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Mazda doubles down with a pair of Threes

Looking to appeal to the compact tuner crowd, Mazda brought two different flavors of its 2014 Mazda3 to the SEMA Show in Las Vegas this week. The Club Sport 3 Concept hatchback (above) has more of a racing vibe to it, while the Vector 3 Concept sedan (right) looks to inject a little extra fashion into the all-new Mazda3.
Hotting up the 3, Mazda stuck with the stock 2.5-liter engine on the Club Sport 3 Concept but added a limited-slip differential and six-speed manual gearbox, the latter of which was lifted from the CX-5 crossover. Other upgrades include coil-over shocks, a performance exhaust, Brembo brakes and an aero body kit - the latter of which will be offered to buyers at a later date.
While the Vector 3 Concept does get some performance bits like two-piece Brembo brake rotors and grippier tires, the focus on this sedan is all about styling. Starting with a custom paint job and ghost stripes, the whole look is tied together with 19-inch, V-spoke Rays wheels.

Scion FR-S pitted against oldtimers RX-8 and S2000

There are very few vehicles available today that compare directly with the Scion FR-S and Subaru BRZ twins. A case could be made for the Mazda MX-5 Miata, and possibly even six-cylinder versions of American coupes like the Ford Mustang. Pretty much everything else is either too expensive or is powered by the wrong set of wheels.
The boys from EverydayDriver on YouTube decided the only fair way to judge the inherent qualities of the Toyobaru twins was to pit them against two standard-bearers of years past: The Honda S2000 and Mazda RX-8. Neither of these cars is an exact matchup, with the Honda boasting a convertible top and the RX-8 offering more practicality via a rear seat and two reverse-opening doors for easier access. What they do offer, however, are similar performance stats and proven reputations for excellent handling.
None of this talk answers the real question, though: Which one wins the comparison test? Scroll down to watch the video, and be prepared for something of a surprise conclusion.

How Mazda got Skyactiv-X to work is incredible

"Take everything you know about engines and turn it around," Mazda North America Vehicle Development Engineer Dave Coleman says, patiently and with a look of benevolent pity, as he's quizzed about the particulars of the company's new engine. The Skyactiv-X engine is enigmatic — and deceptively simple in operation. And the bottom line for American consumers is that they'll be able to buy a car (or crossover; we don't know yet what vehicle will first get it) by late 2019 that provides diesel-like fuel economy but runs on regular old gasoline. In between diesel and spark ignition, but it's neither To truly understand it, you have to dive into the contradictions. Take that regular old gasoline: Contrary to common sense, the lower the octane, the better it works. In the lab, the Skyactiv-X engine loves 80 octane. The lowest Americans get is 87, so the engine is tuned for that octane. Go higher and you lose some low-end torque. Coleman was right. It's hard to wrap your head around an engine that thrives just at the point when most gas engines would aggressively self-destruct. It uses a supercharger to pump additional air — but not additional fuel. It uses spark plugs to start a combustion cycle that normally doesn't need a spark. And, quixotically, it's not displacing Mazda's own American-market diesel engine, currently languishing in a seemingly endless hell of regulatory approval. More bizarre: Mazda is a tiny automaker facing real existential headwinds, and gasoline compression ignition is a massive challenge. GM and Hyundai announced compression ignition, or HCCI, projects (full name, homogeneous charge compression ignition) to great fanfare, but they never amounted to a production hill of beans, crippled by reliability issues or horrible vibrations. Worse, they only worked at an unusably narrow range — low RPMs and low loads. HCCI research improved direct-injection gas and diesel engine technologies for these companies, but HCCI itself remains untamed. The benefits of lean combustion Why even try to tame HCCI? The answer is much better fuel economy and lower emissions. Less burned carbon-based fuel, less carbon dioxide released. That's simple. But there are some thermodynamic reasons for the lean combustion you can achieve with compression ignition that are worth explaining. The ideal amount of fuel for a conventional engine to burn is about a 14:1 air-to-fuel ratio. That lets every molecule burn nicely, in theory.