MAY-06

An issue that had needed attention for some time was the gearing. I noticed the loss of acceleration straight after the 19" wheels where fitted & had always wanted to regain it back. When an (RX-7) FD 4.1 ratio came along, I removed my diff centre & took it to have the crown wheel & pinion changed over. "No go" was the reply as the FD gears are quite different to the JC version. So a 2nd JC diff centre was sourced, from a 13B version that comes standard with a 4.3 ratio. Then, what has become so typical of Mazda, even the 13B gears where different...Grrr. Several hundred dollars worth of engineering later & the 4.3 ratio was installed. Had this been a Supra-to-Soarer or Silvia-to-Skyline change, everything would have bolted directly into place. When will they learn.?

With the 4.3 installed, the car was instantly revived regaining what was previously lost to the 19" wheels & then some more on-top. Accelleration is so much better, throttle response is better but long distance cruising is thirstier as 4th gear revs are now 300rpm higher for the same speed as before. In short, this is an excellent performance gain that was worth the cost.

A rare oppurtunity surfaced for a bolt-on part to suit a Cosmo in Japan so I jumped on it. Only catch was the manufacturer wanted to sell a minimum of 10-units. Thankfully they where convinced to sell me only 5-units on the condition the other 5-units would be purchased by Japanese rotary shops. Here is the 3rd style strut-tower brace to be seen to date. The other two from RE-Amemiya & Cusco. Not being too keen on the round bar style of the RE-Amemiya & Cusco units, this oval shaped brace caught my eye. They came in at a considerable cost saving by comparison too.

Fitting perfectly as you would expect from any Japanese quality part, the strut tower brace looks the part & it also came as no surprise that the handling is improved too. By noticing an improvement, it means that the strut towers move more than just a few MM during cornering & now that they are rigid the turn-in feels much sharper. Very worthy purchase.