David and i were talking about that a few days back. He doesn't seem to think it's that much more expensive in the end, and i'd be inclined to agree with him.

I like this trophy field, though... very eclectic.

 

Hmmm, Step 1, the Zust car on A6's. Step 2, who cares? Just diddle with it to make legal.

 

The purchase price of the Elise is 10 times that of the miata. I still have less invested in my car than just buying a stock Elise. And based on how Billy did in CSP my car would have been in the hunt for the podium in ssm with him behind the wheel even with this weird rain situation.

 

Is the panda just jumping classes? I didn't think they let people do that anymore because Andy Hollis.

 

You can run the car in any class that its legal in. They just made STC hondas illegal in STX, there's basically no class hopping allowed in ST anymore. Only thing that comes to mind would be running an open diff NA8 in both STS and STR. But Panda is legal in SM, SSM, and XP. My Car is legal in SSM, and if I bolt on a hard top, XP.

 

Obviously XP is a different rule set than SSM, but Zust probably has $100k in his car.

 

What's weird about the MSM results from Thursday? Afraid a well sorted BSP car is going to outrun your engineering degree SSM car?

 

Doesnt get the UD/BD allowances that CSP miatas get and the msm turbo in SP trim doesnt exactly make up for it.

 

Eric and Eric's car did really well in SSM this year, I am impressed. It's safe to say he also deserves it too haha.

Looking at STR results...... Shane coned away a possible 4th place, but there wasn't ANY mazdas in the trophy spots. I do understand that good majority of the alien drivers have jumped into a s2k as well.

Before Wilmington I was nearly set on selling my STR car and jumping into something more competitive..... then I managed to trophy in a sea of S2000 CRs. So that helped want to keep the car longer. And then the ND was officially announced..... I'm really just waiting to see the engine specs and if it's not a giant ***-bucket of an engine I'm strongly considering getting one next summer. B-Street(or C?) for 2015 season and then STR next season..... unless of course vendors pop out enough parts for me to run a couple of tours in 2015.

 

Wait.... ***-bucket is a bad thing?

 

I'm really glad the internet has a car figured out better than somebody actually prepping and sorting it. Yes I wish we could get the weight reduction of CSP cars, no arguing that. But we still have A/C. We are going to get another 50lbs out of it at least before next year and continue to improve for another shot next year. The west course was killer with a Torsen. I have never experienced inside wheel spin like that before. Thorne says he's going SSM. Either way we aren't brining a knife to a gunfight unlike what internet proclaims.

 

The previous NA DP winning car had a serious issue on the test and tune. Some thin aluminum shield behind the unorthodox pulley broke free and rattled around in the timing belt area for a while. New timing belt needed. Mini clutch on that thing made it hard to get the crank bolt off as it would slip. Then the car threw both belts (likely the alt belt first) on the first Competition run. Rushed fixes during Mechanicals is stressful. Plus Drew couldn't stay off the cones on day 1.

West course was a killer with a Torsen? I had no problems with inside wheel spin and I've got a Torsen. Although I spent most of the year getting the suspension and aero to work well. Car, XP Miata, was a blast to drive there, I just continued my can't drive worth **** on day 2. And my co-driver only had 2 runs in the car at a practice prior to Nationals. Some day I hope to show what the poverty spec XP Miata can actually do, cuz I sure haven't yet.

 

Yeah. We may adjust a few things on the rear suspension. Your car is likely 400lbs lighter tho. And that will change a few things. My best time was 56.5 but I had a huge slide in the first left turnaround into the jump. Chris is smoother on throttle and steering and he didn't experience it as bad as I did. He also ran a 55.4.

 

Getting pulled away from your beer drinking to time a Miata motor.......only at Nationals

 

 

Looking at the impound sheet my 400 was wrong it's at least 500. Lol

 

FrankL, How much sprung droop travel do you have? As in how long until the spring unseats. You don't actually have to lift the wheel to get the Torsen to spin up if there is nothing pushing down on that axle. That seemed to be part of my problem earlier in the year. The car rolls a lot more at Lincoln (or the Texas A&M site) with the grip of aged concrete.

And next time we break a car and I'm working on it. We are pulling that sucker somewhere no one else can see it. We lost so much freaking time with all the arm chair mechanics coming by and commenting on how to do things. Yeah. Let's go ahead and plan on using an impact to "torque" the crank pulley bolt on a 1.6L RACE motor. This sounds like a brilliant idea.

Thanks for coming over and getting that done. Despite the FSM sitting right there, some individuals didn't want to follow the directions. Like "guten-tight" torquing of the water pump pulley bolts. "They feel like they seat but then keep turning".

 

+1 on not needing a full lift. I confirmed that my sway bar does not bind, but once the tires get over ~80 runs on them on asphalt I get inside wheel spin and then I pull the bar is everything goes back to normal. Once you take just enough load off the inside rear it'll spin.

 

Thinking about more spring for Lincoln. And we need tenders on the back. That's something we wanted to test but never got to before nationals. As everybody who has run there knows. Grip at nationals is not equalled at any other event.

 

You arent running tenders? Well there's your problem. And dont bother just adding them to the back you'll immediately hate how pushy the car just became everywhere, you got to put them on both ends at the same time.