9/25/2023 0 Comments Redline club cars![]() It was a good couple of days.īut I'm not terribly interested in acceleration. Mazda brought me out to California to sample the results over two days driving between Pismo Beach and San Francisco, a couple hundred miles on the roads the Miata was created for. So shortly after the ND launched, the engineers went back to the drawing board to give the 2.0-liter the attention it never originally got. Mazda put so much work into taking the Miata back to its roots, and the tiny, zingy engine was a huge part of that. But insiders-including Coleman-knew the 1.5 was better. There isn't anything wrong with the ND Miata's original 2.0-liter-it's got great throttle response, and a nice broad torque curve. But, that decision came towards the end of the ND's development, which ended up meaning the big engine didn't get nearly as much finessing as the 1.5. He strongly advocated for the 2.0-liter, and Mazda bosses relented. In Japan, where traffic is generally slower and less aggressive? Sure, but not here. The result, I'm told, spins beautifully to its 7500-rpm limiter and suits the lightweight character of the ND perfectly.īut Coleman knew 1.5 liters wouldn't be enough for the US. Mazda uses that 1.5-liter Skyactiv engine in other cars, but it was heavily reworked for duty in the Miata. "The best one that we've ever made was the least powerful. ![]() "That was the argument for the 1.5," Dave Coleman, engineering manager for Mazda North America told me. Including the engine, which lead Mazda engineers to choose a 1.5-liter 130-hp four-cylinder for its sports car. Mazda engineered the ND to feel as close to the original 1.6-liter Miata as possible, which meant examining every single place the car could be smaller and lighter. What you need to know about the fourth-generation Miata, the ND, was it was never supposed to get a 2.0-liter engine. ![]()
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