Dan's NC track toy

[mazmad]

Sounds good Dan.

I have a buddy in a turbo rx8, and another in an mx5. Should be fun!

[evil_weevil]

try 3rd gear and then try second in a timed session and see the difference.

im my old R33 with 255rwkw, I used 3rd gear and the torque, 2nd gear would be lost of smoke and lots of lock! MX5 I have to use 2nd. but it is an old NA8 hack!

[Dan]

So another track day down at Wakefield, well half a day… We got 3 sessions in the dry then it rained, I did half a session in the wet before calling it quits.

It was great to meet some more MX-5 guys and congratulations Craig (mazmad) on smashing your PB!

Third made a big difference on T2, I’m flat through the kink and hard on the brakes for T2 which I’m taking at about 95kph, much more stable than coming down to 2nd so thanks for all the advice on it. I’m still learning the car and haven’t taken my pbox down but I’ll take it next time to see how I go.

One thing I do have some thoughts on are the RE001’s that came with the car, I’ve got no context of different tyres on the NC so I’m not going to comment on the grip levels but the tyres are chunking a bit, they are going off after 4-5 laps and in the wet they are downright dangerous – I’m not too impressed but I'm not upset either since I don't need good tyres right now anyway.

[Guran]

You left your PBox at home? Are you nuts? Why would you not use it every time you hit the track??? I do!

RE001s don't seem to work very well on NCs. Or at least NC owners have better options available. On an NA with 14" wheels, RE001 is one of the best options available ... although Star Specs are MUCH better (dry and wet) but cost a lot more.

Oh and you'd better get used to your MX-5 moving around on you in the wet on a track. Even with the best tyres, having the car shift under you is one of the great thrills/challenges of these cars. Enjoy!

[Charlie Brown]

One thing I do have some thoughts on are the RE001’s that came with the car, I’ve got no context of different tyres on the NC so I’m not going to comment on the grip levels but the tyres are chunking a bit, they are going off after 4-5 laps and in the wet they are downright dangerous – I’m not too impressed but I'm not upset either since I don't need good tyres right now anyway.

Dan, you experienced what I did with RE001's in the wet on the NC, down right dangerous
Move up to Michelin Pilot Super Sports from Tirerack, they are great.

[mazmad]

Great to meet you Dan, fun day. Will upload some footage a bit later.

My clutch finally died just after you left (was hoping it would last through the weekend), car is in Goulburn to be flatbedded back to Sydney, hopefully get it sorted for Sunday / EC.

[Dan]

You left your PBox at home? Are you nuts? Why would you not use it every time you hit the track??? I do!

RE001s don't seem to work very well on NCs. Or at least NC owners have better options available. On an NA with 14" wheels, RE001 is one of the best options available ... although Star Specs are MUCH better (dry and wet) but cost a lot more.

Oh and you'd better get used to your MX-5 moving around on you in the wet on a track. Even with the best tyres, having the car shift under you is one of the great thrills/challenges of these cars. Enjoy!

The PBOX is sitting in one of the boxes from a recent move and I haven’t been bothered to find it yet, will do it before the next one though since I’m chomping at the bit to start looking at what cornering lines/speeds are actually the fastest.

Thanks for the advice on the tyres, I’m not concerned about the cost of tyres if they are good, especially street tyres since you can get so many track days out of a set

Since I'm just learning the car and it's more down to me than the tyres I’m gonna ride out the RE001’s out for a bit, see what sort of time I can do with them and then decide on my next setup when they are shagged, saying that I'm considering getting a set of coilovers from Shaikh (Fat Cat) so I might need to figure out what I really want soon since it's a long lead time on them.

You are right about getting some confidence in the wet, it's just those tyres even down the straight at half throttle felt sketchy, I didn't want to try my luck.

Dan, you experienced what I did with RE001's in the wet on the NC, down right dangerous
Move up to Michelin Pilot Super Sports from Tirerack, they are great.

Start the great tyre debate, so many options! Will definitely consult you guys when the time comes.

Not sure if you heard the news but apparently Tirerack is culling back what they are supplying to Australia as of a few days ago, might limit options

Great to meet you Dan, fun day. Will upload some footage a bit later.

My clutch finally died just after you left (was hoping it would last through the weekend), car is in Goulburn to be flatbedded back to Sydney, hopefully get it sorted for Sunday / EC.

That's brutal mate, I thought you were going to make it back when we chatted, I hope it gets sorted out soon

[Dan]

Been nearly 2 years between updates of this thread but since there's really been nothing to see and I’ve just done my first round of handling mods I thought it was about time.

I’ve put on a set of Whiteline Swaybars and a set of NT01 Semi’s to replace the RE001’s that were on the car before. The Car obviously has less roll and the new tyres feel good but the real litmus test will be getting them onto the track to do some laps and look at the times.

Stu from the Spinning Wheel did the alignment for me, he seems a great guy who knows his stuff about the NC! I think I might start taking my Evo to him as well.

I’ve been looking around for a set of wheels for a while to use when I want to drive it on the street and managed to find myself a set of Mazda CX-7 17x7 +45 wheels on ebay and won them at a princely sum of $81 for the set, I don’t think the guy was very happy when I picked them up at that price but a deal’s a deal Very glad I kept the old RE001’s when they pulled them off the car to put the NT01’s on so I can re-use them on these new wheels.

Here they are:


Only other mod I'm considering is changing the XP10's with something that's more of a crossover pad which has minimal squeal since I'm not sure a stock power MX-5 really needs race pads. I think I might wait a few track days to wear down the rotors a bit more though and do the pads and rotors at the same time.

I have got a few trackdays coming up which I’ll be driving the MX-5 at (SOTS – 21/5, Track School – 28/5, MX5 Club 1/6, Circuit Club 9/6) so hopefully spending some time at Wakefield getting used to the new mods will get my time down.

See you guys out on the track!

[mazmad]

Heeee's back!

Will try and get to the June 1 weekend but with all my other track commitments not sure my marriage would survive.

After a month in the NC - and admittedly having some major electrical hassles so the car is far from sorted - it is a fantastically balanced package. Tunr in is amazing, zero understeer. And definitely less of a wrestling match than the NB, somehow easier to drive.

I know a few few guys racing the Evos and have raced against them such a different beast to the mx5s, masses of power. Masses. They are a great machine. Not as quick as you would think through the twisty bits they seem to struggle with understeer, the mx5s do pretty well.

Will try and catch up with you soon. 20 June I am at SMP GP circuit practice day.

[Dan]

Looking forward to seeing your new beast out there, sounds like it'll be a weapon

I agree with you about the Evo, they are definitely more boaty into corners but you can put the power it has down earlier because of the front, rear and centre differentials doing work (particularly the fancy new electronic setup on the 10's). The problem for me was it made up for bad driving. I never really realised how wrong my lines were until I started driving the MX5 since its lack of power and RWD setup punishes bad lines so much more.

Will see how I go on the 20th, I was thinking about going to the RTDC day at Wakefield on the 20th though, would be a good day if you wanted to go evo hunting

[mazmad]

haha not sure I would be that quick. I need an Eastern Creek day, have an event in July I want to do.

[Dan]

Had a not so good track day out on Wednesday, I went out for my first session and 3 laps in I had trouble shifting gears like the clutch wasn't in so I went into the sheds to have a look, I went out for a street drive and noticed that it was still persisting on high rev shifts but it didn't appear to be slipping. I knew that the car already had a low clutch engagement point so I adjusted it out a bit which got me half a session of non-aggressive laps practicing lines until the clutch stopped working again, after that the clutch started slipping on a street drive so I knew the clutch was worn and decided not to go out for another session.

I spent the rest of the day helping out my buddies who came with Evo's, they had a good day racing each other around and one of the guys pulled out a 1:12 on street tyres and stock suspension in an Evo 7 which on his first track day I thought was pretty good. He's got the bug and will be back again!

I tried to baby my car home to get it fixed but while driving back the car died on a hill so I needed to get a tow, luckily enough Daniel Deckers stayed at his garage until 7:30 when I arrived which was great service on his part. Clutch was completely gone and the car needed to be pushed which wasn't great but I was very glad I got it straight to the shop rather than mucking around towing it home first.

Skip to Friday afternoon and Daniel had managed to get a clutch shipped up from Adelaide (Xtreme heavy duty), replaced the clutch, changed the flywheel with a good one, replaced the selector bushes and bled the brakes for me. Great service and I'm happy the car is back with me now ready for another track day next Wednesday.

My car at the track:


My Mates racing the Evo's around:


Dead stock clutch:

[Dan]

Had a good trackday yesterday at Wakefield Park and managed a 1:15.22, not much faster than I was on RE001's and stock sways but consistency has increased dramatically with a ton of ~1:15.4/5's.

I've got a video of my 1:15.22 so I'll post that up tonight along with a couple of off's I had, they were all around T4/5 trying to improve my line around there.

The instructor had a drive too and while he didn't get close to my time (undoubtedly he'd smash my time with more seat time) he did a number of corners better than me and his speed on the back straight was a bit higher than mine so I'll do some review in circuit tools later and figure out how I can improve. I'm also going to compare my corner speeds with the ones in the Wakefield Speeds thread however on a quick analysis my speeds seem to be close.

The sway bars and NT01's have made a difference but even on the full stiff settings on the bars the car doesn't show any signs of oversteer, I think it's probably a bi-product of the stock Springs and the partially bent endlink I've got, I'm looking forward to replacing both once I'm happier with my times.

Quite a few people have also mentioned that there is time to be had in changing the tyres to something other than the Nitto's so I'm looking forward to cooking these ones and changing up when the time comes but I'm not rushing that since I think there's almost certainly another second or two to be had on the current setup with practice.

Looking forward to Sunday, hopefully the rain stays away!

[Dan]

Video's from yesterday, I'd love some critiques on my lap

1:15.22 Lap:


My two offs on the day trying to lean T3/4 (the second was a bit scary):

[mazmad]

Yes the second one left skid marks of the other kind I am sure!

Bit hard to tell tbh from the vid Dan, without seeing what gear / revs you are pulling. You obviously know where the lines SHOULD be - lines look good - but I cant tell if you are hitting the apexes or not.