Eagerly waiting for the in car gopro footage to get posted!

 

Superlap Battle USA 2019. We brought the HyperMiata to a power track to battle against 600, 700, and 800 hp cars. Day 1 we got down to a 2:23.4 and surprised a lot of people that we could be so fast with just 300hp. I am pretty sure we had the lowest hp in out of all 19 cars in Limited. The fact that we got protested in this field of monsters is both comical and a compliment. We're doing things right. Competitors are taking the Miata seriously, even at COTA.

After the Saturday night data and vid review we found a lot of areas where we could make improvements. Day 2 we had the setup dialed and I had all the places to find time on the track hammered into my brain. Unfortunately the transmission had an issue that ended our day early, but we’re coming away from COTA with a solid 5th place out of 19 cars!! It was an awesome event, amazing track, and we can’t wait to return next year.

I will have more to post soon, trying to clean up our Airbnb and get on the road this morning. Lots of miles to cover back to CA.

The cars ahead of us had no less than 650hp, and word is a couple were over 800. I'm curious to find more info on them. We learned a ton. We had more in it. We'll have to wait until next year to find it.

There have been tons of people reaching out on social media, forums, etc. following our efforts and I want to thank everyone for all the well wishes and support. It's been a truly epic weekend. I also can't thank my crew enough; Moti of Blackbird Fabworx, and Greg and my awesome girlfriend Bri, both of Goodwin Racing. The four of us were in constant motion and full attack mode all weekend. No way could I have done this without them. Here are a couple more pics grabbed from various locations for now, will have more soon.

Miata Is Always The Answer!









Me being awkward, no idea what to do with my hands!





Texas BBQ!

 

Props to Ryan and crew for the solid finish! The effort was stellar and inspiring for many.

When SLB announced CoTA I thought "Well, the BFH hammer approach to a racecar will probably be on podium instead of a well developed purposed tool." So it seems that has happened, at least for the first year..... Putting the raw weightower numbers down of all the cars would be quite eye-opening I'm sure. As more drivers continue to put in the development for this track, the ones that are a well polished purposed tool will shine through like usual.


/benchrace-time

I don't know all the names within GTA, so we'll use Ulrik as an example. He was ~5-6 seconds off Ryan at ButtonWillow, which is a much short track in terms of lap-times. It's known that Ulrik has more power than Ryan(~350rwhp for that 1.6?). He managed to be within ~4 seconds of Ryan even with messed up front aero. That's a much smaller delta.

The big takeaways on that IMO are:
1. Ulrik did really well that event to shrink the delta, given the circumstances.
2. Even 50hp can make a yuge difference when you're WOT so often. #deadhorse

There's tons of other variables, though. The tires, the type of track, recent changes to either car yada yada. But hey, this is bench-racing after-all!


My prediction based on how Ryan has operated in past events/tracks and if Hypermiata ends up with ~500rwhp and continues chassis/aero development for CoTA...... he'll turn a low 2:17 or high 2:16.

 

The good news is that Road Atlanta is not as horsepower dependent as COTA and that's the next race on the schedule (May).

Flier129 (Marcus) knows that track pretty well. You will have friends in the paddock. We were all rooting for you.

 

Wait, Ryan you're coming out to Road Atlanta?!

 

Ulrik dyno'd 440 before loading up for COTA but wasn't on that map for most of the event, I think Tony mentioned 330-350? They turned up the wick for the last two sessions but he just couldn't get any clean laps but that's racin'. Always good seeing you guys out there, love the crowd reactions Hyper gets.

To quote a friend during a conversation about the dude who protested you and even Ulrik's KG Works-style trunk spoiler - "That guy could suck the fun out of a *******..."

 

It was great to meet you guys, and your car looks even more awesome in person.

 

If Ryan's coming to RA I'm moving Heaven and Earth to attend and help in ANY way possible.
This is the first time I've heard this though, can we get some clarification?

 

Sorry to bring up an old post, but I was hoping you could give a little more insight on clocking the LFX alternator. I'm trying to do this now and it is a bitch. You didn't mention removing the pulley, but I think it needs to be done to clock it. Can you please confirm if you removed the pulley and how you got the brown and white brush cover back on.

Thanks for any help!

 

Trying to recall, my memory of that isn't perfect but I do remember that we *thought* that the pulley needed to be removed at first too, but realized later that it didn't. The pulley bolt is covered and mine has a bunch of screwdriver scratches from us trying to remove it to get to the bolt before we realized we didn't need to. The back half might be a little stuck and need some encouragement, but with the four bolts removed and the two covers removed (main outer cover on back and then small center cover on back underneath) that was really it, just pull the halves apart and rotate. I'm not remembering the details of the small cover very well right now, all my pics of the alternator are either of the backside fully assembled with the outer cover off, or with both covers removed. What's the trouble seem to be with putting it back on?

 

Trying to get caught up with stuff now that I'm back in town. More to come on SLB USA.

Interview in the pits!

 

Just saw you in this video as well.

 

You should bring the car to Hoonigan for a Build Biology.

 

Perhaps! Though the Lyfe GTR is a tough act to follow. Love that car.

I just noticed an earlier post about Road Atlanta. I'm using our experience and data gained from COTA to guide the development plans this year, with the primary focus being a return to COTA in 2020 with significant updates. I've already jumped into a couple of those projects but some things will take time and there's always the matter of tuning and revising that follows any major changes, so for now I'm leaving the calendar clear for the next few months. Definite plans to be up and running strong for Miatas @ Laguna Seca and then GTA Finals @ Buttonwillow, but those are both later this year.

Super pumped for what we have in store.

 

Any chance you could share your wiring master list spreadsheet? Very curious what gauges you used for various chassis wiring items.

 

ftfy

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing

Keep in mind this is using tefzel wire which can generally carry more current than lower quality stuff. Below are rough ratings for Tefzel /16 and /32 wire. Rating is max. continuous current @ wire's max rated temperature (150°C / 300°F) & good for up to ~15 ft.

24ga 5.1A
22ga 6.3A
20ga 8.9A
18ga 11.4A
16ga 13.9A
14ga 17.7A
12ga 24.0A
10ga 32.9A

 

You rock Brother!!! Thank you, will help a ton. Redoing my whole chassis wiring from scratch for the LFX swap and using the same wire you recommended.

 

The journey of this car has been really inspiring to follow.

Can you comment now on any oiling issues you have experienced with the LFX now that you have a few years of using this engine? The OEM oil pan has virtually no baffling, how is it that this engine can survive like this? Did you add baffling to the pan yourself? Do you use an accusump?

Thanks for sharing.

 

No baffles or other oiling assistance strategies added and we've had no issues with oil pressure at high G's. You might say it's... baffling.