Barry, the track fiend
 

This is Barry, my 99 miata. I have owned him for about a year now and have tried to tailor him with racing in mind. I won't bore you with the backlog of maintenance performed, but pick up to where I think it's finally ready to hit the track. Currently sporting some 15x9 6UL's, Ohlins DFVs, GT3 rollbar, G-Loc R8 pads. First event will be March 18-19 at Road Atlanta. I've lurked enough in the race prep section enough to kind of know what to expect. Ultimately I would like to perform a motor swap for more N/A power on the track, but that may be a year away. Feel free to follow me on my journey to feed this addict.

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Probably the most excited I've been to receive some wheels and tires. Absolutely love the setup and feel. Currently running the Nexen N FERA SUR4's, well because they were cheap and the RS4's weren't out yet. I wanted a sticky enough tire to learn on but still leave room so my mistakes can be shown to me.

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I'm also taking this first event pretty seriously. Got into iRacing in order to get a feel for the track so I will be a very prepared DE1 driver. I really look forward to talking with the other racers next weekend in order to further my knowledge of racing miatas.

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Assume this is a street car and needs to be emissions compliant? If not, IHE + MS is the easy button for a bit more push. And lightening the car . . . lots of lightening.

Yes it is, but luckily NC does emissions compliance based on County rather than State, so I will re-register it back at my other address which will require no emissions and only safety inspection. I have swapped out the header already with an 01+ header. I can also confirm that there are no restrictions in the exhaust whatsoever. I have been planning on building a MS3X next. Reading through the documentation on the forums have been a tremendous help.

What do you recommend for adding lightness? I do daily* this car so I'd rather not drop the PS or AC just yet. Depending how far I chase the rabbit hole, that may be inevitable.

It's better to learn on less sticky tires because they talk to you more before they release and they release much more gradually.

You can take turn 1 faster than you think if you track all the way out on turn exit. And it's uphill so you will be losing speed from the apex onward.

Well, things like that are where the big weight savings are.

In the end, I ended up getting another Miata dedicated to track duty. So, I've got a nice, comfortable turbo car that I daily along with a stripped TTD/SuperMiata beast that can pass most things on track. I'm out in a safety-inspection only county in Texas -- the beast is actually registered for the street which makes it convenient to drive 10 miles to my local track without the hassle of a trailer. For other tracks, I trailer it.

Good luck. Nice looking car.

motor swap? that's crazy talk.

Car looks good, I have a soft spot for the 99-00 cars with the factory lip, sideskirts, and fogs.

Thanks for the advice on turn 1, i'll try and use that as an area to get faster if somehow I manage the other 12 turns.

Seems as if a lot of racers go this route.

To me, it's the closes thing that looks like a mini FD.

Unfortunately I heard the iconic "clunk" coming home from work the other day. Rear eccentric bolts slipped on me. Don't know if they are old and stretched or just weren't torqued properly. I was able to use a 3/8 drive socket and tighten the nuts myself, all while on the ground with limited room, so I'm leaning more towards the latter. Gotta take it back for them to realign it. I'll then re torque the nuts when I get it back.

While I am still a noob at hpde, I'm still very competitive and love seeing progress being made. That being said, what lap times should I be happy with at road Atlanta for a first weekend out? I have set a goal for myself to break at least a 1:50, is this too optimistic? May not be able to accomplish this with an instructor, so hopefully I'll get a session or two alone. Thoughts, advice? Should I not even set a goal this time out?

Me too. The NB1 tupperware was so much more tasteful. Bummer my 00 didn't come with it.

What an awesome weekend. Must thank NASA-SE for hosting such a smooth event. Hospitality and camaraderie were top notch. Barry was great, track was great, weather started out shitty but then turned out great, etc. etc. I was very surprised with how well the car performed.
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Competition was fierce! I was a minnow in a sea full of sharks. My instructor, and friend, drives the mustang so this was a change of pace to stuff him in the miata. His instruction was great and he really knew the track well.

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I progressed very rapidly on Saturday. I think having turned so many laps on the sim helped me learn the track fast. After my first session, with a wet track, I knew the track well enough to start gaining speed and momentum. As the day progressed and the weather warmed up, so did I. On my last session of the day I was able to put down a respectable 1:58 time with my instructor in the car. I was happy with that.

After talking with some other racers, my instructor, and watching my sessions over, I noticed I was shifting entirely too much and could cut down on a lot of shifts to save time. This was my goal for Sunday.

Sunday's weather was perfect. My instructor rode with me in my first morning session to see how much information stuck with me from Saturday. After that session he turned me loose to solo in DE1 and cleared me for DE2. With the extra weight savings now and a focus on shifting less I pushed for better times throughout the day. My times were steadily decreasing and finally on my final session I put down a personal best of 1:54.09, via track addict but will confirm with virb. I guess a goal of 1:50 was way too optimistic, but I am very happy with my progression overall. I still believe I can drop about another second from that time if I pushed my brake zones further. The G-Loc pads did fantastic and I quickly began to trust that they would perform as expected. The Nexen's performed well too. It would take the entire out lap for them to come up to temp and I could begin pushing as soon as I got back to start/finish. The Ohlins were good too, unfortunately I do think the spring rates are a bit too soft if I want to be competitive. I do believe I will have to venture to Xida's if I get really serious with tracking the car.

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I'll begin to focus on sways next, as there was some considerable body roll. I am scheduled to get to CMP's event in May which will give me plenty of time to prep the car again.

Should have the video of my fastest lap up soon.

Finally have the video up. So the Virb did something fishy with the stitching process of the videos and decided to cut about 10 sec. of video out leaving turn 7 and entering turn 9, but left the GPS data alone. I'll get with Garmin on that, but it was verified with TrackAddict too.

We had a lot of rain here last week and the drain decided to clog up. Luckily I was leaving work over an hour early to find it like this. Dunno what would have happened if it were later in the day...

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Back at it again with some minor maintenance items in order to prep for my next track event which is in May, noticed quite a bit of oil residue around the valve cover so I decided to refresh the gasket with oem and also replace the pcv valve too. Overall the top end looks relatively clean for ~150k miles.

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While the VC was off I took the time to clean it up and give it a new look.

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I rechecked my plugs too and it seems that #3 and #4 look a bit lean to me. I have no symptoms of any vacuum leak, so maybe I should run some injector cleaner through the car. Any additional thoughts?

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My other track prep will include replacing the differential bushings and work on free cooling mods. Need to block off the sides of the radiator and and ensure the ducting is adequate. With the temps warming up around here I need to make sure I don't overheat on the track. I've been logging my daily drive, which is a relatively short 20 sprint, and have been seeing temps up to 206 F. I may swap out the tstat for a cooler one so it'll open up a bit sooner and keep temps in the 190 range.

You might go a heat range step cooler on the spark plugs. Track work tends to get them warmer than regular driving. The little specks in the insulator (at least it "looks" like little specks in the photo) indicate that the plug is overheating.

Thanks for the info, looks like I'm running the NGK ZFR5F-11 plug right now, so I'll look for something within the 6 heat range.

Still sad I missed that event at Road Atlanta, but life happens.

Your lap looks good! As you get use to the track you'll learn to use more and more of it. Mainly T1 and T5 based on the video you posted.

Thanks, yea there's always next time. My instructor was hesitant with me getting on any gators especially while tracking out. I'm guessing mainly because he's never ridden with me and it was wet Saturday morning.

After watching some of you faster guy's laps, I've definitely got a new "line" drawn out for the next event in June. Any pointers leading up to the CMP event?

Yeah, that's understandable. The miata doesn't like the gators in the esses, but the exit of t5 is a must.

Cmp is a pretty straight forward track, a little dirty and a rough surface though. When you're going through the kink be sure to commit, don't lift after it since that will lighten the rear a little too much and then you'll find yourself mowing some grass.

Yea, I'll try to keep my mowing to a minimum. Messed around and didn't register soon enough, hopefully i'll get pulled from the waiting list to a confirmed spot.

Finished installing the delrin diff bushings over the weekend, not a terrible install with the right tools but it took a while. Also got the remaining cooling supplies I need on the way to do a full coolant flush and a 180* tstat. Hoping that and some slight ducting will keep my temps right at 200*.

Finished the coolant flush and tstat install over the weekend. Everything went according to plan and with the new coolant mixture and 180* tstat my temps are exactly where I want them to be. I'll monitor them this weekend while out at CMP for my next track event. I've also replaced by spark plugs with a cooler temp range and will check them during and after this weekend as well. My previous NGK's were cooked to say the least.

I've been studying up on CMP's layout and Miata lines in hope I can put down a respectable lap this weekend. I'm sure it'll be slow going Saturday but hope by Sunday I'll be confident enough to push for a decent time. I'm kind of shooting for a time around the 2:00 minute mark, we shall see.

Marcus, I appreciate the ride along and instruction you gave me. Here's my fastest laps of the weekend before the mishap...



CMP was a blast! It's nice to have this track within 1.5 hours of me. It's far from the cleanest/nicest track but it has very technical turns and is set up for a low hp/momentum car. As far as Barry goes, he's doing good, taking the track abuse rather well. I can confirm that with a 180* tstat, water wetter/distilled water combo my temps are spot on. Throughout both days my temps stayed right at 200* on track. As far as the mishap I spoke about earlier, CMP's surface is terrible to say the least. I was having trouble keeping traction with the SUR4's on Saturday and kept bleeding off pressure to find the sweet spot. I finally found something that was working that afternoon and stuck with it. Sunday morning I recheck pressures and air the tires back up, proceed to do a session and adjust the pressure back to optimum hot pressure from which I found on Saturday. First 3 sessions Sunday were going well without a hiccup. My last session of the day, I managed to roll a tire off of the bead. Unfortunately I was rushed to get to the paddock for my last session and failed to check my pressure before going back out, I will not make this mistake again. Luckily it was a very gentle release and I was on the front stretch when I noticed it, otherwise it could have been a lot worse. I'm guessing that the low psi I was running, and possibly overheating the tires caused the sidewalls to heat/stretch and it finally gave out.

My next investment will be a nice pyrometer and gauge so I can learn to manage my tires better. Next event is back at Road Atlanta in June and I'd like to keep all of my tires on there.

Car looks very controllable when the back end steps out...good for learning.

Congrats on what looks like an excellent HPDE car. You're doing it right starting with a "slow" car.

Hope to see you at a couple NASA-SE events this year.

So far the car is very controllable on oversteer, which I like. I'm having tons of fun with the NASA-SE group, they're a blast to be around. Hope to see you out there.

Nice laps. I've never seen posts put into the inside curbing before.

Dat frame rate tho +:likecat:

I'm surprised many of them are still standing, after watching some of the spec races, they mow those things over all the time haha.

Really enjoying the ultra 30, need to get a Bluetooth mic next so we can all hear that massive 1.8 work it's magic.

When I'm not distracted from watching racing while in the garage I actually get a few things done. Finishing up last minute race week prep to head out to Road Atlanta this weekend. Nothing major as I've already re-bled the brakes and checked all fluids. I had already done foamecotomy V1.0, but needed more out of my stock seats until I go full safety craze at the end of the season. I found another 2" of foam to remove and now I fit much better "in" the seat, rather than "on" the seat. I figured it's good to add lightness too.

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I've been reviewing my footage from my last event at RA and have also been watching footage of faster guys to see where I can improve. I will definitely focus on T1 and T5 to try and reset my PB this weekend.

A week ago I made it back down to Road Atlanta for the NASA-SE June Jam. Fun was had by all. I continued to work on my lines and try different things through some corners where I feel I could make up more time. The video below is how NOT to enter T1...



Needless to say I learned A LOT from that entry into T1 and proceeded to nail it every session afterwards the rest of the weekend. Flier was kind enough again to give me a ride so I could see his lines and try to learn a thing or two on Saturday afternoon. Sunday morning I proceeded to lay down my fastest lap and set a new PB at RA with a 1:52:8. Unfortunately I had changed my mounting location for the Virb and apparently when you eat the curbing coming out of 10b your soft top latches will deploy and your camera will rotate...



I do believe there is just a bit more left out there with this current setup, albeit I'm still happy with that time on an overweight street car on street tires, which leads me here. The more I would compress my brake zones, the more I would struggle to keep the rear of the car planted. I had to ensure that ALL of my braking was done before turn in and I was back on the throttle or else I was getting loose. The rear end is unloading crazy fast and I had to drive around that the entire weekend. Monday after the event I had a long discussion with an Ohlins engineer about the issues and we've reached the conclusion of raising the spring rates and lowering the ride height to help tame the weight transfer. I've got a few tid bits coming in the mail to start this process but they won't be here in time for the next event which is this Thursday at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

I'm having a blast tracking the car, but the little spin I took at T1 kinda sets a bigger picture in my mind. Either I tone down my driving until I get all the safety gear this off season, or go ahead and begin procuring the gear now. It seems that the seed has been sewed and Barry and I are in this for the long haul.

Had an awesome time last Thursday running with SCCA Track Night in America at the new Charlotte Motor Speedway road course. They've added a few really tight turns to the infield which, in all honesty, is going to be comical to watch a cup car try to handle. I definitely need a hard top... see image below.

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Car ran great, seemed a little slow on the oval but it's to be expected without some nice aero.

Here is my fastest lap there for the night. Had fun battling with a Porsche in the infield, but he would get away on the oval.



Post event I decided to do a health check on the car and give Barry some fresh blood, err... oil. This little scratch is from my exploration at Road Atlanta.

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Got some goodies in the mail which will help me get a little lower in ride height. These goodwin extended top hats were very easy to install and their fit/finish is very nice.

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Which leads me here, I am in the process of setting up my new ride height and I think I'll target somewhere between 4.5" and 4.75" on all 4 corners to see how that feels. I'll also be changing out my front springs for a higher spring rate to help combat with all the nose diving Barry has been doing.

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Little dude is always happy to be riding in "his" racecar. This is the max Carolina squat I can acheive. Looks like the lowest ride height I can run will be around 4.5" in the rear, so I was able to gain about .75" worth of travel with the top hats. We are in the "off season" for NASA-SE so I'll try and dabble with a few more TNiA events at CMP to hold myself over until the next race weekend.

Decided to "paint" my windshield surround to better match the soft top. I'm due to get a black hard top in the next month or so, still working on logistics from Rhode Island. I've also settled the suspension to 4.75" pinch weld on all 4 corners. Seems to feel good for right now.

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Had some spare time the weekend of MaTG, so I talked a buddy of mine to riding along and make a day trip out of it. We made our own Dam photo, soon to be photo shopped in later..

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Of course we took a stroll on the Dragon.

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And decided to get some booty shots with Old Glory.

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There's another track night at Charlotte Motor Speedway next week I'll be attending. Looking forward to seeing how much time I can improve with the suspension less raked from where it was. I still need to get stiffer front springs but it'll do for now.

Are you planning on NASA @ NCCAR Labor Day weekend?

also...car is looking good

Yea I'm trying to make it out to NCCAR as long as the wife doesn't schedule a vacation during that time.... Trying to convince her that area is a great vacation spot this time of year haha.

Got some sweet goodies that are coming in later.... getting me closer to where I want to be.

I decided to to get new springs for the Ohlins in order to mitigate the nose dive during hard braking to see if it would help. I was only able to go up to 575lb without having to get them revalved so that's what I've done for now. If the rest of my build goes the way I have planned, I will be dumping the Ohlins at the beginning of next year and purchase some proper Xidas. These will do for now.

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It was a logistical nightmare, but with some amazing friends I am now a hardtop owner. This hardtop traveled from RI up to NY and finally down to NC. Better yet, I wasn't destroyed over the price! I'll give it a good cleaning and plasi dip it back black. I am currently waiting on the frankenstein bolts to come from Mazda, and hoping my mounting brackets come in soon. I'm eager to get it bolted on and see what the hype is all about.

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Will get better pictures when it's on correctly.

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Next event is back at CMP which is only 2 weeks away. Still need to install everything and do a full fluid change before Barry gets any more abuse. My plans are to use Barry to get me through DE3 and 4, which will make me eligible for comp school. I'll then strip him bare and sell him back to someone as a good daily. Then buy a salvaged 99-00 and build a proper race car out of it.

FTFY!!

Guna have to agree on this one :D I'll probably agree even more after I do a bunch of cage and safety work on my car this "winter".

See, this is what I want to chat about haha.

Guna have to agree on this one :D I'll probably agree even more after I do a bunch of cage and safety work on my car this "winter".[/quote]

Haha, look forward to learning from your expensive route. :hs:

It's been a little rainy here.... Tow vehicle almost turned into a submarine. I'm really glad I wasn't in the miata. I have since found a new parking spot as well.

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Finally got the frankenstein bolts and brackets in so I could properly mount the hard top. I like it a lot.

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Also swapped out the springs on the front shock to something a bit stiffer. Let's see if this helps out any on my pig of a car.

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Oil change is done, still need to flush brake fluid and inspect them. I plan on getting the car back on an alignment rack next week right before CMP to make sure all of my ride height adjustments haven't pushed out the alignment too bad. Ready for some track day!

Looking good! I have your non-tupperware twin -- red 99, torsen LSD, hardtop, Ohlins and gold 15x9 949s! Probably done for the track season this year, but would be great to catch up with you on track sometime! I do a lot of AMP events with local groups but will probably shoot for a few NASA TT events next year as well.

Awesome, after watching some video of AMP, I'd really enjoy getting out there. I almost went out there for a TNiA event earlier this year but couldn't make it. It's no further from me than Road Atlanta. What are the local groups that run, I've seen JZilla but don't know any others.

It's a great Miata track! I have an S2000 friend who drives down from Charlotte for AMP 4-5 times a year and it sounds like it's not too bad of a drive.

Jzilla is a good group to run with and very novice-friendly. Just Track It and Performance Driving Experience (PDE) both do AMP events 4-5 times a year as well. There's also plenty of one-off events with a good amount of track time, like the annual Mustang Club of America weekend (non-Mustangs allowed!)

Jzilla is doing an off-season Dec. 20th event for only $200 that I may squeeze in, but otherwise I'm sure I'll do 5-6 events there next year. Shoot me a PM if you see something on the schedule that looks doable and I'll try to make it and help get you up to speed there.

AMP is a great miata track! Expect a Miatas @ AMP event ,Jzilla hosting, the Thursday before MATG next year, so August 2, 2018 ;)

In hopes that DIY will be doing a black friday sale, I have this loaded in the cart. I used mktrubo as a reference. Do these part numbers look sufficient? I will be building a ms3x for Barry, my 99 miata.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c4f14129ba.jpg

yes. did you mean trubokitty.com?

Yes, why yes I did.

Code BF2017 :bigtu:

Such an enabling community! It's great.

Long post is long...

So here's a slight recap of what Barry has done the past few months.

Went ahead and bought new eccentrics just so I can have a starting point of where they all are in their life cycle. The old bolts will be used as spares since they came out very clean and otherwise unharmed. Got the alignment all dialed in and ready for the track.

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Being as how my plans for next year will include more racing/comp school, full racecar for Barry, I went ahead and upgraded the tow pig with one that could handle an enclosed trailer. I plan to get a nice enclosed trailer so I can camp out of it while at the track. The 1500 had a terrible 3.08 rear end in it and I was offered a great price at the dealership so.... I brought home a 2500. I am thoroughly enjoying this truck so far.

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Made it down to Road Atlanta, where the weather was fantastic for it to be December. Had a lot of friends tag along this time, one trailered all of the way from NY! Good times were had by all.

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Saw some crazy wrecks over the course of the entire weekend. Actually, come to think of it, there were more wrecks that weekend than I have witnessed all year with NASA-SE. Luckily I was not involved in any of them and brought Barry back home in one piece. This stock car was not so lucky, witnesses claim he locked his rears up while braking for 10a... and well, the rest is right there on the track.

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I have made tons of new friends this year tracking the car with NASA-SE. Many, if not all, are willing to help you succeed in any way shape or form during the weekend. The camaraderie is fantastic and keeps me longing for more, oh and also free swag. Got a fuel jug for free 99 that weekend.

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Over Thanksgiving/Black Friday, I spent a lot.... Luckily when I returned from the track most of it was waiting for me. I bought a really nice PCI seat mount.

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To figure out how to stuff this big sucker in the car. The Circuit 2 is rather large, so I see some door panel mods coming soon. Otherwise it's in there and the door closes with the window up.

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DIY sent me a bunch of useless resistors, capacitors, boards, diodes, etc. Very nicely labeled bags and packaging I might add.

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Hoping to actually create something useful out of all those things with this. I will begin assembling the MS3X over Christmas break and hope to have it fully installed and running by the New Year.

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Oh, almost forgot. Got a nifty new loud pedal from 5X along with new pads for the brake and clutch too. I have to relearn my braking process now because of how ridiculously large this pedal is. Heel-toe is stupid easy now though.

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Visited a friend and got try out a real sim... Oh my was this thing sweet. Apparently it's in the tune of about $60k, so I'll stick with what I have for now.

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Over the past week I have finally ordered the remainder of my safety gear. Have a steering wheel, suit, shoes, harness, and HNRS all coming within the next few weeks. Barry is quickly becoming the track fiend I wanted him to be. I do foresee his street driving duties may be over soon. If I can manage to make my next event, CMP, I will get a check ride for TT and finish out 2018 there. I have tossed the idea of selling Barry as is now and just straight purchasing a built racecar, it is quickly spiraling out of control. At this point I'm not far off from getting a cage and completing comp school either. I want to do more open passing events so that I become comfortable with race traffic before I go onto comp school. I may do a few DE4 events to get my fix before settling into TT next season. This year has been an absolute thrill ride.

Awesome update! RA looked like fun. I'm planning on doing the June NASA-SE event there in 2018.

I bought the same pedal from 5X Racing. After installation, I noticed that I was hitting the gas more often when braking. I trimmed ~1" from the pedal to give a greater clearance.

Awesome, hope to see you in June. Yea I may do what you did and trim some off too. I'll give it some time and try it with my new shoes before I do anything drastic.

Had the Sparco Fairy drop by the house and drop some much needed safety equipment off. Proud owner of some new shoes, suit, harness, and steering wheel.

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The steering wheel was a breeze to remove and replace. I'm using the NRG quick release as well and they pair nicely together.

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So i was successful in stuffing the Circuit 2 seat in the miata. The door panel is removed and the halo does hit the glass just barely. Still not enough to leak, I think...

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Lastly, I was able to complete the megasquirt and jimstim. The guide on trubokitty was fantastic and very helpful. I have now loaded firmware and a basemap as well. I started to test it with the jimstim and have done the easy tests such as WBO2, MAT, TPS, and CLT. I will have to dig later tonight to figure out the rpm jumpers needed to make it work. I feel pretty good about it regardless. Now all I need to do is install the MTX-L wideband, intake with IAT, and finish the ECU pigtail.

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Nice progress sir

Thanks dude, trying to get it all complete so I can help boost numbers haha.

Hell yeah!

you need you send 2nd trigger to pin 32 on the upper db37. i think primary tach need the shunt on the lower two pins. thats it (and the trigger profile dip switch settings correct of course)


glad you liked my docs.

Thanks Brain, just now getting to work on this. After some other searches as well I think I have it set up correctly but getting wild readings. Nothing will happen unless both rpm pots are full clockwise, then is jumps between sync'd and not (half-rpm and full-rpm sync).

I've got a bit more reading to do through the manuals to understand how it's supposed to work. I currently have pull ups on the jimstim set to 12v, primary tach set to VR, and second trigger wired to pin 32 of the 3X DB37. The dip switches are set per jimstim at all ON except 2,3, and 6.

I think I was able to get a composite log as well, need to do more digging to understand what the signals should look like. Anyway here it is. I am using the 99-00 basemap.

So I have yet to order a HNRS... It's on my to-do list today. It's kind of a tie between the Necksgen and Schroth unit. Which one do I go with and why? I've seen reviews kind of all over the place with both units on comfort and head mobility limitations. Anyone with real world experience with these can give me some insight?

I ended up buying a Schroth Flex HNRS. I went down to Roebling Road while Apex Performance were there and tried out both the Necksgen and Schroth for a bit. I liked the Flex a bit better overall. I don't remember why exactly any more as this was last year.

It seems people are opting for the Large regardless of their measurements, what size did you get? I guess I can see if Discovery will have some at CMP I can pick up.