Another P1800 build - All NB Miata from radiator to rear axle

DeadSkunk (Warren) said:

In reply to Indy - Guy :

Ah...I'm familiar with those, just never occurred to me that you get a set in budget. They do look properly vintage on the Volvo. I can't help but think it would have been nice if Steve had held on long enough to see what you guys have done with the car. Good on you for finishing the dream.

I am trying to understand the reference to the "get a set in budget" comment.

I do not believe you can add a set of wheels without adding them to the budget.

4 tires are "free", but wheels are not.

Edit.  I reread your comment again.  I think you were saying that you didn't realize those wheels were as inexpensive as they are, or that they had that much wiggle room in their budget to be able to "afford" them.

wvumtnbkr said:

DeadSkunk (Warren) said:

In reply to Indy - Guy :

Ah...I'm familiar with those, just never occurred to me that you get a set in budget. They do look properly vintage on the Volvo. I can't help but think it would have been nice if Steve had held on long enough to see what you guys have done with the car. Good on you for finishing the dream.

I am trying to understand the reference to the "get a set in budget" comment.

I do not believe you can add a set of wheels without adding them to the budget.

4 tires are "free", but wheels are not.

 

Edit.  I reread your comment again.  I think you were saying that you didn't realize those wheels were as inexpensive as they are, or that they had that much wiggle room in their budget to be able to "afford" them.

Yes, we wanted these wheels for the street version of the car regardless of the Challenge budget constraints.  Because we were starting with a free to budget car, we had room for the $400 expense this year. (remember we have a set of 3 Kosei rims that are a $60 budget hit, but the car needs a 4th that we didn't have). These wheels are easily removable once we get into power adders hitting the budget (more foreshadowing )

In reply to Indy - Guy :

I think the "smoother and more enjoyable" had a lot to do with my pace compared to Rob's! It was grand fun regardless and I was happy to take a few runs around the cones! 

In reply to garaithon :

Lolz.  I told her before we started that the cars don't look like they are doing anything very aggressive at an autocross, but it will be violent in the car.

She agreed it was violent after the run.  Lol.

Drag Race Report:

I don’t have any pics of the car at the drags.  Maybe Garaithon or Indy-Kid #2 can post some.

As you may recall from the Autocross report, the car was running hot.  We suspect a bad thermostat that’s not opening.  We could have chosen to remove it as a test, but we didn’t have a new gasket, and didn’t want to introduce a coolant leak.  So we just pushed the car up the drag staging lane until we were a few cars back.  I drove around the water box (we’re on street tires) and lined up for the first pass.  The car felt good off the line, and was stable all the way down the track.  This was the first time we got the car up to speed, so happy to report neutral straight line dynamics.  After pulling around to timing shack and receiving the slip, I was disappointed that it didn’t record a time.

So we lined up for two more passes, (while pushing the car up the line to prevent overheating).  Second pass was a 16.279.  Lined up for a third pass and got our best time of the night: 16.222.  This car isn’t a drag specialist, so we wanted to preserve it and just accept that number and called it a night.

On the drive home we actually talked about the different styles of driving between Rob and gariathan. She understands now how two different executions can get similar results but a car needs set up differently and reacts differently to those driving styles. She had a ball with both ride alongs though. Thank you both for taking her on rides and I do believe she is going to be using her slammed full-size truck to do a couple of events with me locally

Dusterbd13 said:

On the drive home we actually talked about the different styles of driving between Rob and gariathan. She understands now how two different executions can get similar results but a car needs set up differently and reacts differently to those driving styles. She had a ball with both ride alongs though. Thank you both for taking her on rides and I do believe she is going to be using her slammed full-size truck to do a couple of events with me locally

This is so cool!

In reply to Dusterbd13 :

Job opportunities await in the motorsports industry for anyone that can conceptualize what she already has a handle on. Does she follow the Iron Dames?

Concours Report:

Up early for Church at 7:30 and then onto the Pavilion.  On the drive over, we experienced a rain storm.  Sigh.  The car is sitting outside, with no side or rear windows (and painters tape stipes) so we were stressing about it’s condition when we arrived at the track around 9:15am.  Got it pushed into place and began setting up for judging.  Our intention was to honor Steve’s memory and the amazing start he gave us on the car.  We also chose a Swedish / Ikea theme to accent the atmosphere.  Everyone who passed by the car was amazed at the work Steve had done to join the Miata and Volvo in such a graceful way.  The rear deck lid art work was also a huge draw for peoples eyes.  Here are some pics:

When it was our time to be judged, we greeted the judges with Meatballs and Sake.  They REALLY appreciated the car and the work that went into it, first by Steve and then by the rest of the team to get it finished to this point and to the Challenge.  While presenting the story of the, Randy Pobst was seen shedding a few tears upon hearing it all.  They all asked several questions and seemed to genuinely love the car.

After judging, GRM photographer Chris Tropea asked if we could move the car to the end of the pavilion (it was raining heavily at this point) for a photo shoot !  We gladly acknowledged.

Then I grabbed Randy’s attention and asked him to autograph our trunk lid, and he did !

With judging completed we loaded up the car on the trailer and awaited the awards ceremony.

Results:

We took Third place in Councours for GTN$ and First Place in half Budget !

We finished 10th overall amongst the budget cars across all tire classes.

Thanks again to Steve for his start on this project, and to everyone who contributed at the Build Party, Parking Lot, Online forum suggestions, to my team mates: Garaithon, Indy-Kid #2, Indy-Kid #3, Indy-Kid #5, and Garaithon’s son.  What an amazing journey that I’ll always cherish.  

Stay tuned for version 2 of the car…….

I did snap a few at the drags plus a video. I'll upload the video in a bit.

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

You got it!

Looking forward to seeing where you go with this over the next year. I really hope it involves street driving as part of its new car-eer.

Pete

In reply to NOHOME :

Yes, we intend to enjoy the car on the street once we get the paper work sorted out.  Which, I'm happy to report, we may have a break through.  More on that next week.  The teams really wants more power for this car, and we've discussed dozens of possibilities, from wild to mild, several engine swap ideas (V8's from Chevy as well as Ford), turbo Ecotech's, Turbo Volvo White Block, Chevy V6's etc, etc.  At the moment, we are just exploring Forced induction on the stock 1.8 (probably Turbo, maybe also NO2? for drags?)  Out texting threads offline have been pretty active

Either way, the car will continue and make another appearance at the Challenge.  Speaking of which, below is a picture credited to Dave Green that was posted in the event coverage over on Hagerty's site:

Hard to beat the ET/$ value proposition of nitrous. You probably don't need much more power for the autocross if any, plus you keep things simple and reliable, then turn it on for the drags. Wonder much that stock motor will take.

Turbskis seem to work well in this application.

maschinenbau said:

Hard to beat the ET/$ value proposition of nitrous. You probably don't need much more power for the autocross if any, plus you keep things simple and reliable, then turn it on for the drags. Wonder much that stock motor will take.

ah, yeah.  We DO need more power for the Autocross.  We were about two seconds slower than the first place car in our tire size class, that car was heavier than ours, but with much more power.  We also lost to the a drag specialist car (Mustang) that went around the course mostly on three wheels.  Momentum racing only gets you so far.

Noted about the spray in the drags.

We swapped the thermostat for a new one hopefully that will solve our overheating problem. The old one looked rough.

I snapped this picture under the car. So much room,for so many oil pans...

Great news!

Garaithon just sent me a text.  There was a break through with the cars paperwork.

We now have a title and are road worthy!  This'll make de-bug and further development of the car much simpler.

Indy - Guy said:

maschinenbau said:

Hard to beat the ET/$ value proposition of nitrous. You probably don't need much more power for the autocross if any, plus you keep things simple and reliable, then turn it on for the drags. Wonder much that stock motor will take.

ah, yeah.  We DO need more power for the Autocross.  We were about two seconds slower than the first place car in our tire size class, that car was heavier than ours, but with much more power.  We also lost to the a drag specialist car (Mustang) that went around the course mostly on three wheels.  Momentum racing only gets you so far.

Noted about the spray in the drags.

The rx8 weighs 2850# with 250 hp.  Figured I'd just put actual numbers so you can figure out your desired PWR.

garaithon said:

We swapped the thermostat for a new one hopefully that will solve our overheating problem. The old one looked rough.

I snapped this picture under the car. So much room,for so many oil pans...

I hear the gm 60degree (and 3800) v6 engines are cheap...  

wvumtnbkr said: I hear the gm 60degree (and 3800) v6 engines are cheap...  

And I've heard that some of them had superchargers!

It would appear that an engine swap is in the cards? I can assure you that there is room in the bay and below for a lot of activities.

The engine is the cheap part of a drive-line swap in a Miata. The rear axle, and  any flavour of manual gearbox, eats a lot of budget that is hard to grassroots your way around.

The LS IS the sledgehammer you want for improving the dragstrip points at the next challenge. Could also help with the concourse event if you do a pretty job of installing. But the only way to stay on budget would be a 4L60 behind the engine. 

Have you looked at Turbo options for the existing drivetrain?

confuZion3 said:

wvumtnbkr said: I hear the gm 60degree (and 3800) v6 engines are cheap...  

And I've heard that some of them had superchargers!

3900 and turbueno.....

NOHOME said:

It would appear that an engine swap is in the cards? I can assure you that there is room in the bay and below for a lot of activities.

The engine is the cheap part of a drive-line swap in a Miata. The rear axle, and  any flavour of manual gearbox, eats a lot of budget that is hard to grassroots your way around.

The LS IS the sledgehammer you want for improving the dragstrip points at the next challenge. Could also help with the concourse event if you do a pretty job of installing. But the only way to stay on budget would be a 4L60 behind the engine. 

Have you looked at Turbo options for the existing drivetrain?

 

 

 

I agree.

However, I think a gm 3500 or 3800 engine could work as well.

Engines can be had for $200.  Trans can be had from $free to about $200 (T5WC from a 1997-2002 v6 camaro) will bolt right up.

That T5 is already set up for a torque arm or, PPF as mazda states.

So, then all you need is a clutch, flywheel, driveshaft, HTOB, and a $105 tune on the ecu.

The 3800 and most of those parts can be pillaged from a wrecked 4th gen v6 camaro.

Fairly straight forward 205hp swap.

And my miata with a tired 3400 was running 14 flat at 94