After spending two full days walking the SEMA show floor one trend in styling is really clear: matte colors. The cars that had the matte paint jobs were mostly exotics with a few imports mixed, in including the Lexus IS-F prototype:
There was a time when you would see cars in a matte color because they were in primer sort of an “Under Construction” phase. The owners of the cars were the “Do-it-yourself” types of guys who did their car build at home. This usually meant the suspension and engine were done but the body wasn’t, which made for a really fast car with no flash. It appears this has carried over into show cars.
Here’s a bunch of the cars we saw at the 2009 SEMA show done in the matte color scheme:
There was one car which didn’t stick with the black color, a Bentley with a matte grey color. There nothing better than a several hundred thousand dollar car looking like it missed its body shop appointment.
Love it or hate it, this style looks to be one we will see for the for at least the next several years. I am still undecided if I like it or not. One side of me thinks you would have to be insane to paint your Bentley to look like it was sprayed in your garage, but the other side thinks that the subtle presence of the cars paint gives off a vibe that means business, and gives it the cool factor, which I do like.
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.
Last Saturday at our CorkSport Swap Meet, we had a great turnout for the Dyno Testing. With 16 people signing up ahead of time and 5 signing up on site, we got some great runs in from a diverse group of participants. We even felt sorry for a handful of non-Mazdas and let them participate as well!
High horsepower of the day was Jason O’Neill with his ’01 Miata. Jay’s car made 393hp to the rear wheels with a brutal 368 ft lb of torque. A week earlier he had the motor out to diagnose some issues with the variable valve timing as well as try to get the head into the shop for new valve guides and seals and couldn’t make it in time so he threw it back in just to drive down to the event on a set of beefy drag radials. Later in the evening he ran an 11.51 at 124mph out at Portland International Raceway. Brutal. I’ll say this much, when a lightweight little Miata pushing 400+hp (it was uncharacteristically chilly out Saturday night) on a cold track makes a 1.6 second reaction time, it’s driver has had some practice. Hats off to Jay for his awesome car and sticky launch skills.
Close behind was an LS2 powered FD RX-7 that was unbelievably clean. The install was gorgeous, with little over 1000 miles on the clock since the swap, and the powerband was equally beautiful. Dropping an Earth shaking 300ft lb of torque at 1600RPM and following that up with a 45 degree horsepower curve topping out at 376hp, this car would be more adrenaline pumping fun than a barrel of monkeys in an AK-47 factory. And the owner’s passion for Mazdas goes way back…he bought an FD off the lot new in ’93 as well. While purists will wince at the addition of Chevy Power to one of the crown jewels of Mazda’s Rotary history, I would guess anyone who saw the meticulous install and the owners passion for making this an all around amazing car would give it a thumbs up. The drivetrain wasn’t the only amazing thing about the car – the suspension and bodywork were phenomenal as well.
We had a pair of Speed3’s and a Speed6 on the dyno as well, with high HP numbers in the high 260’s and high torque numbers in the high 290’s. The dyno runs on these cars are all over the map, preferencing torque on one run, horsepower on the next. One car ran 257HP w/ 296ft lb followed by a run of 269HP w/ 282ft lb. And I always thought the less the driver could effect the run the more consistent the output would be – not so with the MZR 2.3 DISI powered sedans.
The rest of the pool consisted of two FS Powered Mazdaspeed Protégés, a BP Turbo Powered Protégé, Four Miata’s and two eardrum scalding FB RX-7’s that both gave the LS2 a run for its money for smoothest powerband.
All in all it was a great day, and we had some good opportunities to talk shop and discuss opportunities for more power. The Seattle area group from MazdasNW.com came down and were able to meet up with more of the folks on the forum who are from the Portland Area. All in all, it became clear that a lot of these Mazda enthusiasts are hungry for opportunities to spend time discussing their wrenching projects and spending time with like-minded people. I look forward to future opportunities like this. Thanks again for everyone who came out to the event…without such great participation, none of us would have had as much fun as we did.
P.S. If you have video of your car on our Dyno during the CorkSport Dyno Day and it’s not included in the above video playlist, fire over a copy for me and we’ll add it! Sorry for not getting all of the cars on video, I had a few different hats I was wearing and wasn’t able to get them all.
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.
