turbo reliability on track
 

reading Savington's post over at m.net. he mentioned a lot of progress in this last year on track turbo reliability. can you guys elaborate on that.

thanks

Read my build thread, I mean "Hustler's List of Regrets". I've gone from a car that wouldn't last 3-laps, then I did a few sessions, then I did a few days, now I'm doing almost nothing aside from replacing wear items with only one mechanical failure in the last year (which now has a fail-safe). I say this with the assumption that I'll fix my brakes tomorrow.

I owe my reliability to Tim Fodor though. Although I don't have the accolades or streetcar lap times to compare to you Commiefornia boys, Savington and I broke a lot of parts and Tim managed to give us something we can't break in terms of "hot-parts". The inconel safetywire helped a lot too.

The two big steps were v-bands and Inconel studs. There was no good solution to the turbo hardware problem before that, and now we have two solid track-tested solutions.

The rest of it is just solid prep work - heat management and quality components.

You can't assert that hot-parts reliability down to v-bands alone. You've forgotten that we have schedule 40-pipe, guessets on every weld, gussets on the WG flange, gussets on the DP welds, Burns double slips, and TiAL V-bands rather than the standard garbage. I did not enjoy my time on the fail-train of swage fit pipe, 2-bolt flanges, gaskets, cracked manifolds, warped manifolds, and broken bolts.

I suppose I take for granted the fact that AF setups are inherently superior to everything else on the market :p

Hustler: nice. I saw it in your thread (48 pages) that your car went 5 seconds under SM record, very nice !! imagine what you can do with some aero work.

That's the beauty though, it looks fairly stock and its quiet. I also drove it to work yesterday. ;)

Its been painstaking to build a car that I can drive 4-hours to Tulsa, race the car for 3-hours, drive to dinner, race for 2-hours, then drive 4-hours home. It beats owning a truck, storing a trailer, and apartment living. Its also enjoyable to have people tell me to watch my mirrors and laugh at the tire trailer.

fastest street Miata in Cali is Sonny's (VegaXT) MSM. he is also 5 seconds under SM record at BW. but he has wing (but no splitter).

not sure about Bob. he was ~5 seconds under SM record at MRLS also. you guys are in a fight for fastest Street driven Miata title in the country I think.

with a wing and splitter (Hoosier don't count, as that can't be street driven, unless u have a ton of $$$), you can probably shave another 2-3 seconds off. and to do that reliably, incredible.

Andrew in his monster Miata just went 10 seconds under at BW13 last week, this was in 100F weather and NT01. what's the most under SM record ? my guess would be a power track like AAA Speedway (where Andrew is 13 under) I think we should have a handicap like Golf. if you are 5 seconds under SM record, you are -5 and so on.

Hallett is fairly tight with 2 of 10-corners that stand alone. I think we'll get into the 1:26's in my car on the next time out. I'm at ECR this week and I expect to be ~10-seconds under the SM record.

John is the hot-shoe around here, I plan to cut more time off with his private instruction. :ky:

10 seconds off SM record in a street driven Miata w/o wing or splitter or Hoosier ? I got to see that. pls do post all the details.

Gordon and I were both on Hankook C71s but I am switching back to NT-01s. Tired of tires that basically stop working after 3 days.

OR if you don't have a govt. job and need to do it without breaking the bank (or free in my case) you can tack weld the flange which relieves the stress on the bolts, and not worry about it. when time comes to remove the turbo i'll drop the dp and unbolt the manifold. 30 sec. with my angle grinder will dismiss the welds. voila, i just saved $3,000. i would loooove to have absurdflow, but that would mean no track days for a year.

ghetto fix for sure, but for sure a fix. i have 15 track days on my car so far. no more broken bolts. oh, btw, we also found out that the bolts that broke were the ones that were exposed directly to the exhaust gasses. on my car it was only the top left bolt that wasn't shrouded (encased) by the manifold at the throat. others had 2-3 bolts (or all) exposed, and they would all break.

what is the sm record there?

Inconel and flat surfaces will achieve the same thing and it doesn't involve a welder.

inconel = $100.00+ and not here when i needed them.
weld = $0.00 and my buddy was here to weld it.

when i replace the turbo, you will be getting a call from me for some hardware

I think I have been between 5 and 8 seconds below spec Miata records on most tracks I have been to. The wing and splitter seem to be good for an additional 2 seconds and I haven’t been back to all the places with them yet.

I sort of got into autocrossing a lot this year after having my 2.0L come apart again and trying to regroup and being afraid of blowing things up again. Been autocrossing and a few track days her and there with a completely stock Protégé bottom end and a stock 99 head much of the year.

I won this year:
Western Washington SCC Slush series - Open Street
Western Washington SCC championship series – Open Street
SCCA North West Regional Series – NS6 (Super Street Mod)
SCCA Northern Pacific Divisional Championship - Super Street Mod
SCCA Packwood National Tour – Super Street Mod
Chuckanut SCC championship series – C2 (Super Street Mod)

Got edged out from winning the Kumho Super Challenge up in BC Canada by not having Hoosier Wets for day 2 and having a strong lead on Day 1

Holy Cow I just realized I’m doing like over 30 autocross events this year in my Street/Track/Autocross car. It is not even really setup for an all out autcross car.

I also did A Time Attack series with it at an outdoor cart track Pacific Grand Prix, didn’t win because I missed one event and lost another event because my transponder fell off and I didnt get a time but the only car that has been around the track faster than me so far is a 300hp Arial Atom running on 275/35/15 Hoosiers.

I also did 6 track days on big tracks Laguna, Portland, Pacific, and Bremerton.

I drove it to work today as well! Been a pretty busy year for my little beast.

Inconell studs have not come loose yet.

Bob

Where can we find out the spec miata records?

The v-bands, bigger brakes, and real radiator are keeping me on track, without issues so far. I wish I was just getting into building a car so i didn't have to loose money with all the different setups i went through.

Isn't that the truth. Do you ever wish you could just go back in time with all the knowledge you have now?
http://artemenko.org/timemachine1.jpg

Are you thinking about switching to a Turbo? I thought your car was pretty darn fast with the supercharger.

I thought you have a few SM record urself ;)
you don't have Inconell studs?

staying Rotrex, has been super reliable for me.. but turbo thing looks like it is now fixed. that's good news for Miata.