The duel purpose street/track car...the 4 year (and counting) build.

[millsj]

On June 13, 2009, the moment of truth arrived.  My wife and I were at Roebling Road Raceway for our first track event.  She would be driving her car and I was in the MSM.  And what a weekend it was!!!  As much as I enjoyed autocrossing, this is an entirely different animal.  The car ran flawlessly and no issues with any of the mods to this point.  I’ll also mention that my wife had a great time driving, so things are looking great!   Let’s just say, we will be back.   




The all-season tires that came with the car were fine for the first track event, but they were showing their age.  Their final straw came at autocross where I spun on two of my 6 runs and almost did the unthinkable of spinning twice on the same run.  I won’t mention that I also nearly spun on a third run.   A new set of Dunlop Star Specs (215/40/17) was the ticket to new found grip. 

[millsj]

Several months later, we were indeed back at the track trying to absorb as much as we could about our new found bad habit.  It was another successful weekend, but I noticed that my legs and butt were sore from trying to keep my body firmly planted in the seat.  If we were going to continue at the track (which was a given), then I was going to need new seats and harnesses. 

After researching (and I like to research), I settled on the Ultrashield Rally Sport Seats.  Now I need to figure out how to mount them in the car.  My wife and I are both somewhat vertically challenged.  I am 5’6” and I have her by a couple of inches.  We both drive the car on the street and we sit about 1 notch apart on the slider rails.  Hard mounting the seats to the floor is not an option.  I was also not sure if I wanted to leave the seats in the car full time, so I also needed a way to easily swap the seats back and forth.

I decided that mounting the Ultrashields to a second set of sliders would do the trick.  If you are patient with a Miata salvage place, you can pick them up cheap.  I got mine from Partsgroup and they were about $25 for a set.  I needed two sets (driver and passenger side).  If you need them immediately, you can get them from the dealer, but they are about $125 for a set.  OUCH!!

This is the detailed write up on how to mount the seats to the slider rails (with all the pics).
http://www.mazda-speed.com/forum2/index.php/topic,25102.0.html

Here are a couple of pics of the install.
Steel Plates mounted to the sliders


Required spaces for steel plates to sit level


Ultrashield seat mounted to the slider


Seat mounted in car and using the seat belt.


Don’t worry, there will be more pics of the seats to come. 

[millsj]

A harness bar is needed for the harnesses, so I ordered the Hard Dog Harness bar.  This bar is a simple bolt on mod and is easy to install.  It does require some trial and error to get it in place, but no biggie.


I decided on a 6 point harness instead of the 5 point because there is a frame rail that runs right in the middle under each seat.  You would have to drill through this frame rail to center the crotch strap with a 5 point.  I figured two mounting points for the crotch strap would work better since I could attach a backing plate on either side of the rail.  I used a eye bolt with a 4”x4” backing plate to mount the crotch strap. 




I did run into a slight issue on both sides.  There is stuff (and I don’t remember what) that is a little in the way, so I was not able to mount the two eye bolts side by side.  They are staggered a little front to back, but that is not really an issue since you can adjust each side of the harness so they are pulling evenly.  By this time, I had already drilled a bunch of holes in the car to mount the roll bar, so what is a couple more for the harnesses.   

I would also recommend spending the couple extra dollars and getting the cam lock harnesses.  They are much easier to hook up, especially when you are scrambling to put your helmet on, hook up the harnesses and get out on track.

The shoulder straps mount to the harness bar and the lap belts attach to the existing seat belt bolts.  Both the seat belts and harnesses are now on the same bolt.  This set up works really well.  When I am driving on the street, I just tuck the harnesses away and use the seat belt.  When we hit the track, I just pull the harnesses out from behind, beside and under the seat and am ready to go.

I could not be more happy with the seats and harness upgrade.  I have heard a number of people say that the Ultrashields aren’t comfortable on the street, but I like them.  They aren’t soft, but they aren’t suppose to be.  They work great on the track!  You sit a couple of inches lower than you do with the OEM seats and you just don’t move, even without the harnesses.  Hook up the harnesses and you are as snug as a bug in a rug!   







Whenever I swap the seats and put the OEM ones back in, it amazes me how it feels like I am sitting on the car rather than in it.  That being said, if I take the car on a road trip (other than the mountains), I put the OEM seats back.  Your butt goes numb after an hour or so of interstate travel.

[millsj]

After two events at the track, the original OEM pads were starting to get near the end of their life.  I was also not thrilled with the feel of the brakes on the track.  I called Carbotech and they recommended XP8’s for both the front and rear for my skill level at Roebling Road.  The install was fairly straight forward, but as always, took a while since this was my first time replacing pads.

A number of people on the forum run these pads and I don’t think I have ever heard any complaints.  They work great for me.  They do squeal a little from time to time, but nothing bad.  They do dust more than OEM pads, but who cares.  They give a much better pedal feel.  For lack of a better term, they feel more solid.  They have also lasted a long time and are friendly on the rotors.  If my math is correct, the current pads have 12-13 track weekends on them and the fronts are now just worn down to where there is just a little left in the front pad notch.  The rears still have a decent amount of life left in them.

Sorry no pics of this upgrade, but we all know what pads look like.

Here is a good write-up on NA brake pad replacement.  The NB is slightly different, but you get the idea. 
http://www.miata.net/garage/brakepad.html

[millsj]

Now for the good news/bad news.  On the good news front, my driving skills at the track were improving and I was moving up in the run groups.  The bad news is that the faster you go, the harder you are pushing the car and weaknesses started to rear their ugly head.  Tires were the first issue.  I had been running the Star Specs on the track with very good success.  For a street tire, they had a great grip and didn’t do anything dramatic at or near the limit.  They also talk to you as you approach the limit, so you are less likely to get caught off guard.  They have been a great tire to learn on.

The bad news with these tires is that they are just not made for heavy track use.  I chunked the outside edge of the driver’s side front tire twice on two consecutive weekends.  I was maxed out on camber up front, so there was not much else I could do with the suspension set-up. 

Here are some pics of the body lean that I get with the stock suspension (other than upgraded sway bar).  Remember that I am at stock ride height, so you can see the amount of compression.  As a side note, I think SMR is riding shotgun in these photos.   






This is the result of over heated tires.  You can see that the outside edge was taking the brunt of the wear.




I now had an excuse to get another set of rims and some real track tires.  The street tires were great to learn on, but it was getting expensive having to replace a street tire every track weekend. 

[millsj]

Ideally, I would have like a set of 15” rims, but two sets of OEM 16” rims presented themselves and the price was too good to pass up.  The downside to these rims is that there are not many track tires choices for a 16” rim.  Luckily, there was some track rubber that came on the rims, so I can put off that expense for a little while.

The next event went well with the new rims and tires.  As you can imagine, the suspension did not do any better with the new rims and tires.  

Here is a pic of me in hot pursuit showing off a little body roll.


Holy body roll batman!


And a little compression on the other side.


Good times, but the tires are hating it!

[millsj]

As the car was being driven harder and harder, I keep having lingering thoughts about water temps.  I have not had the temp gauge move (that I have seen), but I know that the harder I am pushing the hotter the engine is getting.  SMR kept overheating which was not giving me a warm and fuzzy feeling.  I wanted some way to watch the water and oil temps, but did not want to overwhelm the car with gauges.  My solution was the PLX Multi-Gauge.
http://www.plxdevices.com/multigauges.html

This gauge will allow you to monitor 4 different parameters at once via either the OBDII port or external sensor.  You can also mix and match.  I installed mine with a e-pod gauge and am monitoring the water temp via the OBDII port and then installed an oil temp sensor in the oil drain pan. 

Here are a couple of pics of the gauge installed.


At night...




As you can see, I also monitor AIT (air intake temperature) and speed via the OBDII.  The AIT that the OBDII views is at the air filter.  I really monitor these two for giggles.  With this gauge, you can either monitor one parameter or 4 at a time.  Water and oil were important, but I needed two more to fill the screen.  The gauge records max /min readings, so it is nice to be able to come in off the track and see what the max temps and speed were for the session.  I have found that the speed runs a little lower than GPS speed.

The gauge also has a little remote that allows you to toggle between screens.  I mounted it here.


Here is a picture of the oil temperature sensor mounted in the oil drain plug.


I ordered a drain plug from Jegs that was already drilled and tapped to accept my oil temp sensor.  You have to know the threads of the sensor in order to get the correct drain plug, but mine was ¼” NPT.

***A word of advise….don’t over-tighten the temperature sensor when you are screwing it into the drain plug.  It will break.  Ask me how I know.   ***

The gauge and sensor modules have "brains" that control them.  I mounted this stuff in the glove box.


I ran power to the glove box that is hot only when the ignition is on.  Instead of running several hot wires from the fuse panel to the glove box, I bought a small fuse block and connected that wire that to the fuse panel.  I also made a grounding block, so I would not have ground wires going everywhere.  At least I have room for expansion in the future, if needed.  The cigarette lighter outlets are for another mod that I will get to later.

I tapped into the fuse panel with one of these things called "add a circuit".  You can find them at your FLAPS.


I have a love/hate relationship with the gauge.  It is perfect for what I want to do and I have no complaints with it’s operation.  I love it on this respect.  However, I hated it when I was trying to program it to view the appropriate parameters.  It required several calls to tech support , lots of trail and error,  but I finally got it working.  As long as I don’t have to reprogram it, then it’s one of my best mods.

You can also program warnings to alert you if temperatures (or any setting) get above a desired level.  You can even program it to give warnings like the following-if the water temp and oil temp get above a certain level, then warn me.  It’s pretty smart.

The one downside to a video screen type gauge is that you can’t read it if the top is down and the sun is behind you.  Any other time, it is easy to read during the day or night.

If anyone ever gets one of these gauges and needs help getting it set up, let me know.  I have a lot of notes and several sets of directions.

[millsj]

So what did I learn with my new ability to keep an eye on water and oil temps.  Anyone....anyone.....you got it…..the water temps were running too hot.  BTW, the needle starts to move at around 235 degrees.  If it starts creeping upward, get it cooled back down fast since you are approaching blown head gasket territory in a hurry.   Running the heat on high does a remarkable job of cooling the car back down, but it makes for an unpleasant drive….especially in the summer.

Time to call FM again and order the Crossflow radiator and Spal fans.  I had already been running about a 70%-30% ratio of water to coolant and WW, so there was no help to be found there.

The installation of the radiator and fans went smoothly and those fans move some serious air.  We have joked that they are good for about 3hp of thrust!  They also have a cool jet engine sound. 

Here is a link to my write-up of the installation with a bunch of photos. 

http://www.mazda-speed.com/forum2/index.php/topic,25105.0.html

Here is a pic of the new radiator.


The new fans vs. the old fans.


New vs. old


New radiator and fans


Installed

[millsj]

I still have a good bit to add, but am going to be tied up with other obligations through the long weekend.  I doubt I will have time to add any more until then, but stay tuned.

[Bearded Beagle]

OK   

[millsj]

I have been organizing all of my digital photos and ran across a couple that I had forgotten about.  Here is the original Miata and the MSM hanging out in the garage.  It was a little tight, so there was no discussion of keeping both of them, but it was neat to have 2 Miatas in the garage. 

[millsj]

Now back to where I left off.....

I have not mentioned my wife in a while, but she has also been drive and moving up in the run groups in her own car.  We have even had a couple of sessions where we have been out on the track together, which was really cool.  She is also getting quiet fast! 

That being said, due to a number of reasons, we made the decision to keep her car parked in the garage and co-drive the Miata.  It’s now time for the MSM to step up it’s game since it will now get double driving duty!  That also means that any issues the car has been having will be magnified.   

The tires that came with the track rims performed well, but they had finally moved on to that great tire yard in the sky.  I next went with Hankook Z214’s-C51 compound.  I got 6 tires so I could rotate them and have a spare if/when they started to cord.  I just love the sight of new tires!!


The first weekend on the new tires was spectacular.  We both turned lap times faster than we had ever run before.  My wife and I were both about 3 seconds a lap faster on the new r-comps.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that with the newly found grip, the suspension was really showing that it is not made for heavy track use.

If you remember, I had been chunking the outside edge of my front driver’s side street tire.  The extra grip was overwhelming the stock suspension even more and the outside halves of the r-comps were really wearing.  In fact the inside edge barley had any wear.  A new suspension was not in the cards at the moment, so my solution was to flip the tires on the rims between weekends.  When you rolled a tire across the driveway, it would instantly start rolling in a circle.  This was not good, but not much I could do about it at the moment.

[millsj]

Another can of worms showed up shortly after our last and fastest weekend.  I was giving the car a thorough clean due to a slight off at the track.  It’s amazing how bad things can happen when you try to keep up with fast drivers in fast cars.  In this case, I was trying to keep pace with an instructor in a Z06 and ended up doing a 70 mph power-slide through the grass and slightly up a berm.  BTW, there was really no damage other than loosing a couple of plastic push pins and having to have the starter remove two double handfuls of pine straw from the nose of the car.  Needless to say, it was a tad dusty under the hood.   

When we got back home, I was “dusting” under the hood and noticed oil seeping from the temperature sensor at the intake and there was oil around the MBC.  To make a very long story short, under certain conditions (usually at the track), oil can be sucked back up from the oil pan, through the OEM separator and into the intake.  I installed a second catch can between the OEM separator and the intake to catch any oil that would have previously made it to the intake.  Once I saw that a lot of oil was making it’s way to the intake, I installed a ball valve in the drain line of the OEM system.  I close the valve for track days and problem solved.

Here is a complete discussion of the oily intake and my ultimate solution.  It's worth a read if you do any track and spirited driving.
http://www.mazda-speed.com/forum2/index.php/topic,24127.0.html

The second catch can.


Close up of the area.




Ball valve to be installed


Valve installed.


For the record, this mod is still in place and still working.  I have not had any oil in the second catch can since the installation of the valve.

[millsj]

The off track excursion got me thinking about tow hooks.  I figured that a set would be a little preventative maintenance.  My hope is that if I have them maybe I will never need them.  I ordered a set of MSM specific tow hooks from Rennenmetal. 
http://www.rennenmetal.com/proddetail.asp?prod=1331

These were easy to install and are well constructed.  The front hook installs in place of either the driver or passenger side tie-town hook.  If you still have your baby teeth, you will have to remove them.   The rear hook bolts to the rear tie down bracket.  I don’t remember, but you have to drill one or two holes.

Front tow hook


As you can see, the hook is recessed in the nose and not noticeable unless you are looking for it.


Rear tow hook


Mounting bolts


You can see the factory bend that allows it to clear the rear MSM bumper lip.


Knock on wood…they are serving their purpose since I have not needed their service.   

[millsj]

I was looking forward to the next event since I now had the oily intake issue solved.  Unfortunately, it was a HOT June weekend (mid to upper 90 degree temps) and the car was overheating worse than I have even seen.  Remember that this is after the crossflow and spal fan upgrade.  The oil temps were in the 270’s range and the water temps were 235-240+, at which point the OEM temp gauge starts climbing.  No good at all!!  I could come down pit lane and get the water temps back down to the lower 200’s in short order, but ¾ of a lap later, they were back in the too hot range.

My suspicion was that the intercooler had been completely coated in oil with the whole oily intake issue and was not cooling the intake air efficiently.  If this was the case, the intake temps were elevated causing the oil and water temps to rise and the whole system would overheat. 

The car was also seeing double duty, but that in itself should not have caused the overheating.  It was still a great weekend, but having to watch the temp gauge closely and cut a couple run sessions short was a bummer.

BTW, this was the first weekend we ran with the tires flipped on the rims.  Until they have worn down a little, the car is….I’ll just call it interesting.  It both understeered and oversteered heavily.  I nearly spun several times during my first session.  I handed the keys to my wife and told her good luck.   Each successive session was better than the previous, so all was well after a little time.