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Nothing too fancy, this is my NYS street legal track rat NB1 I own/continue to build. I've owned it since it was bone stock 4 years ago & have done everything that is done to it. Used to be nice... Started with autocross, now it just gets used for track days, time trials and in the winter, ice racing!
recent but pre-aero exterior photo, old ice racing photo. Will do up to date aero & mods stuff later/as it happens.
Suspension/brakes/tires: home aligned to full race alignment & corner balanced
Budget Bilsteins built with Hard S shocks, 800/450 springs.
Sadfab delrin & poly/bronze kit
FM sway bar kit (will upgrade to racing beat hollow front at some point)
DIY knockoff racing beat swaybar braces
Supermiata end links
stock 1.8 calipers, PFC 11 front PFC 97 rear. needs more rear brake for street tires, OK with slicks...
Wilwood prop valve
stainless brake hoses
master cylinder brace
Typically 225 RS4's on 9" Konig Helix, sometimes various slicks & R-comps depending on what we have laying around
Engine/drivetrain: Haven't done much with engine till recently, still needs a standalone. I am going to dyno it before it gets an ECU/tune and would be really stoked if it made 130 dynojet.
Raceland header
Cobalt 2.5" midpipe & single tip exhaust
ebay hot air intake, modified to jam right behind the headlight & fancy AEM filter on it (just bought it for the piping and couplers).
Still needs to be blocked off from the header & ducted fresh air to it.
Exhintake (not yet installed)
Square top (not yet installed)
Poly/shackle engine mounts, don't remember the brand... bought from Fab9.
4.3 Torsen
stock 5 speed, rebuilt turret w/ brass bushing
Chassis/Aero:
depowered steering (AC delete as well)
disgusting hardtop I got for $500 with a lexan window
fully gutted interior except power windows & heat part of HVAC/most of the dashboard
Hard dog hardcore v2 + harness bar
FM frame rail braces (nice point to jack the car up on!!)
Singular hood vents (not installed yet)
9 Lives 64" wing, homemade mounts & endplates (stolen from team's race car for now, will buy my own soon...)
Also have interesting 2 element short chord wing, may use at small local track
Quick hands! That was a good slide exiting T10 at ViR. Based on the way the car "accelerated" up the esses, I'd also be very surprised if it had 130rwhp on a dynojet.
When you're ready to buy a new 9LR wáng give me a shout. I'll hook a fellow MT.net bro up.
Quick hands! That was a good slide exiting T10 at ViR. Based on the way the car "accelerated" up the esses, I'd also be very surprised if it had 130rwhp on a dynojet.
When you're ready to buy a new 9LR wáng give me a shout. I'll hook a fellow MT.net bro up.
Thanks! That's what everybody experienced who reviews my driving says- fast hands... spent a lot of time sim racing and driving on loose surfaces helps, I think.
If you look carefully in that video I barely have the car straight after that slide before I'm glancing at my lap timer to see how bad I screwed my hero lap... lol, the important things.
Yes definitely! We only use the race car it came off a few times a year (sadface) so it's not urgent but I'll definitely be buying my own 9LR at some point. It's a 10 hour drive but I want to take it back to VIR (this was test day before the champcar 24 hr) to see how flat the kink can be now that it's got aero on it... that was a 91 mph apex on 225 NT01 making lift with the stock body.
Yeah I dont expect it makes that power, I would be really pleasantly surprised if it did. That video the only engine mod it had was the Raceland header, so it will be better soon when it's got everything listed in my mods section finished up. Then try to make my RUSEFI ECU work, or buy a MS, then tune it.... hopefully 135-140 then. I've never cared that much but now I'm in a local time trial series and have some room to play with on my power to weight, so it would be nice...
I should have known better than to think I'd be able to keep up with a thread like this..
Anyways- I've been busy! I haven't hung out and watched TV or done random computer stuff in like two weeks. My girlfriend has been very gracious with chores, love her...
zoom zoom other fluffer
Data: wheelspeed sensors ordered, waiting on those, still havne't gotten to finish my dash wiring but I have brake pressure & TPS logging now which is awesome, and I have a solution in mind for steering angle, just need to design and 3d print some stuff.. Really great to have video synced to data and easily sift through laps, comparing graphs and video.
Chassis: Hubs! I got the Brofab MR2 rears and the poverty spec fronts. Really nice kits! Unfortunately both my fronts have failed at their first track day, both developed play, one with metal shavings. Luckily I brought spares and was able to change them quickly during lunch and not lose out on any track time! It must be bad luck with manufacturing, nothing against BroFab and he is excellent- I am getting hooked up a little on a set of the nice Timken/**** which I should be getting later this week.
Engine: I got a square top & set of cams to do the exhintake! Wooh full bolt ons less ECU. My team is taking their race car to dyno this weekend so I'd like to install them this week so I can see how my car does with full bolt ons/no ECU before eventually getting ECU and tune. Waiting for some gaskets and stuff from Mazda to get going on that. It pulled similar to a friend in a NA that dynoed 132 with almost identical aero at a track day, so I am pretty pleased with current power considering. It is starting to drink oil though it seems... Down a quart with 3 hours of track driving & 120 miles of street. Little worried about that.
Aero! It has aero now. Yep. A borrowed 9LR wing and splitter/undertray for now. When I have more time I'm finishing the airdam and ducting, the dam will go flush to the current splitter and I will have a bolt on 4" ish extension. The tray/splitter is 1/4" marine plywood laminated to 2 thicknesses with epoxy to reinforce the front half of it, sealed up with a couple coats of outdoor primer and paint. Currently braced with some homemade thin steel (quite light) brackets & strips of aluminum up front. The edges are a little floppy but it's very strong overall, I can bounce on it no problem. I will add more side bracing when I cut the bumper up for the full airdam thing... Oh also I got some singular vents from a friend.
Side aero note: I've decided to paint my wing and splitter into giant rainbows and it's going to be really really fabulous, I just had the idea this morning and I'm quite thrilled about it.
Track stuff!: I've run a local time trial at Pineview Run this past Thursday, smashed the class record by half a second (not a ton of competition but I'll take it). 1:16.281 on 225 RS4
Went to an open track event at NYST on Saturday which was fun. The morning was an absolute shitshow with traffic, but it thinned out in the afternoon and became more worth the money. I burned a tank and a half of fuel at the event which is the most I've ever done at a lapping day, and ended up coming 3rd out of about 40 in the time trial they ran in the afternoon. Should have been second, my timed lap sucked. All that means is there's about 30 underdriven cars, lol.... The only person I had to point by all day was my friend in an E36 M3 on Hoosiers. I ran a set of 8 year old Hankook C51 slicks trying to burn them up so I can use the wheels on my street car. Shockingly, they produced grip somewhere in line with an R comp like NT01 in same size, but they felt awful. When you put them into their "happy zone" of optimal slip angle, the whole car shook so bad you can see in my videos the camera shaking when the car is at sustained Gs, lol... Kept thinking I had more wheel bearings going bad on me!! Best lap of 1:39.59 on the ol' slicks.
I'll put some more pics and track vids up when I'm not on my work laptop, they don't like me plugging my phone in...
In other news, I was supposed to race a Cayman S in AER two weekends ago which I was really hyped about, and it was a co drive with Randy Pobst. That blew up in practice before I got to drive it. So they brought their E46 endurance car, which threw a rod an hour into the race Sunday and I ALSO didn't get to drive it. So I'm going racing with them again at NJMP Lightning in a couple weeks, which will be cool I guess. It's a bit simple of a track to be doing 3 consecutive days at, but at least it's W2W. I am going to bring my NB to run on Friday a bit- Lightning was my first ever track day with my NB back when it was bone stock other than roll bar and brake pads 3 years ago. Will be fun to take it back & see how myself and the hardware have improved.
Ah, yes! I, too, love a good NB1 track build. Looks like a lot of fun so far, very nice. I love VIR so much, such a great place to be. Have yet to venture up to the northeast, but hopefully soon!
Originally Posted by flier129
When you're ready to buy a new 9LR wáng give me a shout. I'll hook a fellow MT.net bro up.
Ooooh, I've been eyeing aero for some time as well...probably will happen in 2021-2022 off-season though :(
Gosh, I am really not good at the whole "maintaining a build thread thing". oh well! I've been racing, and working...
Track stuff:
Lots of time at the local (Pineview Run) and a day at WGI with NASA...
Pineview:
I think I've been to Pineview like 15 times this year because it's local and I can go whenever on the weekends. I'm very much winning my TT class, and yesterday after the TT was over I hung out and set the new Miata records for street tire (245 RS4 at that, none of that super 200 garbage) and overall Miata record (205 R7's that corded about 10 laps later, so pretty dead). The RS4 lap took the perfect set of circumstances, after 3 attempts to break 1:15 during the time trial and not quite getting there (hovering around 1:15.2-3) it took two more tries of getting cloud cover and tire management to crack into the 14's, which I bareeely did with a 1:14.956. Had fun later in the day burning up those R7's and set a 1:13.829 on them, but I'm really more proud of the RS4 time. Earlier in the season we were excited about getting into the low 16's. That's what a season of data analysis, driver & car improvement is good for I guess... Lots of time on the pyrometer! The 245 RS4s seem to want to be in the 31-33 PSI (not even on all 4) range hot to get good temp spreads on 15x9 and my suspension setup. The ultimate lap record here is a low 1:09 in a GT3 Cup car on R7's, so I'm pretty pleased with my stock motor Miata times.
225 vs 245 RS4 on a 9" was worth over half a second at this track for me BTW, tested back to back.
Watkins Glen:
Did one day this past Sunday at WGI with NASA. It was fun, I was trying to use up some takeoff R7s. I am very much a fan of the takeoff Hoosier life... Did a 2:15.9 with definite time on the table, a bit in the bus stop, definitely a good amount in the Chute (T6), boot exit (T9), and final corner (T11). I only got 26 laps in over the day so I didn't really get to fully optimize a lap, but I had a great time anyways. A stock power Miata with aero and hohos at WGI is just insane grip. Min speed 62 mph, max speed 112, lol... 1.4-1.5G sustained for 7 seconds through Carousel with over 100 mph exit speed, pretty wild feeling. I think it's more of a fun track in a Miata than the reputation it gets among my friends. Very easy to drive at 9/10, honestly one of the scarier places to drive 10/10 even though it is not all that technical. Another day and I think I could have put it into the high 14's.
Upcoming Track:
Final TT of the year at Pineview 9/26, running Champcar at Pitt Race 10/2-10/4 and bringing this car for the open track on Friday and racing my team's car (Occam's Racer), it will be my first time at Pitt and my first W2W of this god forsaken year (COVID screwed me out of multiple W2W events I couldn't travel to). Considering NYST 10/10 with Mass Tuning, and maybe (more likely) Palmer later in October which I also very much want to visit. Next year I intend to coach with NASA NE, so I will hopefully be attending a lot more HPDE events than I can currently afford to.
I am getting to be really happy with my car for how budget it is, a few people have driven it this summer and everyone seems to think it's the best balanced & prepped Miata they've driven (no Miata experts in this data set, but I'm happy with the car, good mechanical and aero balance). I love having a real dash and data setup. Good data is so valuable.
Aero:
I got my own 9LR wing and painted it + my splitter to improve fabulousness. I love it so much, I think it looks really good. Seems to work well, I've been running 0 AOA relative to the trans tunnel mostly. Big grip at Watkins Glen for sure. I still have a 9LR airdam to install, not sure if I will get around to it this season. When I do the dam, it will come flush with my current splitter and I will add a bolt on 4" extension. Also need to make my own endplates (borrowed from team endurance car) and new uprights that put the wing further back. I added HDPE wheel spats as a temporary thing until I do the airdam. They aight.
Chassis:
Torched my front pads (PFC 11 front, PFC 97 rear). I've never been happy with how much front bias I had, so I moved to PFC 97 on the front as I still had half pad left. Not as much of a change as I hoped... Still want more rear bias with Wilwood prop valve at full rear on street tires. Not too bad on slicks. The 97s up front are dusting an INSANE amount.
got some free brake duct hose from my friend, will make ducts when I do the airdam.
Realigned, 3.2 front 2.8 rear, 1/32-1/16 toe in rear, 3.5 ish caster I've been doing my string box based on track width values and muching tires with toe wear forever... I did a centerline on the car and found it did NOT match the track width values at all. I've been setting toe out when I thought it was zero forever I guess... Fixed that, tire wear seems better and car behaves fairly similarly. Corner weights are good,
still need to cut my bumpstops down and might raise the rear a little for a bit of balance shift. I'm basically sitting on bumpstops at the moment...
Doing great on the *** E30 front bearings so far. Got my rears done as well (Brofab MR2 conversion) with ABS axles for my logger and I am very pleased with my hub solution all around.
Engine:
Put the square top on
Attempted to do the exhintake cam
my valve clearances were all over the place with the new cam, and even my stock cam clearances are out of spec. Shelving this for a probable winter project.
Data:
My data acquisition setup is finished-ish. Probably 50-60 hours into making it all work well.... I got a Race Technology DL1 logger and Dash2 dash for $300 on facebook, with a $275 brake pressure sensor... Great deal. It's old tech but I have it working and now I've got like 2k in data acquisition that I spent ~500 on total. Still need to get an arduino set up to trigger my gopro when the logger turns on, and I have some other things to add.
Currently logging:
All the usual AIM solo/etc stuff (GPS/accel)
Throttle position
Brake Pressure
steering angle (3d printed gears glued to my steering hub adapter & a 10 turn potentiometer from Mcmaster Carr on a swing arm. I am not super pleased with the linearity but I have a table set up for it so it works. $11 beats $250 for a ready to go string pot...)
dash stuff- RPM, wheel speed (from transmission), water temp, oil pressure, voltage, fuel level, turn signals, headlights/high beams, etc.
individual wheel speed sensors from Race Technology, e30 front hubs w/ ABS rings and switched to ABS rear axles.
pretty finicky to minimize drop outs, I have it pretty good & a little bit of filtering gives me very usable graphs. Sensors need to be well aligned and super close to the tone ring to avoid dropouts. Using Miata ABS sensors may have been smarter.
Plans, I've got a few analog inputs left. Wheel travel/spring perch load would be terrific but IDK. Maybe one day.
Pitot tube, I already have one need to install
Oil temp, water pressure. May run water P as a LED off Arduino I will be adding, feel like it's not worth wasting my analog inputs over.
Air intake temp will be useful as I need to develop a better airbox setup & data would be good.
barometric stuff? IR temp sensor under car? IDK what to do with the last couple.
I want to pull my wheel speed sensor data through an Arduino Mega in parallel with my logger to make a set of lockup lights. 4 RGB LEDs around my dash, one color for partial lock up, another/flash for full.
An Arduino Mega should also be useful for other lights/etc I don't want to waste logger inputs on, and things like triggering gopro to logger start. I have a Mega sitting here, need to learn to program it
Lockup indicators will be really useful for quiet tires like Hoosiers, and especially for the ice racing I do in the winter. It's really hard to tell how effectively you're using the brakes in the moment out on the ice.
can add wheel spin indicators on the same LEDs for the rears?
wiring into the stock dash harness so they're both functional I was missing half the race dash harness so I had to wire up my own solder cup circular connector Dash connectors & stuff going to logger finished Finished initial data logger/dash setup front WSS Rear WSS Race dash workin'
Aero stuff building splitter, nicely cut to fit 15x9 DIY mounts Cutting for hood vents preliminary aero setup + vents temporary wheel spats Paint! First time out post paint obligatory WGI Recently
On the rear, I replaced the uprights my friend gave me that he made and finally got around to making my own end plates... I can't help trying to make any existing product that I think I could make my own. So I made a new set of swept uprights inspired by the mounting I already had cut in the car & the 9LR trunk mounts. The endplates are basically 9LR CFDV2 knockoffs. I have a bunch more thin alu so I may experiment as well. I feel bad copying but I'd never distribute them at all and just like an opportunity to get into a little CNC project. Sorry guys, I bought the wing and airdam!! I have materials & an idea in mind to make a tire rack to carry tires between the hardtop window and the wing that mounts with a stud out of the hole behind the Frankenstein bolt location & a hole drilled into each upright. It should be pretty quick to pop on/off and a nicer version of the plywood platform I built to carry tires before I had a wing. Gas mileage be damned! cutting upright cutting end plates
On the front, I finally got around to adding my 9LR airdam after leaving it tucked away since midsummer, and created some ducting as well. The dam fit nicely onto the bumper, though it was sad to finally cut the smile off my very first Miata finally. My dam didn't come with rivets, I used some black alu rivets off McMaster but they kinda sucked tbh. Got it done mostly cleanly, and added some 1.5" L alu that my ducting goes into. The splitter/undertray I made by hand this summer fit the 9lr dam fairly well, I had to add a sliver about an inch in the center and tapering out, cut with a sawzall and cleaned up with a flap disc. I used adhesives and pre-drilled nails to stick it to the existing undertray. Added some triangled L alu screwed and glued down along the edge of the existing undertray. I will add a bunch of rivnuts along the L alu to secure the bottom of the airdam, and I will probably remove the airdam/undertray together most of the time since it's easy, but it's still split-able. In the spring I will make splitter extensions that will bolt up with T nuts into the existing undertray.
I made some ducting out of a spare roll of airdam hdpe I had, all riveted together with little L brackets. PITA and was time consuming, but it all mates up decently. I've yet to seal it all up with foil tape & add a little segment of airdam material to the lower L channel on the dam for a smooth transition from dam to duct. I kept the 5 mph crash structure as I ice race the car in the winter and want it to be fairly resilient in case I stick it in a snowbank good. I would also like to tub in the front wheel wells with airdam plastic soon so my undertray is not just a giant tray for wet snow to weigh me down while ice racing.
as is when mounted bumper slips right off all in place less undertray. proto-duct
I am working on a 3D printed/aluminum square tube alignment rig to replace the fiddly kayak strap, bungee cord & EMT tubing string box I've been using for the past 3 yrs. Just got V1 together last night which will work well enough for the alignment I need to do now. I am planning on reworking the whole bracket system so it all clamps with printed cam lock mechanisms, no threaded fasteners in the whole system I don't think, just printed parts, 3 sticks of 1" square tube and some hinge pins of some sort. I'm also making better toe sticks that I will make four of so I don't need to touch them while I do alignments. Ordered waterproof label paper to print rulers onto to replace scotch taped. Will add a perch to repeatably place my angle gauge for camber and caster. Would not mind something more elegant than the wrapped bungee to clamp to wheels, works for now though. front rear v1 of new toe sticks.
In general, I am prepping the car for a hopeful ice racing season in upstate NY right now. Swapped to stock shocks, redoing front end to not carry snow, next up need to align, changing brakes to Stoptech street front sport rear to try to get more rearward bias (no weight transfer on ice), and building the tire rack described two posts up to carry the tires in the photos to events. They have never rolled on pavement so I want to keep them fresh and sharp to race on.
I am also working on a lock up/wheelspin RGB indicator array around my dash using my wheel speed sensors like on Porsche cup cars and other expensive race without TC/ABS cars have. It will be very useful on ice where it's hard to tell sometimes, and nice to have on track as well. Hoosiers be quiet. More posts about that one later.
I won my local TT class this year, running a 1:14.6 in the C3 class in the Pineview Cup, which is a competitive time in the class above me. I lost the video from that day, but here is a 1:14.9 from a couple weeks earlier.
I also got one more track day in at NYST, second time there with aero first time on the RS4s. Ran mid 1:41s, reviewing data later it would have done 40s if I had my **** together. It was my first day instructing as well and it was extremely hectic trying to help out, they didn't have nearly enough instructors. I ended up with my student, plus trying to help the noob paddocked next to me. I got to drive his 2020 M5 though, that was neat. Mucho engine. Drives like a video game though, not interesting to drive and obviously not something I can afford or anyone wants to wreck. I suggested he get a cheaper RWD car to thrash.
You were across from my at WGI this year, you were flying out there. I've heard mixed things about NYST, but hopefully I can make it out there this year to see for myself.
06-01-2020, 12:53 PM
NB1 Track Build
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