Get Ready for Boise’s 2017 Mazda Takeover Event

Another year, another weekend of Mazda community love. Here’s a rundown of 2016’s Mazda Takeover Event in Boise to prepare for 2017.

Last year, Barrett and I got the chance to head to Boise, Idaho, for a great Mazda Takeover event that my good friend Keith Eggert put together. People from Utah, Washington, and northern Idaho all made the trip for a fun weekend full of racecars, beer, and good laughs. We met some new people and reconnected with friends that we hadn’t seen in awhile. It was a big event made even better by securing a few shops so we could do some fun things besides racing.

This Thursday, we’re heading back to Boise for another weekend of good times. But before we go, let’s reflect on last year’s event.

The 2017 Mazda Takeover event in Boise, Idaho, is a great Mazda community event. — It’s always a good time when the Mazda community gets together.

Dyno Day

Everyone who wanted to dyno their car had the opportunity to do so last year, which made for an incredible day. Almost all of the cars that attended Dyno Day were fully bolted and tuned on E85, so you can imagine we had a lot of quick Mazdaspeeds in attendance.

A few notable results: Cody Allington from Utah made right at 500whp with his HTA turbo and port injection. Next up was my car strapped with the CS turbo and meth coming in at 400whp on the stock block. There were plenty of other Speeds right around 320whp. The smell of E85 and meth definitely told us we were in the right place!

Drags

Once we were done with the dyno, most of us hung out and prepared some cars to run in the 1320. Cody needed to install a cut-off switch, because he had relocated his battery from the engine bay to the hatch of the car. Once we had that all figured out, it was time to head to the track.

Over 40 Mazdaspeeds attended the Mazda Takeover in Boise, Idaho, last year. — That’s a lot of Mazdaspeeds.

We had about 40 Mazdaspeeds show up to the track — the biggest turnout I have ever seen. I remember thinking this is what the Mazda community is all about: a bunch of friends getting together to have a genuinely good time. That’s something I think we forget about from time to time. I realize there’s a lot of competition out there, but at the end of the day, we’re all in this together.

That race night was great because I got to see a bunch of Mazdas ripping down the track. And, I also got to see the smiles that came with a fun night among a great community.

This year's Mazda Takeover in Boise promises to be bigger and better than the amazing event in 2016. — Boise, here we come.

We’re going to be in attendance again at the Mazda Takeover this year in hopes that the event is even bigger and produces an even larger turnout. The plan is the same as last year. But, this time around, the boys from CorkSport have more lead time so we can take more time off than just the weekend. It’s going to be a amazing!

We are very excited to see what happens this year and look forward to hanging out with 40+ Mazdaspeed people. I highly encourage anyone that is within driving distance of Boise to check out this meetup. At its current rate, this takeover event is turning into the largest on the West Coast. The meetup begins on June 8, and I’d really like to see some fresh faces there!

If you have any questions, please feel free to shoot me (Luke McCarvel) a Facebook message.

Cheers,

Luke

September 23, 2016September 23, 2016

CorkSport’s Cleaning House with Closeout Parts

You may have noticed some CorkSport parts in our catalog are now labeled with a “Close Out” ribbon, as shown below.

Unlike our sales or clearance products, these closeouts signify some important changes for CorkSport and our customers. Continue reading “CorkSport’s Cleaning House with Closeout Parts”

September 12, 2014July 22, 2024

Why You Need Injector Seals for your Mazdaspeed, Part 2

This post is part 2 of a 2-part series on the importance of injector seals. If you’re just now discovering this post, be sure to tune in to part 1 before continuing here.

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As the title says, you need injector seals for your MZR! Here’s why.

When Mazda designs a part, they design it with the “typical” customer and OEM power in mind – not the power hungry, boost craving driver. Yeah, I’m talking about you and you know it – and we have just the thing to keep you and your MZR in check. As you add more fuel and more boost, the weakest link is eventually going to give. That link is the OEM Mazdaspeed injector seals.

Three Reasons You Need Injector Seals For Your Mazdaspeed

Reliability is sacrificed using the OEM seals.
Leaking seals causes loss of power.
Inconsistent performance is caused by leaks.

So, if you are just tuning in to our blog, then shame on you, go read part one like everyone else! With that, let’s dive into the design of the seal and how it works.

We put 500 hard miles on the Mazdaspeed3 and here are the results. 500 miles may not sound like a lot, but the company owned MS3 does not live the normal life. It spends most of its time on the dyno testing new products pull after pull, may have hit 35psi, and when it does hit the streets, it’s driven by an employee searching for the governor speed. I think we can all agree that the 500 miles was a fair amount of abuse to put the injector seals. Plus, other sets of seals have been running in alpha tester’s vehicles for thousands of miles without issue.

Now that we have that covered, let’s talk a bit more about the design of the seal and how it works.

It’s no longer just a washer with one sealing surface – it’s a cup. So it seals in the OEM location AND along the side of the cup. The secret is in the design (which is all thanks to @Tokay444 from MazdaSpeedForums). The lip at the bottom of the cup is flared just a bit so that it crushes down tight against the cylinder head, and as it crushes down, it also crushes outward, pushing against the wall of the port much like an O-ring. If you are having trouble visualizing the flared lip crushing outward, then check out the image below. Time to get technical!

Looking at this side view of the seal, you can clearly see that the flared lip is extended further outward than the side of the seal. (Please note that in this FEA, or Finite Element Analysis, the deformation scale factor is 6.5:1, i.e. highly exaggerated). This design is what separates the CorkSport seal from any other seals on the market today. In the FEA the seal is subjected to 3300lbf in the direction of the arrows; 3300lbf is the approximate clamping force of an M8x1.25 torqued to 18ft-lb. The areas in red indicate a displacement of 0.0057 inches, which is just enough to begin yielding (permanently bending) the beryllium copper material. After the 500 miles of use, we had the four seals precision measured using a CMM (Coordinate Measuring Machine). On average, the seals yielded 0.0015 inches confirming our FEA.

Still following?

So what does this mean to you? When you torque down the fuel injector bolt and clamp you are applying approximately 3300lbf to the injector seal. This crushes the seal downward pushing the flared lip outward into the wall for ultimate sealing strength; and we have all the data to prove it! The CorkSport seal works flawlessly, but because of the design they are not reusable like any other crush seal.

So, now that we are done with all the technical stuff let’s take a look at the used seals. First, I would like to remind you what the injector looked like with the OEM crush washer and only 4000 miles.

Injector-Seals-Mazdaspeed-MZR-Engine-Tokay-Info-Tech-Injector-Fuel

The OEM injector seal is extremely dirty, blowing an excessive amount of combustion gases. This makes for a very unhappy MZR. Second, in the images you are about to see, the seals have not been cleaned in any way, shape, or form. I pulled these out of the car and immediately took the pictures. Prepare to be wowed; I know I was…

Injector Seals Mazdaspeed MZR Engine Tokay Info Tech Injector Seal Fuel 2

Injector-Seals-Mazdaspeed-MZR-Engine-Tokay-Info-Tech-Injector-Fuel-3

Besides the clean injector body, there is a more subtle detail that needs to be pointed out. If you look at the very edge of the flared lip on the seal you will notice that the black soot does not go all the way to the edge. This further confirms that the seals are working the way Brock (@Tokay444 on MSF) had envisioned them and we can also see this “clean ring” in the cylinder head below.

Injector Seals Mazdaspeed MZR Engine Tokay Info Tech Injector Fuel Inside Intake Manifold

In the image below you will notice that the seal is dirty on the inside, but that’s okay – that happens by design. The “shelf” that you see midway up on the inside of the seal seals against the injector body instead of in the OEM location further down around the injector nozzle. This change in sealing location allows the flared edge to deflect how it needs.

Injector Seals Mazdaspeed 3/6 MZR-Engine Tokay Seal Dirty

If I haven’t convinced you yet why you need injector seals for your Mazdaspeed3 then you’re hopeless…you should go get a Civic or something else that’s slow…

Injector-Seals-Mazdaspeed-MZR-Engine-Tokay-Full-Injector

Between our results and the reviews given to us from our alpha testers we have great confidence in the seals and you should too! Keep an eye out for these to be released very soon! Zoom – Zoom!

August 27, 2014February 21, 2018

Mazdaspeed 3 Coming in 2017 with AWD!

UPDATE: Masahiro Moro, president of Mazda USA, called the Mazdaspeed 3 “childish” in execution. What does that mean for the future of the Mazdaspeed model? Find out.

According to Ryan Beene at Autonews.com the next Mazdaspeed is planned for 2017. At first glance we might assume that this is purely more rumors, but upon further inspection we see that there might be cause to believe him.

Why?

First of all, Ryan Beene has been vouched for by several other automotive sites and journalists. Over at thetruthaboutcars.com they state “Having known Beene for a number of years, I can say that his information is to be trusted more than the typical buff book “anonymous sources” accompanied by some fanciful colored pencil sketch or computer rendering.” Jalopnik.com also states: “Automotive News’ Ryan Beene, who has covered Mazda in depth, is rather reliable. This is a good thing.”

Shop Mazdaspeed 3 Performance Parts Now

So apparently we should listen. We also see some of the first reasonable explanations for AWD and a Turbo. As we have discussed previously, the new Mazdaspeed will most likely share the AWD from the CX5 platform. See the article here: //corksport.com/blog/will-there-be-a-new-mazdaspeed-3-with-all-wheel-drive/ where we also happen to quote Takeo Mariuchi, the program deputy manager as saying “from a technical point of view it’s not difficult to install a four wheel drive system”. We also showed some interesting photos showing the rear of the CX5 and 2014 Mazda 3 that appeared as though it would be rather simple to add the AWD.

Nonetheless we put our stamp of approval on this statement.

The second thing that he brings up, that we can stand behind, is the fact that he believes the engine will be the same as the one used in the CX-9 launching that year. This would not surprise us at all since it would help shave cost, and engineering work on Mazda’s behalf.

There is a lot more info in the article, so feel free to read the full article here: https://www.autonews.com/article/20140825/OEM04/308259975/mazda-making-big-changes-fast

I’ll summarize the rest of his interesting points here otherwise:

Mazda 2: Redesigned Mazda 2 production starts in November and he expects a sportier Mazda2 with a modified intake and exhaust as an option.

Mazda 5: This will get killed off by 2015 due to lack of interest.

Mazda 6: An interior redesign for 2016, new center console, smaller dash that sits lower. Similar to the Mazda3.

Mx-5 Miata: Debuts in one week. Will have a SkyActiv 2.0L liter engine (no word of a turbo). More exciting though is the news that Mazda is planning a fastback-style hardtop version.

Rotary RX-7 or Rx-9: They are still working on it, should be 2 seats, not 4. No word on when.

CX-3: This should go on sale next June. Built on the same platform as the Mazda2.

CX-5: Fresh interior for 2016 and new front and headlights.

CX-9: Redesign for 2017 with new KODO language. Turbo Engine 2.5L that will be the same as the Mazdaspeed 3.

Of course, Ryan still doesn’t quote any sources or give any proof, but we definitely are willing to believe all that he says!

-Spencer@CorkSport

Check out the latest Mazdaspeed 3 performance parts

August 11, 2014December 18, 2017

2016 Mazda Miata MX5 Spy Shots

The 2016 Mazda Miata MX5 Has been Caught!

Just this morning some images of the next generation, or ND, MX-5 were posted to the internet. There are some interested aspects that can be seen through the camouflage cover it is wearing. Most noticeable is that large backend! We also notice the front seems to slope significantly more than the current generation, and of course, that it’s a soft top. We assume there will be plenty of room in that giant bottom though to fit a PRHT (Power Retractable Hard Top) as an option. It certainly appears to be bigger, and smaller, all at the same time.

I could speculate more on the shape and style, but I’ll just leave these photos here for you to see:

Though the lines are hard to tell thanks to the camo wrap, we also had a teaser from Mazda of the car hidden under a blanket cover. You can see some of the lines more distinctly, though they only give a rear shot.

I think it’s looking good so far, and can’t wait to see it for real! Stay tuned for more info and the official release on September 3rd!