Huh, I was more expecting in the $250 range for some reason. Maybe I was way the heck off. The original shop hit me back and said they'd do it for $500. Maybe I should've just had them it but instead I went back and reinstalled the 4.1 Torsen in the car this weekend. Ordered another standalone Torsen unit and crush sleeve and am gonna knock it out with my buddy at a later date.

While I had the car in the air, I finished the final touches on the brake ducts and made a ghetto downpipe brace that I'd love for you guys to grill me on.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...376a147102.jpg

So with the 2.5" V-band being the only thing holding the turbo and downpipe to the car, it's not surprising that the thing's been failing every few track events.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d478dc2013.png

Pic of the setup.

I figured a turbo and downpipe brace are both needed, and did a bunch of reading on here to see what's worked and not. There's easier access to make a downpipe brace, so I started with that.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...89f24b8641.jpg
Lol, didn't notice until looking at this pic that I left some plastic wrap on the exhaust clamp. Disregard that.

Well, kinda. I'd grabbed a couple 3" exhaust clamps and a piece of 5x30mm aluminum bar to make into a brace, but I left the bar at home on Saturday. Too stubborn to call it quits, I grabbed some scrap bits laying around the shop and got to cutting and drilling. Ended up coming up with this abomination. It mounts to the 3" clamp and one of the bellhousing bolts and shifts the downpipe upward maybe a millimeter or two when tightened down. I think having any preload on the assembly is bad, right? It seems unavoidable if the brace is completely rigid, though.

Ever since I installed the turbo kit, I noticed the trailing end of the downpipe can be grabbed and flexed/moved a small but noticeable amount if you put a little muscle into it. With this "brace", that movement is about halved. I imagine the one I make out of aluminum bar will be substantially stiffer. Again, please grill me.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ae5f786d75.jpg

Mediocre pic to show the thickness of the brace and bit of preload put on it when the bellhousing bolt is tightened down.

Gave the car another mountain rip this afternoon and the turbo/exhaust didn't fall off, so that's good. The brace is still tight as well. I'll remove the "assembly" and remake it out of the aluminum bar this week.

I still don't fully trust anything, so I'll be replacing the manifold to turbo clamp again before WSIR.

Pulled the turbo off tonight to replace the manifold v-band as preventative maintenance before NASA WSIR next weekend.

The turbine housing weld held! Very happy about that. However, I also have a spare housing and v-band on hand now in case there's an issue.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a8d614da3b.jpg

Side note, anyone got insight as to why my hotside is so orange now? It's been steadily getting more and more tinted since the day I installed it. Manifold, turbine and downpipe. Initially, I thought I was maybe pushing coolant, but the car's coolant level hasn't dropped at all, coolant still looks clean, it's not overheating, and the spark plugs don't show any signs of coolant intrusion. Just lots and lots of heat? Ethanol absorbing moisture from the air and causing oxidization in the cast iron turbine housing and manifold? Not too worried about it, just curious.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8e40f211be.jpg

Also installed an extended oil drain line as an interim fix for melting the line on the manifold v-band. I'm still going to make an AN line for it but I want to drill a different spot for the oil drain first. The current location takes the drain closer to the EWG pipe than ideal and I'm slowly burning the line from proximity to that as well.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c36af00af6.jpg

Old (one month old) manifold v-band doesn't look like it was quite ready to fail, but you can see where it was taking a beating already.

In other massive news, I grabbed a set of Singular end plates off @SimBa. If nothing else, I always thought the standard size 10x8" 9LR end plates looked kinda small. After reading Occam's Racer's article comparing wing end plate designs, I'm not sure if these are going to make a massive difference in aero balance. They definitely look more ridiculous, though, so that's a win.

Old end plates.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...0faace850b.jpg

Big ol' new end plates. They weren't drilled out for a 9LR wing, but after some epoxy and a well-placed sticker, you'd never know ;)

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...4199122832.jpg

Nice, those endplates look right at home!

Hopefully those braces make a difference on Vband lifetime. I wouldn't expect those to be a wear item. Also, if you redrill the oil pan then I guess you've got a spot to thread in an oil temp sensor if you don't already have one.

Pretty sure the orange is from the E85 water content, eather flash rust or oxidation from the water still left over after combustion. Mine is the same way, so don't think it's abnormal or anything to worry about.

Yeah dude, thanks! 'Bout time I get something from your garage haha.

Yeah, the V-band cracking issue has been strange, but understandable I suppose since it's just a 2.5" clamp holding that heavy ass turbo on, with the downpipe acting as a nice big lever on it too. Thankfully its not a total bear to replace (probably 45 minutes going leisurely) and should be remedied with some bracing. I'm hoping the downpipe brace makes a solid difference but there's also an M10 bolt hole in the head next to the turbo outlet that I think I can attach an additional brace to. Gonna experiment with that this weekend.

As far as teething issues go, having the manifold V-band fail is really pretty minor compared to what could be. I keep reminding myself that lol.

Funny enough, I was actually gonna go back and check your old thread today to see what your exhaust tract looked like. I figured there were like thirty pics of your turbo off the car in there so an example shouldn't be hard to find :rofl: Thanks for the heads up!

Question for the hivemind: There's a dude on Marketplace who made a bunch of fender vent sets for the NC last year and has a few sets left over. They're $125 shipped for a set. You guys think these would look excessive on my car with the already-present fender cuts and vents? I'm really tempted to grab and install a set. In my head, I want to differentiate the car's look from last year and really drive home that it's a TT3-class car now. Maybe that's stupid.

I'm under no illusionment that adding more vents to the front fenders will have a further impact on performance. This is just a vanity thing lol.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...77cff8f698.jpg

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2805d485e7.jpg

You know you could just pull your fenders off altogether, right? Cheaper and you wouldn't have any issues when fitting wider tires. The trophy truck guys might start hitting on you though.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c962a2883f.png

The look is growing on me. What do body panels do again?

Haha, nice man. I say send it at this point, if you wanna try the look, what could go wrong?! They couldn't hurt, and who knows, they might even help a little (even with your already hacked 1/2 fender) and existing vents.

I kinda have a hard time picturing them with what you have, they would probably be excessive, but whatever.

I think that's your Miata slowly mutating into a Supermiata.

As for the vents, I think "excessive" is kinda the name of the game at this point, is it not?

What fuel are you running? Any additives? I've seen white exhaust from various types of race fuels.

I've got my head back on straight. Got so many other things to fix and focus on. Don't need to be spending time drilling more holes in the car for no reason.

Curly, I'm on straight e85. No flex, no additives. Just whatever's coming out of the various pumps around here (on my last car, I never saw less than 83% ethanol, usually 85% on the dot).

Positive updates on the 3.7 diff front. I thought the NC LSD's were grouped into two types like how the NA/NB's have the Fuji and Torsen units, and I also thought that finding a 3.7 torsen was basically impossible. @yossi126 was gracious enough to make me aware of two things: 1: All of the OEM NC LSD's are the same type 2: You can log into eBay UK and find a boatload of NC LSD's for fairly cheap. I ended up selling my 3.7 ring and pinion for $20 more than I paid for the whole open diff, and ordered a 3.7 LSD from Presige Spares for $575. This'll be much easier than doing/getting a R&P swap.

Speaking of Prestige, my spare NC1 6 speed showed up, along with a spare throttle body and starter. The stock TB uses hall-effect TP sensors which are pretty resilient, but I figure it's better to have a spare throttle body after seeing DBW failures end peoples' track days.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f476152eb1.jpg

The packaging was pretty hilarious though.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3824f3f28c.jpg

Brought the car into work yesterday to put the finishing touches on it before racing again next weekend. It's gonna be a high of 90* next weekend and last race the car got a little warmer with the extra boost I was running. Coolant temps topped out around 218-220* at the end of a session once it got out to 85* outside.

I pulled the front bumper off and stuffed some 2x1" adhesive foam between the radiator and all of the remaining gaps in the ducting, then drained and diluted the coolant, and added half a bottle of Purple Ice. It's probably closer to 15% coolant now vs ~30% before.

I pulled out my ghetto downpipe brace and cut out a new one out of 5mm aluminum bar. It's decently stiffer than the previous brace.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f5eb1f5536.jpg

Next I gotta devise a turbo brace. I have an idea to use an existing M10 port in the head for that, but that's for another weekend.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5b2030b90a.jpg

Finally got the Mazdaspeed 3 valve springs for the backup motor, so I started installing them last week. Unfortunately, I only received fourteen of the sixteen, and didn't realize it until I had half of them installed haha. I still installed one of the Fab9 cams and started setting valve lash. I have almost 50 lash caps for these engines now, but most of them are shorter to medium thicknesses, and these Fab9 cams always seem to have more clearance and want thicker shims. I already have to order five lash caps and haven't even measured the intake cam lash, so this will likely be a long ongoing project lol.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e4961d1211.jpg

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...7adba0a139.jpg

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...bb6eb9d10d.jpg

More "stress testing" this morning. All seems well, should be good to try for a podium at WSIR next weekend!

Love the updates as usual!

And you gotta educate me a bit, because I was under the impression that there was never a torsen for the NC - only TF (tochigi fuji) diff options. Is that not the case?

No torsens in ADM cars (NCs that is), never knew there were any anywhere ...

Ah sh*t, now I'm further confusing the masses :rofl:

What Nate said is correct, the only NC LSD option is the Tochigi Fuji. I became confused a while back because there were multiple Japanese eBay sellers selling OEM NC LSD units listed as torsens, then I just ran with it haha. Further reinforcing this was the fact that all of the USDM LSDs I found were just listed as "LSD"s, whereas the EU units were all listed as Tochigi Fuji LSD's.

Honestly the fact that there was only one OEM LSD option is information I could've found in under five minutes if I'd just asked someone. Lesson learned for the umpteenth time lol.

I'll upgrade to an OSGiken or similar diff at some point. For now, though, my OEM one is working well enough for my means. Just want/need some taller gearing.

Just like every other time, by some miracle, the car feels ready to race this weekend!

Bled the brakes, did a very thorough bolt check, swapped my DTC60 pads in, epoxied my boost gauge into the A/C vent so it stops popping out, and swapped the race wheels/tires back on. Yesterday, I took the car to work for a final ?€œshakedown?€, and the O2 sensor pegged full lean for a minute and then died. Nothing can ever just go smoothly :rofl: I swapped my spare sensor in, turned the boost up from 7 to 9psi, and drove the car to work again today. Knock on wood, she seems ready.

I?€™ve got a set of 2 day-old RC1s and a set of 2 day-old Toyo Rs and will be running the RC1s this weekend. That $150 set of RRs lasted just as long as I needed them to. About 5 weeks of canyon runs, intermittent commuting, and one track session. I pulled them off and installed some of my remaining 235 Rs on my street/backup wheels.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...08fbf6094.jpeg

Actually washed the car today and polished the yellowing headlights. She actually looks borderline presentable.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a7996ccfd.jpeg

This weekend is looking good. Looking at the signup list, there?€™s one guy who will probably run away with the win, but the Miata and I should be battling for a podium spot if all goes well. Very excited.

Stellar weekend out at WSIR. Tight competition both days, lots of great battles and dramatic moments. Gonna need a bit of time to make a proper post, but wanted to get a GoPro clip up. Not the fastest lap of the weekend, but tons of fun tangling with the Shelby I was neck and neck with last race.

Well, like I said above. F*cking stellar weekend of racing. It was hot as hell out in the desert, and my competition and I were separated by tenths all weekend. The car held in there with minimal dissent, though, and we took home our first ever TT3-class podiums!

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e7bb15244d.jpg


https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3c90b434d0.png

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e266b25fa0.png

Tight times this weekend between Natalee and I just like at the last race. Both days were nail-biters. I think our cars were within half a second or less of each other every single session. Managed to get on the podium Saturday by barely over a tenth of a second and was just under 0.4 seconds up on the grey Shelby yesterday.


Saturday started out semi-dramatically. First session was a bit of a cluster with the fastest TT cars lapping the back of the pack quickly due to the pack spreading out too quickly on the out lap. I put down a 1:29.6 (slower than my previous PB) before pitting, but luckily most of the other drivers in my class did the same thing. We had a meeting before session two and made sure that the leading cars wouldn't pass 60mph until turn 8 on the out lap, and that the trailing cars could go WOT as soon as the car in front of them started accelerating. This worked super well and the pack didn't get lapped as quickly as the first session. Unfortunately, a couple hot laps in, a Mustang two cars ahead of me spun at the end of turn two, hit the dirt sideways going 80mph, and flipped ass over tea kettle four times. Session over. Thankfully the driver was completely unscathed, but the car was a total loss.


So it's session three and neither Natalee or I had gotten a chance to throw down a proper heater lap yet. Our adversary Chris had managed a 1:27.95 before the other Mustang crashed but was still within spitting distance. Temps ramped up quickly both days, and with two sessions already down our only chance to set a hot time would be in sessions three and four, at 2:20 and 4PM respectively. It was 90* by then, as opposed to maybe 70* in the morning, so we'd have that working against us. Session three, Natalee's gridded right in front of me as she had the faster time at that point. We go out and I follow her around for the first two hot laps (first video I posted) and my car's already getting pretty warm. IAT's at 120*f, oil only at 240*, but coolant's at 215* and climbing. After two hot laps, homegirl gives me the point by and I go for a flyer, not a single car in sight ahead of me. Coolant's at 220* as I pass the starting line so I figure this is probably gonna be a one-and-done. I manage to put together a pretty good clean lap and pass the finish line with coolant climbing to 225*. Aim flashes a 1:28.51. F*ck it, that better be good enough. I pull into the pits. After getting back to our spot, I pull my phone out and check Speedhive. 1:28.51 for me and 1:28.91 for the grey Shelby. We're just barely on the podium. Woo!!

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2b005ef94f.jpg
Session 3 grid on Saturday.

Session four went a little less exciting. I was gridded up front, got out for one hot lap, posted a 1:28.72, then promptly fuel-starved in turn 1 of my second lap. Let the rest of the fast folks by without incident and cruised back into the pits. I'd forgotten to fuel up all day, and although my fuel gauge was at 1/2, the tank was nearly empty. Rookie maneuver haha. I got back to the pits and fueled up, then checked Speedhive again to see that the grey Shelby had posted a 1:28.65 for the session, 0.14 seconds off my fastest lap. Too damn close, but I'd taken 3rd place for the day!

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...f1db95e435.jpg

Saturday night was solid as usual. My two buddies and I hit the sketchy Thai restaurant we always go to down the road from WSIR, then I spent an hour or so tinkering with the car. My MAF sensor readings had started going low in the second half of the day, mainly closer to idle, so I assumed I had a vacuum leak somewhere. Tested for leaks at idle with a can of brake clean and found nothing, so I checked and cleaned the sensor, no change. I figured the MAF was just taking a dump, so I swapped in my spare. Completely forgot I'm running a Mazdaspeed 3 MAF on this thing, which has a higher range of airflow that it can read, and that my spare was still a standard NC type. Fuel trims shot up to 40% with the spare. Oops. I ended up just going into ECUtek and adding 8% to the entire MAF table, then did a couple pulls on the road outside the track. That fixed the MAF readings and fueling almost completely, so I ran with it. The next morning, the MAF readings went back to normal, and the fuel trims biased rich. I ended up just leaving the tune as is, and ran AFR's at ~11.0:1 instead of ~11.5, just in case the MAF decided to go lean again. Wasn't an issue for the rest of the day, but I'll be slapping a new MAF sensor in this week and getting another Mazdaspeed 3 spare.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...500a3f85d0.jpg
Ahh yeah, rotated the tires and tightened the manifold v-band and downpipe too. Maybe other things. Can't remember, I was burnt as hell from the day.

Sunday was damn near as tight as Saturday. First session, I came out the gate swinging and pulled a 1:27.92, with an outside pass in turn two. Natalee's brother driving the Team Land Yacht Mustang normally smokes us, but he had a mechanical and had to be towed off track, and that put me in first place after the session ended. I was kinda hoping the car would stay down all day so I could take the win, but they got it fixed and he was back out for session two. I shaved a whopping .01 seconds that session and ended with a 1:27.91. To my amazement, the Land Yacht Mustang ended up having a four-off which DQ'd their times for that session, so I was still in the lead. However, Natalee had dropped from a 1:28.5 to a 1:28.28 and was right on my tail. Third session, it was hot, and the Grey Shelby and I didn't improve on our times at all. Land Yacht, though, came out and set a blistering 1:25.9 in the heat, knocking me right the f*ck out of 1st place. I'd end up in second for the day. Fourth session counted, but I knew I wasn't going to get any faster. I jumped out on track partway through the session and saw Natalee and her brother's cars, and either their dad or teammate driving a TT4 G37, all packed together pretty tightly. They were taking turns shuffling the lead around and it looked like they were having fun, so I slowed down a bit and jumped in with them for a couple laps. Really glad I did. We were going slower (the Land Yacht car probably wasn't even trying lol), but it was almost just as much fun as putting down hot laps all weekend haha.

My buddy David and I also took 1-2 for the Triple T competition on Sunday (tightest four fast laps). Sick little bonus! Lol.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b5f6e7a25d.png


My two buddies and I were instructing newcomers this weekend as well, and my student on Sunday was cool enough to get a bunch of videos of me without even asking. Super clutch!


All in all, very good weekend. Still got some work to do before the next race at Buttonwillow in four weeks. I still want to devise some sort of turbo brace, the standalone wideband gauge is now showing an error regardless if I hook a new or old O2 sensor into it, and I gotta replace the MAF sensor and likely revise the MAF table again as every sensor I've ever put in this thing seems to read a few percent differently. Might throw a bigger radiator in the car as well. Below 85* out, coolant temp stays below 215* all day, but once it hit 90* this weekend, it was looking like CLTs were going to run away after four or five full-bore laps. Probably doesn't help that I'm running more boost now than when I initially installed the turbo kit. That being said, I was able to drive the car off the trailer and back into the garage last night, so that's a win on its own. Very happy about that.

Aside from working on the aforementioned hiccups, I can't even remember what's next for the car. Just glad we both survived another race weekend. More updates to come. Onward!

That GT350 didn't know what lines to take... he was all over the place.

I think they were feeling the pressure lol. That lap ended up being a mid-1:29