Mazda2 Thread

Congratulations to Andy for winning the ProSolo points championship in the 2! At least there will always be a past result for the 2 that we can point to.
Good luck in STF at the Solo Nationals for Andy and everyone else as well.

mazdeuce wrote: Congratulations to Andy for winning the ProSolo points championship in the 2! At least there will always be a past result for the 2 that we can point to. Good luck in STF at the Solo Nationals for Andy and everyone else as well.

Thanks, Deuce. It was a week to remember.

When STF did not get the minimum five entrants to "make" for the Pro Solo Finale, we thought that any chance we had for the overall championship was done, as we'd have to run in the bump class against F-Stock hotshoes Mark Daddio and Brian Peters. Plus, we'd have to spot them 3 tenths a side since the PAX index doesn't account for the Pro Solo launch. Double-yuck. Somehow, though, we pulled out a couple of magical runs on Sunday morning to get the class win and get into the Super Challenge. First round, we drew Tony Savini who was effectively tied with us for the Overall points lead at that point. Again digging deep, we found enough to get by him by .008 seconds. One more round and we had amassed enough points to gain our third Pro Solo Overall title (only John Ames has done this before) to add to our class championship.

Thursday-Friday for Solo Nats was a lot less stressful, since we were running with our "own kind" in STF. Fun courses and the car performed well. In addition to my championship (three in a row, four total), Ann scored her first podium in an open class. Could gave been 1-2, but she caught a cone on her second run and rain came into play as she sat on the line for her third run on the second day. .063 was the final margin for her, finishing in 3rd.

Big thanks to all of our sponsors and contingency partners

Toyo Tires, for making the magic 195 R1R and providing a HUGE contingency plan that allows us to travel

Mazda Motorsports for a wonderful parts support program and another great contingency plan

Grassroots Motorsports, whose association allows us access to some great testing and development deals

AST Suspension for some killer dampers

Dynotronics for ECU tuning that really works, and working with us to further develop it

Burns Stainless for exhaust parts and consultation

Laivins Race Cars for custom header construction

UpRev for dyno services

Vorshlag for Powerflex and Whiteline bushings (more on this in upcoming GRM)

Roger Beasley Mazda South for a great deal on the car, and support after the sale

JC Auto Spec and Soulspeed for tire mounting

And a shout out to all of the competitors in STF who make the class as much fun as it can be.

The SCCA Rallycross championships were this past weekend in Tulsa. What car comes out on top in Stock FWD? The Mazda2 of course. Congratulations to James Wilson on his win.

The 2 will be going out for it's first autocross on the new springs and tires next Sunday. pseudosport and possibly Miatame will be driving it, I've been slacking on getting a BMWCCA membership.

In reply to MA$$hole:

Cool, looking forward to hearing how it does. I still haven't bought tires so I'm interested how the S.Drives will be.

Speaking of mazda2.

with a stock car (aside from bald flat spotted used starspecs) I paxed 33 out of 104 at the detroit region SCCA season ender in RTF (h stock)

:)

MA$$hole wrote: The 2 will be going out for it's first autocross on the new springs and tires next Sunday. pseudosport and possibly Miatame will be driving it, I've been slacking on getting a BMWCCA membership.

I can't wait to see it drive with the new setup. If Greg is running in the same class as the XJ-R I'd love to get a run!

For reference this is one of my runs before. http://youtu.be/HDXxG1HbDZ4

fidelity101 wrote: Speaking of mazda2. with a stock car (aside from bald flat spotted used starspecs) I paxed 33 out of 104 at the detroit region SCCA season ender in RTF (h stock) :)

Very good! I've gone from paxing 86/110 when I got the 2 to 28/104 at the last event. I'm so close to the top 25% that I really want. I did manage to blow the mind of an older gentleman at the last event as well. It was his first time and he'd never been in a car driven in anger. We had three sessions so he worked the first and had to sit and watch the second before he drove. I convinced him to ride along so he could get a feel for what the course looks like at speed. It was like watching a kid get off his first roller coaster. It was really cool.

In reply to miatame:

Not a problem. I'm sure you'll get a chance to drive it one way or another.

mazdeuce wrote:

fidelity101 wrote: Speaking of mazda2. with a stock car (aside from bald flat spotted used starspecs) I paxed 33 out of 104 at the detroit region SCCA season ender in RTF (h stock) :)

Very good! I've gone from paxing 86/110 when I got the 2 to 28/104 at the last event. I'm so close to the top 25% that I really want. I did manage to blow the mind of an older gentleman at the last event as well. It was his first time and he'd never been in a car driven in anger. We had three sessions so he worked the first and had to sit and watch the second before he drove. I convinced him to ride along so he could get a feel for what the course looks like at speed. It was like watching a kid get off his first roller coaster. It was really cool.

What region are you in

In reply to fidelity101:

Houston. We get to drive all year which sort of makes up for nearly dying of heatstroke for much of it. It's also pretty cool that we also have an active BMWCCA chapter that runs monthly events 20 minutes from my house.

The grab pockets for closing the rear doors on the Mazda2 hold quite a lot of puke. Anything that misses the pocket seems to scrub out of the seats quite easily. Yay kids!

Has anyone driven one with the B spec kit? Is it streetable? I am used to lowered cars with questionable amounts of suspension travel.

I have these dirty thoughts about picking up a used 2 or a base model in a few years and adding the B spec kit on it. Or at least cobbling together a similar more street friendly setup.

mazdeuce wrote: The grab pockets for closing the rear doors on the Mazda2 hold quite a lot of puke. Anything that misses the pocket seems to scrub out of the seats quite easily. Yay kids!

My wife would state the puking is due to your driving. You know your not driving an Indy car........(that's what my wife would say)

failboat wrote: Has anyone driven one with the B spec kit? Is it streetable? I am used to lowered cars with questionable amounts of suspension travel. I have these dirty thoughts about picking up a used 2 or a base model in a few years and adding the B spec kit on it. Or at least cobbling together a similar more street friendly setup.

There are two bilstein kits for the car. One is the civilian version, the other is the b-spec version. Word on the street is that the only difference between the two is damping rates. The springs are the same. The same word on the street is that the civilian kit is fantastically driveable day to day. No word on the full race setup for daily driving.

mazdeuce wrote: There are two bilstein kits for the car. One is the civilian version, the other is the b-spec version. Word on the street is that the only difference between the two is damping rates. The springs are the same. The same word on the street is that the civilian kit is fantastically driveable day to day. No word on the full race setup for daily driving.

I have the damper curves for the B Spec kit. They are within the adjustment range of the K Sports in rebound, but have a lot more bump (which is good for motorsports... not so much for the street). Only moderately digressive, too.

By comparison, my rear AST's have a lot more low speed rebound and bump, and are way more digressive. And you can adjust a lot of it out. That's "cake and eat-it-too".

So in case anybody was wondering, the 2 happily handles a pair of skis, at least as long as nobody wants to ride in the passenger seat! The trick is to take the front and rear headrests off, pull the passenger seat's base all the way forward, and then lean the passenger seatback all the way back and fold the rear seatback down on top of it. Too bad there isn't like 1" of extra front seat travel or you'd be able to have a continuous flat surface. Anyway, doing it this way instead of the more obvious back seat first way, the skis only touch carpeted surface and not seat fabric. I had tons of room with my 171s, I think you'd be able to fit at least close to 190 and maybe more.

Here's a shot I snapped on the way down from finding all of this out:

Part 2: Driving in the snow on all-seasons with chains - coming soon?

Ran my 2 in a rallycross this weekend and won my class. The car is as well behaved on dirt as it is on pavement. Rotates well, especially with a tap of left foot braking. Scandavian flick is very easy to initiate though I had a very hard time figuring out how much speed to carry into it. Too much and I over rotated, too little and The whole maneuver just sort of stalled out half way around.
Put the 2 down as one of those cars that will do anything you ask of it, and do it well. Except accelerate.

Final event, and 3rd for the car, of the season for the Boston BMWCCA. The car was driven by Greg (pseudosport) as I'm a slacker & have not registered yet, next year I promise. It was a cold, wet day but the car was still very competitive. I need to look into getting a Camber Kit for this & possibly a 4-point harness. I would love to see if NC seats would fit & if the airbag hookups would still be compatible.

I put my winter tires on my 2. It works quite well in the snow. The rims are 15" Eagle 192 alloy wheels - they came with the tires and I don't mind them. I don't think they have sensors in them but no TPMS light which is nice.

Last week we got this

In reply to ArthurDent:

Give it time, they will come on. I had my winters on for about a week and they didn't come on and then drove from Detroit to Chicago and back and didn't come on until nearly all the way back to Detroit.

and yes, they are very fun in the snow :)

I was just mucking about on the computer and decided to update the software for the AIM SoloDL that I had been doing data acquisition with on the 2. Before I had to set up the device to use a generic Mazda protocol which read some things but not others. It worked, but I was always sort of bummed that I didn't have the native support that the Miata and the RX8 have. Wonder of wonders, the new software update includes support for the 2. Super excited me runs out to the car and plugs things in and I was checking things and giggling to myself and my 8 year old second hand computer goes out in a blaze of glory. Dammit. I'll provide a list of what data is sucked from the 2 when I get this sorted out. Even with the dead computer I'm still pretty excited.

Waiting at a light this morning and I had a black 2 drive by from my left and nearly at the same time a red 2 drove by from my right. That was three twos within about a 100 foot radius. That might be the highest 2 density anywhere off a dealer lot. I know sales numbers are supposed to be bad, but I now know of at least 7 other 2's in my general driving range. Maybe they're starting to sell better?

So has anyone heard anything about swapping on a Touring Steering wheel and having the dealer reprogram the "As Built" portion of the ECU. I was reading something about this being possible and how it works on the 3s. I would be very interested in this mod if there is any proof that it will work.

Friend is attempting this on his specB car right now. Or he says he is anyway. He doesn't have a truck so he's doing looooong drives to and from races in the car and it's killing him. I will report back if it's a success or not.