Really sorry to see that happen, although I'm also in the camp of how things could have gone much, much worse - I have two friends currently in the hospital from automobile incidents that weren't so fortunate.

However, this is Wingman we are talking about - We should start a betting pool on how long before the car is roadworthy again. Whaddaya all think? Three weeks?

 

No suspension claimed to be fucked.
only cooling pack and trans pan.

So I'd say a week.

 

Guys it's Thursday, this **** happened on Saturday...

It's already running he just hasn't uploaded pics/vids for the timeline's sake.

 

Jesus man. Wingman threads are such a rollercoaster. Sorry to see this, though I know you'll have it back on the road soon.

 

I heard he's currently swapping parts from the Porsche into the "Miata" as we speak

 

Up next....

Half a Porsche chassis in A MIATA?

 

Wingman I'm sorry to see this... You've had a hard road with this car. Thankfully you're okay, and it sounds like the car is salvageable. All good news there!

Regarding the cause of the accident, I've reviewed the video of the three big crashes I can recall - this one, a hillclimb last year where you hit the guardrail, and hitting the wall at Road Atlanta. They all start very similarly: You're in a tight turn and start getting on throttle while you still have the steering wheel turned about 90*. You don't open up your steering angle as more power comes online. The rear comes out once boost hits, and then you're juggling steering angle and throttle to try and get the rear back in line before losing control. Hitting the throttle that early with a short wheelbase, big boost engine out of its powerband is a gamble every time. This car went from a low power momentum car to a Group B emulator with half the driven wheels, and to be honest it does not seem like your driving style has changed to suit.

This is just the opinion of someone with no experience in a high boost turbo car, no telemetry to review, and no trophies on the shelf, so it doesn't carry much weight. That said, I really think getting some driver coaching from someone with experience in a similar car would be time and money well spent. I'm sure finding that instructor won't be easy - Group B was cancelled for a reason. Please be safe out there.

 

Yeah, watching the video I agree. There are 2 or 3 power-on oversteer moments in the corners before the off. Is it like that in every corner? A couple suggestions if so:

1) the obvious one, more discipline on the throttle pedal that early in the corner. This is tricky in a high-boost car where the torque triples between off-boost and in-boost. I'd suggest practicing this somewhere with lower consequences for failure than a hill climb -- something like autox.

2) to make it less tricky, are you using a throttle-controlled boost map? If not, you can make the throttle pedal a bit more linear by making the boost target dependent on throttle position. Something like < 50% throttle, only go for mechanical boost, then scale it up to 100% at 90+% throttle. You do need a well-tuned boost control system for this to work properly, though.

3) You might consider traction control. I don't remember what ECU you're using, but there are a lot of them with some pretty good TC these days. The MS3 one wasn't great the last I checked, but that was ages ago. I had a RaceLogic aftermarket standalone TC system in my car, which was fairly decent. Alas, they don't sell it any more, but used ones show up occasionally.

--Ian

 

I gotta agree, three strikes and you're literally out. In that video, it gave you 2 warnings that traction was minimal. Either throttle needs to be toned down, your foot does, or traction control. Most likely some combination of those three. With a standalone you should have some sort of torque request management for the throttle body, using a linear interpolation of pedal to throttle butterfly is just going to result in wheel spin.

 

At least you are okay. I know the car is thrashed but imagine if you had a broken arm or similar plus having a wrecked car. I'm guessing between all the modification and the cost of cage, a new shell would be both time and cost prohibitive.

Echoing others: can you easily turn the power down? In addition to having a ton of power, you've had numerous setups all of which seemed to change somewhat often. So the car seems like an animal to deal with, plus your seat time is "low" relative to each iteration of weight distribution and power delivery. That makes the car and its behavior feel new, plus it has a ton of power to blow the rear wheels off. I'm guessing everyone in this thread has WAY more motorsports experience than I, so that's my humble contribution which is worth just what you paid for it.


Looking forward to updates on progress!

 

You can cut the cage out intact and weld it into a new car.

 

Just move to a better chassis. Use all this time and energy on an NC. You can obviously fab almost anything except an entire chassis, so start with a much better one. Early NC1s are incredibly cheap right now, especially when they have blown engines. I have seen them cheaper than NAs.

 

I don't know if its a better chassis, but same with RX8s.

 

The RX8 and NC are virtually the same chassis. The RX8 has the bonus of being massively stiffer thanks the roof and super strong door pillars. However, you are adding a lot of weight and size over an NC or NA. A supposed-to-be rotary RX8 swapped with a VW inline 5 with a 8HP trans would be probably the most unique thing out there though...

 

FWIW, I sold my RX8 for an NB. Playing above 400 whp I would have been better off with an NC or RX8. IIRC a race weight RX8 was ~2400lbs (wet car) but vauge recollection. Not much different. Unless you're featherlight or tub the NA/NB, the wheel size is a major limitation, the brake rotors and tires are simply too small for the energy going into them.

Here are some example traction control settings, the yaw rate sensitivity helps stabilize the car. I use settings 3-5 in the dry depending on tires and track condition. This is used in conjunction with limiting throttle opening and boost based on TPS as well for control. But the TC is the safety net.

 

do it. they are so fun to work on and to crash into trees.

 

NC also picks up significantly more suspension travel which would benefit your hillclimb abilities.

But also, as someone who has spun a boosted Miata into a tree before and been passenger when that same car got cartwheeled off a twisty canyon road... I agree with the others who said you've gotta take a new approach. A different style of throttle application would go a long way, along with the other electronic goodies the others suggested. You shouldn't be applying throttle that aggressively with the wheel still fully turned. Gotta smooth things out, a lot. No more crashy!