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Once home and armed with a diag laptop, I was able to dig into the ABS issues. I had a code for a right rear wheelspeed sensor, but this turned out to be poor wire routing that had resulted in a sensor wire being severed. Not the cause of my major lockup(unread wheels will just not have ABS and will not cause a complete ABS failure. My front left read wheelspeed perfectly.).
I eventually traced the issue down to the ABS connector itself. Under forward load, the top of the connector would shift juuuuust enough that the pumps would stop responding, but the ABS unit itself maintained communication. I could kick the pumps into test mode, push the connector just right, and have the pumps cut out immediately. INPA would see zero issues and said everything was working as normal. I pulled the offending connector off and figured out why it was loose pretty quickly.
Faulty connector on the right, replacement from my bench setup on the left. Note how the faulty one looks "swelled" around the locking tabs and doesn't sit flush alongside the replacement one. Also some of the locking tabs inside the connector were bent/broken. I don't know if this connector was like this when I pulled it out of the junkyard, if I damaged it during install/troubleshooting my initial INPA issues, or if it melted/softened when I drove it the first few times without a heatshield. Reguardless, it was an hours job to depin it, swap the pins to my undamaged bench connector, and re-install. Along with the replacement/rerouting of the rear wheel speed sensors, ABS seems to be fully restored with just the "normal" CANBUSS errors.
Now the question I'm sure most are asking... "yeah yeah, sure you said it felt great, but you got any real data to back it up, or is this all placebo?"
Absolutely. Silver lining to the ABS failure was that the second half of the day I drove effectively without ABS. So I have A to B, same tire, same track, sameish conditions of ABS vs No ABS.
Without ABS I was able to manage a peak of 1.13g decell load, with most heavy braking events being 1.04-1.07g. This is on 2019 date code, R1 compound Maxxis RC-1's, which are essentially a 200tw RS4 that lacks tread. Great for enduros and lapping, but not a tire to throw down a mega flier on.
With ABS I was able to generate upwards of 1.3g consistently, with a peak of 1.41g. Note all these shown laps had traffic in varying spots, often just before/after braking zones, so I've cherry picked 3-4 laps of the heaviest braking events for each in order to get a somewhat even comparison.
Overlaying two ABS laps(dark colors, brown and yellow) with a non-ABS lap(blue) shows I'm able to go deeper into the corner before de-accelerating, and even with a slower peak speed I can still de-accelerate harder. Again, ALL these lap's have traffic involved, so looking at peak entry/exit speeds isn't going to tell a clear story. Looking at decell trends instead of individual events is where it becomes apparent. Decell during light brushes of the brakes are about the same. Its only when I'm deeep into sustained deacceleration that it becomes apparent how harder the ABS assisted car is stopping.
Suffice it to say... ABS will remain in the car, though it's still going to take some getting used to. After my trip though the gravel I will need to be very attentive to the car now that I know what the signs are that ABS is inactive. I don't expect to have a similar situation again with the non-broken connector, but such an event at a hillclimb where there are no gravel traps could be devastating. Adapting my driving style to make use of it without becoming completely and utterly dependent on it will be... challenging. But even if one were to completely disregard the yaw control aspects of it and use it solely to avoid lockups, I think its 100% worth it.
Speaking of Hillclimbs, SCCA's Appalachian Hillclimb Series season opener is this weekend in Pineville, Kentucky. Last year I showed up with 5 year old R7's that were like iceskating, and a car that made less torque down low then a harbor freight impact. As a result I think I was over 10 seconds off class podium. I hope to do much better this year with an actual torque curve and some big boy rubber, but it's still a course that doesn't favor Miatas. Big bore V8's and AWD cars thrive at Pine, and there will be many of those in attendance.
Oh, did I say Hillclimb Series? That's right, this year it's a 4(possibly 5, but 4 locked in for now) event schedule, points awarded for each event, and an overall winner at season's end. You're damn right I'll be gunning for a seasonal win, and I think that with some luck... I might have a shot at it, as long as me or the car doesn't fall apart.
Last edited by Wingman703; 04-16-2023 at 10:11 PM.
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. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggFn...nel=Wingman703
At 24s there is a red light on the dash - relevant to the bad connection?
And damnit.... I want ABS. We were looking at data on GLTC cars at CMP, I get murdered under braking vs c5s/s2ks/etc and it's not just me being a hack either. Your setup might be the nail in my ST5/TT5 coffin(can't run non-oem ABS).
Also, guna put this in here again because I know it'll help you. Go pick up a heavy box and hold it, note where it's most comfortable to hold..... it will most definitely be when your arms are at or near 90*. A similar theory carries over to the wheel, when you're arm is extended you're controlling the top part of the wheel with your forearm or sometimes just your wrist. With it closer you've got a lot more finesse. I stole this analogy from TomO in the podcast he does with DJ, Lizard Brains.
At 24s there is a red light on the dash - relevant to the bad connection?
No. I have three dummy lights alongside my Pi dash for oil pressure, oil temp, and coolant temp. These function as an additional warning, and as a backup incase my dash fails/is off for some reason. In this case its the oil pressure warning dipping under 15psi briefly.
There is not currently a way to rig the E5 to trigger a warning light like the MK60 can if its entered a failure mode. It's been theorized the hardware is there as some models have that ability, but the coding for it has yet to be fleshed out.
Originally Posted by flier129
Also, guna put this in here again because I know it'll help you. Go pick up a heavy box and hold it, note where it's most comfortable to hold..... it will most definitely be when your arms are at or near 90*. A similar theory carries over to the wheel, when you're arm is extended you're controlling the top part of the wheel with your forearm or sometimes just your wrist. With it closer you've got a lot more finesse. I stole this analogy from TomO in the podcast he does with DJ, Lizard Brains.
Dammit, just for you I'll make some more spacers and bring it closer to me to try. But I still maintain that this is a non-issue with the EPS. If I wanted to I could turn up the assist and drive with two fingers.
Dammit, just for you I'll make some more spacers and bring it closer to me to try. But I still maintain that this is a non-issue with the EPS. If I wanted to I could turn up the assist and drive with two fingers.
It's not just about leverage/force on the wheel, it's also about ergonomics. With all cars p/s or not, I'm wayyy more comfortable up on the wheel and perform better. To add to that, Tom mentioned using the same ergonomics in TCRs, wild TA cars, and other high-end 6-digit builds.
If you hate it, remove the spacers. I'm betting you won't hate it though.
Patience. I normally get back from events early in the morning the next day, and clock in to work a handful of hours later. Detailed reports come after I've had time to unpack, go over the car, review and edit data/video, and have a little bit of time to collect my thoughts.
if you want "live", non-detailed reports, follow me on IG, where I try to post at least some updates as the weekend progresses. @wingman7033.
Video normally get up within a day or two on YT, my channel is linked plenty of places here.
If you want to follow along live, all hillclimb events should have live timing at Appalachian HillClimb Series | The Home of HillClimbing in the Southeast
just click the giant red button saying "live results"
If your still impatient, here's a few teasers.
275 A7's really fill the fenders and give her some hips to show off
Season opener of the Appalachian Hillclimb Series, Pine Mountain.
Aside from shitty Atlanta roads tossing my trailer around so much that 3 well strapped down fuel jugs attempted to jump ship, the trip up was smooth. Gotta say, towing to events really does feel like riding in luxury compared to driving the car up.
I had a codriver for this weekend, Brad Gates. Long time hillclimber who is one of the major forces/organizers behind even having more Hillclimbs then just Dragon. His car has been under the knife for close to two years, so I offered him mine for this event. In exchange we used his tires- some 275 A7's. Much better then the 245 R7's I had been planning on using.
Unfortunately we ran into a snag almost immediately, his 15x11 KE Motorsports do not fit around Afco calipers, the barrel is tight enough that a mm or so needs to be removed from the upper face of the caliper. Thankfully I was able to source an angle grinder from a fellow competitor and went to town in paddock. We hadn't even checked in and I was already hacking up the car some more!
A half hour of grinding later and the wheels fit snugly, but without rubbing, a marked improvement. There's still a ton of meat on the caliper's so I have zero qualms about doing this.
That minor snafu out of the way, we did some test hits on the hill to scout out conditions. The road must get next to zero traffic during the rest of the year, we could still see tire marks from where people had gone off prior years. Road felt good, and was clean thanks to the setup crews. That didn't last, as Friday night storms rolled though for several hours and drenched the entire area. The storms moved on before we were back on the hill, but first runs of the morning were at a snails pace. Traction was so bad and temperatures so low, that even trying to feather the clutch off the line it was nothing but wheelspeed. At Idle RPM's. There was a second just after leaving the line, holding the car at ~1200RPM, clutch fully engaged, wheels spinning away, that I thought I was about to start sliding BACKWARDS down the hill. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/mOJCjQWemFE
Despite the obvious lack of traction, somehow the hill still caught a few people out on first runs. A friend in a very fast Mini managed to loop the car 180* and off the road... down a hill about 60ft. He was unharmed, but car was so far off course they had to wait till lunch to get a boom and lift the car out.
The road dried fairly quickly and by lunch we had a fully dry, warmish course with basically ideal conditions, times being almost 30 seconds faster then the first run of the morning was.
Although the road had improved drastically, I was struggling to find traction and put power down. Last year I felt my main issue was one tire fire'ing out the several tight hairpins. This year with a 3.6 torsen diff instead of a 4.3 clutch type, this was a non-issue. But even with both wheels gripping, I was laying fat 11's out of every corner and having to fight to keep the car straight, losing time going sideways everywhere. Even on the "straights" any small bump or tweak in the pavement would break traction in the rear and have me hammering limiter from wheelspin. I tried everything I could think of to calm the rear, slowing the boost ramp, softening up the rear suspension, even dropping the tires down to 18psi hot, but nothing really did the trick and I just had to fight the car for traction everywhere. My codriver reported the same issue, but that didn't seem to dampen his enthusiasm for driving a Miata with near instant torque delivery.
Last run of the day Saturday I actually popped off my fastest time of the weekend- more on that detail later.
Saturday night I was reviewing data and really struggling to find anywhere I could pickup large chunks of time. I figured I could maaybe find another second or so going deeper/harder on the brakes for several corners, but other then that the car really looked like it was on constant edge. I crossed my fingers that still improving road conditions would find me the 2 seconds I needed to leapfrog into 3rd place, but was really skeptical of that.
Sunday morning was cold but dry. I opted to skip first run of the morning in favor of better conditions. But the event hit a major snag when timing and scoring booted up the computers and did a course check.
Sometime in the night, someone had suck onto the closed course and stolen the generator that powered the finish line equipment, as well as stolen the custom timing display board that displayed times for the drivers crossing the line. This was discovered several hours before we were on the mountain and and a new generator had been sourced. Apparently, they ALSO cut the fiber optic timing line that connected the top and bottom. Exact motives are unknown and as far as I know the perpetrator was not identified.
Event officials fell back to manually timing the runs, rally style, until an AT&T employee with the appropriate fiber optic repair equipment could arrive and repair the cable, which happened around 11:00. Despite that hiccup, running was *mostly* clean, we still got 4 runs that day.
My buddy in the Mini that crashed Saturday had spent the rest of the day collecting parts and repairing the car. Sunday he was back running again in a much more beat-up, but functional car, and ended up winning his class.
I was unable to improve my time on Sunday, which is an absolute first for me. I'm always able to find some time the second day, but my last 4 fast runs(not counting my warmup run on Saturday, and the following run with a missed shift) were all within .4 seconds of each other. I felt there was just absolutely nothing left in the car, despite feeling that it should have been faster than that. My codriver was in the same neighborhood and only .3 of a second behind me, so I knew it wasn't just my pace that was off.
It wasn't until after the last run of the day when I was pulling the wheels off the car to return to their owner that I realized one tire was heavily corded, two were about to cord, and the date codes were from... first weeks of 2019! Four+ year old A7's would explain ALL of the traction issues, and the complete lack of ability to put power down!
Of course now I wonder what the "real" pace of the car is at Pine... last year I also had some terribad 5 year old R7's, but I hadn't expected to do well to start with. This year was a marked improvement in finishing position, moving from 10th in class to 5th, and from 20something overall to 10th, with a 5 second faster time. I think the turbo and longer gearing probably helped out juuust a little. Also me and Cody were absolutely the lowest powered cars in the top 5, Wolf in the Datsun has comfortablely over 700whp(and a real sequential!), Joseph has an LS7 with north of 500whp, Foster is a built V8 of some kind making 670whp N/A. Then me in my lowly Miata that starts slipping the clutch around 320whp.
Mechanically, the car was rock solid. Despite being hotlapped by two drivers back to back, it didn't miss a beat and I didn't have to do a thing but feed it ethanol. It was a weird, but nice, feeling to roll the car into the garage Sunday night and not immediately have a list of things to put on the todo board. I had zero issues with ABS either day, so I think the main connector being loose was my issue. While I didn't make an effort to get into ABS every time I hit the brakes, I definitely felt them kick back at me many times throughout the weekend, and it was a nice feeling to know that it was there, functional, and preventing lockups.
A bonus of having a co-driver and video footage, I was able to lay our runs on top of each other and see where we differed. Its fascinating to see where we are perfectly synced up even down to a gear change, and where we choose vastly different gears and line strategies. Note the runs shown was from Sunday- A day I felt I drove better/quicker/more aggressively then the day before but couldn't even match the time from the day before- something I now largely put down to the tires having fallen off whatever cliff they were clinging to.
Next event is the Norton hillclimb first week of June, and man, after feeling what an animal this car is out of hairpins now, I'm more excited than usual. Low end torque is just... man, its nice. That's all I can really say. Even choked all the way back like it is now, the G25 spools crazy fast and turns the K into rocket. It squats under acceleration. It squats!
That really says it all right there.
I love this car.
Mechanically, the car was rock solid. Despite being hotlapped by two drivers back to back, it didn't miss a beat and I didn't have to do a thing but feed it ethanol. It was a weird, but nice, feeling to roll the car into the garage Sunday night and not immediately have a list of things to put on the todo board. I had zero issues with ABS either day, so I think the main connector being loose was my issue. While I didn't make an effort to get into ABS every time I hit the brakes, I definitely felt them kick back at me many times throughout the weekend, and it was a nice feeling to know that it was there, functional, and preventing lockups.
*Almost zero issues. While I never locked a tire or had an ABS failure at Pine, I found this during my post event inspections:
Both front sensors were melted to some extent, and there was an error code for front right. My theory is the borrowed wheels were much, much tighter to the rotor/caliper(as evidenced by needing to grind the calipers for clearance) and didn't allow as much airflow. Combined with Pine's low speeds and numerous brake zones, cooked the sensors in short order.
I added reflective tape to the sensors to help prevent this and haven't had a sensor melt since.
Flag Rock Hillclimb!
This is the first of two trips the Appalachian Hillclimb Series will make to Norton, VA this season.
Flag Rock is a very fun hill, and a good mix of Pine Mountain's tight hairpins and Dragon's higher speed sections. I enjoy it a great deal more than Pine, and the car is much more competitive here as well... or maybe that's why I enjoy it more?
Not every day a Lamborghini rocks up to the starting grid... former generation GT3 car. Current owner bought it crashed off of Ebay, rebuilt it to spec, and now runs it in TT. Super cool, had a few good talks with him. Ran fairly competitive times as well, considering he had zero hillclimb experience and was on Toyo 888R's.
I knew my car would be quick here. The only catch was that I was running on R7's instead of A7's, simply due to them being what I had on hand. I was able to make quicker passes in the afternoons with higher ambient temperatures then the cool of the mornings- not as ideal for the car, but closer to the operating temps the tires wanted.
Day 1 showed that the car did indeed have pace. After four runs, me and Matt Foster in a well put together 600whp vette had less then a second between us, fighting for 2nd in class and both of us in the top 5 overall. First place in class jumped to a 3 second lead early in the day and only extended that as the weekend went on- the battle in class was all for the second step on the podium. Matt barely hung onto his lead for all of Saturday and half of Sunday, when I dropped another two seconds and leapfrogged into 2nd by a half second where I would finish off the weekend. It was the closest fight I've had so far this year and I enjoyed it immensely.
This was definitely the most fun I've had at an event this year. The surrounding area is gorgeous, the course is smooth and challenging. Hard to ask for more... except maybe a first place finish. But considering I'm fighting a tube frame car in class, and a bunch of giant wing skeleton kit cars overall, I really can't complain about getting 2nd in class and 4th overall(First is not a Cobalt, it's a kitcar Goblin with a turbocharged ecotech motor... thus the "Cobalt"). I think I have a shot for P1 at Dragon, but that's to be tested.
With no time to spare, I'm right back at the track this weekend. This time it's back to Barber, and running Time Attack with Gridlife. I signed up for Track Mod, and I have absolutely no idea who I'm running against as MSR doesn't break it down by class. I had to scrounge around to find some class legal tires(as GL doesn't allow Hoosiers in TM), so I'll probably end up running the weekend on my super old and flatspotted RC-1's or give my VR-1's I use for street driving a whirl.
Originally Posted by flier129
Also, guna put this in here again because I know it'll help you. Go pick up a heavy box and hold it, note where it's most comfortable to hold..... it will most definitely be when your arms are at or near 90*. A similar theory carries over to the wheel, when you're arm is extended you're controlling the top part of the wheel with your forearm or sometimes just your wrist. With it closer you've got a lot more finesse.
I added a 3" steering wheel spacer. It felt very weird at first and I sharply elbowed myself in the ribs a few times. But it certainly felt very... "racecar" and not awkward as I had expected. I can't really give an honest opinion if it feels more controllable or natural or whatever. But I don't hate it after driving with it for a month or so.
Originally Posted by flier129
If you hate it, remove the spacers. I'm betting you won't hate it though.
Its not everyday that Gridlife is in town. Really, you could argue that Gridlife hasn't been in my town since Road Atlanta 2019. So when they teamed up with Jzilla(A local trackday organization I cut my teeth with when I was starting out) I had to hop on. And come on, its Barber. Stupid fun track.
The weekend was split between the two organizations. Jzilla ran their normal round of DE sessions, then Gridlife got the track for an hour to run time attack with, rinse and repeat for the entire day. Since it was both a TT and HPDE weekend, there was a quite a large gathering of Miata's, two for TT, the rest various levels of HPDE. Pictured here is 8 cars, I think at one point we had a dozen hanging around.
Running Gridlife TT also comes with some super snazzy stickers, which were done no justice when applied at 11pm at night. I put on a very wrinkly doorcard and was immediately told not to touch any other stickers, I straight up suck such at such things. More qualified personnel did the rest of the banners and cards. Its got enough stickers on it that it could almost be confused with a real racecar at this point...
Anywho. The weather was hot, hot, HOT, ambiants in the 90's, track temps 100+, this is Alabama in June after all. It didn't help matters that the HPDE groups got the first, coolest sessions in the morning, and TT didn't hit the track till after 10:00, a move I don't fully understand.
I was competing in Track Mod, which requires 100tw tires, so I was stuck on my 4 year old RC-1's again. I knew that GridLife could bring out some heavy hitters in their main festival events, but I wasn't expecting anything super crazy to show up to a Club Weekend event. While it definitely wasn't the pointiest end that showed up, they weren't slow by any means. And then this guy rolls up in unlimited with the Miata Shaped Object. No explanation needed I think...
If you look realllly close, you can juuuust see my wing poking out, sandwiched between the camaro and Jackie Ding in the blue BMW. Tiny car is tiny. As seems to be the norm, I think I'm definitely the lowest HP car in the front of the field.
The first sessions didn't go perfect, as I was fuel starving in left handers, and had a nasty misfire during high boost. While I was able to get some banker laps in, I wasn't able to extract maximum pace during the "ideal" sessions while trying to drive around the issues.
The misfire I traced down to a dying coil pack, and eventually I resorted to running 3/4 of a tank to keep it fed with fuel. Exiting T6(a loooong left hander you enter around 40mph and spend the next ~8 seconds accelerating out of) my fuel pressure would drop to less then 10PSI and result in some spectacularly lean backfires that I'm sure my engine did not appreciate, and would completely ruin a lap.
Heading out for the third session the car felt much better, and thanks to a slightly overcast afternoon temps had dropped somewhat. I put together a solid first half of a lap, then had to lift slightly in T10 for a corvette on a cooldown lap, annnnd then really blew the lap by overcooking it into T12 and getting sideways in the final corner. It was still an OK lap, but could have been at least a second quicker I think.
Sunday the heat was relentless and the track was already greasy from the first session in the morning, and no one went substantially faster all day. The second of time I lost the day before was meaningless as P1 in my class was two seconds faster- but he also had twice my horsepower!(600whp built K20 in a 240SX). And the MSO with a professional driver blitzed the field by over 6 seconds- Johnny took it out himself for a session and ran a 1:31, so yeah, that car's fast.
I ended up with P2 in Track Mod and 8th out of a 51 car field, so not terrible.
Gridlife trophys are super snazzy!
And while I'm sure some of this is due to the extreme heat, I really need to figure out a way to add brake ducts back in before my next track outing. Even these 7420 pads and huge afcos are getting melted reeling back the car. 4 days worth of running and PFC 11's are already less than half life, as well as very, very tapered. I shudder to think how quickly my old wilwood setup would have been turned to dust had I still been running them...
Small break now before the next competitive outing, which will be the Chasing the Dragon Hillclimb at the end of July. I have a handful of things I want to get done to the car before then to try and squeeze a few more record breaking seconds out of it for that event...
Last edited by Wingman703; 06-15-2023 at 12:53 AM.
I got home from Barber with a hefty laundry list of items to knock out over the next month. Some of the more notable things:
ONE, I repeat, ONE axle boot was split and slinging grease slightly. I pulled it out with every intention of just replacing that one boot, but I got a little excited and ended up rebuilding both axles, as well as assembling a spare axle out of assorted parts I had around.
My hood was falling apart. Its an OEM hood with the skeleton chopped out, and the vents cut out with an angle grinder. When I first built it I just spaced the vents down with little pegs of metal and JB welded them in place, but these would frequently break off and leave me with floppy hood vent syndrome.
I revised this design and did triangle inserts instead. Much more surface area for the JB weld to bond to, and adds some much needed stiffness to the hood as well. While it was off I cleaned and repainted it as it had a great deal of greasy fingerprints stained into it. White hood+dirty, frantic paddock repairs don't mix.
Don't mind the zipties holding part of the hood together. Its a feature, not a bug.
Car had been severely fuel starving under a quarter tank in sustained left handers(i.e, T6/7 at Barber). Could enter a corner, maintenance throttle though the apex, then as I put the pedal back down fuel pressure would vanish and car would violently backfire. Running the car at more then a half tank would solve this, but for obvious reasons I don't like requiring 5 extra gal of fuel ballest.
I stumbled across and old FB thread from Bronson who had similar issues, and had quite ingeniously devised a siphon to pull fuel from its sloshed position in the far right hand of the tank and throw it back under the pickup using nothing but an off the shelf venturi and the pressure from the return line. Photo stolen from said FB thread:
Bronson said this solution had completely solved his slosh issues at low fuel levels, so I copied this design and installed it into my own tank.
My gauge cluster is a Pi dash running Tunerstudio, hooked directly into the Megasquirt. As the Pi dashes HATE being "forced power cycled"(i.e, abruptly cutting power off to shut them down), I had been using a MausBerry circuits board to initiate proper startup/shutdowns. Feed the MB board constant 12v and ground, trigger it with a switched 12v, install some basic code and it just worked™. Until the MB circuit board stopped working, and apparently MB has gone completely dark as they no longer ship items, respond to emails, or do anything you would expect. Oh, and this is the second board that's died on me, real annoyance. The boards aren't protected against voltage spikes/drops at all, so when cranking it... does something to the board that kills it over time. Dunno, above my head.
I found an OK solution in the MoPower UPS board, it's not nearly as clean a solution as the MB and took me a few days to program a working startup/shutdown switch, but it works 90% of the time. Dead MS board on the left, not dead Mopower board on the right.
The Mopower board lacks the nice and clean 12V inputs the MS had, so my solution was to essentially tell it "when voltage less than 13.8 for X seconds, shutdown, when voltage greater then 14.1, turn on". When engine starts, alternator kicks in, voltage climbs to 14.5, MoPower turns on. When engine is off, voltage drops under 14v after a few seconds, and it triggers shutdown. Its a little annoying as I can't indepently power on the dash to check coolant/intake temps when sitting in grid with engine off, but it's the best solution I've come up with. A more tech savvy friend suggested powering the Mopower board off a 24v converter that I can independently control(as the board is rated for up to 32v), but I don't have a 24v converter in the car anymore and my solution works well enough for now. The ideal solution would be an AIM or similar motorsports dash, but thats $$$$ and I'm into the Pi setup for less then $200(although I've been told the price of Pi's has exploded post 2020).
For anyone using something similar, my startup/shutdown code for running the Mopower is below.
Car's always had a bit of push to it with the small, 4" flat splitter. Last year at Norton I had destroyed my splitter ramps during that whole "ate a ditch run 1" debacle, and just never got around to getting new ones installed. With the splitter ramps it had been neutral-ish, but still pushy.
I decided to go big and ditch the heavy, ugly plywood splitter. Instead I went down to my local Lowes Racing and picked up a large sheet of 1/2" insulation foam. Some cutting, glueing and eyeballing later I had a foam core to lay carbon over.
Two layers of carbon on the bottom, two on the top, some extra material at structural points and the leading edge for strength. Power went off at one point so sat there huffing epoxy fumes in the dark, great fun. I "kept it simple"(lol) by doing wet layups, no vacuum bagging.
As always, a learning experience. Definitely should have just made the splitter blade flat, then added the tunnels and sticky uppy bits later instead of laying it all as one. Those curves are soooo hard to work epoxy into/get the carbon to lay, even with spray adhesive. Its a solid 7/10 in terms of finish and aesthetics, but its large, strong, and light.
For reference, the old plywood splitter(26lbs) with the new carbon splitter(18lbs), an 8lb savings with double the effective surface area, ramps, and fences instead of just a flat sheet.
The last time I worked with carbon I built a really bad quality(but effective!) wing that broke after 5 months of sitting in the sun with no clearcoat. Becuase once every decade I am capable of learning from mistakes, I again went down to Lowes Racing and picked up a can of helmsman deck clearcoat. Only downside, it has a yellowish tint to it once cured, but hopefully after 4 coats it will do all the anti-UV things.
I added some of those snazzy professional awesome graphite rods to the corners(not pictured) for some additional support, the carbon had more flex then I would like when 14" away from a mounting point. The center, only 5" away from a mount, was plenty strong.
Also built a new, larger, hopefully improved diffuser out of 10mm alumalite. This time with a more effective ramp angle, stakes, better mounting, and not out of 3x repurposed scrap aluminum sheeting that flapped around in a light breeze.
This latest slew of upgrades was targeted specifically at/for the Chasing the Dragon hillclimb, which happens this weekend. I did some calculations and determined the following:
After adding the turbo, I've been consistently dropping 5 seconds at each event when compared to N/A K24 times.
Road Atlanta I dropped 5 seconds limited to 145mph and really bad, not turbo gearing.
Pine Mountain I dropped 5 seconds, and probably could have dropped more if I had not-5-year-old tires.
Norton I dropped 7 seconds and was on R7's instead of A7's, at a course that needs hot tires turn 1.
If we assume I can drop 5 seconds at Dragon, since 80% of the course is run flat out foot to the floor, I'm looking at being 2 seconds UNDER the current Hill record. (Record- Cody Pucket's 111.1, last year I ran 113.9). Granted, I expect Cody to find pace as he knows the hill now, and Justin Reed in his Goblin kitcar last year had both mechanical issues and was on Nankangs, but has been smashing hill records on A7's this year. If Mark Aubele's newishly swapped DCT Mustang behaves, he's absolutely going to be in the thick of things as well.
Regardless, I think we are going to see at least 4 people with good chances of going under 109 seconds at Dragon, assuming good weather.
I really, really want that Dragon KOTH sword trophy, and I think I have a dam good chance at getting it this weekend. High elevation, momentum course that favors forced induction, light aero cars that can dance though the bumps.
Catch yall on the flip side, and be sure to sub to my onlyfans for more feet pics
Its funny, 85% of the comments I got about that picture online were about my feet. In hindsight, it was a genus move to distract people from looking at my mediocre carbon work.
Well the weekend at Chasing the Dragon didn't quite go as planned...
I'll go ahead and get this part out of the way early, another P2 in class. Added to the collection of 2/3rd place finishes. Yeah, its not... bad... but... gah. Dragon was the one course I figured I could take a P1 at. But Dragon is a very abusive course, and no matter how thoroughly I prep the car for it, something always breaks. This weekend was no different.
I didn't get a chance to really put the car though it paces with the new splitter/diffuser setup. I made one attempt the week prior to the event, but got hit with massive thunderstorms just as I arrived in the mountains. Lacking HVAC to keep the windshield clear or really any tread on the tires, I scrubbed that attempt. As a result, the traditional Friday night Dragon run was my first chance to shake the car down. Even on street tires, she felt gooood, extra sticky in mid to high speed sweepers, no painful understeer in lower speed corners, excellent traction out of corners. Really disappointed there weren't any sport bikes out that I could bully, but she was an absolute joy to drive that night, leaving me with good feelings for the weekend.
Saturday dawned and we had a GORGEOUS course. Dry, clean, warmish, it was ideal. I set the boost to wastegate for the first run and didn't go ***** out, but didn't go quite as fast as I had expected with a 117 second time. My PB with a N/A K24 last year being a 113.9.
The rest of the weekend turned into a bit of a struggle to find time. Dropped a few seconds on medium boost, but it wasn't till last run of Saturday I finally turned it all the way up to max boost(which is balanced right on the edge of the clutch slip) and ran a 111.2. Respectable, a new PB, but not the time I was expecting or hopeing to run. My competition in class wasn't that far away with a 110.8, so I figured I would be able to catch up the second day.
One thing to note, by my second or third run on Saturday, the car started to feel... well.. a little unsettled. The night before on the Dragon it had felt so planted no matter what I threw at it, but now it just felt nervous and a little skittish over bumps. Some of the more minor bumps toward the lower section of the hill started really kicking the car around under power, forcing me to lift more then I wanted to. The very bumpy uphill esses, which are normally taken near flat, I actually had to resort to riding the brakes and pedaling the car to keep the rear somewhat controlled. I chalked it up to the bumps being a little worse this year and me being more cautious with all the extra power. I added as much wing angle as I could with the second element and stiffened up the shocks some and this helped, but really I should have realized that something had changed on the car.
Overnight, heavy thunderstorms rolled though. We arrived to a damp, but drying course Sunday morning. Not a biggie, rain and popup showers is fairly common in this area of the NC mountains. As long as we got cars on course and no further rain fell, the road would be dry by lunch. I made two passes before lunch at low boost just to help dry things out, but after lunch we indeed had a dry course again and I turned it back up, teething at the bit to find some additional time.
The car felt worse. I couldn't really put a finger on it at the time, but the nervousness over bumps that had been somewhat calmed by the shock and wing adjustments the day before was back, and worse. I got kinda pissed at my inability to find time, thinking the instability and lack of grip was all in my head, that the car had time, I just needed to suck it up and keep the right foot planted though the scary bits.
T1, the background of the picture below, is a mild left hander that's taken flat in pretty much every car. I really, really should have known that there was something seriously wrong when I found myself both short shifting 3rd though it and having to countersteer to make it though.
But I didn't stop to think or check the car over, I just mentally yelled at myself to stop being a wuss after running a time two seconds off my PB from the day before, rolled down the hill, and hopped right back in line to go back up for the final time.
Anyone else spot the issue? Because I was too focused trying to stay on the course to notice what was happening right behind me(no I'm not talking about the civic).
Did my burnout, rolled to start line for the final run. Checked my switches. Stuck it in gear. Nailed the launch. Grabbed second... and it completely fell on its face.
Watch the video, it's easier explained that way.
While that set of keepers was the first to fail, most of the intake valves were not far behind. I can only be glad the valve didn't fully drop and put a hole in the piston.
"But wait!" I can hear you saying. "The motor eating itself wouldn't have made the car feel unstable, just slower! No way you felt that!"
And you would be correct! ding ding ding! But look what I discovered when I was sitting at the emergency pulloff, silently fuming to myself about a(in my mind) subpar showing for the weekend, waiting to roll back down the mountain:
Both wing mounts were almost completely ripped out of the wing. To get this out of the way first, while this is a Nine Lives wing, THIS IS NOT A FAILURE FROM THE WING MANUFACTURER!
I do not have the standard Miata kit from Ninelives. I have a larger 70" wing, with their "DIY" mounts. I used these to mount the wing both higher and farther back. As a result, the truck rails see much, much more stress then the smaller, less aggressively mounted miata wing kit puts into them. My truck rails have cracked in the past, but never massively- I simply welded them back together and moved on. I had noted a very small crack starting to form Saturday- did not think much of it, thinking it would grow very slowly. Due to the very, very bumpy/rough nature of the course and the higher speeds I had this year, the crack(s) grew much faster then expected, the truck rail completely failed, and the wing was allowed to rock back and forth. After a few runs of being stressed horizontally, the welded mounts on the wing started to give. When I finally noticed, the wing could be pushed back and forth 20* or so.
This completely explains why the car felt so nervous and unsettled the more the weekend went on. Watching my gopro footage from Sunday, I can see the wing shifting around in my rearview mirror, especially in the esses and sweepers. In a way, its a good thing the motor died when it did, or there's a very good chance the wing would have completely separated at some point during that final run. Which could have been catastrophic.
Again, I want to stress this is not a mounting design failure from Nine Lives, and I've never seen/heard of a normal Miata kit suffering this issue. Going forward, I will build chassis mounts to reinforce my trunk rails and prevent this from happening again.
I've been very fortunate that the majority of the companies whose parts I put on the car back their products.
When my Supermiata clutch disk exploded, they sent me a replacement at no charge.
When my Kpower K24 oil pickup failed, they sent me the V2 design at no charge.
I reached out to Johnny, owner of Ninelives, with pictures of the failure, only asking for the proper filler material to use to reweld it, fully intending to fix it myself. He told me to bring it by and he would reweld it himself(I'm local to their HQ). Since I trust their welding more than my own, I did just that and dropped by their shop. When he saw it in person, he said it could be repaired, but would look ugly, and cut/welded me up a brand new wing right there, as well as gave me the newer upgraded V2 secondary element, at absolutely no charge. Told me to keep the broken one and hang it on a wall, it was one of the original wings he sold when he still ran 9Lives out of his home garage and it deserved a nice retirement. So less then 24 hours after the event was over, I had a brand new, replacement wing in hand.
Sometimes... a little perspective helps. On the drive home from the event, I could do nothing but stew about how the weekend didn't go perfectly my way. The car didn't behave like I had wanted it to, I had some kind of major motor malfunction(at the time I didn't know the cause), I almost had a massive aero disaster, I had failed to claim P1 at my strongest course. It just felt like a **** weekend.
But that's the wrong way to view it.
Yes, I had a fairly serious motor failure. But it didn't damage the motor beyond repair, and it only lost me one run instead of a full weekend. Steal a valve from my spare motor, throw some aftermarket springs/retainers in, and she will fire right back up stronger than before.
Yes, I almost snapped my wing off. But the manufacture stood behind something that wasn't their fault and provided me what I needed to put everything back together, better than before.
Yes, I didn't get that P1 in class or that King of the Hill that I so desperately wanted. But I dragged a broken car across the line in a damm good P4 overall, with a time that would have broken last years hill record, and I still have a mostly unbent car sitting peacefully in the garage.
So really, I can't complain. It was a dang good weekend. Yeah, I want more, I wanna go faster, I feel like there was time left on the table, but I always feel like that after an event. It's what keeps me coming back, the feeling there's still more to be done, more time to be found, more speed to be had.
Oh and aero is cool. Check out this sweet rooster tail formed from dust!
Yeah, sometimes life doesn't follow the scripts we write, but ... if that wing had come off at high speed, it would have been a lethal missile for a corner worker, and possibly sent the car into scenery. That was GOOD result compared to what might have happened, ditto the engine. AND you got on the leader board still! Win! Have a cat!
I love your thread man, and I know how it feels to lose when you can and should win. That's how racing goes, and is why we do it. We develop our cars so much it's easy to forget how insane it is what we're doing until things aren't working quite right. I was fighting a bushing issue last year that I didn't even know was happening, which made my car extremely unstable. Supermiata stood by their product as well and sent me the upgraded replacements and the car is dialed again.
This post is a huge advertisement for 9 live racing. Good on them to hook it up and keep you out there using their products to win! Keep us posted on the motor, I'm sure you'll have it back together in no time.
Check out this weiner at 16:45... I heard they follow his onlyfans.
Wow, that feels like so long ago.
Yeah, Pine mountain, they were going around doing brief interviews with a handful of people. Quick 2-3 talk about the car, get some B roll. Cool to see it finally came out.
FYI, Cody, the Camaro they interview after me, is the one who's been consistently winning the SU class every event. Cool dude.
Host of updated items. Need to put some of this down or it gets forgotten. To start off...
Valve springs to fix the valve float! Handily enough, 4Piston makes a kit for the R40 heads that includes springs, retainers, and keepers. Perfect.
I didn't realized when ordering this spring kit also replaces the spring seat... which means valve seals come out. So new OE valve seals also thrown in. I took this opportunity to check the lash on all cylinders as well- so much easier to do on a Honda motor! No shims or calipers required, just a wrench, flathead, and feeler gauge. Most cylinders were within tolerance, a handful were a few thou out, and of course the one with the new(used) valve was way out of spec.
So shiny. So pretty. Hopefully no more float.
While the front timing cover was off, I fabbed up something that might help with the oil starving under high brake loads. I'm seeing oil pressure drop as low as 5-7PSI under heavy, sustained braking, even with the sump overfilled by 2 quarts. Probably not motor killing, but unnerving to have oil pressure warnings flashing at you as your starting to tip the throttle back in.
Allegedly this bit of metal acts as a "dam" and prevents oil from climbing up the timing cover under high load. This idea was mentioned to me by Joshua Briggs of Brigg's Motorsport, but some research found similar solutions dating back a decade, like here on some older K20a.org threads: https://www.k20a.org/threads/z3-timi...olution.97940/
I "custom cut" mine out of some spare stainless. Since it was a smidge thicker then what would be ideal(16-14g ish, could probably better fitment going to 18/20g) I also trimmed the bottom of the timing cover so it could still sit flat to the oil pan and the mounting bolt holes would line up. I made sure to use excessive amounts of RTV in this area to fight leakage.
The jury is still out on weather this bit of kit helps or not. I have not been able to track test it with real braking thus far, but I have not been able to kick the oil alarm on the street, which I have been able to do before under the right circumstances. Its certainty didn't seem to make the issue any worse, so there's that.
Valve float and possibly oil starvation knocked out, next my attention was turned to the wing mounts. Its been proven several times(with near disastrous results) that relying on only the trunk rails simply doesn't cut it for my setup. So I built some brackets out of thick 2024 aluminum to take the majority of the load off the trunk rails, and transfer it directly into the frame rails.
The newly revised wing mount directly impinges on the stock battery location, so I had to move it and build a new mount for it. I ended up rotating it 90* and moving it slightly inboard. This allowed me to use most of the battery cabling that was already in place, while giving it more protection in case of a rear side impact. I've seen more then one spec miata battery combust after hard hits to this location that ruptured the battery...
And all tied down in its new location, nice and snug, not occupying the same space as the wing mount. For anyone interested, this is a $70, 230 cca lawnmower battery from Ace, P/N: 8U1L. Cranks the engine over just fine, I keep it on a tender when not in use, does not fit OEM terminals or mounting location.
Wing's now sturdy, valves not floating, battery secured... time to go hillclimbing!
Oh... the final hillclimb event of the year had already passed me by. The month turnaround time from Dragon to the season finale at Flag Rock proved to be to tight for me to have the car back together and ready in time. I *could* have probably managed to throw the car together, but it would have been a case of finishing it Thursday night, loading it directly onto the trailer, and heading out tired and with an untested car. Not worth it for an event site we'd already been to once this year, and a season class result that wouldn't have changed even if I had taken P1 and the other guy had DNF'ed. I was locked in to second place regardless.
But I couldn't stand sitting still at home while everyone else was repeatedly running rapidly up the hill. So I volunteered to work a corner, got assigned to the start line, and had an incredibly relaxing weekend waving all my buddies off the line. Man, I hadn't realized how stressful and busy an event weekend really is until I showed up without a car to manage. Not having to check the car over, add fuel, check timing, lend a hand in paddock, psych myself up for a run, check tires, check the car, rinse, repeat for two days... It was so nice to just be there, minimal responsibilities, people to joke with, racecar's I didn't have to fix all around...
The hillclimb season over for 2023, I turned my sights to prepping the car for the last two track events of the year, SCCA TT Nationals at NCM rapidly approaching in a few weeks, and SCCA TT at Road Atlanta in November.
The massive Afco's up front are awesome. No fade, great stopping power, stop after stop after stop. However, I did have a fair amount of pad taper, and I could tell the pads were operating on the hotter side on track. While its not *strictly* needed, I know I can get better pad life and thermal margin with brake ducts.
It was a bit of a headache to reintegrate them into my ducting with the intercooler, splitter ramps, and charge piping all demanding the same real estate, but they are back. I think I'm going to need to change up the routing at some point or go to hardline for some sections to keep it out of the way of the tire, as these get pinched quite badly with a 15x10 at full lock. But they should do the trick for a few events.
I also don't like the amount of air they are stealing from the intercooler/radiator. Cool conditions, probably not going to be an issue. But seeing how the car struggled to remain cool at full boost in June at Barber with 100% of inlet airflow directed to the heat exchangers, I only see that becoming harder to manage with air being siphoned off to feed the brakes. I might move to bumper inlets with QD's in the future, as I've seen a design I quite like and think the drag trade off from additional bumper inlets should be worth it for keeping the car and brakes independently cool at full tilt.
The rears brakes, while not melting, have also seen significantly shorter pad life, both due to the increased speed and the introduction of ABS. I have NB1 "non-sport" pads and rotors, and never wanted to move to NB2 hardware due to the lower selection/more expensive pads. After having first hand experience with the Wilwood powerlite calipers up front for many years, I didn't want to put them on the rear, not to mention the kit is like $700? Bleh.
Turns out Goodwin(support the Hypermiata!) offers a bracket that relocates the stock caliper and allows you to run NB2 "sport" rotors, whiile keeping the NB1 pad selection. I found out later that Supermiata also sells a similar bracket just... in orange. The Goodwin ones aren't quite as cool in blue
The NB2 rotors are a good bit larger than NB1 rotors, so they should shed/deal with heat better, as well as give the rear axle some additional torque for the ABS to play with. Its apparently only a half inch difference between the two, but the NB2 rotors seem huge when you hold them side by side. Must be the camera angle or something, I dunno...
There's more to catch up on, but that's as far as I'll go for the moment. Should have a final slew of updates in a few weeks.
I did some modification to the headlight covers to feed the turbo inlet fresh air. IAT's have never been bad, despite having the most generic of all generic china intercoolers, but I'm sure additional fresh air can't hurt anything.
To balance out the look, I punched a similar hole in the drivers side and routed some scat tubing to cool the alternator. I've had one alternator die on me, and repair shop said it was an overheated rectifier, not the regulator like I had suspected. So hopefully cooling the alternator down allows me to get more then a year out of them.
So the last major item to address was the clutch. When I opted to swap the Supermiata ceramic disk for the organic, I didn't anticipate making more then N/A K power. Obviously things have changed slightly since that. In short, the organic disk, rated to 290ft/lbs, was not up to the task of dealing with the torque a turbo K makes. It had started off holding ~14PSI worth, but it was slipping more and more, even being gentle with the boost ramp in.
So I said fuzz to this "make the transmission last" nonsense. I frankensteined together a friction disk/pressure plate combination on the cheap. Kept my SM pressure plate, and picked up an ACT 6 puck ceramic disk off of Goodwin. ACT rates this disk to 405ft/lbs when paired with their "EXTREME" pressure plate(they advertise it in all caps like that too, that's how you know it means business), so I figured it would be good for at least that paired with the SM plate.
Didn't want to bother with all that "pull the engine to get to the transmission" nonsense, with the turbo stuff added it's way too much work then I can be bothered with. So I did it the 'ol fashioned way, laying on my back under jackstands, giving birth to a transmission.
I was glad I opted to swap this disk out when I did. K vibrations are real! Not the first disk I've seen shaken to bits and cracking just from the buzzy buzzy K's. And being asked to hold 100ft/lbs more than its rated for probably didn't do it any favors.
Flywheel looks like its been through hell as well. Did I throw a new friction ring at that? Absolutely not, I am spending exactly zero more dollars on Miata driveline items at this point! The ceramic disk will grind down the high spots or something.
In went the ACT disk. In went the now 4 year old, but still holding strong Supermiata pressure plate. And back to benchpressing transmissions, what fun!
Happy to report that with the replacement of the clutch disk, we are now back at full power, plus some. She holds everything I feel comfortable throwing at it, no stifling the boost back, just letting it eat. 350ft/lbs of torque at 3500RPM feels GREAT after months of holding it back. I added some more boost until it ran out of injector and I ran out of ***** doing steet pulls in 5th.
Of course, this will eventually come at a price. The transmission is NOT happy with the revised workload, and I'm far exceeding what is "safe" on a stock 6spd. My solution is... **** it, send it, when it grenades 4th gear, it grenades 4th gear. I'll bring my spare 5spd with me to events and the toolage needed to swap it. Talking to a friend that ran his 5sp around the 400hp level, the 5spd lasts about an hour... if it's a "good" one. The "not as good" ones lasted... 15(track) minutes. So if I can get 4-5 laps out of a 5spd, its done its job at that point to get me through an event.
The car currently is loaded up on the trailer, ready to head 6hrs to NCM in the morning for SCCA TT Nationals. Running in U1 for SCCA TT, hope to have a good showing in both it and UTCC.
The realistic goal is to go sub 2:10... the ideal goal is to go sub 2:05. NCM is very, very tricky and tough to master from what I've heard. While I've been studying video, I know it's going to be a tall ask to hit the ground running there. If I can make it through the weekend without blowing sound or swapping a transmission... it might be a small maracle.
04-16-2023, 09:59 PM
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