Congratulations on the podium! Sucks about another head possibly being damaged though, dang. And I see you're a fellow connoisseur of the brake-zone sacrifices .

I want to checkout the video when it finishes!

 

Probably tried to link it too early, this should work



Yes, the brakes were locked up a number of times. We tried no vacuum assist, it was much better, but just too stiff a pedal for 14 hours. We put in a tiny E4 e-torx socket into the vacuum line, which has a tiny hole through the center, and that seemed to help a little bit. Real solution is ABS or different pads. The Cobalt pads that we have (XR4 front, XR6 rear) are just super grabby on initial application, and refuse to disengage until you're fully off the pedal. That'd be great for slicks or an ABS car, but RS4s are far from that. I've got access to a million E60 4 channel BMW units, and also a NB2 3 channel, still deciding what to do about that.

Not too worried about the head, Thunderhill really dumped oil into our big catch can, which we only really started to stay on top of on the 2nd day, at one point adding up to 2 quarts after seeing some oil pressure drops. So I want to inspect/replace the bearings, add a baffle, inspect the bores, all while I fix the head. In the mean time we have a bone stock VVT we'll do a timing belt job and water pump on and throw in for our next (as of now unscheduled) race.

Edit: oh yeah, it's the pit stop in the video where we put 2 quarts in!

By all accounts, this car should not be in one piece, we threw it off track probably a dozen times this weekend, and nothing ever happened. My co-worker made a wooden splitter that fit snuggly behind the replica Garage Vary lip, and mounted it to the frame horns. I'll try to make a montage of all the offs, some were quite impressive.

 

Here's the beginning of the spins. This turn is typically taken at 72-74mph, here my friend John tries 86mph. This de-beaded 1.5 tires and filled the rear subframe with mud, otherwise zero damage thanks to the reverse entry.

 

Few more cool photos and the all important podium shot. I don't think I mentioned this, but huge shout out to @turbofan, @emilio700 and the 949 crew, we found some play in two out of four front ball joints during a last minute inspection. Ordered Thursday, arrived Monday, even after going from their home base in California, to Memphis, and finally to Portland.





And my fast lap from Sunday. This was a 3:31.739, Laz eventually did a 3:30.385. You can see the predictive in the bottom right of the Motec dash, I had a 3:28 until I was too cautious through the final corner and lost a few seconds.

 

That line at 21:20 in the uppermost video is great, really cutting distance

Looks like a great time. I've driven Thunderhill in sims a good number of times and would love to make it out there someday. John honestly didn't look too far off on that turn. I think he might've had it with some slight adjustments to his inputs. Always easier said than done though.

I assume the NB2 vs MK60 debate is ease vs effectiveness? I've thought about both as well and assumed the OEM Mazda setup would be easier to get setup, but have worse performance while the BMW ABS would be the opposite. I'd be interested to hear feedback from someone who is more familiar with both.

PS - I also expect you to actually be Curly from Top Gear and am shocked every time you're not.

 

The hair is curly, the personality is more Cpt. Slow.

THill is a great track, in desperate need of a repave, but apparently we were the last major event before it gets repaved. The 5 mile is daunting, I did not enjoy it the first test sessions out, much better on the 2nd, even my first 2 hours stint on Saturday, I just wanted it over with after ~1.5 hours. The mental toll is high, trying to remember the entire course, not helped by my stomach that doesn't appreciate all the crests. Sunday felt great, I think being able to easily anticipate every turn helps, along with ~10 degree cooler weather. I run hot, and even 2 hours driving in 65-70 degree "heat" can over heat me.

NB2 ABS Pros: damn near free, bolt on, no 2nd rear line required, we have everything, we only have to replumb the non-abs rear line to the ABS unit rather than MC, and it's probably "good enough".
Cons: only 3-channel, could always be better, may require re-making a bunch of engine wiring I've added to that RR corner of the bay, possible "ice mode" issues, but mostly likely not with the RS4s we currently run, lots of wiring.

Mk60e5 Pros: can probably scam a unit for free out of one of the 335 parts cars my friend disassembles, 4-channel, God's choice in ABS, more robust to sticky tires, more data from CAN stream for TC.
Cons: we'd have to fabricate x4 sensor mounts, modify the existing rear line, add a 2nd rear line, custom unit mount, most likely requiring x4 corners and x2 MC lines to be re-plumbed, $349 $315 (now on sale!) Happy Cactus VR converter board, lots of wiring, and probably don't need TC in 145hp Miata.

Right now I'm using an NB cam sensor on the rear axle to get an incredibly accurate speed signal to the ECU. I need to see if someone's gotten a filtered speed output from the NB2 ABS, because if not, that may make the decision for me.

 

For anyone still paying attention, progress is slow, but happening. Had the rare opportunity of the car on a rack, over a weekend, with nothing stored underneath it. Great weekend for an engine pull! This is the result of 4 hours of work, including stripping and prepping the donor engine as much as I could. Square top is swapped, as are the motor mounts, just need to finish the timing belt/water pump job on it and throw it back in. Spent some time inspecting as I went along, and was plesately surprised at everything I found. Clutch looks like it just showed up from Rockauto, no leaks, nothing loose. The engine out of the car had 29 hours of racing, 2 hours of qualifying, and 3 days of testing/practice. With the low oil pressure events, we'll inspect the bearings, maybe throw the +1 vvt pistons we have in it, and of course address the flattened valve seats. Something our head shop is doing is destroying them, at this point I'm hoping a new shop will give us a head that survives longer than 16 hours of racing. The boat anchor of a stock engine that's going in is hopefully the test bed that'll prove our theory that wonky valve seat angles are the cause.

You can see the welded mixing manifold in the pics, the Supermiata rereoute housing has a NPT plug in the heater core port, the machined bypass in the reroute housing is a great feature that provides the warmup coolant circulation, and it's been an awesome setup so far. The water port at the back of the head is plugged, oil filter stud cut down to 1.6 length, and no little 5/16 hoses(I guess they're 8mm?) exist in our setup. I don't think you can get the coolant system any simpler. Using a common Honda oil filter for a little more filter material.




Dunno if I've ever showed the "splitter" setup we've got now, it sits right behind the lip, and is mainly there to maintain the shape of the lip, and clean up the airflow. As you can see it's a bit of skid block too.



x4 m10 bolts hold it on. We've used this setup on many shop BMW race cars, typically with large frames and more support. We went down as far as m6 for the lower mounts, with some simple aluminum angle since it's not generating a ton of downforce. We've since had these captured nut plates made at Sendcutsend, along with the aluminum uprights, with a big chunk cut out of the center.



No fancy quick release, but it's not needed with access to a 2-post lift or with the jack stands high enough. Lower it on a cart, take off the x4 m10s, and lift away.



Only real issue I found was a torn driver side engine mount. It was a hybrid setup with a bone stock 55a mount on the driver side, instead of the typical Mazdacomp/70a. It was super comfortable. I'm debating grabbing a single Supermiata sport mount, or going full poly. No one had missed shifts, and everyone was comfortable, so unless I hear otherwise, I'll see how long a proper 70a mount lasts with the hybrid setup.

Once the timing belt kit and seals show up, engine will go in and get dyno'd. We'll see how the ball honed NB1 piston engine compares to the boat anchor of a NB2 engine we're throwing in.

 

I'm going to copy that splitter mount. Thanks for showing.

 

Happy to help!

Dyno'd the "junkyard" engine today. To rehash, one of our team mates was parting out a pretty rusty NB2 about a year ago, we paid him $600 for this absolute unit of an engine. Threw a valve cover gasket, crank seals, cam seals, water pump, timing belt, and some amazon timing covers at it for a grand total of $128.99 additional in parts. It's ugly, but works. Rest of the I/H/E is unchanged from our previous setup.

Planning now on the Portland Lucky Dog race, along with either Thunderhill or the Ridge again, or maybe something more spicy. Lots of changes are happening at my work, some good, some not. I'm just settling in to the new "norm". A few of my coworkers (3/5ths of the team) left for bigger/better/etc, including the OP of this thread who's now a driver in a IMSA GS Aston GT4. So time will tell just how many races are left in Laz, but we hope to still get together and have some fun in the years to come. Can't help but get the theme of "Summer of '69" out of my head. Anyways, as a result, the car will no longer live at my work, but instead travel between our personal garages so we can tinker and continue to improve. Change sucks.

 

I don't know how much power a Miata engine should make, but that doesn't seem to bad.

 

Emilio says 145-150 with the mods I have, so we’re right there.

 

👀

Is this the same chassis? Great work keeping the dream alive, Josh.

 

That's honestly some great power. Nice!

 

I felt this.

Also, I just noticed the bulb seal on the fenders to seal the hood gap. Nice idea. Ive been looking/thinking of ways to seal all the gaps in the front of my EF civic build as I can fit my pinkie in most of them.

 

The very same. Paint inside and out really changed it. A few pages back you can see us finally fixing the quarter panel damage, and our intake box has a snorkel going through the old intercooler piping hole.

Thanks.

Unsure how much it helps with airflow because of the floppy headlight deletes, but it should work much better on your civic.

 

Like I planned it! Its amazing how a bracket from a car that's 10 years younger bolts right in. Gotta shuffle a few things around, fab a mount for the fuse box, wire a few things, plumb a few things, and we'll have some rudimentary ABS. Planning on racing Portland, maybe the Ridge again.

 

How big of a pain in the *** is that to plumb with the engine in?

I have a box of NB2 ABS that's been sitting around for years that I figured I'd need to get the motor out to actually plumb correctly

 

Looks like all but rear line will be pnp, haven't fitted the two front lines though. FL at least looks like it fits, FR maybe a bit more of a pain, but only because of what we have shoved in that corner. I was planning on cutting and flaring the rear line before it bends towards the MC, and making a new line over to the ABS unit.

 

I'm prob just gonna sell it all lol.

I do maybe one event a year in the car -- I don't have the appetite to actually go through install.