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Update:
2022 plans:
After some excellent enabling from several local NASA SE TT6 competitors, I've decided to pursue a NASA TT license. Car is moderately prepped for TT6. I have a TT check ride scheduled for the June Road Atlanta event. To knock the cobwebs off to shake down the car, I did a SCCA TNIA event last week at RA. With 5 minutes to go of the last session, my power steering decided to spew fluid all over the hot side of the engine bay. Luckily this was going into the esses and I took the Turn 5 escape road to get the car quickly off track and turned off. Lots of smoke but luckily no flames. I have a welded, depowered rack on order and will be scrambling to get it installed prior to Road Atlanta.
Welcome to TT6:
Last weekend I was signed off for TT during the NASA SE event at Road Atlanta.
Quick highlights from the weekend:
- I'm really enjoying the NASA SE TT group. Everyone is super friendly and helpful.
- New personal bests on Saturday (1:47.2) & Sunday (1:46.4) which would have put me in 1st for TT6 both days.
- Car & driver weighed in at 2452#
- Car dyno'd at 137 max HP with a 129 average HP
Dyno plot:
I'm a little concerned about the engine setup. I would have assumed higher numbers. With that said, this is the first time the car has been on a dyno, so the tune may be less than ideal.
Current engine setup:
- BP4W with unknow mileage (don't think it is original to car)
- MS3 mini - Squaretop intake manifold
- BP5A intake cam - DIY intake - Racing Beat header, midpipe, & muffler
TT6 direction:
With the current power output, I'm learning towards this setup. This would allow me to go up to 135 avg HP, go to a grippier tire, and take out ~ 50# of weight. Plus, I still have A/C so I may try to move some weight off the nose of the car. My front left corner weight is 50# heavier than my front right. For power, I think I need a tune, and I may experiement with swapping out the squaretop for the original VICS manifold to see if I can improve the 5k - 6k rpm powerband.
- 2405#
- 225/45 Toyo RR on 15x9
- extended ball joints
- BTM aero
If that’s on 93 octane then I’d say I’m not overly surprised by the numbers. I had a very similar setup in my old ST6/TT6 car (worlds fastest ST6 car) but the motor was mildly built (I.e. not unknown). My car made similar numbers on 93 and made 143/122 on E85.
I think you can be perfectly competitive in SE TT6 with those numbers.
Major Updates:
CMP - Instructor Clinic & First time on Toyo RRs
Attended CMP in November and started off with a bang. I was 5 minutes late to my U-Haul trailer rental and they already canceled my reservation and gave my trailer to someone else. Ended up having to drive 30-minutes to another place to get another trailer. Ultimately, ended up showing up to CMP (first time here) after dark. I was planning on tenting in the bed of the truck but being pitch black, I decided to abandon the tent and slept in the back of the truck. Being barely over 5'6", I was only a few inches too tall. Worked better than expected and ended up camping that way the rest of the weekend and props to CMP for awesome showers!
Instructor clinic went well and was signed off to be an instructor. My first student was a 17 year-old in a spec miata. It was his 2nd time on track and I could not have asked for a better student. We worked on the fundamentals such as driving lines and utilizing all of the track.
TT6 had ~9 entries and it was an tight battle all weekend. Picked up my first 2nd place finish. I got within 0.6 seconds of first but TJ and his immaculate E30 (seen below) was just too much.
Road Atlanta - First TT6 Win
December was the last event of the season at Road Atlanta. Another strong, competitive TT6 field combined with a cold, rainy, and foggy weekend resulted in wet sessions, somewhat dry session, and only 2 dry sessions. My most challenging weekend yet as it required you to go full send at the sessions that counted as you weren't guaranteed any other good sessions that day. At the end, I picked up my first win in a very competitive field where 0.5 seconds separated 1st through 3rd.
Offseason Prep - E85
With new ST6/TT6 rules updates, miatas gained some performance. With the tracks in the SouthEast and my lack of desire to strip more weight out of the car, I decided to shoot for 2400#/139 avg HP. I'm good for the weight target, but about 8HP short on power. I compared E85 vs head work vs professional tune and maybe slight head work and decided I didn't want to mess with the head yet and went down the E85 route.
After an hour of online shopping I had Dorman fuel line tool and connectors and the electronics on order from Ballenger Motorsports. Took my MS3 Mini to a local computer repair store to have them solder a wire for flex fuel. I was too lazy to drain the fuel tank so I got it below E and added 5 gallons of E85. ECU currently shows ethanol content at 60%, so I bought 5 gallons of E98 to trim up the ethanol up to 85% once I burn off some of the 60% fuel.
05-23-2022, 05:24 PM
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