Tag: Cool Stuff

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5 Mazda Owners You Should Be Following on Instagram

Who doesn’t love an awesome shot of a Mazdaspeed, rolling through lush green highways? How about a whole stockpile of those shots, new angles and stances every week?

A lot of us drive beautiful Mazdas, but only a few of us have the photographic gift (or photographer friends) to showcase them as they deserve. For the rest of us, we can just enjoy the sights on Instagram, which has tons and tons of Mazda accounts we love.

We showcase owners and their pics every day with a #CorkSport Pic of the Day, so be sure to use that hashtag on your best shots. Sometimes, though, we need to point you toward a whole account, like these 5 Mazda owners you should be following on Instagram.

1. Gabriel Manzanera

He swaps out his wheels sometimes to keep things fresh. But really, Gabriel’s ride always looks fresh:

@gabriel_manzanera
@gabriel_manzanera

2. Marty Gro

Does it cleaner than this? Bonus: Marty takes some great pics of his dog too.

@Marty_Gro
@Marty_Gro

3. Nick Pereira

If you’re ever in the mood for just a glimpse of a Mazda, Nick finds the best angles of his Mazda 3, showcasing just how good every part of the car looks. (Don’t worry: He takes some killer full body pics too.)

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@404_username_not_found

4. Kyle Cross

You’ll see more than just Mazdas on Kyle’s professional photography account, but we don’t mind when every shot looks so damn great.

@kylecrossphotography
@kylecrossphotography

5. Charles Villeneuve

Hailing from Canada, Charles is serious about mods—and takes some seriously great shots of his 2010 Mazdaspeed 3.

@drtyspd10
@drtyspd10

Who else, guys? Give us a follow at @CorkSport and direct us to some other great Mazda owners on Instagram.

 

Cheers,

CorkSport

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The Best West Coast Road Trips for You and Your Mazdaspeed

Last month, when The Smoking Tire featured our turbocharger in a beta tester’s Mazdaspeed 6, we loved watching how the car handled switchbacks as much as we loved hearing the turbo purr every few seconds.

It got us thinking, What are the best West Coast road trips to take a Mazdaspeed?

That isn’t the most objective of questions, but all the same we wanted to share a list of some of the spots we found—as well as why we love them. Tell us what you think, and what we missed.

California’s Pacific Coast Highway

California's Pacific Coast Highway from Flickr

Did we have a choice to list anything else first? These 123 miles of highway may be the most iconic in the whole country, much less the West Coast. If you like curves and the thrill of driving right up against a cliff face, you can’t do much better than taking your Mazdaspeed here. It should take about 5 hours at a leisurely pace, but you can probably cut that down to 3.5, right?

The Oregon Painted Hills

Oregon Painted Hills from Flickr

Called one of the 7 Wonders of Oregon, the Painted Hills in Eastern Oregon make for a breathtaking destination. They also offer some great vistas and stops along the way. There are rivers, fossil fields, and plenty of little towns to stop and grab a bite, as well as Mount Hood National Forest if you’re coming from the West, which always makes for gorgeous driving.

The Olympic Peninsula of Washington

The Olympic Peninsula in Washington from Flickr

There’s still no road that traverses the interior of the Olympic mountains, but that’s okay: Just driving on the loop around them on highway 101 gives you a thousand beautiful views. Most people only ever see one angle of the Olympics, from Seattle, so take a road trip in your Mazdaspeed to gain an experience few people ever do.

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park in Alaska

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park from Flickr

No, we didn’t forget about our friends up north. This drive should be on every nature lover’s bucket list, though you may not be able to cross it off till you retire or earn a long sabbatical if you plan to take your own Mazdaspeed. The whole route, Anchorage to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, takes you along Alaska 1 (Glenn Highway), Alaska 10 (Edgerton Highway), and McCarthy Road, which of course doesn’t include the trek up through Canada. While we’d love to see some #CorkSport shots on this drive, be careful about driving your baby all the way. Once you get to Wrangell-St. Elias, you face a 59-mile gravel road to reach the heart of the park.

Have fun, wherever you choose to drive.

Cheers,

Corksport

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Love for the Skyactiv

We're going to take apart and upgrade a brand new Mazda 3 with a SkyActiv manual transmission.

We have gotten some great response back from our customers who have the SkyActiv Mazda 3, 6, and CX-5s over the past few years with product suggestions and questions about power, technology, and more.

We're going to take apart and upgrade a brand new Mazda 3 with a SkyActiv manual transmission.

We decided to have an in-house example of Mazda’s current sport model of the Mazda 3, a 2015 2.5 liter SkyActiv manual transmission. As everyone’s favorite television series host has put it in the past: There is no better way to test the breed than motorsports. So that is exactly what we are going to do with this brand new Mazda 3. Strip the interior, outfit it with CorkSport parts, install some safety gear, and go racing.

Want some new Mazda 3 parts? We'll be selling off just about everything.

Yes. We are really going to take apart a perfectly good car to race on the track with a bunch of other people who suffer from the same mental disorder. We will be posting regular updates on the car as we proceed through the build, which will include time on our dyno and results on the races.

This also means there will be a garage sale on brand new parts from this car, interior, wheels, etc. It has every option so if you want something shoot us an email.

Stay tuned for updates.

-Derrick

Meet Derrick from CorkSport. Loves racing, Mazdas, and his CS fam.

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How Fast Is the 2016 MX-5?

At CorkSport, we can’t wait for the new 2016 MX-5.

Our pre-ordered MX-5

We pre-ordered ours as soon as the sale went live, and we’ve been planning new Miata parts and upgrades since we first heard about the launch. The actual R&D has to wait until we have the MX-5 in our garage, but that hasn’t hampered our excitement—especially when we read the reviews of the lucky first drivers, who all love the car’s new updates.

This little roadster has been turning heads since it first hit the roads. During a recent balance test, Dave Coleman, the Miata Product Manager, said, “The Miata really is the most pure, elemental, simple, straightforward sports car you can get.” Whether you own one or not, it’s hard to disagree that the MX-5 is a beautiful piece of engineering. Just about every Miata model looks pretty and effortless—but at CorkSport we always want to know: How does it fare on the road? (Or better yet, at the track?)

We love speed, power, and handling at CorkSport, and most our products are designed to give your Mazda the most boost and control possible. From all of its initial reviews, it sounds like the new MX-5 engineers had similar aspirations, and from the videos we’ve seen, it looks like they succeeded.

Mazda UK just released a test drive video, showing how the new 2016 MX-5 compares to the original 1990 MkI. Given how much has changed in engine technology over the past 25 years, they gave the original a nice 4-second head start, just to make things fair. The result reveals the beauty of both designs—and promises viewers that the new Miata will be just as fun (and great) to drive as the first one.

If that doesn’t make you want to hit the track in a Miata, nothing will. We can’t wait to do tests of our own, so stay tuned.

 

Cheers,

CorkSport

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Our White Paper for the Mazdaspeed Replacement Turbocharger

We’ve been gearing up for months for the release of our turbocharger for the Gen 1 and Gen 2 Mazdaspeed 3 and 2006-2007 Mazdaspeed 6, and on Wednesday the wait was over.

CorkSport Mazdaspeed 3 Replacement Turbocharger

After countless hours designing, testing, and adjusting, we released our drop-in turbo for the Mazdaspeed, and we’re very proud of it—and thrilled about the responses we’ve already received from our beta testers. (See the first reviews on the listing.)

Beta testers for the new Mazda turbocharger

Obviously, with a product this big, we wanted to inform our CorkSport customers as much as possible about the advantages of our turbo vs. the OEM and competitors, and how much power buyers could expect to gain.

Barett wrote a huge white paper on the turbocharger, detailing all of this. From the benefit of a drop-in (no new coolant lines, oil lines, or a intake system are required to install and operate it) to the details of a turbocharger’s anatomy, you can read all about what makes our turbo stand apart.

Our goal was to create a performance-driven turbocharger that wouldn’t break your bank or require a mechanical engineering degree to install. We’re happy to say we succeeded, but see for yourself.

Order your Mazdaspeed turbocharger here today, though be sure to read Barett’s white paper first. It’s long but good.

Cheers.

 

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