I think the winky face was very important in that statement.

 

My dream of being half-way competitive with $150 SM7 take-offs has been demolished! I'll fork out the pennies for R7s and hope to win a tire or two with contingency. Thankfully the TTE field is typically 5+ ppl in the SouthEast

 

So Jason, what the heck is Aaron's setup that allows a GT250? Looks like you had a few HP on him and better suspension but tires went off a bit. Car looked neutral so I'm guessing starting pressures too high? You sit too far from the wheel BTW.

 

Great racing at the Corvette Museum this past weekend. I drove down and hung out on Sunday and was pretty jealous that I wasn't racing with those guys. I think I'm ditching my turbo plans and going back to PTE.

 

Yea, it looked like a blast with everyone down there. That track looks awesome too, 3.2 miles?!

Aaron's 2:21.8 qualifying lap:

 

Seems like it has a 4.3. Shifting at 6800 most of the time. Interesting that it either has no power above 7000 or the motor isn't built to be safe up there.

 

Aaron's simply running a PTE no star based VVT reclass, which allows enough points to run the wing and air dam. It's a well built and setup car with a great driver. I had a couple hp on him, but there were also a couple near 100mph sweepers at NCM that really benefited the aero cars.

Tires certainly got a little greasy, but not terrible considering it was 96 degrees out and I was driving as hard as I could to catch him (and keep away from Chris and Cody)! Not sure why the video looks like I sit far away, I sit very close actually.

Somebody help me peer pressure Cody, Chris, and Aaron into coming to east nationals! If we got Cody a few more hp and Chris runs some newer tires we would have 3 more very competitive cars. It's a shame to see such great cars and talented drivers only run couple of events each season!

 

Has anyone built a 2600lb PTE* Miata yet?

 

<p></p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>I haven't...but I am seriously considering a points NB1 build if I could magically get about 8k&nbsp;.</p>

 

I'm debating it, It'll come down to how much power my motor makes once I'm finished with it. I can go up to about 2670# with the cage I have in my car.

I don't remember if he is PTE or PTE* but Jeff in NASA-MA is 2500lbs+

 

Gret racing at NCM this past weekend by all 4 of us.

Jason- we plan to come to the autobahn and mid-o weekends at the end of the season. Then next year probably run a lot more since it sounds like we will have a lot more "regulars"

The whole idea of driving the heaviest miata sounds great until you have to corner the car. I'm at 2500# and its a pig to drive. Im going to drop almost 100# and retune for what i think is a "better" reclass as far as drivability goes. Id also like to say that it was my first weekend in E. Im glad I made the jump here, hopefully I can dial in the set up on my college kid budget and hang with the gang.

 

Every 80bs you add to the car is ~5whp. You forget really fast about the extra 160lbs when you've got 10whp more than the guy behind you. Nobody ever said a 2600lb PTE Miata with 1000/400 springs and stock sways was going to be fun/forgiving to drive, but I'm looking for fast, not fun.

 

I see.

The number of lapping days I do compared to the number of races I do is probably 10:1. - so I'm not too concerned about having a car that is going to be fast. I'll take a fun car over a fast car any day of the week.

I think it was proven this weekend that a lot of different set ups are competitive at our regional level and it boiled down to who had the car set up the best out of the bag. And that was clearly Aaron.

 

Set the car up so you can add ballast easily. I drilled 1" steel plates and bolted them into the passenger floorboards. You should be able to put ~200lb of steel down pretty easily. Bolt a Coolsuit in on top of that and you're at 250lbs. From there it's an ECU map change and you're on the way.

The suspension is a little harder, since nobody wants to swap springs/sways on a regular basis. The 1000/500 springs are a little tough to get used to, but not awful - I'm still running them as a leftover setup from 2013. I do plan to put 800s and a FSB back on the car, but it's not bad enough to make it a priority.

 

For the the few customers I shipped 1000/xxx Xidas to, I tell them it's a bit more sensitive to setup and driving style but still fast. 800/500 with the big sway bars is much more forgiving. You have to be more precise with your inputs on 1000's. Not for a toss-and-catch or back-it-in driving style.

On some tracks, it's actually faster than an 800/500 setup.

 

Im making a few set-up changes that will help accommodate the 240lbs of ballast I have in the car now. Im still on a used Spec miata set-up with stock sways. But I'm going to run 700f/450r and I think it will actually help me quite a bit. I also don't think I had the car high enough so it was bottoming out the shock on really leaded corners.

 

Last year I was jumping between Thumper with 700/400 Gen1 XIDA, and Rover, which has 1000/500 and Gen1 XIDA with digressive rebound (upgraded by HVT). The best word to describe it is "forgiveness". Even with the trick-er DDP shocks, Rover didn't tolerate a sloppy turn-in point since pre-apex steering corrections, even tiny ones, had huge impacts on the yaw of the car. If you got it right, there was virtually no difference, but you had to get it right every single time with the 1000# fronts. Thumper could be rolled in a little early, then corrected at the apex slightly, and it would take it all in stride.

I really noticed the 1000s at Sonoma a couple of months ago. Rover would take this big hop right as we started up the hill into T2 that would push the car towards the right side of the track by about a full car width. It's also why I went off in T10 - a little too much speed, front end hopped a bit, and away she went. I drove Thumper (new owner asked me to shake it down briefly) and it was a pretty night and day difference there.

At SMMR, much less of a difference. That track is so smooth and has minimal elevation, so the stiff springs don't hurt. I still had to be careful with inputs, but I doubt the 800s would have been faster.

I would do 800/500, especially if you plan to run SM7s or R7s. Even at 2300lbs the sticky tire will want the higher rates, and it will REALLY want the higher rates at 2500-2600lbs.

 

Cody's been trying to convince me, I might have to consider PTE next year.... Sounds like a lot of fun and who doesn't like having a larger class?

 

Or you could race SCCA STL, 20+ car fields and serious Mazdaspeed/Hoosier contingencies if you finish on a podium.

That is if you want a large class that's not SM...

 

PTE beats STL for me because you can win (definitely regionally, usually nationally) with an unopened junkyard motor. NASA's dyno system is definitely frustrating but it does help keep costs down.