Oh yea, I have to bed new brakes during practice too.

 

There is a lot of time within the alignment, also I hope there is a little more strategy than "maxing the eccentrics". Maybe you meant, they haven't moved and I know where I set them last.

 

I think Dan needs off-set bushings, as do I. I'm only able to get -2.9* up front and definitely need more.

R7s are great and I think you'll be much faster with this new setup you're running. The grip seems about the same for the first 6-8 heat cycles, then I could feel and see(lap time) a drop off between the 10-14 heat cycle. I got to about 24 cycles before I locked one up and corded, they didn't feel any different from the ~12-14th heat cycle. Hell, I ran two sessions ON the cords and I improved lap-times(cooler temps, learning the track some more). If I didn't cord, I figure they would of been "OK" for another 6-10 cycles..... and I didn't even cure them!

 

How come it seems like everyone except me can get -2.5*+ of front camber? I think the most I've ever gotten is like 2* on a NB. Running around 4.25" front ride height.

 

Run a tad lower if you can. Not possible with some coilovers. Everything has to be straight. At some point in our endurance racing past when we had a large pile of subframes laying around, we measured the distance between upper pick up points. We found that other than bent control arms and spindles, this dimension accounted for the most significant portion of camber variance between cars. Narrower the better of course. Spec Miata guys just bend the subframes (a lot). We didn't bend, just cherry picked (blueprinting!) narrower ones from the rest. Beyond that, check your spindles and lower control arms. It's usually a bent spindle. This will also cause a mushy brake due to the axle stub and brake caliper tabs being a fraction of a degree out of plane.

At some point (Emilio's long list) it would be nice to have a simple jig to check front spindles on. Miatacage had a big surface plate with jigs for control arms but I'm not Sean ever offered it for sale. His was steel though, probably 300lbs. Aluminum would suffice since you're just checking dimensions, not welding on it.

At 4.1" or thereabouts, a straight NB should just hit 3.0-°. NA's more like -2.4°. The difference between the two is subframe, thus why we use NB subframes in all our NA's. ELBJ's fix all but of course, aren't a free mod in PT/TT.

 

Luckily the offset delrin lowers we offer are points free!

scroll to the bottom of the page
http://sadfab.com/bushingpackages.html

 

Exactly why I'm currently "Ok" with having my car "just" super low with maxed eccentrics. It's effectively impossible to get too much front camber with stock parts/bushings, and I have all the camberz that are available to me currently.
My last printed alignment showed -2.6 on FM springs with a coil cut out. I've since lowered the car almost an inch up front when I swapped on the Xidas.

Privateer development: large low hanging fruit comes first. "Real" setup is on the list, and I'd love to have(and know how much) some wedge in the car for the flat, clockwise Gingerman raceway coming up, but alas...

It is what it is. Confirming I don't have enough camber doesn't change the fact that I don't yet have the ability to get more camber.

 

 

PM us or email info@sadfab.com

 

Even on Xidas? I thought that they were happy at around 4.2" in the front.

 

You're reading into it too much.

They are happy there, but if you cant get enough camber, one way to get more camber is lower ride height.

 

I've got the SadFab offsets and can get to -4 degrees in the front now. Used to only be able to manage -2.4 before that.

At that setting everything clears to bump stops. Gen 2 Xidas with billet coaxial mounts, 15x9" Advanti and 205 R7. Delrin bushings and Xidas together are awesome and definitely worth it.

 

Mine seemed perfectly happy running F/R of 4/4.25", 800/500, Big front sway, MSM rear, 205 RComps.

But then again, I'm not going to claim I'm some super fast driver or anything. Reasonably quick and know how to keep my head higher skill level run groups. Always exciting to be in the group where your Miata is 15s a lap slower to the big V8s on Hoosiers.

 

Wow. You must have somehow known we are not going to be there....

 

No, Emilio is just that good!

 

But you guys...


I won a damn race !!!

 

Congrats. Bring that momentum to Watkins.

 

Weekend update!






Gingerman Raceway in western Michigan, about a 6 hour tow. I drove out there 2 years ago in my street/TT NA for an HPDE so this was only my second visit.

Track walk/ride on Friday evening was a helpful refresher. The track has been repaved since I was here, and last spring most records were reset on the fresh pavement. Curbing is grooved concrete, bumpy, but usable.



Friday morning warmup: went out on RC1s. 205/50/15 on 15x8 Kosei K4R, et20. Came in early with severe rear fender rub, wheels too aggressive for current non-rolled fenders. Swapped on the 9" 6uls with new R7 Hoosiers, they magically fit stock fenders with no rub. Proper et FTW.
Small problem in qualifying. I had clocked the rear brake line fitting wrong on the caliper during my brake downgrade last weekend. The lines were rubbing the inside of the wheel and the right rear line actually wore through and was just pumping fluid out every time I broke for a corner. I managed to throw together a good enough lap for pole position somehow. 9" wheels require a little more space to operate, obviously. Dumb mistake #1.

Race: I goofed on the start, AGAIN. I'll keep getting better at those though. Picked the wrong gear and went in 4th, too boggy and got walked immediately.
I dropped to second place after conceding the outside line to Neuman's BMW horsepower advantage. He was coming VERY quickly and I deemed it not worth the risk to throw my one move as I qualified 1.4 seconds up on him. That actually worked out pretty well, as he punched a pretty nice hole through slow traffic for the first few laps of the race. I got by him pretty early on after setting up a double move through the double-apex turn 2, exiting underneath him and holding him off by keeping the inside line through 3. Once I got by, I just started clicking off laps. I saw several 1:45 laps predicted on the SOLO, but there was always traffic somewhere. Every lap ended up being a 1:47 something.


I moved up 32 positions.
I got one clean lap the whole race and popped off a 1:45.09, new PTE record!
I took Kohler's 2015 1:47.xx record which he set on the brand new pavement, BUT he was on RC1s.
My car is still soft on prep, I just had a major tire advantage.
I won TT with a 1:46.xx but was unable to come within a second of his 1:44.xx hoosier tire'd TT record this weekend.
TT traffic was a mess all weekend. I was gridded(is that a word) in front of most D, C, 3 cars, but they wouldn't leave any gap behind me on the outlap and would all pass on the front straight under the waving green and ruin every single attempt at a flying lap. My fastest laps were all off the throttle from the T6 exit to T10b. Dumb. No mustang/vette/bmw guy wants to listen to an E Miata say "leave a gap on the outlap" Bull Hooey.


Saturday Morning:
No warm up, straight into qualifying since we had two races. Qualified on pole again. Low 1:46 again.
Radar was showing incoming rain, but our schedule should have had us off track before the bad stuff started.
I opted to stay on slick tires(Hoosier R7s) while most of my competition went to wet tires. Dumb mistake #2

When I got to grid, I discovered that we were nearly 20 minutes behind schedule. It sprinkled for most of that 20 minutes while we all sat there waiting. As we rolled out the rain got heavier.
I started on pole and got a really good start this time, but it didn't matter. Nueman(BMW e36) was on Hoosier H2O rain tires and simply ran away. Conditions in the second half of the race got downright swampy. It completely went to crap.
I'm pretty happy to finish on the lead lap and pull out a second place finish while on slicks.

Race #3 on Saturday:
Dry, sunny, warm.
Started p2 based on the morning's rain race result.
Goofed the start again, fell to third.
Had a fun back and forth with Mike Weber in his B13 Sentra. Something happened to Nueman , as he was leading before suddenly dropping an anchor. Later I found him in the sand trap at T11. :(



Track felt quite a bit different after the morning rain compared to yesterday's race and I wasn't exactly able to back up my record. A 1:45.9 was my best lap. But I started 35th and finished 4th overall again.



Weekend tally looks pretty awesome.

Saturday:
PTE pole qualifier.
PTE win.
PTE lap record.
TTE win.

Sunday:
PTE pole qualifier.
PTE 2nd.
PTE win.
TTE win.

Set up was the previously discussed
E* +7
R7 +3
Diff +3
Xida +5
I was "encouraged" to add some cushion after my DQ last month, So I ran on a 133whp/2375 reclass. I added ~70lbs of ballast + a stock iron header, but went to a lightweight 1.6 clutch/fw and smaller brakes. Came in at 2399lbs after Saturday morning qual, over 2400lbs every other time. Probably making ~126ish through the stock header, down from the 131 through the racing beat, but no dyno, so no hard data.

 

Does Mazda pay any contingency for NASA "regional" events like this?

Nice work, I always liked going to Gingerman. My wife never minded going either because lake town...

 

Nope, and my blingy graphics aren't even "legal" for the regional participation championship $1500 payout program.

Thanks man! It's a fun track, flat with a ton of runoff, so its easy to push it flatout bro.