Keeping you up to date with the latest CorkSport Mazdaspeed news!
Tag: SRI
The Mazda SRI (Short Ram Intake) is one of the easiest and best mods to add to your Mazda. Add WHP and a nice sound to your engine with the improved experience. Read up on CorkSport’s product releases and engineering research around Mazda SRIs.
Now that our CorkSport Power Series Short Ram Intakes for the 2.3L DISI turbo-charged engines are 50-state legal (Press Release), I would like to revisit a past blog post as I think it is important for every car owner to understand.
A little over a year ago, we put a blog post on our webpage that outlined some of the laws and tips regarding your vehicle’s factory warranty and aftermarket parts you put on your vehicle. The Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act (US code – Title 15, Chapter 50, Section 2301-2312) was put in place to make it illegal for your dealer to void your warranty just because you put a non-OEM part on your vehicle (see SEMA Article). However, if you bring in your vehicle for a warranty claim, and it was obvious that the aftermarket part caused the issue, then you are out of luck.
The best way to avoid an issue is to have a good relationship with your dealer and to know in advance how accepting they are of vehicle modifications. Even though you have the law on your side, if they are not accepting of your vehicle modifications, you may want to find another dealer. No one wants to spend time dealing with a lawsuit or fighting over something that you can just as easily avoid in the first place. However, if you do run in to the unfortunate event where you believe that your dealer has wrongfully voided your warranty, you can contact the BBB Auto Line at 1-800-955-5100.
Please note that improper installation of any factory or non-factory parts that cause damage to your vehicle, are not covered under your warranty. Also, driving through water deep enough to cause water to be ingested into the engine will not be covered even with the factory intake installed.
If you have a specific question or concern about a CorkSport product, feel free to call us at 360-260-2675 or email and we will be happy to answer your questions.
After seeing several forum posts and receiving many emails asking about performance intakes and sucking in water I decided to write this bog, because I wanted to get this cleared up for everyone with questions.
Water is everywhere, as our planet is covered in it. There is water in the air. When you are driving your car down the road you are sucking in water. It may be water vapor but it is still water and harmless to your engine.
Open element filters in either short ram intakes or cold air intakes have water come in contact with them by splashing puddles or rain. With air passing through the filter the water gets vaporized (evaporates) and gets consumed by the engine during the combustion process. This process is like the hand dryers in a washroom that blow air across your hands to dry them. The water enters your intake as vapor which is safe for your engine.
There are several companies that sell water injection systems for combustion engines. The water cools the fuel air mixture resulting in less chance for engine detonation. This is helpful for forced induction engines running higher boost levels to control detonation and get more power.
The only time you will experience water damage/engine destruction is when the intake in your car creates a seal with a water source, as in complete submersion. The engine creates suction from the air pumping movement thus pulling more water into the intake towards the engine. This becomes a problem when the water gets to the cylinders and the crankshaft tries to move the piston up. Water does not compress like air and causes the piston to stop and catastrophe occurs. This is called hydro-lock, which is when the cylinder is too full of water and the piston moves against it effectively preventing, or “locking” the engine from further movement. The result of hydro-lock is bent connecting rods, broken pistons, etc. It is not pretty.
Hydrolock Damage
Cold air intakes normally get the bad rap for sucking up water and hydro-locking engines. You would have to move your vehicle into large water mass, like a very deep puddle and submerge your air filter for this to occur. If you live in a climate that has lots of standing water or floods on a regular basis a cold air intake is probably not the best choice. Short ram intakes normally have the filter situated up higher in the engine bay near the throttle body. The chances of water being deep enough to cause a seal and suck in water are pretty low. You would need the water to be higher that the filter location in the engine bay. This also applies to the stock intake airbox. If you see water cresting over the top of your hood you have more problems than water getting into your engine.
Sure fire defense against water in your intake
If you want an aftermarket intake and you are paranoid about hydro-locking your engine there is a solution. The sure fire way to avoid water getting into your engine is an intake snorkel. Most have the air pickup at the highest point on the vehicle to give you the best chance when fording a river.
Mazda BT-50 crossing a small creek
The best advice I can give is to steer clear of deep standing water if you have a performance intake installed in your Mazda. If you are not sure how deep the puddle or standing water is go around it.
We have put some miles on the Mazda 2 over the last month and a half. We are approaching the 2000 mile mark. At this point the engine is well broken in and up to the challenge of some performance driving.
I had a chance to Autocross the Mazda 2 on Sept 18th at a local SCCA event held at Portland International Raceway. I signed up the car for time only runs to see how it would do. If the Mazda 2 was to be in a specific class it would be ST class according to the SCCA rules with the current modifications. This would pit me up against Mazda 3s, Honda Civics, Mini Coopers (non S models), etc.
The course that was laid out was tight and technical with not many sections to build up speed. The weather decided to liberally apply water to the course making setting record speeds pretty tough. After taking my turn working on the course and watching other cars maneuver through it was my turn to give a go. I do have experience driving around cones racing rally cross so I am not a total novice. This also means I had expectations of what the 2 would do on the auto cross course.
For the first run I left the DSC (dynamic stability control) turned on. I wanted to see how much affect it would have at a maximum drive. The first few corners went well and I could not feel the DSC engage at any point. When I hit the first short slalom I felt the car try to rein in my driving. A quick back and forth transition around the 3rd cone combined with me applying the brakes to get the car to unload the rear tires to make a quick right hand turn got the DSC light to kick on. I could tell the car closed the throttle and killed some of the power because it took a second to get my momentum back up for a “Chicago Box”.
Overhead view of cones as a “Chicago Box”
With the Mazda 2 the Chicago box was a breeze, just drive in and out with just steady speed and quick steering inputs. After the Chicago box there were a few more corners and into another slalom which once again the DSC came back half way through it. What is happening is the cone side front tire is unloading enough for the wheel to slip and it triggers the DSC. After the end of the slalom there was a tight left hand corner which transitioned to a longer sweeping corner. This corner trigger the DSC as the car wanted to under steer to the outside. I was off and on the throttle trying to get the car to rotate and get back in tighter to the apex of the corner. With the DSC turned on the throttle inputs did not help. The final section of the course was a short straight which did a 180 turn to the left and the end of the course with the timing lights. To make the corner with the Mazda 2 I opted for the e-brake approach. It worked ok but I was caught in 2nd gear so I didn’t have enough power to quickly get across the finish line after the turn. I netted a 52.68 for a time on the run which was ok for the really wet course.
The second run I ramped it up a bit. I took the DSC off and pushed the car as hard as I could. I discovered several things on the second run.
#1: The car will really under steer if pushed hard in the wet. I tried off and on throttle, left foot braking, Finnish flicks, you name it to get the 2 to rotate with no really sure fire method that worked.
#2: You can get rubber on the 1st to 2nd gear change with the DSC off. There were two spots where I had to get into second gear due to bouncing off the rev limiter and both of them occurred just before the slalom sections.
#3: With the DSC off, you can get the ABS to engage quite often. I had the ABS turn on several times with hard braking and turning which would unload a rear tire. With the brakes applied and weight transfer it was enough to cause the rear tire to lock up and trigger the ABS.
#4: Using the E-brake on the last corner only works so-so. When you get the back of the 2 swung around and get back on the throttle the car will under steer pushing you really wide. This resulted in some extra time getting the car lined up with the timing lights at the end of the run.
#5: You can use the E-brake to get the car to really slide sideways. Unfortunately the under steer takes affect after a few seconds and ruins the fun but not before you can get some great pictures.
The second run netted me a 51.86 second time but I hit some cones in the process. The third run I picked up a passenger to take along. I could tell the extra ballast was in the car. The run was slower despite not hitting any cones. If you are going to race a Mazda 2 in Autocross make sure you leave the passengers out until the scoring runs are done. My 3rd run was 53.03 seconds.
I got a chance to try out several different techniques for the three extra runs which had mixed results. The big handling obstacle to overcome is the under steer in the Mazda 2. We have a solution in the works so check back for updates.
So how did I do compared to the other cars which I would be classed against in ST? There was a Mazda 3 hatch which was running at the same time which posted times of 53.96, 54.43, and 53.59 seconds. A Mazdaspeed 3 running at the same time posted times of 55.07, 53.18, and 52.94 seconds. The Mazdaspeed 3 would be in a different class due to the power modifications but you can see the 2 would be competitive against it. If you compare the times against the more powerful cars you can see the Mazda 2 would do well. I want to try out the Mazda 2 on high speed auto cross courses to see if I would have the same success against the same cars.
Overall I really enjoyed running the Mazda 2 in the auto cross. It handled better than I expected with my driving style and proved to be very predictable.
I would like to give a thank you to Ceejay for the pictures I used in the blog. He stood out in the rain shooting pictures while I and the other MazdasNW people drove around the cones during the afternoon.
After putting almost two thousand miles on our new Mazda 2, we have already added our own touches to the car to make it a true CorkSport vehicle. The two pictures below shows our CorkSport License Plate Relocation Bracket, which has been modified from the current Mazda 3 application to not only to fit on the passenger side of the vehicle, but also with a prototype Lexan frame (Production part would be a black opaque Lexan with our new CS logo etched on the face if we do go with Lexan). It utilizes the stock tow hook location so no drilling or cutting is required.
Another new product we have in the works for release in the near future is and LED kit that would replace the license plate, hatch, and interior lights with LED’s (license plate light can be seen in picture below reflecting off the ground). The kit would also include two LED amber blinker bulbs (for the front blinkers) with built in resistors to keep flash rates normal, but with an updated and refined look. Additionally, we are getting ready to release a fog/DRL light kit (shown in the picture below) for the 2 as well as the 3, 6, CX-7 and RX-8. As you can see in the picture below, the 23 LED bulbs put off a 6,000K color, which matches the LED light kits that we currently sell.
Finally, we are finishing up testing and validation of our CorkSport Power Series Short Ram Intake for the Mazda 2. It includes all of the features of past CS SRI kits such as a silicone coupler, T-bolt clamps, and a machined and anodized MAF housing (anodized version not shown in picture) and CS logo etched post anodizing.
Look for all these products to be available in the very near future. Don’t see a product in the works for your 2 that you want to see made? Have an idea for any other part you want to see get made? Submit a product idea here.
Everyone wants the biggest number possible in terms of Horsepower/Money ratio. Therefore, when researching a new Intake system for your Mazda, you want to find out from the source, how those numbers were obtained. I have had several people ask me if our dyno numbers are accurate and how we get them, so I decided to pull back the curtain and show you what we do to get these numbers.
The image below shows two dyno runs with a 2010 Mazda 3 (2.0L). The lesser of the two is stock, while the higher of the two is with our Corksport Short Ram Intake installed. The gain shows 121.3 – 115.3 = +6 hp gain. These are real numbers that we have obtained from our personal testing.
Now you may be thinking “Well, you just took the highest run with the SRI on and the lowest run with a stock car and got a 6 hp gain.” This is not how we do things. That would be easy and good from a marketing standpoint, but also deceptive, which is not how we operate. We take several runs, keeping as many variables as possible constant, for each scenario to ensure that they are accurate numbers. The image below shows how we obtained the stock vehicle data using 3 separate runs of 115.3, 114.9, and 114. In this case, we used the highest stock number of 115.3, but all of them are very similar.
For the SRI runs, we obtained numbers of 121.3 and 121.8. In this case, we took the lowest number, but both are very similar.
In conclusion, we try and offer the customer unbiased numbers to help them decide for themselves what product suits them best. Obviously, more runs = more development costs = higher product costs, so we try and strike a good balance between obtaining accurate data, and maintaining a competitive cost.
