Greta gets an ecotec swap (Amateur Endurance Racing)
06-09-2015, 01:29 PM
#1
Cpt. Slow
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Greta gets an ecotec swap (Amateur Endurance Racing)
Thought I'd share my experience over the weekend here.
We started with a '93 1.6. The owner ripped apart the wiring harness, enough that he called me in to get it running again. About the same time an '03 VVT auto engine was being sold with the softer AWR mounts and entire engine harness for...$1200? Something like that. It was picked up and the swap began. We found a full chassis and charge harness for ~$250 from treasure coast(?), resealed the oil pan, bolted on a 949 light weight flywheel, OEM clutch, and 5-speed tranny. Currently still using a 1.6 open diff
After jumping the auto engine harness to the manual chassis harness, we plugged the switch blade key and ignition from my '05 MSM part out into the harness and it fired up beautifully on our 01-05 MSPNPpro. We've hooked up ZERO features, but it's running great, made 135hp and 125ft/lbs on the dyno. We also have stock 1.6 brakes with no ducts, bilsteins with 7" springs, and no aero.
This weekend was our first outing, pictures are unfortunately few and far between. Check out World Racing League's Facebook page for more pictures. The weekend was also combined with Lucky Dog Racing, they may or may not have some pics of us on their facebook page.
Our team consisted of 3 drivers and myself, as crew chief. GreddyGalant (Martin) was our hotshoe driver, with massive amounts of driving experience in his 1.6 miata, now 250hp, CSTG built, MSM swapped, MCS Miata, Laz. Him and his car have come a long way, it was great to have him. Car owner Mitch, who has a lot of racing experience behind the wheel of his friend's Mustang enduro car. Then Phil. He doesn't talk much, so I won't either. Something about him designing the Saleen S7?
Saturday was the first of two 8 hour enduro races, starting at 9am. That part becomes important later. When we fired the car up to warm it up 10 minutes before the checkered flag, we noticed on our tablet (thank you EFI Analytics bluetooth adapter), that we were charging at 20v on our "new" Baxtard's alternator. Uh, not good. Luckily I had the spare NB alternator from the above mentioned '05 MSM, and we yanked the old new out, and put the new old one in. Also managed to pierce the radiator in our rush. Doh!
Luckily a certain CSTG owned NB was sitting in the parking lot.
21 minutes later, we were on track. We had a great start, with our pitstops working fairly well. We need faster jugs! We were only half way through our 2nd 5-gallon jug when the driver swap was finished. So the 2 drivers could swap belts, comms, window net, steering wheel, all before we could even get ~7 gallons in. The meant fuel was the deciding factor for our pit stop time, and you can't touch ANYTHING but driver swap while the fuel cap is open. So we couldn't wash the window, check the tire pressure, clear the radiator opening, nothing. Definitely something to work on.
6 hours and ~9 minutes later, our 3rd driver came in with a slipping clutch. The racing was over, the day was not. While one person drove 1.5 hours south to pick up a replacement, Martin and I dropped the tranny. Not too hard on a race car. The heat was killer, 80+ degrees, laying on the asphalt.
We were over shifting the car, using 2nd when only 3rd and 4th were necessary. We also found out on day 2 that our 3rd driver Phil was getting on the gas too soon, and slipping the clutch.
Start of day 2, gridded up at 8am, in 2nd:
This is ~1 hour into the race, remember, we started an hour earlier guys...
This is us, 40 minutes in, we're "What's a Miatau".
We're P7 over all, P3 in our league.
Here we are with only 14 minutes to go. A cracked header took out an incredibly fast (2:02 vs. our 2:10 laps) Miata, and our main rivals 3PG...not sure what happened to them. Some mechanical issues IIRC.
And the final shot, 209 laps of The Ridge Motorsports Park later, we told Martin to unleash the Red Mist. Hence the fast lap on our last lap.
And the result:
That's all I have for now, GoPro footage should be up soon.
To Do List, in no particular order:
1. Hood vent
2. Torsen
3. 1.8 brakes, ducts, and Cobalt pads all around
4. More lows - new suspension? shorter springs?
5. New tires will be stickier. Yokos AD08s most likely
6. Simple aero to start. Ebay GV lip, duck tail
7. Weight savings. Engine swap and MS put us in GP2. The GP3 Miata was running 8 seconds a lap faster than us. We're at the heavy end of GP2.
8. Faster fuel jugs - ordered
9. Install the Mobius Sled's bigger NB gas tank
10. Tune for better gas mileage. We could barely make it 1.5 hours. Pathetic on my part.
We started with a '93 1.6. The owner ripped apart the wiring harness, enough that he called me in to get it running again. About the same time an '03 VVT auto engine was being sold with the softer AWR mounts and entire engine harness for...$1200? Something like that. It was picked up and the swap began. We found a full chassis and charge harness for ~$250 from treasure coast(?), resealed the oil pan, bolted on a 949 light weight flywheel, OEM clutch, and 5-speed tranny. Currently still using a 1.6 open diff
After jumping the auto engine harness to the manual chassis harness, we plugged the switch blade key and ignition from my '05 MSM part out into the harness and it fired up beautifully on our 01-05 MSPNPpro. We've hooked up ZERO features, but it's running great, made 135hp and 125ft/lbs on the dyno. We also have stock 1.6 brakes with no ducts, bilsteins with 7" springs, and no aero.
This weekend was our first outing, pictures are unfortunately few and far between. Check out World Racing League's Facebook page for more pictures. The weekend was also combined with Lucky Dog Racing, they may or may not have some pics of us on their facebook page.
Our team consisted of 3 drivers and myself, as crew chief. GreddyGalant (Martin) was our hotshoe driver, with massive amounts of driving experience in his 1.6 miata, now 250hp, CSTG built, MSM swapped, MCS Miata, Laz. Him and his car have come a long way, it was great to have him. Car owner Mitch, who has a lot of racing experience behind the wheel of his friend's Mustang enduro car. Then Phil. He doesn't talk much, so I won't either. Something about him designing the Saleen S7?
Saturday was the first of two 8 hour enduro races, starting at 9am. That part becomes important later. When we fired the car up to warm it up 10 minutes before the checkered flag, we noticed on our tablet (thank you EFI Analytics bluetooth adapter), that we were charging at 20v on our "new" Baxtard's alternator. Uh, not good. Luckily I had the spare NB alternator from the above mentioned '05 MSM, and we yanked the old new out, and put the new old one in. Also managed to pierce the radiator in our rush. Doh!
Luckily a certain CSTG owned NB was sitting in the parking lot.
21 minutes later, we were on track. We had a great start, with our pitstops working fairly well. We need faster jugs! We were only half way through our 2nd 5-gallon jug when the driver swap was finished. So the 2 drivers could swap belts, comms, window net, steering wheel, all before we could even get ~7 gallons in. The meant fuel was the deciding factor for our pit stop time, and you can't touch ANYTHING but driver swap while the fuel cap is open. So we couldn't wash the window, check the tire pressure, clear the radiator opening, nothing. Definitely something to work on.
6 hours and ~9 minutes later, our 3rd driver came in with a slipping clutch. The racing was over, the day was not. While one person drove 1.5 hours south to pick up a replacement, Martin and I dropped the tranny. Not too hard on a race car. The heat was killer, 80+ degrees, laying on the asphalt.
We were over shifting the car, using 2nd when only 3rd and 4th were necessary. We also found out on day 2 that our 3rd driver Phil was getting on the gas too soon, and slipping the clutch.
Start of day 2, gridded up at 8am, in 2nd:
This is ~1 hour into the race, remember, we started an hour earlier guys...
This is us, 40 minutes in, we're "What's a Miatau".
We're P7 over all, P3 in our league.
Here we are with only 14 minutes to go. A cracked header took out an incredibly fast (2:02 vs. our 2:10 laps) Miata, and our main rivals 3PG...not sure what happened to them. Some mechanical issues IIRC.
And the final shot, 209 laps of The Ridge Motorsports Park later, we told Martin to unleash the Red Mist. Hence the fast lap on our last lap.
And the result:
That's all I have for now, GoPro footage should be up soon.
To Do List, in no particular order:
1. Hood vent
2. Torsen
3. 1.8 brakes, ducts, and Cobalt pads all around
4. More lows - new suspension? shorter springs?
5. New tires will be stickier. Yokos AD08s most likely
6. Simple aero to start. Ebay GV lip, duck tail
7. Weight savings. Engine swap and MS put us in GP2. The GP3 Miata was running 8 seconds a lap faster than us. We're at the heavy end of GP2.
8. Faster fuel jugs - ordered
9. Install the Mobius Sled's bigger NB gas tank
10. Tune for better gas mileage. We could barely make it 1.5 hours. Pathetic on my part.
Last edited by sixshooter; 04-02-2018 at 06:12 PM.
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06-09-2015, 02:12 PM
#2
SADFab Destructive Testing Engineer
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<p>Sounds like a freaking blast. Let me know when the next one is. I would love to come crew/watch/whatever is needed. I also have a really cool idea for connecting to the MS that might help you guys.</p>
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06-11-2015, 08:13 AM
#8
Cpt. Slow
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Location: Oregon City, OR
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Yeah, no full course cautions, I was impressed. A few dive bombs on the tow truck, but those teams were black flagged if I'm not mistaken. We were worried during the driver meetings, with some teams asking if bump drafting was allowed, I don't think those teams made it through the weekend though, so that's a moot point.
I should also mention, a HUGE thank you to Andrew (@savington) at Trackspeed Engineering, he was stupid enough to accept my friend request on facebook a while ago, and it's come in handy for me a few times. He gave me way more information about correctly wiring a kill switch in a Miata than he needed to, and it helped save our ECU from frying again. The solution is kind of a no brainer, but I couldn't of done it with out him. I think we ran our race proudly wearing some TSE stickers.
I suck at tagging.
I should also mention, a HUGE thank you to Andrew (@savington) at Trackspeed Engineering, he was stupid enough to accept my friend request on facebook a while ago, and it's come in handy for me a few times. He gave me way more information about correctly wiring a kill switch in a Miata than he needed to, and it helped save our ECU from frying again. The solution is kind of a no brainer, but I couldn't of done it with out him. I think we ran our race proudly wearing some TSE stickers.
I suck at tagging.
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06-11-2015, 10:46 AM
#10
Junior Member
Join Date: May 2014
Location: North St Paul, MN
Posts: 397
Total Cats: 25
Awesome job!
So you said a duck tail for Aero. In your experiance does that actually help the back end? I didn't see much of anything about those in Race Prep. I usually just see them on "looks fast" cars. I am asking because I really don't know. My cousin has a very nice carbon duck tail, I just didn't know if it served an aero purpose.
So you said a duck tail for Aero. In your experiance does that actually help the back end? I didn't see much of anything about those in Race Prep. I usually just see them on "looks fast" cars. I am asking because I really don't know. My cousin has a very nice carbon duck tail, I just didn't know if it served an aero purpose.
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07-13-2015, 03:10 PM
#13
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Join Date: Sep 2011
Posts: 64
Total Cats: 0
quick update, I will let Curly get into the details: yesterday we knocked out a considerable amount on the to-do list. Upgraded to Delrin bushings in a few key areas, new coilovers, Torsen installed, 1.8 brake upgrade, and new Yokohama tires. The car should be at or around 2000 even in this state. we weighed it last time with the light-bar on, and that is a good 15-20 lbs of weight, and the new suspension is a bit lighter.
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07-18-2015, 10:20 PM
#14
We did some work on Greta, our endurance race car
Added a 4.3 Torsen with Garagestar Diff Bushings, AMR Engineering Coilovers, 205/50/15 Yoko AD08s, ISC offset bushings, and 1.8 brakes all around with Cobalt Friction XR3/XR5 pads. I took it out this past Thursday and ran a 1:30.6 at PIR, which is faster than typical SM pole time by a second. Curious to throw some hoosiers on her at some point and see what she will do.
curly doing curly things
My mom came out to visit me at the track
Added a 4.3 Torsen with Garagestar Diff Bushings, AMR Engineering Coilovers, 205/50/15 Yoko AD08s, ISC offset bushings, and 1.8 brakes all around with Cobalt Friction XR3/XR5 pads. I took it out this past Thursday and ran a 1:30.6 at PIR, which is faster than typical SM pole time by a second. Curious to throw some hoosiers on her at some point and see what she will do.
curly doing curly things
My mom came out to visit me at the track
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02-24-2016, 12:07 PM
#17
Cpt. Slow
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Oregon City, OR
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Mitch gave me the go-ahead to do an engine rebuild. Let's sum up though.
100k VVT motor, zero changes beyond a muffler shop exhaust and shorty intake(45* elbow, ~6" pipe, filter):
Made 135hp and 126ft/lbs with a standard correction.
We raced like this for the above race at the ridge, and won our class on the 2nd day. Total drive time included the 8 hour race we won, a 6.5 hour race we DNF'd, and a track day where three of us drove all day long, plus a little street and dyno time.
We made some small upgrades after that race, 1.8 brakes, AMR suspension, VICS intake, some lightening mods, and Yoko AD08 tires. When we went back to the dyno, it was clear the engine was tired, and only made 125hp. With some fueling adjustments, more aggressive timing, and the VICs tuning, I was able to claw my way back to 134hp, with more top end too! Sorry, no graph currently.
We then did two more 8 hour enduros at PIR. Saturday (holloween) was a torrential downpour, rain for the day totaled over 2", which was our wettest day since 2011. With a few rookie mistakes in the beginning like a unclipped center net and transponder that decided to die, we only managed 3rd with a best time of 1:36.685 during a slightly dry morning. We spend most of the day in the 1:50+. Awesome trophies only awarded for 1st and 2nd
Sunday was drier and we had some epic times, with a fastest of 1:34.190 (me
), but our straight line speed was killing us. Lots of cornering speed to over take but it definitely killed our lap times more than an easy straight away pass would. Finished the day in 6th after some competitors from Saturday fixed their gremlins.
Right now we're planning even more upgrades! The chassis is getting more weight savings, and as the title suggests, we got an SM cheater head for a decent price, plunge cuts are legal in our class!
I also think I'm in heaven, I don't have to shim this head!
Other upgrades include Mobius' RB header from his Rotrex build, a longer intake, 94-00 head gasket with a reroute, new hone/rings/bearings etc, and a fully balanced rotating assembly. We're hoping for the 145hp range, fingers crossed! Valve cover and intake are also being powder coated, along with a silver block, and a wrap on the chassis. Hopefully this engine will last 1-2 seasons, and next winter can be filled with aero upgrades.
100k VVT motor, zero changes beyond a muffler shop exhaust and shorty intake(45* elbow, ~6" pipe, filter):
Made 135hp and 126ft/lbs with a standard correction.
We raced like this for the above race at the ridge, and won our class on the 2nd day. Total drive time included the 8 hour race we won, a 6.5 hour race we DNF'd, and a track day where three of us drove all day long, plus a little street and dyno time.
We made some small upgrades after that race, 1.8 brakes, AMR suspension, VICS intake, some lightening mods, and Yoko AD08 tires. When we went back to the dyno, it was clear the engine was tired, and only made 125hp. With some fueling adjustments, more aggressive timing, and the VICs tuning, I was able to claw my way back to 134hp, with more top end too! Sorry, no graph currently.
We then did two more 8 hour enduros at PIR. Saturday (holloween) was a torrential downpour, rain for the day totaled over 2", which was our wettest day since 2011. With a few rookie mistakes in the beginning like a unclipped center net and transponder that decided to die, we only managed 3rd with a best time of 1:36.685 during a slightly dry morning. We spend most of the day in the 1:50+. Awesome trophies only awarded for 1st and 2nd
Sunday was drier and we had some epic times, with a fastest of 1:34.190 (me), but our straight line speed was killing us. Lots of cornering speed to over take but it definitely killed our lap times more than an easy straight away pass would. Finished the day in 6th after some competitors from Saturday fixed their gremlins.
Right now we're planning even more upgrades! The chassis is getting more weight savings, and as the title suggests, we got an SM cheater head for a decent price, plunge cuts are legal in our class!
I also think I'm in heaven, I don't have to shim this head!
Other upgrades include Mobius' RB header from his Rotrex build, a longer intake, 94-00 head gasket with a reroute, new hone/rings/bearings etc, and a fully balanced rotating assembly. We're hoping for the 145hp range, fingers crossed! Valve cover and intake are also being powder coated, along with a silver block, and a wrap on the chassis. Hopefully this engine will last 1-2 seasons, and next winter can be filled with aero upgrades.
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