The Roadster NA Journey Begins

[The American]

once you've gone past all the sensible points to draw a line (on mods) it seems difficult to know where to stop. There's a good argument for just doing wheels, tyres, lowering and alignment, and then just drive until you can't go quicker, and you're keeping up with more powerful cars.

The other benefit in this, is you'd be able to pace yourself against lots of other Mx5's with drivers who've got small budgets, and as a result, don't do much more than the same mods. This is what I did with my first car, and it was a relatively cheap hoot. There were still others much faster than me, so I knew I still had lots of room for improvement!

I also found with that car, I was more than happy to sit on the rev limiter (bounce bounce) for that last half second before a turn, and I never felt concerned I was going to break something. My current car is much closer to the mechanical limits, and I do worry, and this changes how I drive it.

The SC NB I mentioned above, has many fewer HP, and is seconds faster than me at Mt Cotton (he's also had a lot more practice there!).

[Magpie]

Having an attitude change, I just want to drive and stop thinking. I'm going to start listening to the people whose advice I ignored in the past but have turned out to be right.

[gslender]

Weekend sprints in November? See you there!


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[toppertee]

is can I ever drive it to its limits.

No your to old....

The option is to use testicals not talent....

I spent more time off the track than on it.... This crash put me in hospital..... As I said drive dumb... I was very lucky not to go over on my lid. Some bloke in a evo, did the same thing. But went end over end.

I've now slowed down a lot.



Have you thought about karts?

You could do it with your young bloke.....Tracks open 5 days a week, fairly cheap...... Plus your driving all the time.

[Magpie]

Weekend sprints in November? I'm at the limit of my other half's patience when it comes to the "@#$*en blue car" so need to be a little smarter...

Up at Noosa Hill Climb 7/8 Nov, Lakeside 16 Nov, Dodgy day 21 Nov.

I would say General Practice at QR on 12/12 and Lakeside on 05/12 will be the next outings.

Toppertee karts are on the cards, need to work on the other half as she is worried one of us will get hurt Have picked up a Polaris RZR 170 for the little bugger for Christmas.

Have got the 120 cc motorbike running (throttle does not self return yet), did some silly testing of it on Sunday... and I still have the 600 bike to get registered. Came to the conclusion after Sunday's silly session that I miss bikes.

[speed]

I just want to drive and stop thinking.

I'm not a racer. I did a full season way back around 15 years ago in a turbo Lancer competing in a modified class.
I was far from competitive!

Next time I hope to be among other mx5's and learning from them.

You have done this plus your driver training here and there.

With all the mx5 plus stickers and what not on your car, it looks as though you are sponsored by them and don't pay for parts.

That said, it makes perfect sense to me to be overly concerned when you have put your own dollars, time and effort in.
Especially when you have so much logging stuff and minor issues that you've been sorting.

I think you need to reduce the info coming in one ear, so you can focus more on driving your ring off.

I wonder if you'd see any reduction in times, if you were flogging a car you didn't care about???

Of course there are other factors. I'm no where near as fearless as I was 15-20 years ago.

At the end of the day it is you competing against yourself. Noone else matters.

[Magpie]

Thanks Speed. Yep, time to start driving my ring off and stop the thinking part. I'm going to go to Noosa Hill Climb and the Lakeside events with this attitude. If only I could get back to the no fear younger days of racing 2 stroke road bikes I would be happy

I tend to agree that I'm not flogging the car because I have so much invested in it, again this could be another mental block that needs to be removed.

The relationship between myself and Automotive Plus is commercial in confidence, however it is not as lucrative as you have assumed. Maybe if more of the 'stuff' developed for my car gets purchased...

[Magpie]

The relationship is 2 way. I need to be able to 'showcase' the car on the track as well as being a daily drive. The daily drive part is proven, however track performance is still not what anybody would class as outstanding. Personally I would say track performance is below par.

Once track performance is 'proven' then there is something that can be marketed.

Ask yourself a simple question, why would somebody want to use the same engine in mine when you could get a proven engine built by Gary Stewart? Gary Stewart engines have been used by lots of MX5 drivers, not sure of the percentage with a dual use (track/daily).

What sets mine apart is that the engine power is proven and available to those who are serious about building one. Yes there is also performance data out there, but there is more than just that available.

it is more than capable of performing track (with the right driver) or daily drive duties. The exhaust note is not loud or obniouxs rather subdued, even above 5,000 rpm it is still street legal noise wise.

Yes there has been issues with the engine, I can't easily forget the CAS sensor. However, it has now been found and a solution can be made. Therefore any similar build would have the solution for the CAS as part of the build. Likewise the trumpet lengths, standard 40mm trumpets are proven to loose mid-range power. The air box fixes mid range, almost 25 more RWHP at 5,500 than the 40mm

Whilst the engine is developed the rest of the package is not yet fully developed. There is a requirement to seperate the engine build from the rest of the build

For example after the alignment today the car felt like a motorbike that had been counter steered to lay over into a corner. It just wanted to turn in, never felt like this before and even on the road (at road speeds) it felt confident.

As a driver I should be able to communicate to others what I'm 'feeling' with the car. It is only recently that I have been able to 'feel' and communicate what the car is doing. Why because the changes made to the car have been noted and therefore can be replicated.

At the recent Morgan Park day the I was able to communicate what the car was doing to the instructor. When the instructor drove the car he gave very similar description of what the car was doing. Based on these comments the car was aligned, other suggestions were made, however those changes are going to wait until I get the feel of the new alignment.

By the way the changes are change to OEM sway and 8 kg front springs. These changes are what almost ANY person would make. I'm of the opinion that I should have 10 kg front springs, OEM sway I agree with. These changes will make the car less prone to mid corner understeer.

The rear brakes locking up early, almost all the advice has been to install a manual proportioning valve. However at WTAC I did not have this problem, but at Morgan Park I did. Only change was tyres! In the end this is the solution as it will allow to fine tune the rears to the track, tyres or road use.

Yes I have a lot of data collected, some would say TOO MUCH. However, it is only now that since I know what to look for can I make better use of the data. Both WTAC and Morgan Park have taught me more about the handling of a car than any previous track time.

2016 will be the decision year. Can I develop the testicles to push the car or should I give up de tune the motor and fade into the background. This part of the journey ends very soon.

[Magpie]

Actually thanks to some advice I'm closing this thread and won't be making any more posts. Journey over.

Will start a new thread when there is something of value to say...

[Scorpius2501]

I've just finished reading this thread, would like to see your ride in person, one of the best 5's I've ever seen!

Hats off to you for an amazing job, and thanks for the MTX-L faceplates, still owe you a slab!

[tbro]

or you could watch and learn from this bloke, 2F NA........

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXhTbrV-014

[Ando23]

I have enjoyed reading your thread . I don't own an mx5 . Married with kids and a mortgage doesn't leave much for toys. Saving to get an mx5 and do club Motorsport . Will start basic and slowly improve the car. Threads like yours are useful for people like me to help plan how we will modify our cars . Don't let the haters spoil it . Build your car how you want and have fun doing it. I will never be a super star race driver. But if I get out there and have fun and not hurt myself I will be really happy.

[mrpham]

Finally had a chance to catch up on your thread (currently moving houses ).

Glad the zip tie worked for you as it has worked for me, but I also would like a fix that doesn't involve zip tie.

[Magpie]

Despite my previous post about closing this thread down, it is back.

My plan for 2016 is to concentrate on seat time and this I have been doing and the results on the track are starting to show. Whilst the plan did not include making wholesale changes to the car significant changes did happen, namely a 2 way diff.

Not sure if it was car setup or driver related but the change in the diff resulted in over 1 sec shaved off my QR Sprint time. Again, it is not a fast time however it shows an improvement and that is positive.

What the 2 way has shown is the tendency for the car to understeer on mid corner due to the rear wheels not 'slipping'. At least for me this requires a complete rethink of the way I drive, more trail braking is required with the 2 way as is proper consistent lines. Understeer on corner exit is very easy to induce now as the rear has more grip. Again, driver needs to learn. People will disagree with the 2 way diff choice but it is done.

Previous readers of this thread may remember my front BC ER's having the canisters snapped off due to a clash between a whiteline sway bar and endlinks. The BC ER's were replaced with Pedders XA's and they have been, at least for me part of my improvement on the track. People can dish the Pedders as cheap crap but they have allowed me to post some decent times. It goes to show that any coilover setup well will perform better than an expensive one setup badly.

I digress.... Well the BC's ER's for the front are back thanks to Murray Coote doing a repair job on them. The quality of the work is exceptional! This is the way BC SHOULD HAVE MADE THEM. Interestingly BC have a new series out 'ZR' which has the cannisters coming from the top as well as 3 way damping...

IMG_1348[1] by Eipeip, on Flickr

IMG_1347[1] by Eipeip, on Flickr

IMG_1351[1] by Eipeip, on Flickr

IMG_1349[1] by Eipeip, on Flickr

That is not all the Murray did, he also did a test of the BC's.....

Not sure home many people are willing to post dyno plots of their suspension. Murray advised the 'sweet' spot for the BC ER's but advised that the low speed (0-50mm/sec)could be better. The graph shows that with the external canister that there is no 'nose' in rebound, rather the rebound is linear from 0 mm/sec. Further the 'nose' in compression is not very pronounced.

However in the medium speed (50-150 mm/sec) the area of braking/fast direction changes the curve, at least in compression is digressive. That is the changes to the settings are not linear, the softer you make it from full hard the more pronounced the change becomes. However for rebound it is linear and any change in the setting will be the same it also shows that the external canisters DO have an effect on the rebound.

Next outing for the car will be at JapNats, with the ER's installed front and back as well as the 2 way diff. My time to beat will be 1:06.6799 (previous JapNats). This will be followed by Street Sprints Rnd 3 on 21/05/16 and general practice at QR on 04/06/16.

Car and driver have submitted an EOI for WTAC 2016, if accepted then there will be more track time to be had. WTAC 2016 (if accepted) will be done on the BC ER's, unless a catastrophic event happens.

If anything I have learnt in this journey it is that nothing, no modification, no setting, no data analysis is a substitute for seat time. It is only seat time that creates consistency and then this allows decisions to be made as to settings/modifications. The driver is responsible for giving relevant/informed feedback, data analysis then is used to see confirm the feedback and find a solution.

The journey continues...

BC Dybo by Eipeip, on Flickr

BC Dybo 1 by Eipeip, on Flickr

[Magpie]

Installed the BC ER's today and did some investigation into the why they snapped.

As mentioned previously the damage was caused by the 24mm whiteline sway bar on full soft. There was no issue when it was on hard or medium.

It would appear that the cause is the 949 end links being on the outside of the sway bar. This causes the end links to be at a different angle to the damper and hence likely to cause interference.

This is looking from the front, notice the angle of the link to the damper.
DSCN3193 by Eipeip, on Flickr

Looking forward.
DSCN3197 by Eipeip, on Flickr

This is with the ER's installed and the end link to the inside of the bar, the angle is a lot better and when jacking up the wheel there is no interference.
DSCN3200 by Eipeip, on Flickr

From the back, again the angle is so much better. As this is at full droop the angle will get more vertical as the suspension compresses.
DSCN3201 by Eipeip, on Flickr

For the right hand side the hose could not go to the rear as there is just no room to bring the canister up so it was routed forward. But again looks like heaps of room.

DSCN3198 by Eipeip, on Flickr

DSCN3199 by Eipeip, on Flickr

Anyway dodgy day tomorrow so car will be left alone till Sunday then it I corner weight and a test drive. Dropping the front by 10mm.