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Photos aren't showing up on my end just yet, but interested to see/hear your findings with the data and future applications with it. I'll check back later to see if pics show up..
What are you using for data acquisition again? Aim? I want to do the same thing this year and hopefully pull data between sessions and apply any findings to the next run. Garmin Catalyst seems like the easy button so I'm leaning towards that.
Just a RaceStudio screen shot in that last post... not sure why it wouldn't be showing up.
Yes, using AiM. Expensive, and sometimes counterintuitive to figure out the software, but IMHO a pretty good way to get data and have it integrated with video. I'm definitely still on the learning curve, but just being able to look at the traces from different laps and see objectively what's going on is very useful. I considered the Catalyst, and I think it's a really good tool for a beginning to intermediate driver who's still learning to be consistent. IMHO, the Catalyst doesn't have as much to offer the more advanced driver, and the $$$$ is better spent towards a more sophisticated data system. YMMV...
Anyway, speaking of data, here's some old fart looking at his dash while the car warms up in the pre-dawn, 35*F paddock... Credit to Clay Lyons @shopclassagency... didn't even know he was taking pics in the paddock until later.
The V730 is classified by NASA as a +1.0 tire weight : power mod factor and the RR is a +1.6, and I feel like that's still not enough to make the RR competitive. With that in mind, it really shouldn't be too surprising it's slower. It does always seem odd that these purpose designed 'race tires' are getting blown away by modern street tires.
I remember switching from RE-71's to RR back in ~2021 when the RR mod factor was added and guys on here were calling BS that my data and lap times were showing the RR was significantly slower. It wears like iron but I really hated it on a lightweight and relatively low power Miata; especially for TT. Takes too long to heat up, responsiveness is poor causing it to feel really sloppy, requires relatively high slip angles, and lat/long accel was ~0.15g lower. I threw that junk right in the trash at the end of the season and never looked back.
What are you using for data acquisition again? Aim? I want to do the same thing this year and hopefully pull data between sessions and apply any findings to the next run. Garmin Catalyst seems like the easy button so I'm leaning towards that.
Slightly off topic but not: start small with a Aim Solo, preferably a solo2 DL (datalogger). You connect it to power/ground/CAN, and it'll give you water temp, RPM, shift lights, alarms, predictive timers, yaw/pitch/roll, etc. It'll track your throttle position, braking Gs, etc, and you can use that to where you're missing/gaining time.
They're small and simple enough to fit with a ram mount suction cup, but good enough that a lot of NA/NB spec miata guys run this mounted in place of their dash.
They are not a dash, the display will give you lap times and the like, but the DL version takes your sensors from the ECU, plus accelerometer and GPS, and though the software you have a full datalogging and data analysis package. Recommended.
The V730 is classified by NASA as a +1.0 tire weight : power mod factor and the RR is a +1.6, and I feel like that's still not enough to make the RR competitive. With that in mind, it really shouldn't be too surprising it's slower. It does always seem odd that these purpose designed 'race tires' are getting blown away by modern street tires.
For me, the RR was faster than V730, by .5 seconds and it should have been more like a full second because I screwed up a section on the RR fast lap. Same day, same car, same track. V730 had 16 AutoX runs and 4 track sessions and the RRs had 6 track sessions prior, so similar use. The RR felt better in every aspect and data shows objectively better lateral grip. The RR is an older tire, but it has long life and predictable characteristics, and it holds up to full track sessions better than many of the super 200s. No question it's not as fast as the pointy end tire of the week, but it's still a good tire for what I do.
I have a set of CR-S in 245 on the way, and I'm looking forward to giving them a try. I also need to try the RT660+... some local guys are getting good results with those.
Gracias for the input on the Aim, gents. First time I've heard a case for that over the Catalyst. Guess most of the feedback I've read has been from beginner to intermediate drivers haha. I'll do some additional homework starting with the link Curly posted.
Originally Posted by engineered2win
It does always seem odd that these purpose designed 'race tires' are getting blown away by modern street tires.
I was surprised to hear similar feedback in a recent post I made about NASA TT5/ST5 tire selection. Seeing the Maxxis RC-1, R888's and NT-01 in the same +1.6 modifier category as the RT-615K, RS4, seemed like there was a mistake at first. I know that RS4's aren't going to beat out RC-1's etc. but I was intrigued to hear that the gap in performance was less than I'd initially assumed.
The car looks so good, as usual! Really interested to hear your thoughts on the nangkangs. At my local track they've proven to be the fastest 200 out there
Thanks, guys... looking forward to seeing how they work.
Going from 225s on 9s (Toyo RR on 6UL) to 245s on 9.5s (CR-S on 6UL) will add almost 4lbs per corner, and some drag. Hopefully the grip will overcome, but that's why I held off on 245s while I had the BP engine.
225 on 9
245 on 9.5
Some pics on the car... 245s are wide! Car is probably sitting a bit high... just jacked it up and bolted on the wheels... didn't drive it. Flat fender roll, no pull.
Yesterday was AutoX day, and since we haven't been able to get back to the track we took both Miatas so I could try out the Nankang CRS tires on the NA.
The NA was ready to rumble...
New 6ULs are sexy...
It was a good turnout, with 38 drivers. My wife drove our NC, and I drove the NA.
I didn't get a lot of pictures... my wife and I were both driving in the morning group, and both working in the afternoon group. It's a drive/work event, so when you're not driving, you're working. Makes it hard to play photog. Some one did get a pic of the NA at the starting line.
Even though I don't consider myself an autocrosser, and the car isn't optimized for it, I can be pretty competitive. The afternoon group is always faster. The morning group cleans the dust off, lays down some rubber, and the concrete warms through the day. My problem is with two bad ankles, a bad knee and bad back, I'm pretty much done after chasing cones for 2.5-3hrs and my driving suffers. So, I just run the morning group and live with it. This month, I was having trouble with the course, and it didn't 'click' until my very last run. I was stoked that run was a full second faster than my previous runs, and FTD... for about 5 minutes. The CAM-S C5 in the morning group clipped me by .09 seconds on the last run. In the afternoon group, the same C5 pushed FTD out to a full second faster with its other driver, and I ended up 6th overall for the day. Still very happy with that. One of these days I'll try binging some ibuprofen, guzzle an energy drink and try the afternoon run group....
Nankang CRS... like them a lot. Our concrete pad is not very grippy, but the CRS were a definite improvement over the V730s I ran last time at AutoX. Predictable at the limit, and easy to gather up if you go over the limit. Looking forward to trying them out on track.
I wanted to get some video, and I tried manually starting my AiM camera, but apparently the auto-start parameters I have programmed for track use were interfering and re-starting the camera a few seconds into the runs. It looks like I'm going to have to set up a full config file specifically for AutoX with a manual start and no track map, as it also defaults to the last one displayed in the overlay. Anyway, here's my fast run of the day... I got a little excited when I saw my time...
Bested by a C5 by just a c*nt hair?? What an absolute shame!
Stoked you guys got out and had a fun day. And 6th out of 40 cars isn't anything to scoff at either.
I gotta sign up for another AutoX event. I've only ever run half of an event in my NC when it was still on 300TW tires but it was more fun than I'd anticipated.
AutoX is fun, and it's great for building car control skills at low-consequence speeds. The ROI for time sucks, though. Seven hours at AutoX was good for 4 minutes and 32 seconds of actual driving time.
Good practice getting in/out of the car, though...
AutoX is fun, and it's great for building car control skills at low-consequence speeds. The ROI for time sucks, though. Seven hours at AutoX was good for 4 minutes and 32 seconds of actual driving time.
Good practice getting in/out of the car, though...
Ya.. that's my big complaint with auto-x. You spend a whole day standing around for a very small amount of seat time. Hopefully you're someplace with a big parking lot as well so the course doesn't double back on itself and you can't tell where the F to go so you don't get a few DNF's..
To your point it's a great starting point though. Lower speeds are much safer for testing the limits of the car and getting a feel for over/understeer. I'm also a fan of karting at outdoor courses with gas karts (there aren't too many of them vs the electric places these days). Need to make a point of doing more karting. Car looks good and that K motor sounds good!
Cool clip. I've had some fun at auto-x, and I never underestimate how hard/competitive it can be to go fast in a parking lot. I always have trouble getting dialed in too, though I've been able to be fairly competitive in the events I've done, it's a whole different ball game from track duty. Nice work out there, 6th overall is well done, especially because as you said, the fastest times always come later as people figure out the course.
Yesterday I took the NA to a local track, Musselman Honda Circuit in Tucson, AZ. It's primarily a kart track, and .78 mile. It's reportedly built to "replicate" the Suzuka South Circuit in Japan. Yeah... not so sure about that. Before we moved to Southern AZ, this track was a 4hr drive, and we never went there. Now that it's an hour away, I thought it was worth giving it a try.
This was basically an open test day. For most of the day it was just me, and half a dozen drifters. The drifters got 20 minutes, then I got 20 minutes. Eventually a Panoz Esperante race car showed up and ran some laps with me. The track is basically like a long AutoX course, with a couple of longer straights. 4 corners have minimum speeds under 30mph. 3 corners are very tight 2nd gear corners that really don't help the flow of the course. Grip was OK when the drifters weren't throwing dirt all over the track. My gearing wasn't a good fit for the track... I ended up running most of it in 3rd, with a shift to 4th on the main straight, and then an immediate downshift back to 3rd, then 2nd.
Most of the pits was dirt, but since no-one was there, I used a wide spot in the road to park the car between sessions. The drifters are over in the far corner.
I started out on 225 V730s, and then switched to 245 CR-S. The CR-S were definitely an improvement, with lap times a little over 1.5 second faster.
At the end of my second session, I thought I broke the throttle cable... no drive, and no spring on the pedal. Car was still idling, and fortunately it happend at the last corner before track exit, so I limped back to the pits. This is what I found...
That's the throttle quadrant hanging by the throttle cable under the throttle body shaft.... The vibes of the K24 finally caught up with me.
The KPower throttle body uses an adapter that bolts to the throttle shaft and then the quadrant bolts to the adapter. The throttle shaft bolt is sandwiched between the two, and is apparently able to rotate within the assembly, which it did, until it ran out of threads and came off. Fortunately, since it's captured, it remained with the quadrant.
Since this part came assembled, I neglected to loctite that particular nut... that will be corrected.
I was able to get everything back together and head back out on track. Best time of the day was 1:00.24, which was faster than the Panoz, but I don't really have anything else to compare it to. I'll ask some of the local AutoXers who've run here before.
All in all, I was hoping to like the track. It's close, they're open 3 days a week for 'test' days, and they have a Time Attack once a month. Unfortunately, I really didn't. It just felt really 'stop and go' to me, with no real rhythm... it just doesn't flow. Maybe a gearing change will help...? I don't know.
Ooh yeah, she's a tight one, eh!? I feel you regarding the track layout. We have a couple similar courses over here, karting tracks that open up for full size vehicles a few times a month. I think it's easy to dismiss some of the smaller tracks as less exciting after having driven some real full size, high speed tracks. That layout does look... interesting. Proper driving, though
Glad your mechanical wasn't a day-ender. Funny enough, I had a throttle cable issue the last time I drove a Miata at a go kart track as well.
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The afternoon group is always faster. The morning group cleans the dust off, lays down some rubber, and the concrete warms through the day. My problem is with two bad ankles, a bad knee and bad back, I'm pretty much done after chasing cones for 2.5-3hrs and my driving suffers. So, I just run the morning group and live with it. This month, I was having trouble with the course, and it didn't 'click' until my very last run. I was stoked that run was a full second faster than my previous runs, and FTD... for about 5 minutes. The CAM-S C5 in the morning group clipped me by .09 seconds on the last run. In the afternoon group, the same C5 pushed FTD out to a full second faster with its other driver, and I ended up 6th overall for the day. Still very happy with that. One of these days I'll try binging some ibuprofen, guzzle an energy drink and try the afternoon run group....
