The newly released Mazdaspeed 6 Front Sway Bar will improve handling by minimizing body roll during cornering and reducing understeer by strengthening the lower suspension connection across the front with a larger diameter bar that has been engineered to match the stiffness of the CorkSport Rear Sway Bar.
The Mazdaspeed 6 Front Sway Bar is made from CNC machined 28.5mm 4130 steel and provides 70% more stiffness than stock front sway bar. The powder coated black finish offers long lasting durability and performance. The included polyurethane mounting bushings eliminate the sloppy handling caused by the stock rubber bushings and offer long life and resistance to common contaminants that would destroy rubber bushings.
“The Mazdaspeed 6 can benefit greatly from the addition of a front sway bar because of the tendency the vehicle has to understeer,” said CorkSport Engineer, Brydon Foster, “We engineered our Mazdaspeed 6 Front Sway Bar with our Rear Sway Bar in mind to promote neutral handling.”
When CorkSport set out to develop a Cold Air Intake (CAI) we took several things into consideration. First and most obviously, we wanted the CAI to make more power over stock and allow for free-flowing air into the intake chamber. The factory intake overall on the Mazdaspeed 3 is chock-full of poor bends and choke points. Just by changing the filter section, you can get a large increase in horsepower and when coupled with an aftermarket turbo inlet pipe that runs between the intake section and the turbo, the increase is even greater.
The new Stage III CorkSport Power Series Cold Air Intake does just that by replacing the factory airbox with a cold pipe intake system to dramatically reduce intake restrictions and provide an impressive improvement in power throughout the entire engine’s RPM range. During initial testing the CorkSport Stage III Cold Air Intake for 2010+ Mazdaspeed 3 saw a 10-12% increase in power and torque when tested against the stock intake system.
Next, we thought about the best intake system to run in all weather conditions and came up with a system that is convertible between a short ram intake and a cold air intake. This gives customers an optimal set-up for their intake system year-round. During the warmer months, a cold air intake can be run which will suck air from the fender liner instead of the hot engine bay where a short ram intake would be situated. While testing, we saw differences of up to 50 degrees Fahrenheit in the moderate climate of the northwest. This could be higher in other parts of the country that hit much higher temperatures. While driving the engine bay is not much warmer than outside but while you sit the engine bay becomes very warm. Moving the intake to the fender liner pulls air that is not in the engine bay so the air is much cooler.
Then during the cooler rainy and snowy months, you can switch out your CAI with the Stage I or Stage II SRI intake just by quickly and easily removing a pipe and moving the filter location. With the SRI set-up the path to the turbo is greatly decreased and there is almost no chance of sucking up water during the wet months making it ideal for cold, rainy weather.
Finally, we compared our product to the competition on the market. We purchased a popular competitor Cold Air intake and did a head-to-head test, of their intake against ours on the dyno. We also attempted to verify the competition’s claims of a 33hp gain. The below graph shows the results. The red line is the Stage III Corksport Cold Air Intake with Turbo Inlet Pipe, green line is the Corksport Cold Air Intake without turbo inlet pipe and the pink line is the popular competitors Cold Air Intake.
Notice the peak power is almost the same between the CorkSport’s two intake set-up’s but there is a massive increase in mid-range power and torque with the optional turbo inlet pipe. If you look at the competitor’s results compared to the Corksport intake, you will notice the lines stay together for a while before diverging slightly in the mid-range and top-end. Both intakes show improvements over stock but the CorkSport Intake shows slightly more mid-range and upper rpm power and torque.
The Corksport Stage III Intake that comes with optional turbo inlet pipe shows the most gains overall being at some points 7% more efficient than the popular competitors. The turbo inlet pipe is also not offered by the competition making the upgrade to the full system a perfect choice for those that want the most efficient system posible. At no point could we duplicate the +33hp gain or roughly 15% improvement claimed by this competitor.
The CorkSport Cold Air Intake can be purchased as a standalone performance part and includes our precision machined MAF housing made from billet aluminum with included air straightener, durable dry flow air filter, mandrel bent aluminum cold pipe and custom reinforced silicone connectors. It is also available as an upgrade kit for current customers with a CorkSport Stage I or Stage II Short Ram Intake with included mandrel bent aluminum cold pipe and custom reinforced silicone connector and optional Turbo Inlet Pipe.
The kit is available to purchase in powder-coated black or polished aluminum with any combination of red, blue, or black fliter and silicone connectors and the choice of polished aluminum or stealth black T-bolt clamps to truly customize the look of your engine bay.
To find out more or purchase a CorkSport Cold Air Intake today, please visit the CorkSport catalog online today at www.corksport.com or call 360-260-CORK.
Product Release! CorkSport Cold Air Intake for the 2010+ Mazdaspeed 3 August 21st, 2023CorkSport
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.
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.
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-
Dyno Differences and Understandings August 15th, 2012CorkSport
The CorkSport Mazdaspeed 6 Downpipe is designed to replace the restrictive catalyst in the stock downpipe and deliver improved exhaust flow for significant power gains and noticeable improvements in turbo response time and reduced backpressure. During initial testing, the CorkSport Mazdaspeed 6 Downpipe showed power gains of 26 horsepower and 32 ft. lbs. of torque at the wheels.
The CorkSport Mazdaspeed 6 downpipe is constructed from polished 3 inch 304 stainless steel piping for lasting corrosion resistance and reduced heat transfer to the engine bay. Unlike many downpipes on the market the CorkSport downpipe uses a unique divorced wastegate design that will reduce boost spikes and exhaust flow disturbances due to waste-gate operation.
The new catted version includes a high-flow spun metallic 200 cell catalyst and three O2 bungs to allow for the addition of EGT or other sensors. The Mazdaspeed 6 catted downpipe also includes the addition of the CorkSport Mazdaspeed 6 Racepipe, adding to the value and power customers can expect to see from the addition of this part to their vehicles.
If you have a turbocharged vehicle, adding a downpipe is one of the best modifications you can make to add power. Our non-catted track version of the downpipe has been very popular with our speed6 customers so it only made sense to develop a catted version that daily drivers could enjoy as well.
July’s featured car ended up coming to you in early August this year. It was a hard fought battle between two 2010 Mazdaspeed 3’s that went down to the wire!
In total we had over 100 people vote on which car they wanted to see featured in our blog post with Tommy’s supporters coming in heavy in the end and pushing him above Kennedy FTW.
Tommy has a passion for extreme sports as a BMX racer and avid auto racing fan, but it wasn’t until he purchased his first Mazdaspeed 3 that he truly got into tuning cars.
It started innocently enough with a K&N Cold Air Intake that he admits purchasing before he knew about CorkSport. But once he found out about CorkSport and started spending some time on our website, the mods started adding up beginning with a CorkSport Front Tower Brace and Stoptech front and rear slotted rotors.
“Speed3’s are some of the best looking cars on the road today,” said Tommy when asked what attracted him to Mazda, “What I love about not just my car, but all speed3’s, is when you see one on the street it grabs your attention. People stop what they’re doing to check it out, just like I do when I see another one”.
Well Tommy’s Speed 3, or as his daughter calls it, his “roller skate” is definitely worth a second look!
Gwynne-
Featured Car of the Month – It’s July in August! Tommy’s Speed3 August 2nd, 2012CorkSport
