We met at the Pittrace low-key autox the month before. I skipped this one because I was going to the scca event the next day. Also, I don't know how many more events my tires will tolerate before they cord. If you ever get a chance, you should come to one. There are tons of decent people, you can run in the novice class if you want, and you can get some really good instruction from some fast people.

2015 Schedule | STCsolo.com

-Zach

Hey Stoves its good to see you in here! I will make it out to an SCCA event eventually. I just have a hard time forcing myself because IMO the low key ones at pittrace are just so much more appealing. No working the course, as many runs as you can do, and no egos to contend with. Its just fun which is the whole reason I own the Miata in the first place. That being said, I would love to get serious into autocross so its worth checking out an event or two.

I agree with that. The low key event was great because you get as many runs as you can possibly handle. The cost per run is very favorable at the low key events. I have fun with the SCCA events mostly because there are more people to BS with, they're a good group. I'll try to make it to another low key event or 2.

So my car almost caught fire the other day. Oil supply line decided to give out and squirt oil all over the exhaust. Luckily it just made smoke but I am now shopping for a car fire extinguisher just in case. Seems necessary when you have oil lines near something that gets so hot. Anyways it was a JIC line that failed at the crimp. I assume it was the line that shipped with the begi kit. I found a high pressure hose shop that made me a new line for $14 which is awesome. So $14 and a new pair of pants later the car is running great again. Here is a picture of the leaky line after I switched the connections to see where it was leaking from. Weird that it failed here. Has this happened to anyone else?


https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1437494688


Anyways I really want to make this car work on the track. My current concerns, however, are making ~250 on stock bottom end, normal BEGi turbo hardware (I assume), 01 headgasket with no reroute, no ducting aside from plastic undertray, A/C is installed (and its oh so glorious BTW), no catch cans (this will be address regardless), street brake pads, and 37mm radiator with FM shroud (remove shroud and install bigger rad). So really the game plan would be to fix all of that stuff. At the end of the day though I dont know if this is a good route to take or if I should look into a stock s2000 for a track toy. I know consumables would be more but I have to believe it will be way more reliable on the track. Time will tell I guess. Sway my opinion people!

<p>lucky on that oil line, glad it didn't go up in flames.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>I can vouch for a stock S2k being an absolute riot on the track.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>But I'm building a turbo Miata for the track, so I'm not going to try to change your mind.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>A couple things regarding track prep:</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>-the reroute is not as necessary on '01+.</p><p>-turn down the boost some.</p><p>-get better brake pads. You already have the Sport brakes, right?</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>that should get you going. S2k's are a lot of fun, but much more complex machines.</p>

And still slower than turbo miatas ;)

From what I've read its ideal to use a 99-00 head gasket with a reroute and I thought I also read that even with the factory 01+ head gasket a reroute would be a good idea. Is that not the case? I actually have an m-tuned coolant reroute sitting in the garage that I was going to throw on next year.

I do have sport brakes so pads would be all I really need.

Are you retaining air conditioning on your car Ed?

Boost is as low as it can go right now. I have a 7psi (I think) wastegate actuator and had to spin the arm to 10psi to fit onto the turbo. There is 4 psi that just happens after that from the wastegate flapper not opening all of the way. Right now this doesn't matter to me because its a street/light autocross car but if I was planning on tracking it I guess I would need to sort that issue out.

I guess I can always try a trackday and see how the car take it. Worst case im out $100-200 to figure out what need improved. Putting the car into a wall is my only other concern but I'd have that with any car lol

<p>Ditching A/C and Power steering on my car, but adding ABS :facepalm:</p><p>yes pads would get you done on the braking front.</p><p>I believe that you're correct on the reroute issue, but that the '01+ cars do better without it than the earlier cars did. Still a good idea, AFAIK.</p>

Pretty sure reroute is a no-no on 01+

I read a thread before I bought the m-tuned reroute where emilio was saying the reroute is needed even for 01+ cars with stock bp6d head gaskets. Ill see if I can dig it up.

edit found it: https://www.miataturbo.net/race-prep...-thread-79930/

<p>I was going to dig that up. specifically:</p><p></span></p>

Background:

Mazda changed the design of the head gasket in the 2001 model in an effort to address the cooling problems of the earlier cars:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ad-gasket.jpg?

In the early design, you can see that the coolant passages are fairly evenly distributed across the gasket. In the '01-'05 design, this has changed radically. The holes are now clustered around the #2 and #3 cylinders, and heavily biased towards the exhaust side. This is a very good compromise design, if we presuppose the necessity of a front-thermostat, rear-heater layout. When the thermostat is open, coolant will flow up through the middle of the engine, and then move both forwards (towards the thermostat) and rearwards (towards the heater core outlet) to exit the engine. Thus, the flow of coolant across the front and rear of the head is fairly even.

I was one of the first to raise a concern about this about 4-5 years ago when we first started seriously discussing the reroute concept in the VVT engine. Specifically, my concern was (and continues to be) that with the front thermostat port blocked off completely, you can clearly see how the area around the #1 cylinder will receive virtually no coolant flow at all, with extremely little flow around the intake side of #2 as well.

Thanks for the illustration Joe Perez. I never really looked at the headgaskets before and your explanation makes complete sense to me. I don't know enough on the subject to argue that Emilio is right and you are wrong or vice versa so I will probably just take the safe route and get a bp4w head gasket before implementing the reroute/tracking the car. That has always been on the need to do list anyways since day one.

That's the problem I have as well. There is some anecdotal evidence from people who have don't rear-thermostat reroutes to VVT engines and not immediately destroyed them, but I'm not aware of anyone who has actually instrumented a VVT head to look at the temperature gradient across it (eg: by drilling a bunch of holes in it and mounting thermocouples along its length) to make a determination as to whether a rear-therm reroute on a VVT head with the stock gasket makes things better or worse than the stock configuration.

From a purely theoretical standpoint, I postulate that it will make things worse, as there will be virtually no coolant flow whatsoever around the #1 cylinder at any time, whether the thermostat is open or closed. In the stock (front thermostat) configuration, there is a small amount of flow around the #1 cylinder (by way of the thermostat bypass) when the thermostat is closed, and there should be very good flow across the entire head when the thermostat is open.