Cmon man, you're better than this. The math is really simple, find the weakest link in the chain and detune to that.

On the other side of things, that no one likes to talk about, is that things cost money. Miata owners are notoriously cheap. We all know that the Mazda B series can accept boost readily, Mazda offered it in the 323. How many 323 GTX examples have you seen running around lately? Compare that to the number of short crank 1.6L NAs? Fast, reliable, cheap; pick 2.

 

I'm really hoping -- and expecting -- that Mazda is smarter than to engineer the transmission that close to the cars power output.

It's gotta be that this is a manufacturing defect, not a case of borderline engineering.

 

Its not so much they detune for a particular part's strength, but OEMs tune the ecu for all altitudes and weather in the market. The same tune and driveability maps must be safe at 14,000 feet or 0 feet with 100% humidity.... This might be changing as ECUs become more advanced and will compensate better for conditions.

 

Modern ecu's are so powerful and advanced these days that this is not a problem at all.
I bet the ND's ecu would make an MS3 look like a carburator

 

This.

The resolution, comp tables, etc are all incredibly powerful. For example, I believe the new Mustang gets away being able to run any % Ethanol on the same tune since the car figures it out without needing an inline ethanol sensor.

 

The gearing on the ND is pretty crazy. I used Flyin Miata's gearing calculator and it is geared to hit 171 mph in 6th! It is also only at 3176 rpm at 80 mph in 6th. My current 01 with a 6 speed and 3.9 rear is at 3841 rpm at 80 mph. It also can only hit 150 theoretically. I guess all this gearing stuff is a good reason why everyone is getting such great mpg.

 

New mustang can do flex fuel with just a tune. factory widebands, 32 timing tables, etc. BRZ/FRS can do flex fuel with just a tune. New wrx same thing. Many/most can store multiple different maps onto the OEM ecu, switch on the fly, have real time ethanol content feedback, etc etc etc. I'm sure the ND is just as cool/powerful, maybe even more so.

When newer cars are held back by "bad" tuning, it's usually not from lack of capability, but purposefully appeasing the bean counters, attorneys, etc.

Even still, 40hp is really surprising to see because most modern cars also have SERIOUSLY well designed intake and exhaust systems. No more iron cast logs with colliding runners, etc.

 

They don't have cast logs for fuel economy and emissions. Probably also don't have 40 extra ft.lbs. for fuel econ and emissions reasons, too.

 

Well, i suppose getting rid of that upstream catalytic converter makes a pretty huge difference on an engine with small ports that relies so heavily on exhaust gas velocity. Even so, it's shocking that they picked up an additional 10 hp going with the long tube 4-2-1 over the shorter one.

 

What about the gain over the Cup Car's 4-1? Impressive.

 

In the case of the BRZ, the E85 tunes that aren't Flex Fuel, are based around using LTFT/STFT to adjust for 60-90% E content. So not nearly optimized.

I was under the impression the Mustang was able to pull off a true Flex Fuel E10-E90 tune, with no sensor. But I could have misunderstood what I read about it since it was a quick search a few months ago.

I have to swap back to a 91 tune on the BRZ when not on E85.

 

Doesn't ecutec offer flex fuel for brz?
As for Mustang, it doesn't need sensor, just tune alone allows flex-fuel capability.

Either way, we're talking about some seriously powerful ecu's, which have no problem with baro/temp corrections

 

They do. But I'm on OFT, so it's just a straight E60-90 tune and compensates. Not ideal.


The amount of gains they are seeing with a header and tune makes me want to go drive an ND now.

 

How does it do flex fuel without a sensor?

 

Bro, it just knows

 

Cameras and LTE. It watches you add fuel from the pump and looks up the specs on the gas company web site.

--Ian

 

 

Scales up the fuel trims by roughly 30%, and uses the MAF/O2 sensor to monitor fuel trims and adjust. And of course with E85 it also adds in a ton of ignition timing as well (the tune does then uses the sensors to monitor IAM/FLKC/KC, etc) and there are tons of compensation tables that adjust fuel/timing/cam timing, based on temp/humidity, Commanded AFR, knock sensors, etc.

 

Lol. E85 at the pump here in OK, is typically 70% since that's all required by law.

No idea why E85, isn't forced to be, ummmm, ya know, 85% E.

 

As we all know, fuel blending specs vary by season.

The ASTM spec permits E85 to be as as low as E70 during winter, but requires a minimum of 79% alcohol for Class 1 during summertime.

http://www.cleanairchoice.org/pdf/Ethanol%20Specs.pdf

http://ethanolrfa.3cdn.net/4eea401b7..._nrm6bhv0i.pdf