Savington, what are your thoughts on the A.R.T. reworked hubs?

I know it is hard to believe, but imo, this funny looking man (Savington after 25 Hours) won the race for us....

Lol.. so how much sleep did you guys average each?

I was talking to a friend who lives in my town, and he said his son was racing a miata at that race.

His name is Beau Borders. Does that ring a bell?

I got to where I was killing both front hubs about every year. I replaced one with an A.R.T and it didn't go bad. I now have both A.R.T hubs one 3 years old and one 4 years old still spin butter smooth. I think having the larger 11.75" rotors helps keep hub temps down a bit as well.

Bob

Congrats on the win, looks like a blast.

What a cutie.

My first ART hub failed on day one, the other lasted about 6-months. Karl was kind enough to not replace the damaged one because he thought it was a heat treating problem and he's not responsible for his subcontract. He was also kind enough to take my order for a bunch of studs and lugs, then never process the order. His business is in his garage for a reason. Before you suggest my issue was installation error, I've been on the same set of bearings for a year, the same ones that spent 6-months on Corrado smoker-rotors.

I agree that our large rotors are a huge part of the bearings living longer.

I wish that someone had been timing the hub swaps, because I gaurantee that at least one of the several hubs that we did got done is less than 4 minutes. And If the damn calipers didn't have those damn spacer shims we could have been doing 2 minute hubs. I am calling for some sort of system to get the spacers stuck to the calipers. How does JB weld hold up in 1000* conditions?

What specifically are you referring to? The screen over the opening was IIRC 40 or 60% wire mesh for protection/keeping the car warmer/aero improvement. Somehow the car was still running so damn cool that it required a stock radiator and a solid plate where one of the fans would have gone just to keep the temps high enough. I still don't know much about what they did to that damn engine, but it ran cooler than any Miata engine that I have ever seen. I thought that it might have been the uber special oil, but even once we started using different oil, it was still too cool.

Huge props need to go to whoever came up with whatever they did to the engine.

Which spacer shims are you referring too? I bet Sav could have his machinist build any offset required into the caliper brackets.


I figured it was something special. I've seen SM's with tape on 1/2 the radiator in cold oregon temps, but that looked like 100% coverage in "warmer" weather, on a car with more power and driven MUCH harder than any SM. Interesting note about the engine, sounds very efficient...

That engine was definitely extremely good at cooling. Emilio shared a bit of info with me but I know there's more. And what he told me about would not be cheap or easy.

I can think of one company that has some Wilwood brackets that don't need shims :) Based on the noises Andrew was making while doing one of those hub swaps, I don't think it will be long before he has something as well.

^ True dat. He was certainly not thrilled about the spacers, and getting things to line up perfectly while holding a rotor and caliper that are a bazillion degrees wasn't the most fun part of the weekend.

We had also considered tape, but our interpretation of the rules said that we couldn't.

He ran with the AMG team in a MX5 in E2...which was both Crusher and Enzo's main competition. They passed Crusher with about 15 minutes to go but couldn't get back to Enzo who had about a 8 lap lead at the time. Like both these cars, mechanical issues played a big part in their finish.

I run them on the black car and the red car and they work great - doesn't mean it would work in a long-distance endurance environment, though. Running the hubs for 20-30 minutes at a time is a very different game than running the hubs for 25 hours straight.

Working with John and Emilio for this event has really peaked my interest for endurance racing - it is an entirely different animal from sprint racing in every aspect. A long-distance enduro car gets prepared differently, its goals are prioritized differently, and in the end it's much like building an autocross car and then taking it to the track - it will work, but it will never be ideal. The car that is fast in a time attack/sprint race setting is not the same car that will win a 25 hour endurance event.

We briefly discussed using our new turbo kit on a 25 hour car and I flat refused - it simply wouldn't be designed for that kind of use. I could certainly build a kit that could do it, but the price tag would be 2-3x what our kit will cost.

What would a 25 hour turbo kit look like? Cast manifold? V Band? I can't fathom any of the usual current setups running for 6 hours at 17psi, let alone 25 hours.

When did Andrew scared of a challenge?
I say build a 25 hours kit as an option.
Of all shops, yours is the only one that can do it. So I say do it

William are you a buyer? I'm sure if you pony up the 15k or so he would start working on it.

Just out of left field here... what about a Rotrex? A simple 250whp/200wtq NB would be quite fast I imagine.

problem with NASA classing is that it is hq/weight ratio. so you want an engine that makes 170whp from 3k to 7k rpm. Rotrex is a peaky engine, it won't work with NASA.

^ Ya, if you were to do a Super, you'd want something along the lines of a JR super, and since we know this guy who used to have something to do with the company, and might know a thing of two about them, it could be a viable solution.

Though I think that other than a lot more back pressure on the engine, and the possibility of stretching exhaust studs, a turbo would probably work better. Though depending on classing, I still like the idea of an LSx motor. It just seems that it would be a lot less high-strung at any given power level, and the beefier trans and rear end SHOULD stand a better chance of making it the full 25.

But again, I am sort of nervous about turbos, and probably shouldn't be.

They also look at the general curves on the dyno and make decisions from there. Many FI Miatas run TTB with 240whp, but supposedly I have enough low-end torque that my peak output was reduced from 240 to 215whp, compensating for 230wtq at 3700rpm. Basically, I could either run 215whp or run the same peak numbers and reduce torque.