Why for?

 

Because Not gonna make MRLS, I was looking forward to seeing it Ryan.

 

So was I

But when it boils down to it, I don't want to rush to get it together and then have a list of things I want to go back to do better later right off the bat. It's all apart right now, now's the time to do it right.

 

Almost gave you a negative kitty for that one....

 

I know, sorry! But, MRLS is not the place to be shaking a fresh car down since our focus is connecting with attendees and giving as many people a couple fun laps around the track as possible. I'll be driving the ND most of the weekend so I'm OK with it

 

There is always next year.

 

Some goodies arrived.



As the list of things I want to keep an eye on with gauges kept growing, I realized I was going to end up with far more gauges than I wanted cluttering the interior up. Need a clean solution that does some of that monitoring work for me instead of needing to scan 8 gauges on every straight..

The new and improved plan comes in the form of the Racepak IQ3S dash. In the bottom of the photo is the OBDII interface cable, so it can pull a long list of info straight from the ECU. The black box is Racepak's USM (Universal Sensor Module) which you can run any of about 20 different types of sensors to and then that condenses all those signals into one and plugs into the dash with one connector. The dash can be set with warning values for each sensor so I can set up the main page without any of the extra clutter from the sensors and the dash will warn me if any of the sensors see something amiss.

 

Is there much data out there on LFX oiling issues (or preferably lack there of) on track?

I am building up a 99 wheel to wheel car that had a dry sump LS in it. A friend bought it for the motor and I took the chassis and everything else.

I am about to pull the trigger on getting my LS motor built but it seems that with out a dry sump it's just a matter of when (not if) it goes. I have been toying with going with the LFX which could be bought for the price of the dry sump system alone.

 

Not much info there yet. I think the Miata community will be putting the LFX through more track testing than it ever was in its original shell

We'll find out!

 

While the engine is out for the last time, I had some final things on the list to take care of in there. Modified/Limited classes allow the cage to pass through the firewall so... Not messing around any more, tying the shock towers into the chassis and cage

The inner tubes are removable for engine work, and assymetric to clear the brake master cylinder.



The end plan is for the center tubes to continue on the other side of the firewall to form an X and tie in to the cage on opposing corners. I'll finish that portion up later, but needed this part done so I can paint it and get the engine in there. For now, there's a temporary cross-tube behind the firewall tying the two together:



The tubes going to the corners tie in to a very strong part of the chassis, with a bit of additional gusseting:

 

I've got a set of assorted dimple die sizes if you need them.

 

I thought the consensus on the miata platform was that the sub frame took all the load and strut bracing wasn't necessary.....I know you are very well thought out in your mods and you factor in weight penalty of everything so am intrigued about why you have done this?

 

The Miata shock towers are decent, but they aren't perfect. You have several loads going into this area. Most directly, you have the spring load from a 16-18kg/mm spring in my case. But, you also have most of the forces from the subframe going into the frame rail on either side of the engine bay - and on the opposite side of the frame rail is the shock tower. By triangulating the shock towers with the chassis and cage you create a load path from the subframe to the chassis and cage. Of course, off the shelf shock tower braces don't do any of this, and are generally not worth their weight.

The tubes I used are thin wall stuff. Like, special-order thin. So the weight penalty is small.

Also, keep in mind on this car the frame rails are no longer connected at the front.

 

In classic "if you give a mouse a cookie" fashion...

Modified/Limited TA rules allow free reign on the chassis for everything forward of the shock towers. So, I started trimming excess weight out from the nose of the frame/chassis... Started with just a little - taking out mounting points that were no longer being used etc. and weighing what I had taken off... aaaand kept trimming more and more.

Got to the point that the sway bar mounts were the only thing left forwards of the towers, and still wanted more weight out of it. So in the end I made a jig for every forward mounting point that needs to exist for the new setup - including the sway bar mount points - and chopped the whole nose off.

It was the logical conclusion to take the full advantage of the rule's allowance.



Currently in the middle of building a new tubular nose section as light as possible. Hey, the project has taken this long, what's another 50-hour detour right??

 

You are insane. This means you have to redo all that beautiful work you'd already done on the nose of the car for ducting and rad mount and such, right?

Normally it's "do it once, do it right"

You're like "do it right once, then do it righter."

 

I'm interested to see the weight savings from this. I've been considering tubing the front end since I'm self conscious about weight upfornt because of the v8 lol.

 

I made the jig in order to "earmark" all the mounting locations for the stuff I've already made. This way I can replicate each of those points with the new structure so that everything I already have will bolt right in. But yes, hindsight is 20/20 and I'd have definitely saved myself some time if I'd known from the beginning that I was going to cut this much out. Oh well! Eventually It'll be "rightest"

 

If I told you to guess how much had come out, I'm sure you'd overestimate. Everything in this chassis is surprisingly thin. But that doesn't detract from the significance of taking any weight right off the very front of the car past the axle line. Once I have the new structure built and weighed I'll post the numbers.

 

Especially in the front, seems as though mazda went to great lengths to reduce weight in the front and then didn't care as much about the rear. Although it makes sense since they were just trying to even out the distribution, I cringe just a tiny bit everytime I take a chunk of weight from the rear though. Either way, I'll probably do it once I get my bender/notcher set up. Like you said, it's weight up front, anything will help.

 

Having moved my chopped tub around many times I'd be surprised at two digit pound gains in front of the suspension.
Remember that you would it to be stiff enough so you still can stand on the splitter without much flex.

But if you focus only on the up/down stiffness and ignore the tank-like behaviour when racing w2w (front against other hard things) you may avoid making it heavier

But you also have the opportunity to redo all you old perfection, since the pickup points doesn't have to be the same...