I've been prepping like a madman. Why?

I've been accepted to the Ultimate Track Car Challenge @ Virginia International Raceway May 18/19!

In Emilio's words:
UTCC is a no holds barred, no rules time attack competition held at VIR every year. It's put together by Grassroots Motorsports. Coincides with NASA's Hyperfest which is a motorsports festival with live music shows late into the night, vendor rows, drifting, w2w racing and lots of other stuff going on.
It's probably the single largest amateur motorsports event in North America. Tens of thousands of people will filter through the gates during the 4 day event.

I'm joining the guys at 949Racing / Supermiata to make the journey to Virginia and see if we can raise some eyebrows of those who never thought a Miata could play in the deep end. They're taking Bullet, the car they ran at SLB 2017 but now with the **** turned wayyy up on the boost and making north of 400whp. That will be a monster. Mine will be the car with less power but more refined aero and probably more total downforce. VIR has some suuuper long straights so I expect more power will make the faster car there, but in the Miatas vs the World conquest, I think between the two cars we'll be able to accomplish a lot.





The plan after GTA Round 1 was to make a few big aero updates to the car with the relatively large gap I had before Round 3 in June. I was just starting to dive into that when I got word about UTCC. Suddenly the timeframe was cut in half, the car needs to be ready to head across the country by May 13! I axed a few things off the list that I knew I couldn't get to, and spent every day since then in the shop after work to bring as much of the updates to fruition in time. The largest change is an entirely new front end aero setup, but I also had to make several changes to be NASA compliant (like moving the lithium battery from the passenger area to the trunk), and move to a new even larger rear wing. I'll have pics at some point.

Format for UTCC this year is interesting. Friday is as it has always been, essentially a time attack format where fastest lap time of the day from multiple sessions counts. However, new for 2018, the fastest 20 cars plus 3 staff picks go to a Knockout round on Saturday:
This is going to be fun!

 

Marcus (Flier129) messaged us about that, very cool! I'm less than 2 hours away from VIR so I'm thinking about coming up to spectate.

 

 

 

That sounds like a blast! Good luck, go kick some more ***!

 

Any regrets doing the Stage 1 clutch now that you are on E85? I'm looking at the spec clutch and flywheel and debating on stage 1, stage 1 with increased clamping load or stage 2.

 

Factory clutch/flywheel are going in soon.

 

No ****. Never got the issues resolved?

 

Improved but never 100%. Going to the factory setup that we know works. Already would have except GMPartsDirect sent the wrong parts so I'm working on return/exchange for the right stuff with them right now.

For records, correct PNs are:

Flywheel 24245480
Clutch 19353433

 

A huge thank you good sir! You just saved me a grand.

 

Psssttt... https://www.summitracing.com/parts/luk-04-262 if you don't wanna go through gm. And yes it did come with a new flywheel.

 

Thats exactly what I got from rock auto.

So far, my clutch is so soft and has zero feel, pretty sure it's bled just fine as it goes in and out of gear without grinding. But so soft compared to my old 949 twin disk.

Is this a similar experience as everyone else running the stock/factory parts?

 

Yeah, we snagged it from summit because we're only an hour away and they're pretty good on returns - Luk 04-262 also includes a new slave as well, pretty good for the price.

I think it's really hard to judge pedal feel after driving any car for a few months - I seem to recall the oem being fairly light before the flywheel started rattling teeth at 2500rpm.

 

Great tip, and better price than what I was paying.

 

Ryan,

I had my LFX Miata at Streets of Willow yesterday and with 93 degree ambient i was seeing coolant over 240F and oil at 285F. That's with a TSE radiator and 16 row oil cooler. I'm getting a higher pressure (30PSI) radiator cap to make sure I don't boil anything.

What kind of temps are you seeing around the track typically?

 

I'm usually 220-225 coolant, 250-260 oil. The upper end of those ranges are on a 90° day. Goodwin Racing triple pass NC radiator, no oil cooler, good ducting (the importance of ducting can't be overstated)

 

Thank you for the info. My ducting is garbage since it was done back when i had an intercooler and associated piping on front so there are plenty of holes in it. Hoping I can get my temps down to a manageable level

 

You are in for a surprise once you close these holes. Air (as anything) will always choose the path of least resistance. As Ryan already said

 

Found another clutch/flywheel option that I haven't seen mentioned before.

https://www.xclutchusa.com/uploads/f...ch_pdf_cat.pdf

They list the referenced part numbers for the Chevy Colorado and a few other vehicles on their website. (KGM26631-1A and KGM26631-1C)

3.6L Petrol 2015- LFX 3.6L KGM26631-1A 510 SMF Conversion Kit incl. C/moly F/W, P/P & F/W Bolts (Converts OE DMF Kit)

(edit: part numbers are in the video description)

 

Hey Ryan I know this is your build thread but since you brought it up on here how did you guys do at the challenge on the 18th and 19th, haven't heard any mention of the results.