Current trends which, in turn, drive the availability of good tires. Tried shopping for good street rubber in a 14" fitment lately? Some of the good stuff isn't even available in 15".

That said, if the suspension and chassis are designed around the assumption of a 17" wheel & tire of a certain weight, then there's obviously no reason why it can't be made to work, and well. The laptimes which we've seen thus far would seem to support this conclusion.

There was a time when Corvettes and Porsche 911s came with 15" wheels. Now they're up to 20-21". And yet I don't think anyone will question that the newer cars are faster and better handling then their predecessors.

 

I wonder if anyone has an ND and NC partially taken apart enough to see if the intake manifolds between the two interchange. They look damn close but the ND looks lighter and with better throttle body placement.

 

Two entirely different engines. An SBC and SBC have more in common.

 

Three NDs left a Nationals event on the back of various trailers last week due to catastrophic transmission failures. Don't bother trying to look up any info on it, it's just a bunch of armchair engineers talking about how they're never going to buy an ND because _________________________ .

 

Yeah all the talk on m.net about the transmission failures is like reading the tabloids. It is almost as good as watching the different ND ECU tuners fight.

Since I won't be buying a ND till 2018/2019 I am hoping they have the transmission issues fixed by then.

 

Seems like the norm. 1994 fixed a bunch of NA issues. 2009 (I think) fixed NC issues. I figure 2018 or 19 to fix ND issues. Can't wait!

 

Mazda knows about the transmission failures in competition. They already have both a regular production fix and a separate aftermarket upgrade in the works. I do not know what the timeline for implementation on either is though. Look for a TSB and announcement from Mazdaspeed in the coming months.

 

I also want a good blue color for my next miata. So I will be waiting till they come out with that. The current color choices for the ND to me are so unappealing.

 

Thats what I heard as well. These tranny failures have been weird too. Its not like the 5 speeds I blew up. Jake ran 2 auto-xs at the end of last year with his and his 2nd gear let go when he was pulling the car out of winter storage to drive on the nice day we had in February, his broke a 2nd time while driving away from the site at wilmington. Danny's broke like pulling out of his driveway after they trailer the car home from wilmington. And another one broke on site. Karwens car is basically the only one running nationally that hasnt broken and he's been babying it since he bought it.

 

the best fix was the 1.6L failure.

 

All of the failures seem to be 2nd (or in the case of the a MX-5 Cup Car, 3rd) under "brisk" acceleration. It's likely either a design issue or a metallurgy/processing issue, and I'm hesitant to put water in the design bucket because it implies that Mazda considered the 2.0L at the last possible minute and barely got the tooling ready on the line.

I'm about to roll over 9k (heh) and I haven't bothered with the handful of TSBs (PPF, window rubbers, soft top jitters, seatbelt guides, etc). I'm not particularly worried since Mazda does know that it's an issue.

 

In my experience, you pour over the design and testing of a part, work with a supplier on the production of it and validating it's performance, then in production, purchasing comes in and sends out for bids and the supplier that worked with you in design, who knows exactly what it will take to make the part, comes in with a bid that is above some other company who didn't really read through the entire print, purchasing sees it as a win because they saved $3 a part and all give each other handjobs over how awesome they are, and I just sit back and wait for the inevitable disaster.

 

^ Too often so true.

Metallurgical issue. Normal teething issues for a first-year production IMO.

 

I see what you did there.

 

Hmm. Well mine hasn't been built yet, hopefully they implement the fix before it is if not, I'm confident Mazda will fix it. They have had issues with transmissions in CX5s here and there, but they're taking care of those too.

 

Yup.

And in the case of Subaru, they just deny everything and say it broke from abuse and the owners can go pound sand.

 

I just posted this in the bad driving fail thread, but I guess it's relevant here too. Might be the most NDs getting fucked up at once ever :(

 

Pastor Maldonado is driving in the MX-5 cup series now?

--Ian

 

That's Maldonator to you, bub.

 

It's like Spec Miata, but twice as expensive.