The Miata is back. We used that lede before to introduce the ND-chassis MX-5, but this time we really mean it. Really.
It’s not like the Miata ever really left, but the ND did feel slightly undercooked. It wasn’t the basic chassis, though. That was spot-on: small, light and nimble, just like the original.
It was the engine. And, as …
Looking forward to a straight answer on the 7200-7500 thing. I'd hate for that to be a blemish on what is otherwise a fantastic car.
The answer in the article is basically it: Theoretically, under certain conditions, it will rev to 7500. We couldn't get past 7200 on the street or on the dyno.
Otherwise, its steady state redline when you’re driving the car casually is 7200 rpm.
I don't know about you guys, but I casually hit rev limiters all the time.
I drove a 2019 in to work this morning. And I hit an indicated 7500 on the way in without doing anything weird. I see nothing wrong with this.
It's a 2018 with magic fun sprinkles. There is no downside.
The 2016-18 cars have a variable rev limiter too, but it's less sophisticated and it appears nobody else noticed it.
In reply to Tom Suddard :
A theoretical redline that might be higher under some circumstances that you can't predict is.......not good. This run might be 59mph, or it might not.....
It's possible our car was under a break-in program or something funny like that, too, but who knows. We'll be getting another one in a week or two for a full week, which will give us the time to dig deeper.
Only internet forums can take a car that's just like the old one but better and come up with problems.
2016s have variable rev limiters. Nobody else noticed, but it's there.
I got rid of one of my favorite cars over not getting the same thing every time i floored it. Hopefully whatever the conditions are for the higher redline are able to be hit consistently under race conditions, otherwise it won't be as much of an upgrade for racers as previously thought.
The dyno is a very artificial environment, it does things you wouldn't see in the real world. We'll be testing our car on the track and the dyno, we'll see how it really behaves.
Even if you consistently get 7200 instead of 7500, that's still 600 rpm and horsepowers better than the '18.
What matters most to me is whether I can get 7500 in gears 2-4 for consistent lap behavior on the track. Being able to continue to pull longer in 4th instead of 5th, when the car is really working hard against drag, makes a big difference. And knowing it will be the same every lap, is also key.
Keith...if you have a 2019 at hand, do us all a favor and run it up through each gear at WOT and see where it hits the limiter, please.
I'm not sure I'm going to manage to hit the limiter in 6th, that's over 180 mph 
. We'll do dyno testing in gears. The '16 has a gear-dependent redline and you know how that behaves, we'll compare the two.
Even if you consistently get 7200 instead of 7500, that's still 600 rpm and horsepowers better than the '18.
Keith, I get where you're coming from but the problem is that my brain responds far better to the mediocre than to the asinine. If that applies to enough people, the whole 'guess your redline' game might be a big turnoff. What are the paremeters?
lede?
Vigo said:Even if you consistently get 7200 instead of 7500, that's still 600 rpm and horsepowers better than the '18.
Keith, I get where you're coming from but the problem is that my brain responds far better to the mediocre than to the asinine. If that applies to enough people, the whole 'guess your redline' game might be a big turnoff. What are the paremeters?
Give us a bit more time to learn the car, we'll know more about when (if) it limits the engine speed. It's kind of disappointing that everyone is latching on to this, which may or may not be actually a problem. The '19 is fantastic news, it's an evolution of the ND that has no downside.
Just like the 2016-18, the car has a lower redline in higher gears. Any dyno shop that's tested an ND should know this, and it's a shame that GRM wasn't aware and they decided to do investigative journalism without that piece of information. 7500 rpm in 5th is over 150 mph, and it's unlikely the car will actually get there in the real world so it's an academic difference. Somehow, all those C Stock guys battling it out have managed to deal with a variable redline without noticing. But now the conversation has been turned from what the car is like to drive to a bunch of forums and journalists (all over the place) latching on to a sensationalist story without hard data - and dyno runs are not hard data in this case. I feel bad for the Mazda PR guys.
In reply to MiataRoadster :
Keith Tanner said:Vigo said:Even if you consistently get 7200 instead of 7500, that's still 600 rpm and horsepowers better than the '18.
Keith, I get where you're coming from but the problem is that my brain responds far better to the mediocre than to the asinine. If that applies to enough people, the whole 'guess your redline' game might be a big turnoff. What are the paremeters?
Give us a bit more time to learn the car, we'll know more about when (if) it limits the engine speed. It's kind of disappointing that everyone is latching on to this, which may or may not be actually a problem. The '19 is fantastic news, it's an evolution of the ND that has no downside.
Just like the 2016-18, the car has a lower redline in higher gears. Any dyno shop that's tested an ND should know this, and it's a shame that GRM wasn't aware and they decided to do investigative journalism without that piece of information. 7500 rpm in 5th is over 150 mph, and it's unlikely the car will actually get there in the real world so it's an academic difference. Somehow, all those C Stock guys battling it out have managed to deal with a variable redline without noticing. But now the conversation has been turned from what the car is like to drive to a bunch of forums and journalists (all over the place) latching on to a sensationalist story without hard data - and dyno runs are not hard data in this case. I feel bad for the Mazda PR guys.
Wait till somebody notices that wide open throttle doesn't actually open the throttle all the way all the time! Sometimes I hate the proliferation of cheap chassis dynos.
Tom Suddard said:In reply to MiataRoadster :
I learned a new word. That doesn't happen very often anymore. I also learned that I've been misunderstanding the expression "bury the lead". It's actually "bury the lede". The things you learn on the GRM forum.
APEowner said:Keith Tanner said:Vigo said:Even if you consistently get 7200 instead of 7500, that's still 600 rpm and horsepowers better than the '18.
Keith, I get where you're coming from but the problem is that my brain responds far better to the mediocre than to the asinine. If that applies to enough people, the whole 'guess your redline' game might be a big turnoff. What are the paremeters?
Give us a bit more time to learn the car, we'll know more about when (if) it limits the engine speed. It's kind of disappointing that everyone is latching on to this, which may or may not be actually a problem. The '19 is fantastic news, it's an evolution of the ND that has no downside.
Just like the 2016-18, the car has a lower redline in higher gears. Any dyno shop that's tested an ND should know this, and it's a shame that GRM wasn't aware and they decided to do investigative journalism without that piece of information. 7500 rpm in 5th is over 150 mph, and it's unlikely the car will actually get there in the real world so it's an academic difference. Somehow, all those C Stock guys battling it out have managed to deal with a variable redline without noticing. But now the conversation has been turned from what the car is like to drive to a bunch of forums and journalists (all over the place) latching on to a sensationalist story without hard data - and dyno runs are not hard data in this case. I feel bad for the Mazda PR guys.
Wait till somebody notices that wide open throttle doesn't actually open the throttle all the way all the time! Sometimes I hate the proliferation of cheap chassis dynos.
The stuff the ND does with the throttle plate is fascinating. Really, it's not a throttle pedal but a torque request. The car runs a vacuum pump because of the times the butterfly is open under "vacuum" conditions.
Why is the throttle plate thing "interesting?" The Speed 3 did this a decade ago as well as many other cars, even at full pedal extensions, at the RPMs climb, the throttle plate slowly closed. Shown multiple times with datalogging.
I can't say I'm totally surprised. I own an original NA (build date February 1990, 1.6 engine) and the tach will tell you you hit the rev limiter at 7200 RPM but if you put it on a dyno the actual revs are 7000. Same with the 1.8 ... advertised redline is down to 7000 and the tach will show 7000 at the rev limiter but on a dyno it's actually 6800.
The practice is quite common with OEMs actually. Good thing it's not a boat ... the speedos on those are wildly optimistic.
z31maniac said:Why is the throttle plate thing "interesting?" The Speed 3 did this a decade ago as well as many other cars, even at full pedal extensions, at the RPMs climb, the throttle plate slowly closed. Shown multiple times with datalogging.
Was it interesting then? Because if so, it's still interesting now. The Speed 3 may have been doing some boost control by tapering off the throttle.
The NA was notorious for reading 300 rpm high, but only when you were accelerating hard. It would actually show you going past redline - the limiter would kick in as intended, but the tach would be ahead of it. You usually saw 7500 on the tach with the 7200 rpm limiter.
Sounds awesome.
It doesn't look like the power difference shows up on the simple stopped/slow to something faster test. I suspect it will show up more on acceleration from a decent speed on up. The Fiat 124's greater power under the curve only seems to show up in these circumstances as well.
On our dyno testing, the 16 and 19 are equal to 6000 rpm. Then the 16 falls off a cliff and the 19 just keeps climbing. So you have to wind it out to see the power, which won't show up on a roll-on right away. But if you like revs, it rewards.
Man, it's tough out there on the internet.
Mazda, if you're reading this, I just want to say thank you for making the improvements to an already great driver's car. Job well done.
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