The Japanese publication, Holiday Auto Magazine, intercepted a patent drawing of the next generation Mazda MX-5 Miata while it was on its way to the Tokyo Patent Office this week and gave the world a glimpse of what’s to come for this hotly anticipated sports car.
The intercepted drawing gives us a view of its front end which, based on the dashed outline, suggests that Mazda will be ditching the smiley face in a return to the more classic look of the ellipse grille and round fog light recesses seen in the MX-5’s predecessors. Fortunately, the pop-up headlights will remain a thing of the past and the new headlights will be getting some updated technology with LED lighting.
The MX-5 has had three different generations throughout its 21 year history, numerous design updates and even more engine changes. The new MX-5 will reportedly remain a rear-wheel drive compact sports coupe. Sources say that engineers have been ordered to cut 720 lbs from the 2,480-pound curb weight of the current model with a goal of getting the Miata back to its original weight of 2,178 pounds. To achieve this goal, engineers are using high-strength steel for the body and are said to be planning to power the Mazda MX-5 with a 1.5-liter SkyActiv-G four-cylinder engine that will produce up to 160 horsepower and will be mated to a six-speed manual transmission with an option to change to a dual-clutch semi-automatic transmission.
The new Mazda MX-5 will bow out as a concept car next year before the production model is slated to be unveiled at the 2013 Geneva Motor Show. In the mean time, we can expect more speculation and opinions on the future of the most famous sports car in the world to continue as additional details are provided.
Gwynne-
Patent Drawing Leaked for Next Generation Mazda MX-5 Miata August 18th, 2011CorkSport
Mazfest returned once again this year to the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana CA. Sponsored by Mazda Owners Club of California,Mazdas247, and the Southern California RX Club, this years event featured autocross, an HPDE track day (high performance Driver Education), and of course the car show. On the day of the event, CorkSport was there in full force and the weather gave us sunny skies and a decent breeze and of course we were greeted with the usual smog from the east end of LA.
Mazfest showcases one of the widest varieties of Mazdas of any event CorkSport attends each year and the cars being shown this year ranged from a beautiful R100 to a brand new 2011 Mazdaspeed 3 and everything in between.
The other Mazdaspeed 3 had the CorkSport TMIC installed along with a host of other performance parts and was also the featured ride of the month on the Mazdas247 forum in July.
There were run groups out on the track all day with their owners putting their cars through their paces. Cars on the track ranged from stock to full on race cars including a turbocharged road race Rx8. There were a few mishaps on the HPDE event that you could find when walking around the garages.
The worst example I saw was a blow out suffered on the track by a Porsche. It took out the rear bumper, damaged the paint, and looks to have hit the radiator too.
All in all, it was a great day and we got to connect with many of our CorkSport customers and enjoy the show. I recommend attending next year if you are able to.
-Derrick
Mazfest: The Mazda Family Reunion September 13th, 2018CorkSport
A few weeks ago CorkSport did a two day Facebook Fan Promotion. We asked our fans to provide us with feedback on their shopping experience on CorkSport.com and in exchange, we would randomly select one fan to receive a CorkSport gift certificate worth up to $300.00 in value. The amount of the gift certificate began at $50.00 and increased by $1.00 for each additional respondent over the first 25 that answered the survey. We had 242 fans respond to our post and we gave one lucky Facebook fan a gift certificate to CorkSport.com worth $267.00! Our lucky winner, Jeff Hoetzler, has already purchased a CorkSport Short Ram Intake with his winnings and we hope he is enjoying the increase in power on his Mazda 6!
Not only did we have some fun and get to giveaway free stuff to our loyal fans, but CorkSport also benefitted from this promotion by being able to gather some critical data from our customers and use that feedback to improve the shopping experience at CorkSport.com. Though most of the feedback was positive and we were pleased to see that the overall quality of the online experience for our users is good, we were able to identify some areas for improvement and, as is the CorkSport way, take immediate action to improve upon our website.
We received several suggestions requesting that we maintain the presence of the navigation bar on the left side of the website for the entire website experience, no matter where in the product catalog you were. Done! Now, navigating through our site is even simpler and moving back and forth through the various categories is a breeze!
We also received some comments on navigation issues that were faced when customers entered the knowledgebase so we have improved upon that as well. Now when you click on the knowledgebase, you will be taken directly to a categorized landing page, allowing you to easily navigate to the information that is most relevant to your year and model vehicle. This will give you easier access to a database of useful information, from answers to common pre-sales questions, complete installation instructions and installation videos to customer comments and other useful articles about our products.
There were several requests for a photo gallery, which is in the works and should be coming to a CorkSport.com near you in the coming weeks along with new updates on our project cars, so keep a look out for more improvements to come and let us know if you have any more suggestions you would like to see incorporated into our website. We’re always on the look out for ways to make your shopping experience, shipping experience, customer service experience and above all, the products you purchase top of the line.
Gwynne –
Improving Your Shopping Experience on CorkSport.com September 13th, 2018CorkSport
In my last year of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Utah, I was able to participate in the Formula SAE program. The concept behind Formula SAE is that a fictional manufacturing company has contracted a student design team to develop a small Formula-style race car. Then the prototype race car is to be evaluated for its potential as a production item. When deciding what team I wanted to be on I chose suspension because I knew the real trick in making a fast car is designing a great performing suspension and tuning it to perfection.
In the formula SAE program, the suspension is unrestricted except for safety regulations. Most teams opt for four-wheel independent suspension and almost universally a double-wishbone. Active suspension is legal. Unfortunately, most of us can’t design a one-off suspension for our everyday cars, but we have the ability to upgrade and tune our suspensions to achieve handling nirvana.
The Mazdaspeed3 is a great platform to tune on for power and handling, however, it is a heavier front-wheel drive (FWD) vehicle and some measures need to be taken to minimize understeering. If you are not familiar with understeering, it is when the car doesn’t want to turn as much as you are telling it too. Many of you may have experienced this in other FWD vehicles over the years and know that this tends to be a universal problem. Actually, most production cars are designed to understeer from the factory for safety reasons, but it is especially prevalent in FWD cars. With a few tricks, you can make your car handle much better and minimize unwanted understeer.
The first step to achieving a great performing suspension is upgrading the rear sway bar. The CorkSport Rear Sway Bar is adjustable to help you tune your car to your driving style. By installing a stiffer rear sway bar, the car will want to lose traction in the rear first instead of the front, reducing understeer. If you go stiff enough, the car will begin to oversteer in hard corners, so we recommend starting in the outer-most position with our Rear Sway Bar. If the car feels like it’s still understeering, move the end link to a stiffer setting. If you feel like the car is oversteering too easily, move the end link to a softer position.
For the next step, the CorkSport Front Sway Bar would be a good path. Anti-Sway Bars do more than just keep the car from rolling side-to-side when cornering; they help with the weight transfer of the vehicle during a turn. Normally most of the vehicle weight wants to transfer to the outside tires, but a stiffer sway bar helps weight transfer more evenly, which means the outside tires won’t lose traction as easily. The reduced roll of the vehicle can also help increase driver confidence by improving the cornering potential of the vehicle.
With stiffer sway bars, more of the suspension load is transferred into the chassis. To combat this, extra bracing is helpful to keep the chassis rigid. CorkSport produces a great 1-Piece Front Strut Tower Bar that helps transfer the loads from the struts onto the car more evenly between the strut towers.
The CorkSport Rear Chassis Brace Set also reduces rear chassis flex by 15% which can help the stiffer sway bar in the rear by putting more force on the chassis. If you don’t want the full set you can also just get the Rear Chassis Brace that ties together the rear shock towers which will still help out greatly or you can get a CorkSport Chassis Brace to replace the stock chassis brace underneath the car which will increase the stiffness of the chassis between the Mazdaspeed 3 front and rear suspensions.
Once you have gotten to this point your chassis is well braced and your sway bars have reduced the weight transfer during cornering, but there are still a couple more things you can do. CorkSport’s newly released Lowering Springs will lower your car’s center of gravity and increase the spring rate over your stock springs. This provides a stiffer ride that will increase the handling performance of your car while still being great for the street. Not only do they add to the handling of the car, but they will also improve the look by giving your car a more aggressive stance and decreasing the gap between your wheels and fenders. Be careful not to over-lower your vehicle. While it looks good, it can negatively affect the suspension geometry by throwing off the roll center of the vehicle. The CorkSport Lowering Springs decreases the ride of your vehicle to achieve a great look while maintaining the geometry of the suspension.
After springs, upgrading the dampers would be the next suspension improvement I would recommend. CorkSport sells Coilovers for the Mazdaspeed3. These will replace your factory front struts and rear shocks and give you an adjustable rebound to help dial in your Mazda’s ride.
In this post, I have laid out a great path to making your Speed3 handle even more brilliantly than it already does, but remember, for those of you who autocross, check your rule book to see if any of these upgrades will force you to change to a faster class.
If you have any questions about these products please feel free to gives us a call or shoot us an email, we are more than happy to talk to you. Thank you for supporting CorkSport.
Back in 2009 Mazda decided to get the then new 2010 model year Mazdaspeed 3 involved in road racing in the ST class of SCCA Grand Am racing. This pitted the Mazdaspeed 3 up against VW GTIs, Kia Fortes, BMWs, Honda Civics, Porsche Boxers, and even Mazda MX-5s along with a host of others. The variety of vehicles that can compete in this class makes the field of cars immense at these events. In the recent Grand-Am 200 race, 45 different cars were represented.
The bodies of the cars competing have to remain stock in most aspects. Modifications allowed in the ST class are limited to bolt on performance items along with various suspension parts that will hold up to the rigors of road racing and all cars competing get a boost in safety with roll cages, seats, and fire suppression equipment. The tires are one size only for the Mazdaspeed 3, 225/45/17 Continental Extreme Contact Tire.
This year, there are two teams racing the Mazdaspeed 3 in the ST class, I-Moto Racing and Freedom Autosport.
I-Moto Racing has a three car team lead by the team owner Glenn Bochinno and includes past world challenge driver Pierre Kleinubing who used to drive Acuras (welcome to the darkside Pierre). Despite challenges faced due to the Grand Am making a performance adjustment resulting in a boost reduction due to a new “Altitude adjustment”, they have seen their share of successes.
Mark and Matthew Pombo finished 2nd in March at the Mazda Raceway, Laguna Seca and returned to the podium for a 3rd place finish in June after a flawless race at Road America in Elkhart Lake, WI.
Also featuring the Mazdaspeed3 in their stable is Freedom Autosport. After two full seasons in the Grand-Am Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge campaigning Mazda MX-5’s, Freedom Autosport added two Mazdaspeed 3 teams driven by Jason Saini and Nick Igdalsky in one car and Eric Foss and Brad Rampleberg in the other. Brad Rampelberg and Eric Foss gave the team their first podium for the speed3 during the B+ Foundation Heroes 200 at New Jersey Motorsports Park on July 23rd. The third place finish came after the car underwent a complete overhaul in just a week’s time by the Freedom Autosports crew
Mazda looks to have the Manufacturers championship wrapped up with one more event left to go at the Emco Gears Classic at mid-ohio on Sept 16th. The race will be televised on Sep 25th at 12:00 pm EST so be sure to check out the race.
Derrick-
Roadracing Around in Mazdaspeed 3’s September 13th, 2018CorkSport
Be careful not to over-lower your vehicle. While it looks good, it can negatively affect the suspension geometry by throwing off the roll center of the vehicle. The 
