorry… lol
the 70’s was my training and education in the auto mechanical and mechanical engineering world. The 80’s was practicing the art of automotive service, parts,parts designing engineering marketing and performance engine building. The 90,s was making a living in several fields mostly automotive ,and the 20’s well sorta semi retired but active in work I can quit at any time . All along the way car projects…right up to my Dailey driver 2018 Mazda 3 .


On a side note the Turbo Buick Grand National When it first came out in the 1982 I made and made available on.y a few , a manual adjustable wastegate controller which allowed for greater power from heavy and slow responding Turbo of that time period . (Boy what I could do with a turbo these days)A funny thing the Buick Grand National in 1982 0-60 mph were claimed 4.7 seconds. Quick back then, but my PT Cruiser with it stock 4 cyd and some Bolton and a ECU calibration is equally as quick. Lol .And yes there is even a video on this forum you can see that and also going beyond to just below 100 before I ran out of road. lol And my 1/4 times would have beat the Buick.