I've only had this car for about 3k miles and the noise was there when i first bought the car. there are many symptoms aside from the noise.

1. jerks mostly in 1st and 2nd gear when decelerating in traffic (when I release my foot off the gas pedal too quickly)

2. noise from clutch/tranny when clutch is engaged to flywheel. when clutch is disengaged, noise goes away. doesn't matter what gear it's in. does it in neutral also.

3. hard to ease into 1st gear after driving the car for awhile. Shifting into 1st gear is fine, but engaging the clutch gets really jerky. I have to almost rev high and drop the clutch to get it some what smooth

 

4. the shifter moves up a little bit when you engage the clutch in gear. mostly noticable in 2nd gear. could be normal.

haven't gotten a chance to pull out the tranny yet, but just wondering if you guys have encountered this problem before. just see what i should look for

 

Sounds almost exactly like what I'm experiencing in the rx7 I just bought - in my case, it's looking like the grinding when flywheel is engaged is due to something wrong in the tranny internals - may have to have it rebuilt - I changed the clutch, pilot bearing and throwout bearing and it didn't improve the situation at all, so it's looking like the tranny itself. That's probably going to be your issue with the difficulty shifting down into first (mine is difficult shifting down into second AND down into first, until I get below a certain speed) - I get a jerkiness when I let off the gas, too, and in my situation it's looking like a bad front diff mount, but mine is accompanied by a bit of a thud too, so listen for that. The tranny isn't that expensive to have rebuilt if you pull it yourself, and it's not real hard to pull it, but trust me, don't screw around with the exhaust system, just take it completely out of the way, unless it's just real easy to maneuver around - the tranny only weighs about 60-70 lbs, but try holding 60 or 70 lbs in a bench press position for 30 minutes while you try to maneuver it around your exhaust hangers. There may be a better source for the front diff mount, but mazdatrix has one for $140ish.

 

Thanks for the info. Do you know how much to rebuild a tranny? I took a tranny class and it wasn't too hard to take apart. I was gonna give it a try on my tranny and if it doesn't work out, I've seen used n/a trannys for under $200.

I talked to the teacher at my school, gave him the symptoms and he said it sounded like a worn front bearing. so it is internal like you said.

 

Awesome, let me know how it goes - if it's not terribly difficult I may give rebuilding my own tranny a shot - I've never taken a tranny school, but I've done some other pretty intricate mechanical stuff working on medical equipment, so unless you try it and say "wow, don't even attempt it" then I'll probably give it a shot in a few months. Good luck!