ROADSTER TURBO @ TOKYO (56k warn!)

Andres · Oct 30, 2003

Hello,

I don't know much about Miatas, but I thought it would be interesting for some of you a set of pictures I took last Tuesday at the Tokyo Motor Show.
The Miata there was a "Roadster Turbo".
Only thing I didn't like so much is it looked higher than regular Miatas... Don't know if it was due to the low profile tires, or if it was rised somehow...

Well, there you go!

Later,
Andrs.

mountjonas · Oct 30, 2003

nice pics.

not that it matters, but four lugs for the wheels?

Andres · Oct 30, 2003

More...

miata%20roadster%20turbo%20engine%20bay.jpg

That intercooler looked small...

Later,
Andrs.

dominoy2k1 · Oct 30, 2003

looks like the mazdaspeed miata, maybe it is

Newf · Oct 30, 2003

nice shots

paint looks metallic too.

Mazda looks to be only interested in making tiny turbo's resulting in low HP increases so far. The Miata Turbo should have been easy for them to do since the Aussies have had it before.

kcbhiw · Oct 30, 2003

That looks a lot like the MAZDASPEED Miata that was recently discussed.

mountjonas said:
not that it matters, but four lugs for the wheels?

It doesn't matter

. On such a light car, 5 lugs aren't needed. Heh, they're not even need on the MSP. However, it does look better.

mountjonas · Oct 30, 2003

kcbhiw said:
That looks a lot like the MAZDASPEED Miata that was recently discussed.

It doesn't matter . On such a light car, 5 lugs aren't needed. Heh, they're not even need on the MSP. However, it does look better.

i know, but it makes it look cheap.

KpaBap · Oct 31, 2003

mountjonas said:
i know, but it makes it look cheap.

(freak)

Keith@FP · Oct 31, 2003

All Miatas have four lugs. I don't see the problem. We've got cars with twice as much hp as the Mazdaspeed Miata running around racetracks with slicks, and the four-lug setup works just fine. The alignment eccentrics can't stand the load, but that's a different matter.

Yes, that's the Mazdaspeed Miata. Instead of being farmed out to a golf club manufacturer for a turbo system, it was done by the factory.

Did you happen to get any photos of the Ibuki?

Keith

nobody · Oct 31, 2003

the "golf club manufacturer" did a much better job than Mazda Japan thou!!!

Keith@FP · Oct 31, 2003

By what measure, exactly? Mazda Japan never did a tubo Protege and Callaway never did a turbo Miata.

Keith

Andres · Oct 31, 2003

Hi Keith,

Sorry I didn't take any photos of the Ibuki, I was in a hurry since I was only there for a little more than 2 hours and I really wanted to shot as many cars (specially race/rally cars) as possible. I got some other pictures of a couple RX8s that seemed to be slightly modified by Mazdaspeed, plus some shots of the Mazda3 that I'll be posting later...

By the way, wasn't your Miata one of the cars in a recent Car&Driver mag...? Not sure about the mag but was a comparison of tuned compacts.
Anyway, What I wanted to ask you if it was your car, is why did they say the Miata would've performed better (handling wise) with a little more track-biased suspension set-up or parts...? Specially considering that car had like 250-260whp.

Thanks,
Andrs.

Keith@FP said:
All Miatas have four lugs. I don't see the problem. We've got cars with twice as much hp as the Mazdaspeed Miata running around racetracks with slicks, and the four-lug setup works just fine. The alignment eccentrics can't stand the load, but that's a different matter.

Yes, that's the Mazdaspeed Miata. Instead of being farmed out to a golf club manufacturer for a turbo system, it was done by the factory.

Did you happen to get any photos of the Ibuki?

Keith

Keith@FP · Oct 31, 2003

We brought a street car. We even drove it 800 miles to the event. Everyone else brought race cars on trailers and stuck licence plates on them. So our suspension was set up to be good on the road as well as the track. Wrong tool for the job, that's all.

Due to a series of engine failures, we didn't have time to sort the handling on the car. We discovered last month that the suspension was not set up correctly at all so it wasn't even making full use of what it had. Really bad understeer - enough that we sent an apology to C&D when we found out. We've fixed it now.

The engine in the car at the event was failing during the event. It took 3 gallons of oil to get it home. No fault of ours - our head guy had used aluminum oxide on the head that poisoned the engine - but that's racing.

Keith

Andres · Oct 31, 2003

I see Keith,

Thanks for your comments!. I just came back from the C&D web site where I finally found the article. I wouldn't be that sad with my engine problems if I still was doing 5.2 secs on the 0-60mph

Anyhow, I believe your car stood pretty well against the others and you got good comments overall... Congrats!.

Later,
Andrs.

rx7gslse · Oct 31, 2003

Andres said:
I see Keith,

Thanks for your comments!. I just came back from the C&D web site where I finally found the article. I wouldn't be that sad with my engine problems if I still was doing 5.2 secs on the 0-60mph

Anyhow, I believe your car stood pretty well against the others and you got good comments overall... Congrats!.

Later,
Andrs.

link??

I'm still looking for it...

edit: found it!
http://www.caranddriver.com/article.asp?section_id=35&article_id=6947&page_number=14

Keith@FP · Oct 31, 2003

If you're interested, the build of the car can be found here: http://www.flyinmiata.com/projects/supertuner Looks like our photo server is throwing a fit, so that link might not be terribly exciting until it comes back up.

We also had it at the recent track day we ran in Vegas (it was also being used to break in a customer engine), and it's about to get engine #6 as we test another set of internals. The joy of being an FM development car

Keith

70 · Oct 31, 2003

newf said:
nice shots

paint looks metallic too.

Mazda looks to be only interested in making tiny turbo's resulting in low HP increases so far. The Miata Turbo should have been easy for them to do since the Aussies have had it before.

They didn't have that much at all...I think they barely made 200 of them in Australia. I stopped by a Mazda dealer in Sydney when I was there on my way home from Iraq and tried to find out about them.

Due to the accent and the gorgeous lady telling me, I think she said 150 of them were made and sold in Australia, but here body was telling me to not listen.

Dang Australian women!

PhatMiata · Nov 10, 2003

Do you have a pictures of the rear of the Roadster Turbo? or any other pics? if so can you please post them!

PhatMiata

rx7gslse · Nov 10, 2003

PhatMiata said:
Do you have a pictures of the rear of the Roadster Turbo? or any other pics? if so can you please post them!

PhatMiata

look for the "mazdaspeed miata" and there's a bunch of pictures..

Autoweek has an article online with pictures as well

YuYuRena · Nov 11, 2003

Good find and cool pics, thanks Andres. I like the pictures you took. So you know any other colors they're going to be coming in besides this red (it looks nice). I think Mazda is not using outside source to tune this one, because of their experience with 2 models before and this is Miata, Mazda's bread & butter, they can't mess this one up, i.e. clunk, hesitation. I feel jipped now

. Not saying callaway and racing beat bad, but Mazda Japan did it would be even better. But look at the car, it looks nice

ROADSTER TURBO @ TOKYO (56k warn!)

Andres

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mountjonas

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Andres

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dominoy2k1

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Newf

kcbhiw

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mountjonas

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KpaBap

Keith@FP

nobody

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Andres

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Keith@FP

Andres

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rx7gslse

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Keith@FP

70

PhatMiata

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rx7gslse

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