Jean,
The Mara comes with a 2.5mm restrictor. Lelit makes a 2mm restrictor for the Mara. I replaced my restrictor with the 2mm and the grouphead idle temp went from 207-210 to 201-204. Here's the thread I started when I did it:
Lelit Mara restrictor

Someone in the "Show your espresso station" thread highlighted their vinyl wrapped machine which looked really great. Much questioning and discussion ensued. I have been fighting upgrade-itis for a while, just wanting an aesthetics change but not a new machine.

I got some matte black Vivid vinyl wrap off Amazon and tried my hand at it. It looks OK from five feet. Really up close would reveal some newbie errors, but overall it looks fine for where and what it is. The mixed black and stainless of the Quamar grinder works better with the black wrap, now.



I also just added an ECM single spout portafilter with VST triple 18/22g basket. Feeling pretty happy with this affordable setup. Also, FWIW, I cleaned my Quamar M80 with Grindz for the first time in over a year! Not proud of that. With a deep clean in grinder and Mara, coffee this morning tasted fantastic. At the moment I am using a three way blend of Stumptown Hair Bender, Lavazza Espresso blend (sub-$20 a kilo on Amazon) and locally roasted medium roast Guatemalan. Today's shots were among the best I can recall making. Coming up on three years with the Mara, this Spring!

Greetings Mara owners,

It has been a while since I visited this thread last, but my machine started making strange noises while extracting... Basically - the pump sounds like palpitating and I've noticed that the extraction pressure barely goes over 8PSI. Pretty sure that the pump is on the way out, but wanted to poke around if anybody else has experienced same issues 3-4 years into the ownership? We're averaging 2-3 extractions / day.

Coincidentally, that's consistent with the sound and response I've seen when I hit the low water level. If you are using a filter or screen at the end of your water uptake tube, have you checked that, and/or run a shot without those potential obstructions to see if it behaves the same?

Nope - no filter as I'm using filtered water to begin with. And it's not water level dependent.

B.t.w. what's the stock extraction pressure? I remember it floating around 9 bars usually?

Mine was about 9.5 bar. I adjusted down to 8.5-9

Thx! I bumped it up a tiny bit to 9bars. Subjectively this morning - while extracting - it was "palpitating" noticeably more.

Nobody has came up with a straight vane pump replacement kit yet for Maras - by any chance?