Mazda Talk Forums

Great day of fun with Grassroots MotorSports Magazine and our Fiat and ND Miata on track at Willow Springs Raceway. Fair fight with same tires, wheels, suspension, etc. Article coming in future issue with details.

Shot showing the Fiat now has our Best Big BRAKES!

Love these on track, the confidence in the brake zones is massive.

World's first Fiat 124....with OSGIKEN Competition 24 disc limited slip!
First testing event today, BMW Club Autocross

Brian wrote:Shot showing the Fiat now has our Best Big BRAKES!

Love these on track, the confidence in the brake zones is massive.

Brian,
what wheel and tire size are you running on this car? thanks!

For track and autocross our favorite is the 6UL 17x9.....usually with 245/40 tire as you see in pics above, but sometimes in Hoosier 225/40 which is what you see in picture below.

That 17x9 is just 15.4 pounds each....amazingly light.

For street users we have 17x8 which is just 14.8 pounds in the 6UL wheel.

Brian

Just drove the first complete ECU reflash that came available to our Fiat 124, and WOW...a nice improvement. More details and dyno soon but first impression is that onset of power is massively smoother. I sort of figured the lumpy onset of power was just the price of using a turbo, but a good reflash smooths it out.

Looking forward to more info on this. The ECU reflash is one mod I have been holding out on due to a lack of dyno backed results.
Hopefully this flash will have some results that justify the price of admission.
As always Brian, thanks for going the extra mile in supporting us 124 guys!

We plan to get the Fiat back to the dyno later this week.

Fun overlay of the power race between our Fiat and ND Miata projects. Miata has our full longtube header and highflow muffler setup and reflash, Fiat has our complete exhaust system PLUS prototype highflow converter and piggyback from Madness. As you can see, though the Fiat runs out of steam early compared to Miata, and though peak hp is VERY SIMILAR at 178 vs 180 for Miata, the Fiat has a pretty massive midrange torque advantage.
Now that we are working on full ECU reflash the Fiat numbers are up even more, will post new dyno as soon as we get the reflash complete.

But the Fiat is heavier....by precisely 100 pounds. These measurements with gas tanks full, no people in the cars, STR 17x9 wheels with big 245/40 Rivals. The Fiat's turbo contributes to it being so heavy at driver's side front corner. Both cars FULL TANK of gas for this measurement and weighed with no driver. Worth noting that neither is a base model. Our Miata is full option GT, even the seat heaters and leather, because that was what Mazda had the week the ND was released and we were hungry to get started on development. Similar story on the Fiat, Classico but loaded with technology package, etc.

Fiat 124 Weight Miata Weight

Brian wrote:Fun overlay of the power race between our Fiat and ND Miata projects. Miata has our full longtube header and highflow muffler setup and reflash, Fiat has our complete exhaust system PLUS prototype highflow converter and piggyback from Madness. As you can see, though the Fiat runs out of steam early compared to Miata, and though peak hp is VERY SIMILAR at 178 vs 180 for Miata, the Fiat has a pretty massive midrange torque advantage.

DynoShootout.jpg

Now that we are working on full ECU reflash the Fiat numbers are up even more, will post new dyno as soon as we get the reflash complete.

But the Fiat is heavier....by precisely 100 pounds. These measurements with gas tanks full, no people in the cars, STR 17x9 wheels with big 245/40 Rivals. The Fiat's turbo contributes to it being so heavy at driver's side front corner. Both cars FULL TANK of gas for this measurement and weighed with no driver. Worth noting that neither is a base model. Our Miata is full option GT, even the seat heaters and leather, because that was what Mazda had the week the ND was released and we were hungry to get started on development. Similar story on the Fiat, Classico but loaded with technology package, etc.

Fiat 124 Weight

FiatWeight.jpg

Miata Weight

MiataWeight.jpg

It seems like to me that the MX5 did consider when the passenger sit in that the weight distribution from left to right would be perfect

In 124's case that the left side is going to be even more heavier.

That IMO will defiantly effect the handling of the 124