18psi

iTrader: (76)

And yet you literally worry about your car ever living moment of your life

Savington

iTrader: (31)

If you had lived through the pain and suffering known only to The Select Few as "building a track-reliable turbo car", you would worry about your car every moment too.

I literally have to tell myself "---- the car, just focus and go" when I want to set fast laps in Theseus. Otherwise I will spend half my time listening to the car and worrying about things.

jacob300zx

Crickets

hustler

iTrader: (6)

Part of it is due to the suspended disbelief that I (a drunk) put together something comprised of complex systems with a service interval so low that I can track it over and over without failure. A reliable, near zero maintenance turbo track Miata is a real challenge. Think about what we do, 10-20-hours per year on a car without a tear down, that's badass.

Corky Bell

We are not far enough down the line to report lap times at competitive events.

Should we judge by lap times, I'd need to start selling drivers instead. That might not work so well, considering such things as rusty, age, eye sight, has been, never was, etc... nevertheless, anybody have any offers? What was it?? Will race for food.......!?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the calculator suggests lap time decreases are proportional to the sixth root of the power increases. Actually the calculator doen't suggest it, experience and "The Grand Prix Car" do. That lousey result of more power very clearly says a driver is more important than power.

So, lets find something else to compare other than lap times.

Corky

Hboy828

What is this???

Chiburbian

iTrader: (1)

Trackspeed engineering is Savington's company. He can speak for himself with more detail, but from what I understand he has been putting together a package of parts (some not available elsewhere) that he feels will have a very favorable price to performance ratio.

He has been running these parts himself (if I remember correctly) in race and heavy duty abuse situations so he can make sure that what he sells you will not fail easily.

Savington

iTrader: (31)

You completely missed the point, Corky - although to be fair I'm not all that surprised.

The point of comparing laptimes is to give us an idea of the stress and strain your parts see when "you" put them through their paces. If you bolt a turbo kit onto a Spec Miata, and then drive it around at Spec Miata laptimes, it's not even worth discussing. If you take that same car and drive it hard enough to go 5+ seconds faster than a Spec Miata, then we know that the car, and more importantly the parts on that car (including the turbo system, the brakes, and all of the other components), are being worked reasonably hard. Experience has shown us that the stud issue, for instance, only shows up on cars that are being driven within 1 second of the Spec Miata lap record at a given track. If you are 4 or 5 seconds off the record, there’s no need to worry, but if you are 2 or 3 seconds under it, a mild steel stud won’t last a full session. We use Spec Miata laptimes because they are a fairly consistent metric of speed at any track in the country, so if a car at Barber or VIR is 2 seconds a lap faster than the Spec Miata record at the same track, and a car at Thunderhill or Buttonwillow is 2 seconds a lap faster than the SM record at the same track, those two cars would likely be very evenly matched if they were to ever meet up at the same track. It may vary a little depending on the track and what it likes (power vs. momentum), but in general the rule holds true to within a second or so. This is a widely accepted method of looking at the validity of someone’s tests.

To that end, I have no interest in comparing laptimes with you - laptimes are the metric by which to compare a massively intricate system which includes a car, the suspension and tires being used, the track conditions on that day, the driver's skill and comfort level, and all of the other items that make a car slow or fast on any given day, so obviously comparing lap times when there are so many other variables involved would be an exercise in futility. What I want to compare, however (and more importantly, what people want to see compared) is reliability.

Reliability, unlike power, spool, weight, temperature, etc. cannot be directly measured – it requires testing. It requires testing in the same conditions that you expect your customers to see - You can certainly engineer a part that you believe is capable of withstanding a certain level of abuse, but without actually applying that abuse to it, how could you possibly be sure? More importantly, if you aren’t testing your parts on track, how would you ever hope to compare your parts to ours? At the end of the day, our parts have withstood serious, sustained track abuse, verified by lap times compared to Spec Miata records – can you say the same?

We pride ourselves in applying that abuse to the best of our abilities. We are at the track at least once a month, and usually more than that, putting our cars through the paces. In order to ensure that our testing is relevant, we have to push ourselves to the outer boundaries of what these cars are capable of. Theseus has evolved into one of the fastest race-prepped Miatas in the country, and I am confident that the parts in that car today could survive on any other track car in the nation. The spectacle and the show that Theseus puts on is certainly enjoyable, but its main purpose in my mind is to provide us with the platform to push a new prototype part to within an inch of its life.

My point is that we don't aim to sell lap times - the lap times are up to our customers to achieve. What we do sell is reliability. In order to show reliability, though, you must test the parts in the same environment you expect them to operate in, and you must have the lap times to validate that environment. We sell parts that we have personally tested and abused and re-tested to ensure that they are up to our standards. We strive to make our cars as fast as possible to ensure that the testing we do is relevant and adequate, so that our parts will hold up should a customer of our decide to go just as fast as we do.

Our new turbo kit will be out in the spring, and it will follow in the footsteps of the other products that bear the Trackspeed name – high quality, thoroughly vetted racing parts that can be trusted and relied upon. In order to test our kit in an adequately stressful environment, we could have built a basic track day car and driven it a bunch to prove that our kits are reliable in that situation, but in the end we decided to turn the abuse up to 11, to ensure that our kits are as reliable as possible. The solution that we came up with is to take one endurance racing with NASA in 2012. We figure that if a 100% production Trackspeed turbo system can survive a 4-hour endurance race, our customers won’t have a problem with 30 minute sessions. Turbos have an incredibly poor reputation in the Miata community for being unreliable, finicky, and generally not worth it, but we aim to change that reputation with our kit. If you aren’t willing to do the same kind of testing, I wish you the best of luck.

Sorry for taking so long to reply, by the way – I’ve been at the track all weekend.

jacob300zx

Also at the track all weekend. Spoolin2bars down pipe broke off in the last session Sunday. Good thing we tested it at the track. New fender flames coming soon. Also testing the new aluminum top hats we waterjetted. I think the rear ones need a redesign.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

What if Alec Udell is driving the SM and a half-drunk dumbass who can't maintain corner speed is driving ~1 second under in a 2456lb Miata with no aero and no real "driver skill" and 10-weekend old NT-01s? Does that get me anything?

hustler

iTrader: (6)

I think BEGi, FM, Artech, Trackspeed, and Taco Taco should all prepare and bring cars to TXMC for destruction testing. Shure it sounds funny, but that's not a bad idea if you want destruction testing. Yes, I know this will never happen.

Faeflora

iTrader: (2)

I want to drive the Taco car.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

Taco Taco = Turbo not hit block
ABSURDflow = Turbo rub block bolt (shave it down with a grinder)

Running a Taco Taco car would be fun, but we'd need more than one to see who could break it in the fewest laps.

GeneSplicer

iTrader: (14)

Track tested - stupid approved

Took 7 laps at barber on new Taco before I had the turbo hanging off the taco - stripped threads in the manifold.

Corky Bell

Hi Andy,
I don't think I missed your point. I think my poor attempt at humor didn't make the point I intended.

Most of us on these funny forums have admired your efforts and what you've spun off to this group regarding lessons learned.

Some of us older dudes are vicariously reliving our fond memories of times long ago every time you bring up the subject of racing.

Somewhere in the discussion, I was challenged with lap times. Having built every race car I've driven, I too am well aware that a fast lap has a very complicted background. Clearly you would agree that the fastest lap is not reserved for the most powerful.

Perhaps the situation wherein one steams by you, by a decent margin, on the last lap straight and gets the checker thing first would be the measure of both durability and power.

Stressing reliabilty is absolutely the first rule of racing. I never was a safety freak. Test sessions ara a decent trial and always useful, but pale to the reality of a race track. Fielding turbo racers in the mid/late 80's was different, (I wasn't driving, rather crew chiefing), and we had more fun than should have been legal.... even finished two 24 hour guys. All that, and much more, suggests to me you are on the right track (?), thinking wise, with your priorities.

Perhaps a bit hasty, but your general tone suggests to me that you don't regard many on the list as having much to offer. If consciously, I'd urge you reconsider. If I'm all wet, my most sincere apology.

Go at the endurance racing as hard as you can afford. I found it far more satisfying than sprints, although I found more success in the sprints. I suspect you will find them more your cup of tea as well. The difference for me was the chance to reject the chaos of sprints for the craftsmanship and dicipline of driving/racing for several hours.

I suspect you will love it. Let us know how it goes.

Any thoughts on the fees for a guest driver? What percentage of your lap time would make one acceptable?

Corky

emilio700

iTrader: (3)

Fixed

I spend a fair amount of time setting up Miatas from around the globe. At one point or another, everyone that has a hyper fast Miata calls me for one thing or another. I know how many dialed, reliable, frequently run/raced and Z06 fast Miatas there are on the planet: few. Theseus is one of the few.

/drift

flounder

Savington

iTrader: (31)

There are plenty of people on this board with lots to offer, by way of driving ability, mechanical ability, or by owning an adequate R&D testbed vehicle. In fact, I'm sure my customers are more than capable of doing my R&D for me - I'm just not selfish enough to ask them to do so.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

Being the best in the world...that's America!!!

Corky Bell

My time and place both suggest I should leave the floor to you. Go for it.

Best wishes,

Corky