Group Ride: NEGA Mountains
 

Potential dates are Sept 30 (last Sunday of this month) or Oct 07 (first Sunday of next month). Route will be planned to maximize time on 2 lane roads with minimal highway, though some highway will be involved so we can get some high speed driving in. Plan on an all day trip, to cover at minimum 200 miles through all sorts of roads, including mountain driving, as well as stops for meals and refreshments. The leaves should be starting their color change, so bring your wife/gf and camera. October is the beer fest in Helen if that sways anyone's opinion on potential date.

Hopefully this will be enough advanced notice to get some of you local boys out. This should also hopefully give some of you guys a bit of an incentive to finish your projects to have your cars ready in time.

Post here or PM me with questions, ideas, or to RSVP.

B

Also, I am still hopefull in regards to an upcoming dyno day. There's something in the works. :bigtu:

Sunday the 30th is absolutely perfect for me. Wife is out of town all weekend!

I may be able to attend but won't know until the week before, I already asked off the 29 for a drift day at Turner Field can't afford to lose a weekend worth of work(unless I am already off).

might be able to make the 7th, but can't say for sure. I'll be over the Pacific on the 30th.

Bizzumpp to the top.
Sun the 30th is fast approaching

For the guys who can't make it this time, we can plan another trip for end of October

Great jaunt for my newly heatshielded turbo and newly shrouded radiator. And I'll have my new "exhaust" on by then too. Will be a good time.

Yeah, it came in? Gimmie a call if you want help bolting it up.

Just saw the discussion on m.net.
http://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread.php?t=249736
Anybody else coming?

Yeah, I'm looking forward to meeting Howlin' Bob and have him tour us around the back back roads around his home stomping grounds.

I think we've got 6 miatas confirmed, as well as 2 non miatas, and another 6-8 miatas are 'maybes'

we should be out early enough for you to get back and pick up your truck, then meet wifey at the airport. or if not... tell her to take the train up to the 400 station :rofl:

got your camera mounts and cams ready? I need video to hold me over.

$3.50 is a bit steep man. We can't all have mounts ;)

NEGA please!

my 512 card is only good for about 15 minutes of run time :hs:
oh, and I have no mount

I would cheap my mount, but it's cheaper to build one on location. ;)
All I want is something like this.

yes, we know you have no mount, and that may continue if you tell her to take the train :gay:

Rob I didn't have time to get to HF on Saturday so I could buy the stuff to make the mount. I was actually en-route at one point, but had to turn around to meet my dad. There were two runs that definately would have been great video.
The first was when the main pack got seperated from the last two cars (which was a 3 month old NC with a good driver and then myself as the rear car) because a crappy VW deisel got into our covoy. The first group did not slow down for us. The NC was actually pretty quick through the turns. I was hitting 95 on the straights but the curves were pretty tight.
The second was after I had an ignition failure. I told the guys to go ahead and I would either catch up or go home. I was able to make the repair, but the group was already 25 or 30 miles away. Most of the path to get to them was long, high speed sweepers with elevation changes, and towards the end the turns were very tight but cambered. It was fun.

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/1...ingpackak4.jpg

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Sweet stuff, looks like a good time. I need to make it out to something like this someday. What kind of ignition failure did you see on the drive, it was a ground issue wasn't it? lol

no -- more like total secondary ignition failure
The car was running fantastic until when I shut it off when we stopped for lunch. After lunch, it didn't want to fire. I put it in flood clear mode and it fired up on 2 cylinders. Gave it some gas, it farted and popped, and I had all four again. Half a mile down the road, the tach went out, then the motor popped and farted again and stalled.

Pulled over, had intermittant spark on 1 and 2. didn't check 3 and 4. just swapped in the original ignitor and plug wires (that thank god I kept in the trunk) and the car ran great. just couldn't go over 7 psi or so because spark would blow out due to the .040 gaps I'm running.

I don't know what the cause of failure was. Could be wiring related, most likely on the +12V wire, or maybe a solder joint in my ignitor broke. :dunno:
I didn't bring a DMM with me, and I haven't done any trouble shooting.

Shitty. When I make my harness i'll be making my stock connectors easily reinstallable so I can put the original coils back in as well. The idea of being stranded on a roadtrip just sucks. Did go on a 250 mile trip this weekend to knoxville though, had a good time and the car ran great. 26.6 mpg on a decent street tune, cruising with the afrs bouncing around 14.7-15.5.

:werd:
went 250 miles exactly, also rolled the odometer past the 60k mark on the way home. still have an indicated 1/4 tank remaining :bigtu:
amazing what kind of mileage you get when you're limited to 7 psi

Yeah i'm still running the 1.8 injectors, hope to install the 550s this week before petit. I too had a quater tank indicated when I got back, appears we got about the same mileage.

install the injectors the weekend after. if you're tuned and issue free, leave it that way before you road trip it.

i think i found the problem with my ignition. i had to crimp connect my main power, main ground, and tach wires because I broke my (late grandfather's) soldering iron when I dropped it after burning my hand. :doh:
well, the power and tach crimps failed immediately. this time the ground failed. so something about these 12-14 ga butt connectors is wrong. I have a decent crimp tool and put what appeared to be a good crimp on them. but all 3 have failed. one of richard's wire nut jobs would have been better it seems.

looks like a good time, the weather was awesome for a drive. I'll have to jump in on the next one.

thanks for the pics, wished I was there

I've always gone solder and heat shrink- just don't have as much confidence in my crimps I suppose. And I've got a good crimper too. I had a pro install the ecu in my last race car and he soldered too. Said the same thing- solder is "for sure". He used some kind of heat shrink with a sealant in it... I think it was marine spec.

would have been nice if you came.
we all need to do it. it should be very scenic in about 3 weeks or so.

i think my ignition is good to go again. what i ended up doing is splitting the heatshrink over the crimped connections and I flowed solder down into the butts. that should make them solid. when I was doing that, I broke one of the leads off my resistor that I use to shunt power to tach. so I replaced the resistor and used electrical tape to wrap a butt connector up next to it like a splint.

i'm hoping to get my diff swap done this weekend, maybe my brake swap next weekend... and hopefully I'll be good to go

I will get in the loop soon. My kids need to get a bit older and I need a couple of serious days to work on my car. Just picked up my new oil cooler today with some freshly welded up AN fittings. Step in the right direction.

Testament to true car lovers...no matter how bad-ass a car is, there's always something just not quite right ;)

I figure if the car is built to manage track duty, then it should survive the rest of the whatever is thrown at it. I keep thinking "this will be it" only to find out whatever I changed just wasn't enough. So the process never seems to end.

Short term goal is to get the oil cooler in, so I can rejoin everybody at the dyno. I'm hopes that my peak power occurs later than 5800rpm, and should therefore be much higher.

I "just need" to get bigger injectors, tune them in, improve cooling.....:eek5:

Gassed up today. The trip was 250 miles on Sunday. Drove 5 miles today before filling up. Took 8.95 gallons. That's about 28.5 mpg :bigtu:
16:1 cruise FTW

Real reason for this post was to whore out the photo though:
http://img240.imageshack.us/img240/4...gpack1bmh7.jpg

I averaged 25.4 mpg that trip. Some day I'll tune some cruise zones.

that's impressive... actually amazing for untuned zones. And you guys actually got into boost on the jaunt?

I wouldn't say untuned. Just ot tuned for economical cruising. I'm at 14.7 in most cruise zones.

I most certainly was in boost, but not 100% of the drive. I think I can speak for Ben as well.

There was only one stretch before lunch where I was able to really use all my power potential. And I did. After lunch, when it was just me and Ben (the two turbo cars), I was in boost constantly, but kept it under 7 psi because the spark was getting blown out at 7+

Around town I've been getting around 23-24, driving it like I stole it. I'd bet on a highway trip I'd break 30 mpg.

Sounds like i need to tune my shit a little better and turn on overrun fuel cut. I decided to install the 550s today, won't be taking the miata to petit this year i suppose. We have a semi large group going, decided to take the g/fs protege instead. What a buzz kill.

:werd: like having to drive the suv to Rd. Atl on race weekends because there's so much shit to haul to the track.