In reply to engiekev :
I96 events are waaaay better. I have never been to Milan but I96 events are just plain awesome. The clay may as well be concrete where it is dry, but it also gets loose.
I got the red RX-7 in part for those. Pleasant car for long drives (quiet exhaust! Full interior! AIR CONDITIONING!), pleasant handling, and high performance street tires work well enough that I don't feel a need to haul the tire trailer. And since the good ones are two day events, I can cram my stuff in the tent instead of needing the trailer box to secure my stuff from rain and wind.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:
In reply to engiekev :
I96 events are waaaay better. I have never been to Milan but I96 events are just plain awesome. The clay may as well be concrete where it is dry, but it also gets loose.
I got the red RX-7 in part for those. Pleasant car for long drives (quiet exhaust! Full interior! AIR CONDITIONING!), pleasant handling, and high performance street tires work well enough that I don't feel a need to haul the tire trailer. And since the good ones are two day events, I can cram my stuff in the tent instead of needing the trailer box to secure my stuff from rain and wind.
I love i96, can't wait to run this car there! I would be happy if that's all we ran for every event. The grip is just unreal, for sure more grip than the concrete portion of Milan in some places. I'll fondly remember sliding around a galant vr4 there and feeling the weirdness of 4 wheel steering, then promptly fixing the water pump between the runs, Mitsu at it's best.
That's funny because your red rx7 sounds exactly like why I purchased this NB. For some reason all the events I've been to there are hot hot hot, so functional AC and tint will be nice. The bfg rivals on the k1s right now will do nicely. Will have to catch you there at the next event.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:
In reply to engiekev :
I96 events are waaaay better. I have never been to Milan but I96 events are just plain awesome. The clay may as well be concrete where it is dry, but it also gets loose.
I got the red RX-7 in part for those. Pleasant car for long drives (quiet exhaust! Full interior! AIR CONDITIONING!), pleasant handling, and high performance street tires work well enough that I don't feel a need to haul the tire trailer. And since the good ones are two day events, I can cram my stuff in the tent instead of needing the trailer box to secure my stuff from rain and wind.
If the spring swamp weather continues, the first event might be the 2-day I96 in July! I heard some of the Ohio events got canceled due to venue issues?
When we were wrenching on his turbo swap, Joey4482 mentioned the '99 exhaust manifold being restrictive once the supercharger is installed. Any thoughts on if it's worthwhile to upgrade to the 01+ or aftermarket header with the M45 supercharger? I don't have any plans to "move up" to a better supercharger system in the future.
I found a good deal on some hollow spoke NA wheels, and a co-worker powder coated them. Eurocross tires are on their way, should transform the car quite a bit for those muddier or dirt field events. For I96 if its dry, the BFG rivals will probably be better than any of the other old winter tires I have around.
Those wheels look nice! And as always rallycross all things!
Very interested in the sidewall construction of those Eurocross tires, if you want to take some detail shots of how beefy they are.
I'll take pics inside and out. If you are really interested, I would reach out to Ben Howe. He's publishing all kinds of detailed videos and photos of alpha tire information, he's the main US distributor as well.
He would also info on how they do in stage rally. I think I've seen a few cars running eurocross and rallycross on stage.
Here are pics of the Eurocross. The side wall is very soft laterally, to the point where the sidewall can "flip out" when mounting. I would curious to see how that compares to a stage rally tire, probably much much softer.
That also makes mounting a challenge, at least when it comes to seating the bead. You can get the bottom bead seated, then try to pry/push the tire top bead into place but the bottom bead doesnt want to sit. I think a tire shop with a air blaster is needed to seat these. These are listed as 175/70r14 5.5" tread width, so they should work on a 14x6 wheel. (ex. tire rack lists 175/70r14 all seasons as able to fit a 6" wheel).
They sure do look great though! Some sort of suspension height increase, whether its sleeves or a new snap ring groove, is going to be necessary to fit these for sure.
In reply to engiekev :
Thanks! For comparison, I can stand on a Hoosier gravel sidewall and it barely deflects- sounds like very different construction.
Very different! They are retreads but there isn't much info on what the "carcass" is that is used for the inner portion.
When I worked at Discount we used a ratchet strap wrapped around the circumference of the tire and cinched down to get the beads closer to where they needed to be. You can also unscrew the valve core out of the stem to get a little more airflow.
engiekev said:
Very different! They are retreads but there isn't much info on what the "carcass" is that is used for the inner portion.
Speaking for Black Rockets, it depends on what casings they get.
I got some BRs that were fully remolded bead to bead. I also got some that were just recapped Michelins and some that were recapped Dmacks. The remolds were rally carcasses but I have heard of people who got passcar tire carcasses.
You wanna talk stiff sidewalls, Dmack Grippas are about as stiff as an old Goodyear runflat and even harder to mount. The Michelin recaps were advertised as being on passcar carcasses. They were also advertised as being 155R13s but the size worked out to 185/70-13 in Michelin-speak, which had me less than thrilled.
One area to address before the supercharger install is the exhaust, I wasn't sure if this still had the OEM 1999 exhaust manifold or was upgraded at some point to the 01+ manifold. Once the supercharger is in place, it's impossible to get to the exhaust manifold.
Yup, it's got the '99-'00 setup. That needs to go! Joey4482 has a spare 1.8L NA racing beat header that I'll try to make work, it looks like the EGR needs to be blocked off and the underbody flange might differ in location.
This blew my mind: all of the heat shield bolts came out and didn't break. I don't think I've ever worked on a Midwest car that the bolts didn't snap right off, Florida cars truly are amazing.
The rest of the exhaust looks a flyin' miata NB 2.25" midpipe and catalytic converter, going back to the roadster sport exhaust. No plans to change any of this.
Looks great. I am installing an OEM system next weekend once my CC arrives.
Another part from my coworker, this time the cerakote coating on the Jackson racing header. Looks great, I'll put it on the car and get some miles to test it out before the supercharger install.
Did you ever select a suspension package and test it out at an event? I just picked up an NA that came with Bilstein B6, some sort of threaded collar, and Eibach springs (500F/350R) and trying to decide if I just want to try to move the spring perches as high as they will go and give it a shot, or use the circa 2010 FM springs I have (paired with Tokico Illuminas) off my other NA. The eichbachs are relatively short (6" and 7" respectively) compared to what's been discussed as ideal in this thread. Based on some threads from m.net it sounds like the B6 and FM springs are a nice combo, and the spring rate might be on target for what seems recommended for rallycross, I'm not sure sure how I'd set the height just yet.
I have not yet, due to lack of time I'm leaning towards just throwing on some stock NB springs with the Koni yellow and seeing how it does. Or if I have little more time, cutting new spring mount grooves on the Koni for the FM springs.
That spring rate seems really high for rallycross, especially with bilstein dampers. If you look earlier in the thread I think we discussed the FM springs rate, they're probably a better choice if you can get the clearance you need. Could look into cutting new grooves if you have a friend with a lathe or use a local machine shop, just make sure it won't cause coil bind. Bilstein has multiple grooves in production on their 5100 series for off road applications, as long as the machining is done properly there shouldn't be any concerns for durability.
What is the wheel rate to spring rate ratio on Miatas?
I have found through trial and error that 225-250 front wheel rate and 150-175 rear wheel rate is a good general starting point on multiple platforms, assuming the use of swaybars. Of course YMMV.
With assuming these motion ratios, not sure if they are correct (came from MotoIQ so who knows).
Hopman you should drive it and report back! It fits the "Pete Metric". More subjective info is good too.
engiekev said:
Hopman you should drive it and report back! It fits the "Pete Metric". More subjective info is good too.
When you say "it" do you mean with the current eibach springs or the FM springs? It seems like the FM springs fit the general recommended range, assuming I can raise the collars and it's still a good match for the Bilsteins at that point. Whether I get to swapping the springs out before the next event given all the other things this poor car needs to get brought back up to snuff is another story....
The current eibach springs, if you can get to an adequate height.
How soon are you testing this out Hopman? I would like to know how it goes, drove my rusty stock spring NA miata at i96 and it was insanely undersprung, hitting bump stops on about 1/2 the course.
I decided to order coilover parts, as opposed to cutting new spring perch grooves on the koni shocks and using the FM springs. I'm going to try 400lb/in Front and 300lb/in Rear, both 10" and see how that works, with sway bar disconnected at first. Some experimentation to be done with the koni damping, will try full soft then moving harder until it feels right and doesnt bounce too much. 400/300 translates to 188/156 wheel rate.
I also will be trying 5x Racing parts: 36mm bump stops - "dual purpose" hard front and medium rear, 2.5" spring isolator, shock bushing upgrade kit.
This shop has TONS of coil springs at decent prices:
https://www.ebay.com/str/a1performancewarehouse
Next event is Oct. 8th so not much time to get those installed and the header. It's a new site in Clio that is a HUGE (40+acre) field that packs down hard, so I'll likely give winter tires a try first and maybe try the Eurocross for fun.
