Time for our July face-off to see who will become CorkSportโs next featured car of the month!
This month it is really going to come down to looks and current mods because we have two evenly matched competitors with Tommy Taberskiโs 2010 Mazdaspeed 3 and Mark Kennedyโs 2010 Mazdaspeed 3.
Tommy has been building up his speed3 choosing to do a cold air intake over the short ram, adding a little suspension tuning with a front tower bar and upgrading his brakes with slotted front and rear brake rotors. His most recent additions include a CorkSport Cat Back Exhaust and Racepipe for some go fast power.
It’s anyones guess who will win this monthโs honored award. Let us know by voting today on Facebook, Twitter, or commenting on this post!
Gwynne-
Vote for July’s Featured Car of the Month! September 13th, 2018Derrick Ambrose
By replacing your stock camber arms with the CorkSport Adjustable Camber Arms, you will be able to adjust your suspension to accommodate for lowering springs or coilovers and fine tune your Mazda or Mazdaspeed to the appropriate camber setting needed to balance uneven tire wear and improve cornering performance.
The CorkSport Mazda and Mazdaspeed Adjustable Rear Camber Arms are made from reinforced high strength extruded bent steel tubing that is stronger, less brittle, and more durable than aluminum. The adjustability provides precision tuning by allowing for +/- 5 degrees of camber adjustment and can be easily adjusted while installed on the vehicle using just a wrench.
Unlike other adjustable camber arm options on the market, CorkSportโs unique design includes spherical bearings that replace the soft rubber bushings on the OEM camber arms, providing a true attachment to the suspension of the vehicle for improved handling and road feel.
โThe CorkSport Rear Camber Arms allow you to fine tune your camber to exacting settings.โ said CorkSport Engineer, Brydon Foster, โThe ease of adjustability and the unique nature of the spherical bearings will provide customers with improved cornering control that canโt be outmatched by any other options on the market today.โ
Much to my delight, when I signed up for the SCCA Super Tour National Races at Portland International Raceway on July 13th though 15th, there was another B-Spec car registered to race against! My competition was a 2009 Honda Fit who was on the track for the first time over the weekend.
On Sunday afternoon the race between our B-Spec cars went off with a bang. By the first turn, all of the cars in the run group had passed the lowest horsepower car, the Mazda 2. I wasnโt too concerned though, there was still 35 minutes of racing to catch back up to the Fit.
Within three laps I had caught up with the Fit and started looking for spots where I was performing better than him. There were several spots where the 2 really out performs:
1) Braking. I was hitting my brakes about 100 feet later off the front straight and on the back straight allowing me to gain a little bit of distance back on him lap after lap.
2) Corners. Corners 4 through 7, where power isnโt as much of a factor and handling is, the Mazda2 excelled.
The Fit has more power than a Mazda 2, which you could really notice on the straights as it slowly started pulling away. By late braking as much as possible and using the entire track (and parts off the track too), I was able to pass the Fit on lap 7 by jumping him on the apex and late braking, forcing him out a little further to gain the lead.
Eight laps later, after nose to tail driving between both cars, the Fit was able to pass me up on the straight before the chicane to regain the lead.
After going back and forth for several more laps I was able to get along side of the Fit in the chicane. The Fit didnโt see me on the inside of the lane and I was forced to do some โoff roadingโ. After getting back on the track behind the Fit I found the wheeling had caused the front pads to loosen up a bit which made slowing down into the next corner more exciting!
I got past the Fit on corner 7 again and led for six more laps. With one lap to go, the Fit drafted me and was able to get a good run and out brake me into the chicane. I stayed as close as I could to the Fit so I would be in position to pass again in turn 7.
One of the faster cars in the group, a Honda s2000, caught up to us just before turn 7 and dropped between us. I was cut-off from going through the corner and getting the lead. I could have tried but it would have resulted in a three car wreck. This gave the Fit a little bit of a gap between us on the back straight that I was unable to close. The Honda Fit was able to hold me off for the final two miles for a 0.480-second BFGoodrich Tires Super Tour win.
I may not have won this time, but I will have my revenge when we meet next. He may have won this battle, but the war is far from over.
Mazda already confirmed the redesigned Mazda 6 sedan will be making its debut at the 2012 Paris Auto Show this fall, but has said little about the new wagon model.
Last week however, the company provided us with a first look at the new Mazda 6 wagon that has been kept well under wraps by the Japanese automaker and is now expected to debut at the Moscow Motor Show at the end of August.
Photos, courtesy of Car Advice, show a design inspired by the Takeri concept that has little in common with the current model. It includes a new bigger grille and swept back headlights that give it a more aggressive feel.
The tighter window line adds to the sportiness of the vehicle and the previously mostly clear tail lights have been upgraded with slimmer, dark red fixtures.
The interior center console looks similar to the CX-5 touring package or upgraded sport package that includes the large color touch screen monitor with built in navigation and blue tooth enabled audio package.
The Mazda 6 will be equipped with the new SkyActiv technology and will also include the new i-ELOOP regenerative braking system, which Mazda says will improve fuel economy by 10%.
There have not been any sightings of the sedan as of yet, but Mazda did provide a little glimpse in a video they posted to YouTube on July 10th. The 21 second video definitely leaves you wanting to see more.
One thing is quite evident from this short clip though; this model is shaping up to be something spectacular!
Gwynne-
Mazda 6 Wagon Redesign Sneak Peek February 25th, 2019Derrick Ambrose
There are many features and design elements that can be incorporated into coilovers so when CorkSport decided to design new coilovers for the Mazda 3 and Mazdaspeed 3 we had to come up with priorities. We asked the Mazda community what features they wanted to see incorporated and what we came up with and will be releasing in the near future fulfills all of those wants and needs at a competitive price.
You told us you wanted inverted struts. We decided on a 45mm inverted strut body for the fronts and traditional strut bodies for the rear. There are some huge advantages to inverted struts. Inverted refers to a strut that is built upside down. The shaft that moves actually holds the gas or oil in some cases. Traditionally this is held in the lower section of the strut and moved up and down as the control arm moved up and down. The first huge advantage of inverted struts is the unsprung weight. This refers to the weight that your suspension holds. If the weight is on a portion of the suspension that moves this is referred to as sprung weight which we limited by moving the factory oil and strut body to a hard-mounted body position so the only weight that has to move is a hollow body.
The second advantage of inverted struts is side loading. With Macpherson-style struts in the front, your suspension is literally held together by the strut. By increasing the surface area on the strut tubes we increased the rigidly of the structure to make a more stable suspension, which is great if you like a good autocross day, track day or a drive through the twisties.
The rear of the Mazdaspeed 3 and Mazda 3 uses a multilink suspension meaning the rear is tied together in a way that the suspension doesnโt hold any load. There was little need to go to an inverted strut in the rear so we decided against it.
For those of you out there that need data, we have what you want.
If you have ever tried to dig up data on coilovers, you may have found that it was hard to actually get the compression and rebound on the settings. Now I am not sure if this is because it is a tightly guarded secret or most companies just don’t fully test their struts before sending them out, but we wanted to make sure that ours would be the best option on the market and outlast the factory struts in every way so we tested all of the struts for rebound and compression on professional tooling.
The data below breaks down rebound and compression into six twists of the dampener knob. They are 15-way adjustable but by showing the six major steps the data is a little easier to absorb. Now you can have the important data that no one else seems to want to share.
Another important part about choosing coilovers is comfort. Yes, they will be stiffer than stock but there are ways to limit the stiffness so that the system is not undrivable on harsh roads.
Up front, we added helper springs to make those little bumps and potholes take less impact on your vehicle. It can also save those nice wheels from bends and dings. The 15-way adjustable front and rear also help. With easy adjustment, you can go soft for the weekdays and stiffer for the weekends. You can also combine dampening and swaybar adjustments to make that perfect combination for your driving habits.
After you really get comfortable with the adjustments you can start changing end link preload, sway bar adjustment, strut dampening, camber settings, and toe settings.
In January, CorkSport released the front camber kit for the Mazdaspeed 3. Aside from the obvious ability to change camber, these camber plates have a lot of advantages over the factory camber plates so we decided to incorporate these into our coilover design. Using thick machined aluminum, high-grade bolts and tightly machined plates and bearings they will hold up to almost all abuse. They also get rid of the unwanted flex in the factory rubber mounts.
Now that we have covered the front coilovers we can learn a little about the rears. Because the system is a multilink rear suspension we have a separate spring and shock combo. In order to again have great ride quality with great handling we went with a progressive spring. In order to have ride height adjustability, we produced an adjustment device for the spring that is easily adjusted with an Allen wrench from the bottom of the spring.
The rear shocks are 15-way adjustable just like the fronts and can be adjusted in length to match any setup of the coilover springs. We have also accommodated for the differences between the Gen1 and Gen2 struts so everyone can enjoy these coilovers. For those people who like a little more camber in the rear, you donโt have to worry because we are currently in the development of camber adjusters for the rear.
Even at the lowest settings, we were able to dial camber into factory spec but some of us like more adjustments to their suspension settings. Soon CorkSport will release our camber adjustments for the rear. There will be another blog on camber coming soon.
We are in the final stages of testing on the coilovers and will be announcing the release soon! To be included on our pre-release list for advance information on this product.
CorkSport Coilover Development Process May 31st, 2023Derrick Ambrose