Mazda MX-5 BBR Stage 1 Turbo: Review
The MX-5 you need not make excuses for, thanks to BBR, a turbo and 250hp
This new stage 1 kit for the ND generation car isn't especially cheap. You can buy it as a DIY installation for £4,395 or take your car to have it fitted for £4,995, both prices plus VAT. Or you can buy a complete car for £29,995 off the shelf, complete with a three-year warranty. Quite a bit for an MX-5. Until you consider that's about what Abarth will charge you for its version of the 124 Spider, which is of course based on the same platform as the MX-5. And has just 170hp against this BBR car's 250hp.
Weight and see
We'll try and avoid too much number crunching but that equates to over 230hp per tonne, with driver. A 300hp 718 Boxster has 213hp per tonne by the same measure but costs £45K. Meanwhile the fruitier 220 version of the new Lotus Elise Sport we drove recently has 243hp per tonne but costs nearly £40K.
But it's a tuner car, right? How can it possibly compare with 'factory' products like these?
Really rather well. You'll have seen us test various of BBR's tuned before and the highest compliment that can be paid is that they don't feel like tuned cars. Well, other than they are faster and handle better than the standard versions, obviously.
Haters gonna ... love?
Indeed, this could be the turbocharged car for people who hate turbocharged cars. For starters there's no real sense of lag. BBR has used a generously sized turbocharger running a relatively low boost; it's even able to maintain the Skyactiv engine's 13:1 static compression ratio - extraordinary for a forced induction engine.
But by heck does it go. While you don't feel the boost coming on like you might in that 718 Boxster the way the mid-range swells from just 2,000rpm or so is most definitely forced induction. Just without any of the lethargy or one-dimensional delivery seen elsewhere. The peak torque of 236lb ft tails off sooner than the naturally-aspirated car but there's over 200lb ft from 2,750-6,500rpm, against the standard 148lb ft.
This gives you choices. Overtaking grunt is there whether you leave it in gear or flick around the typically delightful Mazda gearbox and give it some beans. Making progress can therefore be as relaxed or frantic as your mood demands.
Stage flight
The basic Stage 1 kit focuses on the engine upgrades, comprising the turbo, manifold, stainless downpipe, intercooler, K&N Typhoon induction kit, BBR Starchip EcuTek software update and all the associated fixtures, pipes and fittings. BBR's demonstrator also benefits from the spring kit (£495 fitted with a geometry set-up) and Wilwood brake upgrade.
The former keeps the standard Sport model's Bilstein dampers but runs lower on BBR's custom-wound progressive springs and is an absolute revelation. Visually it transforms the car's stance, the wheels properly filling the arches at last. But there's also more small bump compliance, the MX-5 floating over ripples and bumps but feeling much more composed and settled when the speeds increase or things get properly lumpy - the point at which the standard car starts lurching around and feeling rather unruly. Given how much faster the car is you'd be daft not to basically.
With this greater confidence and improved body control you're much happier playing with the balance on the throttle too, the crisp response to the pedal and the base car's standard Torsen limited-slip diff making it deliciously simple to slide the car around. There's nothing innocent about the angles you can get the car to without trying very hard at all. Yet in the context of an MX-5 it feels a strangely unthreatening and simple pleasure. There's still a degree of wobble through the structure like there is in all MX-5s and BBR is wise not to have gone super-stiff with the set-up. What you get is everything that's nice about the standard MX-5, just in greater quantities.
Tthe Wilwood brake upgrade is probably sensible though, costing £595 for the four-pot versions or £895 for six-pots. Again, the set-up all feels commendably 'factory' though, the controls maintaining that lightness and feel you get from the base car. Alright, by this point your MX-5 is probably looking like a £35K car when all's said and done, unless you pick up a cheap pre-reg or used car and Man Maths the work into a total price not far off a well-optioned new one.
MAZDA MX-5 BBR TURBO
Engine: 1,998cc, 4-cyl
Transmission: 6-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power (hp): 250@7,150rpm
Torque (lb ft): 236@3,250rpm
0-62mph: 5.0sec*
Top speed: 155mph*
Weight: 1,075kg (with 75kg driver)
MPG: 40.9mpg (NEDC combined for standard car)
CO2: 161g/km (standard car)
Price: Standard car + Stage 1 kit from £4,395 DIY or £4,995 fitted, plus VAT, see BBR for further details
*BBR claimed figures
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I could be in the minority here but I think that, in the flesh, Fiat have done a much better job on the styling front.
Scratches head and wonders if a 5 pot turbo unit from the Fiat Coupe could be shoe-horned into a 124. Now THAT would be a thing to behold, looks, warp factor and a sound track!
I could be in the minority here but I think that, in the flesh, Fiat have done a much better job on the styling front.
Scratches head and wonders if a 5 pot turbo unit from the Fiat Coupe could be shoe-horned into a 124. Now THAT would be a thing to behold, looks, warp factor and a sound track!
Cheaper, faster, going up in value.
I had E86 3.0Si coupe manual, this one is also brilliant, one just has to remove the clutch delay valve to get it even more direct. 265hp in a classic NA inline-6 - more than enough to have fun on the twisties! LSD could be fit aftermarket if necessary.
Cheaper, faster, going up in value.
I do see what you mean, but they're unlikely to be on the same shopping list. Someone who buys one of these is clearly looking for something unusual and new. I could imagine many people buying a new one of these as a present to themselves.
Clearly enough people have done exactly that for BBR to still be in business after four generations of MX-5.
For anyone with a mark IV MX5 I think any of BBR's upgrades for someone wanting to move the power up a notch or two is a good idea, they have a wealth of experience and their product seems as if the manufacturer had done it.
I wonder how the mk4 will be tunable compared to the mark 3.5/3.75 though? New engine from Mazda? This seems slightly conservative to last stage 1.
Ideal CR for performance on a TC engine is some where in the 7~10 range depending on how much boost you want
At 13:1 they really struggling to get boost on
Hence the low boost, high RPM approach to get power but with limited torque (and not much boost lag)
Apparently they have another kit where the pistons are changed but as the engine has to be opened up the cost is a lot more
That delivers the torque and power you would expect
Don't drive it as if it's a Civic in other words use the gearbox & the Honda IS fast. Also the cabin does not have prison cell size proportions & it has a proper size boot. It does not look as if somebody has taken either end of the car & squashed it into the middle, on the RF this looks as if the roof has been lifted upwards. The Honda is better built & alongside the titchy Mazda looks proper grown up.
It gets worse - drive the much sneered maligned diesel SLK which has guts & much much more class. Outright performance is all about massaging egos not real world driving on our congested roads.
Agree that BBR must be doing something right but that does not mean spending money on trying to make something better which should have been done by the manufacturer makes any sense. Buy something better to start with that does not need messing about with.
It gets worse - drive the much sneered maligned diesel SLK which has guts & much much more class. Outright performance is all about massaging egos not real world driving on our congested roads.
Agree that BBR must be doing something right but that does not mean spending money on trying to make something better which should have been done by the manufacturer makes any sense. Buy something better to start with that does not need messing about with.
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