My NA becomes a track car (Build thread)

[astroboy]

Badass dude, good to hear that your setup is that well dialed in and your that comfortable with it. Any vids?

[batou]

Doin' it right man. I'm loving the homegrown functional build!

[MoreCoffee]

Its good to hear of your conquest, kind of like "David and Goliath". I bet all them other guys that were shit talking among there groups were also make-up all kinds of excuses. lol

[Lincoln Logs]

Originally Posted by ThePass

So yesterday I raced at the BMWCCA autocross at Qualcomm stadium, and it was a great success for me!

First, the West Qualcomm lot is HUGE. Easily quadruple the size of most autocross areas. Second, the BMW guys like their big cars and big horsepower, so the course mixes traditional SCCA-like elements like slaloms and tight chicago boxes with big track-like sections like high-speed 3rd gear decreasing radius sweepers. Guys were hitting 80 mph around a turn! In short, not the normal miata-biased environment most autox's are

I'm usually in the top 10% at these events on my take-off goodyear slicks on 13" wheels, but with the turbo that setup actually shortens my gearing too much.

So, I gave my new track wheel/tire combo a shot - the 225 RS-3's and 9" 6UL's.

Won X-class (non-bmws) against a seriously fast STI and a very quick S2000 among about 15 others.

Set TTOD!!! This is a first for me in the last 5 years or so I've been autocrossing. I never expected it to be at a horsepower-dominant BMW event either. There are a lot of very serious drivers with lots of M3's on hoosiers, fully prepped Mini Cooper S's, a stripped and caged M3 with a LS1 in it, etc.

So happy right now

You are a hell of a driver man! I had the pleasure of driving this car at the event while instructing, easily one of the best set up cars I've been in. The RS-3's amazed me for being a street tire, and with the extra width the 6UL's provided it translated into quite a bit more stability compared to my stock tire sized miata.

For those interested here is a video of the day and so you can see the course, my car has almost the same suspension set up as ThePass but with 195/60/14 RT-615k and 90WHP.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkXJRQedVqs

[ThePass]

Thanks guys!

No vids, I left the gopro at home and realllly wish I hadn't but I'm working on a new in-car mount to have done before Chuckwalla Miata Challenge on June 5, so I should have some nice vids of upcoming stuff.

This was my first time autocrossing the RS-3's and I gotta say, they are incredible. TTOD with street tires on a horsepower course against a slew of M3s? Thank you Hankook.

[ThePass]

Originally Posted by Lincoln Logs

You are a hell of a driver man! I had the pleasure of driving this car at the event while instructing, easily one of the best set up cars I've been in. The RS-3's amazed me for being a street tire, and with the extra width the 6UL's provided it translated into quite a bit more stability compared to my stock tire sized miata.

For those interested here is a video of the day and so you can see the course, my car has almost the same suspension set up as ThePass but with 195/60/14 RT-615k and 90WHP.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkXJRQedVqs

Hey what's up Sean?? Good to see you on here! That's me in the passenger seat. What on earth were we talking about right before that tight left at 0:50?? Can't wait to get the turbo and megasquirt on your car! For comparison, at that chicane on the back straight I was half way through third!

[Lincoln Logs]

Originally Posted by ThePass

Hey what's up Sean?? Good to see you on here! That's me in the passenger seat. What on earth were we talking about right before that tight left at 0:50?? Can't wait to get the turbo and megasquirt on your car! For comparison, at that chicane on the back straight I was half way through third!

Yup, I am cr.net poster from time to time, I think I was saying my last student oversteer'd and swapped ends there. And ya, the power differences were incredible between my car and yours. I can't wait either, I'm calling Stephanie at bell engineering tomorrow morning to place my order.

[ThePass]

A few pics taken by the resident photographers at the BMWCCA autocross...

Hanging out in the morning, chatting with Sean (Lincoln Logs) in the yellow shirt:



Sean about to drive my car. You can see I sprayed the hood red and the A-pillar black:



At the front of the line about to go on course:



First place X-class (non-BMW) plaque. Unfortunately, they also give out an award for fastest BMW, which was an M3 1.3 seconds behind me, but not fastest overall period, so just one award for me that day:



No action shots, but it's my own fault for not having video!
-Ryan

[the_stig]

Damn son! Been busy. If you ever get the chance you should do some Porsche Club of America autox's. They like faster courses also and are a little more laid back than SCCA guys.

[astroboy]

The hood looks much better red imo...whatever method you executed to get it red should also be done to the rear bumper. I am thinking of doing a similar setup for my fenders to get rid of the parachute effect.

[ThePass]

Originally Posted by astroboy

whatever method you executed to get it red should also be done to the rear bumper. I am thinking of doing a similar setup for my fenders to get rid of the parachute effect.

Word. On the soon to do list, right after I finish the GoPro mount and some minor aero additions. Problem is that the trunk, the little strip between trunk lid and interior, and top of rear fenders are all also faded.

You talking about cutting the fender and bending it in? I recommend it

Originally Posted by the_stig

Damn son! Been busy. If you ever get the chance you should do some Porsche Club of America autox's. They like faster courses also and are a little more laid back than SCCA guys.

Hmmm new competition, I like the sound of that. Checked their calendar and they're doing an event on June 4 but I'll be at Chuckwalla pitching my tent that day, so I'll have to wait for the next one.

[Lincoln Logs]

Originally Posted by ThePass

Word. On the soon to do list, right after I finish the GoPro mount and some minor aero additions. Problem is that the trunk, the little strip between trunk lid and interior, and top of rear fenders are all also faded.

You talking about cutting the fender and bending it in? I recommend it



Hmmm new competition, I like the sound of that. Checked their calendar and they're doing an event on June 4 but I'll be at Chuckwalla pitching my tent that day, so I'll have to wait for the next one.

I've looked into the PCA Autocrosses, definitely an interesting crowd. I placed my order with BEGi yesterday for my kit, ordered an LC-1 with gauge and boost gauge from amazon last night. I'll be installing the MS-2 this weekend and playing with it till everything comes in from BEGi, they said 3 weeks or so.

[astroboy]

Originally Posted by ThePass

You talking about cutting the fender and bending it in? I recommend it

Yes. Did you do anything behind the fender or is it just an opening to facilitate the venting of the the air?

[ThePass]

Originally Posted by Lincoln Logs

I've looked into the PCA Autocrosses, definitely an interesting crowd. I placed my order with BEGi yesterday for my kit, ordered an LC-1 with gauge and boost gauge from amazon last night. I'll be installing the MS-2 this weekend and playing with it till everything comes in from BEGi, they said 3 weeks or so.

Yea, I can imagine.. on their calendar half of their events are socials.. would be fun to see how the car stacks up to some Porsches. Cool! If you need a hand or have any questions, let me know!

Originally Posted by astroboy

Yes. Did you do anything behind the fender or is it just an opening to facilitate the venting of the the air?

Right now it's just an opening. Oviously the stock fender position is farther out, so with it inwards it has to be letting more fender air out than stock, so that's a plus, but I'd like to do some work in the future sealing the fender to the hole up a bit.

[ThePass]

Finished my GoPro mount for the rollbar!

I have the rollbar mount that GoPro makes, but I don't have a harness bar where it would normally mount (I run the harnesses to the harddog's harness tabs/eye bolts), and none of the other bars put it at a decent angle. So then I tried to make a faux harness bar with PVC piping for the GoPro to mount to, but it wasn't sturdy enough, and I realized that a lot of harness bar mounts put the camera too low in the cabin to see the track very well - the dash is too high relative to it.

I kept thinking back to the traditional suction cup mount, which is crazy sturdy and awesome - even after falling off my motorcycle at 80mph, so I thought up a way to create a smooth flat surface that mounts to the rollbar which I could just attach the suction cup to:

-Two exhaust clamps ($4),
-a wood flooring sample from Home Depot - perfect thickness/rigidity and a nice smooth laminate suface for the suction cup ($free)
-rubber to pad the rollbar ($free - had some laying around)
-black spray paint ($5)

So this is my $9 rollbar mount. The best part is it's high - eye level, so the camera should be able to get a great view of the track:








Shame I can't return the $25 GoPro rollbar mount that I've never used

[astroboy]

Mount looks good man!

[ThePass]

Aero Work!

So first of all, as you can see in some of my other pics, my headlights are in the parking light hole, and are covered with a lexan lens - but that lens sits recessed in the hole. I wanted to streamline the nose to make the car a little more slippery through the air, and the stock parking lights sit nice and flush with the bumper, so I bought some from a guy on here and cut the backs off of them and painted them red. I can swap these for the clear lenses at the track:


Pics of that on the car in a sec..

As we all know, air hitting the exposed front tire as it spins is the greatest single cause of drag at the front of the car, and this is a problem with the wide 15x9's.

So, I made some 'tire spats' that continue the bumper outwards on the sides to deflect air away from the tire, which reduces both drag and lift.

Started by mocking them up with cardboard, then cut the shape I settled on out of thin MDF:


Then painted them. While the MDF seemed smooth, once I painted it all the little suface imperfections showed, so I'll probably replicate these with ABS at some point down the road:



To mount these, I had to come up with something that was rigid but that didn't interfere with the front tires when they turned, since this is so close to the fender, and the 15x9's come quite close to the fender edges. These are what I came up with, cut from angle aluminum with my dremel:



The bottom one painted and riveted to the splitter:





The top one painted and mounted to the front fender, riveted to the underside of the front fender:



The final product turned out quite well. Here is the view from straight on, to show how much of the front tire is exposed to air, which I want to avoid. You can see the brackets for the spats too:



And the final results - tire spats and headlight covers:

[astroboy]

I like, you should add the lips in front of the tires to turbulate the air going into the bottom of the tire/under the tire. On a prettying the car up note have you thought about putting red side markers in the front? I have a set I'd send ya.

[mitch_f1]

This is probably my favourite NA track car out there, just saying. Have you thought about aero in the form of a GT spoiler or something?

[batou]

^
agreed. this car is SICK.

I'd get some red tape to tape up those spaces between the turn signals at the track!

[psulja]

I love how your car looks. It looks so aggressive. Keep up the great work! Looking forward to some videos from that new camera mount.

[ScarfaceThe91]

I've been trying to devise something similar to your spats for my car for a while. Not necessarily for downforce but for slightly better aero. Every little bit helps when trying to save on gas, not that these are gas guzzlers.

[ThePass]

Thanks for the comments guys.

Originally Posted by mitch_f1

This is probably my favourite NA track car out there, just saying. Have you thought about aero in the form of a GT spoiler or something?

I am maxed out on points for Mod class in miata challenge, so I can't add a rear wing.

Since I can't add mucho rear downforce, I'm focusing my front aero efforts on reducing drag and lift, so that I don't throw off the balance. If I had a rear wing I'd add some big canards on the front too.

My car's basically the polar opposite of the dominant car type in Mod class right now, which is basically a spec miata on roids; stripped/caged on 15x9's, NT-01's, Xida club sports, 140hp, no aero... which is an easy car to build/maintain...
But I think, given a driver which was capable of being competetive, my car could be comparable, just very different set of strengths - aero and horsepower instead of R-comps and lightweight

[jbizzle]

Thanks for the tutorial on the new aero. I'm in the middle of aero for my csp miata and wanted to build those. Badass car! I'll be in San diego most of June, any events you are going to where I can see this beast?

[ChrisJuliano]

Love the build man! I feel honored to own a seat bracket that once was in your car! Epic car keep up the good work.

[ThePass]

Originally Posted by jbizzle

Thanks for the tutorial on the new aero. I'm in the middle of aero for my csp miata and wanted to build those. Badass car! I'll be in San diego most of June, any events you are going to where I can see this beast?

June 26 is the next BMWCCA autocross at Qualcomm!

[ThePass]

Back from Chuckwalla!

This place is in the middle of nowhere. And it's HOT! 130 miles from SD over a desolate mountain range into Palm Desert, a place most would call the middle of nowhere, and then onto I-10 East for another 50 miles into the REAL middle of nowhere.

Arrived at ~7PM on Saturday.



The wind made it difficult to get the tent up. I had to erect it up-wind of my car so that the car stopped it from blowing away while I got the poles up. The result was a rather crooked tent embracing the backside of my car in the sunset:



After tossing everything heavy that I had into the tent to keep it in one place I rotated it around and then moved the car up-wind of the tent, and got creative:



5:30 AM I was up to see the sunrise while I prepped the car:



This was my first time at Chuckwalla. Tried to watch a lot of youtubes to get a feel for it before hand. What you can see in videos is that, especially for a small light car like a miata there's a lot of areas where you dive in quite deep and brake as you turn in, and once out there, I realized you're doing this twice as much as you can tell in the videos, so this was quite a different experience than the more traditional brake then turn as seperate events.

First session went well, but right at the end of the session my intercooler hose blew off again - same issue I was chasing at Buttonwillow, which I thought I had solved by upgrading the hose clamp. So I pulled the whole bumper between sessions and added a second clamp to that hose. Got back out for the second session and it blew off again about half way through. Still, I had put down a good enough time to grid higher than all the S2000s and miatas in my run group.

Between the 2nd and 3rd session I torqued the clamps down as much as possible. Got out for the 3rd sess, did one flying lap - 2:11.0 and felt even better on the next lap but the hose blew again!

Went back to the drawing board after that - assuming the clamps were strong enough, why is this happening? Figured that as the motor torques over, even with the Mazda Comp engine mounts, it pulls on that pipe over and over - until it finally wiggles it all the way out of the coupler. So what to do? ZIP TIES!!!! 6 zip ties anchoring that pipe to a nearby point in the engine bay so that it wouldn't be able to pull out of the coupler.

For the fourth session, it was ~1 PM. My 2:11 had put me behind only two Vettes and an M3 on grid. Got out and it was so freaking HOT that the tires were almost immediately greasy, and I had to do one cooldown lap for every two fast laps. Everyone's times were drastically worse than the 2nd and 3rd sessions. Still, I managed a 2:12.5-ish. And I got through the whole session.

I have video!!!! The new GoPro mount works very nicely Video of the 2:11.0 lap:

http://youtu.be/URQkdrTpyMo

So I'm going to fix this coupler/pipe issue once and for all before the next track day. I am sure that if I had gotten a full session in earlier when the track wasn't scorching hot I could have trimmed plenty more time off..

Pics of some of the badass cars that were there that day in the advanced run groups:

[clutch_dust]

Originally Posted by ThePass

I'm sure there's a very good reason behind this, I just can't figure it out.

I'll buy your diffuser!

[ThePass]

^ haha yeah, I'm trying to figure out the same thing. It's a widebody with some massive slicks under it (Hoosier I think), and it's obviously got a lot of work into it, turbo etc. but it's just very... different.

[Scrappy Jack]

A) Are your intercooler pipes properly beaded?
B) What sort of hose clamp are you using?
C) I have some Big Boy Pants engine mounts for sale if you want to move up from the Mazda comps.