Durometer after two sessions dropped to about 62 from the 74 originally. Top layer of the tread definitely hardened a bit from age. As with any old tires, they actually took some work to bring up temp. I’d imagine freshly made examples would come up fully on the out lap. I didn’t have the opportunity to do any controlled testing but I can say they definitely behaved like soft compound race tires. Closer to an R6 than an RC-1 or even, RR. Steering was linear and more tolerant of high slip angles, as you would expect with a narrow, softer compound tire. SOTP, I’d say they were just a smidge faster than the 225/45 RC1’s. A fresher set might be even faster. If I had to guess, I’d say a set of 205 R6’s would have been less than 1s faster. 195/55/15 TD soft on 15x8 (Tungsten). Ambient was around 65°, surface 75-80°. Two sessions, no significant drop off but this track has a huge, almost mile long straight to cool off tires. Braking grip was very good. Excellent feedback there.

So nothing conclusive but at least a sneak peak. We don't plan to do any further evaluation as I think you would really need a set made in 2014 (if such exists) to get good data. Probably a very good intermediate rain tire.

Looking at the clag that built up, one immediately can tell these are not going to be confused with 200tw, or even 100tw compounds. Wear was significant. I'd expect a set to last two weekend on a light car, and maybe one on a heavy car (Mustang, Subie, E46)

http://949racing.com/supermiata/Vent...95_Soft_2.jpg?
http://949racing.com/supermiata/Vent...95_Soft_1.jpg?

i was going to ask where the heck did you get them from. i've never seen a set for sale at a retail location.

Discount Tire direct, linked earlier in this thread

I like how hankooks site has the TD listed for $155, DTD has them for $129.02 shipped for the softs.

I want to try this tire for TT but only have 15x7 and 15x9 wheels. would the 9 stretch this tire too far for track use?

I bet the sevens would be fine. And weigh slightly less.

yeah, but, would 9's be better? This is a very wide 195 in section width.

Hi guys!

Interesting discussions! TD looks like an interesting tire...i gave a lot of feedback to Greg to get the SM7 moved down in points. They were going to make it the same as the R7 even though the R7 is strictly faster...

BTW the RX-7 from Road Atlanta is my car. It was a fun weekend! I have to give it as much to the driver as the car for our results. Plus the track and traffic played into our hands.

That Dyno was wicked...somehow my car gained 4HP over it's previous best dyno result....

We had MCE Dyno show up to NASA AZ's event this weekend, for the second event in a row. Who cringed at that when reading? Ha. anyways...

My teammate and I, once we heard about MCE showing up and it being notorious for reading high compared to other dynos, made a plan (more on that later in this post).

For the sake of this story, our regions compliance dynojet is maybe 3 miles from the track we were at this weekend. I am untuned, and consistently put down 124.5, give or take a tenth, no matter if the CLT temps were 180* or 230*. On a dynapack, it was 122.x again give or take a tenth.

On Saturday, a few cars were sent for compliance dynos in TT. What was interesting was that a few cars did fail and most passed, however, every miata that went on, was over the max hp.

Saturday, 2 of my competitors in E were sent (1st and 2nd place) and both miatas went over their respective HP cap and were DQ'd. I was 3rd, and got bumped to 1st--not exactly how I wanted to take my 1st 1st place of the season...Anyone that was DQ'd was given the option to ballast up in order to be compliant, but many decided to not do that.

Given the rough variance which was on average, 6.5% of the difference between the local dynojet and MCE's dynojet, and taking Saturday as a warning, my teammate and I busted out the calculator and pulled our Plan B and added weight, in case we went over our reclass numbers, but was still the same P/W ratio for our class--which, for anyone that cares, I had to add 135 lbs. After all said and done, we topped off the fuel to 1" below the fuel cap, and put in a 3 ton harbor freight floor jack to the passenger floor area. Boom, exactly 135 lbs.

So Sunday comes around, and I do the first TT session, only a few laps to put down a time--as Saturday's 1st/2nd place competitors decided not to show, and 4th/5th places cars are 2 seconds slower than my times. I did a full DE4 session to practice and at the same time, we also discovered my engine only burns 1 gallon for every 15 minutes on track--win?. I tell my teammate to drive the rest of the TT sessions since he is 15 lbs heavier than I am (free ballast!) up until they (presumably) dyno us.

Sure enough, the 1st session he went out in, they direct him to the dyno. We weighed in at 2369, and then went to the dyno. They did 3 runs WITH MCE's electronics hooked up, and 2 runs based only on RPM/wheel speed, no electronics.

Again, for comparison, here are my numbers:
Local dynojet: 124.5 (give or take a tenth)
local dynapack: :122.x (give/take)
MCE dyno, W/ electronics hooked up: 129.x (give/take)
MCE dyno, W/O electronics: 131.x (give/take)

our current reclass puts us at a 17.3 P/W, taking the weight/numbers above, put us near the 18 P/W ratio.

Heres the kicker. One Miata in D who is tuned, and put down 158 on the local compliant dynojet and 159 on the dynapack he was tuned on, did well into the 170's on MCE's. When this happened, he asked to have the ECU and hood sealed, and they towed it to the local compliance dyno. Not 30 minutes after running on MCE's, they put down 157 on the dynojet.

What sucks is for YEARS, our region has been going off the local dyno and no one has ever had a problem up until this dyno has shown. Having to ballast up on some cars for them to be compliant was enough for a 7 point reclass.

From my understanding, this is the same one that shows up to Nationals? I hope this can help shed light on something/for some people to plan accordingly.

El oh el.

If NASA cared about anything but $$$, they would fire those morons and go off the local Dynojet at every track.

If only.

we had the same issue at nat's last year. guys where adding 100lbs to the chassis just to race.

Yup. if only.

I could only imagine that if the dyno operator was not welcomed/asked not to show/asked to leave, he probably wouldve called the national office and would have been there anyways. what do i know, im just a peon.

One competitor of mine was trying to find loopholes in the rules. our supplemental rules say that the local dyno was the one one to be used for compliance, yet at the same time, it does say those rules are subject to change and without notice, along with the reclassing sheet that says "gotta be compliant during any tech inspection." to me, a dyno is a tech inspection.

While i do feel for everyone who was DQ'd, it was definitely a shitty situation, and again, not how i wanted to get my 1st 1st place this season. Some let their ego's take over while some swallowed it and/or made plans for if/when this happened, and did what was best to get points/contingency/etc.

Hell, I would have been DQ'ed as well had I not ballasted up.

Well, guess I know where TFB's dyno wasn't... this weekend.

I'm kind of cringing at what will happen if I get sent to the dyno while up at Thunderhill, MCE's home track.

my engine that makes a consistent 156 as tested on two local dynojets in Orlando made a max of 169 on the MCE dyno at the west coast championships, but every time it was different.
At my local dynoes, it makes 156 +/- one all day everyday no matter the conditions or temp of the engine...

Same issues at east coast nats last year when I ran pte. Makes 132 local. checked on two dynos. on MCE it made 132, then 138, then 140, then 142 etc...

both events I had to retune my car, even though I keep a reasonable buffer to my max hp to begin with.

I agree. why continue using him? no one is happy

$

By the way. I took my car to the dyno today for a health check since I just got it back from California a couple weeks ago and right one cue it made 155.7, 155.6, and 155.3.
All after making 169 and all sorts of other various numbers above 156 on the MCE dyno at Sonoma.

It sounds like there is enough hardish evidence to make a formal complaint to NASA. I'd like to run nationals at VIR since it's only an hour from my house. But I really don't want to deal with the dyno bullshit since I can't just add ballast to be 'complaint.'

from what i heard/not verified, almost all the cars that went over HP caps were miatas. Honda Challenge, GTS3/TT3/2 cars were all under. odd.

You are assuming that well substantiated evidence would actually make a difference, as if it were a court. There is no court, there is no board, it is an autocracy. This is both the strength and weakness of the organization.

But yeah I suppose if enough people raised the issue as a single voice, some change could potentially take place.

I was not DQ'ed on Saturday, and was not on the dyno at any point during the weekend, so I'm not sure where you got this information from. I did sit out Sunday (ran HPDE 4) so I could spend the day enjoying driving, rather than spending the day worrying about whether or not I would get a dyno and be DQ'ed for the entire weekend.


Anyway, back to the thread. TTE rules, MCE drools :giggle:

ah! my mistake if that is the case. I had heard your teammate went off in a session? maybe that was it and was mistakenly reworded to me? anyways, apologies.

:rofl:at that last sentence.

stupid question incoming...

99 with vvt motor and sport brakes. Which for arguments sakes makes my car an 01+. How many points do you have to spend after you take a dyno re-class to stay in PTE.

You should be able to get a PTE or PTE* reclass with that setup. I don't think he'll make you take points for the sport brakes. So you'll have either 12 or 19 points left.

Thanks. what's the deal with the * classing anyway. I've been trying to googz to find a good description of how that's different but I haven't found much in terms of explanations, and what I have found is very convoluted.

* = 7 pts. Which equates to a lbs/hp percentage. On high HP cars, it could be 20-30whp. On a E-C Miata, it usually works out to 5-8whp. That's how an 2400# NA with NB engine gets to 138whp to be closer to a 2400# NB1 pts car that can run 144whp. The difference is the dyno classed car will have a broader powerband. In practice, that's only an advantage on slow, tight tracks. On most tracks with higher avg speeds and/or longer straights, the pts car will always get to the braking zone first.

Thank you very much for the explanation. I'm not really looking to go out and win the world or even really expecting to be competitive.

I'm thinking I'm going to take the car out for an event or two in it's current state while I collect parts and cash for the next phase of this cars life. It's very close to a competitive TTE build in it's current phase. I'll be down a slight advantage to a points nb1 car but since it's just for run, I'm not sweating it.

Thanks for the guidance yall. I'll prob post a few more times asking dumb questions as I re-arrange the parts that are already in teh garage to optimize what i have and do a nasa event or two. Then it's time for tear down and rebuild into something new. :dealwithit:

edit: just for those watching from home... this is for tte... not pte like I said above. derp.

For a dual duty - regional car, dyno classed is the way to go. Easier to setup and drive, biggest "high power" map for stuff like Miata Challenge/ Roadster Cup.

I need a "Lap Times by 949racing Braintrust" or a "Consultation by 949racing" sticker for my dashboard so you can see it on my gopro videos LOL

When using full tread 205/50 RA-1s for rain should they go on a 8 or 9 inch wheel? I'm assuming 8 but want to make sure before I drop some $$.

205 Hoosiers are the exception for 205s on a 15x9 right?

I think they'll be fine on 8's. The Hoosiers are a bit anomalous in their width. 205/50 H2O's (Hoosier wets) are actually narrower than the A7/R7, and end up being better on 8's too.

Fairly certain Greg will make you take points for Sport Brakes. Non-BTM. +2.

From my dyno reclass (99 in a 94) email... "You may update to '99-'00 Mazda Miata brakes without a points assessment"
Base Trim Model, not Sports.

Unless Andrew was able to petition for something else in previous years. I know Emilio has made passing comments to it, but never asked him (or Greg) for clarification.

I think that door has closed. Andrews hall pass for Sport Brakes on an NA was a year or so prior to the NB2 getting 7 more points and it's own line in BTM models. So the days of free update/backdates from NB2 are over I believe. You have to ask Greg to be sure.

As I was told, the update/backdate rule only works on cars that fall in the years in the big list. ie a 01 miata can use Sport brakes since the 03 has them standard. Even though the 99 is the same "chassis", it doesn't fall in the 01-05 year break down that NASA Is using, so it has to take points for them.

Not following if your car is a 99 or a 94 though....

I can't remember if it was last year or the year before that I had this discussion with Greg. At that time his ruling was that you could run sport brakes if you were reclassing as a VVT car, but you had to run non-sport 1.8 brakes if you were reclassed as a non-VVT 1.8 car. Reclassing as a VVT car gets you a 15lb penalty over a regular 1.8, but gains you VVT and sport brakes. Nothing else is allowed to be updated or backdated.

This is all referring to my 91 chassis with 1.8 swap, but I think the 15lb VVT penalty and free sport brakes usage applies to all VVT swapped miatas.

The recent dyno class emails I've seen for VVT cars explicitly allow Sport brakes as well, but only for VVT cars. My "loophole" was closed when the NB2 cars were split out onto their own line item.

Jesus... didn't see this until now but lol @ ego comment. Did you think I would never see this? Sorry if I won't bend over for NASA while they screw people with that dyno. What was I supposed to do? Ratchet strap a floor jack (illegal ballast) into my car like you?

You also never had a Plan B before the event, that was a one time exception that they made up on the spot halfway through Saturday to allow dyno classed cars to operate on a power to weight limit instead of a horsepower cap, and had they not implemented it, or had you been dyno'd first instead of me, you would have been DQ'd as well.


The whole thing was bullshit and just reinforces my decision to never go to nationals.



Oh bonus for everyone else here: the MCE dyno jackass cut apart my wiring harness to get an ignition signal even after I told him not to. He refused to use the plug wire because he said the signal wasn't as good lol.

Bonus bonus: I was fired from being an instructor with NASA AZ after "speaking ill of the official national dyno." :jerkit:

That's a douche move by the local NASA franchise. I think our NASA-Florida Region guy out here is interested in getting it right and not running people off.

One of the worst cases of mismanagement I've heard was by NASA not verifying the measuring stick they were using was an accurate device prior to implementation. It seems pretty simple to have a known quantity pre-measured and verified by multiple sources to then be used to verify the measuring device periodically throughout the measuring of competitors' vehicles. Or maybe I'm the idiot.

Racing seems to always have so much internal strife. SCCA is full of strife, NASA, and even the big national and international organizations like PWC, ALMS, Indycar, etc. are always having accuracy and fairness issues. I guess it goes with the seriousness that accompanies competition coupled with the inherent fallibility of men.

As you noted above, painting a picture of ourselves and our actions as being more insightful, wise, and righteous is also a feature common to men.

Humility is difficult to find on the internet.

taping up nasa stickers after the fact which gave the proverbial finger to all the other instructors/officials/attendees, talking down to multiple officials, just to name some other reasons why you were let go....you being an instructor had much more responsibilities and duties than just teaching DE students how to drive. thats what youre not understanding. you know you could get your position back...


but, hey thats just my opinion. we've already been over the other stuff.

Sounds like we need some women running this shit :)

I've run 2 weekends at VIR, got tagged for compliance on one of them. The mobile dyno that NASA-MA is using was ~1.4whp off from the one that I went to to get the car tuned. Not sure if any Miatas got popped for compliance on the 2nd weekend. I didn't hear anyone complaining about the dyno though.

I am sure NASA is trying to work out the dyno issue. I can't imagine an organization won't listen to its customers on something as significant and ego-related as this.

Nah they'll do their best to sweep it under the rug and continue with business as usual. This is nothing new.

FatKao, You got popped over 1 or 2 hp? Dude, you need to leave more of a margin than that... lol

I think he was saying that the difference was 1-2 hp between the compliance dyno at the track versus where he tuned it back home.

Yeah. I was like 10whp under at that point. I have heard rumors that there will be 2 dynos at east coast nationals. The one we used for the last two races and someone else.

I'm moving to TTE. Wasn't expecting the 245 base tire size, but I'm happy to see that.

Your '96 Mazda Miata with a 1.8L VVT Miata 1.8L motor swap and a maximum 141 rwhp on a Dynojet, and a Minimum Competition Weight (w/driver) of 2455 lbs, will have a new PT/TT base class of PTE*/TTE* (seven points). Your new base tire size is 245mm. You will not assess modification points for Section B. Weight Reduction or Section C. Engine Mods. You may update to '01-'05 Mazda Miata brakes without a points assessment as well. However, all other modifications, including transmission and LSD, that are not standard items on a base trim '96 Mazda Miata must be assessed points. You must be compliant with the above listed maximum Dynojet HP and Minimum Competition Weight during any tech. inspection.

This option may only be used with a PTE/TTE or higher Final Competition Class.

It's probably a typo, he's given me reclasses with typos like that in it before...

Yeah, you should ask for clarification. I've never heard of him allowing that.

Is the sport brake allowance for a TTE car typical?

I have seen reclasses where he has written in for the 1.6l chassis being able to use the 94-97 brakes without taking the +2 points for them. I haven't seen enough of those reclasses to figure out if he decides to give you a slightly worse power to weight reclass as a penalty for it though.

VVT reclasses get a 15lb penalty but get sport brakes for free.

I emailed asking for a clarification. Last thing I want is to be DQ'd.

Yeah, I can just see that now.

"Here is my dyno sheet and email from Greg."

"Oh, sorry, that was a typo on my part. DQ'd".

"Thanks for nothing."

:facepalm:

I've never heard of getting a new base tire size out of class. I can see it being an issue with my competition, and, I think, understandably so (it would give me enough points back to run front aero). I can't find anywhere in the rules that the base tire size can change from what the class tire sizes list.

Looking forward to a dyno reclass. Let's say for tte its 2400lbs and 130whp. Lets say I make 120whp. Am I allowed to weigh 2300 (or whatever the actual equation would be?

Greg's E-mail should give you a range of power/weight to choose from. Mine had 3 combinations I could use.

No, you must meet the minimum weight on the reclass form regardless of your power level

If one were to have three points left over, is that best spent on a limited slip or front air dam?

If you don't already have a Torsen, then an OS Giken. If you do already have a Torsen but don't have an engine that makes within 5whp of peak power over a 3000rpm powerband, then a 6 speed.