milkmandan

Picked the car up from a shop near Summit Point, Angry Sheep Motorsports, who installed window and center nets, fire system, and kill switches.







Put in kill switches at 2 locations to be compliant with the 2019 Supermiata rules. Got a new set of RC1's mounted on my new 6UL's.

They also cornerweighted and aligned the car, with a 949 race alignment:



Weight was with ~half tank of gas and 185lbs driver's weight, so a little heavier than I had hoped. Still have some easy opportunities for weight loss so that will be something to look into this season.





New stickers and we're pretty much all set for Summit Point on Saturday!

milkmandan

Summit Point Main continues to bring nothing but disappointment. After all the work done in the off-season, I was looking forward to making some progress on this track after having my lap times stagnate for 3 years. On the positive side, the new setup of the car was fantastic, with much improved stability under braking and turn-in, with really good mid-corner grip. There's a little bit of push on exit, but I think I can tune that out. New diff worked great, no wheelspin at all through turns 6-7-8.

Unfortunately, the car was seriously down on power and kept getting slower throughout the weekend. Would barely reach the rev limiter. No engine codes, but the OBD reader listed the status as "Fuel System Failure: Open Loop". I overnighted the injectors to Marren Fuel Injection to be cleaned and serviced, and picked up a new fuel filter. Also ordered a used fuel pump assembly from Parts Group in case it's the pump or the FPR. Fingers crossed I can get this sorted out for my comp school next weekend.

doward

Bummer dude. The car is looking really good. Keep it up.

milkmandan

Got the injectors back from Marren, they were quite dirty:



Popped them in with a new fuel filter, and the ECU went back to reading normal. Car was still slow though :( Running out of time, I said **** it and went to comp school anyway.



It snowed 8" in West Virginia the Wednesday before, and most of it was still there Saturday morning. The track got the most of it cleared off the asphalt, but left plenty of dirt and mud all over the track. The first day was quite the interesting experience, being the first time in a veerrryyy long time I had driven with complete track novices - plus open passing. The curriculum and instruction was top notch though, with immediate post-session video review and lots of one-on-one time with our instructors. I set a new personal best on Sunday, even with my lack of power. Looking at the data, I gained 3-8 mph in every corner (especially 1, 3, and 10) while being equal or slower in every straight.


The practice race at the end was probably one of the most exciting driving experiences I have ever had. Our race group had dwindled down to 14 cars (from 20) due to mechanicals over the weekend, but they used an inverted grid to give the faster driver's more opportunity to pass. I was gridded up in the 3rd to last row, and was able to make up positions on every start. I eventually finished 7th, after some excitement on the last lap:


On the penultimate lap, the alternator tensioner mounting tab on the waterpump broke off, and I completely missed it. The car started to dump water onto the tires which made for some very interesting moments. This isn't the first time this car has decided to lose some part of the alternator tensioner - usually I don't catch it until the battery starts to run out of power and the car stalls. Probably has something to do with why the engine is so weak now.



I've got a water pump and timing belt kit to throw on it this weekend, and with about a week and half to the next TT that's about all I can do. Fingers crossed the engine isn't completely dead yet. And in the interim, time to start looking for a new motor!

milkmandan

Stealth97

iTrader: (5)

The car is looking great. Good luck finding your missing power.

emilio700

iTrader: (3)

Watching the video, something doesn't look right in your setup. Nice driving BTW. When you lift during turn in or transitions, the rear steps out abruptly. Should't do that.
Things I would check:

-Make sure its doesn't have any wedge, verify cross weights down to about 20lbs
-Check rear toe. Should be 1/8" toe in or thereabouts.
-Make sure rear is not bottoming. If running Xida Race and stock front LBJ, 4.25" pinch weld. If running ELBJ, 4.5" front pinch weld. Usually set car level with driver, or at most 1/8" rake.
- Rear bar should be no larger than 14mm.
- For your hardware, I'd rec 800/500 or 900/500 rates.

Roda

Reference the alternator, I retained the 1.6 style steel bracket when I swapped in my VVT engine. I had to do a bit of grinding to make it work with the 1.8 manifold, but IMHO it's more robust than the aluminum tab on the side of the water pump.

milkmandan

Thanks Emilio, I'll check things over.

Some more pics from the weekend:

LukeG

Nice pics! Any details on that circle track car that says Wilson on it? That thing looks crazy!

milkmandan

It's a Legends car, pretty popular out here on the east coast: Legend Car | Start Racing | US Legend Cars

They're not as fast as you'd think they would be? Probably because they have the aerodynamics of a brick.

milkmandan

Where did my power go? Oh, probably into that giant gap.





Ordered all the stuff for the Loctite repair, oh joy!

thumpetto007

iTrader: (15)

Im gunna guess its cuz he's running reartoe out for some random reason. Front can be a bit toe out to help turn in, rear can be a bit toe in. Or so the spec miata guys say.

Rear toe out is just wonky.

Midtenn

iTrader: (15)

Ouch. That'll definitely rob some power.

milkmandan

Got some replacement timing parts and did the Loctite fix (twice actually, because I screwed up the front crank seal the first time and oil was spraying out the crank nose after I buttoned everything up) along with a regular timing belt job to replace the broken waterpump. Unfortunately I think it needs to be redone again, or something else is screwed up, because the timing is severely retarded. With my adjustable timing wheel, the most advance I could get was +12 degrees - the wheel should be capable of +20. Nevertheless, I was out of time and had to take the car as is to my first race weekend, MARRS 1.

The only other change, added a little extension to the mirror mount on the passenger side so I could actually see things behind me:




Race weekend went great! Car was still slow on the straights but I was able to chip another tenth off my personal best, and improved my driving overall quite a bit. I was able to win my class on both Saturday and Sunday (not that that means much), but was able to keep the gap to the group leaders the same in each race, despite Sunday being 8 laps longer than Saturday.



I'll be running a compression test this weekend, and I'm already eyeing low mile JDM import engines.

milkmandan

Compression test results:

155 / 150 / 155 / 170

So strong.

milkmandan

Picked up this (supposidly) low milage JDM engine and 6 speed combo locally for a song. Plan is to do a full timing belt and seal job, swap over my clutch and flywheel, and sell my existing motor and trans for cheapish. Probably going to use my USDM intake manifold and shelve the flattop till I have an ECU that won't freak out about it, and sell the JDM headers.

Efini~FC3S

iTrader: (4)

milkmandan

Got all the various bits and bobs swapped from engine to engine to make this JDM motor run in a USDM chassis, and started it up for the first time last night. Fired right up, no weird noises, no check engine lights. May have to swap back to my old alternator, the charge light is on. Leaving for GTA NJMP on Thursday so tonight I have to button up a few things, bleed the cooling system, and strip off the old graphics.

mzmanny

I take it that the JDM alternator was not playing nice with the ECU? I'd be curious to see if a USDM alternator will fix your battery light issue. I have a JDM BP6D that i'm getting ready to drop in. Maybe there is something different about the JDM alternator