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Thanks Z. The spool has been present for a while now, but with the vents its super loud, like to the point it almost hurts my ears at times. I'll play around with it, it's only been a day, so we'll see where I'm at in a week or two.
Seriously man, those spray can grips are the best. You could spray an entire can with ease with those things.
I forgot that van was back there. Those guys had a pretty cool VW based kit car rolling around a while back as well.
Thanks for the tip, Six. I was thinking I'd throw some scrap metal on the back if it started rattling, but a washer would be a way better option. Thankfully it seems to have installed securely, but if it starts rattling around I'll throw another on in with a washer.
This is how much extra I ended up having to cut compared to the outline of the underhood bracing, which is what the original cut is. On this panel, cutting the outline of the bracing was too much and resulted in one of the rivets having nothing to bite into.
I have an order in with RGR, thanks for posting your experience. I was thinking of putting them on the underside of the bonnet, did you consider that?
@Gee Emm I did think about that, but was in a bit of a hurry to get it done, so I just decided to throw them on top. My cuts weren't the cleanest (I blame the saw I was using) and I figured I didn't want to risk the louvers contacting anything sitting below the hood.
Having done the job once now, I'm pretty sure you'd be able to get them rigged up under the hood without issue. I know they sell some trim to cover up the edges as well.
What a weekend. 5 days, nearly 1000 miles clocked, and about 13 minutes of seat time (… yay autocross).
Unfortunately, I didn't get too many pictures this weekend, but might find some popping up on facebook as people get them posted.
Last Thursday we got a crew together and started making our way over to Helena MT for Top Gun, which is a very popular regional autocross. I believe there were ~150 people in attendance.
We drove the scenic route there, which included a section of highway which has signs warning of "Winding roads next 99 miles". Lots of beautiful highway on the way there.
It adds a few hours, but for those of us without trailers we take the mountain passes. Way better than sitting on the highway at 4.5K rpm doing 80 for 7 hours straight.
The car handled it all pretty well. My "temporary" fuel tank vent line that I had rigged up started spitting fuel into the passenger fender well at one point. The smell of fuel became very apparent. I'm guessing this was due to the additional ambient heat, coupled with elevation changes and hours of continuous operation. I capped it off like I had it before and that fixed that issue. We'll see what the permanent fix ends up being.
The only other issue really was cooling. Some of the mountain passes on this route are pretty long with a good grade. Getting up those at 65+ MPH resulted in climbing coolant temps that didn't seem like they were going to stabilize if the passes had kept going. At this point I think AC is coming out of the car. The only time I can use AC right now is when it's cool outside, so what's the point?
This is my 3rd year (?) attending this event and it's always got some awesome cars and people in attendance.
You'll see our tents in the field out there. Also, that Subaru in the foreground was stupidly thick. I think it was on 315s, or something around there.
This guy also has a turbo K miata, which was at FM summer camp this year. This CRX is a twin charged D series which I believe makes somewhere around 300-350 HP Ex-IMSA Fiero Fellow XB competitor. One of the cleanest K Swaps I've seen, and one of the cleanest Miata's in general. The guy who built/races it is super cool as well. This car ended up taking 2nd place in XB for the weekend.
I think I underperformed on Saturday, but felt pretty good on Sunday. Ended up getting 4th in XB for the weekend behind an Elise, the K swapped car above and another turbo Miata.
The car ran well all weekend. I think I hit oil pressure protection during a long sweeper on a couple runs, but I've never fine tuned those settings, so I doubt there was any real danger. Still need to check some logs to see.
I was hitting coolant temperature protection on my last runs of Saturday, but we also ran at the end of the day during the peak ambient temps (not that they were very high). I'm still frustrated by that. I really need to get another sensor/gauge installed and see if they correlate with what the ECU is reporting.
I was surprised by how much oil ended up in my catch can. Granted, the bottom of it does have a kitchen scrubber in there, which takes up some room, but I figured a new engine with the larger breather port would result in a lot less accumulation.
At one point I swear I looked at the fluid at idle after a run and it was still bubbling like the valve cover was pushing out air at idle. Not sure if that's expected for a breather/VTA setup or not.
As usual, the blender bottle was a fan favorite throughout the weekend.
Idaho was the regional winner for the event, as we have been for the past handful of years.
We stopped at a friends parents place near the event venue on Sunday evening and drove the rest of the way home yesterday.
Not my favorite drive, especially in a worn our Sparco Sprint, but I've got some extra padding I can throw in there. These highway sessions really make me want the 6 speed + 3.6 to drop the highway RPMs a bit.
Overall a great weekend, and a big relief. Since turboing the car and building the engine I've been worried about trips like this. Even though there wasn't that much "track" time I still worry that somethings going to vibrate loose or crack/puncture during the ~1000 miles. So far so good, and realistically I've touched most bolts in this car at this point, so assuming I'm not a complete idiot I feel like a lot of failures should be avoided.
Just received a confirmation email while writing this that my Tecna's are shipping out. I also picked up a stock rear sway bar from my roommate to throw on the car. I've never had a rear bar on this car and Supermiata recommends the stock rear with the Tecna's so I figured I'd throw it in and see how it feels. Hopefully I'll get the Tecna's on by the end of the week and then do the sway bar after a week or two.
Holy heck, I don't even know what to comment about first. Looks like it was a killer weekend. Hat's off to you guys for doing such long road trips in your cars (I'm speaking from a comfort standpoint, not saying I think your cars are unreliable haha).
Looks like there's some serious cars in that field. Props to the K-swap NB guy for the wire tuck. What a clean engine bay. Also to the CRX guy for finding time to build that car in addition to a turbo K Miata. How people keep more than one racecar running (or maybe they don't) is amazing to me. I can barely keep one running, and even that might be an overstatement lol.
Nice driving as well. You look confident and those quick oversteer corrections indicate you've got a good feel for the limit of the car. And the course looks sick. Love how they integrated the service roads(?) into it as well. Seems like a high powered car would be able to stretch its legs a little bit more than the average autoX course.
Thanks Z. To be fair, the GC8 we were roadtripping with did a wheel bearing replacement on Friday when we arrived on site. Thankfully there are plenty of competent mechanics on site who were able to lend a hand.
The venue is fantastic and one of the reasons I make the trip each year. There's actually an old Hoonigan video where they were testing the new Gymkhana car out at this site. It's an emergency service training facility, so that's why they have road course and "highway" sections from my understanding.
One of our fastest drivers who took top Pax for the weekend in his Evo 9 was 78 MPH in the lane changes on Sunday, so definitely a good place for higher horsepower cars.
That K-swap NB is one of those builds that makes me really, really want to do a K swap. What a clean build! Walking the paddock at an autocross event is always fun.
I got a pretty good amount done on the car this weekend, all suspension related.
Out with the Koni's & Ground Control's and in with the Tecna's. Really wish these would've showed up before Top Gun, but oh well, they're on the car now. Crazy how big of a difference there is in spring length between the two At one point, I believe this was a bump stop
Pretty straightforward install. I forgot that the "long bolt" on the control arms needed to be removed, but again, not too hard of a job. For some reason I feel like I can't ever torque that long bolt correctly. I'm not sure if it's an issue with the angle of the wrench or just that the bolt head is in a confined space, but I swear I put way more than 100 ft/lbs on that bolt and the wrench never clicked. This is the same wrench I use for lug nuts, so I know it's not the wrench's issue.
Regardless, this was the stock ride height that the Tecna's put the car at. Stock ride height on the Tecna's. Pinch welds were around 4.5"
I adjusted the ride height a tiny bit after this. Still not sure where the car will end up. Everything I find from Supermiata on these makes it seem like 4.75" is the lowest pinch weld height these can usually achieve, but my car seemed like it could still go lower. I raised the car just slightly to hit 4.75" pinch welds for now, as that's the number I've seen in the instructions and the upper range of the dual duty alignment that Supermiata has published.
I guess the real question is how do they handle? Well first off, I don't have a fear of bottoming out anymore, like I did on the Koni's. On sharp dips in the road those things compressed instantly and usually left me bracing for impact, the Tecna's have alleviated that. Comfort is improved, even with the stiffer springs (I think the GC's were 350 lb/in in the front?). You still know when you hit a pot hole, but it isn't nearly as jarring as the old setup.
I did drive through the mountains with a buddy this weekend, but I still want to get these things out to autocross to really test the handling. So far, the best way I can describe the change is that the old setup felt like it took a second to respond to my steering inputs. Turn the wheel, wait a second, then the car follows and settles. With the Tecna's it's way more immediate and once the car responds it settles almost instantly.
I definitely want to spend more time with these to get a better idea of what they do in different scenarios. Are they going to end world hunger and make me faster than Verstappen? No, I don't imagine they will. Are they good shocks? Yes, I believe they are. I don't have enough experience - either with these shocks or other options - to say if the price differential is worth it compared to the alternatives.
Sticking with the theme of suspension, I added a rear sway bar this weekend as well. I waited until after we did that mountain run to throw on the bar so I could try to get a feel for the changes in isolation. Between the SM end links and the Tecna's the rear of the car certainly got a face lift.
SuperMiata recommends a stock rear sway bar for the Tecnas so I figured I'd throw one on. The car had no rear sway bar when I bought it, and I've always run it that way. Honestly, I though the PO had cut some mounts off, but I think that was due to my inexperience with cars when I first got this one. IE I didn't know what I was looking at. Conveniently, my roommate had a stock rear bar that he wasn't using, so I bought that from him and threw it on.
Shockingly, this made a big difference in the handling department. The best way I can describe it is that the rear of the car used to feel like it was being dragged around by the front, and now the rear has more of a say in the direction the car is going. Not sure if that makes sense or not. If you want to see what I'm talking about just unbolt your rear bar and try it out for yourself. Again, autocross will be where this really gets tested.
Also, shout @OptionXIII for the tip on using foam to seal the top of the rad. I picked some of this stuff up at home depot. About $20 for the roll, but I figured it would be the last money I needed to spend on this job. Super happy with how well it sealed and how clean it looks.
Last but not least, thanks to @sixshooter for sending out some decals!
This is the first firsthand experience I've read about with the Tecnas and it's about what I was expecting to hear. Glad you're stoked on them so far. I know you're running the DualDuty™ alignment, so your experience may be different from mine, but what ride height were you running the car at before? I wasn't able to get my NA any lower than 4.75" with the 245s on a 15x9" without rubbing. I could've sworn your car was lower than 4.5" before, no? Seems like plenty of other people have been able to go lower without this issue.
The car was at it lowest point, both physically and maintenance wise, when I originally bought it. I'm not sure what the pinch welds were at, but I would scrape on speedbumps. Eventually I decided to do and alignment and actually figure out the pinch weld heights. I believe I set them to the lower end of the dual duty range, which was about 4" IIRC. The Koni's seemed to like to bottom out on aggressive dips, resulting in the car scraping. When I did the Whiteline bushings I raised the car up to about 4.75" because the car bottomed out even easier than before. I assume that was due to the lack of spring that had previously been provided by the rubber bushings.
To be fair I haven't gotten the 245's on the car with this setup yet, nor have I checked to see if the wheel will contact at full compression. Likely I could go lower, but it seems like the suspension was designed to be run around this ride height so I'll probably keep it close to this unless I have some good reason to change it.
3 weekends before the next autocross. The week after is another PCA event out at that little oval track & infield that I drove earlier in the year. I'm doing one day of that as well, so hopefully the new suspension will help me beat up on even more P cars.
Also, Safelite just got here to replace the windshield. I picked up a nice large chip when we were heading to Montana and my insurance has free glass replacement, so I figured I'd swap out the old pitted piece with something fresh. RIP to my sticker collection.
The car was at it lowest point, both physically and maintenance wise, when I originally bought it.
Lol, nice.
Shucks, I thought you were on 245s this whole time. Guess that changes my question a bit haha. I'll keep my eye out for your thoughts after those two events!
I daily 205/50/15's and race on 245/40/15s, so the tire height is a bit different. Usually I'd try to dial in any settings like ride height on the race tires, but they're still with the guy who hauled them to Montana for me.
As power increases I'll likely move to a larger tire for daily driving.
I forgot you said you were running 205s on the street. Yeah, above 250whp you will probably want more even on the street. My car wasn't too insane but could light up 245s in second gear at 300whp haha.
Fingers crossed when I get a more modern turbo kit on here I'll be spinning in second as well.
Got that new windshield installed yesterday. Thanks to insurance it was "free"
The tech called me out halfway through. Apparently there was some rust from a previous windshield replacement that was done poorly. Thankfully he was cool and let me take a wire wheel to it before he put his primer on top. It seemed pretty mild, but at least we were able to get that patched up because I don't imagine this windshield will be coming out for a long time
Not the worst, but if the tech hadn't told me I would've had no idea.
08-21-2024, 12:51 PM
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