Keeping you up to date with the latest CorkSport Mazdaspeed news!
Category: RX8
The Rx8 is a great handling car which has seen lots of success in motorsports. They have some quirks like cold starts but are excellent performers on the track.
On Friday the 29th I drove up to the Taco7 meeting in Federal Way, Washington to hang out with fellow rotary nuts for the evening. There was a good range of rotary power represented at the meeting despite the cold weather and rain. Unfortunately I was not able to bring any rotary power myself so I drove the CorkSport 2010 Mazdaspeed 3 instead, which worked out better for a customer who was getting his CorkSport header, racepipe, and cat back exhaust delivered. One of the cool things I saw at the event was a set of 1st gen RX-7 Re-Amemiya mirrors wit the built in air guide. It was the first time I had ever seen a set, and I’ve seen a lot of rare parts! There were several good looking RX-8s at the meet as well, including the one below which had the AutoExe brace sets installed. I love the way those braces look.
It was great getting to hang out with a bunch of rotary fans, if you own a rotary powered vehicle, you should come to the next Taco7 meet!
Our first day at the SEMA show went really well – the show hasn’t officially opened yet, but there was a full day of seminars covering a bevy of product development related topics. Most of the show cars are all in place and we ran across a few Mazdas in the bunch, and had some time to chat with their owners.
Most of the seminars were related to marketing and other customer facing activities and we took a lot away from these. We also had some time to chat with the SEMA Tech Transfer team that provides a variety of Computer Aided Design (CAD) data connections between OEM manufacturers and automotive aftermarket specialists. With connections of programs like this and other efforts, we could cut our time to market substantially and also prototype a lot of new systems without a major up front fabrication investment. Modifications that rely on surface data (dashboard, fender and headlight geometry) can be designed entirely in the computer and rapid prototyped for short run evaluation and product qualification without investing in any hard tooling.
One of the Mazdas we saw today stood out among the others- a 1st Gen Mazda3 Sedan owned by Jeremiah of International All Stars featured a two tone finished Cosworth Focus Short Ram Intake Manifold and an F2 Turbo Kit. As with a lot of cars that show up to SEMA, adding finishing touches at the last minute is almost expected – and when we left tonight, Jeremiah was modifying the front grille to show off the front mount intercooler and was working with the guys at Cosworth to get some further visibility of their product on his car. We’ll try to put a video up of Jeremiah’s car tomorrow – gotta find our USBa to USBmini cable.
Beyond that we’re certainly having a good amount of fun here in Vegas. Chris Tran, has come out of his retirement as our former shipping guy and narrowly avoided getting beat up by a group of high school girls last night.
We attended Sevenstock XII down in sunny Irvine, California on September 26th for a fun day of Mazda rotary-powered goodness. The event was held at Mazda’s headquarters which has plenty of parking and provides a great backdrop for the biggest rotary event in the world. As you can see below, when we arrived we were greeted with a reminder of what Mazda is all about.
There was plenty of Mazda’s favorite catch phrase on display at the event. Row after row of rotary powered vehicles were in the parking lot, and the enthusiasts who drove them there could be found wandering around taking it all in. The people in charge told us that there were more cars at this year’s event than there had been at any previous Sevenstock.
Sevenstock always has people who had travel long distance to reach the show, but this year we saw some people who travelled especially far. RE-Amemiya and Knightsports flew in from Japan to get more acquainted with US rotary fans, and hopefully spread the word about their parts. We drove 1000 miles to setup a booth at the event and show off some of CorkSport’s new parts for rotary vehicles. A lucky RX-8 owner won the newly released CorkSport RX-8 Racepipe we donated to the Sevenstock raffle.
There were some really outstanding cars at the event. I particularly liked the white FD below with the 99 spec front end conversion installed. The car even had a rare Mazdaspeed vented hood.
In my opinion, the best sounding engine at the event was a 4-rotor in the time attack RX-8. The best way to describe a 4 rotor engine sound to someone who has not heard one is that it’s like an F1 engine only better. The motor has wicked fast throttle response and took maybe a second to redline while free revving.
It was great getting to talk to everyone at the event and chatting with customers about their cars. I look forward to next year’s event to see great cars and great people again. If you have the means, please stop by our booth at any of the shows we attend!
We had our swap meet and dyno day on Saturday the 19th. The weather for the day was pretty ominous with rain forecasted from early morning to around noon and it was right on. At 6am the rain started up but that didn’t stop us from getting the event going.
10am with the rain coming down
Alan Webb Mazda showed up at the event early and brought along some parts to sell at a discount and a new 2010 Mazdaspeed 3 to show off. We had the swap meet spaces in doors to keep people dry during the entire day. There were lots of good deals to be had at the event that we offered and other people brought as well.
People checking out the deals (including the sweet RE-Amemiya MS3 hood)
We had almost the entire Mazda range of models represented at the event. All models of Rx7s, Rx8s, Mazda Proteges (new and older models), Miatas, Mazda 6s, and Mazda 3s.
Scott’s FC with the drift damage can be seen at the right (Scott too)
The dyno event had 20 cars on run on it during the day. The best power made was a NB Miata with a GT3076R turbocharger at 400 wheel hp. The car is very un-assuming until the driver hits the throttle.
The biggest dyno number of the day went to the red Miata above.
The day even had a few surprises in it too. The 1st gen Rx7 after its dyno run drove around the parking lot and the tie rod end broke. After a quick assessment and help from CorkSport the tie rod end was repaired and the car was back on 4 wheels. Thankfully it happened in our parking lot and not on his drive home.
Oh Snap!
Thank you to everyone for coming out and making the event despite the not so pleasant weather early in the day. I would like to mention a special thanks to Alan Webb Mazda for braving the weather and to MazdasNW group for driving down from the Seattle area.
The last week has been a lot of fun here at Corksport. We have been working on developing a cure for High Decibel Situational Tourettes Syndrome, which effects a certain percentage of enthusiasts who run a non resonated racepipe in their RX-8.
Our latest solution is a dual resonated Power Series Racepipe for the ’04-’10 RX-8. Incorporating a 140mm primary resonator and a 100mm secondary resonator with 61mm exhaust tubing, the resonated racepipe improves exhaust flow dramatically while keeping the decibels at a level reasonable enough to avoid spontaneous profanity from drivers and spectators alike. Think your racepipe is too loud? Check out this video clip of the Power Series Dual Resonated Racepipe and with Power Series Cat-Back Exhaust on our ’04 RX-8 and let us know what you think:
Like all of our Power Series exhaust products, the Dual Resonated Racepipe for the RX-8 incorporates only the highest quality materials and manufacturing methods. Featuring T304 stainless mandrel bent tubing, stainless oxygen sensor fittings (one for the stock oxygen sensor and a secondary unit for the use of a Wideband O2 monitoring & datalogging system), T304 resonators and flanges. All connections are TIG welded with 308 stainless rod to ensure good weld penetration and attractive finish on the weld bead. We’re hoping to get a handful of these systems out on the street in the next month and we’ll keep you posted as soon as they’re available to the public.
We’re also entertaining the possibility of incorporating a high flow catalyst into the system to keep emissions to a minimum. This will be a 108mm spun metallic substrate catalyst replacing the secondary resonator. If this is something that would interest you, let me know by dropping me an email.
Next week: Short Ram Intake Cold Air Box Performance Results & Analysis for the Mazdaspeed 3 and 6.
