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I've been keeping my IG page (@leftlane_miata) updated with brief snippets of this, but I don't want to lose track of the value of the build thread either, so I wanted to give all of you MT faithful the detail on the fun I've been having!
Here's the MT exclusive sneak peek... After what I would consider a successful 2021 season of sorting out teething issues on the Kswap, I have decided to give Gridlife ClubTR a run for its money in 2022. It is an 8 event series with your best 4 races being counted towards season points. I'm tentatively planning on hitting up 4 events for 2022 and see how they go. For those unaware, ClubTR is a time trial based class for street cars with full interior (2550lb min weight) and under 2.5L (if NA); Other restrictions apply if boosted. You are required to run Falken RT660 and limited to 255 tire width. That's the short and sweet of it. By sheer luck, my car is essentially a perfect fit to the rulebook. All of the 2021 competition (except one civic) was well over the min weight by several hundred pounds. Most of the BRZ/S2K crowd in the competition from this year will fall in that 2700-2800lb range with driver, whereas I will need to ballast up by at least 100lbs to hit the min weight. This gives me a distinct weight advantage and the current 231whp power level of the k24 doesn't make me any slouch in the straights. It was surprising to see that no Kmiatas gave ClubTR a go this season, but the formula is pretty proven from GLTC. I'm excited for this
That said, I've got some work to do!
The first step to any Gridlife car is it's gotta look pretty! I've been wanting to do this for years and the push to run it in a series (and the fact my garage is finally a nice finished workspace) finally gave me the push to get a vinyl wrap started. It is a slow but steady process. I'm learning as I go and have made a few blunders. Overall, I'd say the car is awesome from 10ft and 7/10 from 5ft. The first few panels I did could be redone based on what I've learned in my ~15hrs spent so far. Waiting to see how much I have leftover before I think about what panels I may want to recover, but I'm probably beating myself up a bit much here. Even the worst of panels are still better than the black paint it is covered. So much depth and gloss in the paint color compared to before!
During the wrap process I realized that I was lazy and didn't feel like wrapping mirrors, so I got a nice little cosmetic item that's been chilling in my "want but don't need" list for years. APR mirrors with RTheory adapter brackets. Drops a couple of pounds up top and the carbon looks really sharp against the metallic gunmetal vinyl. Also peek at the new door/window seals. My old ones were shot with multiple broken clips. The new ones look great.
Up next was hubs... I had a rear wheel bearing start to go out on me on the drive home from MATG this year. I decided that now was as good of time as ever to upgrade the front and rear hubs around the car. The fact that I was on 145k mile ORIGNIAL OEM hubs was something I was always a bit weary of the last couple years since moving up to road course activity, so this will be nice to just not have to worry about anymore. I went with BroFab front hubs and Miatahub rears. It would've been nice to get the Miatahub fronts, but given the cost differences (over 50% cheaper!), the BroFab hubs are really hard to ignore. Either option is an upgrade from what I had, so I opted to take the money I saved on hubs to stick into other items that you will read about below.
I needed to make the shift to a the RT660 tire to run in CTR per the rules and as fate would have it, I needed to replace tires anyways as my second set of RS4's (these being 3 years old) had finally met their demise. Instead of running the Jongbloeds (which have met their rusty/gross fate to Hawk DTC pad dust damage I've yet to figure out how to clean off), I took the opportunity to shift to a lighter wheel and give Konig Dekagrams a go. Kept with the same 15x10+25 size on the wheels and also kept the tried and true 245/40/15 tire size. The Falkens seem to be a bit wider than the RS4, but it should all clear in my fenders without too much hassle. I'll get a photo comparison of the two combos once I get them mounted up. An added benefit to this wheel purchase is that I now have a second set of wheels. The door for tire options now opens up, depending what I want to put on the Jongbloeds.
The last bit of prep is in regards to brakes. My current setup is what I like to label the "spec miata special" as listed below:
Hawk DTC60 (front) / DTC30 (rear) pads
OEM sized 1.8 calipers/rotors
Stainless lines
Good fluid
It is a good setup and really has done me no wrong to date. Car feels balanced and even without brake ducting, I'm finding that I have far more brake power than I could use on my RS4's. The downsides I've found thus far are:
I needed new pads and rotors. If I was to upgrade, now would be the time...
The Hawk dust is very corrosive and next to impossible to clean off once it gets wet (see "ruined" Jongbloeds)
The pad life at my HP/Speed levels is starting to become an "often" item. On average, I'm about 1-2 seconds ahead of SM pace right now (and getting faster) and estimate to be replacing pads every ~3 events
Future uncertainty... Moving to a much grippier RT660 tire, I wasn't sure if a heat related issue may arise on OEM sized brake components that I haven't seen on the RS4.
What I knew for certain was, if I was going to upgrade, I wasn't going to mess around with a mid tier level kit. "buy once, cry once" has been said in this thread more than once, and it was time to say that about the brake system. At the end of the day, it's a safety system so even if I don't need it, overkill makes you feel good here. The goal was to run as big of a caliper/rotor in the front as I could physically manage while also keeping future consumable costs as low as possible. For the fronts, I ended up settling on ordering Jerfspeed's AFCO F88 front caliper setup with 11.75" x 1.25" rotors. The F88 calipers use the standard 7420 size Wilwood pad and the 1.25" thick rotors mean that I can use off the shelf parts (not a special 1.1" rotor like SM offers). I am waiting on them to arrive, but am pretty excited.
For the rears, I found that the piston ratios while keeping the 1.8 caliper are the best (even with a massive front kit). It's a pretty basic and proven setup to just run the caliper adapter brackets and sport rotors, so that's what I'm moving forward with.
I was able to order the pads ahead of time. I'm shifting from the Hawks mentioned above to Gloc R12 (front) / R10 (rear) compound. I've had good experiences with this compound on other miatas I've driven and the material won't ruin my wheels like the hawks if they get wet. Comparing the 7420 pad to the OEM 1.8 rear caliper pad is a pretty great comparison. The 7420's are HUGE (not only in face area, but in thickness) and only a whole $37 more than what OEM front pads would've ran me. I expect that these will last through whatever I throw at them for 2022 and maybe even through a chunk of 2023.
So there you go MT faithful... As always, more to come...
You'll need to watch the R12s, the dust sticks much harder than the R10s ( I had that combo on my car, now 10s both ends for exactly that reason). I only ever ran hawks in one event and I wouldn't touch them again, but the wheels with the12s will need a careful clean after each weekend. I don't think they are acidic, but the dust seems to set if left on - I was spoilt by my previous experience with 10s, and discovered the difference a bit too late.
New hub weight comes out to 1.9lb increase per front corner.
Weight comes from the spacer needed to get brake rotor offset correct, the longer studs I wanted, and all that extra flange beef. The side by side photo is pretty telling.
All installed it looks real nice and pretty. Peek also at the Jerfspeed caliper adapter bracket that is installed
Speaking of brakes, I got the old front caliper/rotor assemblies removed and tossed them on the scale. Overall, it looks like the full Jerfspeed kit is going to add 3.3lbs per corner, which isn't bad at all given the massive size difference.
To fit the caliper on, you need to grind away part of the ears on the knuckle so that the ears of the caliper clear. Fitment is tight, but a grinder makes quick work of it.
This is an example in the install instructions of the grinding done to give you an idea of the clearances. I took all the material off of the steel knuckle and opted to not touch the caliper casting.
Overall, install went really quick. I'm gonna need to call Arby's emergency hotline as I have the meat sweats.
It wasn't confirmed whether or not these clear the Jongbloed 15x10's, but I can confirm they do with a fair amount of room to spare! Even more room with the Dekagrams
How does that saying go again "...sometimes life happens?"
Since my last update, a lot of that has happened, and truthfully, I'm plenty alright with it even if it does push some car plans off to the side a bit.
I started off in mid-December by somewhat reluctantly (but not really) selling the Audi S3. Pricing on those cars inflated so much in my 1 year (almost to the day) of ownership. It was crazy to watch. I put 14k miles on it, trashed a set of brakes/tires on it at Road America and instead of replacing the maintenance items, I ended up having the same dealer I bought it from buy it back for the easiest (and most fun) $5k profit I've ever made on a car before. Then the question was, "what the hell do you get next in this inflated market?"
Well, I found a fully loaded 2008 Avalanche that was plenty clean. 198k miles, 4x4, leather, remote start, heated seats, minimal rust etc all for $8500. For a $3500 kicker on the Audi profit, I had a dependable GM pickup that actually had more features than the Audi (albeit not nearly as exciting to drive). Having no car payment again was a big win and part of the plan. As of me writing this today, I'm already at 203k and she hasn't depreciated a penny from it.
Of course, when you own an LS based vehicle, you can't not buy a bumpstick for it... more to come on that this summer, but I'm labeling it as "preventative maintenance".
Xmas eve, I finally did the deed and popped the question to the GF of nearly 4 years. Everyone is excited about it and not having a car payment is going to come in clutch when it comes down to the wedding this October.
Shortly thereafter, in early January, we added a second floppy eared family member to the household. Maverick is a 9 week old German Shorthair Pointer. He gets along well with Tucker, the border collie, and they do a good job of tiring each other out. We are still in house training mode, but I'll say that training Maverick has been infinitely easier with Tucker there to show him the ropes.
and last, but not least, we have the latest addition to the household. Anyone that has dogs, knows that traveling with them can become challenging. Seems like you are either stuck with finding a place to board them ($$$), asking favors of friends to watch them, or taking them along where many times its not super convenient. Not complaining about it in the slightest, but it's just reality of pet ownership. We do a lot of camping in the summer and currently have always tented. It was always fine once set up, but we seemed to run out of space quite fast even with our full size SUV. In parallel to this, whenever I'd go to track day weekends in the summer, the last place you really want to go is into a muggy hot tent after sweating your butt off in your car most of the day. Couple both of these things with the fact that both myself and my fiancé can work from home and we took a leap of faith against the better judgement of recent fuel prices
I present to you, "that B**** Carol". Carol is a 2000 Coachman Mirada. She's 34' long, powered by a Ford V10 with 44k miles, has a on-board generator, roll-out canopy, on-board LP, 2 rooftop AC units, a central heating unit, more under cabin storage for tools/etc than I can even use, sleeping for 6 (but room for more with inflatable mattresses thanks to the large slide), auto-leveling hydraulic jacks, and a 5000lb tow capacity. She needs a little TLC, but overall, I'm pretty impressed with how much RV you can buy for your money these days.
We are planning to take Carol on our honeymoon with the dogs on a big ole road trip through the West this fall. It'll be great to use for track-side tailgating at Road America events, relaxing to have for HPDE/Gridlife weekends regardless on if the fiancé/dogs/friends want to tag along, and then it obviously beats the hell out of tenting on non-trackday weekends. When I ran the numbers, the RV just made a lot more sense for us than the more common 3/4 ton truck / enclosed trailer setup that you typically see in the paddock. The first true test will be in a few weeks where we plan to drive down to Road Atlanta for the TA2 racing that my good friend is involved with. Fingers crossed for no breakdowns
So that's my update! Weather is starting to warm up here again, so looking forward to spending some wrench time in the garage to get the Miata buttoned up.
For the moment, I don't have any real plans to add ducts. Save the weight/complexity/money for now. I'm not saying I'll never add them, but I had no reported issues with running OEM sized brakes w/o ducts. Without having changed anything that would change my top speeds on track from last year, the Jerfspeed kit should be more than capable without them
Tossed ~1700 miles on Carol over an extended weekend to visit Road Atlanta and spectate the Trans Am series racing that was going on. Good friend of mine was running TA2. Got about 8.3mpg @ 70 mph, which is better than I was expecting. Will be interesting to see how she does towing the miata, but I guess that means I need to finish it first
Man, I'm jealous of the slide out. I deliberately avoided slide outs when I bought mine because I didn't want the complexity/failure points but having that kind of space in a living room would be game changing.
The extra space is game changing for sure. We wanted a slide-out but honestly didn't think we'd find one for our rather tight budget. We got lucky with this deal. To your point, there is extra maintenance and leak paths with them though, so having a slide-out isn't all positives.
Warmer weather has got the motivational fluids flowing again. Had a pile of rear end parts to get installed.
Went over to a local SM buddies race shop as he had a nice fixture to press out and re-install the rear bearings/hubs because its a common maintenance item for his fleet (surprise surprise). Took off the dust covers for the rotors while we were at it so that the sport rotors fit without a problem. Even with his special tools, my stock parts were seized in pretty good. There's a less than zero chance I would have gotten this stuff out with my available parts. Now that they are assembled though, the beef is real. I'm at a small holding pattern at the shown point though as I realized now would be as good of a time as ever (drained brake system) to replace the tired rear calipers that are presumably original to the 150k miles on the chassis. Replacements should arrive on Friday and will be good for my peace of mind. The GWR adapter brackets fit like a glove!
Now that the rear end was as far as I could get it, it's back to vinyl work I go. Everyone needs a little bass boat flake orange in their life. Got the body panel between the frankenstein bolts completed as well as the whole trunk lid. This is the nicest this trunk lid has ever looked since buying this car...
Once the trunk was done, it was off to the next dreaded component.. The wing!
Now I know I could have simply powdercoated the damn thing.. surely that path would have been a lot easier, but I'm a glutton for punishment, have a pile of extra vinyl (free!) and I like my things to match, so here I go by starting off wrapping the TIG welds and wing supports.. This localized section will be far from perfect and gives the good welds an otherwise horrible looking booger weld appearance, but given the visual location under the wing, I don't think anyone will really see my sins here. From any reasonable standing angle, it will look way better than raw aluminum.
Taking a scrap piece of vinyl, I wanted to make sure my intended process of applying the vinyl all the way around the wing profile would work as it's not the easiest thing to apply. Turns out it worked pretty darn well, and I'm now being teased of how this thing will look when fully wrapped up... Can't wait!
Spent 4 hours taking my time and completely wrapping all surfaces of the wing. Took 12 pieces of vinyl in total and I'm really happy with how it blends the wing into the rest of the car instead of seeing a shiny chunk of aluminum out in space. MT gets the extra photo sneak peek of what the full livery is looking like. Bumpers coming next!
Out with the old and in with the new! As long as the brake system was dry, I figured it was as good of time as any to replace the rear calipers for peace of mind. As an added bonus, it saves me the hassle of stripping the paint off the old ones that were well past their prime.
All buttoned up
Got the fender vents tossed back on in the meantime as well. Wrap is getting closer to finishing day by day
Sometimes the most elegant and simple designs are the most challenging to think through. As many of you who have operatonal kmiatas are aware, getting a proper length intake in a cold inlet location that isn't prone to being sprayed by water is no small feat thanks to the Mazda radiator placement. I've been working as an OEM coolant system designer for the last 6 years and decided to take it upon myself to fix this on my car in an aesthetically pleasing manner after being upset with options. After scouring the internet for way longer than I care to ever admit, rethinking, overthinking, and rethinking again like engineers do, I've finally got my concept mounted to the car.
Step 1: Welding. Off-the-shelf has done me good so far, but every good project car needs a welder tossed at it.
The intake placement was made possible by running the front bumper support bar that we sell here and generously trimming out the material between the frame rails. It should be no issue to get clean, cold air from the bumper inlet to the filter from the radiator ducting (that I still need to finish up). The intake is held in rigidly by the OE core support brackets for the bumper cover and fits under the bumper cover without interference. I tossed on a carbon fiber intake pipe in the visible area just to be fancy.
I found an off the shelf dual pass radiator that (with help from some custom made adapter brackets and a few minor modifications) bolts right up to OE locations on the frame rails. It is dual pass (which cleans up hose routing and eliminates the ugly crossover hose) and slightly shorter than the Mazda core (which allows for intake pipe clearance between the radiator and core support when the radiator is mounted at an angle) all while fitting between the frame rails AND clearing the sway bar. Clearances are tight, but it all fits and nothing is rubbing.
While I was in overkill mode, I took my hybrid kpower/tractuff rear water neck and modified the outlet to point more outward (vs under the intake manifold) and made a nice hard line to run to the radiator inlet. The hard line bolts to existing weld nuts in the engine bay. I need to clean up and radius a couple of the square edges on the hard line mounting tabs, but you get the idea. All hose sections were sourced from OE hoses at NAPA. I can fill the system via the rear fill neck on level ground without the need for a fill funnel or awkwardly jacking the front end up. The coolant overflow is hidden in the cowl.
With bumper cover on, I gotta say I'm really happy with how it's all looking. The engine bay looks empty all while still remaining just as functional and nearly as serviceable as before. The real test will come in the next few months of track use, but I expect that I should have no temp issues given the kseries is a lot more thermally efficient than the old 90's tractor motor it has replaced. Given how cold of temps I was running last year on an OE Mazda radiator, I have loads of confidence that this wont give me a problem.
Also, just because its a cool job perk. I got to take home a new 2022 Harley Davidson Nightster 975 for what we like to call "engineering evaluation". The Nightster was just announced a couple weeks ago, so they are about as new as they come. Magazine reviews are just only starting to come out for them, and you'd be lucky to even see the first ones getting unpacked at the dealer for showroom models, let alone ride one. It's IMO a beautiful departure from the archaic air cooled sportster of days past while still distinctly looking like a Harley. Like any gearhead, there's a pile of things I'd do to it if it were mine to modify, but for a showroom stock bike, I am not getting off of it disappointed (unlike some other offerings of ours that I'll leave nameless for now).
Desperate times call for desperate measures. I'm all for supporting small business and I know inflation is a thing, but can I just say that the price for the NLR CFD endplates is some lunacy? $216 for two 10"x12" pieces of metal? I was never a fan of the dead man logo burned into the side of my standard endplates that I got with the wing years ago (and jhony wouldn't sell me them w/o the logo), so I decided to fire up the CAD machine and do some China level knockoff work.
After about an entire 4 mins using CAD and a photoshop measurement tool, I had a DXF of the design. I uploaded it to sendcutsend, and had these bad boys shipped to my door in 4 business days for a whole $22/pair. 90% discount? Don't mind if I do!
I got them all bolted up. They look nice like you'd expect. Some like me would say they look better because of the lack of logo cutout. The nerdy engineer in me is curious if there's a performance benefit in not having a logo cut in an endplate, but I digress on that topic and don't care enough. I still need to wrap them, but I'll take this as a small victory for myself.
While I do like what 9LR is doing I'm bummed by the fact they bumped prices so fast/aggressively that they were out of my price range before I got the scratch together to buy their wing. I know that some people won't like this, but I've done similar things to this when the wallet wasn't fat enough to counter the effort of a garage copy, and it looks like yours turned out nicely.
Having seen their endplates in person I also dislike the logo cutout. Someone bumped into the corner on my buddy's car and it bent quite easily because of the holes from the logo
11-15-2021, 01:39 PM
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