APR GTC-200

[mr_hyde]

I'm minutes off that route.  Give me a call.

[joeereid]

After scouring web images it appears that the NA lid may be wider at the rear than the NB. The NB is @ 41 3/4" at the front and only @40" at the rear, right before the cut for the tail light. That may explain why the bases don't want to sit flush with the edge of the NB lid, because it is not square. I think the NA lid may be more of a square.

[joeereid]

So the NA hood is pretty much the same shape on the top, but @7/8" shorter F~R, as is the trunk space. Thank you to mrHyde for allowing me and my measuring devices to invade his garage, so that mystery is solved. Now for the not so good news...
Drilled and mounted the "modified contour" bases on my donor lid to see if that helped with the fitment issues. Not gonna happen without every connection point above the bases being under severe angular and lateral loads. Driver side upper+lower turnbuckle slots are out by a good 1/2", passenger side out by 1/4" and the turnbuckles don't like it. Put the wing upside-down on my dead flat/dead level workbench to see whats what.  The end plates don't line up so it teeters on the table. Laid my digital angle block across the chord only to discover that the wing is actually warped to the tune of 2 degrees from one end to the other. Okay....thats probably not good.
Right about the time my buddy was just finishing the Solidworks design for the new pedestals to address the lid splay issue I realize that something is really amiss with the driver side bracket and after some ingenious measuring/squaring on my part I discover that although the non adjustable brackets are the same distance apart, they form a parallelogram not a rectangle, which initial measurements indicated. So the trunk lid forms a trapezoid and I'm supposed to attach a parallelogram to it....where's Escher when you need him..
So not really happy...but a little bit smarter
Pics and emails sent to the parties involved...hopefully this doesn't turn into another Xida-gate.

[joeereid]

So a lot of fiddling around with squares and inclinometers later, they are adjusting their foil mounting points  and assembling me a new wing with the updated "Truly Miata Specific" dimensions. We sent them a detailed drawing with some specific lateral and diagonal dimensions required for the mounts, pedestals and brackets to  orient themselves properly once everything is tightened down. For $800+ they should be able to do better than "assemble loosely and tighten and adjust as needed to fit", "adjust" being a simpler way of saying "Force,Twist,Yank,Pull etc. .....Now they just need to do something about getting the bases to fit the lid properly for the next guy.

[joeereid]

Well the new wing showed up Friday. Initial measurements were  fairly close to the specs we provided them. Diagonals were within 1/16" so that's good, solves the parallelogram issue. However the brackets that attach to the wing don't match the contour of the bottom of the wing. If you were to tighten them down the way they came, you would either pull the nutserts out, break the bracket, or punch holes into the wing.  2+ hours of careful grinding on the compound, twisting, ever-changing  radius later and I have them fitting the wing properly. Now when I install it on the pedestals mounted to the deck lid, it fits PERFECTLY! Now it's "Miata Specific"!
  Now I think I know why I found it impossible to find any detailed close-ups of this thing installed on a miata.

[SilverMiataRacer]

So in other words the APR product is far from being a quality product?

[joeereid]

Well yes and no. The components themselves seem to be of good quality, just a poor job of execution on the fitment end. Maybe I didn't search long enough and hard enough on the web, but I couldn't anything pertaining to the issues I've found. I guess nobody really took a look at it very hard and just slapped it on the car.

[joeereid]

Success at last! Details in Me and my Aero.

[millsj]

Looks great!  The trunk lid doesn't look bad either.   

[joeereid]

As Brian described his track  car paint job, it's a 50/100....looks great from 50 feet going 100mph. You won't notice a thing once I put the 16" meatball on there, but the paints gotta cure some more before I can put it on.

[mr_hyde]

'90MSM is a 50/100 paint job.  That is no worse than 5/10 - looks great!  When are you taking it out for a shakedown?  I need to see how the new computer works so I might join you!

[joeereid]

'90MSM is a 50/100 paint job.  That is no worse than 5/10 - looks great!  When are you taking it out for a shakedown?  I need to see how the new computer works so I might join you!

Not sure when I'm going to shake'er'down. May tackle some other mods and just wait 'til March, but who knows...need a sunny day at Pacific or Shelton and we might have to wait a while for that to happen again.

[joeereid]

It figures;
http://www.miataturbo.net/race-prep-75/singul%C3%A4r-motorsports-aero-wing-86624/

[shlbygt]

That was at the Laguna Seca event. Looked well thought out.

[joeereid]

A word to the wise, if you order a gurney flap for your APR GTC-200 wing make sure they are selling you the right one. There's a 59" version and a 60" version and they are not interchangeable...and none of the retail sites who sell them divulge that important bit of info,...gee, thanks. Who needs a 59" gurney flap cheap?... my return/refund window has closed.