'90 Mazdaspeed Miata Rallycross Project

I'll have to try that next time.

Knurled wrote: Needs more metal in the CD player region Works for me, anyway.

He already has an aluminum plate in what was the CD player region. How much more metal can you get?

The car in its proper state:

lurking and enjoying, keep up the fun...

I'm glad someone is reading this thread besides Chris and Pete.

Hopefully I'll have some good results to post after the LSD and upgraded cooling system.

Some pictures of recent progress:

EvanB wrote: Some pictures of recent progress: hey, nice hood vents ;) every rallycross car needs them, haha... and I'm following the thread too, just don't comment much! How many events in are you guys and how are you doing in class? Was just talking to a buddy about rallycrossing a Miata (he's a miata guy) but he woudln't do it simply because how much a hardtop costs around here, haha.

EvanB wrote: That looks like a caption contest. "This thing sucks, why is it so much slower than a Rx-7?"

don't get me started on RX-7's. They've been killing me all season...

Once I get the LSD in I expect that to change a bit.

Two events in so far. I am doing terrible, I have been battling overheating issues and have been nervous to push the car too hard.

Chris (my co-driver) is doing a bit better than me but we are still slower than Pete in the RX-7 and the Honda guys in their Civic.

Yeah. I have LSD so don't have traction problems. But I only have 100hp, so.....definitely no traction problems! haha.

I figure once I have the M42 in there, I'll have similar power to the RX's and we'll see if I can catch up then.

Why are you running against a civic? Around here, the top stock FWD cars are faster than even the PR/MR cars. Are your courses more wide-open?

We have so few cars in MR (2 cars) that we are lumped together with MF in a M2 class.

Ah. I thought MR split off from M2 everywhere this year, per SCCA.

Usually we only have 1 or 2 cars in MF, and 4 or 5 in MR.

In reply to irish44j:

Regions are free to combine classes for regional events and/or add their own supplemental classes.

I did beat Pete at the first event this season

Your top SF (Brett?) driver is just plain fast.

I didn't know the seat was going to be red.

They were out of black and it would be 2-3 months to get one. Patience isn't always one of my virtues .

Are you getting a harness for the seat, or does the stock seatbelt fit well still? I'm thinking of getting a Corbeau Forza for the Neon, but don't feel like switching to a harness yet.

I have a harness now, I have been using it for the past two events without the sub-strap.

Not sure how the stock seatbelt works as I haven't had it out on the road yet.

Well, you'll be sure to place higher than me next weekend, since the Mazda has a sick engine that barely starts anymore and doesn't make enough vacuum for power brakes, the trans makes awful noises, and the rearend is just plain FUBAR...

NEVER LET A CAR KNOW THAT YOU GOT A RAISE

Now that I know that I am going to be really mad when I am slower than you.

So how much on opposite ends of the spectrum is setup for being able to do HPDE/Daily Driving/Weekend Fun and RallyX? Besides the wheels/tires you want.

It is my daily driver/weekend fun car. The only thing I do to get it ready for a rallycross is put the hardtop on and swap wheels/tires when I get to the event.

For HPDE I would probably put the rear swaybar back on, maybe upgrade the front.

It has the Mazdaspeed suspension on it which would probably do fine for HPDE but obviously not the best. It is great for DD and rallyx though.

So the key being just not lowering the car like you would if it was going to be on street/track only? I've always loved rally and thought rallyx would be fun. We have a pretty active series I think here in Socal

Pretty much. I drove the whole first season on stock suspension and it was fine other than being totally shot (it was like that before I started RallyX).

Here are a couple pictures of Miatas that rallycross at Glen Helen.

What size wheels and tires are they mostly running for the rallyx?

In reply to Jaynen:

You can see in the two CA pictures Evan linked that those folks are using 15" Escort GT wheels and 15" oem Miata wheels.

We've run on Evan's miata 175/65-14, 195/60-14, 185/60-14, 185/65-14 & 195/55-15 front and rear and some massive 25" mud rally tires on the rear only. These were all on a variety of oem miata or escort wheels.