Category: Dyno

We have an in house dyno which we use to develop our Mazda performance products with. All power products are on the dyno to validate designs and theories.

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CorkSport Prepares for Battle… Again

So after a long 5 month break it is time to get the CorkSport Mazda 2 and the driver prepped for track abuse again for the 2013 season.

For the Mazda 2 it is pretty easy to take care of being it is a relatively stock car still.  Going over the car to check out the bushings, tire rod ends, and the whole chassis to make sure nothing is in need of replacement turned up zero items this year.  There are only a few non stock components which we gave an extra once over to make sure they are up to spec as well.  The brakes got a really close inspection being that take a huge amount of abuse on the track.  The stock rotors and CorkSport pads are still in good shape so only a brake bleed was on the menu for work.  With the car getting  a clean bill of health it is time to move on to other things.

CorkSport Mazda 2 B Spec race car

 

The next item on the list is to get the Mazda 2 through its annual tech inspection with the SCCA.  The inspection covers the safety gear of the car and the driver to make sure nothing has expired in the off season.  With our car being built last year the seat, harnesses, and other safety gear in the car passed the inspection with flying colors.   They also check the drivers helmet, HANS (head and neck) device and drivers suit to make sure they are suitable.

During the off season our Mazda 2 has been a test mule for several parts which resulted in the suspension being removed from the car and re-installed several times.  This has left the suspension out of spec for road racing which required a re-alignment.  Thanks to a lifetime alignment at the local Firestone we had everything dialed back it to what we wanted with the -1.5 degrees of front camber and correct toe settings.

CorkSport Mazda 2 on dyno

One last thing which we needed to do was go over the rule book to make sure there were no surprises for the new year which I did not find.

In the title I mentioned prepping the driver for the new year.  Racing is a demanding sport and there wasn’t a trip out on the track where I didn’t come into the pits sweating.  Being in good shape requires some out of the car effort which I put in over the off season.  Starting in November at roughly 185 lbs I started training daily with cardio to do two things.  First was to get my heart into great shape and second was to assist in weight loss.  Over the past 3 months I have dropped to a low weight of 158lbs and lowered my body fat to roughly 12.5%.  With the cardio work along with other training and change of diet I am in the best shape I have ever been in my life to attack the next season of racing.
We will see how the prep for the car and the driver pays off during the next season of racing.  We will be posting updates as the season progresses.

 

-Derrick

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Dyno Differences and Understandings

It’s not everyday you get a dyno. Not all dynos are created equal and not all dynos read the same. After a little bit of research we decided on a Dynotech, a widely recognized chassis dynamometer. Dynotech uses a large drum of mass to measure the amount of force a car can exert on it. It takes this information and calculates the horsepower and torque of the vehicle. In order to do this calculation it also needs a tach signal. The reason for this is that the calculation is a relationship at given rpms. (HP = Torque x RPM ÷ 5252)

The true torque of a motor can only be seen at the engine as torque is a relationship of distance from the center line of the crankshaft. If the transmission was truly 1:1 you could measure this at the wheels but since most transmissions have no gears that are exactly 1:1, we chose a gear that is close to 1:1. This gear is generally 3rd or 4th. As an example the mazdaspeed 3 uses gearing of 1st 3.21, 2nd 1.91, 3rd 1.37, 4th 1.03, 5th 0.95, 6th 0.79. As you can see 4th gear is the closest to 1:1.

Dynojet

The dyno dynamics dyno we chose uses an electromagnetic force to measure power. This makes the unit smaller and more portable. It also makes the dyno able to change loads. You can literally apply a certain load and very the rpms or very the load and keep the same rpm. This is great for load based tuning and limits the need for a “Road Tune” as you can create real life conditions on a dyno.

The downfall of the dyno dynamics is that it is often called a heart breaker dyno. The actual reported numbers are some of the lowest numbers out of any dyno. This fact makes it important to understand that increases in power should always be measured in percentages. That way when you compare numbers, the percentage gained should be about the same while the increase in actual value might be less. You can see this below in the graphs.

Dyno Chart

The lower powers are with a stock Mazdaspeed3 and the higher values are with the exact same mods. The left dynojet graph shows a 30hp difference at one point . This is about a 14% increase in power. If you dyno the same modifications on the dyno dynamics and you see about 25hp difference which is also a 14% difference. Even though the dynos show a 5hp peak difference we know the modifications increased the same amount of power. This is shown in the percentage difference. Horsepower numbers can be shown to be a higher value but the percentage should always be similar. A point not missed when we recently dyno’ed a mazdaspeed3 that made almost 700whp (~+206%) on a dynojet but 580whp (~+204%) on our dyno dynamics. The percentage change was the same but peak difference was massive.

With the power of our new dyno literally at our fingertips, we have complete control over the test and the demands placed on the vehicle. Utilizing the dynotech software will allow us to evaluate the entire drive-train condition for the purpose of all-out performance development. Stay tuned for more rock solid, well engineered products that will take your Mazda to the next level.

Brydon-