What is the cost on your setups? I'm thinking about doing one of these, but welding generally is expensive, and I'd have to design the jig. If your price is high,then it might be worth it for me to compete. If its fairly low, its hard for me to justify the time to do it.

The big thing about these manifolds is that regaurdless of how pretty they look, and how great the mandrel bends are, the turbo is the restriction point. So even if it has short 90* elbows its going to perform about the same as the elaborate design.

 

I am also very interested in this thread. Subscribing.

 

Subscribed.

Interested in the brakes and Turbo ITB system.

Chris

 

lightweight adjustable control arms?

didn't we discuss making ring and pinion gears?

off-center front license plate mount?

 

We did discuss ring and pinion gears, I think i'll be happy with 3.9s though and they're not too hard to get ahold of.
I don't know if 3.63s would be too much for autocross at the track at 300hp or not. I do know that if you could produce a bunch of 3.63s and price them from 200-300 you would quite a few. Such a complicated process though, would be a task hitting that price point.

 

I can help you with this. Do you want street tire tests or slicks?

 

I'm sure Apexonyou will help with traction bars as well, he did run a 11.999 or something like that IIRC.

 

Dipstick handles that don't snap off.

 

 

Mazda Miata Parts & Accessories at MiataMania.com

 

...and aren't $40 just for the handle

FWIW, there was a guy on the 300ZX board I was on who made nice replacement dipsticks with a billet handle that were like $26 for the entire dipstick. Granted, you will burn your hand touching it with bare skin if the engine is hot, but at least you had something solid to grab.

 

Don't like grabbing the broken nub on the dipstick? Friend bought a brand new dipstick from moss motors IIRC. Had it installed for a day, broke the ****** off. I gave up. *shrug*

 

Actually, a PO of my never-going-to-be-a-track car drilled through the stub and inserted a swivel-snap (if you are familiar with fishing tackle at all). It works as providing something to grab onto, but is pretty cheesy.

 

good quality, and under $150 6 speed short shifter. I am yet to find anything other than e-bay knock off short shifters for my 6 speed for anything under 200 bucks. 150 would be the sweet spot and i think quite a bit could be sold.

 

I've said this in PM to you before, but I'll post it here anyways.

Gears For 5 Speed. Cheap.

I know the manufacturing process is what usually makes them pricey. I'd do some research and try to figure out how cheap they could be made. IE-what cutters you'd need, what machine, how broaches, etc. There would be huge demand if you made a cheap set of gears that were stronger than the factory gears. And you could change up the ratio a bit while you're at it.

 

If you make a loop-style Inconel dipstick handle, not only would it be the most baller handle ever, it would have very low heat transfer.

 

Or titanium, like 6Al4V. Lower thermal conductivity still.

+1 on the 5-speed gear set. It would have to be inexpensive in order to 'compete' with the used 6-speed option. Apples and oranges, sure, but the option is there. I did some gear design engineering way back when. There is a lot to consider, even just for materials and hardness treatments.

How about an inexpensive set of bolt-on turbine heat shields?

 

+1 on this; including the possibility of changing the gear ratio! I'd be all over it!

 

I can't wait to sneak in a couple of silver painted copper units

I can do the dip stick pretty easy.

The gear set is a serious problem for alot of reasons.

I have never designed gears, and its a bit of an art... thats a big one . For the most part I have a solid understanding of a lot of systems on a car from working with them over the past 10 years. The transmissions though, I've never gotten into.

Beyond me not being really comfortable designing something like that... The big hurdle is the manufacturing. It is so ridiculously expensive to make the tooling. Then its not exactly simple to cut, and everything is held to a very tight tolerance. If someone would really like to head this up who is an experienced engineer in the matter then maybe I could help push it along. Something that big is not something I'd like to go alone on though. Making multiple precision gears, writing a flawless process spec, and getting it right on the first shot is more then I think I could do.

Short shifter I could do, but I don't have a 6 speed. Anyone want to yank their 6 speed shifter and send it to me?

As for traction bar testing, thanks for putting in the interest. We could use testing on street's first, if it goes ok then upgrade to slicks. I'm trying to think how we would actually test this, besides it feels right. Do you have a data logger, or a launch box? The best way is to see it in the 60' stops if we knew launch R.P.M. really well. Although with the way my car hops coming off the line, any improvement would be really noticeable as long as it was even close. Getting consistency out of these vehicles is a real problem for me, and I've got several bracket class wins in other cars. It drives me nuts that I can't get mine to hook.

Aren't there some lightweight control arms floating around out there somewhere?

License plate mount would be a no brainer, just need a following big enough to warrant the time.

 

What about just putting spherical bearings in the rear control arms, the way Progress is offering for Hondas. May need to reinforce the subframe brace pickup points to handle lateral loads better (the detail design of those joints sucks). That should take care of the fore-aft cycling, then you just need good shocks. I have a friend who loaded spherical bearings throughout his Corvette suspension and made a massive improvement.

As for testing, the easiest way to read wheel speed is ABS sensors, if you can get an ABS car to test with and log its sensor signals.