"The Mazda" zoomzoom's NA Track toy

[MINX]

57.325 !!!!!!!!!!! Well done Tim


Stuart

[zoomzoom]

Thanks Stuart. Thankfully the weather held out it was looking a little ominous for most of the day but it didn't rain a drop!

It was a good chance to try out some new brake pads and I also had a close encounter with something I would rather not. All went OK though, I will try to get an update on the thread a little later if I get the time.

Cheers,

Tim

[zoomzoom]

Update Pt 1

So I got out to Lakeside for round 2 of the Lakeside TimeAttack series on Saturday. As mentioned before the weather was not looking particularly good. I was helping out with flags in the morning looking off in the distance at the rain however did hold out fora nice afternoon at the track.

Before the weekend came around I gave the car a bit of a once over. There was not too much to do, just a once over and an oil change really. I also had to do something about the rear brakes as you could tell from a previous post.

Thanks to Automotive Plus I got my hands on a new set of Winmax brake pads to try out. These things seem to be getting great reviews all around the place at the moment so I was super keen to give them a go!

These are now available though Automotive Plus and will also be kept in stock for the MX-5s.


I got the pads installed and bed them in during the first run.


After getting the pads bed in during the first run I had jut started pushing a little more during the second, then on my way out of Karrussel I had a huge puff of smoke from under the bonnet which came through the cabin also. I backed off, tiptoed back to the pits and grabbed the fire extinguisher to inspect the situation. As I opened the bonnet I had a small fire ignite on top of the exhaust manifold but it burnt out in a second or two.

It seems as though the oil cap had vibrated loose and when it came off the engine sprayed oil out covering most of the underside of the bonnet and may have ignited on the exhaust manifold. Thankfully it seems any flames self extinguished.

With the help of a couple of mates we got the mess cleaned up, checked the oil level which was fine, found the oil cap under the inlet manifold and got the car back out for the rest of the day! I'll have to make sure I really crank the oil cap up in future, I may even look at some sort of tether to prevent it being able to turn.

Finally I got to start pushing the brakes a little in the following sessions. They had really good feel and initial bite and seemed to be quite consistent throughout the run. I was really impressed with how consistent they were throughout the run, even in the final 2 sessions where I really started to push them they did not drop away as I have been used to in the past.

I got the times down a little in the second last session after making some small adjustments to the rear shocks to try and settle the rear down a bit. Since I have fitted the Kumho V70A tyres the car seems a bit more affected by the locked diff. I have been really struggling with understeer in then oversteer everywhere else. Firming up the rear shocks seemed to help somewhat but II really just need to do something about the cause (the diff) rather than trying to minimize the affect.

In the last session I managed to put in some fairly consistent times in the 57s with the best time of 57.32. All in all I am pretty happy with that. I only managed second in class, pipped by nearly a second by a pretty well sorted Supra. It was the third quickest lap all day, the only cars which were quicker were the aforementioned Supra and a 997 Cup Car. It is pretty awesome to go to these days and put down quicker times than some serious competition in a backyard MX-5!

Times from the last session:


A couple of photos BitRusty got from the day:



And he tells me he just managed to catch the end of this flame


Hopefully I will get some time to give a Pt 2 of the update tomorrow with a post trackday inspection of these brake pads and meybe even a video from the day.

Cheers,

Tim

[timk]

Wow I see what you mean about your front "curtain drapes" splitter!

[MINX]

Tim
Did you change to the winmax pads on front as well, or only on the rears?
What's on the fronts?


Stuart

[Magpie]

Tim what were your thoughts on the W5's as oppossed to the ones you used at Jap Nats? Are you running W3's on the rear and W5's on the front? Did you prep you discs before installing them?

Look at this persons solution for an oil cap http://blacklabadventures.com/2012/03/21/a-tether-for-my-oil-cap/

[Lokiel]

For the oil cap tether, consider using an eBay-style aluminium billet oil cap, there's plenty of meat on them to drill a securing-point and to cut a guiding channel for the tether wire to wrap around a section of the cap:

[zoomzoom]

Sorry I forgot to add that I got W5 for the front and W3 for the rear. The rotors were machined not too long ago (200km) so the surface was still pretty good, I just pulled them off the car and cleaned the old material off with a wire wheel on the grinder to remove the transfer layer from the old pads.

In my opinion the W5 had much better feel/feedback than the pads I had before as well as more "bite" which also helps with braking confidence.

Thanks Mark and Simon, I was actually thinking of something exactly along those lines. I was looking last night at getting an ebay oil cap to give me something to drill and I have some wire fishing trace at home I wanted to use as a tether.

I still don't know if it was just not done up tight enough or if it could happen again, possibly due to the violent vibrations from the new solid engine mounts, but after nearly being the main at my own barbeque I would rather not take the chance. It seems to be common practice on bikes which have a habit of vibrating things loose and although I have not taken any notice of it I would be surprised if it is not common on race cars too.

Cheers,

Tim

[Magpie]

Could you possibly place some oject/material/frame on the bonnet that when down just touches the oil cap?

Is the rubber gasket on the cap still in good condition, you may just need to replace this.

In the example I gave I like the writers solution of a stick and electrical tape as a temp oil plug

I'm glad you enjoyed the W5/W3 combination. It would be good to see some pictures of how the pads are now worn. After the next Time Attack round at QR I may inspect my W5's as they would have had 3 (slow) track days.

[zoomzoom]

Could you possibly place some oject/material/frame on the bonnet that when down just touches the oil cap?

Is the rubber gasket on the cap still in good condition, you may just need to replace this.

In the example I gave I like the writers solution of a stick and electrical tape as a temp oil plug

I'm glad you enjoyed the W5/W3 combination. It would be good to see some pictures of how the pads are now worn. After the next Time Attack round at QR I may inspect my W5's as they would have had 3 (slow) track days.

The cap had a new O-Ring fitted not too long ago. For piece of mind I would prefer to fit it with some sort of positive locking device.

I pulled the pads last night to inspect the wear and condition after the track day. I will try to post up some images etc. tonight hopefully. What I can tell you though is they look a hell of a lot better than the previous ones did after last weekend!

Cheers,

Tim

[zoomzoom]

So I got the brake pads out for inspection. The front rotors are a little blue/purple in colour and covered in micro-cracks in the surface of the metal. The pads did well not to deal with the heat and not have any signs of fade especially at the speeds the car is seeing. Using Racechrono and an external Qstarz 10Hz GPS I saw peak speeds of 219kph into Karrussel and 194kph into Hungry!


I pulled the fronts out, they looked a little glazed but they still bit really well and are in quite good condition.


The rears looked in great condition. The rotors were a little blue from the heat but only had very small micro-cracks in the surface.


The tyres are already looking a little on the worn side too. They felt quite good particularly under brakes. Unfortunately I don't have any data from the GPS to compare corner speeds to. I think the corner speeds are way down due to the diff causing the under/oversteer situation anyhow.


Cheers,

Tim

[NitroDann]

I am pretty sure this is the best thread on the forum.. Be damned close anyway.

As you were.

Dann

[MattR]

Tim how old are the rotors?? and how close to minimum thickness???

With the Hawk DT70 pads I used in the Zed, and I was seeing similar speeds at lakeside to your car, just not the corner speed, and I used to treat the front rotors as consumables as I was using standard vented TP Magna rotors, about $100 a set including machining to suit the Zed front hubs if I did three to four sets at a time. I tried slotted rotors and after one meeting I didn't have any slots left so went back to standard rotors and they lasted a lot better. I could get a set of rotors to last as long as one and a half sets of pads but the were like an hour glass in profile and the cracks didn't inspire confidence.

I would first be getting some indication of the heat range the brakes are working at. You may be close for the heat range of the pads but the rotors may be struggling a tad. New rotors may fix the issues of the micro cracking. I know a lot of newer cars use very soft rotors as standard, so if not already, it may be very well worth your while to look for a harder than OEM rotor.

Or if you want to upgrade I have a set of S14 brakes, front and rear available.....

[timk]

MattR why the question on the age, are older rotors better? And how the .... do you steer a Z around Lakeside in 57 seconds, not sure if I should call BS on that!!

Tim are they DBA rotors?

[corners]

And how the .... do you steer a Z around Lakeside in 57 seconds, not sure if I should call BS on that!!

He said speed not times