So, it's been about 4 days with the bar installed and this somewhat short review is based on these first impressions.
I'm going to break this into two parts, install and performance...
Install fit and finish:
So this is my third CorkSport part, and I say with some regret that it's the first one I have had issue with the fit and finish.
The bar itself looks great, nice flat black with the corksport logo on the drivers side. Nice and subtle design, which I like. It looks like a part of the engine bay. Once I started the install I ran into a few issues however.
While they don't make an effort to point it out, it is VERY difficult to get to two of the bolts on the strut tower with a standard ratchet or torque wrench, without removing a bunch of the plastic trim, and even then it's difficult to get to the rearmost bolt that's under the frame of the car. I can't really fault CorkSport for that as they didn't design the car, and they do point out that a service manual is a required bit of equipment for the install. Still somewhat aggravating. I had to use a box wrench and guess at the torque for the rearmost bolts.
Once the bolts were off, trying to get the bar in was a bit of a task. You have to position the bar over one side first, then basically bend it across the top of the firewall to get it over the bolts on the other side. Doing this more often than not ended up popping off the other side, and it had to be repositioned and held on. It also required a considerable amount of force to get it to bend around and mount on the post on the opposite side, and it is still exerting quite a bit of pressure on the felt padding over the firewall.
Once i got it mounted and proceeded to put the buts back on, I realized that the way the bar was positioned mounted in place, you can't get a socket around at least one of the bolts on the passenger side, because it's too close to the bracket. So i had to remove the bar from one side, put the socket on, push the other side back on and then torque it down. The mounting brackets also don't sit flat on the strut tower, though they do say it will bolt down properly, it doesn't feel like tight design to me.
I should point out that in the process of putting the bar on the bolts, and trying to move around the engine compartment that the powder coating scraped off VERY easily. Even just an errant brush on the metal chassis would take off the coating. It came off far to easily for my liking. To be honest, the paint seemed more like a spray on tremclad than a real powder coat.
So, once the bar was on, it was time to remount the AC hose clamp and the brake reservoir. My unit didn't come with the 'included' bolt to remount the AC clamp, but I had a couple M6's lying around so i wasn't concerned. It does NOT go gracefully into the new mounting position however. The pipe and hose have to be bent at a strange angle to get the clamp to remount, and the pipe is very close to the chassis in the new position, such that I am concerned about rubbing damaging the AC pipe.
The brake reservoir is suppose to go back down once you use a dremmel tool to file down one edge of the mounting bracket on the reservoir itself, but once again the strut bar's bracket is WAY to close to the mounting bolt to even get a nut over, let alone slip a comparatively bulky bit of plastic over. I ended up having to just cut that whole leg off the brake reservoir to get it to fit.
All in all i was VERY disappointed with the fit and finish. The unit does not feel at all like precision design, and the tolerances are beyond what i would consider 'tight'. The thing barely fits, and has to be basically beaten into place. Once its properly in place, you can't actually bolt it down, so you have to remove it and fudge around till it's all bolted tight. The powder coat is not very durable, and I could see 'runs' in the finish. Given how precise and beautiful the Intake and the crankshaft pulley are, I was really expecting better.
Performance:
Ok, so given how much effort the install was, I was hoping it would all be worth it.
And so far it seems it has been.
Cornering at speed feels tighter and more precise. There is less understeer and the steering rate is noticeably more 'progressive' as the wheel goes over further. Body roll is reduced (though I think I'd need coilovers in combo with my H&R springs to really tighten things up) and corners feel 'sharper'.
Once installed the bar does sit so far back in the engine bay that it's hard to see it's there. and it's out of the way of access to the battery (which is important for me as my audio system often requires work to access my battery!) and other major engine components.
Conclusion:
The fit and finish are really not up to what I've come to expect from corksport. The paint sucks and the whole thing just doesn't feel like a precision engineered part. You have to do to much 'fiddling' to get it to fit properly, and you'd pretty much have to work magic to get it installed the way the instructions describe.
All that said, the results are exactly what they should be. The front end is tighter and cornering is more 'fun'. The car is starting to feel more refined and tighter, but still fun and that just on the edge of out of control feeling.
So while the install was a pain in the arse, and the fit an finish aren't wonderful, the performance is exactly as advertised, and I'd still recommend this product to anyone with an M2. The price is certainly right, and from a performance point of view, this represents really good value! Also, the idea of supporting a Mazda developer as passionate as Corksport is icing on the cake!
I'm going to break this into two parts, install and performance...
Install fit and finish:
So this is my third CorkSport part, and I say with some regret that it's the first one I have had issue with the fit and finish.
The bar itself looks great, nice flat black with the corksport logo on the drivers side. Nice and subtle design, which I like. It looks like a part of the engine bay. Once I started the install I ran into a few issues however.
While they don't make an effort to point it out, it is VERY difficult to get to two of the bolts on the strut tower with a standard ratchet or torque wrench, without removing a bunch of the plastic trim, and even then it's difficult to get to the rearmost bolt that's under the frame of the car. I can't really fault CorkSport for that as they didn't design the car, and they do point out that a service manual is a required bit of equipment for the install. Still somewhat aggravating. I had to use a box wrench and guess at the torque for the rearmost bolts.
Once the bolts were off, trying to get the bar in was a bit of a task. You have to position the bar over one side first, then basically bend it across the top of the firewall to get it over the bolts on the other side. Doing this more often than not ended up popping off the other side, and it had to be repositioned and held on. It also required a considerable amount of force to get it to bend around and mount on the post on the opposite side, and it is still exerting quite a bit of pressure on the felt padding over the firewall.
Once i got it mounted and proceeded to put the buts back on, I realized that the way the bar was positioned mounted in place, you can't get a socket around at least one of the bolts on the passenger side, because it's too close to the bracket. So i had to remove the bar from one side, put the socket on, push the other side back on and then torque it down. The mounting brackets also don't sit flat on the strut tower, though they do say it will bolt down properly, it doesn't feel like tight design to me.
I should point out that in the process of putting the bar on the bolts, and trying to move around the engine compartment that the powder coating scraped off VERY easily. Even just an errant brush on the metal chassis would take off the coating. It came off far to easily for my liking. To be honest, the paint seemed more like a spray on tremclad than a real powder coat.
So, once the bar was on, it was time to remount the AC hose clamp and the brake reservoir. My unit didn't come with the 'included' bolt to remount the AC clamp, but I had a couple M6's lying around so i wasn't concerned. It does NOT go gracefully into the new mounting position however. The pipe and hose have to be bent at a strange angle to get the clamp to remount, and the pipe is very close to the chassis in the new position, such that I am concerned about rubbing damaging the AC pipe.
The brake reservoir is suppose to go back down once you use a dremmel tool to file down one edge of the mounting bracket on the reservoir itself, but once again the strut bar's bracket is WAY to close to the mounting bolt to even get a nut over, let alone slip a comparatively bulky bit of plastic over. I ended up having to just cut that whole leg off the brake reservoir to get it to fit.
All in all i was VERY disappointed with the fit and finish. The unit does not feel at all like precision design, and the tolerances are beyond what i would consider 'tight'. The thing barely fits, and has to be basically beaten into place. Once its properly in place, you can't actually bolt it down, so you have to remove it and fudge around till it's all bolted tight. The powder coat is not very durable, and I could see 'runs' in the finish. Given how precise and beautiful the Intake and the crankshaft pulley are, I was really expecting better.
Performance:
Ok, so given how much effort the install was, I was hoping it would all be worth it.
And so far it seems it has been.
Cornering at speed feels tighter and more precise. There is less understeer and the steering rate is noticeably more 'progressive' as the wheel goes over further. Body roll is reduced (though I think I'd need coilovers in combo with my H&R springs to really tighten things up) and corners feel 'sharper'.
Once installed the bar does sit so far back in the engine bay that it's hard to see it's there. and it's out of the way of access to the battery (which is important for me as my audio system often requires work to access my battery!) and other major engine components.
Conclusion:
The fit and finish are really not up to what I've come to expect from corksport. The paint sucks and the whole thing just doesn't feel like a precision engineered part. You have to do to much 'fiddling' to get it to fit properly, and you'd pretty much have to work magic to get it installed the way the instructions describe.
All that said, the results are exactly what they should be. The front end is tighter and cornering is more 'fun'. The car is starting to feel more refined and tighter, but still fun and that just on the edge of out of control feeling.
So while the install was a pain in the arse, and the fit an finish aren't wonderful, the performance is exactly as advertised, and I'd still recommend this product to anyone with an M2. The price is certainly right, and from a performance point of view, this represents really good value! Also, the idea of supporting a Mazda developer as passionate as Corksport is icing on the cake!
