Tune, Small Fortune Visit, And National Tour

Many people have told me of how drastically different their car can feel with a different tune. After I got my tune from MazdaManiac, I can see why. Jeff (MazdaManiac) provides tuning services to RX-8 owners by having you submit specific information and some data logs to him. He makes tunes for the Cobb Accessport, and offers tuning for 6 months per subscription.

Unfortunately I have no dyno numbers, but you can at least feel the differences. Before the tune, the car had next to no initial pickup at 1, all the way to 3.5rpm. Once it hit 4,000rpm, it suddenly had a fair amount of torque and power, and was relatively smooth to 9,300 rpm. After the tune, the car has no initial pickup only from 1-1,800 rpm. Anything after, it is constantly outputting torque and power, VERY smoothly. No sudden kick in like before, just very smooth and consistent. Big thanks to Jeff for the awesome tune, looking forward to trying it out when I get my car back.

Which brings me to the next part of this post! I dropped off my car at Small Fortune Racing for the next large install, along with a few other touch ups. The laundry list is as follows:

• Black Halo Racing/Small Fortune Racing collaboration full header-back exhaust
• Removing the air pump
• Fixing the seat positions so they're even (the pegs were shaved off uneven)
• Creating a radiator bracket that holds up the under-tray properly
• Creating a radiator shroud so the hood doesn't start getting jumpy at high speeds
• Checking the alignment after getting my new steering rack

I can't wait to feel out the car after all of these items get completed. Hopefully he can find some time on the dyno as well so I can finally get some numbers, and if not, I can always do a few pulls somewhere I haven't visited in a long time; DSG! Thanks again Bill, looking forward to see more of your work on my car.

Lastly, I wanted to announce that Ben Wagstaff has invited me to National Tour down in Fingerlakes, New York. I will be racing in his STS Miata, checking out the scene, helping Ben out, and taking a ton of footage when I'm out on the course. Test course is July 9th, followed by 2 days of racing after. Looking forward to it and can't wait to see how I stack up against pros in a car I have never driven before! Stay tuned.