The alignment picture with the crooked license plate is perfect.

 

Initial impressions, brake issues, and splitter issues.

Initial Impressions:
The car has lost some of the nimble-ness that it once had, but still somehow feels "lighter." The amount of grip is stupid. The ride quality with the custom valved Billies and 850/500 springs is incredibly good. Mid-corner bumps are handled with a whole lot of "I don't care" from the chassis.

Brake issues:
Hawk DTC60s are not an appropriate pad for this car. Full stop. HOWEVER, i'm fighting some other problems that i'm hoping are stemming from a defective rotor (definitely bad, will have measurements this week and will be providing them to Savington.)
Almost immediately, i noticed that the passenger front pads were dragging, and no matter what i did, they continued to do so. To the point that after less than 200 miles, the pads looked like this. Also notice: the extreme difference in rotor wear inside and outside.


20170805_112615 by concealer404, on Flickr

Passenger rotor

20170806_111727 by concealer404, on Flickr

Driver rotor

20170802_171834 by concealer404, on Flickr

The damage was done in less than 200 miles. The better part of an entire half set of DTC60s is now embedded into my wheel and passenger side of the car's paint. Caliper was not seized, i could move all 4 pistons back into the caliper with my thumbs. I had to do this when Sixshooter was kind enough to sell me his spare set of Dynalite fitment PFC01s.

Am in the middle of figuring out what to do. I need to eat the cost of 2 rotors and two axle sets of DTC60s at a minimum. I'd like to run PFC01s but there's a small concern about them not coming in 7812 size. The 7112 size is easily modified to fit, but due to pad shape, will eat into the rotor arms. On one hand, this seems to be "normal" for Dynalite users, but then it was also blamed as to why @codrus killed his brakes a time or two. I am also considering ditching this rear setup in favor of V8R's Powerlite w/ Parking Brake rear setup, as the M-Tuned brackets irritated me badly enough that i'd like to get rid of them, just because. Problem there is that PFC doesn't appear to have 7912 fitment pads.


The Splitter
I started with a good idea at the core to tie the splitter into the LRB undertray. It's thick enough, the rear is mounted solidly enough, and i have a riv-nut gun to make attachment easy. However, i forgot that the front of the LRB mounts to the bumper cover, not anything actually solid. I may run with this idea further and try to hard mount it for next iteration. The other problem was that i couldn't find any Alumalite locally. I found an alternative locally called Max Metal. It's essentially the same recipe, but the sandwich filling is a "solid" core Polyethylene. I bought a 6mm 4x8 sheet and had it cut down to 2x6s, giving me chunks that weighed about 10-11lbs. Acceptable. Vteckiller2000 and i mounted it to the LRB, then used Longacre support rods (the longest ones i could find on short notice, weren't long enough) to mount up front, and some Amazon 5mm support rods in rear. Neither attachment point was strong enough on the body, and the rear rods had the threads torn out. Tossed it out, kept the Longacres.

I will be trying again with Alumalite more than likely, hopefully following same basic idea as before, i just need to find a stronger way to mount the front of the LRB undertray, and the front Longacre rods at a minimum. Not entirely sure what i'll be doing with the rear just yet, but i have a couple ideas involving some clevises and rodends. If the LRB tray doesn't work out, i'll move it to the new daily driver and just make a one piece undertray/splitter from Alumalite.

 

I had to air chisel the old license plate off of it. Some moron installed it with hugenormous wood screws into threaded nuts and they could not be removed normally. License plate is held on by nuts, bolts, and fender washers on the back side now due to large holes in the car.

POs are great.

 

In for turbo build.

 

Hahahah!

Who neg-catt'd you?

 

I also wanted to say, I like your tail lights. But what causes the blinker to blink semi-sporadically?

As was said before, great meeting up with you all!

 

Good seeing you this weekend, nice pics.

If you wanna be more twinsies you need this $110 ebay special:
99-00 Mazda Miata MX-5 GV Style Coupe Front Bumper Lip DAM Spoiler Chin | eBay

 

That's a new thing. They used to just always hyper-flash, because they're LEDs and i didn't put in enough resistors. I decided i didn't care because they made the car more visible.

But NOW, the right turn signal in particular seems to just hyperflash sometimes, possibly dependent on temperature and current electrical load. I'll remove the resistors i did install and see what happens.

The tails themselves are just oem NB2 lights, with LEDs swapped in. (All interior and exterior lights have been swapped with LEDS, save for the H1 projector retrofit.)

Great meeting you too! Wish i hadn't sat in your seats. I need them now. Unwilling to pay for them. :P

 

Thanks!

My new uprights came in the mail while i was gone, apparently. We're going to deviate a bit unless you step up your game.


2017-08-08_12-40-26 by concealer404, on Flickr

 

Wheels / tires look much better after alignment. Or did you make some changes?

Did you like the PF-01's? I love them (I may have the -11 replacements). Hope you can get some to fit.

 

The car has been pulled to holy hell and back. My front fender to hood gap is now so large i can fit my thumb in it. Still needs more work up front. And then today i read a post of Emilio's saying that they only needed a flat roll to fit 15x10 +25 and 245/40.

The PFC 01s are great! They're actually causing me a problem. Modifying $120 brake pads to fit doesn't feel great, but i can deal with it. They're making some of my other decisions hard to make, though, since they're not available in 7912 fitment, either.

 

if it will work with the rotor, I would just modify them if you like them. It's easy enough to do if you have access to a grinder and they work as intended.

 

The rears are the question. Sowwy, i didn't clarify.

Dynapro takes 7812 shape, Dynalite takes 7112 shape (usually easily modified provided you use a grinder and not a sawzall), and Powerlite takes 7912. PFC doesn't appear to do a 7912.

 

For your reference, this is 15x10 +25 6ULs and 245/40 VR-1s on my daily.



Keep me posted on the brakes, something's fucky in there.

 

Hah! That is SO far from what mine look like it's hysterical!

I will definitely keep you posted. Safe to ASSume that if i could move the pistons back into the caliper with my thumbs that a dragging caliper was not the culprit?

 

I agree, something is fucky with the"15x10" jong-bongers. Offset, width..... something. They look wider(more poke) than the 6ULs.

Also, 245s + 10s on a light NB1 is just silly around mountain roads.

 

doesn't look that different to me.

you have adjustable upper arms, correct? almost guarantee its a setting and not the wheel.... but again it looks really similar in photos now that your car is on the ground.

 

I don't think the pictures are doing it justice, nor are they showing the ridiculously huge pull i had to do to "clear" this stuff, which is STILL rubbing up front. Yeah, the arms probably aren't 100% exact to factory length, but based on how the alignment went, they're close. Certainly not the cause of the nearly 2 inches i've had to pull the fenders. Initial test fits and pulling job in this thread were on 100% stock arms and bushings. Clearance was still horrid.

First clue in his picture is that he still has the flat portion around his rear wheelwells. I don't.

 

So, am I mistaken or can't you just measure the overall width of the rim, divide by two, then lay a straight edge across the back of the wheel and measure down to the mounting face, and subtract your way to the offset?

 

That's what i thought, we measured backspace that way, and came up with 24mm. But then at MATG we were informed that you should actually measure that to the inner lip thingy?

I will check into it this week. I have a couple theories. One of them being that these aren't 10s.