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This is super cool. What is your take on that bumper cover? Mine is chewed up and that looks like it would be an improvement for low dollars.
Depends on what you're looking for, if you want OE looking fitment I would steer clear. If you just want a tough piece that fits "good enough" and isn't an air dam for your track car, send it. I spent a decent amount of time working with it, shaving some areas, and so on, and it's still pretty meh fitment, but about what I expected. Perfectly fine for racecar.
Made some good progress on the racecar over the weekend. Finally hunkered down and "finished" the roof scoop. It's not perfect, but it's at least molded well enough this time that I can go back and put some time into it to clean it up, but for now its doing its job. The intercooler ducting is also gonna need some love at some point, but as-is is also in a working state so gotta move forward with other projects and circle back to stuff like that. Between waiting on resin to dry I also modified my wing mounts for the GLTC "free" wing I have, repositioned the rear-view camera, and re-installed the "GT3" side mirrors after drilling out the base so I can fully tighten them while installed. The camera was too close to my face and forced a huge re-focus of the eyes, which felt unnatural. Only issue with new poistion is I have to find a new home for AFR gauge. For the wing I'm not expecting any real downforce as it's a tiny 40" x 6" chrod foil, I'm just hoping it negates the lift of the fastback. Having driven the car with no wing at all it's doable, just a bit loose and full on PARTYMODE. Finally, once I got everything put together yesterday I took a Sunday drive down to the new Raceway fuel station and filled 'er up with pump e85 of unkown potency. I really need to get a flex fuel sensor for this life, but armed with my laptop made some manual adjustments in conjunction with VE Analyze. Haven't made any timing adjustments yet, but motor/turbo already diggin the corn juice.
Next projects will be undertray and radiator ducting, then get those KBD parts painted/wrapped for final install. After that hopefully start getting into some tidy up work such as fixing my fender vents (got new templates from Singular so I can do it right this time), brake pad swap (R12f / R10r to R16f / R12r), install brake ducting (BX11 ducts are already installed), and so on. This weekend generated some good momentum, just gotta keep after it because GRIDLIFE CMP is coming up quick. My Sprinter is also in limp home mode, so gotta sort out whatever is going on with that. That little 150hp turbo deisel is gonna have a bad enough time at 20lbs of boost pulling a miata around slowly, at 3lbs it ain't gonna get anywhere.
As far as the wing goes, I'm not doing it because I think it'll be good from a raw pace perspective, I'm just doing it because I've essentially accepted I'm not trying to be competitive in GLTC (or any other series) at this point. Don't have the time/money/patience to spend all my time on racecar stuff, so just building the car for pure enjoyment and I fully believe less aero is more fun than more aero. In this case I do get 3% back for a bit more power at least. Wings are fantastic devices for making a racecar faster, but being that locked down is kinda boring imo. Spicy takes only. Also, mid-pack back where I live I wanna try having a raw pwr/wt advantage. As the car sits in this trim I'm getting real close to have a net negative modifier, but at the very least I'm rigth at 0 mod%. There were plenty of times at COTA where even with no wing I was getting held up in the esses, which makes no sense. So, applying some iRacing logic here I'm going to try giving up a bit handling to have more passing/defending power.
No progress from Thursday-Monday because of an 11 hour road trip to a buddies wedding, but the good news is the van (2006 Sprinter, new adventure van/tow pig) didn't hit limp mode in the 22 hours of jamming out miles. Had a fuel pressure sensor go out on me so glad it was an easy fix *knocks on wood*.
Came home to a few new parts inlcuding DW700cc injectors to replace the 450s. Would have been a good opportunity to go ID's, but honeslty I wanted the ease of straight up plug n' play with only ~two weeks to next race weekend. Need to go get a proper tuning session in before CMP, but already getting the expected results of ~80%DC in logs verses nearly 120%DC and AFR's running away after 6k RPM. Smoothing out the fuel should be pretty easy task one night this week or weekend, but first I really need to turn n' burn on the most important bits remaining: Undertray, radiator ducting, and brake ducts (inlets/hoses). Either way, e85 + a few degress of timing bump is looking good so far.
Well, not everything is done the way I want it done, but we're ready to go rip at CMP. Livery and some other projects will have to wait, but got a good bit done this weekend including: undertray, radiator ducting, spring rate change, brake pad compound change (Gloc R16F / R12R), side skirts and most important washed it and the wheels (holy moly they were dirty). Still need to secure some stuff in the cabin, but mechanically it's ready for first session which is nice. Usually I'm grinding until it gets loaded up and I leave town haha. Also added a turbo blanket, which is cutting down on heat radiating off the turbo quite a bit. Figure that will be helpful now and in the future when i move turbo down to OE muffler location because I'm kinda tired of having it effectively in the cockpit with me.
Can't belive you went with a remote mount. Can't make any power on a miata with that!
Great thread, I just found it. If you've seen my build thread, you'll know I had one of the biggest turbo's ever put on a miata rear mounted years ago (but in a compound setup). It was a ebay GT45, T6, 1.05 AR. It did make power.
What worked for me was keeping the piping from the engine to the turbine very well insulated. That kept things hot and helped response a ton.
I also ran into issues with a restrictive intercooler at one point back when I was supercharged, so I recommend keeping an eye on the delta P across it.
My new setup doesn't have an intercooler, but I will likely add a small one beside my radiator in the near future to knock some of the heat off That should help get a bit more top end out of my turbo as it's too small for what I'm doing and will be at choked flow at higher RPMs.
Earlier advice about keeping the TIP down is great advice. I did this on my setup, as the GT45 was very lower restriction. I experimented with each turbo operating at diff pressure ratios. The small turbo spoolign gave great resonse. But if you let the big turbo carry a lot of the load, the car would just pull like hell to 9K. But response was very poor.
My advice, if you're going to stay rear mount, get a good turbo and insulate the hotside, every inch of it.
Can't belive you went with a remote mount. Can't make any power on a miata with that!
Great thread, I just found it. If you've seen my build thread, you'll know I had one of the biggest turbo's ever put on a miata rear mounted years ago (but in a compound setup). It was a ebay GT45, T6, 1.05 AR. It did make power.
What worked for me was keeping the piping from the engine to the turbine very well insulated. That kept things hot and helped response a ton.
I also ran into issues with a restrictive intercooler at one point back when I was supercharged, so I recommend keeping an eye on the delta P across it.
My new setup doesn't have an intercooler, but I will likely add a small one beside my radiator in the near future to knock some of the heat off That should help get a bit more top end out of my turbo as it's too small for what I'm doing and will be at choked flow at higher RPMs.
Earlier advice about keeping the TIP down is great advice. I did this on my setup, as the GT45 was very lower restriction. I experimented with each turbo operating at diff pressure ratios. The small turbo spoolign gave great resonse. But if you let the big turbo carry a lot of the load, the car would just pull like hell to 9K. But response was very poor.
My advice, if you're going to stay rear mount, get a good turbo and insulate the hotside, every inch of it.
No power, no spool! To be fair, not sure I'd remote mount a street car, but maybe my SC400 can be the test bed for that with its already cramped engine bay haha. I remember reading your thread here and there years ago sounds like I should go back, do some readin', and quit poorly re-creating the wheel. Have definitely thought about wrapping the entire pre-turbo exhaust along with swapping out the RB 4-1/2.375" cat-back with a NB cast manifold and maybe 2" exhaust, but at the end of the day seems to spool fine after no more than half an out lap. Makes it real obvious how important heat is because as soon as you dump a bunch into the exhaust SURPRISE it starts getting way more responsive. Even with back to back runs and brake boosting I have a hard time replicating it on street and typically have to do some pulling boost duty after first on track session to not overshoot.
Definitely interesting in measure delta P and TIP, too, just constantly in a state of procrastinating on all the necessary stuff and not leaving myself with time to do the fun stuff.
Welp, all in all had an incredible weekend at CMP. Car ran perfect all weekend, just did some setup work getting brake bias and chassis balance/damping mostly dialed in. Day 1 we had uhhh, WAY too much power. Race 1 I was motoring everyone like a typical Mustang bro in DE that won't give point bys so threw myself on the dyno and booooooy she was spicy. Of a claimed 190whp I was making 225-227 at 10psi tapering to 8.5, so did Bama math and turned the boost down as much as I could resulting in ~7psi tapering to 6. I also self DQ'd and started from the back of race 2. Can't seem to make any less than 6 on a 4.3lbs spring, but will do some more playing with it now that I'm home to see what I can do and then get a tuning session scheduled at local dyno. Coolant temps werea perfect 185f in every session with not a hint of creeping higher, i.e. I need to play with reclaiming some drag by blocking off the rad opening/hood vents, but IATs were still as high as 155. The IC/e85 took some edge off, enough to not pull timing, but still up there. Running safe AFRs (11.8ish) and non-bleeding edge timing I just hoped that wasn't detonating and sent it. I'm probably wrong and will be building a motor before long.
Thanks for sharing. That looks like a friggin HOOT! The power delivery and sound reminds me of a rotrex. Flat out through that sweeper (corner 7?) looks fun/scary.
You and the car were hanging in the pack there well, some mean chassis to have to fight against in that class.
Thanks for sharing. That looks like a friggin HOOT! The power delivery and sound reminds me of a rotrex. Flat out through that sweeper (corner 7?) looks fun/scary.
You and the car were hanging in the pack there well, some mean chassis to have to fight against in that class.
It was supposed to be flat, I was doing slight lift to not end up a Larry. I did it flat once in qual and it got spicy. Not super sketch, but not trying to be a hero. I think the mostly N/A exhaust pre turbo gives it that rotrex-ish sound (RB 4-1 and mid pipe), but power delivery definitely not the same. After trimming boost I left 7.5-8 psi at 4000-5300rpm so it should be close to perfectly flat peak HP from ~5-7k.
And yeah, power to weight really helps even things out. I have a lot of development to do on myself and the car, but this weekend gave me a lot of hope things can actually get much better.
No updates, just a picture. Can't wait to finish up the livery and get this thing looking poper *everyone collectively rolls their eyes*
Probably going to run NASA NOLA in about a month and setting up a list of test sceanarios starting with testing the car as it sat at CMP, then add tire spats front/rear - block off brake ducts/some of radiator - etc, re-spring, "free" wing vs "free" spoiler and so on. Also already signed up for GLTC Mid-Ohio, let's gooooo.
Working on fixing my fender vents. Got some fresh templates from Ryan, taking the incorrect bends out of the fins, and then doing it right. Did driver side last night and the fins are still solidyly attached, but definitely don't want to do any more bending them back and forth at this point. Not going to fully re-install until I re-do livery and installing them correctly from underneath need to do a little cleanup of my cuts because I'm a heathen. Anyways, more pictures.
Went to NOLA last weekend for some testing and it was a complete bust! Went to the track late Friday night, barely got any sleep because it was pretty warm/muggy and rain overnight meant I couldn't run the vans roof fan, gross. Ended up feeling like garbage all day Saturday. First two sessions Saturday were wet, was getting spark blow out due to a loose spark plug, first dry session (3) blew a turbo coupler, and ssession 4 I barely mustered up the energy to go out after an hour nap only to spin myself on lap 2 from taking a goofy trajectory through T8, going over the exit curb, and finding out the otherside of it was a lake. Skated across said lake, decided to force my spin to the inside back to infield knowing no one was behind me, and then just brought it in. 850f/400r springs with no rear aero was awful, so after a good nights sleep I got up and ripped through changing front springs back to 1000f. Helped tame the car a bit, but ultimately no rear aero is a no go. I never put a truly good lap together in the two sessions I did Sunday before bailing, theoretical was same laptimes I typically do with wing, but it was a nightmare at NOLA which really favors aero imo. By nightmare I mean it was a crapload of fun to drive, but unteneble with the goal of going faster consistently in GLTC.
So where does that leave us? JGTC wing is coming back, baby! I cut up the original pylons since I never liked the design anyways, but looking to rectify the design and get some new wing stands cut.
Oh, also something got thrown THROUGH my front right fender in one session. What a weekend. Despite being a bust still learned a lot and have a clear direction on the car and what we need to go faster. Even with no wing was braking much better, consistently hitting 1.1-1.2g according to Traqmate so that's great, still just need to clean up trail braking. My GSum is still showing a plateau as I transition to trail, i.e. I'm releasing too soon. Wing and getting brake bias dialed should help that.
Nothing final here, just mocking up wing/livery ideas in GIMP. Going fast is cool, but it means nothing if you don't look good doing it (and when you dont go fast in the first place at least you can fall back on looking cool)
Getting proper sleep is probably one of the most slept on factors in having a good track day. I used to do the ol’ 3:30AM wake up call and drive to the track day-of before the car was trailered. No more of that nowadays lol.
That’s brutal man, but glad you were able to extract a meaningful conclusion from the weekend!
Went to the dyno today to confrim/dial in power on e85/2860r and the motor is super happy making effortless power (as compared to GBC20-300 at almost 12psi). Down to only 5.8-6lbs of boost with natural powerband that doesn't take any additional modifiers (<2l is -1.5%). In this configuration I'm sitting at -2% overall and going to claim 198whp (dyno buffer) at 2426lbs. Will be throwing the ESR ballast back in to make weight, but should also pickup a bit more weight via 15x10 Dekagrams and 245 RT660s ayooooooo. At CMP I was coming in at 2360-2370 post race, so should be good to go for MidO/Road America.
Had the amazon fender roller I've had for a while out for all of 15 minutes before saying eff this and brekaing out the mini sledge, 245s on 10s are a go. Paint is not very happy on rear fender, but with no springs/bumpstops only baaaarely have some interference at full compression, tire can still move, but is rubbing top of tub (there's a rub mark so even 225s must have been doing that. Fronts gonna need more work to actually turn at full compression, but haven't decided what direction I'm going with that between just beat the hell out of the rear section or do typical cut outs. While in there with no springs and test fitting found that my bumpstops were very brittle and ready to fall apart, so have ordered new ones from Supermiata. Also resprung to 1100/600 (again) as that's been the best baseline thusfar and no additional Gs or compliance have shown up trying to run softer springs. Only thing is I'm running the softer of the two RB tubular bars so I think I'm technically set up slightly loose in comparison to running Race bar up front. Will continue to evaluate. If anything I'll likely drop to a OEM 12 or 11mm rear bar vs beef up the front if I need to move FRC forward.
02-19-2024, 08:39 PM
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