In reply to Toyman01:
Your driving looks good to me. Nice smooth steering & throttle inputs. Maybe a little late in the slalom, and possibly not looking far enough ahead and/or remembering the course in a couple places, but it could just be the camera. What parts bothered you?
I coned the slalom twice by accelerating down it and creaming the last cone. The hard right on the far end, I sharpened more than necessary a couple of time and had to correct to get around the next cone. Taking a 5 year hiatus has made my driving a little rusty, and they always put EM in the last run group, which makes my memory a little rusty as well.
The nut behind the wheel is a little loose. It'll get better with seat time.
Over the last week, I added some driver cooling to the car. It will cost me a weight penalty, but it does a good job of keeping the driver alert and to me, that's well worth it. We be Chillin!
I did some fiddling with tire pressures and solved 80% of the push. Yesterday's autocross was a success. I had one of the regional hot shoes co-drive to help with car setup and finding the fast line.
My best run. https://www.youtube.com/embed/2g-Ob7CsDIY
My Co-drive's best run.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/YvTeRFAfAGE
I was within .34 seconds of him. I'm pretty happy with that result. I still don't look far enough ahead and overdrive the car into some of the corners.
I have some plans for the next month so there is more to come.
In reply to Toyman01:
Have you done an overlay of the two vids to really compare where you lost time?
In reply to Pete Gossett:
I haven't done a overlay, and don't know how, but I'm pretty sure I know where it happened. The first eyebrow turn to the left, I came in too hot and pushed wide, which cost me coming through the box. Then, the last turn before the finish line, I should have gave up a little on the previous turn to carry more speed into the finish.
In reply to Toyman01:
If you can get both videos on your phone, there is an app that makes split screen videos super easy. It's called Split S Videos and I use it all the time
Was thinking I should call you up about buying mikes old car.
So glad you are enjoying it.
Tomorrows plan was to do away with the huge battery behind the seats, and mount a little AGM up front. I was impatient, so I did it this afternoon.
The old battery and box tipped the scale at 32 pounds.
The new battery is 11 pounds.
Finding room upfront is a little difficult. I considered building a mount on the side of the radiator mount, but decided to mount it on the passenger side firewall instead. It's higher and farther back than I wanted but this is where it's going for now.
I left the positive cable long for now, in case I decided to move it farther up front.
This may not be important, but I noticed that you shift your hand position on the wheel a bit more than the other driver. Is that a thing, or just because of the tightness of the course? Dunno - I just see stuff...
In reply to Sanchinguy:
It's because of the tightness of the steering wheel to my leg. My hand would not pass my thigh without hitting it.
A problem that was solved today...
The steering wheel I've been using is the original Triumph wheel. It's 13.5" in diameter. It drags on my thigh when I lift off the throttle. That causes a couple of problems. 1, I cant turn the wheel 180* without shuffle steering. 2, I have had it actually jamb into my thigh and cause a off course excursion. Today we fixed that.
Out with the old.
In with the new.
The new wheel is 11.5" in diameter, and also has a deeper dish to move it closer to me. I can now manage better than 180* without removing my hands from the wheel.
Old vs New.
The steering effort didn't increase enough to bother me. I call it a win-win. 
Also done today.
Some heat shielding for the battery since it is right above the exhaust manifold.
Blower fan replaced, relocated to behind the seat, and ducted to the drivers compartment.
I'm not sure why the first fan burned up, but I tested this one for an hour before installing it.
More to come.
Do you know if Mike used the original steering rack in the car or an aftermarket "quick ratio" rack?
In reply to Ian F:
It's the original rack, but it has been shortened to correct the Ackermann angles.
Toyman01 wrote: Tomorrows plan was to do away with the huge battery behind the seats, and mount a little AGM up front. I was impatient, so I did it this afternoon. The old battery and box tipped the scale at 32 pounds.
Lol-you don't know how amused I am at the fact that Mike removed the battery tray and put a flat panel there and you just put a battery right back there. 
Toyman01 wrote: In reply to Ian F: It's the original rack, but it has been shortened to correct the Ackermann angles.
Yeah. I remember that. FWIW, there is an aftermarket rack that has a quicker ratio. It's not terribly expensive from most LBC vendors.
The new belts showed up today, so I got them installed. I switched up to some camlocks, they are much easier to buckle.
They were surprisingly cheap. I'm not familiar with the brand, but they are SFI rated so I guess they should be fine for autocross.
Camlock belts are also much easier to unlatch quickly in the event of an emergency. Cool color on the belts!
In reply to dculberson:
I almost bought purple.
I sent you a PM, but dont think you saw it.
Any chance I could get suspension pics with the wheels off/detail of the miata rear swap?
photo related
Not going rotary with it though.
In reply to Apexcarver:
I must have missed the PM, sorry.
I can do that. I may have scans of the pictures Mike took when he built it.
Apexcarver, I apologize. I completely forgot to shoot those pictures. Here is a shot from Mike's build pictures to tide you over and I promise to shoot some wheels off pictures tomorrow afternoon when I get the car out to load it on the trailer.
In the mean time...
Hmmm, something is different.
I was half way through flipping the tires when I remembered I had these in the attic.
Which are better. Diamonds? 15 pounds, crooked as a snake, 13 X 8.
Or Mini Lites? 10 pounds, straight as can be, 13 X 7.5.
Minilites FTW for the reduction in unsprung flywheel weight.
Minilites look better
Definitely the Minilites.
I bought a set of Panasports for a Spit/GT6 a couple of years ago off eBay. Not sure what I'm going to do with them, but at $200 for the 4, it was too good of a deal to pass on.
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