In the ongoing quest to make your Mazda more powerful, and fun to drive, we have developed many great aftermarket options.
The stock airbox and air intake on most Mazdas were designed for economy instead of power. The problem with using the stock filter and airbox is that it functions similar to breathing through a rag. The rag does a great job of keeping contaminants and dirt out, but it also requires extra effort to pull air in.
When you upgrade the intake to a CorkSport Short Ram Intake you remove the air stifling setup and finally breath freely. Suddenly, your car goes from an underpowered, oxygen lacking zombie, to the free breathing, throaty roar of increased horsepower and freedom.
If you are looking to start the year off right, and are ready to upgrade your intake system we can answer any questions on which option is best for your ride.
Want to start 2014 off with some extra power? How about just letting your Mazda breathe easy? Thankfully you can do both with one simple modification, the Short Ram Intake.
Mazda recently released some concepts with Mazdaspeed exteriors. Could these be the next Mazdaspeed 3’s? The new Axela Sport with Mazdaspeed Exterior certainly has a sporty look, but there is no official word on if this is just a design concept, or if it’s confirmation of the next Mazdaspeed 3.
The hatchback will feature a strengthened chassis, some Brembo stopping power and a set of black alloy wheels. The end result is a stunning example of another great design from Mazda, a company that truly understands blending high performance and sporty style.
Whether this is the new Mazdaspeed or not, we look forward to more ideas and designs from Mazda, such as the Mazda 6 Wagon concept below!
Mazda 6 Wagon Mazda Design Concept
Also joining the 6 sedan lineup is a stylish wagon variation. Featuring subtle aero changes, new wheels and a leather wrapped dash. It will house a Mazda’s SKYACTIV-D 2.2-liter turbo-diesel engine power-plant. Rumor has it that we should be seeing this engine in the USA, so we have our fingers crossed. Turbo + Diesel + Wagon = the best of all worlds, at least we think so!
Mazda Axela Sport and the 6 Wagon Turbodiesel (Next Mazdaspeed?) December 27th, 2013CorkSport
We all have seen the rumors, and the renderings, but finally we have some spy shots. Don’t be deceived by the NC style look, Mazda has gone to great lengths to hide the next generation MX5. Yet under that deceptive exterior we have noticed and heard some exciting things.
Photo credit to Motor Authority for the spy shot
One of the most exciting reports we have heard is that the next MX5 should be weighing in around 2200lbs and possibly less. That is about 200-300 pounds of saving over the current NC model. Of course the original NA model in 1989 was 200lbs less than that, but we doubt the next Miata will be lacking power steering, ABS, AC, Power locks, power windows and other modern conveniences. We also noticed that upon close inspection of the spy shots, it appears Mazda is going back to the 4 bolt hubs/wheels to lose weight.
All this with the Skyactiv power-plant for weight loss and improved gas mileage should make the next MX5 a winner.
I predict that with the next generation MX5 we should see a variant of the Mazda 2 SkyActiv engine, but with forced induction. Who wouldn’t want a direct injected SkyActiv with a turbo that dishes out 200 wheel horsepower, or more?
The sum of all this can be shown in the following equation.
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Clearly the next Mx5 has some big changes, but ultimately I believe Mazda is going back to the basics. Make the most fun, and best, 2 seat sport car in the market. I personally cannot wait to be first in line to order the next Mazda Mx5 as my daily driver. Come on Mazda, I’m waiting.
-Derrick
Getting the Balance Correct December 12th, 2013CorkSport
With the news that has come out in the past few weeks about the next Mazdaspeed 3 and it being AWD. Takeo Mariuchi, the program deputy manager was quoted as saying “from a technical point of view it’s not difficult to install a four wheel drive system” for the next version. I took this as a non-committal response from Takeo to answer someone’s question. But in the interest of wanting to see a AWD Mazdaspeed 3 myself, I decided to take a look at the CorkSport 2014 Mazda 3 when it was up on a lift this week.
Checking out the rear knuckles you can see they are open in the middle which would make adapting rear axles to be pretty straight forward.
I took a peak at the rear suspension of the CorkSport Cx5 as well and it is setup the same. The next point which would have to be addressed is space for the driveshaft and transfer case for an AWD system.
Sure enough there is a larger amount of space at the back of the engine bay to clear a transfer case and drive shaft. The exhaust manifold looks to be the same from the CX5 AWD to give the clearance for needed systems.
In my opinion, the only thing standing in the way of this getting the green light is the bean counters looking at the past sales of AWD performance cars for Mazda. In North America, the 323GTX didn’t sell too well and the 06-07 Mazdaspeed 6 was not the biggest sales success either. Let’s hope they overlook those and give us enthusiasts the car we have always wanted.
-Derrick
Will There Be a New Mazdaspeed 3??? With All Wheel Drive??? September 27th, 2023CorkSport
We know by now that adding power to your Mazda is fairly straightforward up to a certain point. However, sooner or later, that hunger for power means you’re going to need to step up to a new fuel pump that can flow more fuel. By seeing that most of the fuel pumps on the market were largely the same, we decided to see what kind of innovations we could bring to the table. At this point we had learned volumes about the pumps on the market through our research and decided to engineer a new set of pump internals that focused on everything that we had learned.
We know this is possibly the worst kept secret since Area 51, but we started engineering fuel pump internals over 2 years ago and we aim to show you why ours is worth the wait.
We didn’t just set out to make another pump; the market has plenty of those. We set out to make the best Mazda fuel pump upgrade on the market specifically for Mazdas from a company that ONLY makes parts for Mazdas.
We started by researching many different technologies and engineering ideas in the pressure ranges experienced in these fuel pumps. We purchased every kit on the market and a brand new replacement from Mazda to test. The results from some of those tests can be found here (Link to blogs 1,2, and 3). After agreeing that 9.8mm was the maximum size we could attempt for the piston without making the sleeve wall too thin, we could start engineering the rest of the part.
We then built all the internals available in SolidWorks and tested the efficiency of them all for flow design and volume. This was merely the beginning of our design phase but helped us realize many great ideas (as well as a few not so great ones). We ended up with a design unlike any other on the market that, according to the data, would be more efficient than anything on the market.
With the increase in flow and efficiency we knew that our design could also benefit from a stiffer spring rate for the pump. That would enable higher RPM’s and improved cam wear over the life of the pump. Since we would be flowing more, the pressure on the pump would be greater than ever, the stiffer spring was just good insurance to get the power we needed even past the stock redline.
During our testing we also discovered the keeper assembly used by the factory is no accident. Many of the other pumps on the market use a keeper system similar to an intake or exhaust valve. This style does a fantastic job of locking the piston in place, but creates a few issues of its own. Because of the flow of fuel, the piston rides one side of the sleeve more than the other; over time, this will wear more into the piston which will affect clearances and efficiency. To prevent this, the factory style keeper allows the piston to spin as the spring moves up and down. That led us to choose the factory style retainer. We didn’t want to guess on either design without proof of our theory so we produced samples of both styles to prove wear differences and address installation challenges related to both styles.
Now that the cat is out of the bag, we’ll have just one more fuel pump blog next week with a very exciting limited offer. Stay tuned as CorkSport is about to take Mazda performance one step higher!
Fuel Pump Comparison Part 4 (Bombs Away!) February 28th, 2018CorkSport
