mitch_f1's mariner NA6

[mitch_f1]

Yeh I've heard that, but I just can't seem to wriggle the bastard out; it gets stuck on my power-steering lines.

[hks_kansei]

ahh, didn't think of that.

It's fine on my NB, but maybe NB has different routing for the lines?

The only NA I've helped with is my other half's NA (which had no PS at the time)

[Jeo]

Coming to the club day next month? I'm dead keen for some feedback on how the additions improve things at the track.

[mitch_f1]

Just got my confirmation email for the 4th

[-alex]

Epic post was Epic, very interesting though!
Hope it's all sorted now and you can kill seconds at wakie.

[evil_weevil]

I want to see 1.13.xx on your times!!!

[mitch_f1]

You and me both mate!

[mitch_f1]

Another day off, another day playing with cars. I started by removing the whiteline supplied lateral locks, as I had a look at them and they were pretty gouged from the subframe, so I figured that it was probably limiting the movement of the swaybar. I decided to replace them with a set of T-bolts as used on the front, the only problem was that they weren't made small enough. So, I had a look around the garage to see what I could use as a spacer, and my eyes fell on an old mountain bike tyre. I cut some of the sidewall out stuck it between t-bolt and swaybar, and lo-and-behold it worked!!







Next project for today was that the driver side was sitting a lot lower at the rear than the front, and there was also discrepancies between axels that should not be there, despite the fact that the dimensions of the coilovers are exactly the same. Time to call in the experts; I called Fulcrum suspension in Brisbane, who are the importers of Tein. I spoke to a guy named Gary in the workshop, who seemed pretty busy and answered my questions very briefly. Basically what I asked him was if the coilovers should have the same dimensions left to right, or if the evenness of the car should take priority (so the left side would be longer than the right side for instance). He basically said that yes, the car should be flat on the ground first, disregarding the dimensions of the coilover, he also mentioned that I should have a 10mm rake front to rear, which is what I mentioned before. I also took this opportunity to ask him about the top nut, and he said it should be fine how I have adjusted it.

So what I ended up doing was raising the rear by about 8 turns to even out the ride height and to dial in a bit of rake. Gary said the rake should be at the sill, but if I did that then my rear would be riding high like a four wheel drive. So I have a 10mm rake in hub to fender height, and the sill height is approximately even. This is because my rear tyres are stretched a lot more (195-60 on a 7.5" rim vs 195-60 on a 6.5" rim on front), which would affect the sill height (decreasing it), but not changing the hub to fender height. I then went about making sure that the heights were even left to right. I ended up putting about 2 turns up on the right side of the car, and 1 turn up on the left rear. Here are the numbers that I have now (I made one more turn up on the right side, but didn't have time to take measurements, so I think that the ride height with driver will be a lot more even now).


Measurements are in centimeters, the numbers in the center column are the differences left to right. Driver weight is about 70kg, with a half tank of fuel.

So now the car is sitting a bit higher than what it was before. In some ways ignorance is bliss I guess; like when I had my Koni's I didn't know where my wheels were sitting and I would get scrub with the Dunlop track tyres, and occasionally with the street tyres. But since doing the whole taking the spring out and LCA jacking up thing I know where my wheel is sitting, so I know that my ride height now is about the lowest I can go without scrubbing (and having a level car). I have not adjusted the left hand front coilover, which I adjusted the height to (after removing spring), and the rear has come up eight turns from its lowest possible, so I am also thinking of getting the front fenders pulled, which would allow me to drop the car about 5-10mm, but this would be for purely aesthetic reasons, as I will drop the car for the R-spec tyres.

Booked in for a wheel alignment with Wayne at Hornsby Beaurepaires (he does and awesome job!!) on Friday morning early, so after that I will be ready for Eastern Creek Twilight.

[Hjt]

nice, nice and nice! great work balancing the cars ride height!! your dads going to be pissed when he goes for a ride to get some milk though.

p.s i'll be bringing my na6 tomorrow to max brennar

[evil_weevil]

good work mate! ps u guys need to stop meeting on north shore and come up to the coast LOLOL

[mitch_f1]

Maybe we can drive up the coast for a meet? I'd be keen for that, as I don't think I have yet met you in person evil_weevil (is your name Chris?)

Anywho, not a lot on the update front. I got another wheel alignment done on Wednesday as the car was pulling to the left. Turns out my good friend at the Beaurepaires had effed up the caster, so the left was like 2 or 3 degrees off of the right (basically the left wheel was further back than the right wheel). Also noticed that the rear left camber had sneaked out by like a degree, which could suggest two things i) a bush that has sepparated, or ii) another dodgy aspect of said wheel alignment. So put that back right as well, and this is what I got (the column on right is the after column):


Also, token shot of car getting said wheels aligned:


Also took the car for a drive down Mccarrs Creek Road, just a leisurely drive nothing crazy. I wanted to test out this new camera mount I got (Delkin Fat Gecko, which is the strongest and moust stable suction cup mount I have EVER seen!!!) and to see how much suspension travel I get on a less than smooth road. I was overall quite happy with the result, which is to be expected given the previous adjustments made. I am however, still hitting the inner guard on large compressions mid-corner, which worries me, because it wasn't when I made said adjustments....


This is a screen grab of the largest compression I achieved:


I also went to the Circuit Club Eastern Creek twilight event, which was spectacular. Initially I was a bit meh about doing such an expensive trackday in the wet, but in the end I loved it! I was initially very cautious, as it was a completely new setup for me (new suspension, tyres, and alignment), so I didn't know how it would behave. I had a pretty spectacular off on turn 3 on the outlap, which was a bit fun After that I started getting into my groove and really enjoying the car. I was delighted at how predictable it was; I could feel the understeer coming, and lift off a fraction to get it back, and I could feel oversteer, and by a quick action with steering and throttle get it back in line. The previous setup was no where near this communicative. Towards the end of the night however, I was getting a bit sick of the constant understeer. I was talking with Adrian (one of the circuit club guys) and Nemo, and they both suggested making the swaybar softer on the front, which made sense, as I had it on the hardest due to clearance issues with the strut. I put it back on medium for the final session to see how it felt. Unfortunately it didn't really improve the handling much at all, and it was contacting the strut quite obviously. This will need to be looked into.

Highlights of the night:
-Almost hitting the rev limiter in fourth on a wet track and then late braking into turn 1
-Doing almost the same speed through turn 1 as what I did in the dry (about 130 at apex)
-getting passed by the exige and it spitting flames at me
-driving in the twilight/night - there is really nothing else like racing in the dark!!!
-finding out how amazing the Toyo R888 is in the wet!!! Made me realise how useless the Dunlops were

Here are a few videos, all filmed with the new Go-Pro Hero2, which you should buy in your nearest camera retailer (the one with the red yellow and black banner ;) ) and not online!!!:






So now I have a few things to do to get ready for the week after next, when I am doing the Shift day at WP on Monday, and on Sat and Sun I have the Circuit Club day, and the MX5 Club day. First is to get this sway bar thing sorted; I called Wholesale suspension, and they quoted me about $400 and 2-3 weeks for a custom sway bar from Selby, and then I called K-Mac (based in Sydney, been doing it since cars were invented....essentially) and they said about $200 and 48hrs!!!! So I am seeing them on Wednesday to see what can be done. Also need to get my wheel alignment re-checked, which will be done on Wednesday as well. Gonna be a busy Wednesday I think.

[Hjt]

Wow nice read up Mitch, where to start?

The new mount looks awesome, really good quality, you wouldn't want to risk your equipment with anything less. Can't think of a decent reason why the inner guards where touching because you set it at it's limits... perhaps alignment issues since the correction!

The EC twilight session looked amazing, the videos are bluddy good quality!

Lucky with that mr2 driver, came kind close! glad you kept your eye on him, as he did pull back a fair bit. In the video of you spin, that water appeared to be running off, seems you just had the throttle on a tiny bit to much, enough to drag the arse around!

Wish i had all this track time! If all goes well Wednesday i'll cya at Max Brennar

- Hayden

[mitch_f1]

So I read an interesting column in Octane this morning. The column is called 'Maseter Class' and is written by Mark Hales (a respected driving instructor: http://www.markhales.com/masterclass.html) in response to the question "why do you soften off a car when it rains?"

Briefly, the tyre has less grip because of the wet surface but, if we could push it harder to the road, it must offer more grip...think of the group C cars of the '80s which had so much downforce that they could run slick tyres with no tread at all in all but soaking-wet conditions. If we unlink the anti-roll bar, back off the dampers, and if it's really wet, fit a set of softer springs, we allow the car to roll, dip or squat more in response to cornering force and driver input. If the car is allowed to lean more towards the front left corner, then that tyre will have more weight to press it to the ground and it will develop more grip

I thought that a very interesting article, as I can now see it is a logical step to soften up a car in the wet when it is explained like that.

[evil_weevil]

wait....you got 3 days in a row at wakie???

farkn! busy times!!!

yeah chris is me lol

for sure man need to have a meet some time!

[mitch_f1]

Yeh man. I am a bit worried, and excited at the same time. Worried if something might break. Excited for all the track time I am going to be getting in!