Originally Posted by
Andy Bettencourt
First off, this classification is NOT inconsistent with the way other cars are classed because it is DIFFERENT. Read that again. It's different. I am going to lay out some generic scenarios for you in an effort to try and reduce the Miata bias.
Take car A. Car A had a body style run from 1990-1993. From 1990-1992, it had 130hp. In 1993, they tweaked the intake manifold and the cams and the new rating was 140hp. Now, if the 1990-1992 car was classed first, it would be classed based on the 130hp number. You would then have a choice as the CRB. Add another spec line because the cars are different, or combine them at the higher HP because the items that make the extra 10hp are not legal to change in the lower HP version - and then allow the UD-BD so that the lower HP car can actually make a real base number. Following me? It's a mechanical change that CAN be done to can extra HP in IT trim.
Now, take car B. Car B had the same body style run and the same HP change. But the extra 10hp came from a tuned set of headers and a low restriction exhaust. Are we saying that the new stock HP is the way to class this car. HELL NO. Why? Because those mods are already taken into account in the IT weight calculation. Follow this logic:
Lets say for arguments sake that there are 4 things that contribute to a cars 25% potential increase in IT trim (just using round numbers to make it easy. We know every car responds differently). Air intake 5%, exhaust 10%, B&B - port and compression 5%, and ECU 5%. There is your 25%. If a car gets a bump in stock HP SOLELY because of one of these, you have not increased it's potential HP in IT trim. You can not argue this. In the above example, all you did was erode the 10% increase in an optimized exhaust, you did not add 10hp to the baseline number. So you COULD use the higher number to class it but you would then have to reduce the potential % gain the car will get - netting the same original weight.