Project Trackday

June 3rd marks the first completed year with the Project Trackday Miata.  Just a quick recap of what has been done to the car in the last 365 days:

• Transmission flush
• Brake pads/rotors/fluid
• Roll bar install
• Falken Azenis RT-615
• Two oil changes
• Two brake flushes
• Valve cover gasket
• Reverted to stock taillights
• Koni Sport shocks
• Suspension alignment
• Differential flush
• Removed power steering
• Racing Beat Sway Bars
• Reverted to stock turn signals

In the last year the car has been in 7 autocrosses, 3 trackdays and covered 3,500 miles.  I’ve collected 5 trophies and one championship in auto-x during the last year.

I want to thank everyone who has helped out with the car by turning a wrench or offering great advice on setup (in no particular order):  Brad, Gerry, Tom, Marla, Dr. Corless, Julie, Joe, Geoff, Shahab, Shi, David, Kenny, Nacho, tefnut,  my trackday instructors Mike W. and James A., and everyone else who has been so helpful (sorry if I forgot to list you in here)

Just playing a bit of catch up on the posts for the blog.  A couple of weeks ago I ran in Tom’s ’99 Miata Sport for the IndySCCA points event #2 and came in 3rd again, though I am struggling to come to grips (no pun intended!) with the way the slicks behave in the dry.  The car feels less responsive than my NA partly due to the suspension setup and additional weight, but mostly the width of the tires that Tom runs on the car (225 tread width).  I will have to adjust my driving style to compensate for that in following rounds.  I may have to try and force myself to turn earlier than I think I need to in order for the car to transition correctly when I actually want it to.  For those keeping track of season entry fee costs, the auto-x adds another $20 to the tally.   Adding in the cost of running the trackday at Putnam Park ($245), the season cost so far is already at $355.

IndySCCA Points Event #2 in Tom's '99 Sport

I also found someone to trade turn signals with on my car, opting to go back to a stock look.  The turn signal inlets are gone, replaced with some stock indicators from a 94M Miata, with the daytime running lights modification.

New turn signal indicators replacing the turn signal inlets

As for upcoming events:  The next one will be a trackday at Autobahn Country Club (Joliet, IL) with 10/10ths Motorsports on 6/19/10.  The daytime will be run on the North course (1.50mi), with evening running on the full 3.51mi track.  I will need to finish up some work on the brakes and remove the A/C system before then.

Aerial view of Autobahn Country Club

The brake pedal was feeling slightly mushy after the trackday so I finally got around to bleeding the brakes and checking the pad wear today.

Rear rotors and pads still in great condition

There is some minor scoring on the front rotors, but no cause for concern.  Originally thought I was running low on pad material in the front but after removing the caliper it looks like there is still a good amount of front pad too.  I need to lube up the upper and lower caliper slider pins as the pad wear is uneven.

Outside had is wearing a bit more than the inside pad

Bled all four corners and the brake feel is back to normal again.  While I was at it I also checked on the spark plugs to see how they were holding up.  They all look to be in pretty good condition.  I still need to do a writeup of the last trackday, so I’ll get to it later this week.

Spark plugs still looking good.

Just some pictures of car spotted around the paddock at the 10/10ths Motorsports trackday @ Putnam Park 5/8/10, enjoy!

I’ll get some on-board footage online once I get some time to view and edit it. Here’s a teaser in the meantime…

Chase camera footage (courtesy of James Ackerman):

A busy test’n'tune at Grissom Aeroplex yesterday.  Got the car set up nicely for next weekend’s trackday with the rear sway bar set to soft, rear shocks to full stiff and front shocks 1/2 turn from full stiff.  The car is very neutral and the new sway bars definitely helps significantly with transitions.  I could attack the slaloms at a higher speed as the steering responsiveness was much better.  The de-powered steering felt great and provided a good amount of feedback, and was definitely a benefit to have early on in the day when the course was wet.

Started out the morning with a couple of runs (which I realized after reviewing video footage thatI was DNFing as I was going around a gate instead of between it, losing some time in the process).  After getting about 17 runs in for the day I switched over to Tom’s car to take  a swing at the course in his NB running the Hoosier A6s.  Definitely much more grip than street tires, however the increased tire width and smaller rear bar meant the car needed to be wrestled into the slaloms.  After that we switched out the Hoosiers for a set of old (2 years old!) Kuhmo V710s to test them out.  Surprisingly high grip in the tires that felt as hard as hockey pucks! Finished the day off with 3 more back-to-back runs in my car.  After getting in 20 runs in my car + 3 runs in Tom’s car I was pretty damn tired, so decided to call it a day.

This test’n'tune cost $50, bringing the entry cost total for the season to $90.

Wet running in Tom's '99 Sport

Forgot to post after last weekend’s auto-x.  I co-drove Tom’s ’99 Miata Sport in CS to get a feel for where I stand in a competitive (at least locally) car.  The car is running on 225-50R14 Hoosier A6 tires, my first attempt at driving a car on DOT-R tires.  The class had 10 drivers in a whole array of NB Miatas, one NC and a Pontiac Solstice.  It was also a bit wet…

...more than 'a bit' wet in certain places.

Having some competition to run against makes auto-x much more fun, though having to stand out in 50F weather with rain falling sideways during the work session was pretty miserable.  In the end of the day I finished 3rd out of 10, losing out to the NC and one of the drivers of the Solstice.  Not a bad start, though we’ll have to wait till some dry running to see how well I can stack up against the competition.  Hopefully there are more glasses (trophies) to come this season…

Third place, not a terrible start...

Final results here.  Thanks to Kyle Roland for taking some awesome pics of the event.  A very special thanks to Tom for letting me co-drive his car!

The next few weeks will be quite busy…  Test’n'tune at Grissom Aeroplex this Sunday, Putnam Park next Saturday and then back to Grissom the following Sunday for points event #2 of the IndySCCA Solo season.

Another $20 towards the entry fee.  Season total so far:  $40

Stock vs. RB Tubular Front Sway Bar

Finally got in the new sway bars in the mail today and got them onto the car.  The stock front bar is 19mm in diameter, whereas the new front bar is a 28.575mm tubular bar.  I drove the car up on ramps to install the car so I wouldn’t have to pre-load the corners when torquing the bolts to spec.

Comparison of front bar thickness

First thing to do is to remove the old bar from the end links (14mm socket and wrench):

Endlink, 14mm bolt and 14mm wrench required

Then with the bar disconnected from the endlinks the mounting brackets need to be removed (12mm socket):

Front sway bar mounting bracket, 12mm

Then carefully maneuver the bar out.  With the A/C pipes in the way I found the only way to get the bar out was out the passenger side.  Maneuvering the new bar in was also a bit tricky, but I found it easiest to start by feeding the bar through the driver side.  The bushings were lubed using the provided grease from Racing Beat and then the bar was bolted onto the frame to hold it in place (but not tightened to spec).

New front bar in place, not yet torqued to spec

Then with the bar in place, attach the endlinks to the bar:

Reattached the endlink to the new bar

With everything in place, torque the mounting bracket bolts to spec, then the endlinks.  With that done the front bar install is complete!  Next to the rear bar…  The same process follows, start with disconnecting the endlinks from the sway bar (14mm socket + wrench):

Rear end link detatched from old bar

Then remove the mounting brackets to remove the bar from the car (14mm socket):

Rear mounting bracket bolts are 14mm, not the 12mm bolts used in the front

The stock 12mm rear bar was in bad shape...

Comparison of stock 12mm bar and RB 15.875mm bar

Installation is the same process as the front.  Mounting bracket first, then endlinks.

Rear bar installed, set on soft setting for now...

I will get a chance to test out the new sway bar setup this weekend at the IndySCCA Test’n'Tune at Grissom Aeroplex.  I will have more comments on the effectiveness of the bars once I get to test them out…  I need to get a good setup ready for the upcoming trackday at Putnam Park on 5/8/10.

The damage for these parts?  $250, putting the season total up to $685.  I’m going to need to sell off some extra parts to make sure I make the season budget limit of $1000…

A few more items off the checklist and a first chance to test out the new shocks this weekend.  Changed the diff oil with some Mobil1 75W90 GL5 diff fluid ($7) and flushed the brake system.  Fresh ATE Super Blue (extra inventory from 2009) in to get ready for the trackday in less than 1 month.

Sunday was IndySCCA’s first solo event of the year, starting out with a ‘fun event’ (i.e. no points awarded) at 16th Street/Bush Stadium in Indianapolis.  Was extra cautious in the first run because I did not know what to expect, but the car felt quite well balanced right off the bat (35psi front, 36psi rear with all shocks set to full stiff), just some minor oversteer.  Turned the rear shocks back a half turn and the car settled to be very nice to drive.  For the first time today I also ran in the STS class although the car still needs a lot of work in order to be competitive in the class.  Beats not having anyone to run against at least.

…and of course, here’s the video of the final run (now available in 720p HD!).  Clocked in at 0:40.505, which put me in 2nd place for STS:

As I am keeping track of event entry costs, this one is the first of the season and costs $20.

Took the car into the shop today to get the alignment done.  Alignment numbers are as follows:

Front:

Caster: 4.5deg

Camber: -1.0deg

Toe: Zero

Rear:

Camber: -1.5deg

Toe: 1/16″ (1/32″ per side)

Cost:  $78

Got the front shocks in today.  Took about 2hrs to get both of them installed as the front install is very similar to the rear.  I went with the ‘Andy Hollis’ method found in the tutorial from miata.net again.

First things first, place the car on jackstands and remove the wheels.  The aftermarket intake was blocking the upper shock mount so I needed to first unbolt the holding bracket for the intake to move it out of the way.

Intake blocks the upper shock mount

Just like on the rear shocks you need to first loosen the center shock bolt (17mm) and then remove the upper shock mount bolts (14mm).

Loosen center bolt and remove upper shock mount bolts

The next step is to disconnect the front sway bar at the end link (14mm socket + wrench).  With all of these bolts keep notice on their orientation when you remove them so you can install them in the correct orientation afterwards.

Disconnect sway bar at end link

Followed by removing the lower shock mount bolt (17mm)

Lower shock mount bolt

In order to disconnect the upper A-arm to remove the shock you will need to back out the sway bar mounting bolts a bit.

Back out the sway bar mount bolts to make room for the upper A-arm bolt

Now the big one, the 21mm upper A-arm bolt.  Requires a 21mm socket and a 21mm wrench holding the nut on the other end to get this one.  Once its off you can slide it back to disconnect the upper A-arm and make enough room to remove the shock.  Make sure not to stress that brake line as the hub will be slack when the upper A-arm is disconnected.

Upper A-arm bolt (21mm)

With the shock removed (keep that white plastic piece for when you replace the shock back into the car!) it is time to compress the spring and then remove the upper mount.

Old shocks look tired...

Drill out the upper shock mount and the bump stop plate to 12mm.  Once again an unibit drill makes this cakewalk.

Both the upper shock mount and the bump stop plate need to be drilled out

Reassemble and decompress the spring, making sure to line up the spring and upper shock mount in its old orientation (mine were marked with a yellow dot on the upper shock mount and red dot on the spring).

Spring ready for decompression

Koni sport shock ready to install

With everything together, reassemble (remember to replace that plastic piece on top of the shock mount.  You may need to rotate the spring/perch/upper shock mount after the lower shock mount bolt is in to make sure the upper shock mount lines up with the bolt holes.

May need to rotate the upper shock mount and perch/spring to make sure the upper shock monut bolts line up to the hole

Bolt everything (except the sway bar) in reverse order but do not torque to spec just yet.  Now do the same on the other side…  The reason for this is to keep the sway bar out of the way when working on the other side.  With the other shock installed connect the sway bar on both sides.  I actually had to loosen the lower end link bolt in order to get the sway bar to reconnect.

The next step is to jack up the hub to take the load of the corner before torquing the bolts to spec.  The jack I used was a piece of shit and couldn’t get enough jacking height so I had to use some wood blocks to get the necessary height.  This is NOT recommended, but I was limited on resources.

Left fornt jacked up to hold weight of LF corner

The same goes for the other side, jack and torque to spec.  Replace the wheels and torque lugs to spec, remove jackstands.  I’ve scheduled an alignment job for tomorrow to get the car ready.  Remaining on the checklist is to redesign the camera mount, flush the brake fluid and to check the trans and diff fluid.

Initial impressions of the Koni Sport shocks.  On the softest setting they feel a bit smoother than the stock shocks though the placebo effect makes me think the car handles a slight bit more responsively too.  When the shocks are turned to full stiff it is pretty uncomfortable on public roads, but the car is definitely more responsive to steering inputs.  One main problem right now is the intake blocks adjustment on the front left shock, so I will need to fabricate something that will allow adjustment of that shock without having to detach the mounting frame for the intake tube.

Overall the ride height has increased by 0.5″ in the front and 0.875″ in the rear on the middle perch setting.  I will measure in a week to see if the ride height settles down any, though jacking up each corner before torquing should have eliminated making the ride height temporarily higher…