Tag: 2018 Mazda6

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Mazda 6 Turbo Lowering Springs Release!

2018+ Mazda 6 Lowering Springs

We at CorkSport are happy to introduce the Sport Lowering Springs for 2018+ Mazda 6 equipped with the 2.5L turbocharged engine. In our last post, we talked about the height, handling, and quality of our new springs. If you haven’t seen it, check it out HERE. Today we’ll cover how we tested the ride quality and go a step further to talk about damping and natural frequency. I’m going to warn you now; this gets a little bit complicated, but we’re happy to answer any questions you may have.

Spring Damping

Let’s start with a basic example–your car hits a bump that compresses the spring. It “springs” back to its normal length. In a perfect world with no friction or damping, the springs in your suspension would keep bouncing up and down forever, this is called oscillation. Add back in dampening and friction, and the spring will settle out to its normal length pretty quickly. How different strengths of damping affect the “oscillation” can be seen in the graph below.

Spring damping graph
Spring damping example.

The car has hit the bump at the bottom left of the graph. As time goes by, you can see the spring expand and compress, and so on. The Greek letter is not important but what is important is the numbers. When it is 0 (black line) the spring compresses and expands over and over to the same height. As the number increases, you can see that the spring returns to its normal length faster until it gets too large and overpowers the spring (dark blue line). For a car, the 0.4 to 1 range is ideal as there is minimal “bouncing” without having too high of damping.

What does all this mean though? Let’s say from the factory the car is in the 0.7 range (orange line). If we went to a drastically stiffer spring but kept the OEM dampers, we may end up in the 0.2 range (light blue line), which would be uncomfortable due to all the bouncing every time you hit a bump. The CorkSport front and rear spring rates chosen are small enough of a change to fit well with the OEM damping, ensuring no bouncing.

Stock 2018 Mazda 6 and CorkSport Modified Mazda 6
Stock height vs. CorkSport Springs

Natural Frequency Analysis

To go along with this, we did some natural frequency analysis. Natural frequency simplified is how quickly the suspension responds to a bump. The higher the natural frequency, the harsher the ride in a car is. Most “regular” production cars sit in a 1.0-1.6 Hertz (Hz) range for a comfortable ride. Sports cars are usually in the 1.6-2.3Hz range. Full race cars are usually 2.3-3.0 or even higher. An average person will start thinking a ride is stiff/harsh at around 2.0-2.2Hz. Using a special app that ties into the accelerometers of a cell phone we can approximately measure the frequency of a specific suspension setup. With stock suspension on the Mazda 6 2.5T, this yielded ~1.4Hz front and ~1.7Hz rear.

With a stiffer spring, these frequencies will increase, but we wanted to be sure to only increase them slightly, to not severely affect comfort. We went through a few different combinations to get our ideal result. Our final setup ended up at ~1.5Hz front and ~1.85Hz rear. This is enough to notice the suspension feels “sportier” without riding harshly.

2018+ Mazda 6 Roller Shot with lowering springs

There is one other big thing to highlight with frequency. Notice that both the OEM and CorkSport lowering springs have a higher rear natural frequency than front. If your natural frequency front to back is close to equal, the car has a tendency to “pitch” front to back over bumps. Since your rear tires hit the bump slightly later than the fronts, to have a comfortable ride the rear suspension has to “catch up” to the fronts to prevent this pitching back and forth. If a frequency is too much higher in the rear, it can be too fast for the fronts and cause the same pitching issue.

Natural frequency was always on our minds when designing the CS springs and we tested a bunch of different combinations to determine the optimum balance of ride and handling.

That about does it for the Mazda 6 2.5T Sport Lowering Springs. Be sure to let us know if you have any questions-suspension is hard, even for us! Lastly, be sure to share your MZ6T with us by using #CorkSport.

-Daniel @ CorkSport

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2018+ Mazda 6 Turbo Lowering Springs

2018 Mazda 6 on CorkSport Lowering Springs

We at CorkSport are happy to introduce the Sport Lowering Springs for 2018+ Mazda 6 equipped with the 2.5L turbocharged engine. We took a fresh approach to spring design to offer you the best combination of style, ride quality, and handling in a package that fits just like OEM. The new Mazda 6 looks great, but a functional drop gives it just what it needs to look even better. Combine this with the new handling characteristics and your MZ6 2.5T transforms from a fun grocery-getter to something you can actually enjoy on backroads.

Mazda 6 2.5T CorkSport Lowering Springs
2018+ Mazda 6 2.5T CorkSport Lowering Springs

Mazda 6 Ride Height

Let’s start off with the big one: ride height changes. These springs offer a conservative drop from the stock springs with about 1 inch lower in the front and about 0.75 inches lower in the rear. We chose this height as it offers a great new look without sacrificing any of the daily drivability of the Mazda6. This height clears the typical driveway with no issues, and retains plenty of suspension travel, even when fully loaded with 5 adults and weight in the trunk. Check out the image below for a direct comparison to a fully stock MZ6.

Lowered 2018 Mazda 6 vs. Stock Mazda 6
Black: Stock Springs Red: CorkSport Lowering Springs

Improved Handling

The height drop will be noticed when you’re outside the car, but the handling improvements will be apparent when driving. By lowering the center of gravity and stiffening the springs, body roll is reduced in corners, giving you extra confidence when attacking that backroad. In addition, we stiffened the rear springs more than the fronts, reducing understeer. By number, this meant 3.8K front springs (25% stiffer than OEM) and 7.3K rear springs (45% stiffer than OEM). Derrick, our resident racecar driver and Mazda 6 Turbo owner, loves the new setup.

2018 Mazda 6 on CorkSport Springs

While this may sound like a big jump, they ride similarly to the OEM springs. We used a natural frequency analysis to ensure we achieved comfortable characteristics over bumps. Read the last half of this blog for more info on what that means (it’s complicated but awesome). Part of the great ride is the OEM dampers (shocks and struts). The spring rates we chose fit well with the stock shocks and struts to prevent any bounciness, plus, the conservative drop ensures you are in the normal operating range of the dampers. This means no prematurely worn shocks/struts due to springs that are too low.

Lowered MZ6T

Material Quality

Last but not least, the CS Mazda 6 Sport Lowering Springs are made from high tensile strength spring steel and come powder coated in an OEM style black for long-lasting quality and corrosion resistance. They install just like stock, reusing all your OEM components. The only permanent modification is trimming the bump stops to match OEM suspension travel.

Be sure to check out the product listing for more images, a product video with more comparisons to OEM, and pricing. Make your new Mazda 6 yours with just the right styling and handling boost from CorkSport.

That about does it for the Mazda 6 2.5T Sport Lowering Springs. Be sure to let us know if you have any questions-suspension is hard, even for us! Lastly, be sure to share your MZ6T with us by using #CorkSport.

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2018 Mazda 6 Performance Parts – Cold Side Boost Tube

You have probably heard us mention the new Turbocharger Mazda 6 in recent weeks and months and have probably been wondering; “what’s going on?”  Well, today we’d like to share a little bit about what’s been going on at CorkSport HQ with our very own 2018 Mazda 6.

Right off the bat, I can say we have a handful of exciting performance products in the works and will be sharing info on them as we make progress.  Today we want to talk about the intercooler piping, specifically the cold side piping and the parts of the system. This is the piping that connects the outlet of the intercooler and the throttle body.  It is commonly referenced as the “cold side piping” because the charge (boosted) air has passed through the intercooler and is therefore cooler.

The OE cold side piping consists of three main components.  Starting on the right side of the image; we have the hard piping that connects to the intercooler and a soft rubber hose.  Next is the soft rubber hose itself, which we will talk more about later. Lastly is the throttle body connection, which is the oddest part of this system.  You can see why in the next image.

The above-mentioned intercooler hard pipe and the rubber hose are pretty common parts on modern turbocharged vehicles, but the throttle body connection is unusual from our experience.  The throttle body connection appears to be designed for a quick connection (and not-so-quick disconnection) during the vehicle assembly process. Unfortunately, this leaves a very odd connection flange on the throttle body itself.  Lastly are the fins inside the connection part; other than straightening the airflow entering the throttle body we don’t see many purposes these. We will be testing the effects and need for these in the near future.

Now let’s get to what we really wanted to talk about; BIG Silicone Performance Parts.

Mazda designed the Turbocharged 2.5L SkyActiv-G to function at a specified boost pressure and no more.  However, we fully intend to change this set boost pressure for increased smiles per gallon. With increased boost pressure comes more force and strain on the OE rubber hose.  Eventually, the OE rubber hose becomes too flimsy for the increased boost pressure and may expand or fail completely via a rupture.

So how do we develop a performance part to replace a rubber hose?  Well, there is one obvious improvement and another not-so-obvious change that can be made.  First, we use silicone as the prominent material for its excellent heat resistance and durability.  Next, the silicone is reinforced with five layers of fabric braiding to withstand the increased boost pressures.  Compare this to the OE single layer of reinforcement and you can see why this would make a big difference.

Now for the less obvious performance improvement; the CorkSport 3D Printed prototype is larger in diameter than the OE rubber hose.  Leaning on our experience with past intercooler piping development, we have found that increasing the charge air volume directly in front of the throttle body increases throttle response and helps spool the turbo faster, reducing turbo lag.  

Currently, we are still in the development phase but will be testing soon.  Stay tuned for future updates on the CorkSport Performance Boost Tube and other exciting products for your 2018 Mazda 6.  

-Barett @ CS

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CorkSport License Plate Relocation Kit for 2018 Mazda 6

If you haven’t heard already, Mazda has finally kicked out a new Mazda 6 with a turbocharged engine!

CorkSport jumped on the waiting list early and we are proud to be one of the first owners of a 2018 Mazda 6 Grand Touring Reserve. Ours is Soul Red Crystal.  In the short time we have had the car, it has already been on the lift, the dyno, and many backcountry roads. We are digging into the new platform and have already started work on a handful of new performance parts.

This license plate relocation kit is just the beginning of what we’ve got in store for this new car.  

So let’s talk about our first mod for the brand new 2018 Mazda 6. If you’ve got one, hopefully, you were lucky enough to prevent the dealer from drilling holes in your bumper because we are proud to introduce the CorkSport License Plate Relocation Kit for 2018 Mazda 6!

As with all CorkSport License Plate Kits, the 2018 Mazda 6 kit includes everything you need to move your plate from the middle of your bumper to the side and free up much-needed airflow (trust us, you’ll want that airflow for some other parts we are working on). All mounting brackets, hardware, and even bumper hole plugs are included to make for a quick and simple installation with no permanent modifications required.

All components have been proven to last and looking good while they do it. A zinc-coated steel adapter is used to connect to the OEM emergency tow hook hole. A laser cut, precision formed, and powder-coated mounting bracket is used to support the ¼” thick Lexan plate mount. We even include stainless steel tamper proof mounting hardware to ensure your plate, and relocation kit doesn’t disappear in a parking lot.

While mainly a cosmetic modification, the CorkSport License Plate Relocation kit does provide a small increase in airflow entering your radiator and intercooler. Even though it’s a small improvement, we’ve already found the OEM intercooler needs all the help it can get (more on that in coming months).

For an added visual boost and to support the #1 brand in Mazda Performance, be sure to pick up a CorkSport License Plate Frame to go with your relocation kit!

This is the first of many performance parts we have in the works here at CS HQ. Let’s reveal a few of those already in the pipeline…

Upcoming products include an upgradable Short Ram Intake System, Performance Intercooler & Piping, Lowering Springs, and a Stainless Steel 80mm Cat-Back Exhaust System.  We’ve already seen gains with the SRI System and will be testing the Exhaust and Intercooler parts in the coming months. Check back here for more updates!