Its good to see that you are making progress.

Would love to see a virtual dyno of the current setup if you have one

^the place I've been doing my pulls is on an uphill grade (because Atlanta... nothing flat here, and hard to find roads that aren't loaded with traffic). Logs are useful for spool data, not so much for Virtual Dyno. I'll see if I can get out of town on a flat highway to get a legit VD pull.

Hey Aaron, sorry for the delay, although it was nowhere near a week.. You ordered at 9PM on the 24th and it was delivered by the 28th - That makes 3 business days sir. I couldn't have done it much faster than that. Priority mail (Flat rate or not) is the fastest option without express shipping.

Otherwise, solid progress/information on your spool. I'll keep an eye on this thread.

^ no worries man. I probably overstated my case, and I'm sorry about that. I was frustrated about the $9 shipping charge for a part that was the size of a thimble, and then it took you a few more days to get it out the door. It was only one day in transit, so USPS did their job. Anyway, thanks for popping in.

I was running errands at lunch, and got out on the highway to try to get a decent 4th gear pull for VD. This pull was the cleanest:

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8255841eb7.jpg

The area that I pulled in was actually a little uphill too. The run ended when I hit against my 12psi overboost protection (see the big AFR spike at the end when I hit fuel cut). So my previous post was optimistic, I need to dial back my WG actuator a half turn.

It's showing 200ish HP and torque, with the boost creep at the end there. I think when I get the WG right, it will probably be more like 180ish, before I put the EBC in.

Did you take into account your weight in VD. I found I missed a lot of things when I set mine up. In any case, not bad. Your peak horsepower is way up there like mine. Does it pull progressively?

^ yes, I did put in my weight. I'm probably overestimating the weight of the car, and the pull was on a bit of an uphill grade. The car does pull progressively stronger (more on that in a minute).

After hitting the overboost protection yesterday, I reduced the WG preload by half a turn to +2.5. Results exactly as expected (green line, right between the +2 and +3 lines).

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...904a6d5ecb.png

After that, I did my usual WOT pull through 1st and 2nd gear. Hit the overboost protection again in 2nd gear, around 6500 rpm. I think I have the turbo spooled up nicely after pulling in 1st, and the boost goes higher in 2nd because it's starting with pretty close to full spool. Nonetheless, I'm not that excited about going back to +2 preload; leaving a lot of power on the table. Instead, I'm going to do some more wastegate porting this weekend to see if I can get rid of some more boost creep. After that, I'll repeat my preload experiments a few times. Then I'll feel pretty well prepared to implement EBC.

Also got my catch can in from JEGS. Will get that installed this weekend, VTA from both crankcase vents.

Sounds like you need to up your boost limit a bit.

That would be the easy button. I suppose the occasional 13psi spike won’t hurt anything (he says right before bending rods).

Unless you are flat-shifting, I don't think there will be much turbo speed after a 1->2 shift, as the throttle closure pretty much takes all the stuff out.

More likely the reason is that you are already at 4-5K engine RPM at the start, rather than 2-3K as you were in 1st.

Good Luck with Porting.

.

Took a ride up to the mountains today. Turned my WG preload back to +3, and raised my overboost protection from 12psi to 12.5psi. Never hit against it.

Tons of fog, and a pretty lousy day to drive. Got some decent pictures anyway.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8ed1157ffe.jpg

This afternoon I pulled the turbo out of the car and ported the wastegate. This is now my third time porting, and I don't want there to be a fourth. I opened up the diameter of the hole as wide as I could while still having the wastegate flapper seal against the surface. I also spent a lot of time removing material from the throat inside the flange. I made a dimple underneath the backside of the flapper to allow it to open wider.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...095338c0f3.jpg
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ca612f4c1a.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...7be02fe934.jpg

Took if for a drive tonight, and logged a 4th gear pull in the same place I always do. Spool data:
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2a85f94bd3.png


The gray line is the new data after porting. The blue and gray lines have the same preload, the orange line has 1/2 turn less. Porting the WG basically had a similar effect as taking out 1/2 turn of preload. Main difference is that it doesn't have as much boost creep on the top end, and it introduced some oscillation into the control system. I should be able to tune out this oscillation with the EBC.

subscribing to thread :likecat:

During tuning, we've noticed that both the MAP and TPS signals were a bit noisy. I decided to clean up my previous shoddy work.

My MAP signal line and boost gauge were both teed off of the FPR line at the same spot. I had a big brass fitting that was probably vibrating around; I eliminated it, kept the MAP signal teed in there, and moved my boost gauge to behind the throttle body.

Before:
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5b6a1c511a.jpg
After:
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e4ebb85545.jpg

For the TPS, I still had a few extra feet of wire spliced into the harness from when the supercharger was in, and I had to extend the wires to the hotside throttle body location. Eliminated the extra wiring and crimp connections; the harness is wired directly into the TPS now with a single crimp.
Before:
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c309f3d418.jpg
After:
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...77d5031f11.jpg

I also rotated my TPS more to ensure that the spring was properly preloaded with the throttle at rest. Hopefully these two changes will clean up some of the signal noise.

That should help. Make sure you re-calibrate tps afterwards, the readings might be a bit different now, if so send me back the updated map

Needed to clear some room in the bay for the catch can, so I decided to move the washer fluid reservoir. Thought about just getting rid of it entirely, but I still drive the car on the street 90% of the time so I kept it. Got the Suzuki Cappucino washer bottle... ordered from some crazy Japanese e-bay like site and paid $30, and it arrived without issue a week later. Made some little metal brackets with tin snips and a drill.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8b414d72d.jpeg
https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...50af93e10.jpeg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...93ef5f185.jpeg

I dropped one of my bolts down inside the fender by accident. When I unbolted the bottom of the fender, 25 years worth of dirt and junk came out. I was amazed at how much was in there.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1981a72f1.jpeg

That bottle placement is a genius use of dead space.

Got side tracked for the last few months. A bunch of my buddies wanted to do a team for 24 Hours of Lemons at Road Atlanta this past weekend; against my better judgement, I agreed. Of the six drivers, only myself and one other guy were really experienced wrenching. He's an ASE certified mechanic that does work for off-road teams, so he's very good with cages, welding, etc. He also never turned a single lap, or worked on track cars at all, and has a strong preference for 'Murican Metal, which would not have been my preference, but I'm a team player. So we ended up trading a Glock for a 1998 Buick Lesabre, possibly the worst track car in the history of cars.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6d7c93f40b.jpg

For two months, we put an absolutely monstrous amount of work and cash into this car. Those of you considering Lemons- give some serious consideration to your time and your budget before you commit. Finally, race day came on Friday- just as Atlanta got bombed with 6 inches of icy snow. Setting up the paddock:

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...41187a2079.jpg

Then we failed tech because they didn't like our roll cage. So we spent the next six hours cutting, grinding and welding in new bars in the wet snow. Running off of batteries and generators. It was miserable. But we got the job done and passed tech, which was a minor miracle. Me getting ready for test laps in the snow:

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...d7f26a7b8d.jpg

Car was actually runnning pretty well, and the cold wet weather gave us a slight advantage over the real "fast" cars.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...83e0171fcd.jpg

Hooray, we made it to the starting line! The mechanic and I agreed to "anchor" the driving rotation and let the other guys drive first. Twenty five laps in, driver #3 loses power and has to be towed off the track. Back in the paddock, things aren't looking very good.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a1408ef763.jpg

The oil had more glitter than a Southwest flight out of Las Vegas on Sunday night. Spun bearing, seized motor, all hope lost.

I suppose someday I'll look back on this weekend with fond memories. For now I'm fucking pissed. I'm probably $2k and two months work into a car I didn't want in teh first place, and I never even got to race the damn thing. There is a reason there's no such thing as race Buick's. Actually, there was one other Buick there- it also spun a bearing 10 laps after we did. Chalk it up to a learning experience, because this is seriously one of the dumbest things I've ever done.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...76aaf6c470.jpg

Ouch! I've been a part of a couple of these.. Lot's of work for little glory but usually it's a good time. Maybe an oil pickup issue? Sorry to hear you never got behind the wheel though.

I am really really really happy that this was not the weather that I encountered one week beforehand at NASA's Santa's toy run at Road Atlanta!

My chumpcar experience was not as bad as yours but was still rather dismal. I got roped into a 914 Porsche that was supposedly ready to go scca car that was actually a basket case with the motor out of it. After quite a bit of work we ended up with a car that mostly ran on 3 cylinders once at the track until it started raining. Then it was about a 50/50 split between 3 cylinders and two cylinders. The car would lose oil pressure in the corners because it had a bus engine with no oil pan baffle instead of an actual 914 engine. What saved it was an accusump we had installed. The car finally quit running completely at turn one immediately after taking the checkered flag but have been a rolling chicane for pretty much the entire 14 hours.

Do you attribute the engine issue to the location of the oil pickup versus the transverse orientation of the engine and probable lack of baffling on a non performance product?

Most definitely. It's a FWD car with a transverse motor. During test laps, I heard a bit of squeaking during hard right turns. We foolishly thought it was the serpentine belt, because we knew the idler tensioner was also a little finicky. It now seems that the "squeak" was the sound of the oil sloshing to the back of the pan, the pickup going dry, and the bearings and crankshaft grinding themselves into powder.

Dead Space? Hell, that's my tool box ;)

Since I didn't get to race on Sunday, I spent a little time on the Miata instead. Installed the catch can, with both vent ports going through the can to atmosphere.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e4661858e0.jpg

Installed a Hallman Pro RX manual boost controller. Decided to go MBC for now, as I'm running MS2 and haven't heard good things about its abilities with closed loop EBC.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3704b7c631.jpg

Tightened it down just enough that the ball stopped rattling, and did a 3rd gear pull. Looks like spool is improved a bit compared to WG only. These two pulls weren't done in the same place; the orange plot (MBC) was done on a flat road, and the blue plot (WG only) was slightly down hill, so the result is probably better than it looks on the chart.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a8ab7ef332.png

Downhill test probably hurt spool because there wasn't as much load.

Interesting. Mysterious devices, these turbos.

This looks great dude! Lars hooked me up as well, and I'm very happy I went with his product. My biggest problem was finding anyone in NW Florida who did nay kind of Miata type work, let alone turbo Miata. I finally bit the bullet and will be dropping Mia off at Track Minded Performance in Marietta Georgia for the whole install and tune. How has yours been running?

Lars does make a great product, and the car is running great. I’ve been tuning for several months, and it keeps getting better. I can also recommend e-tuning with Vlad (18psi) without hesitation, he’s really helped me get this thing dialed in well. That said, I live in Marietta and I’ve heard good things about TMP although they are very busy and often backed up with work.

This is just my opinion, but- if you want to own a turbo Miata, you should install it yourself and learn. Gone are the days of stock-like reliability, you will be back in there to tweak things frequently and it’s going to be a lot harder if someone else did the work.

Makes sense. They're mainly doing the install and tune to get that out of the way. My biggest problem is living in the barracks and not having proper tools or area for the whole install. Also the closest Megasquirt tuner is all the way in Orlando, and I don't dare mess with a stand-alone and risk blowing up my car.

I heard about that snowy LeMons race, incredible!
Our sister team had a similar LeMons experience when I raced back in 2014, except it was 100 degrees up north here instead of snow. They had a Nissan Maxima with a Cadillac Northstar V8 in the backseat making it rear-engine RWD. The Northstar threw a rod on Lap 2, so they left and found a new engine in a junkyard. They were able to swap it in, but then had transaxle problems IIRC. They were able to limp it back on track just before the midnight finish. I think they did 3-4 laps in the 14 hour race.

I was on the sister team in a BMW E30 and had a great time. :giggle:

^ stories like this one make me feel better. We did a lot of work on the car, but nothing like that.

Late Saturday afternoon, we were sneaking beers and watching the race. From a starting field of 100, there were probably 30-40 cars left and they were FAST. I turned to my team, pointed at the track and said “anybody notice what’s not out there?” There was not one single domestic car on the track- 944’s, E30’s and E36’s, Miatae and Civics/CRX’s galore.

Point being: it’s a real race, with real race cars. People that want to race choose proven platforms and spend way more than $500, then make the car look as janky as possible to minimize penalty laps. People that want to spend the weekend pulling motors at the junkyard choose Buicks and Cadillacs.

Been tuning and turning up the boost controller. Have it running around 12 psi now. Spool charts:

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...cace466b8b.png

This is what Virtual Dyno had to say about that last run.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e96608a9d6.jpg

That spool looks way better. That car weight seems low on the VD is that with your weight and all factored in?

The car has never been on the scales. It's a 1992 base model, no AC or power steering. Reported curb weights range from 2,070 to 2,150 lbs. and I think that's for the fully featured models. Since I've owned it I would guess it's lost another 20-30 lbs, most of which is sitting in a box in my basement. Nonetheless, for VD I estimate the car on the high side at 2,200 lbs. plus another 215 lbs of cheese, beer and bad ideas (me).

tried to email you back map 8 last night. yahoo mail crashed. lol
I'll send it shortly.

I see you found a knowledgeable tuner. :bigtu:

I was up in the Great White North for the holidays, then came back to Atlanta where it's just as cold. Didn't even take the cover off of Rocinante for a few weeks.

I've never been happy with the Greddy-like BOV that I got from silicone intakes. Nice and cheap, but it leaked boost through the tip of the adjustment screw, and I didn’t like the way it adjusted. I never found the sweet spot between too tight (compressor surge) and too loose (a two second long disappointed exhale like I get from my wife, rather than a crisp PSHHHH).

Decided to blow some christmas money and go baller/ricer. Got the GReddy Type FV dual spring/floating valve model, mostly because I didn't feel like changing out my piping for a Turbosmart flange. I don't know how well it works yet, but it looks pretty cool.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ac58cd6389.jpg

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...15d235c864.jpg

I'll log a pull tomorrow to see if it improves spool at all.

Only difference between these two runs was the BOV. Looks like the new non-leaky BOV got me between 0.5 and 1 PSI everywhere.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...ebd98b61b9.png

It is also pulling a little bit more vacuum at idle. Subjective driving impression is good, turbo stays spooled better after shifts. Overall, worthwhile upgrade.

New virtual dyno. My assumed weight for the car is 2100 lbs.; I had been using 2200 lbs previously.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c1d761565e.jpg

I seriously doubt your car weighs 2100 with you in it. IMO should be way more, even 2200 is pretty low. Otherwise great improvement :)

2100 pound car + 215 pound driver = 2350 total weight. That’s what is in the VD plot

ahh I see. ok

tire dia correct as well?

I went back to verify all the inputs. Gear, drive ratio, tire size, weights were all correct. Weather was not. Last calculation assumed 29inHg and 77 degrees, which is not right. I changed it to 31inHg and 25 degrees, which made a surprisingly large difference.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...1a3f8562ff.jpg

I have a list of things I want to get done by spring for track season. I wanted to do some heat shielding to protect the brake stuff and the heater core hoses.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e7075d35ab.jpg

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...66ecd26b31.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...679ee78ce7.jpg
https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...82e479d4e5.jpg

It works really well. Went for a drive this afternoon and got the turbo screaming hot, everything behind the shield was still cool to the touch. I don't like that crankcase vent hose so close to the turbo, need to figure something out there.

Continuing the engine bay cleanup. Many small improvements = more reliable car. I put a 90 degree elbow in the breather hose to get it away from the manifold/turbo.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...bd9a263b55.jpg

Next I moved the MBC to a more secure spot, and fixed it with a 6mm bolt and one of the threaded bosses on the package tray.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...317b41b2b3.jpg

And I finally got the right silicone elbow to move the air filter off the nose of the compressor, to get it away from radiator heat and so that weight/heat/vibration don't kill the thing.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...32cc782fbf.jpg

We’ve had awful weather all winter. Today was sunny and 62 degrees; instead of doing a bunch of piddly little projects on the car, I took off for the mountains with two friends. One was in a 2015 Panamera Turbo, and the other was in a 2014 Boxster S.

It’s the first time I’ve really gotten to drive my car since I’ve gotten the turbo sorted out; I’m pretty psyched at how it’s running. Coming hard out of turns with the hammer down, neither of the Porsches could walk away from me. In fact, at the end of the day I traded cars with the guy in the Panamera, and there were times when he was pulling away from me in my Miata a bit when I had the pedal to the floor in the Panamera.

VD suggests that I have an honest 190-200hp at the wheels, and my car probably weighs around 2,000 lbs. That puts me at about 10 lb/hp, and from what I can tell both of the Porsches are right around there too so I guess it shouldn’t surprise me that my car can run with them. Still, it’s pretty cool that my 25 year old 1.6L crapcan can pull away from a car that costs $150k and is marketed as having 565 hp.

That sounds like a blast. It was an odd 60 something day here. Just a few days ago it was 7 degrees outside.

I built mounts for my Kirkeys and removed the rear seat humps. The rear of the seat is flat to the floor. The front used flat bars running fore/aft bent over the front hump and bolted through the stock mounting holes and a 1in box tube crossmember ties them together beneath the front of the seat. So the bolts holding the front of the seat to the flat bar also go through the 1 inch cross member. I said the rear of the seat is bolted flat to the floor, but it actually also goes through the aft end of the flat bar before going through the floor. I'm using backing plates beneath the floor.

I cut out the humps and hammered the edges flat.

Submarine belt is bolted through the floor with a backing plate.

Stock seats can be bolted through the floor if the rear humps are gone. I used my stock seats this way before I got the Kirkeys. I used it to lower the stock seats slightly.

Chipping away at little things. Finally got the tow hooks installed. This would have taken about 10 minutes when I had the front bumper and exhaust off to do the turbo install; instead, it took me about 2 hours to do front and back. I painted them with a can of red Rustoleum I had around; not a perfect match to the car, but close enough.

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...0d06030e3f.jpg

With the good info above from Sixshooter, I've decided to remove my rear seat humps. It looks like this will buy me another inch, even with stock seats.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...7e10c6f0fe.jpg

This is a fussy job, but the $8 spot weld cutter from Amazon is making it a great deal easier. The needle tip is spring loaded and retracts into the shank.

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e157de80a6.jpg

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...4ef7483ac8.jpg

Rear humps are out.

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...aee62846a0.jpg

It makes a pretty dramatic difference- race seat will probably sit another inch lower in the back.
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...45145306df.jpg

I decided I'm going to stick to my stock seats for a while, since I'm in HPDE1 and don't want to have different safety gear from my instructor. The stock sliders are fairly easy to bend for the new geometry, except for one corner.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...5de0e63d38.jpg

So I got busy with the angle grinder and my new welder.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3abd02ecd5.jpg

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...942cef6310.jpg

Made some load spreaders for the underside of the floor pan. It's nice to be able to make things with captive nuts. This definitely tested the power limit of my welder. Interwebz say something about adding a capacitor to the board to give it more juice, I may have to look into that.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...148bcbf204.jpg

Stock seats are mounted. Also sitting roughly an inch lower in the back. Definitely will pass broomstick now, a very worthwhile project.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c8ebec952a.jpg

Put on my racing wheels, Motul RBF-600, new Napa rotors and the ubiquitous Carbotech XP-10/ XP-8 combo on my stock 1.6 brake setup. I have a sport brake setup in the shop, but I may sell it off and save for the baller Wildwood package.

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8811849db0.jpg

Think I'm ready for the track... two weeks away.

Haven't done much work on the car lately. Still trying to figure out the situation with the racing seats. What a ball ache.

Kirkey intermediate layback, Style 47, 16 inch. With the rear humps cut out and the seat on the floor, there is still a lot of interference with roll bar and door panel. I cut out a fair amount of metal from the headrest and the left shoulder wing.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...b7ca63452d.jpg

Fitting pretty well now. My head is still pretty far from the roll bar. The harness bar is higher than I would like relative to the seat, but I'll have to make it work.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...9c4976280c.jpg

Now to make the bracket for the floor. My welding still sucks, but as they say- a grinder and paint makes me the welder I ain't.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8c9d56c305.jpg
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...97230fa0a1.jpg

Been a while since I updated my thread. I finally got around to installing sequential injection; overall, a very simple project. Took me a while to gather up the facts for my particular setup, MS PNP2 90-93.

- I checked the jumper situation inside the box; had to remove a jumper for INJ C to fire only one cylinder rather than multiple.
- each injector has a pair of wires, white/green and either yellow or yellow/black. The white/green wires are ground, the yellow or yellow/black wires are signal wires from the ECU.
- injectors 1 and 3 are already connected to the InjA and InjB through the factory harness
- cut the yellow wire for cylinder 2, wire it to InjD through Pin 26 of the accessory harness
- cut the yellow wire for cylinder 4, wire it to InjC through pin 18.
- go into TunerStudio, change from untimed injection to sequential injection.

That's it, simple. Car started fine, idles much smoother. Some light re-tuning on fuel, and it's ready to go.

Finally got around to finishing the install of my 16 inch Kirkey Style 47 seat. This was a much bigger project than I anticipated.

After removing the rear humps, hammering out the transmission tunnel and welding up a custom bracket, I discovered two issues.
- The seat is so low to the floor that there's not much room for sub-strap mounting points, and installing the sub straps will require removal of the seat.
- If I bolt the seat onto the bracket first, I don't have access to the holes to mount the bracket to the floor. There's not enough room to get a wrench in there.
- Neither of these is an issue if I mount the bracket first, and bolt the seat onto the bracket last.

I got the welder back out and welded some captive nuts on the underside of the bracket.
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...975bbc2beb.jpg

Mounted to the floor.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...eb589338ee.jpg

Seat bolted down from the top. Easy.
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c745c2ba76.jpg

Back brace installed.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...9c49415993.jpg

Finished product. This is quite a big improvement over the factory seat. I'm really low in the cockpit, and really comfortable. I'm going to roll with factory seatbelt for a while.
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...75da27cf03.jpg

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...7cda56d6a3.jpg

I now have four full track days on the MKturbo setup, 18 total sessions, and everything is running flawlessly. Did the TNIA event @ RA before the Mitty. I ran in the Intermediate group for the first time, which may not have been a good decision. From what I can tell, there are some people in Intermediate who have Novice skills and Advanced cars- saw some pretty sketchy shit out there. Nonetheless, I learned a lot following the good drivers.

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...588de12061.jpg

Last week I moved back to the Novice group with JustTrackIt, and did an event at AMP. My instructor was great, and for the first time I kept lap times with an Iphone app. Best lap of the day was 1:48, which isn't fast compared to "good" driving. However, I was running on 320tw 195 summer tires, and I dropped about 10 seconds from the first session to the last. My driving is improving a lot, I'm trying to do at least one event per month all summer. Next up is a JZilla event @ RA in June, then an HPDE weekend at Barber in July.

Since I don't have any pressing car projects, I put my new welding skills to other uses. We remodeled our kitchen last month, and my wife really wanted to replace the janky-ass wire shelf from Home Depot in our kitchen window. I welded up this steel frame, and ordered a custom piece of tempered glass to fit. It really came out nice.

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...e2f500b15a.jpg

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...3f37e5b481.jpg

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...738f6aafe6.jpg

Very cool :)
Both the successful track days and new shelf

Also glad we're making progress with your hot starts.

The latest tune was a huge improvement on the hot start. Vlad magic in effect, yo.