2015 NASA Eastern Championships at VIR
 

Surprised we didn't already have a thread. Most of the races we're interested in are done. Small fields in PT. No entrants in PTC?

Congrats to Jason Kohler on another win.

Looks like Eric Powell had a mechanical or something, finished 3rd. Fastest lap by a good margin.


Live video streaming: https://livestream.com/nasa/

Live timing: https://racehero.io/orgs/nasa

Yep, only 3 in PTD. Qualified on pole easily but chose not to run the qual races to save my car.
Was in the lead a couple corners in to the race and was about 20 car lengths in front by the time we got to the backstraight. The passat has 100 more hp than me and was about 20 car lengths in front by the time we got to the braking zone for 14 yet I still out broke him and he went off in the next corner allowing me to easily check out and cruise before I had a CAS failure just like I did in the qual race at Mazda Raceway. Bummer

TT was another let down. My fastest lap of a 2:10.3 was a second faster than the second place guy and current track record holder (9.4) in his e36m3. However I was once again screwed by the notorious MCE dyno...
Keep in mind I was on this same exact dyno at Mazda Raceway one month ago and the car has not been touched since other than to fix bodywork and re-align. It even still has the same security tape installed from Laguna. At Laguna it made 154/155 on 5 of 6 pulls. The last pull made 160.49 out if nowhere and was a completely differently shaped graph.
Anyways, I decided to play it safe and class the car at 166 ( 11/12hp more than what I know it makes and what it made on this same dyno one month ago).
The first pull was 158, second was 161, third was 166.67 and each of the graphs are a completely different shape once again, as if it where 3 different cars on the dyno. Greg doesn't care, all he sees is the numbers and was completely unwilling to use logic or reason. He is on a witch hunt for me as confirmed by other officials.
My car is dead nuts consistent on every dyno it has ever been on other than the MCE.
He would not allow me to put it on the other dyno to prove it.
Unbelievable

This MCE dyno thing is killing NASA. I don't understand it. ?? I mean, why even bother if getting DQ'd is a complete crapshoot?

The dyno issue is a symptom, not the cause.

Join the club. Hopefully that fucktard didn't cut open your wiring harness like he did on my car.

Congrats Jason on another well deserved Title!

Eric, sorry to hear you had another tangle with the Dyno...frustrating for sure.

Let me make sure I understand this claim correctly. Are you saying that Greg Greenbaum physically used a tool and cut open your wiring harness himself?

I've personally, in nearly 10 years of racing with NASA never seen a NASA official use any kind of tool and manipulate anything on a competitors car. I've seen lots of tear downs, and torn down my own car in impound more than once but it was always the competitors or their mechanics doing the work....

I've seen officials use measurement tools and make visual inspections only...

I'm guessing it was the dyno operator... Slicing open the wiring harness behind the coils to get to the blue wire for their ignition pickup.

They do the same thing out here at TFB. Something about the Miata plug wires not reading consistently.

We won't even talk about how many points on the runs drop off completely, making comparisons between runs impossible.

However, at least the shape of the lines don't change. So there's always that.

He was referring to MCE, the incompetent dyno operator who has caused untold grief among legal competitors for years now.

Gotcha.

Oh...I'm well aware of that dyno. My car has been on it at least half a dozen times...

Yep, was definitely referring to the MCE guy, although I am not a fan of Greg either.

It's funny how he says that the plug wires are not good for an ignition pickup, yet every single other dyno jet I've ever been on takes RPM reading from my plug wires with no issues whatsoever.

and he hacked up your harness to find a source instead of using the pin in the diagnositcs connector?

Yes he does it to almost every Miata that gets sent to his dyno. He didn't even ask before he did it or else I would have told him to piss off. Was already too late by the time I noticed he was in there with a pair of dykes and a box cutter.

More importantly who gives a shit about the pickup? We're not limited by torque. Hell the other dyno doesn't even hook the pickup up half the time on regional weekends.

It's a shame you ended up on MCE, the Dyno on the Go dyno has been pretty consistent for us. X said he would try to get PT on the Dyno on the Go one but all I know is that he was tied up in SM tech this weekend.

What happened to everyone in E? 8 started the weekend and only 4 finished the champ race running.

Fully agree with that but there was someone at a local event that ran on their MCE dyno and did back to back runs with and without the pickup... it dyno'd even higher without the pickup... not by much but still...

PT was on Dyno on the Go. TT was not... Dunno.

Sneed blew his motor on Saturday I believe. I think I heard the other guy had some sort of charging system issue? I believe one individual did not show up.

And I had a myriad of issues. It may be ruined. Going out to investigate now... I will be better prepared next time. :noob:

<p></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>I hear there is a red PTE miata for sale ;)</p>

PTE/TTE was on "dyno on the go". Everyone else was on MCE.
Presumably as a cruel joke!

My friends who dynoed on "dyno on the go" all reported numbers near or lower than expected...

And the spec 944 guys originally where slated for MCE until enough of them complained about high and inconsistent numbers. They switched the official dyno to "dyno on the go" and those I talked to made 8-10hp less with no consistency issues.

And for the record. I can never get a dyno to pick up RPM off my plus wires. I always use the blue coil wire.


I also figured out this morning, after looking through the TT rulebook, that I should not have been stripped of my win. I should have only been issued a procedural violation and 1 penalty point for being less than one HP over my limit. Since I only use 16 points, that gives me 17 points and still legal for TTD. I would be dq'ed from the session prior to the procedural violation only. I had a 2:10.4 in TT session2 on Saturday that should have stood

Wow. Greg should definitely know that... seems to confirm that he has it out for you.

Did not know you guys were out there I would have shared the beers!

The two dyno system they had was a nightmare. We dyoed Thursday morning at track on the Local Dyno (nearest to track) and was told our car was 15whp down from the dynojet we tested on a few days earlier. They said this was out new numbers so we went back to paddock and removed 90lbs of lead. Than tested the car on track and we were good to go. They then Thursday afternoon pulled us off after session and told us to dyno again.,....no biggie. But it was raining and were told the dyno we used in the morning would not operate in the rain so we had to use the other one??? Uh...no! We pulled weight due to the original dyno numbers and was not going to risk this dyno being different. Spoke to a few people and the officials agreed that this was not going to be fair so they said it was not going to be an "official" dyno sheet.....so I asked why are we going to do this then? They told us to forget it and let us leave.

Had our share of issues, broke the header twice and had to pull it off and weld it back up also spent went off and hit a tire wall gently and got back on track and ended up 3rd in that race, no damage.

Over all a good weekend with a good result PTE 3rd. Not bad for some 25 year old junk we built in my driveway running a $550 Junk yard motor thats never even had the head off.

Attachments failed so I hosted them elsewhere, dont know why.
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1441771058

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1441771058

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1441771058

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1441771058

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1441771058

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v8...psv1t1zdoe.jpg
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This yours?
https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1441771133

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v8...psydjidd2v.jpg

All you guys better be in for Octoberfast.

Party at Sneed's house to swap a motor.

I heard that this certain someone has the dyno graphs of said runs and can confirm the above....

:party:

<p></p><p>Thats fucked</p>

Does anyone know the actual fastest NA/NB lap time on the full course?

Thanks all. This was a good event. Apart from Eric's troubles, and a ridiculously long first Time Trials Meeting, I feel this was one of the best/smoothest run NASA champ events that I've been to, and that's dating back to 2011. They just need to bring back the speedcast coverage, lol. Doesn't feel like a national level event without it...

Fair bit of mechanical troubles in PT this year, as mentioned. That I can think of -> A blown motor, a broken header, misfires on a couple different cars, bad coil pack, CAS failure, alternator wiring failure, blown 5th gear. I was lucky and somehow my car ran great all weekend.

I HAD DYNO TROUBLE. Not with the hp numbers though! Dyno-on-the-go has part of the dyno trailer open in the center (unlike MCE). I didn't realize this. So Wednesday evening I go to get my car checked for hp and I'm up on top of the dyno, walking around to the front of the car in hook up the RPM pickup...and I kinda definitely step through into nothing. Instinctively grabbed my miata's radiator with my left hand to 'catch' myself and my body weight jerked my shoulder out of it's socket, dislocated. Spend 6-7 hours in the waiting room of the ER before the doctor saw me. By that point, from the pain/stiffness, I was not expecting to be able to drive at all for the championships. Fortunately I was wrong, and despite some minor discomfort was able to drive all weekend.

The PTE dyno read a bit higher than my local dyno in Michigan. I had showed up without the air dam, and taking 3 exhaust points. But this exhaust put me too close for comfort on my calculated adjusted power to weight ratio. I opted to install my stock exhaust that makes 6hp less, and also install the air dam. Interesting tidbit, top speed at VIR is identical for both setups, which leads me to believe the airdam is worth a very significant amount of drag reduction. Apparently it is also worth some front downforce, as my car was pretty loose/snappy all weekend, especially in the high speed sections.

NASA did a good job with tech this year. Most cars were gone over pretty thoroughly and inspected for compliance, plus dyno checks. NASA has switched from traqmate to AIM Solo's for performing on-track comparisons between cars. This was used as an additional check to dyno to verify that cars are performing as expected on the track itself. Some of this data was shared with us, and speeds down the back straight were all within 1mph at two different measurment locations for the three cars that were instrumented during that race.

Jason Fitzpatrick (PTD Volkswagon) hosted an all-PT cookout/party on Saturday night. This was awesome, props to Jason for putting that together.
It was nice to meet the other PT competitors and to finally put faces to names!
Also, VIR is a superb facility. Wish I would have had more time to explore and spectate - guess I'll need to come back to visit someday.

My fastest times of the weekend were a 2:14.8 in TTE and a 2:14.9 in the PTE championship race. TTE vid below. I might eventually put together some race highlights, if I get motivated. Heck, I haven't even unloaded my race car from the trailer yet. It may just stay there until the next event at Autobahn Country Club next weekend!

-Jason


Also, thanks to MazdaMotorsports for their support and for hosting a luncheon, free apparel. Hoosier. Winding Road Racing.

Jason - were the uphill esses flat in your car? I couldn't tell from the video, too much wind noise to hear if you lifted or not.

Just curious

Stock exhaust is so quite! Can't tell much from the video. I pulled up data...flat until T9 (the last right hander). Car was doing 114-115mph into there, and I would breath off the throttle. If the car wouldn't have been so twitchy/loose it likely could have been flat.

Are most cars flat through there?

Someone here did some computational analytics on the Miata and aero. I'm just remembering something from a few years ago, but a bone stock Miata produces close to 50lbs of lift at 100mph. Adding the R package dam lowered the c/d and produced 30lbs of downforce.

I'll try to find it, it was really interesting.

<p></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>I think so. &nbsp;Miatas normally are and I find a lot of the aero cars are flat through there. &nbsp;Hell even the SC300 is flat through there, but its about 5-6 mph slower though.</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>The right hander is a bit tougher. &nbsp; Spec miata is flat, but my miata tends to wash out too much for comfort. &nbsp;I am not sure about other cars.</p>

I've never gotten loose in 9 like you showed us unless I really tried to pinch it over to the right. But I've never exited that fast. Probably just too much steering input making me slow. What speed were you entering them at the bottom? If you just want to send me your AIM files thats fine. :bigtu:

Yup - it was these guys -> https://hanchagroup.wordpress.com/20...esign-is-best/

I read that when they published it. Did not buy it, as the results show an absolutely huge difference in cd and cl numbers. However, after running the real measurements with and without airdam last weekend, their difference in cd values isn't really too far off. My simulations show about a 0.06 reduction in cd to match measured speeds, they predicted a 0.10 reduction.

I have no way to measure the lift effect. But subjectively it did make a difference.

Eric - send me your email over facebook. I'll just send you the AIM files. Same for anybody else who competed in PTE at VIR.

Damn, that was a quick turnaround. I tried searching, but couldn't find anything... I initially was thinking that a stock Miata produced like 75 or 100lbs of lift and thought "nah, that's like way too high" and potted it down.

Thanks for finding that again.

That front air dam, the first small one they added, is not anywhere close to what the R-Package lip looks like so I'd say that's an invalid claim. You would have to use like a 4" tall strip of sheet aluminum or something to produce what they modeled in the program.