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Even one of the best swap kits out there still has issues that to me, just represent too much compromise. Pay to play involves more than just your wallet, and while I'll spend the cash I haven't yet been willing to pony up the other costs.
Guys. I did it.
I, in a roundabout way, actually got a first place award!
Road Atlanta, 2023 SCCA Time Trials. Final event of the year.
The weather for the weekend looked like it would be perfect. Cool mornings in the low 40's, warming up to the mid 70's. Ideal for setting some smoking fast laps at my home track, Road Atlanta.
I came into the weekend ready to turn the car up to beyond its mechanical maximum, failures be damned. This was my turf, one of my favorite tracks, the first track I ever drove, and my constant benchmark for driver/car performance. I have the most laps here of any track I've been to, actually kind of know which way the track turns at T1, and when the stars align, can actually lay down a respectable lap.
Last year I showed up as my first time with a turbo and relearned how to drive a car with an actual torque curve, finding out in the process that a 6spd and 4.3 diff, while awesome for an N/A K powered car, was the complete wrong choice for a turbo car, maxing out at 140mph down the back straight and hammering limiter for several seconds, as well as having to constantly shift everywhere.
This year, instead of driving the car to the event, tires in tow, I came with a truck and trailer, tools, spares, anything I would potentially need. I came with a much more sorted car. A longer diff so it could really stretch its legs and stay in boost, ABS so I could hammer the tricky braking zones, and more aero so I could keep it planted in the high speed, high commitment corners.
And... to be honest... I really needed the return to a track I knew well, after having my confidence shattered by NCM. Entering the gates and climbing the T12 hill to the infield paddock was, in a weird way, like returning to my motorsports home.
Stake out a paddock spot. Say hello to new faces. Listen to the buzz of the ARRC racecars on track. Roll the car off the trailer and do final prep. Wave the other Miata-kind into the "fast miata only" zone. Breath deep. Its practice time.
I rolled onto grid for practice with a concise, concrete strategy. Use my street tires, some endurace 200tw 245 VR-1's, in practice to get a feel for the speeds of the car and set a reasonable lap for gridding, running wastegate pressure only to preserve the driveline for the real sessions. Then swap to my two year old R7's for the first competition session, and make a decision for which tire felt better to run the rest of the weekend on.
Of course, this plan falls apart when you remember that I'm an insanely impulsive, highly sporadic individual, who can be goaded into doing foolish things for the dumbest of reasons. So in this case, I ran a handful of laps at wastegate, then thought "meh, feels kinda slow", so I reached over and flipped the switch for the boost controller on... why not run some practice laps like its a real session to get a feel for the car at middling power? I've street tuned the car up to 25psi, so a lap or two at 16psi should be fine! Right? Right!
Whoooa nelly, yeah she rips when you kick the boost controller on. You can hear the motor come alive from doubling the boost as I go under the T11 bridge at 7 seconds in.
The lap is sloppy from me not being ready for the additional speed, but the numbers and results are good- 150mph into 10A feels stable, the brakes stay functional for multiple laps, the splitter isn't cavitating like I feared it would at speed, the ignition and fuel systems are holding up, and man it DRAAGGGS those annoying porsches, putting them in their proper place. Turning a sloppy 1:31 on street tires, man a sub 1:30 should be a cakewalk with some more laps and/or more boost.
In the drivers debriefing after the session, someone in a very fast GTR is complaining about unaware traffic and is asked "Oh, are you in the Miata? Man your fast" And it's all I can do to not bust out laughing as the questionee has to clarify that no, he is not some Miata, he is a mighty GTR! Life is good and the car has pace.
After swapping to the R7's and rolling to grid for the first timed session, I find myself in a GTR sandwich. Ok. Breath deep. Not the first time you've been surrounded by cars with 2x your horsepower. Just be calm, hit your marks, let the tires come up to temp gradually and
Ok! Not a good start, little eager there on old, cold tires. But you kept it out of the wall, refired it, popped around the track and back to pitlane real quick. Still need the seat time. Pit lane worker clears you back onto the track. Head down, find a clear spot, remember, still cool tires, spins third, take it easy, traffic coming up and-
****
SON OF A
YOU HAD TO WAIT TILL NOW FOR
My 6spd transmission decided that it had enough of my shenanigans, and it did indeed remove itself from the equation with a bang, scrape, bbrrrrrrrwwwaahhhhbrrrrrraaaaaaa.
1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th, and R remained functional, and as later when drained only one tooth came out of the box, I 100% believe this to be the classic case of 4th gear walking itself off the shaft. After almost exactly one year of various power levels between 200tq-400tw+, it's time came and the transmission called it quites within eyeshot of the season's finish line.
RIP 6spd, you served me well, but still let me down when I needed you most.
The weekend wasn't over for me though. While the 6spd had turned itself into a semi-functional 5spd, at home I had a REAL semi-functional 5spd left over from the initial days of Kswapping, already trimmed to fit a K, ready to slot right in.
So I loaded the car back onto the trailer, drove an hour and a half home, unloaded it into the garage, grabbed a quick bite to eat, and set to work. 45 min later, fueled by cheap pizza, Redbull and raw fury, I had no transmission in the car, and two transmissions on the garage floor.
Putting the 5spd in, filling it, and buttoning everything back up took more time then ripping it all apart, but three hours after pushing the car into the garage, I was doing a test lap of the neighborhood to recalibrate my speedo/gear calculations and loading it back on the trailer. As a bonus, I was able to take a shower and sleep in my own bed that night, as well as get an extra hour of sleep due to the time change. Which was sorely needed after the busy day, and the need to be up at 5am AGAIN to be at the track for our very, very early morning sessions.
Round two. Time to do it all again. Unprotected windshields had frosted over, and the temps hovered in the high 30's. To turn the tires from blocks of ice into something resembling rubber we stuck the tires in the tow vehicles and cranked the heat to maximum, then waited as long as possible before mounting them and heading to grid.
Once again, I hit the grid as the Miata meat to a GTR bun, with a clear, concrete plan. Crack out a banker lap on wastegate. It was still cold out, so do a few wastegate laps to really get the tires warm. Then, flip it up to 25psi, pray to god it holds for one lap, and bring it in safe.
Of course, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth... or untill the GTR gets punched in the mouth by the wall?
Cleanup took awhile. When they sent us back out everything was ice cold from sitting in pit lane, so I changed my plan again. There were still two sessions left in the day. Turn a handful of laps now at wastegate, learn the 5spd+3.6 diff gearing. It was looooong, but the gearing calculator maths told me it might require some awkward shift points. Figure it out, see if you want to do this on the R7's or VR-1's, then come back out next session when the track is a better temp, set one smoker of a lap, and rest on your laurels.
I don't know why, but I clipped the inside curb of T7 ever so slightly. It's not a curb you want or need to even touch. I NEVER touch that curb unless I'm trying to really rotate the car around traffic or fill someone's mirrors. But putting two wheels up there threw me out to the mercy of the T7 exit curbing, notorious for spinning corvettes and mustangs into the wall drivers right from lack of traction.
At that point I could have saved it. Get out of the throttle. Wait for the car to settle, scrap the already meh lap, traffic was over 20 seconds behind me so I had room to spare.
But I tried to fight it, thought I could save it.
Snap. I got it
Snap. I got it
Grass that's grass
Wall This is going to hurt
Impact.
Two seconds from initial T7 concrete to wall concrete.
2.4G on impact
59.4mph impact speed
Physically, I was fine. My helmet gave the halo a hefty wack, and there's marks on my helmet/hard top from them making contact together. I don't have memory of me talking to myself after shutting the car down, but I remember giving thumbs to the corner station and watching the cars buzz by for the remainder of the session until the flatbed showed up. Medical checked me out once back in paddock and gave me a clean bill of health. As far as motorsports incidents go, it really was a fairly minor one, but still enough to rattle me a little and leave my left side slightly stiff the next day. Don't skimp on safety kids!
The car... is not as well off.
I haven't dug into it to see the extent of the damage. From the outside, the wheel is destroyed, the wing mount and endplate is bent beyond repair, the diffuser is wrinkled, the trunk lid is kinked, and the rear quarter is pretty crushed. I'm assuming at a minimum the upper/lower control arms are bent and the knuckle is cracked, but I haven't looked past that at the diff or subframe. If the rear subframe mounts are still straight and the chassis isn't tweaked, this tub will be repaired and rebuilt, that much I promise. And I never make a promise to a girl, if I know I can't keep it.
I've been swamped by offers of parts and shells over the last day- anything from people offering to sell me fully caged tubs, full rear suspension, or the one dude in socal trying to sell me a "brand new" 5spd transmission for $500? That ain't it chief.
I don't know when the car will be back in fighting form, but I can promise that it, or some version of it, WILL be back, and with the tools needed to actually fight and be competitive in classes dominated by purpose built sports cars, thousand horsepower monsters, and motors large enough to power boats.
For now, it sits shoved in its corner of the garage. After the last month of solid work on it, I have no current motivation to work on it, and with no events planned, no deadlines to meet. Even before this little incident, 2024 was murky at best for me. The car needs sooo much to be reliable again, and miata transmissions or diffs are most definitely not the answer to any of its questions.
It needs a cage so, so bad. This was already high on my list, but this near miss only reinforces that. This car will not see a track surface again without some steel tubing.
In recognition of my unwillingness to give up, willingness to always lend aid to fellow competitors, and ability to stay tucked out of the way on track and not cost others time when my car breaks, I was awarded one of the more coveted SCCA awards, the Spirit of Time Trials.
So at last, after a season of always being on the podium, but falling just shy of that top step, I end it with a DNF, and a weird kind of "first place" award. Grease stained pants and all.
2023, yall.
Hey man, it happens. Glad you are good, and the car definitely doesn't look that bad. Even some different overfenders will hide the body work if you wanna make it look nice again.
Accurate photo of Ed receiving an email containing a 25 item list of different, possibly duplicated, small, and easy to confuse part numbers at 4:30 on a Friday, along with an admission you probably fucked up the order list and need an adult to double check your work:
As a former "Spirit of" award winner myself, hats off to you. While I didn't get the results I wanted, there is always some satisfaction in knowing that despite everything going wrong, you thrashed as hard as you could and kept going. Looking forward to seeing what you come up for next season. Sounds like its time to grab a T101a or Jericho box!
I'm curious to see your take on "what's next" from a transmission perspective.. I know we've chatted about this privately on the side for a bit. My mind is pretty well made up when the time comes, but I'm not ready to spend that kind of coin at the moment haha
I told myself I wouldn't touch the car for a few weeks. I didn't need it mobile after I dragged it off the trailer and into its garage spot. But after just a few days of walking past it, I gave in. I had to know the extent of the damage.
As it turns out, it wasn't as bad as feared. The lower control arm, knuckle, hub, as well as the associated suspension bushings were all trashed, as well as a wing upright and rear quarter panel bent beyond repair. But the diff was unharmed, the subframe wasn't bent, and the frame rails were straight. Even my precious Xida's were unscathed!
The rear quarter was an absolute mess though. I didn't touch it for a bit while I hunted down the suspension parts I needed. Supermiata saved my *** with bushings- I had sadfab stuff on all four corners. Remembering the ~6 month lead time when I ordered them way back in ~2019, and word on the street being that they had a 2 year lead time, I knew there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell I could get just one corners worth of bushings. I... admittedly abused Supermiata's "replacement bushing" option, intended for ordering one or two individual bushings, and ordered the corners worth I needed. It was a headache, both for me, Ed, and whoever had to pick and pack that order. I ended up just buying an entire kit, so now I'll have spares on hand should I decide to go wall tapping in the future.
The Miata community is awesome. A local buddy gave me a lower control arm and knuckle off a parts car for the cost of a few brewski's. Bronson, CEO of Brofab, gifted me a pair of his stronger Yaris hubs for the rear, so I'm happy to say I'm rocking Brofab hubs on all four corners now. I definitely should have had the rears already, but they kept getting kicked down the list. No more excuses.
And for that rear quarter... I debated taking it to a "proper" body shop for awhile. Then one night I said **** it, grabbed a 2x4 and hammer, and went to town to see what I could do on my own.
Ironically, this is the same corner I slammed into a guardrail during the 2019 Chasing the Dragon Hillclimb. It's already seen its fair share of trauma and shoddy bodywork(I hate bodywork).
A half hour of beating the quarter panel later I had something that was rough, but vaughly approximated the shape of an OE rear end... so I just kept going with a mixture of hammering, welding pull tabs, and ratchet strapping. Getting the replacement rear taillight to line up and mostly sorta fit was the biggest hurdle, but after a few days of on and off work(I hate bodywork), I had something reasonably straight.
And then ample amounts of bondo... and then sanding... and more bondo... and sanding(I hate bodywork)... and juuuuust some more bondo...
And after I got tired of sanding, I hit it with some OEM colored spraypaint. Close enough of a match for a racecar, and by this point, I was sick of bodywork(I hate bodywork).
I elected to not repair the damage to the flair and wing endplate... battle scars, or more aptly, a reminder to not do dumb things.
And so, a month and a half after I pulled it off the trailer, hobbled and broken, I drove it for a fairly extensive systems check, enjoying the instant torque and whoosh noises. Man, I needed that. Car's a blast, even with the boost "turned down" to 5spd shredding ~350whp.
And now's the fun part... Plans and upgrades for 2024!
Except this is where it gets a little depressing for me.
See, the part about fielding a mildly fast car is... this ***** expensive. Even using "cheap" OE driveline parts, trying to keep things alive, stuff breaks. Items fatigue. And with a car capable of 150mph+, I'm not as willing to push component life limits or ignore smaller issues as I was when the car struggled to hit 100mph. For every hour on track, the car sees 4x that in maintenance. For every $600 track event, I'd have an equal amount of money dumped into fixing whatever had broken/was about to break(one of the reasons I love hillclimbing so much. Consumable costs/strain on the vehicle is much lower, for a greater thrill!), or hell, just keeping up with consumables. E85 doesn't grow on trees(corn is a grass, I had to google this), and this car sucks it down faster than a thirsty toddler sucks down their apple juice.
For the last 3 events this year, I've really just been in cost savings mode. Give it the minimum it needs to keep going and make it through a weekend, but no major upgrades to address weak links, no addressing some major design flaws in several systems... I've ran the same set of 3 year old take off's because dropping $1500 in new Hoosiers simply wasn't in the cards for the end of this year. It's been both frustrating, taking a cobbled together, un-optimized, undertired car to events, and exhilarating, laying down the times it has, knowing that there's so much more potential in it. At NCM it was .3 seconds shy of a 600whp civic on sticker A7's and a 700whp Shelby GT500. On old, worn tf out hoosiers with a turbo just begging to be turned up to more then sneezing pressure.
Looking at the spreadsheet of where I need to dump time and money into this car to get it to the competitive level I want it at... I came to the decision to take the 2024 season partially, if not completely, off.
It wasn't an easy choice, but I think it's the right one. Between cage work, driveline upgrades, electrical changes, cooling upgrades, oiling changes, and the normal off-season maintenance the car would demand anyway, I was ballparking $15-$20K to hit the ground running, plus countless hours in the garage turning that money into noise and fire. While a small sum to some, that's not something I had on hand, or was able to cough up anytime soon. I'd literally built the car faster than I could afford in the span of a year.
I'd much rather take some time off, and return with a car that can be pushed to the edge reliably and safely. No more flirting with the boost levels to try and keep transmissions alive. No more trying to ignore the concrete walls that surrounded my tin can of a chassis. No more 3 year old, narrow takeoff's for tires.
I don't plan to walk away from motorsports for a full year. I simply couldn't do that, this is what keeps me sane and 9/10ths of my social circles are automotive centered. I just won't be showing up in #117.
I may not show up at all for 2024 in this car, but when it does return, it will truly be with
Originally Posted by Wingman703
No more excuses.
Originally Posted by Supe
Looking forward to seeing what you come up for next season. Sounds like its time to grab a T101a or Jericho box!
Originally Posted by Padlock
I'm curious to see your take on "what's next" from a transmission perspective..
I did so, so much research into transmissions. Ultimately, nether a dogbox, or the BMW HP8 met my requirements. The choices I've made for a driveline are something that deserve its own post, as it's not a short discussion- I think I looked extensively into 7 different transmissions and three different differential options. I'll dive more into that once I actually start the process and have something more to show then just a wall of word vomit.
When things do kick off again, it will be spicy.
This here twin disk beauty is rated to 760ft/lbs. And it will not have a OE Miata transmission behind it...
Suffice it to say... I'm gonna need bigger injectors. 1050cc's just won't cut it
I support the strategy of taking time off the build the car "right". While it's sad not being on track with it for a period of time, it'll be worth it in the long haul...
I'm still curious as to what your plan of attack here is, so seeing as 8HP isn't your solution.. I'm revising my guess to this prior to the wall of technical vomit https://momentummotorsportshop.com/q...ntial-gearbox/
Considering an SCCA national champ in a dodge viper ACR (that he helped design) hit 1:26.5 at Road Atlanta, the fact that you built this entire car yourself in your garage in basically 1 year and managed to hit a 1:31 on crappy tires... is nothing short of amazing. Awesome work!
I almost gave up on my NB track build until I started following your thread. Safety is huge though. Roll cage and stronger hubs are a very good idea. Hubs especially with future, much stickier tires and a better drivetrain that consistently puts the power down. You also don't want a flywheel coming through the tunnel; a transmission shield might be a good idea.
Wild build very cool! One question for you.. Do you have an issue with your v-band nut on the vband clamp for the manifold->turbo connection coming loose with heat cycles? I have a G25-660 and it loosens up after a number of heat cycles.
I almost gave up on my NB track build until I started following your thread. Safety is huge though. Roll cage and stronger hubs are a very good idea. Hubs especially with future, much stickier tires and a better drivetrain that consistently puts the power down. You also don't want a flywheel coming through the tunnel; a transmission shield might be a good idea.
Bronson hubs on all four corners, and cage plans are in the works
Happy to hear this thread helped provide some motivation, it's always good to hear!
Originally Posted by SlowTeg
Do you have an issue with your v-band nut on the vband clamp for the manifold->turbo connection coming loose with heat cycles? I have a G25-660 and it loosens up after a number of heat cycles.
Yup, I had issues with pretty much every nut and bolt on the turbo/exhaust. Tried a variety of self locking nuts, but eventually they all would fail and loosen. I eventually drilled some nuts and safety wired everything- have not had anything loosen up since
Yup, I had issues with pretty much every nut and bolt on the turbo/exhaust. Tried a variety of self locking nuts, but eventually they all would fail and loosen. I eventually drilled some nuts and safety wired everything- have not had anything loosen up since
I found some titanium cross drilled nuts out of the UK that saved me from having to cross drill my own. The colors look amazing too.
11-06-2023, 11:52 PM
8
Dang!
