That's flying!

Good luck Dan! Building megasquirts and watching champs.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8143e9cb12.png

Announcers: "Whats cool about spec miata is there is no way to outspend your competition, very fair racing"

....

yeah....

:rofl: :rofl: :burncash:

Comically inaccurate. lulz
Paradoxically, Maxxis Cup Supermiata can, and has been won by <$12k builds.

Its crazy how close the front run together. Look like they are hitched together.

Race starts in 1 min.
30mph winds kicking up. Gnarly

Wind is crazy. Can't even see the end of the front straight.

Whats the talk of the winner in PTE in a mazda getting a shot at some sort of mazda team?

What happened to newmark?

National champions from SCCA and NASA in Mazda powered cars get invited to a Mazda shootout. Winner of that shootout wins a paid drive in MX5 cup for one year. You also have to demonstrate some self promotional and marketing chops to win.

Looks like Newmark didn't take the green. Bummer. He was way faster than Ricky Johnson.

Dick move from some spec-z's knocking the other PTE guy off the track.

Wooo, keep it up Dan.

Oh man. Dan's last two laps were really slow. I hope he hasn't hurt the car somehow. Justin's closing down fast, 7s with about 5 laps to go.

Oh geeze, this is way closer than I expected. Are there radio comms with the driver?

What a perfect time for the motor to let go. Wow, that got me on the edge of my seat.

Congrats Dan!

Looks like Dan lost a motor, trans diff or something. Was smoking last few laps. Justin was 1.5s behind Dan at the checkered. Another lap and it would have been over. Wow.

Hats off to Justin Ross on a great drive to recover from a back row start to nearly win it.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...98c2bddc87.jpg

Way to hold in there Dan. Can't wait to hear the whole story.

As a nice side dish, Dan all but wrapped up the TTE title as well. One more session remaining but the heat and wind preclude any times faster than this morning. No one in TTE was close to him anyway.

Got there too late to see it, glad there's a rewind button. Awesome. Sometimes luck is on your side!

is there a link you can provide for this?

presuming it will play after being live.....

Shot caller

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...a9354d9982.jpg

And ew. They need better trophy girls.

They cracked a vvt feed tube, a'la Andrew Kidd.

I could just copy and pasted my Facebook status in here, but I want to write something special tomorrow for MT.net. This forum section and the "Adventures in TTE/PTE" thread were huge sources of insiration and information the last few years. I might technically be a w2w rookie, but I'm far from a TT/PT-rookie or fast-Miatas-rookie because of all of you. Thanks.

You shush. We had a nice little 3hr lunch today to celebrate. Back off. ;)

I will say that a ~150whp/2500lbs Miata on 1000lb springs and OEM bars is a total bitch to try and drive "like a Miata". It's not.

Mid race on Sunday, losing my hardtop by lap 4 or 5. Drivers side B pillar bracket simply snapped due to extra load from the ~20mph side winds. Surely had NOTHING to do with my many curb hops or off track excursions...
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...6380d51f75.jpg


Friday, learning the new brake marker for "Grapevine" after the switch from #25CCW to #1CCW layout:
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...8b41c9920c.jpg

#TeamMiata in grid sometime Friday or Saturday before Austin broke:
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...43c91ba0f8.jpg

That was a good lunch. Go win some more races so we can go back.

Still compiling thoughts for the diary entry y'all are waiting for..


Here's the glory:

Congrats Dan on the win! That is sketchy that the hardtop broke away like that, was it fluttering the rest of the race?

Thanks man!
Yea, I was pretty worried it would earn me a black flag, but down the back straight and front straight it was pushed down on the car by the wind. Only in the corners did it act up, but the corner workers are primarily in the corners...

Lucky.

Real lucky. That must've been a real clencher through every corner haha

Congrats Dan!!!

I've been living my "PTE/TTE life" vicariously through you most of this season and especially once I ran my Z into the wall at Road Atlanta, putting my track-days on hold. It's been really cool watching you go from a bare-bones regional contender to PTE national champ.

Pics stolen from others, but too good not to share!

Attachment 182937
Attachment 182938

Thursday: NASA hosted test day on #25CCW. I do one session on RRs, then the rest of the day on 3yr old SM6s. I spend most of the day in the 2:06-2:08 range. I end up running a single 2:05.8 on the high power map and light fuel load. Justin hints that it will probably take consistent 2:04s to win on Sunday. I feel anxious and excited about the battle we are going to have this weekend.

Self check on dyno, make 148.8. Cap at 2410lb base weight is 146.
Immediately, we go down a map, should be good for 3-4whp less than max AND install 32lbs more ballast for a total ballast of ~205lbs. Running @ 2450 allows me to make 148. Extra headroom for minimal risk.


Friday: First day of competition on #1CCW, adding in Bus Stop instead of the long back straight. This is definitely a grip/momentum favorable layout. Swap to my set of scrub R7s that Sonny and I both raced and TT'd on at Mid Ohio. They have ~8-10 heatcycles by now.

Warm up: Layout change fucks with me. I struggle to find rhythm in the busstop complex. During this session I scrub my sticker R7s to prepare them for Sunday. Plan is to run one TT session on them and then race them in the Championship.

During drivers meeting, they talk about sealing our ECU ports with tamper tape. I drop another map down for more headroom and go to impound to get taped before qualifying.

Qualifying: Justin P1, me P2. I had a major wheel drop off the outside of busstop, destroy a wheel, lose 10psi out of the LF tire, mess the alignment, bad. Only do three total laps, came in way early. Justin raw times me, but not as badly as I expected.

Sonny fixes the toe and while we're in there we add another -.5* on the right side.

Heat Race #1: Justin ends up DQ'd for being under weight in qualifying, so he starts from the back of E (only 3 rows back) and gets a mega jump at the start. He passes all of E plus a row or two of D cars before T1. I run in P4 for a while after missing the 2-3 upshift, earning me one of the worst starts of my illustrious 6 month racing career. At some point I somehow make it all the way up to P1 after Gian gets wrecked out in the esses. I was drafting him down the front straight and we were catching a lapped E car. They go through the first Ess side by side, but in the second Ess the lapped car door bumps Gian off the track to the right. He catches a spin out in the dirt, but comes back and completely crosses across the track from right to left, right in front of me. Later in the same race I get stuck behind a PTD BMW with Justin in tow right behind me for 3 or 4 laps. Eventually, the three of us catch another lapped E car in busstop. I go for a gap between the D car and the lapped car which starts to close. I back out of the throttle, abort the pass and watch Justin go around the outside on my left. He ends up with his two left tires in the dirt as the BMW comes down on him at the apex. BMW's LR met Justin's RF wheel-wheel and sent Justin spinning into the lapped E Miata. Justin goes across my path from left to right, the lapped car goes from right to left, the BMW goes off to the right. The seas part in front of me and I drive through the biggest dust cloud of the weekend... with no video. :(
Finish P1 with an easy second half of the race.


Saturday:
TT session #1: On scrub R7s I run a mid-high 2:04. Good for 1st place, so I relax the rest of the day and skip the other TT sessions.
Post TT impound inspection and dyno compliance check. Car makes 141whp with a super spikey curve. We find that all 4 bolts that hold the two stock coilpacks in their mounting bracket have disappeared. We fix that and go back to the dyno for another self-check for compliance: 146.96whp. Basically .5whp from DQing myself. Correction factors are identical to yesterday's runs, weather is nearly identical. All variance chalked up to the brand new motor breaking in.

At this point we've gone down two maps and are making within 1.5whp of what we made on the max power map on Thursday. Each map dropped 3-4whp on our home dyno. 2+2= my motor potentially making ~154 on max power map. That's through a stock cast iron header... Wow.

Heat race #2: Still on those scrub R7s, cycle #10-12. Back on #25CCW. Thankfully. Justin was signifigantly faster on #1 than me. #25 suits my car build better AND is much simpler to drive as you're basically throttle down from Star Mazda to Grapevine, like 33% of the track length.
Grid set by fastest race lap in Heat Race #1. Justin set fastest lap, but was DQ'd for the out of class contact with that PTD BMW. He started from the back again, giving me Pole. I got a great start and several great tows by D cars in the first few laps. I never saw anybody, but afterwards learned that Justin was catching me before he got black flagged for no brake lights.


Scrub R7s up to cycle #18-20. My times are still improving from track knowledge faster than the tires are falling off. Unable to discern when or where they nosed over on grip, but they were noticeably less grippy in that race than yesterday.

Sunday: Swap to sticker R7s.

TT Session #4(Attempt #2): Holy Moly these tires are fast. Run a 2:03.29 on lap #2 with nary a tire squeak. AIM Solo shows a 2:02 predicted on lap 3, but I come in hot so Sonny can grab temps/pressures to set these tires up for the race this afternoon.



TTE Final Results: http://timingscoring.drivenasa.com/N...0(TTC-TTF).pdf
#25ccw track record and Western States Champion.
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...66e262294a.pngWSC TTE Final



PTE Final Results:
#25ccw track record and Western States Champion.
http://timingscoring.drivenasa.com/N...,%20SpecZ).pdf
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...699467e60c.pngWSC PTE Final

Here's Sunday morning's compliance check, down 2 maps, also spiky due to the broken coilpack mount: This map made 141 on our home dyno. Call it 145 on MCE. Did that extra 4whp come from loosening up, or just MCE being MCE? It sounded like everyone saw bigger % swings than we did.
Attachment 182934

I think you meant to say call it 147. So 6WHP, not that far off but my money is on the dyno, especially since that was your loose coil pack run no? By the time you are done tuning and doing power pulls the first time around usually that's as good as it gets.

Ugh. My free software wont combine all the 10 minute gopro clips into one video. Hang tight.

The high of winning double national championships is fading. It is time to start thinking about next season.

The 0pt motor is coming out. Back in will go my old SpecMiata "cheater" head motor, Racing Beat header, a squaretop I've been hoarding, and maybe a new SuperMiata Organic Twin Disc clutch now that we have a new supplier for organic discs. While it's out, I should toss in some valve springs and an oil pump for safety/reliability.

It should make nearly about the same power(still on e85), but won't fit into PTE/TTE on a points-only build anymore.

That leaves me with a couple options:

A. MaxxisCup SuperMiata S2:
Pros: Local series, ran by us, better competition than NASA, cheap, relaxed/social atmosphere, combined towing logistics with 949 crew.
Cons: Local series only, minimal national exposure, minimal contingency prizes.

Requires a diff swap(No Giken allowed), airdam and rear spoiler fabrication, ECU map, 225/45 Maxxis RC-1s

B. NASA PT/TTE or D on a dyno reclass:
Pros: Cheapest "build"/conversion cost. I enjoy the class(build theory/tinkering) a lot, contingency prizes, another shot at Mazda's Roadto24 shootout 2017, another shot at more National Championships. I get to continue using the $free Hoosier R7s I have won, which are crazy fast/fun. Free tires and free brake pads(if I continue winning)
Cons: SoCal region is weak in attendance AND competition, higher cost entries, higher logistical costs.

Allows aero mods, less weight, and/or more power depending on E or D class.

C. NASA ST/TT4 with an Ecotec swap or lots of investment into current engine package.
Pros: Fastest option by far, therefore more fun? New class, lots of freedom in modifications. Plus the same Pros as option B.
Cons: Most expensive option by far. Same Cons as option B.

Requires more power and less weight. Allows aero.

D. Sell the whole car as-is and maybe do something else motorsportsy.
Pros: No need to buy a truck and trailer. Less spending, more saving for property purchase.
Cons: No personal racecar, would need to buy seats in rentals and find co-drives.

SuperMiata.


Seriously if I was out there and had the means to make it to those events, that's the way to go. As far as "national exposure" goes, who cares. It's not like pro teams are scouting NASA events.

Also the "minimal contingency" thing. RC1's last forever and are dirt cheap. If you get some of the Maxxis credits every once in awhile you'll still be spending a pretty minimal amount on tires. Also will take the least amount of work to prep the car, and you'll probably progress much faster as a driver competing with the people there versus just about anywhere else.

+1

For 2016 we offered three overlapping programs, all funded by Maxxis.

$50 prize for 1-3 places, limit two prizes per weekend. The prizes then roll to the next finishers. So most weekend 3-4 drivers that didn't make the podium still get "Superbucks".
Those Superbucks get put into a bank. Drivers can then use those credits towards the purchase of new tires. We also had a flat $20 per tire rebate. We also gave the top 7 drivers in attendance ( not finishing position) a free set at the end of the year.
Most drivers ended up with a $130 refund on every set of tires and got another free set at the end of the year.
Oh yes, rookies got a free set when they enter their 3rd race weekend.

We brought 40 tires to hand out at the series final last weekend and didn't come back with any.

Pretty much

S2 is the obvious option. If you like tinkering and have the budget, S1 is the balleur option. :party:

The more we talk about all our customers' ~300-450whp cars, the more I want to own/race something Fast.

Emilio and Sonny will both be in S1. I want horsepowers too... :(

Racing something fast is cool but a tight field is way more fun. I'd be in SPM S2 in a heart beat if I lived in socal, love watching those standing starts and inverse grids.

Where is buying property on the priority scale?

Not much happening over here. Car hasn't been messed with much since we unloaded after Champs other than putting on some junk rollaround wheels/tires and investigating the oil smoke.

Essentially, we've discovered nothing wrong.
Leak down and compression tests are perfect. It still made the power once the oil got pumped out of the cylinders.
The best theory we have at this time is that the lateral grip my car produced on the fresh tires eventually overwhelmed the factory crankcase venting system and dumped a bunch of oil through the pcv valve at sustained 1.5g+ lateral.

That motor is lowkey for sale. Fully legal "zero point" NASA PT/TT motor. Oil pump, valve springs, forged/blueprinted bottom end. Easy-power-cap on OEM manifolds and fuel system w/e85. Email if seriously interested.

Back in will go my 'regular season' SpecMiata plunge cut motor and Racing Beat header.
I'll toss my squaretop at it as well and hope for a ~160whp high power map on e85.

Because the car will likely see some Supermiata S2 action, I'll go back to a 4.3 Torsen for legality in that series.(4.77 OsGiken for sale!)
S2 also requires a 7krpm limiter, to deter against 'requiring' valvesprings. Good for my pocketbook. I would very much prefer not to mess with my pro-built SM head.

If I commit to the whole season in Supermiata S2, I'll fab an airdam/undertray and toss on a Blackbird Fabworx trunk spoiler.
I may also throw my NASCAR CoT wing at it for funsies at lapping days and RoadsterCup.


So it's looking like my car will be cross compatible in NASA E/D and MaxxisCup Supermiata S2.

Something like:
2150-2450lbs depending on fuel/ballast
139-160 depending on map
airdam/spoiler or airdam/splitter/wing depending on event

Ultimately, I can run an S2 legal car in E or D on a dyno reclass for #alltheoptions

Now, just to buy a tow vehicle...

I have been beaten into submission in favor of S2. :p

Property was high on the theoretical Before We Got Here List.
Wife is currently in Not Yet Ready For That Kind Of California Commitment phase.

Right now its: Buy a multi function tow vehicle/national park exploration rig plus racecar hauling trailer and split a rental house with somebody next year.

4.77 OSG for sale you say?!
Attachment 230969


You'd be the best ever if you document your airdam fab process. I'd like to see how it's done nowadays...... so I can copy it for myself :-D

+1 :likecat:

Pulled the cover off to swap seats with Sonny's car so the whole team could fit/codrive Miller
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...c7f07e7229.jpg



Ended up whipping together hardtop mount v2:

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...30c17db7f4.jpg

They should not fail in less than 10 hours like the previous ones.

The tinker itch bit me this week so I started working on the Aerocatch and Singular Motorsports Louver install.

This is a special #FivePieceBroNuggetMeal like Sean has on his time attack car. I don't think it works substantially better than the typical three piece, but I am a ricer and needed to have #AllTheLouvers.

Problem is, the NB center section is actually spaced a few inches wider than the NA to fit the different under-hood bracing web. This doesn't leave enough room on the outsides for the extra louvers. So I had to customize the layout and essentially say fuckit to the hood bracing. Fingers crossed that 5 riveted in louver panels add back enough rigidity. I also plan to retain, hopefully, all four OEM rubber hood bumpers to minimize bounciness.

Attachment 182417


Before:
Attachment 182418


Chopped:
Attachment 182419


Corners marked before chopping, then moved inwards 1.5" on each side with a full width of painters tape after chopping:
Attachment 182420

Center section laid, left side aligned with marked corner and bottom edge of center vinyl:
Attachment 182421

Proof of the 1.5" tape method working perfectly:
Attachment 182422

Rinse and repeat the other side:
Attachment 182423

Narrowed Singular Motorsports NB louvers:
Attachment 182424

You're just going to tease us with the uncut pictures?

Lets see the whole thing.

Kicking around options on how to maximize a car for double/triple dipping Supermiata, WRL and NASA PTE/D for myself and anyone interested elsewhere in the country as Supermiata goes National bro!
(I didn't wanna clutter up the E or D threads with this, but I may chop bits into each relevant spot if desired)

The same build could run all three classes with only map changes, ballast and tire swaps.
I would be making a couple optimization compromises in Supermiata spec, like stock sways, stock brakes and no ELBJs, but those are needed to fit into PT.
I would also be making optimization compromises in PT spec, like the spoiler instead of wing and a 4.3 Torsen instead of my 4.7 Giken, but that's required for Supermiata.

PTE no-asterisk reclass @Kansas-powerband acheivable power:weight:
2415lbs/129whp
Plunge-cut SpecMiata head, ECU, intake, header, exhaust, squaretop +0 reclassed
205 R7 +3
1000/500 Xidas +5
4.3 Torsen +3
Airdam +3
Spoiler +4
18/19


PTD with 39 points @2330lbs/155whp.
205 R7 +3
80lbs weight reduction from 2410 base +5
Head +6
ECU +3
Intake +1
Squaretop +1
Header +5
1000/500 Xidas +5
4.3 Torsen +3
Airdam +3
Spoiler +4
39/39

4.3 not so much a detriment with D power

I got my no asterisk D reclass back from Greg:



MaxxisCup Supermiata S2 class and NASA TTD/PTD:

2300lbs/149whp PTD/TTD base.

225 -4
RC1 +4
Springs +3
Shocks +2
LSD +3
Airdam +3
Spoiler +4
-------------
15/19

From there, SPM allows:
ELBJs +2
sways +2
brakes +2
Pick 2 to reach 19/19.