ND rumored to get 181 hp

Donebrokeit said:

Maybe they will use the Fiat engine, that engine could use a nice bump to hit the 180hp mark. The Fiat engine is all ready legal here and maybe Canada.

 

Paul

They should use the Fiat body too. Get rid of that melted dead fish look 

Keith Tanner said:

The MSM's competition in the day was the Neon SRT4.

Interesting. When I bought my MSM, I thought the competition was the MR-S and the S2000. I decided I didn't want to live with the impracticality of the MR-S and didn't think there was any reason to spend the extra money on the S2000. I would've said that the SRT4 was in competition with the VW R32, but not a miata, but I can see that they were both factory turbo charged versions of standard cars.

Keith Tanner said:

I never said anything about 4x4 truck drivers and compensation. I drove a 7700 lb turbo diesel 4x4 to work at Flyin' Miata on Friday The hairdresser jokes come from everywhere, they're even in Evo magazine.

No, YOU didn’t say it but I’ve seen plenty of it here. And I hear 10x the small weewee jokes about 4x4 drivers than I do hairdresser jokes about Miatas.

I have not driven an ND and I'm afraid if I do, I will want one.

T.J. said:

Keith Tanner said:

The MSM's competition in the day was the Neon SRT4.

Interesting. When I bought my MSM, I thought the competition was the MR-S and the S2000. I decided I didn't want to live with the impracticality of the MR-S and didn't think there was any reason to spend the extra money on the S2000. I would've said that the SRT4 was in competition with the VW R32, but not a miata, but I can see that they were both factory turbo charged versions of standard cars.

Fair point. The SRT4 wasn't really direct competition, but its performance bump made the MSM look a little sad by comparison. I know that the S2000 was the performance benchmark Mazda was aiming for, as the original RFQ for the MSM had "faster than S2000" as a requirement. But the Honda was considerably more expensive, made even more so by the slow sales of the MSM.

I do recommend that you do not drive an ND unless you're willing to take it home.

If you're over 6', you're still safe.

The ND is insanely good.

Snrub said:

I am not suggesting the current ND isn't a ton of fun on the street.  I'm currently leaning towards buying one.  However, a better top end would be more fun. It's a fantastic vehicle, but there are some areas that could be tweeked to be even better.  I think the strong low-mid range makes the high end drop off feel more severe.  So many cars have an overkill amount of power, I tend to think cars in the 13s (where this might land) are the sweet spot.  I know it is faster than a MSM, but the MSM was very quick in its day relative to the competition.  The ND is only quicker in a straight line than say  the 86/BRZ.  From a marketing perspective, it would be advantageous to be in the middle of the pack compare to affordable fun car competitors.

I found that mine took a few thousand miles to loosen up. It certainly feels a lot revvier now with ~9000 miles on it than it did when it had 900 miles on it.

I'm completely on board with the light powertrain, I'd just like it to rev out a bit better (I'm coming from a RX-8) and a little more punch won't hurt and I suspect this change could do it without sacrificing much in the way of flexibility throughout the rev range.  Realistically, in this day and age 155hp is a bit weak for a 2.0L engine in a fun/somewhat performance oriented car.  People complaining about power everywhere are nuts.  :)

Per my point about marketing perception, other generalized affordable fun cars (not necessarily direct competitors) might be the Civic Type R, FoST, FiST, WRX, GTI, Mustang 2.3L, Camaro 2.0/3.6L, etc.  The power bump would put its performance right in mix with those, so as to not stand out to a lay person as slow and unworthy of the most basic consideration.  Back in 2001 I bought a '87 RX-7 TII and had a lot of fun with the car.  The RX-7 was more practical and I believe a 1.6L miata would have been more money, but I didn't even consider trying one (heck the people across the street owned one!) because it was "too slow."  For new car shoppers in that era, a regular NB Miata wasn't anywhere close to say a RSX Type-S, Cobalt SS, SRT-4, WRX, etc.

The ND I drove had ~6k miles.

I completely agree, compared to an RX-8 it's rather reluctant to rev.

You're focusing on that peak number again

You say that 155 PEAK hp is low for a modern 2.0, but there are the cars you compared it with...

Civic Type R: turbocharged.
FoST: turbocharged.
FiST: turbocharged.
WRX: turbocharged.
GTI: turbocharged.
Mustang 2.3l: turbocharged.
Camaro 2.0: turbocharged.
Camaro 3.6: NOT turbocharged, but nearly twice the capacity. Still, this one has a solid output.

All the epic Honda motors of yore are too dirty to sell today. What's a modern, current naturally aspirated 2.0 that makes more than 155 peak hp in US legal form? It's an honest question, I'm drawing a bit of a blank.

NickD said:

In reply to wspohn :

The Solstice/Sky is also a case of "numbers aren't everything" as well. They may have made big power, but they drive absolutely terrible. I reeeeeaaallllly wanted to like them but somehow despite being physically larger than a Miata, they have considerably less space, to the point where I can't drive one with stickshift because my knee is wedged into the dashboard. They also feel like someone at GM directly equated "coarse" with "sporty"  resulting in a vehicle that feels like driving a small, low-slung tractor. There's a reason that these cars never quite gained the following of the Miata, S2000 and BMW Z3.

SO lets put the trans and engine from one into the miata :P

Keith Tanner said:

All the epic Honda motors of yore are too dirty to sell today. What's a modern, current naturally aspirated 2.0 that makes more than 155 peak hp in US legal form? It's an honest question, I'm drawing a bit of a blank.

BRZ/86 2.0L - 205HP and is universally regarded as enough /s

Adam

Jaynen said:

NickD said:

In reply to wspohn :

The Solstice/Sky is also a case of "numbers aren't everything" as well. They may have made big power, but they drive absolutely terrible. I reeeeeaaallllly wanted to like them but somehow despite being physically larger than a Miata, they have considerably less space, to the point where I can't drive one with stickshift because my knee is wedged into the dashboard. They also feel like someone at GM directly equated "coarse" with "sporty"  resulting in a vehicle that feels like driving a small, low-slung tractor. There's a reason that these cars never quite gained the following of the Miata, S2000 and BMW Z3.

SO lets put the trans and engine from one into the miata :P

Not really a fan of that drivetrain in general. 

adam525i said:

Keith Tanner said:

All the epic Honda motors of yore are too dirty to sell today. What's a modern, current naturally aspirated 2.0 that makes more than 155 peak hp in US legal form? It's an honest question, I'm drawing a bit of a blank.

BRZ/86 2.0L - 205HP and is universally regarded as enough /s

Adam

I dunno, there are plenty of people complaining about the lack of power with those twins as well. 

Right, of course. The twins. Looks like they tend to dyno at about 175 rwhp, which is about 25 hp more than the Miata engine does. Looking at the charts, they're set up more for peak power than a big flat torque curve, with a big dip between 3000-4500.

BoxheadCougarTim said:

adam525i said:

Keith Tanner said:

All the epic Honda motors of yore are too dirty to sell today. What's a modern, current naturally aspirated 2.0 that makes more than 155 peak hp in US legal form? It's an honest question, I'm drawing a bit of a blank.

BRZ/86 2.0L - 205HP and is universally regarded as enough /s

Adam

I dunno, there are plenty of people complaining about the lack of power with those twins as well. 

I was going to say that those two seem to be the poster child of "Needs more power", more so than even the Miata. I personally don't feel that way (perhaps because I drive a 1.6L Miata), but I hear it about the twins the most. 

Yes, I am arguing from a marketing perspective more PEAK power will be helpful and it will help the performance stats as well.  Most customers probably don't care how a given car makes power, just that it does.  Just to be clear, I've been pining over a ND with 155hp for months, so I'm not trying to undermine the value of the product.

Obviously if we want to draw comparisons to naturally aspirated engines, most of them are now a generation or two old.  However, if we want to argue about theoretical potential, Toyota's corporate 2.5L makes 82hp/L, the previous Civic SI made 84hp/L and GM's corporate 3.6L makes 93hp/L on 87.  Mazda is capable of amazing things, I'm sure if they felt inclined to spend the money they could find ways to tweak the 2.0L for some extra power for a performance application and make more than 78hp/L.

In reply to NickD :

That's because many of the people who experienced them were expecting/ wanting a 370Z. It's not. 

Pretty sure Clarkson used the same label for Lotus Evora owners. 

sevenracer said:

Interesting.  I was always pretty intrigued by the BBR camshaft upgrade that Flyin Miata sells and their super 200 package.

Seems like you could really wake up the motor with a set of cams and a tune - but I don't hear about anyone doing that.  Maybe Mazda did.

FYI, here's the dyno chart for the cams. Pink is stock, yellow is cams + tune, green is cams+tune+header. You can see why it's fun.

So, I have a question, which is likelier to be faster in a straight-line? This 181hp ND or the 178hp MSM? Discussing it with a friend, I felt like it'd be the ND, due to the MSM's wonky turbocharger.

According to Car & Driver's testing, the current 155 hp ND is faster both to 60 and through the quarter mile than the 178 hp MSM.

Keith Tanner said:

You're focusing on that peak number again

You say that 155 PEAK hp is low for a modern 2.0, but there are the cars you compared it with...

Civic Type R: turbocharged.
FoST: turbocharged.
FiST: turbocharged.
WRX: turbocharged.
GTI: turbocharged.
Mustang 2.3l: turbocharged.
Camaro 2.0: turbocharged.
Camaro 3.6: NOT turbocharged, but nearly twice the capacity. Still, this one has a solid output.

All the epic Honda motors of yore are too dirty to sell today. What's a modern, current naturally aspirated 2.0 that makes more than 155 peak hp in US legal form? It's an honest question, I'm drawing a bit of a blank.

The Duratec 2.0 that's in the Focus makes 160 hp...

Appleseed said:

In reply to NickD :

That's because many of the people who experienced them were expecting/ wanting a 370Z. It's not. 

I sold my 370Z and bought a new BRZ, it was a mistake.  

Keith Tanner said:

sevenracer said:

Interesting.  I was always pretty intrigued by the BBR camshaft upgrade that Flyin Miata sells and their super 200 package.

Seems like you could really wake up the motor with a set of cams and a tune - but I don't hear about anyone doing that.  Maybe Mazda did.

FYI, here's the dyno chart for the cams. Pink is stock, yellow is cams + tune, green is cams+tune+header. You can see why it's fun.

Cool.  So, now how about a dyno plot of the BBR cams + BBR turbo .

Just kidding (mostly) - a nice, crisp NA motor that likes to rev is a great thing.