<-- Looks forward to destroying his "crush zones" on the next build.

PFFFFT.

 

Is anyone realizing that the passenger compartment is what DOESN'T crumple in a crash? FM frame rails are located right under my ***, and my passengers ***. If that part of the car is supposed to crumple, we've got a big ******* problem, people.

That's my next product. Crumple zone re-appropriation kit.

 

Like i said any bracing will make the crumple zone be less effective.

 

v8 roadsters rear end kit. get the ford 8.8 and a stock 8.8 will hold litterally anything in a miata. i drove an 800hp fox body with a stock 8.8 rear with like after market gear set. never broke. when they say its good for like 500hp or w/e they rate it at thats what they are typically rated at in mustangs which weigh 3100lbs.

 

FWIW I stripped the frontmost receiving nuts on my PPF. That was probably because of a lot of wheelhop and doriftos.

 

once my car is back together im going to pull out the ppf and make custom mounts also going to order mmr diff mounts. I will post up pics once everything is done.

 

Yea, but you can weld aluminum, right mike? I suck ***** at it, or I would make something cool like that. I think a box instead of a one-side brace would be nice, if it was practical. Actually, I'm going to go look at my transmission and see if something like that is feasible.

Assuming the 5 and 6 boxes look the same, it looks like a tough cookie to crack.. a lot of material added on just one side of the case, I dunno, if you could wrap around something to the other side, then use a sort of clamp to hold it down, you might be able to add bracing on the other side. Hard to say.
I'd still like to think of a way to increase its strength somewhat, but I dunno how, other than making a better mousetrap, I.E. just making everything bigger/thicker/stronger as it is.

 

I can't weld aluminum lol but steel I can do, I was also going to add bracing on to the bracing im going to make to help brace the chassis.

 

What kind of driving are you doing that broke this thing?
What diff mounts were you running when it broke?
I beat the **** out of mine and its never broke.
This is amazing to me.

Whats this crumple zone **** anyway? thought this was about HP breaking a PPF??

 

Drag racing mostly and daily driving. Mazda comp diff & engine mounts. The crumple zone stuff came up because I guess the ppf is a main crumple zone but like I had started to say once you add any form of bracing to the chassis you start to eliminate the crumple zones.

 

It isn't much trouble at all. For the OP I'd call Martin at monstermiata.com and get his back half kit including rear hangar, broached hubs, and half-shafts. It is easy enough to fab a tranny crossmember, and a new driveshaft would have to be made. You'd be looking at some coin, but it's not that difficult.

 

Disagree there with the FM butterfly brace, they added something similar from the factory on 03+ cars at least. Doubt they re-engineered the the crumple zones for that.

 

I know that in 03+ they did a brace like FM but I think the mazda factory one crushes easier then FM due to add frame rails.

 

Haven't we already concluded that the area between the fuel tank and the firewall is the passenger compartment which is not designed to crush? It is designed to protect its occupants which means staying intact. Are you guys seriously debating this?

 

trust me man they fail epicly on some things and we go off on some horid tangents.

 

You Guys for the WIN

 

I understand how the PPF can be a crumple zone without the passenger compartment being a crumple zone. If you hit a barrier head on, the engine is going to need to allow the car to crumple forward around it. Without crumple, the engine will hit something and immediately shear the differential off the mounts.

But how does the driveshaft play into this 'crumple zone'???

 

Why does it have to shear the diff bolts? The front and rear structures are intended to yield to impact forces. With a direct hit to the front of a miata I would expect significant compression to the front of the vehicle. If any force is transmitted through the transmission then one would have to assume that the drive shaft and at least one u-joint is toast. The PPF would further transmit the load to the rear diff and in turn the rear subframe/hanger. I would expect yielding in possibly all of these components including the rear unibody section of the miata. All of those bolts are large, and I would not expect to see them shear. You are going to have one helluva sore driver, too.

 

I think we should just start digging up videos of miatas crashing along with the DOT test video if there are any. Then we should look into why we think of safety when we buy a car that is smaller then most cars on the road. Truly think about it these car are far from safe and came with 140chp for the soul reason so that we could not get into high speed MVAs.



LOL

 

I would suggest that large does not mean safe. Again, be careful making assumptions. I've known many to get into wrecks in miatas (many of them with totalled cars) and none of them have been hurt significantly. Check HardDog's website for the wreck photos. These cars are pretty amazing.