So while my wife was entering our driveway in our Mazda 323F (Astina in some countries) I heard a sound like popping of exhaust, but it came from the engine bay, not the exhaust. It happend while she was downshifting from 3rd to 2nd on steep incline at low revs. She changed to 1st and slowly went few meters more and parked. There was nothing strange to see on the engine when I opened the hood, but there was a slight smell of burning. I restarted the car and in neutral it seems ok... Was that a detonation or could something else make exploding sound? There's no leaks under the car.

I'd be worried. Need to check the piston return springs. Sounds like one is hanging up

youre a tard.

is she pretty good at driving stick? burning smell? was she riding the clutch on the incline since she was trying to park?
dunno about the popping sound, but you should probably get it checked out, can never be too careful.

This post was edited by ZeaL0RDeaL on Jun 17 2015 02:56pm

Yea, she's OK with shifting gears, there was no clutch burning. She went from 3rd to 2nd and 1st all on low revs with fast clutch release. By parking I mean she drove the car straight forward 20m through driveway and stopped it in front of house door.
Anyway I did some 30 miles today and all seems ok, no sounds, no smell... Hopefully it'll stay that way

P.S. I'm not good at technical English, could it be that thing that sends electricity from battery to sparks?

If could be a lot of things. Maybe a bad spark plug, spark plug wire, distributor cap. Maybe the cat converter going bad and the car is having trouble breathing.