pj_mcgarvey's - LS1/T56 NB build thread

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Old 12-02-2017, 05:01 PM
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If you did an LS/V8 swap, most likely you aren't using the OEM undertray since the mounting points are gone. In another effort to make the car more stable at speed in anticipation of track days, and to protect some of the fragile parts underneath, I decided to add an undertray. I did this after addressing any leaks and issues which I've been fixing and watching the last month or so.

I also removed the little air dam that runs a few inches behind the front of the lower spoiler or "lip". I had cut it up to give room for the lower radiator mounting I made. It removes with 5 10mm screws and the little self tapping clips. Keep the screws and clips.

I reinstalled the clips and made some marks where the holes are so I'd know where they were when the spoiler was boing mocked up. You'll even notice that there is a little step where the air dam was, which will be perfect to fit in the new undertray and make a nice, even transition.



I used some cardboard to make a template. I just used the cardboard that the aluminum sheet came with. Some drawing, cutting, and recutting got it close enough. Then I used a screwdrive to poke holes in the cardboard to find the 5 mounting holes. I removed any sharp, 90 degree corners



For the tray itself I found some pretty reasonably priced metals online. I bought a 24" x 48" sheet of .080" thick 3030 aluminum. This is a good thickness I think, stiff, still somewhat flexible, will not add much weight (it's aluminum) and affordable.

I ordered the metal from Metal Remnants - Custom Cut To Size Metal for $33.00 + $17 shipping for a $50 total which I thought was pretty reasonable.

The 24" width would represent the distance from the front of undertray and reach to approximately where the front of the oil pan and main tube of the subframe is. This would give me a good point to create the rear mounting locations by using the subframe to weld to. It wouldn't interfere with any oil changes either.

I just used some 3/16" steel to bend some tabs, installed some 8mm nutsert/rivnuts and then welded them to the boxed tubing part of the subframe where the control arms attach. Cleaned up the welds and used the same gray spray paint.



Here is the tray removed from the car




Final installed product. Took it for a quick test drive, couldn't get up to the speed I wanted due to the holiday shoppers heading to the mall I suspect. But I didn't hear or notice any issues.



One thing I did was to make the mounting tabs such that the tray would make a slight bend as it touches the subframe in the middle of the tray. My hope was that it would prevent any "flapping" or rubbing at speed. If that didn't work out, at least I'd have room to add some spacers or washers to bring the tray down a bit until everything was good.
Old 12-03-2017, 11:19 AM
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Nice work.
Old 12-03-2017, 01:46 PM
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Originally Posted by darkblue
Your car sounds good. I'm looking forward to seeing your undertray fab. Are you thinking your car is getting too hot under the hood? Is the metal cheaper by mail? i've got one of these near me www.metalsupermarkets.com
I haven't noticed any overheating issues, but with the two high-flow fans, aluminum radiator, hood vents and now the undertray I think that should be the least of my worries. The real test will be on track in the summer.

I did some shopping on ebay and other sites and all were pretty close to each other. I did compare like product with www.metalsupermarkets.com, which was about $65 shipped I recall for the same aluminum I was looking at. I didn't find out what items were available locally that would save on shipping, but was surprised to see a local one about 15 mins from me. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. Home Depot and Lowes in my area have expanded their selection of "hobby metal" and reasonable prices too, enough to sustain most DIYers.
Old 01-10-2018, 09:33 PM
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Over the holiday break I started the process to address the braking performance. A nice holiday bonus, some winter "down time" and the recent availability of some pretty nice BBKs (Big Brake Kit) pushed me in this direction. The Toyo Proxes R1R I was using all year should not be used below temps of 15F, and winter came in like a lion in my area with low temps in the single digits for days on end, so I had park the car for a bit. It just started to warm up this week allowing me some time in the garage.

For the fronts I went with the TrackSpeed Engineering 11.75" kit with the directional vane rotors (recommended for track use), Wilwood DynaPro calipers, stainless lines, and Wilwood proportioning valve. Trackspeed 11.75" Gen2 Big Brake Kit Those with the kit report there isn't a need to upgrade the brake master cylinder for a good pedal feel.

I also added the Singular Motorsports brake ducts Singular Motorsports Brake Ducts

Size comparison with the original Sport brake rotors



I assembled the hats with safety wire (the bolts are pre drilled) and mounted up the calipers with the brake ducts.





The brake ducts needed some trimming since there was so little clearance between the rotor and and the tie rod end. Spent more time cutting, bending and test fitting than I would have liked. I bet these will move in time and with heat/cool cycles that they'll make some noise. I have some 2.5" brake duct hose that I plan to use to duct some air from the front of the car to the brake duct. Trying to figure out what my options are there.







I did some research and decided on Performance Friction pads, as many track junkies on www.miataturbo.com are happy with them for their streetability and "cold bite" to their linear feel and great performance on the track. Then I realized I was running the same compound on my E36 M3 back when I was considering doing track days with the car. I really like these pads on my M3 so I figured how could I go wrong on the Miata?

A rep from OG Racing (he also tracks an LS1 Miata) is active on the MiataTurbo forums, and the prices were good: http://www.ogracing.com/performance-...ad-01-compound

I'll report back on the braking performance once these are on the road. I had to do some notching of the backing plates to fit the cotter pins

Last edited by pj_mcgarvey; 01-10-2018 at 10:05 PM.
Old 01-10-2018, 09:54 PM
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The Wilwood prop valve install was straight forward. I need to make a small bracket to keep it solidly mounted to the original bracket the old stock prop valve was using. Trackspeed includes some solid steel fittings they recommend in place of the brass ones included in the Wilwood kit. Some minor bending of the lines is needed to connect it all up. With the LS1 in there, you will need to orient the prop valve to your liking so it will clear the engine. The color of the brake fluid is weird b/c I dumped a bit of an older bottle in there since it had gotten low after leaking fluid doing the front brakes. It will all get flushed out in the end.




For the rear brakes, alot of track junkies report great success with a larger 10.9" rotor in the rear, while keeping the stock 1.8L single piston calipers (cant recall the piston size) and the same compound pad as in the front, while using the 11.75" front BBK. To reuse the same caliper with a larger rotor requires a caliper relocation bracket from M-Tuned. Track Dog Racing was the only place that had them in stock when I looked. https://trackdogracing.com/tdr-bbk18.aspx

They will sell you just the rear conversion kit and your choice of rotors. I went with the slotted ones. As mentioned I also went with the same pad compound as the front: Performance Friction 0636.11.13.44 Racing Pad - 11 Compound

Turns out the rear calipers could use a rebuild as the caliper pins were pretty dried out, and I figure I'm not in a rush.




Also, I'm on the lookout for new winter wheels/tires that will fit over my bigger front brakes. My 949 6UL 15x7 wheels do not clear the Wilwoods. The inner diameter of the wheel is too small by about 1/8". Someone has a set of Kosei K1 wheels with all-season tires that I plan to check out and maybe trade for my 6ULs. Until I figure out an all-season tire situation, or the warm weather stays for awhile, I don't see driving the car until March.
Old 01-18-2018, 07:26 AM
  #231  
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Completed the rear brake caliper rebuild. I have a 99 Miata with the 1.8L rear calipers, so I used the rebuild kit NAY1-26-46ZB from https://www.prioritymazdaparts.com/o...ear-nay12646zb

Careful what kit you buy, as some may not include the seals or orings for the parking brake mechanism. Seems that the "OEM" kits from Mazda have the right parts. I used a couple guides to make sure I knew what was up before I started. Familiarity with rebuilding calipers is nice, but not essential. Take pictures so you know where and how stuff goes back together.

Rebuilding Miata Rear Calipers | FASTCRAFT'S motorsport pages

None of the rubber was in terrible shape, so the hard metal parts we all reusable as they didn't see any water or dirt. In my experience, the caliper pistons can get scored or rusty over time, but mine were in perfect shape.

The one challenge was accessing the c-clip / snap ring inside the caliper which requires a long and narrow snap ring plier and some patience and care. I'll try to post a pic of the pliers I had to borrow from someone. Using a pick or screwdrivers is probably not advisable since it will be just as hard getting the clip back in, and you may scratch up the inside of the caliper bore in the process.

Anyhow, here are some final pics of the rear kit installed, with lines, etc.

The rear caliper extension kit


Final setup



All buttoned up, just need to do a full brake bleed using my Motive power bleeder. and maybe some manual bleeding to finalize everything.
Old 01-18-2018, 07:36 AM
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I was able to locate some wheels/tires that will fit over my larger front brake kit. I traded wheels with a friend, giving him my 15x7 6ULs for his 15x7 Kosei K1 Racing wheels. After making up a brake template out of cardboard to check clearances, we were able to determine his wheels would work before I made the drive to check them out.

So I can report that 15x7 Kosei K1 Racing (different than the K1 TS wheels) in a +36 offset do fit. They actually have a bit more clearance thatn the 15x9 6ULs that are wearing my summer tires.. The tires are far from fresh, but will do me fine til spring.




I may have mentioned before that the front studs were way too short after adding the brake kit and the rotor hats are thicker over the hub than the regular iron rotors. Luckily my friend with the wheels had a new set of the ARP studs I was just about to buy, so he sold them to me for less than new. Got home and installed them after test fitting the wheels.




Might invest in some better wheel lugs to take advantage of longer studs I have in front and back now. 949 Racing sells some nice ones.

Wrapping up the install of my new projector headlight retrofit and will post the details on that soon.
Old 01-18-2018, 08:24 AM
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Good to see that you are making continuing progress.
Something I appreciate is that you explained specifically why you installed longer studs.
Until reading your post I was in the dark as to what situation demands the studs be changed out.
Now I know to get a set as part of installing bigger brakes at whatever point I decide to do that upgrade.
Old 01-18-2018, 08:41 AM
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This was never mentioned in the any of the big brake upgrade threads I read, so it's possible most people were already doing track days, and had the longer and strong ARP studs. The part is about $30 on Amazon. As I mentioned, it also allows you to use longer (open ended preferably) lug nuts, another good option for track days, since the studs and lugs will be seeing some stress and, tend to get removed and reinstalled more often, etc.
Old 01-25-2018, 09:04 AM
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Finished bleeding the brakes with the help of my cooperative daughter - this after we got back from the gym. So she got a few more sets of work on her legs.

Prior to that I ran a large bottle of brake fluid through the system using my Motive Power Bleeder. I found it helpful to actuate the parking brake during both bleed sessions. I think it helped loosen up some air in the caliper. I used another large bottle doing the manual bleed.

After the manual bleed, the next night I did some checking of the caliper pressures using a gauge I picked up some years ago during the last brake upgrade on my old VW Golf.


The gold colored adapter you see there I picked up separately to match the threads on the Wilwood bleeder, since I had these Wilwoods on my previous car.

I looked up the required pressures in the FSM, which shows about 569 psi or so without any brake booster vacuum, and almost 800 psi when engine is running. I'm not sure if this helped, but I opened up the Wilwood proportioning valve to permit full pressure to the rears, thinking this would help with the bleed.




Attached my gauge to the caliper and used a separate phone camera to record the pressure when I press on the pedal.



Got almost 600 psi at each corner, so I feel like most of the air has been removed. My guess is that I'll need a second follow up bleed once the car has had some road time.

Just in time to put the car on the ground, I also took delivery of my 949 Racing aluminum lug nuts. These are noticably lighter than the steel ones I was using, there is more thread engagement, same 19mm size, and seem to perfectly use all the available thread on my wheel studs.



Car is ready for a test drive the next chance I get. With the rear rotors being zinc coated, you are supposed to drive a few miles at slow speeds to let the zinc coating shed from the rotor, if you go too fast and brake hard, the zinc coating can become embedded in the pads, and you will not have maximum brake pad friction.
Old 01-29-2018, 03:31 PM
  #236  
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Little bracket to secure the prop valve, so any adjustment of the **** won't bend the lines around over time and weaken them



Few shots of how the new brake rotors fill out the wheels





Braking impressions: Holy cow. I did some driving around town at 40mph and applied light to medium braking to get some heat into the pads, then drove for a bit with no braking or coasted to red lights so as to not overheat them sitting still. After about the 6th stop when I was about done, I guess I had them somewhat broken in, or had a good bit of heat into them and applied some brakes and locked them up for a split second.

After the brakes had cooled I found the braking to really be improved. I'm sure the real benefit will be at much higher (track) speeds once the pads have some heat, and after a bit more driving once the pads have had a chance to lay down some material on the rotors.

I'm working on a solution to allow fresh at the front of the car to reach the brake rotor ducts. I have some ducting already.
Old 01-29-2018, 03:55 PM
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While working on the brake upgrade I was also doing a lighting upgrade in parallel, since the car was down anyway. I picked a set of upgraded retrofit projection headlights from www.theretrofitsource.com using their Bi-Xenon kit https://www.theretrofitsource.com/co...1-stage-3.html

I got a great holiday discount deal on them before xmas. Though I didn't realize this until later, I also picked up their MotoControl Bi-Xenon: H4/9003 https://www.theretrofitsource.com/mo...n-h4-9003.html which my Miata needed to control the ground-switched high beams.

I wont go into much detail on how I did it, since most of that is covered in some guides I followed, including the clear and concise guides that came with the lights:

I found this guide to the most helpful:
https://forum.miata.net/vb/showthread.php?t=454405

Another guide that might help:
https://www.miataturbo.net/general-m...etrofit-54647/

Tips on doing the upgrade:

How to adjust headlights:

Some of the guides are not as accurate since the upgrade kits tend to change over time, hopefully for the good, so wiring may look different, etc. Some might find the step of baking the lights to be the most nerve-wracking, but it wasn't too bad. Most of us are daring enough to attempt this, just take it slow and plan ahead, don't rush removing the lenses or prying too hard - it it's not coming off then it needs more time or heat. From what i found the plastic lenses for the 99-00 Miatas cannot be found new. A full used housing is also not very cheap. 2001+ Miatas did come with OEM projector style headlights, but the housing is slightly different shaped, which will swap into the 99-00 NB but will leave a gap between the housing and the bumper cover, unless you also upgrade to the the later bumper cover. For the money, this upgrade is probably just as good and may be a bit cheaper.

Keep any of the parts on the inside of the housing clean so that any dirt, fingerprints, etc. aren't left inside once you seal it back up. I used high temp black spray paint (actually exhaust header paint) on the chrome inside of the housing. The projection lights won't use this for any light dispersion like sealed beam light, so it can be done mostly for looks. Anything other than a high temp paint may peel and crack over time, making it a difficult fix.

The finished product



With lights on



Wiring



Unfortunately I had a bad ballast on one side, but working with retrofit source to replace it under warranty was super easy.

Once I had the lights working I did a beam pattern test, and found one side to be a bit crooked.

Good side


Crooked side



The projector housings are somewhat of a manual adjustment or "clocking" of the mounting base, so I may have gotten this side a bit off. I'm not sure the beam will be all that bad since it's on the passenger side, and not going to be in the eyes of an oncoming driver as much as the driver's side light. We'll see how motivated I am to go back and fix this.

Last edited by pj_mcgarvey; 01-30-2018 at 12:06 PM.
Old 02-04-2018, 05:17 PM
  #238  
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Finished up my brake ducting today. I went with some 2.5" aluminum ducts that I found online ALUMINUM FLANGES FOR DUCTING from Aircraft Spruce

These would be mounted in the bumper to feed cold air to the brake rotor ducts. I had toyed with the idea of making my own by fabricating/welding some sheet metal ducts, but in the end I figured it would be too much work to build them, especially the transition from a rectangular opening to a 2.5" round opening for the hose. The area on the bumper cover where the duct would go is curved enough that it would require some add'l work to make it all fit to my liking. In the end I hit the easy button with the flanges above. I gave them a coat of black primer and paint.

I drilled a hole in the bumper cover with a 2.25" hole saw I had and opened it up a bit more for the 2.5" opening. I used rivets to mount the flange to the bumper. I ran out of rivets.



From the backside of the bumper


The hose routing required a bit of thought, you need more hose than you think so that that when the wheel turns the hose can extend, but also not get in the way of the wide wheels.

The hose at full extension. I used a large but somewhat loosely-tightened hose clamp around the swaybar endlinks to keep it where i wanted. I'm not sure if this is the best way to do it, but it will be a work in progress.

Here's the Neoprene ducting I bought
Amazon Amazon



And at full compression




At the brake rotor duct the hose was too tight to fit over the opening, so I cut a slit in the hose and used worm-drive clamps (at both ends of the hose) to make the connection.



Went for another test drive and was again astounded at the available braking power I have. it was wet and cold, so didn't test things but I can just tell that these will be very confidence inspiring on the track.

Last edited by pj_mcgarvey; 02-05-2018 at 02:10 PM.
Old 02-04-2018, 05:23 PM
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Did a test fit of my spare tire over the rear brakes (the fronts? not even a question...) and no go. So I'm on the lookout for a spare tire that would fit the Miata with Sport rears (2001-2005) or I'll need to find out what thickness spacer would make my current spare work.

Oh... and Go Eagles!
Old 03-01-2018, 06:26 PM
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Well, finding a good spare wheel was harder than I thought. I figured out that the 2001+ Sport model Miatas should have a spare wheel that will fit over these brakes. I picked up a nicely priced one on ebay, but instead of a 15" wheel what I got was a 13" wheel in really bad shape, it wasn't even from a Miata and the tire was badly dry rotted and cracked. The seller was easy to deal with and sent out a new one that arrived today. The new one seemed in great shape from the looks of it, but might have a slow leak from the valve stem. Oh well, guess I'll need to keep an air compressor in the trunk at all times.




Used the opportunity to remount my summer wheel only to find out that one of my wheels had more wheel weights near the outside of the rim than the others and they were rubbing my new Wilwood calipers.



Turns out removing wheel weights can be done with your finger. So just moved them to the inside with some new double sided tape.





Not sure if this is as effective as having the wheel rebalanced, but I guess we'll find out. One other wheel had one weight that I moved to the inside, and the other two wheels had no weights.

Quick pic of the serious brake dust from the front pads. Same compound as the rears, but way more dust. You'd think I just finished a 4 hour stint at the Le Mans 24 hour.





Guess that's all for now. I'll be watching the calendar for some track dates this spring so I can complete the goal of getting the car on track.
Old 03-02-2018, 10:11 AM
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Balancing wheels is both rotationally and inside/outside, so you have effectively thrown your wheel out of balance. Maybe try to find some weights that are slimmer? Or weights that are narrower and snug them up against the spokes (if that would clear)?
Old 03-18-2018, 05:03 PM
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Originally Posted by acedeuce802
Balancing wheels is both rotationally and inside/outside, so you have effectively thrown your wheel out of balance. Maybe try to find some weights that are slimmer? Or weights that are narrower and snug them up against the spokes (if that would clear)?
There is too little room at the outside of the wheel where it was before. Wheels flex a bit in hard cornering and I'd rather not risk a clearance issue with a slimmer weight. My thought is to move the weight to the middle of the wheel barrel, but in my test drives I haven't seen any obvious issues where it is on the inside.

I may also move the two weight-less wheels to the front of the car where I'd feel less of an effect from a slightly out of balance wheel through the steering wheel. If things don't feel right, I'll just have it rebalanced.
Old 03-18-2018, 05:36 PM
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The leaky spare tire I mentioned before was due to a tire valve. Turns out these are cheap and easy to fix. Picked up a tool and set of valves for nothing on Amazon
Amazon Amazon
. One of easiest and most effective car repairs I've done since changing a fuse

Picked up some other tools that I'll giving a try:

Coolant pH and glycol level test strips:
Amazon Amazon


Did a quick test on the fresh coolant in the LS1. The pH level of 7.5 may be a bit low based on this article https://www.cartechbooks.com/techtips/antifreeze

I should be closer to 10.0. So it's interesting that this is fresh coolant in that it's about a year old and has very few miles. So I may retest again and see what it says, and then consider whether I should refresh the coolant. I didn't test my other cars yet either, but I can see this as being a good thing to test with each oil change or once/twice per year.



Maybe a bit high (60%) on the boiling point, thought better to be on the safe side when temps were hitting 0 degrees F in my area this winter.




I came across this brake fluid tester on Amazon while shopping the coolant test strips.
Amazon Amazon

It was cheap but I can't say if I would buy again. It did seem to give me a reading of less than 1% on the Miata, but I did a test on our Subaru which was also <1% - even though that fluid is probably a few years old. I also noticed the cap was not fully on... hmm. On my M3 it didn't want to give me a reading at all .



While this next tool is not mine, it is one I would drool over. My Dad took delivery of a QuickJack this week.



He doesn't do alot of car repair anymore, but he has 4 vehicles and is fine with letting his two sons use it for their cars. The prices for these have fallen a bit lately, so he thought it was the right time to pick one up.
Old 04-10-2018, 10:12 PM
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Over the holidays I started collecting some of the things needed to bring the shine out of my cars. I've never been one to constantly detail and wash my cars, and never went beyond normal wash and wax, etc. I have 3 cars, with about 400k combined miles on them, none of which has had much attention in the last few years. I picked up a DA polisher, the Porter Cable 7424
Amazon Amazon


Also picked up a Meguiars polishing adapter pad
Amazon Amazon
that allows velcro polishing pads to be quickly changed.


Some different polishing pads:
Amazon Amazon
Amazon Amazon


After a good washing, I used a Mothers clay bar kit to clay the whole car.
Amazon Amazon


Then I used Meguiars 105 for a cutting compound with the cutting pad, going over each panel of the car and buffing out with a microfiber towel. This had an immediate affect on most of the car, making the paint nice and smooth and removing any swirl marks or other minor scratches.


Then I used Meguiars 205 for polishing with a polishing pad. Another buffing with a towel and it was ready for a coat of Meguiars Techwax 2.0 sealant
Amazon Amazon


Gave the plastic headlight lenses a quick hit with some Meguiars Plastx polish I had around for the other cars
Amazon Amazon

The smartphone quality pics don't do it justice, and neither does the black paint, but it feels like a new car to me. Very happy with being able to take the exterior to another level with a few hours of work.






On the interior I picked up a bottle of 303 Protectant for the dash and other plastics.
Amazon Amazon

The finish on the car is now making me want to fix some of the little dents around the car. And maybe repaint the lip spoiler that's looking pretty ratty. And replace the worn seats.
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Old 04-24-2018, 06:23 AM
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I was wondering about your radiator setup. I see Mishimoto. Part number? How does it seem to be working for you?
Old 04-24-2018, 07:20 AM
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Originally Posted by Flavaquero
I was wondering about your radiator setup. I see Mishimoto. Part number? How does it seem to be working for you?
It came with the car when I bought it, and has been working great. It's the performance aluminum radiator, this is probably it https://www.mishimoto.com/mishimoto-...-radiator.html

It's only a single pass radiator, so not the best a man can get, but was easy to modify the fit for the swap. It just fit in between the structure of the car once I cut away some of it to move the radiator forward. I don't think I could have fit a radiator that was an inch wider or taller without alot of extra modification. I'm using dual spal fans to cool it, and once they kick on I can see the needle drop so they are doing a good job as well. I have a lower belly pan and the hood vents as well, which may help. Once I'm on track we'll see how it really performs.
Old 04-24-2018, 08:07 AM
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When will you be taking it to the track?
Old 04-24-2018, 08:19 AM
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Originally Posted by BGordon
When will you be taking it to the track?
I had too much going on in April, and the weather has just recently turned for the better. So I'm shooting for May 20th at a track I'm comfortable with.

I'd been wondering about whether to pick up some Kirkey race seats (Pro Drag street) before, but may just stay with the stock seats until I get the first track day in the car under my belt. Most of the sanctioning bodies require the passenger seat to match the driver, and I would want to go with 5 point harnesses as well, and the cost and time to set that all up just didn't make sense right now. Otherwise car is happy, and ready to go.

I have a poor man's GoPro, so I'll be taking some video as well.
Old 06-12-2018, 12:43 PM
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I'm registered to do a track day (or should I say night?) this Thursday http://www.tracknightinamerica.com/a...rations/202779 . Looking forward to trying one of these SCCA Track Night in America events, this might be the 2nd or 3rd year they've been doing these. The price was right, I'll get 3 20-minute sessions as an Intermediate, it will be a little cooler out at night (for mine and the car's sake) as the forecast is 80F and sunny, and it's about an hour from me. I'll be posting some impressions, pics and video. Been a couple years since I did a track day!

The front bumper "lip" was looking sad, and wanted to do some work to reattach it a bit better as I think it had run into a few curbs during parking during its ownership, and I didn't want it to become a concern during the high speeds on the track. I fixed two of the broken mounting tabs by doing some zip-tie suturing:






I think that will hold quite nicely. I also sanded and did a quick satin black repaint on the lip. It looks alot better



Noticed the radiator cap on my Mishimoto radiator had leaked a bit of coolant with the recently warm weather. I had another OEM-looking cap (on the left), that I tried for awhile, but decided to pick up a new cap from Stant that I'm currently using (in the middle).



Picked up a used Ultragauge (UltraGauge OBDII Scan tool & Information Center) a few months back from Craigslist, and have it mounted temporarily in front of the instrument cluster until I can find a replacement mounting clip. Here are the screens I have setup - this was during a cold start, so some of the numbers like fuel trim are not showing.





Looking for track tire pressure recommendations from anyone for Toyo R1Rs. I have a tire pyrometer I'll be using to see if I can dial it in.
Old 06-20-2018, 08:28 PM
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Had a great day at the track last Thursday, the weather was perfect. There were some issues with the advanced run group that had three on-track incidents in one session that pushed our second session back an hour while they cleaned up, and ended up shortening all of our remaining sessions. It's hard to get too annoyed when we were waiting in pit lane to go on track and an ambulance went by and then an S2000 with driver's side damage and hood damage from a rollover went by on a flatbed. Simple reminder to be safe out there. Apparently two other cars lost oil and coolant in separate spots during the same session. Saw a BMW 1-series M getting loaded on flatbed back in the paddock. There was oil dry through about 3/4 turns coming off the main fast section.

Some thoughts:
  1. I had lots of usable power in 4th gear in slower turns, but didn’t require using 3rd very much where alot of other cars probably did. Small car, big engine.
  2. Car seemed able to keep up with some quick cars, though in terms of lap times, I was probably slower in long sweepers and tighter turns as I wasn’t pushing the car to its limits. I was still feeling out the car, the suspension, and tires. I didn't rev the engine past 5500 on purpose. I used 6th gear a few times on the longer straights, but otherwise kept the speed at 120mph or less to learn braking points, let faster cars pass and just focus on the driving and not so much on top speed.
  3. The car felt very solid at 120, it tracks very well, no vibrations, excessive wind noise, etc. I wasn't sure what to expect with handling, or even just wind effects with a top down car. I'd heard wearing a helmet can make it feel like your head is being pulled out of the car - none of that.
  4. I think a more track-oriented suspension which is also street friendly will be needed. I have a few brands on my list of wants (Ohlins, Xida), but can't really justify doing them this year. I may wait and do some wider tires (245 width) at the same time assuming I wear through my current set this year with a few more track days. Wider tires may necessitate me adjusting the ride height a bit higher to clear fenders and also meet the limits of the new suspension, whatever they may be.
  5. The brakes were incredible, I never had to worry about them, though I was still hesitant to really lean on them. Totally forgot to do any brake bias adjustment between sessions, but my gut tells me I could have put more bias into the rear, and really worked the brakes harder.
  6. My tires seemed OK, maybe a bit squirmy as I worked through the proper pressures. No significant wear on them.
  7. I was very surprised the engine used little oil for a track day, maybe 1/8” down on the dipstick from normal level. I never need to add any oil on the street. There was also very little in the catch can. I think I have a pretty tight engine which is nice to know.
  8. Will be sending oil off for analysis so I can get a baseline on the engine’s health after a hard day.
  9. Oil temps were about 240F, water temp was a bit past 12 o’clock, but I’ve seen the temp gauge go that high on the street on hot days, before the Fans kick on and bring it back down A few people asked about whether the car runs hot, probably assuming that a big engine/small car would have that problem. Didn't seem to be an issue, it was 85f outside, not that humid.
  10. I started missing a lot of shifts in the later sessions. Can’t say whether the trans was getting harder to shift or if it was me getting sloppy. For example on the street I would drop down from 5th to 4th by lightly pulling back on the shift lever, much like other manual cars. But on the track I'd sometimes find myself in 6th, so that would slow me down while I had to reshift the car, and I’d then have find 4th coming out of 6th which is a bit trickier. I also at one point, I think, went from 4th to 1st instead of 3rd at a slow turn onto one of the faster areas. Hard to tell from the video.
  11. Sometime during the second session the PCM threw a p0327 code, for knock sensor malfunction/wiring. I checked a few things, determined nothing was obviously wrong and it wasn't related to engine knock, so I cleared the code and didn't see it again.
  12. I used an "Apeman" brand camera, a cheap "action" camera I bought last year. This is a similar model, but w/out the wifi.
    Amazon Amazon
    . I think it did pretty well, but the sound quality isn't great since the mic is in the waterproof case. Might need to look into something with an external mic for better engine sounds. During some test runs I discovered the camera rattles around in the case so I added some bits of padding to prevent the noise coming through on the recording, but it seems like it didn’t do a great job as the day went on. May need to find a better solution, or just spend the money on a GoPro Hero.
The track video:







Last edited by pj_mcgarvey; 06-21-2018 at 07:12 AM.


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