TNTUBA

iTrader: (1)

There was no intent for any hostility when I started. I just have been told by several people (Scott Frasier Included) Not to set up a car on old tires. I saw no reason for his profanity filled tirade at my offer of help.

Yes SSM cars are turning out to be a little more rough on tires(We are heavier, have more power, have more aero and frankly are just less developed at this point than a top CSP car).

And I should have qualified the surface. Wile I could see a set of A6's being usable after 100 runs on asphalt, I took a set from stickers to cords in @90 runs all on concrete. (Blytheville pro with 2 drivers, Blytheville Tour with 3 Drivers, Toledo Pro Solo 2 drivers, Peru Tour with 2 Drivers, Morning runs of the Pro Finale with 2 drivers and a few runs on the test a tune courses at each event and a few re-runs. We then corded them on the test n tune course at Nationals). My co driver picked up 1.2 seconds on the right and 1.1 seconds on the left going from 88 run (all on concrete) to sticker A6's...not scientific but clearly an improvement.

I have built one of only 3 real SSM Miatas in the Country and am gradually learning that the thought that a SSM Miata is just a CSP Miata with Aero and Power is wrong. The shock valving is turning out to be different, springs rates, sway bars, even the alignments(just to mention what we have found so far). Fully developed SSM Miatas are so "new" that there is no road map. I have simply tried to offer him advise to help him avoid some of the pitfalls I have suffered. I have simply tried to pay back the debt for all the help I have received. If he doesn't want my advise...all he had to do was say so. I don't need him yelling, cussing me and telling me how wrong I am.

My car finished 4th at Nationals in SSM last year(Raw times good enough for second) in a very tough field on the car's(and my) first trip to Nationals. I say that to give a little credibility to my comments. (I know your name, I'm sure you don't know mine)

I hope he get's it figured out. The class needs more entrants.

Stein

iTrader: (46)

On that note, for the first time since nationals moved to Lincoln, I'll be in town when nationals is going on. Hope to make it out to meet some fellow MT'ers. I have some Miata parts from parted cars - guy just stopped today for front LCA's - and my home shop is 15 minutes north of the airport if someone breaks and needs a hand or possibly a place to work.

tpwalsh

My 2c on this subject. Tuba's 100% correct. The butt dyno is deceptive in the tire wear department. The KM world's generally accepted practice is you don't change the setup on anything over 20 runs tires, assuming a 60 run competitive life. (Those tires cycle out WAY before they wear out). I wouldn't have believed this until I ran a 30 run set back to back with a fresh set last year. I'd love to comment on tire life on a miata, but I never ran over 2 sets in a year, where last year we went through 4-5 sets on the kart.

Billy,
We'd love to hear about the back to back runs.

TNTUBA

iTrader: (1)

Yea....Tom O'Gorman's fast....and humble.



Congrats on the trophy.

concealer404

iTrader: (3)

Congrats on the success and working out the issues thus far, sir!


Lighting a fire under my *** to get my new motor together!

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

Thanks, I only broke once on day one and only had a small fire problem. I know the car had enough to beat PJ and Dave driving the panda but not Nate and Tom. The car and I will get there, I have seen the light.

tpwalsh

<small fire> ?


Either way nicely done!!

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

Ah year, my turbo oil feed ended up being like 1/4 of a turn from actually being tight so it was misting oil into my turbo blanket. So we'd kind of had to spray that with the tire sprayer when the car came in on saturday runs. Then the brass nipple for the coolant feed to the turbo sheared off at the turbo so I packed it up before my last run drove home and fixed it. I need to order a new one in stainless from mcmaster because I put a spare brass one from the shop in. I also found that my rad fan mounts had all broke and one of the engine mount bolts had started to work its way out again. Thankfully so far this car has only been breaking really really stupid **** thats easy to fix. I mean I only had to pull the turbo/header away from the block to fix the engine mount bolt and the coolant line.

My phone is chugging on overlaying the data logs on the video now. Looking at it preliminarily I can sustain 1.5g, but I also think that's what my phone's accelerometer tops out at. Should have go pro video from the co driver's go pro as well. I left so much time out there even on my 61.7 scratch time from yesterday. A couple more runs and I think I could have put the car in the 60's. I wish that damn wall near the start was half a cone shorter, I would have made the challenge, but you could just charge into it so fast and jam the brakes, let off them a bit and trail brake and just wiggle the car around there without dropping much speed at all, it was just really hard to not over rotate it doing that. And I need faster steering, I was at 1.5ish turns on the sharp tune to the taxiway and the taxiway slalom was literally cross to cross as fast as I could. With the 15x10s I dont feel like I need power steering, where I did feel that way with the 15x9s.

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

Video dump, I made it as a playlist I wonder if it'll work right.

Me
Leafy Devens Tour 2013 - YouTube

Co-Driver
Bob Deven Tour 2013 - YouTube

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

Garage floor is getting painted. At the tour I found out I corded my right front rubbing on the tub. I hammered the soft ball sized patch of 1/8" thick hoosier back as hard as I could. Should be enough. And then I picked up a pretty worn out pair of R6s to throw on. I'll rum them on the front for a couple more events and then pick up another used set for the rest of the season and beginning of next year. I'll throw em on the fronts since I seem to be heating those up the most and in case I find more rub spots.

I went to turn the boost up today. Apparently my EMS4 doesnt want to output on GPIO7 either. I'm sure its some very non-obvious setup issue again and the AEM techs will tell me it was very simple and how to fix it. I was very confused why I had it at 80% duty cycle and it wasnt doing anything.

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

Ahh well it seems there is a 2d table of whats basically commanded duty cycle based on commanded boost. why in the **** this isnt a 3d table and isnt explained very well at all in any of the instructions I'll never know.

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

Got the boost control to work. Its kind of tuned somewhat.

Raced and camped up at NHMS, car felt slow as **** in the tiny parking lot, was still good enough for fastest production car on the first day but got raw timed by FJB. Choked on the qualifying runs for the Jeff Gordon Challenge and coned every run so I didnt make the challenge. On the points event sunday car really felt like crap in the morning I was sitting last in the class even on a clean run. 2nd run of the afternoon felt really smooth and like it could have either been slow as **** or really damn fast, the timer display didnt work and the damn announcer took a long time to finally tell me that I was currently 2nd on the ftd list and way leading the class by 7 tenths on a 26 second course with a 25.952 ended up being 10th from FTD. I also managed to get my points blocker to come in 2nd so now I just need to win out and I believe I'll take the season championship.

On even better news I found a way to show up at nationals with my car and a set of 30-40 run hoosiers. This means I need to do a few things in the mean time to have the car completely legal so eagle eye Namer doesn't nab me. The rear tow hooks need to go on, thats easy except for exhaust clearance. And then I remeasured the aero, splitter is fine, its actually a bit further back from slamming into the hill at turn 3 on the NHMS road course. But since I changed the rake after putting on the wing its about 7/8ths of an inch too high so I'll be dropping the endplates since I can get away with that.

You'll notice I said the splitter was pushed back a tad from hitting the hill in turn 3 on the NHMS road course? Yes we had charity parade laps, yes the car went out on hoosiers, yes I want to buy a roll bar. I might have accidentally made a dirty time attack car while building a solo2 car.

Efini~FC3S

iTrader: (4)

Autocrosser does track day

Autocrosser's autocrossing career ends almost immediately.

I've seen it happen a hundred times...

TNTUBA

iTrader: (1)

If Autocross were any easier it would be called "Track Days"

Congrats on finding a way out. It will be fun. It's an awesome experience. More of a pilgrimage than a race.

The history of SSM has been one of "no weenie" protests. Last year was an anomaly. There is a gentleman's agreement within SSM to not protest over little stuff....and there is a more "understood" agreement to talk to the competitor about the issue before "throwing paper"

I for one would never throw paper on someone UNLESS the reason I am protesting them is the ONLY reason they beat me. I.E. Guy shows up with all carbon fiber Miata with a SR20 in it, 500lbs below weight and Bias ply slicks. I MIGHT...and I mean MIGHT protest that....but only if he beat me by a small margin....if he beat me by multiple seconds I would say that his driving had more to do with it than the car.

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

Yeah well the tow hooks are kind of a CYA thing, and well the wing thing is illegal enough that I feel bad about it and I'll be moving the end plates down like I meant to anyways so it should be better for performance.

And the track day thing I feel it was a bit more of a "WEEEE I just took a turn at 90 and it made enough g force of the kirkey to touch the center console!!!!11!!!one!!!"

TNTUBA

iTrader: (1)

I would love to do a track day in my car. I just don't think it would stay together for that long.

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

Well I do slowly leak oil and coolant. The coolant weeps about a drop every 10 minutes out of a pinhole in my weld on my WP inlet and it seeps out the stupid begi spacer. The oil comes out of ******* everywhere on this engine now, multiple different spots on the VC, the VVT actuator, the VVT hard line banjo bolt, the front main, the rear main, the oil cooler to block interface. Oh and the brass nipple on the turbo coolant oil feed is going to shear off again sometime soon, I have a stainless one to replace it with before I take the car out to nationals. I'm sure I'll break front lower control arms on the track too. But otherwise I'm confident it'll hold up.

My brakes are also not up to snuff. You could smell them after the match tour and during the evo school, and the fronts smoked after doing 5 fun runs at a renegade miata event. So I'd need a roll bar and brakes. I want my brake setup so that I just radial mounted calipers and run FastBrakes 10.25" front and FM/TSE combo 10" rear for auto-x throw in a caliper spacers, bigger rotors, and different pads and run 10.75 front and 10.6 rear for the track.

tpwalsh

I was hanging around the Atlanta tent last year, and someone (small, older lady) comes up to Junior mentioning something about someone saying they "screwed up" and threw paper in SSM and they regretted it. Evidently the paper thrower was a newcomer to the class? Come home to find out about all the crap that flew. I seriously doubt paper will get thrown in SSM again unless it's for something big.


Breather issues?

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

I dont think its breather issues. I have a check valve in the PCV line and the other valve cover vent goes to a catch can that isnt picking up much oil and has a filter on it. Its getting redone over the winter to be borderline insane. The VC leaks because all the bolts keep loosening in, I think the oil cooler leaks because the gasket was never replaced when the engine was torn down to be built. The oil pan leaks because I suck just as much at savington at making the pan seal at both ends by the banana gasket. And speaking of bolts loosening, the car started and ran like **** when I pulled it off the trailer saturday, half the upper plenum bolts had worked their way out, the one by the VVT actuator was completely out. I really hate how much these engines vibrate.

Saturday was an interesting day. I towed the car down myself, normally my dad drives when we tow since hes pretty good at it, but he had to work. But with the 09 F150 my dad picked up its a breeze to tow, you can practically sleep at the wheel on the highway, none of the constant small corrections the sloppy steering of the 97 F250. It only had the 3 valve 4.6L but the 6 speed tranny keeps it in the power band, and I'm not afraid to let it tach out.

I was co driving with the man who's providing the tow rig out to Nats. He did ok in the car, but he's a skinny old man so I think he was loosing some speed from not being able to turn the steering wheel fast enough. And I know he wasnt driving the car hard enough, probably just not believing the grip is actually there. I need to look at the data. BUT my initial look at the data shows that I messed up setting the accelerometer so all that data is junk, it will still be video and speeds though.

The course was supposed to have as many nationals like elements that you can put on a runway course, with plenty of rope to hang yourself. The worse was a flat out wallom that topped out at about 65mph into a wicked stop before the finish. In my car you just want to keep on accelerating but I found the earlier I braked the faster I would be on the run. I figure I was taking almost 1/2 a second off my time there once I figured it out, I'll have to check the data.

The car is definitely making more power since I turned the boost up, I was on some random A6s in the rear that didnt have any groove showing and had to drop the pressures to like 29psi, I was considering dropping them more but I didnt want to loose all ability to power on over steer. Overall I did well. I'm pretty much beating up on the points leader for the class now, but out of nowhere Jenna in the Panda started driving it fast and beat me by 4 tenths. I coned away 2, TWO, runs that would have beat her, on stupid stupid ******* cones. I was down to 5 tenths ahead except for just turning in a bit too soon and tapping a cone with the rear wheel. That is auto-x I guess.

The car also started making a terrible noise in the rear on decel. It sounded like the diff coming apart. But the exhaust alignment has been messed up for a while, looking underneath it just looks like the midpipe rotated at the down pipe v-band and it resting on the PPF. So I'm going to need to fix that. You can see the newest sticker in that pic as well, the car has been christened the Animal. So now NER SM has a Panda in SM, a Blue Beast in SMF, and an Animal in SSM, its like we accidentally have a theme.



I still havent fixed my passenger front cording issue. Now I'm not quite sure if its rub or brake lock. You'll see all the spots where there is rubber on the car and I hammered the **** out of all of them. I seem to be bottoming on the frame rail on both sides. Thats unexpected.





We redrilled the endplates to be legal.



And while we had the end plates off my dad couldnt help himself.



All that bondo stuck to the 2x4 and not the wing, lol. But now he's trying to make them look pretty anyways. Maybe I'll get more downforce out of it, not like I need more in the rear. I fixed the splitter, the supports on the splitter were quite bent and the welds started to crack, I hammered them square and welded the cracked welds back together. One of the braces was starting to come debonded and I glued it back down. And I touched up all the small chips with the epoxy for the bracing.

My list of things that need to get done before Nats.
Press studs into new wheel bearings and re-grease with AMSOil
Re-align exhaust
Put rear aero back together
Put the rear tow hooks on
Replace the brass coolant nipple with the stainless one I have
Pack everything

I'm thinking my off season plans are changing. Abs is starting to look like a higher priority.

TNTUBA

iTrader: (1)

If its just the front passenger side cording and it's only on the inside, assuming your allignment is good, I would think it was brake lockup more so than rubbing. I was having the same cording issues before I added ABS and haven't had the issue since. The Miata likes to lock up the pass front tire. A E Stock driver once told me that he was able to dial most of it out by pre loading the sway bar. I would say ABS should be number 1 on your winter project list. I was lucky enough to find a crashed car I could take all the parts off of. It's not a hard job, its just time consuming. I would also suggest buying a spare set of wheel speed sensors....I have already had one fail at an event. The biggest pain was replacing ALL the hard lines on the car (minus the line from the T to the driver's side in the rear). Your tires will last longer...and once you learn to trust it....the ability to brake HARD and turn at the same time is nice. It's also nice to know if you over cook a turn that you aren't going to ruin a tire in the process.