Btw, here is a picture of Grassroots Motorsports' Miata from the last Nationals. They are running 275 Hoosier A6 on 15x9 949Racing 6UL on a NA Miata and no fender flares, no spacers. Tom said he just rolled the fender lip and there was no fender pulling involved. He said the tires fit perfect, and just the front tire rubs very little on the front top spring perch but nothing to worry about.

 

OMG. I have the same exact setup, more of a pull. I haven't tried it yet, and am getting scared looking at bbundy's posts.

 

Must be using much less suspension bump travel than I use. And I know I use it because of the wear marks left by my 225/50 tires. There is a huge amount of camber gain that pulls the top of the tire into the frame rail on the back near full compression. It hits the sidewall of the tire. The front you can live with if you scrap about an inch of compression travel.

I do think I have more bump travel in my setup than most others. My rear upper A-arms are just to bind against the frame rail at full bump. The difference in handling performance I got by not using bumpstops to limit travel so much in the rear was a huge though I don’t want to go back.

FWIW I got my 275's from Emillio he had test fit them on a NA they had rub marks all over them inside and out from a test drive but didnt have really any run time on them.

Bob

 

Damn. Big hp + a proper wing and splitter here in the NW. Good to see someone other than CA and TX guys getting with it.

What big tracks or events are you planning on this year. You just running big boy wheel to wheel, time trial and autoX or you going to do some HPDE or open track days? I'd love to point by a built Miata with a real driver in it every other lap sometime this year!

 

interesting commentary on the compression travel. thanks. I am considering trying the 275s myself this year. So do I gather you are running no bumpstops? What shocks are you using?

did you make custom mounts to mount the wing to the fenders?

 

Mostly HPDE I do allot at Pacific Raceways. I instruct at the NW Alfa events. Haven’t been to Portland as much as I would like, car seems to always have issues there as well but I have done Thunderhill a bunch and made it down to Laguna last year, did Reno Fernley as well. Even went to FM’s open house last year in Colorado.

I don’t have defined dates yet for this year but I want to do Oregon Raceway park and I would sure like to mix it up with the So-Cal guys if the miata challenge makes it up to Thunderhill this year. Planning on the Laguna trip for Miatas at MRLS and next weekend I’m doing ChumpCar at Infineon with Eddie Nakato’s AR auto team.

Bob

 

My suspension setup is getting old I think 6 years now I have re-valved Koni sports. Shock tops are modified NB hats and I welded tubes on them and use spherical bearings for bushings. Bumpstops are soft foam. Been a while since I updated my Cardomain but here is the suspension page. I have the spring rates at 700/400 now.

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/737924/4

I made custom mounts to mount the Universal fit GTC200 wing but they were dirt simple to make just some angles cut up with a hacksaw and some holes drilled. the wide mounting location on the wing I got was just wider thant the trunk lid so it worked perfect. The wing is high enough I can still kind of get into the trunk.

Bob

 

Did you do Chumpcar with Eddie in Portland on Halloween?

ORP with Palatov is the way to go. Only 2 run groups. One with cars, one with bikes. You can get around 7 30 minute sessions in with them! I'd also like to make it down to a T-hill MC event just to embarrass myself!

 

No I didn’t do The Portland ChumpCar event with Eddie. I have been friends with Eddie since about 2000 when he was first getting going in the business however.

Eddie’s Track day format is my favorite, No run groups, no passing rules just be reasonably safe get on the track when your ready come off when you’re tired, track closes 1 hour for lunch. He even hired Umbrella girls to hand out water and prance around the paddock for eye candy! Track day format to a whole new level. Unfortunately I burnt an exhaust valve early on the one day I did with him at Portland.

Bob

 

Mine are the same way - the only reason I have some bumpstops is to stop the A-arms from hitting the frame if they happen to move that far. IIRC from car resting still position I have about 50 mm compression (until A-arm touches the frame) and 50 mm droop travel available (about 100 mm total travel) measured at the shock shaft.

If I get the 275 some day I'll try to fit them with as little spacer as possible since I don't want any fender flares

 

Eddies open days at PIR are great and wide open. I don't think anyone ran an open track day like that at ORP last year. Palatov was as wide open as it got. Passing by point by but you could point by anywhere on the track. Maybe that will change this year.

 

Less static camber would help I have mine at 2.5 in the rear which I think might be too much. I hven't done enough testing to know optimum but 2.5 dosn't seem to feel better than 2.2. When I was running RA-1s on 15X9's

Bob

 

That was my initial goal as well but to be happy with the travel and clearance determined 15mm was minimum. Probably could get the fronts stretched out that far but the rear didn’t look like it was going to do it without surgery. I thought about cutting the inner fender pulling it out then filling in the gap but ended up not trying it.

Bob

 

Looks good