We put our brand spanking new 2019 on the dyno a few hours after it arrived here. We know the cars, we know the dyno, we have a good selection of reference charts for comparison. So here's what we have. The 2019 had 300 miles on it at the time of the test, the ND1 had more. All of these tests were done on the same dyno with an operator who's more interested in rigor than in marketing numbers, so they're representative and easy to duplicate.
First, disclaimers and explanations. We're testing on a Dynocom 2000, and one of its characteristics is some waviness in the graph around 5000 rpm. All cars do it. The dyno is set up to give repeatable numbers and runs a sweep test that's pretty similar to a Dynojet. Our shop is at about 4800' and correction factors are in the mid-teens. All of these runs have similar correction factors and checking the status of some of the dyno component readouts, are comparable.
Tests were done in 4th gear, as we've found that's the best gear for testing an ND. 6th is the 1:1 gear but that means wheel/roller speeds of 185 mph and the car will actually start to close the throttle early in both 5th and 6th gears as you get into speeds that the car simply can't attain on the road.
The Great Rev Limiter Controversy. We're talking to Mazda about this, and we'll have more legitimate information soon. The car did indicate a redline of 7500 during the test and it has done so during all of our street driving. The tachometer appears to be offset, but like I said we're looking at it. So let's concentrate on the results without getting hung up on that for now and wait until we have more information. The most important thing is that the car has been behaving completely consistently.
Drum roll...
ND1 vs ND2. It's pretty clear that 1) you'll never notice the difference if you shift below 6000 and 2) the ND2 engine is pretty fun. When driving, it just pulls and pulls until you get to redline while the ND1 gets wheezy at 6000.
We've seen this behavior before. When we installed our BBR cam and valvespring kit, the engine in our 2017 RF got really, really fun. It would just pull and pull. Here's what it did vs the same engine in stock form. The cammed engine has a flash, because it needs a flash to deal with the new cams and the increased redline but the exhaust is the same. Tasty. This was a staff favorite to drive, even if it wasn't as fast as the boosted cars.
And of course, next to the new hotness.
So, while we can't duplicate the effects of the ND2, you don't necessarily need to trade in your old car. We'll keep looking at interchange to see how many of the yummy new parts can be retrofitted.
One thing we've noted while driving that doesn't show on the dyno - tip-in response is improved and the engine map appears to be very well calibrated and polished. It's clear that this was not a rush job.
I've had two Miatas in my garage at the same time that had almost identical peak power but very different delivery. The peaky naturally aspirated one was huge fun on the track, the one with the big torque plateau was great day to day.
