It really doesn’t feel like 20 years since the Miata was introduced by Mazda back in 1989. I remember the first time I saw one of them. I was on a family vacation to Canada riding bicycles on Vancouver Island in British Columbia and I saw one in a parking lot. It made me stop and go “Wow, that’s a Mazda?” I was still in high school at the time and my only experiences with Mazda were older RX-7s and getting rides to school on snowy days in a 323GTX.
Now, 20 years have past and Mazda is offering a special anniversary edition of the MX-5 (called a Roadster) in Japan. The car is going to be offered with either a power retractable hardtop or a soft top, in special all white paint. The car is equipped with Bilsteins shocks, “20th Anniversary” badges, and heated red Recaro seats with suede inserts, which can be seen below. Some of the optional equipment available are the Bose Audiopilot system and multi-spoke BBS wheels.
My only hope is that North America gets the special edition MX-5 as well. Look at the following the 10th anniversary RX-7 received back in 1988, they are still one of the RX-7s to own for the 86-91 models if you are a die hard collector. If the 20th anniversary model MX-5 makes it here I am sure it will sell out.
For years there have been rumors that the next RX-7 is being developed by Mazda, but thus far none of the rumors have panned out to a vehicle. Recent news reports from multiple sources indicate that the RX-7 will be built, and available as early as the 2012 model year. It will be powered by the 16X rotary engine which Mazda has had in development for the last several years but has been quiet about recently. I cannot say for sure if this time is any different than the last for the new RX-7 really going into production, so why not throw it out there? A little healthy speculation never hurt anyone.
The big question for me is what will the RX-7 look like? The picture at the top is the probably the most likely candidate. There have been lots of pictures circulating over the last few years, the most prevalent being like the few below which show multiple angles of the car.
If this is truly it, you can see some of the RX-8 styling carrying over into the new RX-7 and several of the new looks. The raised wheel arches in the front fenders are still there as is the rotor shaped bulge in the center of the hood. The bad news is that the RX-8 would most likely get cut from the lineup. With Mazda having the MX-5 available I don’t see them keeping 3 sports cars in their model range. I expect Mazda to show off a pre-production model later in 2010 when they get closer to officially announcing the car.
P.S. – There are also rumors flying around that the pictures of the black car are fakes, but the resolution it too low to get a real close up view in order to confirm or deny it.
2012 RX-7, The Beast is Back! January 6th, 2010Derrick Ambrose
I keep going back to the past experiences of cars I have owned, and thinking of cars I would like to own. Speaking of a car I want to own, the Mazda 2 it has been officially released, down in California at the LA Auto Show. I am really pumped about this car. Sure, we are getting the Mazda 2 four years after the rest of the planet, but hey better late than never in my opinion.
We are getting the “face lifted” version of the car (shown above) here in North America. The top of the line model will probably come with a 1.5L or 1.6L engine; Mazda has not released that information yet. My guess is that we might get the new SKY engines Mazda has been working on.
The size of the Mazda 2 is pretty close to the old BF chassis 323s. The same thing goes for power output, fuel economy, and versatility which will make for a fun package to drive (and modify). I already have visions in my head of a fully built 1.6 engine with a complete pile of CorkSport parts on it. It will take a little bit of time to get everything developed, but I know I am patient enough. Heck I’ve already been waiting years for the Mazda 2, what’s another few months for some performance parts?
A funny design idea I had after seeing the green car was to get one and add Mt Dew decals, and get the sort of urban Mt Dew camouflage like the current can design (seen below). Mix it up with some graphic designs and come out with a truly unique car to hit the streets with.
At the LA auto show they also had a few show versions of the Mazda 2 including a sport version with an aggressively styled body kit and lowered (see below) labeled “2evil”. The whole package looks good for a sport model. Some journalists had tossed around the “Mazdaspeed 2” name for the model but I personally think this is just a concept show car.
One thing for sure is I plan on having some fun with the Mazda 2 once I get mine. What do you guys think? Anyone else as excited as I am?
The most frequent question we get on any of our products for newer vehicles is ‘How will the installation of this part effect or compromise my vehicle’s factory warranty?’. Our parts have seen a lot of mileage and a lot of trips to the dealership and we have seen a lot of different scenarios as it relates to factory warranty claims. The bottom line is -your experience all depends on your dealership, and different dealerships have different attitudes when it comes to aftermarket parts. We have seen dealerships do factory warranty replacements for Turbocharged Mazdaspeed engines and put our downpipe and intakes right back on the car when they’re finished without batting an eye. We’ve also seen other dealerships just take a single look at a car with a full turboback exhaust, intake and front mount intercooler and cry ‘void.’
Anecdotal evidence and your experience with the dealership process aside, the bottom line is the law. In this case, the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act is the end all -be all when it comes to aftermarket parts on a factory warranty car. This act requires that there is substantial evidence by the party offering the warranty to link the warranty claim to some cause of the modification prior to denying a claim to the warranty -meaning if you put an intake on your Mazda3 and your oil pump fails, the manufacturer needs to be able to tell you how that the addition of the intake was the actual cause of the failure of the pump. What this means from the anecdotal perspective is all those ‘boy who cried wolf’ episodes of dealers seeing a Peterbilt intercooler on the front of a Speed6 and screaming ‘VOID!’ are nothing but posturing and are in effect an illegal violation of the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act. Especially when these posturing episodes are not even linked to a warranty claim in the first place.
But hey, if you come in with a hole the size of Alaska in your #2 piston and a giant slice out of the block when your connecting rod took a vacation from its duties at 7000rpm and you have a manual boost controller installed or have obviously forgotten to connect the boost control solenoid line and were running 26psi of scalding hot boost, you’re going to be in for an uphill battle. Further investigation and pressing your dealer in such a situation to provide the connection between the modification and the warranty claim to show causal relationship between the modification and warranty claim will generally motivate higher degrees of cooperation. Some of the links at the end of this blog post will give you further information on contesting warranty claims and the unique options that the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act provides for mediation of these disputes -they’re very consumer friendly methods of resolution.
The best thing to do to prevent heartache and investment of unnecessary time and effort is to find a local servicing dealership who is amicable to the addition of bolt on parts for your car. Many dealerships sell aftermarket equipment in their parts departments. We even have a number of Mazda dealerships who are regular customers of ours and install our parts for their customers. It is really in the best interest of any dealership to make their customers see the car they have purchased as custom and their own, and most dealerships realize this and do their best to take advantage of the opportunity. Some ways that you can find the best dealerships in your area are to ask around on local and national enthusiast forums like https://www.mazdas247.com or https://www.mazda3forums.com and other more regional (like our own local https://www.mazdasnw.com) and model specific forums for your area and model of car. Often times these forums have permanently linked threads discussing reviews of shops and dealerships for their members.
For futher information on the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act, you can read up on it in a few articles linked below:
Hopefully this information provides you with the peace of mind necessary to make decisions on which modifications you’d like to accomplish on your vehicle and the confidence you need to work with your dealer if they have any issues with the choices you have made in customizing your vehicle.
All of the FACTS aside, it’s important to remember that whichever dealership you choose, your professionalism and courtesy toward their concerns will go a long way in garnering a decent amount of mutual respect. Treat your parts and service guys and gals right and they will take care of you. Whether it’s just a smile and friendly conversation to establish a relationship with the people who work on your car or a box of Krispy Kreme donuts*, the respect you show to your dealership should be commensurate to the amount of respect and cooperation you would expect from them. They work hard to keep your car in tip-top shape and a lot of times I think their work is taken for granted -but if they know you’re not one of the people who’ll only talk to them when your dissatisfied, they’ll go the extra mile for you.
There are a lot of factors that go into purchasing any part for your car, and a turbo inlet pipe is no different. With a wide variety of materials and configurations on the market, it can be a difficult decision.
I think the major discerning differences between metal and silicone are that silicone is an insulator, which is why there are claims that the silicone is a) quieter and b) less prone to heat soak. I’m not sure if a) is true to a consequential amount, haven’t done a dB comparison by any means…but I seriously doubt that b) is true either. All materials have thermal properties, all materials transmit thermal mass at different rates. You can deduce all sorts of theories as to how this effects the boost air temps, but I really doubt that there is any discernible power output or boost air temp difference between a silicone, aluminum or stainless inlet pipe from one pull to the next. These vehicles push enough air to fill an office cubicle through that pipe in the span of under a minute. Then they run that air into a turbocharger that superheats the air. It takes 3 degrees of inlet air temperature change to result in one degree of boost air temperature change with a stock intercooler based on thermocouple datalogging that I’ve done on a number of different cars (Speed6’s and 3’s). With air traveling through a tube at insane velocities (like lets say…60 meters per second…or better yet 134 miles per hour), I find it hard to believe that there is any major detriment to having the turbo inlet pipe made of a more thermally conductive material than another.
The reason you buy the pipe is so you get rid of the stock pipe, which sports an oh so stylish, effectively square profile that changes cross sectional area erratically and is made of plastic which is also pretty thermally benign. But that’s not where the power or quickening of spool up happens when you add the inlet -it’s the flow of the air and the smooth transition from the intake to your turbo that you want to optimize. Simple as that.
If it were my car, I’d get one that a) works reliably, b) has quality construction and c) has a reasonable price tag. I can’t point out any on the market that fail a) or b)…all are excellent from what I have seen. Ours is ~$120….because designing and manufacturing any piece of tubing and/or silicone doesn’t cost much. Period. It’s a pipe. Every turbo inlet pipe on the market is a pipe -with three pipes in factory locations connecting into it. A few have factory like brackets that attach to the valvecover, some don’t. Some are aluminum (CorkSport and RPMC), some are stainless (Protege Garage), some are silicone. They all do the same thing.
Our system certainly gives you a few options that you should be familiar with when purchasing . But the first thing to remark on is -our intake includes these parts. If you’re in the market for an intake, this information is of benefit to you, but if you really want a good deal on all of these bits, grab our Power Series Short Ram Intake for your MS3 or MS6 or CX-7.
So back to the configurable differences if you already own an intake and want to get a turbo inlet pipe to match. Our turbo inlet pipes have a few toggles: Valvecover breather (yes/no) and Recirculation Valve Port (yes/no). The valvecover breather is almost completely unnecessary if you have an aftermarket intake that is not made by us -as most intakes include this provision in the CAI pipe or the coupler. So that’s almost always going to be a ‘no’ unless there’s some other reason why you want an external intake vacuum source to plug into (catch can, etc). The other is the recirculation valve. If you have chosen to do a strictly vent to atmosphere configuration on your bypass valve (not necessarily recommended), you can choose this option and clean up your engine bay a bit.
The final dial on these is the silicone color – for the silicone coupler between the turbo and inlet pipe, as well as the valvecover breather and boost control solenoid lines. These are available in Red, Blue and Black. Finally, in the near future we will be offering one or more powdercoating options starting with black.
