A soul-searching what car thread.

I've read as much of the thread as I could without glazing over. Lots of thoughts about what OP does not want and not as much about what OP does want. 
 

the idea that a DSM is special and the Miata is not is funny. You don't see DSMs because they were all riced to death after The Fast and Furious movies and had that bolt number failure. You see Miatas all the time because Mazda actually made (most of) them really well.

I see a couple of options: sell the Miata and spend the money fixing the DSM. Sell both and buy whatever non F/R layout is in budget, maybe an mr-s with hardtop. Look at other motorsports that actually have big, competitive fields (karts, chump car, etc).

In reply to AaronT :

The other option is finding someone to try & teach me how to get more out of the Miata. Whether that ends up being an Evo school, regular codriver who's faster than me, etc. 

Also, I realized a few years ago I can't do any type of circuit racing. After about 3 laps it starts screwing with my inner ear, causing me to become disoriented & a bit dizzy. I can't handle any types of amusement park or carnival rides, so it kinda makes sense. I just never had a chance to discover it until a few years ago. 

Autox doesn't bother me at all though, since it's one run, then wait a while. Even on courses that loop back onto themselves. I've never driven a skid pad, but I'm pretty sure now that I'm not even going to bother trying. 

Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to OldGray320i :

800# front/650# rear springs on Koni race shocks, ISC upper mounts front & rear, Racing Beat 1-1/8" hollow front bar w/mounting blocks, no rear bar, Bauer lower ball joints, and R-package tie rod ends. The alignment is -4.1* front camber, -3.2* rear, with about 1/8" front toe out and zero toe rear. The height is set about 4-1/4" to the pinch welds  

The car was corner weighted with me in it. It weighs 2150lbs empty with fluids.  
 

The struggle I have is that driven at 95%+ the car is amazing. Those last few percent feel vague & inconsistent to me though. Well, and another 50-100hp would be nice, but that's useless unless/until I can become confident at the ragged edge. 
 

Obviously keeping the Miata is the cheapest & most logical option. But unless I can figure out how to drop significant time in the car I'm not going to enjoy it, and then it'll continue to sit in the garage most of the time. 

 Wild speculation based on conjecture, you have way too much front toe, and too much rear spring. 

At the ragged edge, is it twitchy?  Seems like bitchin turn in, then that rear end would want to step out in quick succession.  

In reply to OldGray320i :

Based on what the top/serious STS cars are running, it's right in the ballpark. I selected those rates based on reading through all of the annual STS setup threads on Miata.net, and they're still within range of what people are running this year. They're also below the max limit that Koni recommends. 
 

To answer your question, it's not twitchy at the limit. In fact I was happy to discover that I need to LFB to get it to rotate - I've been LFBing for 20+ years due to the AWD & FWD  cars I've autoxed, so I really didn't want to have to unlearn that. 

There's only one time it's surprised me. We had a decreasing 3-cone slalom before the finish, and it snap-oversteered around the 2nd cone. I didn't spin, but I damn near came to a complete stop catching it. I did come into the slalom a little hot, so that's probably what caused it.  

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

 Interesting.  When you say vague and inconsistent that last few % what is the car doing or not doing?

I'm running less spring and 2.5, zero toe f/r (aligment shop used front setting for both... turns out I like the way it drives at that setting), and my car is consistent and predictable all the time.  I could go faster if I trusted what I'm feeling.  

That said, when I ran softer springs on Koni Sports, I had your reaction at the upper limits of effort.  The car would sometimes let loose unexpectedly, and was hard to trust.  It didn't react the way I thought it should.

Makes me wonder if there's something in Koni's damping profile that throws certain of us off.

I will second what Old Gray320i is saying: you've mentioned the car not being consistent on the edge, what part of the corner is it not consistent? Turn in, mid corner, exit? What are you doing at that moment; cadence throttle, trail braking, spiking the brakes to rotate it etc.?

My initial suspicion is you're over driving the car due to you're frustration with it.............note I could be completely wrong.

Also not every driver has the same style; the set up that works well for most drivers may not work well for you.

On a different and shameless note...........have you tried a Formula 500/F-mod? I've run one for several years, FTD is always on the table and with the CVT trans LFB is the norm. They are also fun as hell to drive even if there is no one in your class. Also being so tiny they open up garage space.

Realistically I'd try and work out the Miata; get the A/C fixed and find out where your/its issue is. 

I love DSMs but I'd send on to a new home................fixing the Miata will be far less work.

Can you get some of the local Miata hotshoes to take yours out for a few runs, and see what they think?  If they think the setup is fine, maybe they can give you some pointers.  If it isn't, hopefully they can advise you on what adjustments the car needs.  And if neither of those work out in a couple of events or so, I'd recommend getting rid of the Miata, and either spend the money for a known good engine for the DSM, or start looking into WRXs, and deciding if you can live with one or not.  Down there, I'd assume you can still find 2002-2007 models that aren't either rusted out or insanely overpriced?

OldGray320i said:

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

 Interesting.  When you say vague and inconsistent that last few % what is the car doing or not doing?

I could go faster if I trusted what I'm feeling.  

I think your last sentence describes it better than I could. There's been a couple times when the car got loose & surprised me, but generally I feel like I must not be at the limit, because my times are way off where they should be based on the index. 

Probably worth noting is that our lot isn't that big, so it's really rare to need 3rd gear. I won't say we typically have tight or slow courses overall, but there's usually at least one technical section. 

I'll also add that it was drilled into me early on to drive smooth and then fast will come naturally. Being an underpowered car, I typically strive to drive the shortest, smoothest, line. For example, I see some people drive a wide line around a 180* decreasing radius turn, just so they can nail the apex. I'll tuck in closer, and with a dab of LFB the Miata will just pivot around the apex cone. Since I wouldn't be carrying much more speed going wider, I'd only be adding distance & time onto my run. That strategy worked well for me with underpowered FWD cars in the past, and I think it *should* work with the Miata. 

In reply to Tom1200 :

I've not driven anything close to a formula car. I'm not sure I could handle all the bouncing quite honestly. I wear glasses, and even though my helmet fits well, whenever there's a really bumpy section(which fortunately our site doesn't have) it'll cause enough vibration to by glasses to distort things a bit. 

In reply to eastsideTim :

I did that for one event. Although while he's faster than me, I also think he overdrives a bit too much. 

Here's the vid of each of our fastest runs side by side. I think it shows who's faster in what sections pretty well, though I didn't really gain any applicable tips to help me go faster. I'm on the left.

Ooh, I almost forgot that the car got loose at the very end.
 

That's another example of not being able to consistently predict what the car is going to do. I remember thinking it might get loose, then thinking everything was ok, only to have it step out on me. That mistake probably put me in 2nd place. 

Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:

OldGray320i said:

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

 Interesting.  When you say vague and inconsistent that last few % what is the car doing or not doing?

I could go faster if I trusted what I'm feeling.  

 

...There's been a couple times when the car got loose & surprised me, but generally I feel like I must not be at the limit...

I think you're talking time as much as car feel, but what I've left above is how I always felt on Koni sports - it's why I say the car never did what I expected.   I don't know how the race are valved, so the "concept" of how they feel might be different than the sports.  In my experience, the spring rate (albeit minor, 50lbs) didn't change the characteristic, that's why I blame it on valving.  I could be so far off base it's not funny, so there's that. 

With the Feals, the car does exactly what I think it should, no matter how hard I push it as a driver.  I'm waiting for it to not do what it just keeps doing the faster I push it.   It's cool, and with that realization I hope to crack mid pack in raw times. 

Somebody smarter than me can comment on alignment, but I think the zero toe can cause a little loosey goosey in the rear,  BUT, as a result of my alignment guys ignoring my rear specs, I wound up with a little more camber at the rear than I was running and the car is better than it was prior, so color me confused.    And your rear spring rate still just feels high in my mind, but I don't drive the car, so that opinion is worth the cost of the 0's and 1's that allow this post (i.e. about zero),  so there's that. 

It sounds like you're on the cusp of enjoying the Miata as an auto-x car, but that "offness" has you looking. 

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

Pete the video was very helpful. The other driver seems super comfortable with oversteer; an edgy set up usually makes a Miata faster.............so I now have some questions.

Are you not super comfortable with oversteer? You obviously managed it well but again are you comfortable with it?

Where do you find you most get caught out? Is it in quick transitions like the last part of the course?

And as to the quick transitions; what exactly were you doing in that final chicane (on the gas, quick squeeze of the brake etc)?

So to give you a parallel: In my F500 for autocross (I road race it as well) I had the car set up very loose, I'm hugely comfortable with oversteer (almost to a fault) but all of the other drivers I'd had in the car struggled with this. I made the set up less aggressive, I'm able to still turn the same times and my son now turns faster times in it.

If the car is to edgy for you, leading to a lack of confidence, simply dial it back. 

In reply to OldGray320i :

The 0 toe in the rear caught my eye immediately; if the car oversteers under power then a little bit of toe-in will settle it.

In reply to Tom1200 :

It definitely doesn't oversteer under throttle, but if the rear is already loose, adding throttle doesn't seem to transfer weight to get it to hook back up either. If that makes sense?

Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to Tom1200 :

It definitely doesn't oversteer under throttle, but if the rear is already loose, adding throttle doesn't seem to transfer weight to get it to hook back up either. If that makes sense?

What position are the Konis set at?

Tom1200 said:

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

1.) Are you not super comfortable with oversteer? You obviously managed it well but again are you comfortable with it?

2.) Where do you find you most get caught out? Is it in quick transitions like the last part of the course?

3.) And as to the quick transitions; what exactly were you doing in that final chicane (on the gas, quick squeeze of the brake etc)?

I added numbers to your questions to try & help keep everything straight. 

1.) Yes, I think I am. But not in the Miata at all(and possibly not in any RWD car). Other than 6 or 7 events in this Miata, and probably somewhere around that number in my previous one(which wasn't setup as well & was even less confidence inspiring), I've done a couple events about 12 years ago in an S2000, and did one fun run in a 4th gen Z28, which I spun 3x in a single run. That's the entirety of my RWD autox experience.  

However, in AWD I'd say I'm nearly completely confident with oversteer, because I can almost always drive my way out of it. FWD maybe a bit less so, because with an open diff that might not be possible. 

2.) I'm not sure, slaloms aren't usually a problem(in that regard, see below), with the exception of the decreasing one I previously mentioned where I think I came in too hot, causing the car to snap around the 2nd cone. If anything I'd say it's higher speed transitions that get me. I'm ok on long sweepers, and generally ok coming out of them if they tighten up. But I really have no confidence when the car gets "floaty" at higher speed corners & transitions. 
 

3.) Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly since it was last year. I think I lifted slightly to get the front end to hook up, as on a previous run I lost front grip & nailed the outside cone of the final gate. 

One other thing worth mentioning: I've always felt I was pretty good at nailing slaloms, but I don't think I've ever got it right in this car. You know how when you nail one, inside the car it feels like watching downhill skiers slalom - their skis are bouncing side-to-side around the flags, but their body weight stays mostly centered? Nailing a slalom always felt like that to me. 

However, in the Miata I can't do that. The car feels like it's trying to pivot around a point behind my right shoulder, and I have to steer it around the cones. It's very frustrating.  
 

Also, talking through this at this level with you guys is awesome - thanks!!!

Before you give up on it, maybe run a little toe in at the rear, and a lighter rear spring (in my head that's why you feel the pivot point behind your shoulder)?  

Cheap and relatively easy changes, might transform the car in to something you enjoy. 

I suck at slaloms, but the down hill skier thing is how mine is in fast transitions.   It's become the car I always thought it should be,  I think you're close if you find the juice worth the squeeze. 

Pete needs a big block Forte SX. 

In reply to OldGray320i :

Thanks. I feel like I shouldn't give up on the car just yet, but I also recognize that to me driving a RWD car at the limit is a completely foreign & unnatural concept. It may be one I can learn, or not. Or it may be one I do learn, but am either still not comfortable with, or simply don't enjoy. 

I'm thinking about buying an outdoor car cover & parking the DSM in our daughter's old parking spot(if the car doesn't sell this weekend). That will alleviate the congestion in the garage for now. If at some point I decide to work on the DSM I'll just swap places with the Miata & park it outside for a while. 

I feel like I shouldn't give up on the Miata yet, but I also feel there's a pretty good chance I'll be happier & more confident in something AWD with a bit of power. 

However, in the Miata I can't do that. The car feels like it's trying to pivot around a point behind my right shoulder, and I have to steer it around the cones. It's very frustrating.  
 

This is exactly what a Miata does; they are a short wheelbase car. 

So it's not so much the oversteer but how rapidly it transitions.........got it.

So back to the Koni dampers; are they single or double adjustable and where are they set? I suspect you need to soften them up a little bit.

Next I would put a minor bit of toe in the rear. 1mm to 1.5mm total toe in.

Several years back I helped a local driver with his 94 Miata having a similar issue to you. At the end of the day we made some minor changes (mostly damper settings) I was faster with the car bordering on turn in oversteer but the owner needed a car that transitioned less rapidly. Once we slowed how it transitioned he was much faster.

I think this is a set up issue and not a car issue; the car isn't set up optimally for you and since you're the one driving it other people's hot set ups are meaningless. 

In reply to Tom1200 :

They're single-adjustable Koni "race" shocks. They're essentially Koni Sports/yellows, but are revalved from the factory for higher spring rates. 
 

When I built the car I ran them the first event or 2 cranked all the way up, because that's what I was used to with the Corrado. I backed them off about 1/2-way next, but last season I just set all-4 to full-soft. 

I have the car on stands now because I just got the rt660's mounted today. I'll add just the tiniest amount of toe-in to the rear & see how it feels at the next event. I recently read that Whitener recommends 1/8" rear toe-in, so I agree it's a worthwile attempt. 

In reply to Pete Gossett (Forum Supporter) :

Go with the 1/8" rear toe-in. I suspect with some rear toe-in you may need to go back up a click or two on the Konis. If the car feels like it stalls in transitions (flops to one side then snaps back the other way) go a couple of clicks stiffer. 

The Miata is a much shorter wheelbase then you are used to, I think that is more of an issue than AWD vs RWD.

Honestly looking at the video. Your lines for excellent spot on and super smooth. I suspect that additional speed would be found in finding the line and smoothness in runs 1 and 2, then breaking later and harder and accelerating with the obnoxious arrogance of a 17-year-old adolescent male in runs 3 and 4. Really overdrive it with regards to throttle and break input in run three, then you'll know how much you can get away with and which parts of the course you need to dial it back to your more natural driving style for run four.

I also want to add, but normally I can watch the video of someone and tell where they're not looking too far ahead, as it gets them caught out of sorts or playing catch between elements or features of the course design. With your lines and smoothness it is absolutely clear that you look far enough ahead which is the biggest issue most drivers at any level have. It is rare that my suggestion to find speed is to be more aggressive. But yet watching I feel that that is the case. At first it will make you slower because you'll be fighting under steering some spots and oversteer and other spots when you push too hard. It will be like changing a baseball stands or a golf swing, or when you first started lfb. But I'm confident that that is where you potentially find time. 

In reply to captdownshift (Forum Supporter) :

True... when I've done ride-alongs with some of the really fast guys, what often caught me off-guard was how... "violent" the run was.