1990 Miata. Autocross, track, and lots of fun!

In reply to Harvey:

Well I'm hoping to be somewhat competitive at a local level. The person who gave me the csp idea was a local gentleman who races a Miata in a modified class I believe. Having fun is always on the agenda when racing. I'll have to get my carpet back in the rear deck and I've already posted the carbon fiber trunk lid on Craigslist. And hey, if the guys I'm racing have build motors and big aero pieces, then I'll feel pretty good when I beat them The only other things I really plan on doing to the car at the moment are coil overs and maybe a front sway bar. After that it's gonna need power. And at that point I've been eyeballing certain other cars

I have the roll bar for track days and just added safety in general. Even if my brain sits a bit above it I'd rather it be there than not.

In reply to Cone_Junky:

If you still got the connection or don't mind tracking two a spare one let me know. I may possible be able to throw some cash or a free lunch your way for it

You can still be competitive at the local level depending on the courses if you get used to keeping the momentum up on the car and yes a stiffer suspension and stickier tires can make a nice difference. The 1.6 though will never be a stunner on the power end of things, at least not stock. The 1.8 is so much nicer in that regard. I keep contemplating just swapping in a 1.8 as you can get one pretty cheaply.

I've been doing some reading today because my scca magizne I just got with the whole nationals summary in it gave me an idea. Csp is a class that allows way more prep than I want to put into this car. But what about sts? In the magizne it looked like the lightly preped crx and Miata class. I know I'd need to go back to a stock steering wheel which I'm not against. What do other think about this? It seems to make sense, my car is a 1990 base model which with my little research today seemed to be fit for the class with no LSD.

So to summarize,

Getting a stock trunk lid Get a stock steering wheel with air bag Radio delete allowed? The hole in the dash is covered Racing seat allowed? Stock seat belt is used 15x7 205/50/15 star specs Eventually going to add coil overs and possibly a front sway bar

I'm going to try and make an event in my region soon and see how the two classes are and compare them. All this research makes me like rallycross just a bit more with just 6 classes it the venue where I race haha

STS could be okay for you. Apparently the STS guys are using a Megasquirt to pull some more power out of the 1.6 cars, also you can run a VLSD in STS if you can find one.

I'm pretty sure I pointed out that CSP allows a ton of prep (big rear wing, front splitter, built motor etc) and that they are some of the fastest cars at a national level.

I've got to do some reading on this mega squirt thing you guys talk about on this board lol

I don't really plan on doing any power to this car since with the money I'd be putting into it wouldn't really gain me anything. I'm goning to hit one or two more autox roses this year ( I think that's all that's left this season ) and see how the two classes compair. If I can be competitive in csp in my region I may stay there. To me it really depends on how popular the class is. I don't want to be in a group of 3 cars. I'm used to rallyx where in the awd classes we have 10-20 cars usually.

I can believe you on the csp thing. I looked at the times in the magizne from nationals.. Sts the top Miata was 10 seconds slower than the top Miata in csp. They may have been run at different times and conditions but that's still impressive haha

The only thing I can't figure out still is am I allowed to not have the radio in sts? Can't find that in the rule book

Looking at the results from last (posted) event, CSP seems to be the "slower" class of the ones you are interested in. http://sdr-scca.com/solo2/results/2013/event11_dccsd/dccsd-11_fin-web.htm

Just show up, drive, and have fun.

Like Cone_Junky says, just show up and drive. If you start getting into what is competitive in the class you're gonna spend a lot of money even in stock class. People buy $4000 shocks for their cars in national level stock classes.

I do plan on having fun while at the same time putting in some good times and hopefully a win or two along the way. I'm not going to have any 4000 dollar shocks on this car.. but I feel like I'm good enough to have a decent set of coil overs and make the guys with 4000 dollar shocks look bad Bragging? Oh yes, yes I am

I give full permission to completely make fun of me when I start posting results with me in last place lol In the end it all is fun. Even down to preping the car and trying to learn the classes.

Got some work done on the car and even competed in CSP since the last post was made in here. I'll start off with the work that was done. First all the interior was put back in. The carpet covering the rear deck was the main chunk.

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I mentioned my carbon fiber trunk lid being for sale.. Well it sold. Managed $300 plus a stock trunk lid in red for it. Not a bad deal really lol

Next I made a trip to the junk yard. There was more miatas than I really expected which was good. But when I took a closer look most of them were really picked over or just beat head to toe with nothing really worth taking. I managed to get:

A driveshaft, Throttle body, All the carpet for the trunk, One of the bumper turn signal lights, Trunk lock, Rear badges

Here is the car in the air with the new(ish) trunk and the "mazda" badge. I was changing out tires and driveshaft after the race last weekend.

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The old driveshaft. Its already back on the car because the junk yard driveshaft U joints are just as bad if not worse. Who would have thought..

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I managed to get the car CSP legal and make to my local event to race. I wasn't sure what to expect since I'd only done one championship event before and that was over a year ago. I also didn't know what to expect since I was in a "higher up" class than stock. Everything went well though actually. I worked first and ran second group. The course looked like great fun and the weather was looking good (even though its known as "sunny san diego" sometimes it does actually rain and get cold. Which it had been leading up to race day)

When it was my turn to go I lined up behind another CSP miata and got to talking to him and another guy. Nice people and only midly preped cars. Apparently the guy to beat is an old rx7. And he was putting in some good times today. I managed a decent time I felt. The rx7's best I think was about 67 seconds, I managed almost a 71.000, in 4th place I believe about half a second from 3rd out of 6. I did make a few mistakes though. My 3rd run (of 4) I had a better time than my fastest 4th run but I ran over a cone like an idiot pushing harder into a corner when I barley made it through without hitting the cone on the 2nd run. Then on the 4th run I made 2 stupid mistakes and caught myself thinking.. "what are you doing dumb dumb! Look and drive!"

It was good fun though. My Go Pro was on her period and wouldn't work so I don't have video and I haven't found any pics yet. I guess my car is too ugly for people to take cool action shots

Heres a few other random pictures because build threads without pictures suck.

My prized possessions. All my tires. People talk about the newest coolest things they've done to their cars and here I am like, "I just got a used set of snow tires for the wrx. Thats whats in the trash bags.. "

I'm just weird and really like tires...

My daily wheels for the miata, and spare set of bald wrx wheels with you guessed it, my new (used ) snow tires in the bags for rallyx to go on the wheels below.

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Heres a few pieces from the junk yard that haven't made it on the car just yet. All the junk yard miatas seemed to have front end damage except for one. And the other blinker light was damaged off the car that this one came off of. The "miata" badge needs to be glued into place. And the trunk lock needs to be keyed to my key before installing.

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My race tires. Dunlop Starspecs are working great for me. Stickiest tire I've ever driven on I love them.

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And lastly my two babies having a staring contest

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Did an autocross this pass weekend. Last event of the season! It was a bit cold and rainy but thankfully the course was dry when I did my runs. I think I even finished in 2nd or 3rd in CSP! Pretty stoked about that. The other guys were faster but they couldn't put in a clean run. Pays to not hit them cones

Here is my 3rd run which was my fastest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xxmyYc7V30&feature=youtu.be

Would love some advise on any mistakes you see! The go pro is suction cupped to the very front of the hood.

Get CLOSER to the cones - especially on sweepers. The distance you have to travel around a constant radius turn is greater with every inch of added radius - make that as short as possible. It could be worth more than half a sec easy. Otherwise that looked like a pretty good run.

i envy you in SD, the Murph is a great venue as long as the pavement lasts. That course looked a lot like the national tour course from two years ago. it's great practice, and with elevation changes it's a riot.

First I'd like to say thanks to duetto for the comments. I haven't been in here to update in a while mostly because there really hasn't been much to update. I did one autocross and haven't done anything else except drive the car.

And thats where this update comes in. I need some help. I got stranded yesterday doing a fun run up a local mountain with some buddys when my steering started getting a bit too stiff. Way to stiff even for manual steering. Then POP BANG goes something in the front end. Crap. I pull off thankfully it didn't happen in one of the tighter corners.

With the front passenger side fender almost resting on the tire we checked that corner first to see the lower ball joint no longer holding the LCA to the steering knuckle. Dang it. So I managed to get the car home and save on towing thanks to a borrowed trailer, and today took it all apart. Turns out my tie rod end on the passenger side isn't looking so good either so off that came as well. Then I went to the parts store. This is where it all went wrong. And why I need help.

I don't want to put cheap chinese parts on my car. But the cheapest oem parts I could find so far are from go miata and its still almost 300 shipped. Thats for both tie rod ends and lower ball joints left and right side because if one side went the other side isn't going to live much longer either.

Any one know of a good brand that isn't going to cost so much? I might call the dealer in the morning but I know they aren't going to be much better.

I got the car up and running again. $200 bucks worth of moog ball joints and tie rod ends and she drives better than ever.

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The lower ball joint wouldn't stay together. The tie rod end didn't look much better either.

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Tie rod from the other side. Old car has old worn out parts.

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I don't think I got it back together right.. The steering wheel is straight

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Drives pretty straight

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Got it realigned yesterday. It was pretty far off. But everything is all straight now and it drives amazing. Got -2.3 camber rear and -1.7 front which is pretty good for stock suspension. Toe is straight ahead. Its been a few weeks since I've really driven the car and man i miss it!

Coming up for the car this weekend was suppose to be an autocross but our practice day got canceled because of scheduling at the stadium. I may head out for the championship on sunday. Then the next weekend is the national tour in san diego. I've never been to a national event before and kind of want to go check it out. But its a bit expensive at $115 entry fee. I usually pay $30 for championship days and $45 for practice.

Then on top of all that the past few weeks before I broke the car my buddy from school has been prepping it for paint. He's in the body shop class so lets hope she turns out pretty good. But basically getting it painted for the cost of materials is good enough for me. Hopefully in the next few weeks that will be done. I just dropped it off to him again today

Autocross yesterday. We had a really fun course set up lots of 3rd gear and I think I even saw the speedo go above 60 a few times. Impressive in a miata! Lots of competition in CSP as well there was 11 cars I heard and if my time wasn't beat after I finish my last run I should have placed 4th! Heres my fastest run video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvT1HSUIawA&feature=youtu.be

Hopefully a few pictures turn up I saw a bunch of photographers. Tomorrow I'll be running the time attack at adams motorsport park which is a go kart track about an hour from me. Never been before but my old co worker invited me and I'm always down for some racing.

Little over due but I did make it to Adams for the time attack last week. It was a blast and now I'm hooked! The go kart track is basically perfect for a miata. My buddy was faster than me in his honda and thats not ok so I'll defiantly be back to beat his times. Heres a video from my go pro, thats my nephew riding along. He's about to get his license and I have no doubt he will be a good driver once he is able to race at the events with me.

Basically we run 3 laps, one is a start up lap then they start your timed run, then you get a second timed run. Its really good value for money, its only 20 bucks to run and 5 to get in the park. And you get 3 runs of 3 laps for a total of 9 laps, 6 are timed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAWhZoh-qNA&feature=youtu.be

The star specs didn't seem to like the course though. The left front started to over heat a bit during my last run. But there are mostly right hander corners. I run them at 35psi.

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Also the results are up for the autocross on march 30th and I did manage to hold onto 4th out of 11 cars. I'm pretty happy with that considering how stock this car basically is. And that the leaders are on r comps and I'm on star specs.

The next thing for the miata is it is actually getting painted! It should be sanded down this week since I dropped it off to my buddy today. It is a slow process since class is only 3 hours two days a week but thats the price I pay for getting a good paint job for the cost of materials.

For the most part, the local SCCA regions will allow people to be placed in a lower class than allowed for somewhat minor car mods, like a smaller steering wheel. At least until you start putting down some monster times or get a complaint. But as long as CSP is working for you, that's good. Actually, having a car with an ugly paint job is entertaining because some of the rookies with think you are slow as berkeley, and they will be shocked when you have much more driving abilities( and a much faster time) than they do.

I've looked at getting a stock wheel. I could probably come out ahead selling this one and putting a stock one in. That should put me in sts. But in my region we have 11 cars in csp compared to less than 5 in sts. And even if I'm not prepared to the same level I prefer more competition. But I have looked into it.

I actually told my girlfriend at the last event that I wanted to be that old guy who can show up in any car and pretty much own anyone's times while looking like I can barley walk haha

I haven't seen the car much since the last update in here since my buddy has been prepping the car for paint. About two weeks ago I bought $460 bucks worth of paint and dropped it off to him. Today I look at my phone too see he had sent me this

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That's going to look nice!

A good few coats of fresh paint is pretty.

I got the car back over the weekend! I can't believe how good it came out. Really excited to be driving it again.

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