Whats the color of the inside of your exhaust tips on your CX7? Is it a light tan color? Is it a black sooty color. Let me know what color yours is.

Won't anybody take a look and let me know? Its so easy to do!

 

Altaski, mine are black on a: GT AWD Blk/Blk ext/int.

 

Black sooty deposits around your tailpipe mean your engine is running on the rich side of the fuel mixture (air/fuel ratio) Turbo motors tend to be tuned to the rich side to avoid a lean condition (not enough fuel in the mixture) which can severely damage engine internals (melted pistons come to mind.)

It's not necessarily a problem (My Mazda3 has deposits around the tailpipe.)

 

Yep, I might try adding some rubbing alcohol to the gas mixture this should lean it out. If that doesn't work, Bacardi 151 or grain is the next step.

In all seriousness, have you found that within time (engine break in) this leans out?

 

I'd leave it alone myself. As I said, Lean is a bad thing. It does get you more performance, but at the cost of long term reliability (In my opinion)

Not to mention the fact that the computer would most likely adjust the mixture to accommodate the added alcohol to get you back to a rich condition again. It's programmed into the fuel mapping of the engine management and has adaptive learning to work around any parts you put on that may modify the performance of the engine.

Now if you had a piggyback or stand alone ECM you could tune the fuel mixture properly/safely.