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We will know more once we look at the data and tear the engine down. But my Recollections from the few moments I could check the gauges were that everything looked great. We just simply ran too thin a viscosity of oil.
What an event. Ups and downs like always. Frustrating to get 3 laps day 1, and less than 10 on day two.
Vegas has a lot of unknowns, and we learned a ton. I would LOOOOVE to throw together rev2 for cota, but with the motor going kaput, I’m not sure that’s realistic.
The Jager STI, RS Motors EVO, CanJam STI and of course the professional awesome Evo are inspiring to see in person. RS motors did an engine swap night one and a head gasket midday day two. Resiculous.
Huge congrats to ryan on the 46.8. Wow. 245 street tires.
I tried to keep the the social media’s updated, but didn’t have service enough to upload images here. I’ll be doing that on the drive home tonight.
Can Jam did an motor swap on Thursday night as well. And last year in 2017 both Pro Awe and Yimisport/Jager did engine swap as well. It's not uncommon in the unlimited class it seems unfortunately.
Fun "weekend". Like pretty much every other fast TA team, E and John and Dan and Sonny gave it a big moonshot effort and it (mostly) paid off. Reset the Miata lap record, again. Got the SLB URWD win, again. And, learned a ton in the process, even if that ultimate 39.xxx lap goal is still a goal. Vegas is so far out of the bounds of normalcy for the Miataverse that there were at least half a dozen "lightbulb" moments throughout the 2 days.
Also proud to say that Trackspeed hotside parts continue to power the fastest Miata in the world.
Originally Posted by emilio700
Andrew and I are already scheming a sleeved, dry sumped, EFR7163 fed 600whp motor for next year.
When Acamas eclipsed the 450whp mark on accident, I said that a 600whp BP was totally doable, but there was no logical reason for it to exist. Now, however...
The team work, ingenuity and community of Miata vendors and owners is what lured me into the marque. This is a rare combination with a great foundation vehicle and talented vendors/enthusiasts driving innovation. Nothing gives me more pride than *** whopping some high dollar exotic.
Negative, I was there to support Ryan's effort and try to dial the car to the absolute maximum performance we could have gotten out of the hardware at hand.
I reckon that with a couple more sessions to work with we would've found even a little more, we kept improving the balance through aero and suspension adjustments, there was a little more in there.
To put Ryan's 1:46.857 LRWD winning lap in perspective, it's 2 seconds off of Emilio's monumental URWD winning lap, while being 100+ HP down and on 245 street tires. Un-freaking-real.
No better testament to the level of refinement from months of testing and tuning, careful selection of hardware, extremely detailed design work and of course - fantastic driving ability to take the car and get everything out of it.
Congrats to Emilio for winning URWD in dominating fashion and Sonny for his 2nd place in SRWD in the GT350, I'm still completely blown away by that one!
Dude Ryan, a 1:46.9 on Rival-S!!! Good **** man, you were wheeling it for sure.
I was confused on the last session when I saw a small front splitter on Vegas, but figured it was another "ViR" strat of ditching more and more drag. Goes to show the DiY aero is nuts lol.
Is this really a limitation of the current engine build, the turbo itself or both? I figured ~450 would be the peak of a 6258? So this warrants a 7163 as mentioned. I suppose a turbo kswap is the easier way out, but keeping with a BP keeps it within Supermiata's "wheel-house". TNtuba might chime in here, but after I read about the spun bearing on Vegas I asked him if something like his engine would be able to decently spit out ~600rwhp peak with something like a 7163, it's definitely possible... So I'm anxious to see it happen on a "TA" miata.
The perspective between Ryan's car and Vegas is key here. That shows what extensive refinement, lower drag 3D aero and much lighter comp weight will accomplish.
As tricky as Vegas looked, it is still a "blunt object", not the razor sharp knife that Hyper is.
1:46.9
In my world that resonates far more than what we accomplished with Vegas this year. and frankly that success is what drives me to build a high horsepower car. I now know if we can approach the efficiency of Hyper with the power, sequential and rubber we have, that sub 1:40 is within reach.
No anything has ever gone under 1:40 without a lbs/hp above about 4.5 lbs/hp. Vegas was at 5.8 lbs with too much aero drag for the power we have. If OGK gets built, it will be about 3.5 lbs/hp
E, forgive me for not studying the rules since I have no interest in building a $100k+ car for time attack, do the rules say you have to stay with a Mazda motor?
Unlimited is as the name implies- unlimited. If you can build it to their safety standards and have a sliver of OEM sheet metal hidden somewhere, it runs.
Engine swap would require a trans swap or new bell housing.
The current QBE69G trans is already about 30% past it’s torque recommendation.
I think we’ll need the QBE90G for the next attempt. At that point lots of engines can fit, but we know there is a lot more in a TSE 7163 EFR BP and a BP poweredplant is way better for our brand and the Miata erase. Maybe not the 700-1000 whp range that other top Unlimited cars are running, but we can build a much lighter version of Vegas in OGK to bump that P:W ratio.
There's something really special about doing it with a Miata powerplant in unlimited. It's the ultimate underdog snub to the easybutton guys. It demonstrates a whole different level of prowess.
One of the interviewies with Matt thought Ryan had a V8 coyote motor. Surprise!
At some point yesterday we're all standing by the car, the hood is propped up and a few guys are looking at the engine until one of the guys exclaims: "V6?! Why would you do that?!"
So I look him in the eye and reply: "Winning. He did it to win".
At some point yesterday we're all standing by the car, the hood is propped up and a few guys are looking at the engine until one of the guys exclaims: "V6?! Why would you do that?!"
So I look him in the eye and reply: "Winning. He did it to win".
What a whirlwind! The track didn't feel as fast as it has previously. We all went in expecting slightly lower times than we found to be possible, but ultimately you just get out there and wheel it, make tweaks to find the most speed you can, and the times are what they are. That we took not only 1st in Limited RWD but also the overall win across all Limited class drivetrains speaks to the point that we made the most of the conditions we had to work with I believe.
I shredded 5th gear during a shakedown 5 days before the event so we swapped to the backup trans a couple days before SLB. Early on day 1 there was a lot of vibration coming from the driveline, so we got under the car and re-centered the driveshaft and that fixed things. First session of the day I also lost two of the strakes in my splitter. Thanks to the lessons learned at VIR I brought spare material in the trailer so I cut new strakes out of aluminum and gorilla epoxied those into place, plus a couple self-tapping screws (something I would never use in building the car but suddenly completely acceptable for a track-side fix). Those new strakes held for both days.
Last session of day 1 I had a master cylinder failure, no pedal going into cotton corners. Kept it on the track and tip-toed back to the pits. I had another MC in the spares box, the challenge was bench bleeding it with what we had on hand. Thanks to John (Supermiata), Andrew (TSE) and Moti (BFW) for contributing ideas to come up with some McGuyver ways we might be able to do it. Took a while, made longer because it was in near-freezing temps but had the MC in and bled by 11pm. Drove it around the paddock at 7 AM, pop bled it again, then bled again after 1st session and the brakes were ready to rock for the rest of the day.
Fresh tires on for day 2. 1st session of day 2 the off at Sunset was mostly due to flagger error combined with just catching Adam in the Porsche GT3 napping at the wrong moment. I was on a green flag flyer, he thought we were still under yellow. He was weaving to warm up tires as I approached at probably >60mph closing speed, he weaved left off-line which I mis-read as he saw me and was getting out of the way, then at the last moment he weaved right again in front of me. I wasn't going to stop in time so I aborted right and sent it into the dirt. No harm done to the car, good place for an off. It's always the lap that feels best when something like that happens.
Hoping we got the chaos out of the way with that session I dug in to finding some more time in the later sessions. Set a new PB with double 1:47.3's. After session 2 I wanted a little more front end bite so Moti and I cut and installed some gurneys on the splitter. That worked but almost too much with things getting loose at high speed so we added 2° of rear wing a click more low speed compression in the front shocks for the final session. I also went into the trailer and just closed my eyes and went through laps in my head for the last 15 minutes before the final session.
First hot lap of the final session showed a 1:46.95 on the AIM. Too close for comfort; sometimes the track timing doesn't agree perfectly with the AIM and I REALLY wanted that official 1:46 so I did a cool down lap to really baby the tires and then went for another one. AIM said 1:46.599, I was fist pumping in the car. Low on fuel so I pulled in to the pits and got my high five hands ready for the whole crew official timing said 1:46.8, I'll take it. Only later did we find out that Amir in the V8 M3 (600+hp) went 1:47.2 in that session, which would have taken the win from us if I hadn't done the 46.
At this point we need more power, which sounds silly to me when I say it, but I am foot flat on the floor A LOT of the lap. The record we're going after for LRWD was set with a very well prepped Corvette with 650+ hp. We're just fighting a seriously uphill battle on the straights in that quest to beat that record. Still, incredibly happy with what we've accomplished so far.
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official timing said 1:46.8, I'll take it. Only later did we find out that Amir in the V8 M3 (600+hp) went 1:47.2 in that session, which would have taken the win from us if I hadn't done the 46.
