Not to be a Debbie Downer, but if clutch wirk is required it will be a good (easier?) time to fix the oil pan.
Not to be a Debbie Downer, but if clutch wirk is required it will be a good (easier?) time to fix the oil pan.
Happy 4th Yall!
In reply to wvumtnbkr :
I think it baced out a bit, makimaking it always slightly disengaged.
There should be a jam nut on it. Or, just use loctite.
Dusterbd13-michael said:7/8 tilion master. Cut ears to make mounting holes into slots to fit the miata stud spacing. Used a couple of nuts to space the master out from the firewall a smidge so i didn't have to enlarge the factory hole. Threaded tge tilton rod into the miata clutch rod ckevis (different thread pitches, but crossthreaded is as good as locktite!)
Piece of nicopp withan inverted female flare to a male 4 an adapter to the gm slave
Previous me is a DICK.
crossthreaded is NOT tight, jam nuts are NOT optional, and adjustments HAVE TO be made to the pushrod.
But it just got rubber powershifting through 4th. Im calling it FIXED.
Hollorin' Out To ya Man, hootie hoo,
channeling my inner ricer.
Scored the tach "broken" for $6. Repair the loose bezel, reattach the calibration loop and cut the CORRECT one, cut the damaged 4 inches off the ground wire, make a plate from scrap plastic, hang in place of the malfunctioning shift light. DONE. works great. Looks fast and furious.
Drag racing got rained out last night, autocross plannedfo next weekend. Anyone wanna come out and play? Zmax in concord nc.
Its only 7 hours for me and i cant wait to see that car.....
In reply to Justjim75 :
I have a couchand can offer codrive.....
Is it just the angle of the pic or is that tach HUGE?
In reply to java230 :
Nope. Its huge.
5 inch autometer phantom tach. Completely stupid.
Tach might be in sight line for some cones
In reply to TurnerX19 :
Hopefully not. Doesn't seem to be in my line of sight as far as a hindrance goes much at all parked in the shop
You sure that's not an outdoor thermometer? 
Autocross on Saturday or Sunday? I'm off work next weekend...
In reply to untchabl :
Saturday
You need to see your old car. Ill pack you an extra sandwich .
Old money: 1923.65
new money:
plastic hole plugs from widgetco 18.20
nitrous line: traded scrap wheelie bars to patrick: .50
added monster tach: $6
spring rubbers 11.98
replacement seats and one 5 point harness: $75
sold 5 point harness: -35
Recoup: 881.87
new total: 1993.83
so, youll notice the budget is almost over the amount. At the moment, it has 4 seats, and some extra stuff in it. Im narrowing down options via testing. Dont want to pull the extras out until I know.
Anyway, in my last update, I said the thread would go dark.
I apparently lied.
At the time I wrote the last update, I was getting very serious about going for the overall at the challenge. The winning spot, and the welder.
It sucked the joy out of the build for me. I stopped having fun. I stopped working towards the car I want to OWN. It began to dominate my thinking. This aint what this is supposed to be about. At all. This is supposed to be a fun build with my dad, a challenge car that winds up where it may, and one that has a life afterwards. It was not intended from the start to be an overall car, and to make it sich would require such efforts as to ruin it for what I want after the challenge. And I dont need the stress right now, or ever, of being that competitive again. It danm near killed my marriage once. Never again.
I need to thank Patrick, and more importantly MY WIFE for pointing it out to me. I had honestly slipped back into those old habits and ways of thinking without even noticing. Im blessed to have them as friends.
Anyway, this is about a car build. Even though its been a little bit like zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance at times. Read the thread from the beginning, and youll see what I mean....
so, I started getting ready to try drag passes. Used about .10 worth of satin black spray paint on those horrendous honda wheels, and got the honda sized slicks mounted up.
20190703_181651 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
I also started practicing powershifting the car through 3rd gear on the street. It quickly became apparent that the clutch was slipping. Luckily this was due to misadjusted linkage at the clutch master and didnt require pulling the drivetrain. After it wasnt slipping anymore, I realized that the shift light wasnt accurate at all. It would sometimes light at the rev limiter, sometimes at the proper point, sometimes not at all.
I had picked up a broken autometer phantom shift light tach at a swap meet a while back for 6 bucks. It required reattaching the calibration loops, reattaching the bezel, redoing the ground wire, and then it worked. So I mounted it where the shift light had been, full on ricer style. Had to remove the rearview mirror to make it fit....
20190713_113739 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
with those in place, I planned my first test and tune night. Which got rained out.
So, I went to prep for the upcoming autocross instead. This involved a comprehgensive nut and bolt check, as well as adding some spring rubbers. See, nascar uses rubbers to make incremental changes in spring rate quickly and cheaply. I felt at the last autocross that the car was undersprung. So, I went to oriellys and got a pair of 5.99 coil spring boosters.
20190714_073235 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
these are the universal/intended for 5 inch diameter truck springs boosters. I cut them in half to make 4 sections that should do a full coil of wrap on my 2.5 coilover springs. Then, with a bit of trimming with a razor blade, some molding with a propane torch, and squeezing in place with giant channel locks, I took one full coil out of each spring. Which, by napkin calculation, is about a 30% increase in spring rate. Still have no idea what the rates actually are, but its stiffer! I also dialed in all the negative camber I could get, and zero toe. I am definitely camber limited here. By a significant amount. Somethings bent somewhere, probably the warped crossmember. But it is what it is at this point.
20190714_125242 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
the next weekend, I had an autocross at zmax saturday morning. However, the had a test and tune friday night, and I got out of work early, and the truck was already loaded except for drag slicks, and....
20190719_165006 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20190719_180423 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20190719_194848 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20190719_202223 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
I was disappointed to say the least. Really a kick in the emotional nuts. Spent a lot of time thinking, and wrote the following the next afternoon.
I think I introduced too many variables, both mechanically and psychologically. Trying to re-learn drag racing, while relearning how to drive slicks on a car that is completely unknown on a drag strip. It felt squirrelly on the big end, squishy all around, etc. Nothing felt right, which caused fear. Dear amplified the nervousness and perception of the cars oddities. Which increased fear. Etc.
My plan is to rrtest. On street tires. And focus on shifting and driving the car straight. Once im comfortable with that, THEN introduce the variable of slicks. Relearn a car with a single new change.
I wasn't launching properly with the rolling and overthinking slicks. I was lifting when it got squirrelly. I wasn't shifting well, or using 4th properly. There's a LOT of wrong with last night. But a lot of right. It drives straight, stops straight, passes tech, and the clutch doesn't slip powershifting.
Im pretty sure there's a low 14 off the bottle in the car. But not a glory run that will get me the overall.
Regardless, I left the car parked in the zmax lot overnight, and came back the next morning to autocross. Got there at 6am, as I volunteered to help setup due to some medication side effects with prolonged sun exposure. Means I could leave early after my runs. It was a BIG course. I actually hit the rev limiter in 3rd a few times. I also kept getting significantly quicker every run, and the spec miata slicks just flat WORK. Im sure a set of sticker A7s would be even better, but im not going to spend sticker A7 money. After the challenge, ill spend re71r money. Maybe. Just so I can drive it to and from events and not have to swap tires.
20190720_081959 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
john (untouchabl that I bought the car and seat from) and his buddy came out saturday. He got some video (whereas I forgot to charge my camera, or even take a picture of it) and john took it for a run up the street afterwards. It got his seal of approval. Im happy there!
over my 5 runs, I got down to a 78.xxx the fast guys were all in the mid to high 60s. However, this is my second event in this car. And second event in two years. And first on warmed up slicks with a properly running car. And various other excuses. Im not fast. Im not a rock star driver. But, im getting better, and learning the car and how to drive at an autocross. Hopefully ill feel confident in October of being able to get everything out of the car I can. I plan to run all ME, and skip the pro driver at this point. That is subject to change, however.
so that brings us up to today, more or less. I was screwing around at a training on the various sale apps I have loaded into my phone, and came across an add on offerup for a set of tuner fx seats and 5 point harnesses for 150. I plan to street drive the car after the challenge, and wanted more comfortable seats. In addition, the mismatched aluminum seats really don't look all that great in the car. So these seemed like a good idea if I fit in them well. I happened to be going nearby the seller around lunch today, so I stopped to take a look at them, and more importantly a sit. They fit my hips well, were very faded, the foam is somewhat hard, and the ribcage is a little loose. Only one complete, outdated harness, and functional sliders. I had decided to pass on them when the guy said to make an offer. I told him that theyd really only be worth $75 to me, and got in my car and started pulling out. He came to the car and said he changed his mind and would take my offer. So I loaded them up in the mazda.
20190724_121441_001 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
20190724_151923 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
brought them home, and promptly sold the harness to brother dustin for 35 bucks. Making the pair of seats the same price as the one aluminum seat currently in the budget. Still don't know if they fit in the car yet though, but I fired up the superclean, scrub brush, and garden hose to clean the mud, dust, dirt, and nicotine off of them. Re-dye will happen with RIT and a spray bottle after another couple of rounds of scrubbing and then making sure they fit the car. Im sure there's a way to tighten the ribcage fit on the drivers side, and these will hopefully be more comfortable and better fitting, as well as easier ingress/egress than the aluminum seats, even if they are significantly heavier.
20190724_172841 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr
In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :
You do you.
In reply to Stampie :
Not following....
Dusterbd13-michael said:In reply to Stampie :
Not following....
i think he means masturbate
Patrick said:Dusterbd13-michael said:In reply to Stampie :
Not following....
i think he means masturbate
He usually posts a shirtless and sweaty in the motor home pic when he means masturbate.
In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :
Ignore the sick bastards. You do what's best for you. Don't worry about outside factors.
Let me know when you are ready to accept offers on any seats that come available. Call me about me possibly "joining the team" on your lunch break tomorrow or Friday, you may like what i have to offer. And for the rest of yall, it has nothing to do with sweaty shirtless men.
Michael, sorry I only got video of 2 of your runs. And definitely sorry they weren't better quality. Travis said he wished he would have thought to bring his Go-Pro to mount on the car.
Huge thanks for letting me take the car for a spin. Really want to drive it again in a better location. You may not have built a Challenge winning car but you've definitely built a fun street car that I'm sure will still hold it's own and finish very well at the Challenge.
I'm still considering building my own v6 swapped Miata, it was just that good to drive.
Glad to see mkre updates! I'm always bummed when challenge threads die out. Glad your making it what you want.
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