I'm interested in OS valves, but cams+subs+springs is quite the expense so for now I gotta stop the "while I'm in there" somewhere. I guess it would depend on what the machine shop tells me once they assess the head.

 

Some non-car related things have happened that may postpone Scooter's power ambitions.

By the magic of financing the garage footprint has grown:


Before


After


Finally both in one place :')

Aside from still feeling like a surreal move, I'm very grateful and happy to have this space to work now.

This past weekend was Motorland Fest Round 5. I skipped Round 4 to go to FMSC instead, so I gotta catchup on points. I had only driven the Miata ~20 miles since FMSC; made sure it had oil, coolant, and loaded it on the trailer.

Finally decided on a name for the Tundra. It is now Big Bertha




Copied Roda's idea of using long pieces of lumber to prevent scraping while loading and it worked perfectly!

The goal for this event was consistency and to have fun. On the first session I went out with a friend as passenger to show him the track and what Scooter is all about. He has driven on track once with a Ferrari 458 during a super car experience, and was interested to check this event out. The track was a bit slippery and the tires didn't feel very good (25psi cold), but I was still able to clock a 1:33.46 with traffic. Very happy with that.



Dropped the tire pressures 2psi all around, and went out for session 2. Immediately the car felt great, and I was hitting the limiter in T2 much sooner. I did have a couple of times where the backend stepped out under heavy braking, and in one instance it was enough to get the front left off track into T3 where I clipped the edge of a 3" ledge. After cringing and not hearing or feeling anything odd I kept with the senditure. Fastest time showed 1:32.18 New PB WOoOoOT! And fairly consistent too.



Unfortunately the Garmin was having a rough day, and kept disconnecting from the mount and camera every 5-10 seconds which makes the video useless. It seems to be related to the mount's power source which I'm grabbing from a chinesium USB port I installed in place of the cigarette lighter. Later in the day it would even disconnect while idling in the pits. Luckily it still records laptimes with the GPS while on battery power, but it's track positioning and recommendations suffer without the camera.



For session 3 I stiffened the shocks 1 click all around, and dropped the pressures another psi because hot pressures were around 31-32psi. Session 3 was also when track temperatures were becoming suboptimal and I figured no more PBs. Went out without a passenger and the car felt awesome. Very neutral and responsive, and also didn't feel any drop in power. Was still hitting 90mph in the front straight with a good exit from the last corner, and the best time was 1:32.49. No more stepping out under brakes with stiffer shocks.


Shoutout to @hentia.jp for the pictures!

For session 4 I had a new racer coming along as passenger. He was driving a 370z NISMO, and turns out we used to rock climb together a few years ago. I recognized him during the driver meeting but took me a few hours to remember where I knew him from. Anyways, we're both stage 3 ballasts, so the car felt pretty slow and lost 3mph in the straights. It also didn't help that the track was hot and ambient was near 100F. Best time came in at 1:33.96, but I had a blast.

All in, snatched first place in class again, and had a fun day. No drama this time around, and didn't need to wrench on the car either. Felt great driving in cold AC on the way back too.

Got a few weeks until the next event, and the only changes I'm planning to do are a Racing Beat muffler, and hardwiring the Garmin mount's power source to the fusebox. Scooter is feeling dialed and I want to just enjoy it as is until that OS Giken arrives. That reminds me that I'm not experiencing wheel spin at the local track anymore, but it was very bad at Grand Junction Motor Speedway. I imagine it will be pretty bad still in auto-cross. Small stuff in the grand scheme of things!

 

Heck yeah dude, congrats on the PB and the W!

And also on the house and garage I suppose Should make the upcoming modifications that much more enjoyable to install once you get around to 'em.

 

Jeeze man, great work on the new PB. I'm pretty sure that beats the SM record at the track, so damn fine work. Makes my 1:28's feel less substantial, though I know there's more time in my car if I can man up and get gud (see @hentia.jp 's times!)

But seriously good work out there I know we're all proud of you, there can't be too much time in the car as-is, though I do think 31's are gonna be there for you still!

 

Congrats on the win and new PB!

And congrats on the new domicile! When we bought our first house, I was upgrading from a dirt driveway to a 20x20 garage and it was like paradise! With some creative garage tetris, you can do quite a lot in a residential 2 car...

 

Thank you, dudes!

Not having to curl my legs on a wall when working on the side of the car will be awesome haha.

Thanks Nate. Sub 1:30s are still very impressive man. I'm sure once you regain confidence with the brakes your times will tumble stat! And yes this new PB is a tenth or two faster than the SM record, but they're on 205 Falkens and a bit less power. As far as the car, I'm not sure how much time is left to extract, but I'm certainly at my limit and treading carefully.

Thank you sir! It's a good quality of life upgrade for me. What was an "aha!" moment for you with garage organization? Got any tetris cheatcodes?

 

Put everything you can on wheels... benches, tools, etc. Everything can get pushed up against the walls to get two cars in, and when doing projects you can move the cars out and move things around as necessary for the job at hand. Even with 40x40 available to me now, it's really useful to have things mobile.

Welders on wheels


Workbench on wheels


Tube bender/roller on wheels

 

That's a great recommendation! Thank you

 

This week I hardwired the power for the Garmin Catalyst using an add-a-fuse connected to the A/B fuse. This seems to have fixed the disconnects while cranking, and hopefully no disconnects under high Gs and heat either . I did some minor checks around for leaks and any rubbing in the front wheel wells and didn't find any problems. I'm also happy that the camber bolts haven't moved at all.

It was also time to add some rice to the car so I slapped Mazda stickers to it.



And replaced the Roadstersport 3 muffler with a RacingBeat Power Pulse. I did fumble with that doughnut gasket until I said screw it, applied enough copper spray that it stock to the flange, and bolted it all. Didn't feel any leaks moving my hand around it but I did find that the rubber hangers are cracking. Haven't driven the car with it yet, but sounds about the same at idle and some quick revs. I'm hoping it drones less but keeps a nice tone.



Unexpectedly the Racing Beat is 2lbs lighter? I'll take it, even if it's in the wrong place. If time allows I'll corner balance the car again before the next event.

 

Mazda stickers go hard (coming from a guy with Mazda stickers in the same location). Good stuff!

 

The MAZDA stickers aren't 'rice'... they're 'racecar'!

 

Haha thanks

 

I do love those contingency stickers. I've thought about throwing them on my car as well.

The orange RTV exhaust gasket maker work pretty well. Not as easy to R&R as a solid gasket, but it seems to work well enough.

 

Yesterday was Motorland Fest 6. This time the in-laws wanted to spectate and maybe get a ride along so it was bound to be a fun day. I went out in the first session and it was a fuel cut extravaganza. FAK. I couldn't rev the car past 6k @ WOT or it would cut. I saw nothing wrong in the gauge (oil temp, oil pressure, coolant and AFRs were good) so I figured I must have left something half baked in an experiment . I tried to work around it but best I could do with the distraction was a 1:36.19. I got to pits and pulled the log to find the fuel pressure was dropping to 330kPa, under the 340kPa fuel cut safety.



I looked and smelled for leaks but found nothing so figured the pump was weakening quickly. So what is a dude supposed to do in this situation? Drop the safety to 290kPa of course. Got the car ready for the next session aaaaaand the pump doesn't prime . I tried swapping the 30AMP injection fuse, tested the pump relay, checked for voltage at the connector, all of it except extracting the pump. She was dead after 186k miles of service and the day was over.

OR WAS IT? Well, yes, it was over for Scooter, but not for me. I've been helping the owner of the 370Z NISMO with telemetry and learning track things, so he wanted me to drive the car on track. Nice. But he didn't want me to turn off the traction control. Not nice. Whatever, should still be fun. I must say, it is way better than I gave them credit for. With both Stage 3 ballasts in the car it's probably around 3900lbs, and it handled really well on the Hoosier track attacks. No Miata mind you, but I was using the same braking zones with ~200whp more. The highlight of the experience was the SynchroRev Match. Trust me, it works better than the name sounds. But I would be going too hot into a corner, use the same braking zone as the miata and just smash it down to third and second right away with no loss in brake pressure and perfect shifts. Dang. Cornering was good, but the weight showed, and it had a bad tendency to understeer, especially because I couldn't throttle steer the boat with traction/stability control on. Overall a nice experience that lifted my spirits.

After that I took a ride along in Tyler's 30th ND2, and my friend Michael's supercharged Elise. Both pretty awesome rides and the end to a fun day.

Back to Scooter, I've had the Walbro 190 sitting in a box for months now. I got no-one to blame but myself for the pump dying at an event while having a spare at home. I'll rip into it today or tomorrow and look forward to the next event. The 1:36.16 was good enough for second place, so only lost 2 points this event.

 

Pouring some high octane out for the dead homie glad you still got to run some laps, score points, and get those ride alongs after!

What was the spec on that Elise? I rode passenger in gutted track Elise last year with a supercharged V6. I think it was a Toyota 3.0 or 3.3L? Either way, the car was f*cking terrifying. Possibly the fastest accelerating car I’ve ever sat in. Dude said it weighed around 1,900lbs with half a tank of gas. Even the stock N/A 1.8L Elises look like a riot, though. Would kill to get behind wheel one of those.

 

This Elise is a 2008 60th anniversary edition. The angry insect type as my wife called it . This edition came with the same 2ZZ found in the standard Elise we got here, but they added a non-intercooled supercharger, with adjustable suspension and sway bars. It isn't setting anyone's hair on fire as far as power goes, but it handles and feels amazing as every Elise does. I was fortunate to drive a standard Elise a few years ago on the road and it felt amazing, great steering feel, good brakes, fine balance and very responsive. I think my only gripe was a miniscule amount of throttle dampening when cruising (compared to my ITB car). I would love to own and track one someday.

 

Tore into the fuel pump today and found the culprit of the failure:


corroded fuel pump terminals

The OEM pump tested fine on the bench but time for an upgrade and the culprit seems to be the corroded terminals.


And just when I thought I was done finding Mitsubishi parts



Walbro 190LPH installed and immediately the car was idling with 403kPa of fuel pressure. I had never measured it that high at idle before. Went out for a drive and...


Houston, we have pressure

...she held 390kPa to 7k RPM! Before it would have dropped to 350kPa, so this issue is now solved. It seems I'm going to need a slight retune in some spots to get it back within 3% trims but that's alright.

Now the brakes are feeling softish and I think it's time for a bleed. I'm going to take to the canyons this week and see how the pump holds up .

 

We're recommending upgraded pumps on all N/A builds, the stock pumps aren't able to hold up to anything. Hell if I had a tunable ECU in 2000 with FP input, I bet even a brand new NB1 would have issues with basic bolt ons.

 

Things have been quiet for Scooter after the fuel pump fix. I decided to purchase an extra fuel pump relay, main relay, and engine bay fuses just in case. Took the car to work a couple of times and the fuel pressure is perfect.

This past weekend Nate came by for more car-tooning and we had a great time. Very excited for his thread update.



I have been messing with boost ideas …. The twin turbo kind



Finally got over some of my fear of this thing and setup the 3 port MAC valve. Seems like it needs a restrictor to increase boost better, but Nate got to experience this V6 TT at 7psi. We had a blast.

And last but not least, new shiny part has arrived.




The expectations are high on this one with the SuperMiata tune, but will have to wait for winter.

 

I'm pretty psyched on your OSG man, what a unit! Are you going to get it in over the winter?

And I gotta say, your dodge stealth is ******* awesome. I've seen plenty of 3000GT VR4's, and while they are cool, I don't think the lines have aged as well as the stealth. it's really curvy and some of the stuff you don't notice in pictures is striking in person. I love that tapered door, the rear scoops (top and bottom), and the way that wing looks. It honestly gets me excited for my FD.

And you genuinely scared me in it, throwing it into a corner like it was a miata with the late braking. I've got to imagine very few people drive them like that, it was a hoot. And more power/torque than I was expecting for 6-7psi. Honestly kinda psyched to feel it once you turn it up. It was definitely an experience I've been telling everyone about. Super cool car, imo.