Charlie Brown's NC

[Regie]

Id love to see your HID setup.

Im getting a NC in the coming weeks/months and was researching this last night.

Seems the ideal way was to get a D2S setup and use the H7 adaptors for the bulbs. This way the light output is in the same position as the halogen globe...if that makes sense.

but yeah if you have any night pics id be keen to see them

[Charlie Brown]

We another great day of State Supersprint racing at Eastern Creek yesterday.

I managed to take 1.2 seconds off my PB dropping it to a 1:53.366, along with a few others from the Club scoring their own PBs and Bryan a Class 1A Record.

Results were:
Patrick SCV…...1:48.378
Yours truly: 2B .1:53.366
Ralph 2B ……...1:53.517
Steve 2B ……....1:54.072
Tony 2A ………1:55.914
Mike 2B ………1:56.796
Chris 3D ………1:58.350
Bryan 1A …..….1:59.288
Scott 2A ……….2:01.149
Glenn 1B ……....2:01.224
Tony King 2B …2:04.752
Keith 1B ……….2:04.825

Ralph pushed me all the way and lead at one stage in the morning sessions before I managed to just pip him out. Luckily the afternoon didn’t result in any time improvements by anyone.

I had experienced mid corner understeer at Wakefield Park a few weeks ago and a quick check at Spinning Wheel before Eastern Creek showed that the alignment was fine but I had little, read 12mm, suspension compression travel up front, so I made a phone call to Fulcrums to see what was needed to be done and I wound 15mm of preload into the fronts springs and 5mm into the rear.
This goes against all information I’ve read that coilover springs should only just be nipped up with no preload. I also had a translation done of the Japanese Teins installation page, it showed 5mm preload is the number for the NC.
Suffice to say that the preload didn’t stop the shock from bottoming out, so a new set of springs will soon need to be ordered.

I have three videos that I’ll need to upload after editing and hopefully I’ll be able to do that this week. One chasing Ralph and another an MGB show what close racing we have.

[Guran]

Great work Phil! Ralph had you worried there for a while - no wonder you kept playing around with swaybar settings and tyre pressures!

It was an excellent result for nearly all of our club drivers. As far as I can see, PBs were set by Patrick, yourself, Ralph, Steve, Chris (debut at EC?), myself, Glenn, Tony K and Keith.

It was also great to have such a strong roll-up again from the MX-5 Club. We managed to claw back 23 points from NSWRRC in the club championship. We're now only 23 points behind the lead. If we can maintain a similar crew for the last two rounds, we're a strong chance to win the title again. It'll be a huge help if Stewart, Phil A, Drew, Adam, Kevin, Steven P, and Peter B are able to compete.

No results on Natsoft yet???

[Charlie Brown]

No results on Natsoft yet???

Results up now.

I'm very please with them. With a clear track and warm tyres I was consistently in the 1:53 to 1:54 bracket beating my previous PB on 10 of the 17 laps.

Seems like the Kumho guy may have been right about staggering and running a slightly higher pressures because the first lap of the last run was faster than the first lap in the others. Something to work on in the future.

[Charlie Brown]

Finally uploaded a video of Eastern Creek on 14 August.

This is the first run of the day and I follow Ralph out in his Red NC.

For the first run I wanted to check the circuit out as there had been some changes with the new circuit being built and I also needed to work out grip levels, especially for Turn 1 before really having a run at the course.

Behind Ralph and myself are two Honda S2000’s that are substantially quicker and catch us on the third lap. You will see that I indicate where I want them to over take. The first time before Corporate Hill but he doesn’t make the move even though I throttle off, allowing Ralph to gain a number of car lengths.

Lap times were:
Lap 1 - 1:55.8291 (slowest lap for the day)
Lap 2 - 1:54.4737,
Lap 3 - 1:55.6216 with back off for Honda’s.

Fastest lap was 1:53.366, with 7 out of 17 laps in the 53's

[Charlie Brown]

And another video from Eastern Creek starting on the warm up lap, this time chasing an MGB.

You will see the lines he takes come from his open racing events, covering any overtaking by following cars. Not something you are supposed to do at Supersprints.

I hung back looking at what his car could do and worked out the NC could out brake and corner his “B”. Down the straight, without a windscreen, there was no difference between the two cars so the only way past was through a corner or under brakes and hope he didn’t run up the back of me.

I’ll let you see where I made the move and then finish with a PB on the last lap.

[Guran]

Great videos Phil! Losing the back end a bit through turn 3 is something I've never had to contend with -- my car's not quick enough through there to cause any concern.

It's interesting to see that you take a different approach to the turn 2 hairpin than I do, and yet we're very similar in the turn 9 hairpin. It looks like you apex turn 2 a bit earlier than I do which puts you out near the right edge of the track a bit sooner than my case. I like to apex this one very late, basically where the ripple strip ends. I've also been experimenting with double-apexing it, though I haven't convinced myself yet whether it saves any time.

Your approach to turns 6 & 7 is a bit different to mine too. After turn 5, I like to stay over to the right and virtually straight line turn 6. It gets my car turned a little more before I take turn 7. In comparison, your line seems to start from mid-track, then there's a more obvious right for 6 then left for 7. My rolly-polly stock suspension wouldn't like that too much!

[Charlie Brown]

Bryan,

Turn 2 - I use one apex to maintain maximum speed through the corner. I had advice from Zane, one of the quickest members in our Club a few years ago, who drove everything from open wheelers to sports sedans. His thinking was that you only use 2 apexes in an open race to cover your line and prevent someone undertaking you.

So I take a wide entry line (sometimes too wide as I hit marbles as can be seen after taking the MGB) and try hard to get an apex about 3 metres back from the end of the inside ripple strip (Zane’s advice) BUT generally I’m on it too early and too hard resulting in understeer pushing me wide to the outside and the concrete strip.

I did experiment on the last run of the day with a different entry line and a later apex and surprised myself with wheelspin and a touch of oversteer. It didn’t improve my times and I put it down to higher pressure in the tyres for that run.

Turn 6 - I find that T6 normally has a lot of stones close to the inside of the track and on the ripple strip from people straight lining the corner. These get picked up in my hot tyres and reduce grip when I need it in T7.

Turn 7 - I normally just ride a tyre width on the inside ripple strip, as you can hear in the video, then use all the track onto the concrete strip for my exit.

If I had standard flip flop NC suspension I couldn’t use this line and would have to resort to the straight line one you use. If you look at the video you will see I have very little body roll which allows me to use this line.

On that weekend I chickened out running full throttle through T8. Normally it’s a four wheel drift but something in my mind held me back.
I have more trouble with this corner than T1. Probably because if it lets go here it’s down hill and the finish will be a hard impact.

I’m yet to find a satisfactory line for Turn 9. Currently I trail brake, use 3rd and understeer through the corner, which I don’t think is the quickest way. I’d like to try to trail brake and grab 2nd and nail the power early and slide the rear. I’d only be able to hang onto 2nd to just past the apex and the change to 3rd might find me facing the other direction if I’m not careful.

Now to sort out my bugs for Wakefield this weekend.

[CoffeeBoss]

For the record Johnny Boston gave me the exact same advice as Phil's approach for Turn 2.

And my attempt at executing that advice results in the exact same result as the above, also

I also experienced similar difficulties with Turn 8, but they tend to put the fear into you with regards to that turn, as an inordinate number of cars seem to try and go flat through there on track days, with often nasty results.

Turn 9 I found the most oversteer I've yet experienced in the NC, it's a lot of fun in 2nd gear that corner, but again, ego usually exceeds ability.

[Charlie Brown]

The latest change to my NC is a set of Michelin Super Sport Tyres from Tire Rack, hopefully mounted up this weekend.



Luckily for the NC drivers, the smallest size this tyre comes in is 215x45x17 but Michelin Australia has decided it won’t import this size, hence the reason I imported them from the US. Interestingly the cost (US$1025 incl. shipping) works out to be a less than buying the next level down Michelin tyre, the PS3. The AU$ was 1.05/USD when I ordered the tyres which took 5 days from the US to land and then another 5 days to clear through Customs and FEDEX sorting.

The reports I’ve read on these tyres raved about the PSS as they out perform the legendary Pilot Sport 2. This and my desire to have a good road tyre combined with one I could use on wet track days made the PSS an easy choice.

An abbreviated version of Michelin’s blurb on the tyre says:

“The Pilot Super Sport is Michelin's Max Performance Summer tire initially introduced as Original Equipment on several of the world's most sophisticated performance vehicles, including the exclusive limited edition Ferrari 599 GTO, Ferrari's fastest road car ever. Developed for drivers who care about how tire technology enhances their vehicle's performance and safety, Pilot Super Sport tires expand the Max Performance Summer tire performance envelope by delivering durability, handling and traction while increasing tread life.
While Pilot Super Sport tires are designed to allow sports cars, sporty coupes, performance sedans and supercars to achieve their full potential in dry and wet conditions.
The Pilot Super Sport features an asymmetric design moulded of Michelin’s Bi-Compound tread rubber featuring a Le Mans-inspired dry compound outboard side-by-side with their latest generation of wet compound inboard. The low-void outboard shoulder features a track-type compound to withstand the stresses of high performance cornering while the notched centre ribs and inboard shoulder feature a compound designed for superior performance at very high speeds and in wet conditions.
Pilot Super Sport tires are comparatively light, with weight savings of up to 10% compared to other tires of similar dimensions. This reduces unsprung weight to improve handling.”









Compare the tread of the Pilot Preceeda PP1 to the PSS. The channels down the centre of the PSS are very wide.




Then I’ve added a little bling around the rear tail light, to match with the chrome fuel cap.

[deanb90]

Nice, i think Michelin make the best street tyre period. I used to have Michelin Polit Sport Preceda and they were fantastic. I found the Bridgestone Adrenalines to be less grippy, although a bit cheaper and less wear.

At the moment i am on the hunt for tyres to mount to 17x9 rims. I can only dream of spending over $1000 for tyres unfortunately.

[kris]

Love those tyres Charlie ;)

[Charlie Brown]

Love those tyres Charlie ;)

They only have been on the car 5 days. My initial impressions are that they ride far better than my previous tyres. They soak up the small bumps where before I could feel matchsticks on the road.

Given that there is probably still release liquid on the tyres, the grip in the wet is remarkable. Where I could spin them up easily on the old tyres, now it just grips.

I've yet to test them in dry conditions as I want to get a few hundred K's up on them first before I test the tight corner limit, in safe conditions of course.

[Charlie Brown]

There have been a few changes to my NC since my last report.

I pulled the Teins out and fitted some FatCat Bumpstops and reinstalled with a 15mm preloaded on the front and 10mm on the rear. I also removed the Whiteline adjustable sway bars, in an effort to reduce excess load on the outside front wheel when cornering on the limit by giving the suspension some more room to move.

The Interstate Challenge was a great place to test this theory out and on a warm day it resulted in a 1:10.80 lap, which I was pleased with given the limited amount of mods the car now has.


Turn 3 being chased by Owen Boag in the old Turbo Girl.



Hard under brakes into the Fish Hook.



When leaving Wakefield after the Interstate Challenge I found that 5th gear wouldn’t engage. With 128,000 kilometres on the clock and a few track days under its belt, my NC decided to follow a lot of other NCs that are raced/rallied a little more regularly than mine and split a selector bush in the gear box. Problem was that there were no bushes in Australia, none in the US and Mazda AU has them on back order, delivery time unknown. Luckily for me Chris Gough came to the rescue with some he had.

As it was a box out job, I decided that the clutch should be replaced at the same time. I was tossing up if I should fit a lighten flywheel, time to get one in from the US was the prohibiting factor but then MX5 Plus had one so the decision was made to go light.

Yesterday I tripped out to Daniel Deckers place and the box was pulled, bushes replaced, new flywheel and Exedy clutch and pressure plate fitted, and the car is back on the road running fine.

This is a photo of the offending bush, it's about 12mm square. There are two in the box, only one was broken but both were replaced.



The new chrome–moly flywheel. The original weighed in at 7kg, this one is 4kg.


Photo of the new flywheel and clutch assembly fitted.


The clutch pedal is lighter than the old one and with the lightened flywheel you need to be precise with the revs at take off, otherwise it bucks a little but I’m sure with a little practice I’ll get used to it. On the road you really notice the difference in the way the car revs. It spins easily and somehow makes the car feel light and completely different. Chris describes it as “buzzy”.

Now for Phillip Island........

[colster3]

I'm watching your modification process carefully CB Once the racing days are over, my NC is gonna get the best of your changes!!