I've made more poor decisions and plan on making more poor decisions. I have a running, driving LS3 miata - so I plan to take it apart and make a slightly different car. I appreciate comments, quips, advice, and dad jokes - so feel free to post (nearly) any and everything on yo' mind.
There are reasons - I'll try and explain them here in a bit.
In reply to accordionfolder :
I don't know what's happening in here, but I'm in to follow along.
Oh, the antici
Lol, sorry, started the post and got interrupted and was just like, eh, come back in a bit - didn't mean to tease.
Well, ok - So I built what my wife and I call Ouji-sama over the last four years. The silver shark. The ballistic trash-can.
I drug it out of an apartment complex of a forum member on here in May 2020 for 500 doll-hairs. It had a 1.6. it had a crank wobble. It was beautiful.
So beautiful I decided to slowly - but surely - ruin it. I wanted to maximize the "ruin-it speed run" and went 1.6->1.6->1.8VVT->6.2
Like most things in life, it was more complicated than that. Blood-sweat-tears. The whole 9 yards. I'm also 70% sure I've received multiple concussion hitting my head on the aero. Lovely. I'd probably more sure about the concussions if I hit my head on the wing less. Kinda the Schrodinger's cat of brain damage.
Right. Well, I got it worked out. It's a crate ls3 w/ a t56 magnum, getrag diff, bigger-big brake kit, triple adjustable xida, and some other random stuff. It's neat and goes fast and makes fun noises.
Anywho, I drove to Connecticut on a whim to pickup someone offloading a crap-ton of Miata parts and a Miata car-cass (ba-dum-tissssss). Lovely (again. probably brain damage). I now own 6 NAs. That's dumb. (definitely brain damage). The carcass was a turbo LS car out west that came east and then was discarded before it got going.
So why break my perfectly good Miata that I just layed down 11s in my neighborhood through third gear? I don't know man, I just work here.
1) Silver car's cage is a 1.5" spec miata cage is fine, I put it in. Works good, until I'm doing 140mph on the middle straight at NCM. Then it feels a little dinky. The green chassis has a 1.75" cage w/ a lot of tie in and huge door bars, etc.
2) The green car's fuel system routing and fuel cell are much nicer.
3) Green car's headers go ABOVE the engine and avoid the ground clearance issues that have plauged me and my love of jumping curbs. It also helps with the heat/maintenance.
4) The 15x11's I have are not going to fit in the silver car without a lot of surgery, the wide body is already there.
5) Big A** wang, the carbon wing on the green chassis is bigger and better mounted.
6) A real pedal box is already in the green chassis
7) A real race car s*** front sway bar is in there.
8) it's green
9) Green chassis already has a steering quickener
10) A million other little things.
Well, i **could** do any and all this to the silver chassis, but at what point to I want to badger it up worse than I already have? I dunno. My current plan is to take the LS car guts and shove them in the green chassis, take my TT6 car's guts and shove them in the silver car - then it's TT/ST legal.
Is this a good idea? Probably not, but race cars aren't a good idea - so, take that.
Here. Have some pictures:
In reply to Indy - Guy :
I don't know what's happening either, but glad to have company along the way!
In reply to Keith Tanner :
Hello Miata-man!
In reply to accordionfolder :
6 miatas is crazy, probably just enough parts for one of the yata's lol
This is mental. And full-blown race car crap on the Green tub. I'm in for the Long Haul even though I'll probably be quiet about it. As a fellow brain damage sufferer from many many concussions I feel your pain
I love what you've done for front end aero on the Silver car :p
Following intently. Green car gives me some 90's NOFX album vibes...
In reply to myusdmcavalier :
lol, yeah - I need to turn down the miata numbers
I've got the Silver car Ouji-sama, the black car Booger (maybe, haven't decided on a name).
I have a TT6 miata, Reginald. He came from a forum member here in complete, but rough shape. I swapped the VVT engine that lived in silver car into him. He has fox shocks from flyin' miata, a rollbar, and the standard stuff. He looks rough but kicks ass and takes names in NASA TT6. The drivetrain of this car is being considered for the silver car so I can race it w2w as well:
There's Phil, the spec miata. I bought him for 5k in pieces with another spec miata (Roxy). Phil is a champ - I've podiumed with him JUST as I bought him (blow bilsteins, tired engine, tired transmission) in a field of pro-built NB's.
There's Roxy Rubik's cube, she hit a wall. Hard. But I figured I could bring it back. I purchased it not knowing anything and missing a lot, but when I dug into the engine it looks like a 0 mile rebuild and has lots of neat parts on it. We're hoping to race it at NCM coming up soon!
Snowball is a chassis I purchased (before I found booger) that was already caged and came with a bunch of cool parts. It was the car I originally planned on putting Reginald's guts in (lol), but now I don't really have a plan for this chassis.
In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :
Welcome aboard the crazy train! And seriously, I have literal scars on my head from miata aero, not sure why but I always seem to bonk my head on it.
In reply to golfduke :
Haha, the silver car looks better with his nose on!
If you're interested in getting up to speed with what I've done from the beginning of each car, I keep little google photo albums of each:
Silver - Ouji-sama
Phil - Spec Miata
Roxy - Battered Miatas need love too
I appreciate comments, quips, advice, and dad jokes - so feel free to post (nearly) any and everything on yo' mind.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk (Miata trama dump)
I spent all day trying to think of how that dad joke I know goes, but I couldn't think of it (probably because I don't have kids)
Anyway, in to live vicariously through you for Miata shenanigans
Super confident me from the other day is feeling less confident today. I sat in the black car and poked around - I'm just not 10000% sure it's what I want to do - which of course gives me pause. Past me made a lot of good points, but present me is looking at the required work and scratching my (concussed) head.
The fiberglass wide-body looks cool, but it also is a negative in the w2w world, where rubbing wheels is a real possibility and metal bends back mid race weekend, while shattered over-fenders are less easy to deal with. I really love the "up and over" headers vs the standard packaging, but don't love losing the ability to install and take passengers out.
The seating position will also need completely reworked for me in booger - the silver car has a drop floor in it and I've already tracked it, so I like the way it fits pretty well as-is. Reworking the seating position probably means the pedal box will need futsed with..... soooo.
Decisions - decisions....
In reply to DjGreggieP :
Haha, I'm known to make a good dad joke or three and I have no kids - but many nephews (and now a niece!) so I guess they're uncle-jokes. Maybe I just like bad jokes?
This old W2W racer prefers the fiberglass fender. My experiences have always seen the tires survive a fiberglass fender, but about 1/3 of the time a metal fender cuts the tire it is rubbing. Cheap race weight polyester resin "feebleglass" patches together in half an hour too. Not so good carbon/kevlar, but I have managed 2 hours trackside. Can't help with the passenger, but it is a W2W car, mine never had a passenger seat. Needless weight.
In reply to TurnerX19 :
Hmm good point - more food for thought - Thanks!
I'm only in what is effectively my second season of true w2w (maybe three?), so I'm still green - I've done a bunch of bump drafting, but fortunately haven't banged any wheels yet.
Dusterbd13-michael said:This is mental. And full-blown race car crap on the Green tub. I'm in for the Long Haul even though I'll probably be quiet about it. As a fellow brain damage sufferer from many many concussions I feel your pain
I have had 6 diagnosed concussions. 5 of them with a helmet. And I'm an engineer. I am one of the most socially awkward people you will ever meet.
Just ask the GT students in the hot tub last year...
TurnerX19 said:This old W2W racer prefers the fiberglass fender. My experiences have always seen the tires survive a fiberglass fender, but about 1/3 of the time a metal fender cuts the tire it is rubbing. Cheap race weight polyester resin "feebleglass" patches together in half an hour too. Not so good carbon/kevlar, but I have managed 2 hours trackside. Can't help with the passenger, but it is a W2W car, mine never had a passenger seat. Needless weight.
Gorilla tape and some plastic makes one he'll of a fix for fiberglass fenders and arches. Been there, done that.
In reply to wvumtnbkr :
Nice. You guys have at least partially convinced me back on the path. I also managed to hang the headers on the scissor lift again so the "HEADERS GO UP" Part is really speaking to my soul.
Well that and there's no hope these tires fit on the silver chassis without really cutting stuff up. They literally are close to being too wide for my tire machine.
The way way less cool part of owning too many cars, shuffling them around - I had to move the truck, to move the trailer, to get the yellow car started, to put the black car onto the trailer, to back the trailer back, to move the green car out, so that I can move the yellow car in so that my buddy and I can work on it on Friday.
Maybe we'll actually get it ready to rock?
Well Mitch and I have been hammering on Roxy the spec miata.
Seat, belts, windows nets, fire system, and a ton of misc. It went up to live with him until the race at NCM in two weeks. I'll be dragging up Phil the BRG spec miata.
Mitch is going to be racing Roxy, I'm in Phil. I owe Mitch a million times over and he did 99% of the body work on her, as well as crew for me many times - so he's getting to race. Phil is getting ready to try and keep up, but he's on tired bilstein and that's not going to change before the race weekend so here's to hoping I can hang with the recently built up Roxy (we put her on the new penskes)
Spec miata tires vs 3x 275 Hoosier
I AM working on the LS monster as well, just not as quickly.
And if anyone happens to have a line on a single (or multiple) lightly used Hoosier r7 275 35r15 I'm looking! My parts haul came with 3, with only one heat cycle on them.
We need another weight sled for Rubi so I'm gluing one together today.
Well, I had a first for me - I rented Rubi the spec miata to a kid coming up from karting for the Barber NASA event. He's a real driver and I learned a lot being crew only for once. I suspect long term it'll make me faster/better cars if it doesn't kill me from the stress of prepping a car for a 16y/o kid (he's been racing for 11 years). I'm working on my alignment and corner balancing, this kid was great to get feedback from.
ALRIGHT - back on task.
BRG spec miata (Phil) -> needs a drop floor fabricated and a new transmission (5th is gone)
Yellow spec miata (Rubi) -> needs a few odds and ins and a rebuilt shift turret.
silver LS3 -> remove the LS3, put in the VVT. Target is an ST/TT6 ST/TT5 car.
black wide body (booger) -> You get an LS3, you are ST/TT? GLTC car.
white chassis (snowball) -> spec miata number3!
First things third, I need to shuffle the cars! (and clean up everything)
I pulled the beetle around the corner after unburrying everyone else.
I have one rentable spec miata for next year, hopefully I'll have two ready before next season to help offset some of my track/race costs.
I think I'll be getting down to business (to defeat - the huns!) to swap the LS3 out after the wife and I get back from NC next week. I'm pretty happy having all the miata in a workable position (the two spec miata are parked in the front of the house)
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