Wingman703

There's still several ongoing projects that I won't touch on yet, but a few things have been completed so far.

First, brakes. My little Wilwood Powerlites were never the correct choice for this car, but I didn't know any better when I bought them back in like... 2017? I'd made them last well enough with the Kswap by adapting them to an 11" ND rotor and 3" brake ducts, but the turbo speed was just too much for them and pad life, even without the turbo, was getting pretty bad. Two speedy laps at Road Atlanta was all it would take for the pedal to go right to the floor, then it would be coast mode for 2-3 laps to try and get them back enough for a final flyer. Not exactly fun.
Entering, non-toy sized brakes.


These are the Afco calipers with Broson's adaptor kit. I know everyone that gets these says it, but it really cannot be overstated how large these are compared to "normal" miata calipers. And of course the 1.25" thick, 11.75" wide dinner plates are monsters compared to even ND 11" thick, .8" wide rotors. The 7420 pads are 4x the thickness of my old 7912 pads while being about the same price, and far larger to boot. I'll definitely get more than a single weekend out of these.
Downside: This setup is heavy. The rotors themselves probably weight more then my old caliper+rotor+pad setup. But I think the tradeoff in pad life and actually having a firm pedal for more then a few laps will be worth it.


Reliability mod: Safety wire EVERYTHING.
I've lost over a dozen manifold/exhaust bolts, its honestly kinda stupid at this point. I would check them all before a session, and come back missing 1 almost every time, sometimes with a snapped stud to boot. Very annoying. I *think* the snapped studs were an issue with the Kpower manifold clearances around the bolts being too tight when track heated, sideloading the stud and fracturing them. I ground some more clearance around the bolts and drilled a handful so I could lock them. If this doesn't solve the issue I might have to move to inconel studs, right now I literally have old miata intake studs I stole off a scrap head.
I also added a drilled bolt to the single downpipe Vband I have and wired it in place as the vibrations from the K have shaken loose brand new self locking nuts a handful of times and I was tired of burning myself re-tightening it.



I ditched the fiberglass wrap on the downpipe, or more accurately, it fell apart and ditched me. I don't know if the heat was just too much for it, or if it was low quality wrap and couldn't handle it, but either way it also annoyed me making my arms itch every time I had to tighten something down in the exhaust side of the bay.
In its place I did a DIY metal wrap. I was pulling some parts at the junkyard, crawling around under a nice driveline-less 5 series BMW, when I saw this very large and nice heatshield. A few neurons in the 'ol noggin rubbed themselves together and I remembered Moti using ND headshields on some of his projects. I grabbed the heatshield for a whopping $15 and took it home with me to experiment a little.


Some quality time with a pair of tinsnips and I came out with this:


Yeah the S bend that is my downpipe was a pain to try and form this stuff to, but I think it should work pretty well? The BMW stuff is nice multi-layer construction with dimpling on the inside to form an airgap even if its tight up on something. I spaced it off the downpipe with some 10mm nuts I welded on and used those to secure the entire thing. I figure if it can prevent Mr. Important Executive from feeling the slightest unwanted warmth in his posh European cabin it should do an OK job of keeping heat contained in my Asian shitbox. I honestly haven't had a chance to test this yet.



My tiny 8oz ebay catchcan wasn't nearly big enough once I started cranking up the boost. I went from emptying the catchcan once a month when N/A to needing to dump it each session or it would create a massive fire hazard in the exhaust side of the bay when it overflowed.
My coolant overflow has since been relocated to a tupperware container in the windshield cowl area, so I repurposed my old overflow tank into a much larger catchcan, and moved it to the cold side of the bay so that now if it dumps oil it only slicks up my tire instead of slicking my tire AND setting me on fire. Drilled a few holes for inlets, stuffed the top half with steel wool, and vola, 4x as much oil capacity. The plan is to use the bottom catchcan port as a return to pan so I would ideally never have to dump the can, but I haven't had time to plumb this in yet. There's an extra plug at the very top of the Kmiata pan used to establish oil level when first installed that gets plugged and never used again, so it should be fairly simple to tap that for a barb and run a hose to it.




The car needed a much, much longer diff then the 4.3 installed. The plan was originally to find a 3.9 and toss that in, but torsen swaps are $1200+ and non-Fuji 3.9's don't seem to pop up that often.
I traded my clutch torsen 4.3 for a gear torsen 4.1(something something type 1 vs type 2, idk which is which and I'm too poor for an OS Giken), then found out that Goodwin will sell you a brand new 3.63 R&P for around $700. I was originally going to have someone setup the R&P for me, but Walter Motorsports isn't answering the phone/returning my emails, so I might take a crack at this myself. I would have done that initially but I've had a few friends who I consider mechanically apt attempt this and end up with diffs that doubled as outdoor space heaters. Watching a few YT videos the process doesn't seem overly complex so now I'm wondering what they managed to mess up that bad.



Like I said.. still more projects ongoing, but that's all I got done over the holiday breaks.

Kentucky Miata people! The plan is to have the car running/be at NCM with NASA Great Lakes March 25/26. Anyone local that wants to hang out trackside/tell me where I'm bad at driving NCM at is welcome to harass me there. I'll be running in DE3 or DE4(I signed up as DE4, but Great Lakes region is picky and might kick me down to DE3 since this is only my second event with them).

Padlock

Just because I have the photos handy and its good information to know... here are the actual weight differences from a stock NB1 front brake assembly to an AFCO setup.

In short, 3.8lbs is what you are adding from OE with the setup. Note: I used Jeff's kit instead of Bronson's but the top hat is really the only difference. They should be damn close to each other.

bimmerboy

Hang out, yes! Tell you where you’re bad…. Maybe not so much!

Wingman703

To be fair I was comparing it to my wilwood setup, which I think sheds 4lbs/corner over OEM. Well worth the additional unsprung weight for the tradeoff of having reliable braking though.
Excellent! I'll let you know my exact schedule once we get closer. Should be headed up with an instructor buddy and maybe a coworker.

flier129

iTrader: (7)

That NCM event is the weekend before Gridlife at CMP, otherwise, I'd try for it.

doward

Man, I just prepaid for 4 NASA events but NCM was not one of them. I've done that opener for years and literally NEVER had a dry weekend and they had been running the stupid "Motorcycle Course" on Sunday. I think they said they'd stop doing that and just run Grand Full for two days, which would be much more attractive.

...my car still doesn't run, thats my real reason. Maybe I cruise down in the BRZ as that will be a much more tolerable car situation for a cold/wet event.

Wingman703

Yeah that was a complete cluster.
Attempt #1: Forgot pinion shim. Mesh was... waaaayy off.
Attempt #2: Now with 200% more pinion shimming, this one made it into the car. Unfortunately I had damaged the pinon seal removing it to rebuild it with said pinon shim, and it leaked as soon as fluid was in it. Pulled it out again to fix.
Attempt #3: Actually made it on the ground and started a testdrive. Diff sounded fine at first but on decell sounded awful. Disassembly showed there was already wear on the teeth after less then a quarter mile of driving.
A this point I gave up and gave it to a shop. Where they found I had a bent pinion flange and oval'ed pinion bearing. No idea how I managed to do that, but my "buy a new R&P, some bearings and toss it together myself!" turned into an expensive four figure mess. Lesson learned, let someone that know what they are doing touch the diff.

Interesting note, with the 4.3 diff the clutch seemed quite happy dealing with 20psi. First pull with the 3.63 diff at 20psi and the clutch slip was absolutely massive. I had to turn down the boost to below 12psi to avoid turning the clutch into smeared wall art. There must be some interesting physics there with the longer diff putting more strain on the trans/clutch.
Even with the boost turned down the car feels faster than it was with the 4.3, and it's much, MUCH more comfortable cruising on the highway, 4300RPM vs 3100RPM makes a large difference.

Due to some sudden life events, this is not happening, for me at least. I'm sure NASA will still have the event. I have gotten approval to run in UTCC in september, so I may yet return to NCM this year.



The rest of this post will not deal directly with Miata stuff, so if that's your only interest, come back later.


February 10th, a distracted driver made a turn on red in front of me and obliterated the front end of my daily. Thankfully I was mostly uninjured, just some aches and bruises that cleared up inside a week. The same could not be said for the truck that I was driving, which was quickly totaled out by insurance.


The good news: Thanks to the currently VERY high car prices, I was paid out quite well for my low mileage Ford Ranger. So after scouring the best that facebook marketplace had to offer, I ended up grabbing something that had substantially more towing capability then my old ranger did.


2004 Toyota Sequoia. These are rated for much more than a lowly Miata+steel trailer are, and have enough cabin to sleep in as well. Plan is to pick up a trailer to go with it, so I *might* not be driving the car to all events this year...

Chilicharger665

iTrader: (2)

Not having to drive the car to events will be a positive change!

Wingman703

I got some used Xidas. A "low hours" set came up for sale within a few hours of me with the spring rates I needed, so I jumped on them asap.
My Feals had served me well and I had no complaints about them. But after taking the Xidas around the block for a test drive, I was 100% sold. Much better ride quality, absorbed bumps that used to send the car skittering, and seemed to smooth out high frequency bumps with ease. Drink the coolaid and get Xidas kids.



Within 6hrs of posting a picture of those bad boys on IG I had 5 people message me and tell me to put condoms on them. So before everyone on here tells me the same, yes, I wrapped up my Xidas in shock protectors.
I also picked up a fatty RB front swaybar to take the place of my OEM one. The car had... a generous amount of roll in all speed corners.

Wingman703

Strap in. This one has been a loooong time in the making.

If there's one area in the car I openly, freely admit that I just am awful at, its braking. I always seem to be locking wheels, flatspotting tires, or overcooking braking zones. I can make the wheel dance, but when it comes to that middle pedal I'm full caveman with a hammer. For the last few years I've just accepted it, dealing with the snatching tires, flatspots, and other annoyances that accompany being a knuckledragging pedal smasher.
This came to a head last december at Road Atlanta, when I flatspotted my 5 month old, still very fresh, very new, and very, very expensive A7's down to the steel bands trying to push the T3 and T5 braking zones deeper and deeper.


I swore then that I would have ABS in the car before the car saw an expensive tire again.

Theres two(reasonable) choices for those that want ABS in a Miata chassis.
Option 1. Find a donor miata, and steal the OEM Mazda ABS unit, brake lines, knuckles, sensors, ect.
Pros: It "just fits" and "just works... mostly"
Cons: It's a three channel ABS that treats the rear wheels as one, it's hard/expensive to find a donor car, and generally the Mazda ABS is just considered... not very good for anything out side of normal street use. Frequent ice modes and hard pedal without stopping are the normal complaints.

Option 2: Do a complete custom install of a BMW MK60 install.
Pros: Its really, really good. The BMW M3 Mk60 has active yaw control, 4 channel wheel control, and the BMW ABS sensors will work with Miata tone rings.
Cons: It's expensive to get an M3 Mk60 unit, and finding a flashable unit is both expensive and hard($1600+ for JUST the ABS module...), and all new brake lines have to be run, as well as wiring.

Of these two options, I chose... well nether of them exactly...
I was pointed in another direction by Bronson. There was a very small group that was exploring and developing options for a lesser known version of the Mk60, the Mk60E5.

The E5 seemed to promise an improvement over the standard Mk60. There's some technical stuff I don't fully comprehend, but as I understand, the E5 responds quicker, has better yaw control, and is programmable. The downside is that development and integration was in its early days and there were a TON of "we think it might need this but it might not" and "This manual says XYZ but it actually works like ABC" and "we don't know what it wants for this item and if it wants canbuss we r ***"
Oh, did I mention the E5's are cheap, cheap cheap? They came in every 6 cylinder BMW chassis from 2006-2012(E90 chassis), as well as Z4's(E93 chassis). My local pullapart had 6 of them, just sitting there, waiting to be grafted into a Miata.

And then I did something I normally shy away from... I became an early adopter. I normally like to let a few other people take the plunge first so I can come along later, get the copy pasted parts list, the heads up advice, and get everything to work on the first try.

So there it all begins one cold day in mid december, with what would end up being the first of many, many runs to the junkyard to find me some BMW parts.


Once you've found your E90, you need the following items:
The ABS module (found in the engine bay, drivers side)
All four wheel speed sensors(grey connectors, but don't confuse them with the brake pad sensors!)
The Yaw sensor(Under the drivers seat).
I also stole the SZL, or steering angle sensor, as that might come in handy later for programming the DSC unit, and all the brake line fittings in the ABS module.
If you plan to build your own wiring harness, you also need the connectors/pigtails for each unit.

This particular car was an '08 328i, and the ABS module was a 0861.3. Thus far, 0850.3, 0860.3, 0883.3 and 0870.3 have all been tested and confirmed to work.


ALL these components are different then the normal MK60 and CANNOT be interchanged. You can find them online, but I walked out of the junkyard with everything I needed for under $200. $80 ABS module, $15/ea wheel speed sensors, $20 Yaw sensor.
The wiring for an E5 is also different from an Mk60. Not a huge change, but enough its not a direct swap.
The E5 also no longer uses DCAN, but PTCAN for its communication to a diagnostic device.
This is a spreadsheet with the wiring diagrams. Not all the other information in it is correct, but the wiring diagrams are. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...f=true&sd=true

Over the next few weeks I ran new brake lines for all corners and integrated the wiring into my own.


There was speculation early on that the ABS module needed to be orientated the same direction as it came out of the donor car due to having an internal gyro. The pictured mounting location/orientation is 90* out from how it came out of the donor car. I decided the packaging location was too good and became the guinea pig. I can confidently say the ABS module does NOT need to be clocked in the OEM orientation. Theory is the internal gyro is only for hill assists and the yaw sensor handles all the real calculations. The Yaw sensor DOES need to be properly clocked("upside" down, pigtail forward).

The wiring and plumbing turned out to be the easy part. BMW has their own suite of tools for diagnostics and programming, and installing those tools(which are free online, I am using the bimmergeeks download) is a half day job for a first timer to install and setup. Felt like hackerman, digging around in command prompt getting that dam thing to work.
After I had the software itself working(make sure to update your E89 datum!), I hit my first major roadblock. Couldn't communicate with the DSC.
I got really, really used to seeing this error over the next few weeks...


Oh yeah, all the BMW software... is in German. So at this point I'm halfway fluent in automotive centered German.
As it turns out, all the legit, tested OBD to USB diag cables don't work. Save yourself the agony of buying three different ABS modules, as many yaw sensors, and quadruple checking your wiring over and over. I even build a bench setup so I could try different wiring configurations on the fly without crawling around the interior of the car. Buy . I don't know what we will do if that particular amazon seller disappears, but after buying and trying 3 cables, 3 different ABS modules, and 3 yaw sensors... that was the one that worked. On the bright side, I have lots of spare sensors and DSC units now.

Once I was able to talk to the DSC, it was fairly easy to run bleed procedures, calibrate the sensors, and generally dick around inside INPA. At this point the car was mobile again while I waited for another piece of the puzzle.

The MK60 used magnetic wheelspeed sensors(E46 style) and non-magnetic tone rings, same as the Miata ABS does.
The E5 does not. It uses a magnetic tone ring, and a non-magnetic sensor. The tone ring is integrated into the bearing/hub in its OEM configuration. This means you cannot use E46 sensors in an E5 setup and vice versa. There has been some murmur about being able to program the E5 to look for and use E46 sensors, but so far that has only been accomplished with a Z4 unit, and only for the rear axle.

My initial plan was to install E46 sensors, and wait for a particular individual to develop and produce a " vr to digital converter". I.e, an E46 to E5 converter box that would convert the E46 sensor signals into something the E5 would be happy with.
In preparation for this, I would need BMW tone rings on my rear axles, and I lucked out. Apparently Bronson has dozens of these rings laying around, since he removes them from the BMW hubs he sells and installs Miata tone rings. He sent me a handful to see if I could find a way to graft them onto my axles, and as it turns out they pressfit right on to my OEM NTN axles.



As I already had Brofab front hubs with their OEM BMW rings still attached, I was set there. I built some brackets to mount the E46 wheelspeed sensors... and then I waited on the conversion box.


I sat around for 3 months waiting on this box before being told there was no solid ETA on development. So I scrapped that idea and went with option #2. Out came the E46 sensors.

In a stroke of luck, it turned out the E5 magnetic rings had an ever so slightly smaller ID then the E46 non-magnetic tone rings OD. So I... ahem... "precision ground" the tone rings down with an angle grinder until the magnetic rings were a pressfit.
Said "precision ground" front hub...


And boom, now with 100% more magnetic tone ring.


I welded tabs to the front and rear knuckles to mount the E5 sensors. If you have ABS rear knuckles, chances are you can make those work with just some spacers. Front you gotta weld something on, or get creative with your bracketry.
Note the orientation of the sensors is CRITICAL. Mounting them 90* of rotation out will give you bogus wheelspeed readings in INPA.




I also protected the DSC unit with some leftover heat shielding due to its proximity to the downpipe. I've heard these do NOT like to get hot.
Whats in the boooooox????



Today was on and off drizzle all day. I waited for a break in the rain and took the car out for testing.
Wow. It works. I don't have anywhere to test the yaw control I've heard so many good things about... but gawwwdam the car stops hard now.
For context, T3 and T10 at Road Atlanta I can generate enough braking force to trip my oil pressure warn briefly as it drops below 25psi. No where else can I do this, and thats only good weather, Hoosiers, high grip, ect.
I'm now able to do that in the damp, on street tires, on a loose surface. I cannot wait to see what its truly capable of with good tires and a grippy tarmac.



While this will obviously be very, very helpful on track, I think this is going to be a real gamechanger for hill climbs, Pine and Norton especially. Both have high speed sections that terminate in slow, 180* hairpin corners. I've always been terrified of these and very easy edged up to them with a mix of coasting and light braking, worried about locking a tire and going off track(like last year at Norton when I did just that and went into a ditch...). The ability to remain at WOT till the last moment, then huck the car in with wild abandon, foot mashed on the brakes.... well.. honestly I'm mildly aroused just thinking about that possibility.
There's still lots of potential with the E5 swap as well. There's a small group exploring the programming/tuning capabilities of the unit, as well as attempting to load the E5 units with a motorsports flash, and getting the full BMW DSC suite working... transmission and all.
As far as I know, this is the first E5 unit to be swapped into a Miata chassis. Tons of the normal Mk60's out there of course...

Oh and here's a shot of me and a coworker with his 2.5L swapped, turbo NC that made 400whp on a mustang dyno. Two very different cars built for very different purposes, each very capable in their own right. While they are about dead even in a straight line, mine feels 5x faster just due to the whole... experience of it. While his feels like a quick, but comfortable street cruiser.

Midtenn

iTrader: (15)

Everytime I see a picture of the Mk60 unit, I wonder what makes it different from the one found in some Fords. The one in the 13-14 Focus ST looks physically identical to the BMW but it way cheaper.

rdb138

iTrader: (1)

Love the above info / post. As a fellow member of the "knuckledragging pedal smasher" club (I flat spotted an RT660 to look identical to your A7 pictures above 8 days ago at AMP) I was thinking how can I fix this. I was thinking I needed to buy some scales and corner balance the car (which I'm sure I still need to do), but if this change can be done for less than 2 cheap tires (or 1 expensive one! HA) and pretty much guarantees no flat spots (corner balanced or not) I'm all in.

I'll probably have a couple questions for you / may want to take a more in depth peak at what you did next time I see ya. Also, if you have too many spares and want to sell some off, let me know. I know a good home. :-)

BTW...All of the changes you made to your car over the winter!!!! Turbo, Bigger BBK, ABS, Suspension upgrades, & new Diff to just name the big parts! What a change...I'd say next level, but I think you skipped the next level and went up a few!

Supe

Nice job. I wonder if the BMW system works with different diameter tone rings if tooth count is kept the same. After locking up the rears for nearly the entire straight and getting beached at CMP, I foresee a need for ABS in my future, and I am not dropping $8k+ on an aftermarket Bosch type setup.

Wingman703

No idea. At a minimum the wiring connector looks slightly different. Even the '00-06 BMW Mk60 cannot be directly swapped for the BMW '06-'12 E5 units.. different wheelspeed sensors, canbus protocalls, and wiring connectors.
And to be fair..a lot of modern ABS module look alike, just look at the RX8 unit. I also don't think all OEM's manufacture their own units... I think most are Bosch manufactured and sold to the OEM. I could be talking out of my *** though, as this is getting outside my wheelhouse.
This car has been corner balanced several times. It doesn't make a difference when one wheel has half the grip of the others, or when you trailbrake a liiiitle to hard though a corner.
I think I have everything you would need except for the wheelspeed sensors/pigtails, and tone rings. The sensors are an easy find in the junkyard, and the tone rings are available on amazon. Since I now have a functional unit in the car I don't think I need my bench unit anymore, so let me know haha.
The PN for the tone rings is BSA71650. And I just learned something double checking that PN... these aren't actually BMW tone rings, but the Dodge/Chrysler rings!(I bought them from someone else that had extras).

Christ your right. I didn't even think about how wildly different a car it is now... my wallet certainly feels it though!

I believe it does. I've seen Dodge/Chrysler rings, BMW rings, and somewhere there's someone running... Ford Focus rings on their S2000? I'm a little fuzzy on that one. But the DSC does have the ability to figure out the tooth count and your tire size.
The DSC does some kind of wizardry to calculate your wheelsize/speed. I'm sure the BMW I stole my unit off of had 17" or larger wheels, but it tracks speed perfectly with my 15" Miata wheels. At one point it was explained to me how it does these calculations and determines your wheel size... but it went a little over my head to be honest.
The DSC is not a good bandaid if you have underlying brake issues however(i.e, wildly different bore/piston ratios, brake balance, low MU pads, stuck calipers, ect). One member of the E5 group had been unable to get his brakes/unit working well whatsoever- poor/hard pedal feel, unstable trail braking, ect. He swapped his entire brake setup to... I think it was an OEM corvette setup, with the proper pedal ratios to match them. Instantly he said the ABS really came alive and allowed proper trail braking, shorter stops, and just felt like he was no longer fighting the car.
TLDR: Get your brakes setup and working properly, THEN add ABS. Don't add ABS hoping it will fix a bad system or underlying issue.

Padlock

awesome work and good job documenting... I've been looking at the MK60 setups and the price just keeps increasing.. I very well may have to follow in your footsteps here given your promising results.

engineered2win

Thanks for documenting the Mk60E5 swap.
This is the first actual retrofit writeup I've seen on the internets with proof it actually works. I saw you posted on the MK60e5 and MK60 ABS retrofit group, which seems to be much more helpful with the e5 swaps.
I'll have to work on the sensor mounts and tone wheels; I'd to to find a cleaner/easier install that doesn't require welding to cast iron. Seems like doing the swap from a E9x opens up some more coding options and the parts are dirt cheap compared to the old Mk60 stuff people want a fortune for.

Wingman703

I saw a 813.8 Mk60 unit selling for $2500 the other day. $2500! And that was for just the ABS module itself, no yaw sensor, wheelspeed sensors, wiring, ect...

engineered2win

Just for clarification this is your parts list, correct?

DSC / ABS Pump: 0861.3 from a '08 328i. Also 0850.3, 0860.3, 0883.3 and 0870.3 have been confirmed to work.
IMU / Yaw Sensor: '08 328i (Matched to DSC / located under driver's seat)
SZL / Steering angle sensor: not needed?
Wheel Speed Sensors: '08 328i (matched to DSC)
Tone Rings: BSA71650 (Dodge/Chrysler)

Wingman703

Correct. Doesn't have to be an '08 specificly, that's just what mine happened to be. Any E90 chassis with a 6 cylinder will have the E5 system.
The SZL is not needed for function of the ABS system. You get some additional CANBUSS codes thrown, but nothing that affects function. It *may* be helpful/needed down the road for programming certain functions/options into the E5. I grabbed the one out of my donor chassis just in case, but thus far haven't used it. If your interested in possibly using a BMW transmission down the road and fully integrating the ABS/DCT together and allowing them to work like they would from factory... I'd grab it and hang on to it.


A heads up if you're pulling everything from a junkyard, the yaw sensor is sometimes mounted with 10mm, sometimes with the little hex pattern bolts, the brake line nuts are 11mm, and the wheel speed sensor bolts are Allen heads.
It's also far easier to pull the front two bolts on the driver's seat, tilt the seat back, and cut the carpet to gain access to the yaw sensor then trying to pull the carpet and seat "normally".
I'd bring a plethora of toolage to be on the safe side... You know, normal BMW things.

Wingman703

Last moment I signed up for a Monday at Barber Motorsports Park with a local HPDE group. I've really wanted to go back to Barber ever since I went once in 2019 and had an ECU failure that cut my day short after two sessions.
I went for two reasons:
1, Final shakedown of the car and its plethora of new systems(ABS, gearing, cooling tweeks, and reinforced splitter mounting)
2, Test of the new tow rig to somewhere near/flatish. I had 5-6 friends also going, most of which were also towing, so I would have plenty of support if, say... the wheels came off or something.

First time loading the car on the trailer was definitely an experience, I needed way more rampage then I was prepared for. But I got the car on after a few hours of scrounging up what wood I had on hand and some... sketchy jacking methods.


Everything went smooth from that point until a wheel popped off the trailer about an hour into the trip. Yay really old wheelstuds from unknown history, homebuilt trailer! She tripod'ed like a champ the rest of the way to Barber and home though.



Session 1 I left the car on low boost, just to get a feel for the track again and made sure no more wheels were going to fall off. I got into ABS braking a few times just to get used to the pedal kicking back at me, but didn't push it.
Sessions 2 and 3 I started pushing the car harder to really get a feel for how the ABS would respond. I was VERY pleased with both how it intervened, and how well it did at keeping the car pointed to where I wanted it. As I grew more comfortable with it I threw it some curveballs, stamping on the brakes mid corner, aggressively trailbraking, and generally putting the car in positions I shouldn't have in an attempt to unsettle it. The ABS did phenomenal in all regards. Under trailbrake it gave me just a hair of yaw, but not so much that I needed to countersteer or lift. An aggressive, sudden jab at the brakes while demanding the car turn hard, something that normally would have kicked the rear into a butt puckering spin, resulted in the car just... turning and slowing, with the pedal buzzing angrily under my foot. I quickly began to understand how people that began tracking in cars with "the nannies" develop bad input habits very quickly. It was very easy to do dumb things, and get away with it as the only sign that I had been naughty was the pedal treating my leg like a bongo.



I did, however, have a stark reminder about why it's very, VERY bad to rely solely on the nannies. The video and my "wtf" analysis while sitting in the kitty litter do a much better job of explaining what happened then I can through text.

I didn't have my INPA capable laptop with me, so I wasn't able to see if it had thrown any codes or left any clues to that incident. The rest of the day I simply didn't rely on the ABS, taking it much easier and not as aggressively trailbraking. When I did push it, it seemed like the ABS was sometimes there, sometimes gone. Not exactly confidence inspiring.
Good thing I had some older, lapping tires I didn't care much about on! I felt this one for the rest of the day.


Rest of the day was without major incident, except for botching the trailer unload at home. TL;DR: More rampage needed. Intercooler got snagged on the trailer and shoved into the radiator, bending both. Thankfully CSF makes a stout unit, and I was able to bend it back straight after gently clamping it in a bench vice and reverse twisting it. $20 of rebuilt brackets later and it was back together and holding pressure.



Here's a lap from Barber. It's not particularly impressive or fast. Last session of the day and I was more concerned with just turning laps and showing a friend with a turbo BP why he needed a turbo K. Of course this was also the first time I put together a lap without traffic(suprise suprise, HPDE groups don't make good TT sessions, more news at 11), so immediately dropped half a second.