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Gridlife Mid Ohio - Mid Ohio Sports Car Course - June 27-29, 2025
Events that are butted up pretty close to each other are always a bit stressful, but luckily there wasn't much that went wrong at Gingerman, so the work needed to get the car to the track was pretty minimal. As usual we loaded up the day before, and we all headed out after we were all done with out workdays.
Getting to the event was a bit chaotic, and Gridlife and Mid O definitely decided to stop communicating which made our lives difficult as far as finding where to park, where to camp, etc. This seems to be a huge issue with the Gridlife org currently, and it definitely made us want to be there juuuust that little bit less. Nonetheless, we found a place to park up for the weekend and got ready for some laps.
The entire weekend was going to be 90+ and with pop up thunderstorms happening. Yeehaw. I hadn't been to Mid Ohio since 2023, and since then the car has gone through a lot of changes and the track was repaved, so I was really hoping to set a killer lap time. Usually at mid Ohio, I am pretty back of the pack due to the car being quite a bit down on power/torque compared to the rest of the field, and was expecting this weekend to be similar.
I got the car through tech early morning on Friday, only to have my Antigravity battery just completely stop working. It had been giving me issues this winter, but it never hadn't started the car, so I had just assumed between just loading and uploading from trailers and never really being run between these loads, that it just needed to be charged. I had to get pushed out of the tech garage (great look ), and we used a jump pack to get back to my grid spot. The battery voltage checked out, however as soon as any load (even just my AIM) was applied, it just quickly dropped to 6V and shutoff. She's dead.
I wasn't going to jump start the car for every session this week, and having a car that can stall but not start has never been a good car to take out on track, so we immediately began looking for a replacement powersports battery. Luckily there was one 20 minutes away that was an AGM lead-acid battery in the same form factor. My buddy went to grab it while we finished up registration and went to the driver's meeting, what a hero.
The battery arrived back to me right as the first session went out, and to my surprise we had to fill the thing up with acid, and it was taller than my Antigravity so we had to... be creative... with a mounting solution. We weren't too sure if it would allow the car to start, but to our surprise it worked flawlessly. Easy solution that could have been a weekend ruined.
Not having set a time yet the next session out was going to be interesting, as I'd be gridded behind a ton of cars that were slower than me and I'd have to fight my way for a clean lap without traffic to get back to where I should be. As expected, this is exactly what happened and the rest of the day I spent dodging traffic to get back into some clean air. Luckily, even with traffic (and extreme heat) I was able to get a lap in that was immediately 2 seconds faster than my previous PB. The other issue I tend to fight at this track, is because a lot of the track is straight, I get looped in with a lot of cars that make speed in different ways. Gridded behind a lot of Corvettes and turbocharged street cars is always the worst as my car solely relies on corner momentum to keep pace. Standard issue challenge, but it is still frustrating nonetheless.
After the first day I had come to the conclusion that my mods for the splitter and fenders were giving me a lot more front grip, and my corner speed minimums were fantastic. We had a session or two where parts of the track were rained out, but otherwise super happy.
The second day was much like the first, but managed to eek out some more time. Hopping out of the car in the afternoon damn near gave me some more heat stroke, but it was worth it. Always is. Towards the end of the day, I could REALLY feel the tires to fall off and start skidding at small slip angles instead of gripping nicely. I guess this set of tires really only lasts 2 events.
We had one more morning session on Sunday where temperatures would be good enough to make some pace, however the tires really did not want to cooperate and I was 3 tenths off pace giving it the most I could. At the end of the weekend I ended up with a 1:39.3, and I know the car with some fresh tires had another second in it. Still quite a huge amount faster than my last best time by nearly 4 seconds. Can't complain about that.
My buddy in the Miata ended up about a second faster on the fresh set of tires, and also made use of the extra torque he had. Really good showing for us both I think.
Some other issues I need to resolve from the weekend:
-My rev limiter would cause an ECU reset (you can see at at the end of the lap in the video), and I am not entirely sure what is causing that. It doesn't do it while not in gear/at speed.. so that's going to be a fun one to figure out
-Ethanol sensor in the fuel tank return is (and I knew it was) a bad idea, I saw dropouts on my data under braking down into China Beach. Makes sense, and the signal is filtered enough where it doesn't cause an issue, but I should move the sensor to the send line
Time to fix this stuff before heading to Road America!
Some Photos:
Last edited by equinox92; Jul 6, 2025 at 10:29 AM.
My thought process was that there are some paths that air can take that aren't great for reducing lift, so the fender liner can aid in that. Also, it would be best to duct the rear fender channel and having a fender liner to act as a flange for the duct is simple, thus not removing it entirely.
I think ultimately, a top fender vent/cutout and trimmed fender liner with a ducted rear fender vent is the ideal solution given the limitations on front aero in my class. We will see, I am working on creating a scanned model for some CFD.. but the limitations of that are also quite high.
I noticed on your video that you are getting Diff Oil Temps. The temp seem surprisingly low... Are you still running the 5.1 ratio in the diff? Sensor still in the drain plug? Any diff cooler? What max temps are you seeing in the Diff? Thanks
Gridlife Summer Apex - Road America - July 25-27, 2025
New year, new track! A track that I knew was not going to favor this car, but a track everyone kept telling me I HAD to go to. It had been a few years since I had been to a new track with this car, so in the usual fashion I did iRacing prep, just to know where to put the car before the first session, and watched a ton of onboard videos. My one friend had been there a few times, so he was really able to give details about the track and explain that it was just a bunch of 120+ to 50mph turns, and that with the exception of the kink and Canada corner, it really wasn't a crazy track for cars with our power. After doing some runs in the sim, I tended to agree, and I found it really tough to find braking points... something that would translate to the real thing.
We loaded up in our usual fashion, this time throwing the RX8 and MR2 on the rented double trailer and tried to leave the Detroit area at a time where Chicago traffic wouldn't ruin our mental state. Turns out, that bit never happens.
We spent the night outside the track, so that on Thursday we would get to the venue with plenty of time to spare, and a good paddock spot secured. Sessions started Friday morning.
With our time on Thursday we scoped out the track, and my first impressions were just that it was GIANT. I am sure any seasoned veteran of Road America will know this already, but I don't think I have ever raced or been to a track of this capacity. It may have been because they were setting up for IMSA week starting the Monday after our event, but the whole place was stacked with different places to watch, eat, and take in all things racing. I would only assume this is how Le Mans feels, but several times the magnitude. Nice!
We were the first cars out on Friday morning, and I took the sessions pretty slow as to build up to pace. The only issues I would really sense were that my brakes were cooling off too quickly between corners causing inconsistent pedal feel, which caused me to brake early, which caused me to overbrake, which caused me to totally miss turn in, etc etc, and that my suspension was very much so not setup for "physics" at 100+ mph. The car felt very goopy and unresponsive at these higher speeds, to which I knew my spring rates were too low, and there wasn't much I could change about that. My corrective actions for these initial issues were to crank all dampers up to fake some suspension stiffness, and to block off my brake ducts. I also was running a full tank of E85 from home to try to figure out fuel consumption, and in the only 3 lap session we had.. I had used over 40% of my fuel. Yeehaw.
Next session out I stated to add more pace, the brake duct blocking helped a ton. I was running on my old set of tires (I brought a fresh set with me) and I could start to feel the tires giving me some grief as I added speed, though I still just couldn't get shift points and other things right. They ended up combining run groups down to 3 total so that we were able to get more than 3 laps in, which was great.. though I ran into the issue of running low on fuel for the last 1 or 2 laps of the session so I would have to bring it in a touch early. Weird problems to be having.
For the last session on the first day I swapped over to the new tires, and filled up with local E85.. which would turn out to only be around ~64-68% ethanol. This meant my calibration I made would only be giving me ~60% extra timing, and realistically I think I would have been fine at the full timing addition. I went to reflash the car with this update, however I could not find a mini USB cable in my pack of cables. Rookie mistake. Ah well, we will deal with it. The new tires were the move, and my grip and confidence were back so I was able to push the car a bit more. With my times just barely below 2:40, I was a little upset with my performance, but I knew SECONDS were on the table that were easily unlocked.
Queue Friday evening. Tons of events and things to do outside of racing at the track, and ripping around on my new toy (see photo below) at this venue was LOADS of fun on some of the trails they have, and just being able to finally place myself on track at each corner. We knew Saturday morning was likely going to be the best session of the weekend, so I made sure the car was ready to go before heading to bed for the night.
Saturday morning would turn out to be the fastest session of the weekend for me with multiple high 2:37s. I somehow kept managing to run into run group traffic on this huge course.. some giving me a tow.. some causing some grief. I finally had shift points and gears down, and the rest was just slowly pushing braking and lines. Unfortunately, you do only get a handful of laps a session here, so one small failed nuance is a really long reset and I think that was something I struggled with. On a super good lap, I saw a yellow flag coming out of Canada Corner, and my buddy's Miata pulled off to the side. Oh boy, that sucks for both my lap and him. I decided to just pull into the pits because that session was going to be over. When I got back to our paddock spot, I learned that both the K Miata and MR2 were very broken. After diagnosis (both after the event and at the event) the K Miata had blown out a transmission bellhousing due to clutch disk exploding, and the MR2 had cracked a piston in half. Big time suck.
Going out for the last 2 sessions of the day were met with some struggle but great driving learning. We had popup storms rolling through, so in the next session the kink was juuuust a bit wet that it ruined lap times all down the section before Canada Corner, and in the last session of Saturday turns 1 and 3 (2) were soaking while the rest of the track was dry. Looking at data, I was faster in so many other sections these sessions, but the lap combination for time just wasn't there and my time from the morning would stick at a 1:37.96. My data suggests that my optimal time given this dataset was somewhere around a 1:36.2, which I tend to agree with. It wouldn't matter too much as many cars were way quicker.. but that is how it goes. I am like a 6/10 on the performance overall, but an 8/10 on learning new track things and limit grip at >110mph.
There was a session on Sunday morning, however I was out of E85, my friend's cars were broken, and we all wanted to experience some of the party! Shitty music, good people per usual. I'll take it.
We took our sweet time packing up Sunday, and battled some popups causing flooding on the highways back home. I think I'll be back to Road, but I'd love to have more power and aero, though I know there is still SECONDS on the table in the cars current form. I also happened to talk to a few people while loading up that said they read this thread on the forums... so if you're seeing this, it was great to talk to you for a quick minute!
Ended up like 3rd to last in class, but it beats going into a wall or breaking the car.
Not worth it's own post, but tossed in some 14k springs to the front. I am pretty done with the Fortunes so I did buy a set of RX8 Xidas that were supposed to be "plug and play" just for the season while I worked out some other suspension optimizations.. however boy am I NOT happy with how 949 has set up their off the self setups for the RX-8. 3/10 would not recommend for the price you are paying if you are trying to get a bolt on setup. I was impressed with how light the dampers were, however they are just off the shelf Tractive dampers so I can't give 949 any credit for that.
I think I may make them work at some point in the future, but it will be effort.
Gridlife Circuit Legends - Lime Rock Park - August 15-16, 2025
Well, life has been busy and it's been almost a month since this track weekend, but damned if I am not gonna write it down. I think this post will be a bit frantic and random, but bear with me if you actually enjoy reading these kinds of things.
The crew spent the bulk of the time between this event and Road America fixed the two cars that needed it.. but the RX-8 was ready to rip minus the springs that I did in the post above. We were still waiting on some parts the same week we needed to have cars on the trailer, but we got a little lucky and managed to get cars on trailers and got out the door at a reasonable time on Thursday morning.
Lime Rock is always a favorite event of ours as time has gone on.. it's a pretty professional venue while still being quite down to earth for us peasants. The weather looked awesome, and hiding in the mountain hills for a weekend is absolutely worth the 12 hour trek. It was our first time towing with the older 2500 and the two car any significant distance, so we were a little worried (F O R S H A D O W I N G) about the reliability of the rig. My buddy had picked up a newer truck, so he was ready to rock.
Somewhere in the mountains where there were some good constant grades, we got a lovely CEL and "engine power reduced" message on the ol' diesel. It was a low fuel pressure fault, and we were stuck on the side of the highway for a few minutes while we sorted it out. It gave us a bit of a scare, but we trekked onward. We also noticed our water temps were getting quite high (it was 90+ degF ambient out) up some of the grades, so we kind of were stressing out about that.. but nothing seemed too egregious to give up.
A few driver swaps, and taking a double trailer through a Dunkin Donuts drive through on accident later, we managed to get to the track while it was light out for the first time ever. The weekend hadn't even started and during the week we had already struggled to get cars on trailer and had tow rig issues. Yeehaw.
We got setup in the A paddock, and made out campsite up top the hill in the grass. Perfection.
The goal for the weekend was to break the 1 minute mark, with my best from last year being a 1:01.17. I opted not to bring a fresh set of tires for this event, seeing as they didn't get super used up at Road America. I'm not sure if this was the right move, but my tire budget is my tire budget.
The first session out of the weekend was looking up to be the "golden" session, as it was going to be the lowest temperature and the cleanest track. You got a LOT of laps around Lime Rock, and the track gets filthy with marbles and dirt and anything else because of it. We all went out and with a slightly understeery car and new 14k front springs, I ended up setting a PB. in the 1:00.x area. Awesome! Hopefully I would be able to find some time the next morning.
Throughout the car the track got messier and messier as touring cars and drift cars tore up the pavement. The car went from slightly understeery, to quite oversteery just due to track conditions. The times were consistent.. however just slower the rest of the first day. The track was the limiting factor. Unfortunately also during this day, my friend in the MR2 ended up hitting the wall on the downhill turn after the car stepped out, and there really was no saving it. Car wasn't totaled, but we had some body work to do and an eyeball alignment.
That evening we kept it chill with some beers compliments of Lime Rock Park, and walked the race track trying to find some leftover bits lodged in the tire wall from the Toyota.
That morning session of the next day the MR2 was patched back up ready to go out, and I was looking for that sub 1 minute time. It was only going to be possible this session. I ended up running a 1:00.2, which was a hundredth faster than my time from the previous morning. I'll take it, but was a little bummed I couldn't break that barrier. The track was just not letting it. I had been running 1:00.xx consistently throughout the session as well. I guess we will have to go back next year...
The rest of the day was pretty standard issue time attack. Dealing with traffic at different paces, and watching some people crash after getting unlucky, or doing some 1% moves that were never going to work. We did get about 2 laps of the Gridlife Taxi sessions in where I could take people for rides before some drift cars exploded and that was the end. I had never taken passengers at Lime Rock, so it was a special treat we didn't know was coming.
Unfortunately, later that day while all of us were on track, my friend who was there taking photos and generally hanging with us was hit by a golf cart in the paddock, and snapped his leg. We got word from a passerby while we were coming off track, and that caused a remarkable amount of chaos.
Sparing details, it changed our plans for the rest of the weekend and we ended up loading up cars early, and heading to the hospital to meet him there. Boy howdy... action packed weekend to say the least.
After the initial chaos of all of that, while we had some down time to just plan out the next 24 hours it was there I had the, likely common, thoughts that people who do this sort of stuff have often.. the **** you have to deal with off the track is like 95% undocumented and goes unheard, but 95% of the effort as a grassroots racer. I am thankful I have such a good groups of friends so that when things like this happen, we all can make it work while still having a good time. Without that, I don't think any sort of grassroots racing is possible. I am too separated from this event now at the time of writing this post to be able to any more profound than that, but I think you understand what I am trying to say.
We were able to end the weekend with everyone in our crew able to get back home safely, and cars still (more or less) in tact. That is always a good weekend.
Hardly worth a post as these are likely nothing mods.. but I snagged these from a parts car I bought, and figured I'd toss em on my car.. because why not!
I modified the brake master brace to work with my G35 one, and should be worth a few grams over the stock one... maybe.. it's probably heavier... We will see how long it stays on.
The intake just replaced the AEM one I had, so in practice 0 change.
Like it says. Popped in, set camber, set toe, bombs away! Was able to get over 5 degrees of camber with this added. I had to dial it back down. 10/10 would recommend to a friend.
Sooo I have a really smart friend who had a really smart idea for a new front splitter design that is class legal, and should probably be the best splitter you can make for the class. I decided I wanted in.
I wasn't totally planning for this splitter update to happen before the end of the racing season, but here we are with a splitter ready to run.
Upgrades over 2.0:
-Thicker alumalite, more stiff, more betterer
-More area
-Smoother front transition as to not have open composite just being drag
-Lower and more robust mounting
-Better front fencing (read: no gaffer tape!)
We went over to my buddy's shop where we got us the 10mm thick alumalite from a local supplier 15 minutes down the road. It was a 4x10 sheet, so another friend and I went in halfsies and could easily get 2 splitters from the main piece.
We traced out the original designs and left from room for final cuts on car for clearance. We cut the main sections out, and then used the router table to cut back the bottom sheet of the alumalite from the special sauce.
The special sauce was to load up the front cuts of the splitters into CAD, and 3D print a tapered front from carbon fiber nylon. The sections were epoxied together with some other glued in pieces and then set into the alumalite.
Back at my place, I started to fit up the new splitter on to the car and make my finals cuts.
With most of the goals checked off the list, it was time to figure out the more area, and the more low goals. The way I wanted to do that was to extend the splitter out to the edge of the tire (max length, or 3in for Club TR rules), and to use more of the area of the inner wheel. I had previously just made an easy cut which gave up a bunch of area for ease of fit, this time I was going to make sure I maximized that area by tracing out the wheel arc (very crudely) at full droop, and giving a little wiggle room.
I mocked up where the mounting to the vehicle needed to be, and moved the splitter mounts over to the new piece. I ended up dropping the splitter around 1.5in with the adjustable rods and rear catches as well. This also allowed me to set the angle more precisely, and make adjustments easier. The splitters rods are I have at the end of their travels.. but that's an easy fix for a later day as the adjustment is enough for now.
I ended up with these as the final cuts.
Next up with to build a fence to make up the new gap, and to get rid of all of the gaffer tape. I should have flush riveted this.. but I am dumb and like using things that weigh a lot. Either way, it allowed me to perfectly dial in the 3in lip I am allowed, and mate up the bumper perfectly for capturing them all together.
Next up with to just print out some high surface area 1.5in (ish) spacers out of low infill ABS, and tie the bumper to the splitter (more more heavy weight elevator bolts) for a bit of stiffness for both the element and the bumper mounting.
I also decided to throw on some new sections of wrap on the bumper just because they were so gross looking from before, knowing it was gonna get gaffer taped up. Not bad for a race car!
Super stoked to give it a try. I am a little afraid it's a bit too low and will stall... but I guess I can always raise it up, or add pucks.
So I think that accomplished all of the goals.. and I think now the only thing is to add more rear wing. Will be able to test it this weekend on Autobahn South.
Amazing build thread. I am just beginning the journey to get my RX8 prepped to run at Gridlife events.
Reading through this thread really opens my eyes on how big of a journey it will be!
Amazing build thread. I am just beginning the journey to get my RX8 prepped to run at Gridlife events.
Reading through this thread really opens my eyes on how big of a journey it will be!
Hell yeah! More RX8s in Gridlife can only be a good thing
Gridlife Chicago - Autobahn Country Club - September 12-14, 2025
In in the new usual fashion of not recapping stuff until a month after, here we are another month later, and another recap that will be haphazardly done. In my defense here though, this event was butted up right against a week long work trip for vehicle development out in the desert, which was butted up against another track weekend with my friends (more on that in another post), so my brain has been preoccupied.
So, usually the car comes back home from the track, gets put on the lift for a general "what may have broken or come loose inspection" and then it will sit until it's time for it to go on a trailer again. I like to usually do a test drive before every event just to make sure my once over was good and nothing was really missed. Because I spent more time than I had originally planned building the new splitter and installing the offset inserts, I didn't really have a chance to get the car out on the road.. and that would come back to bite me here. We were going to load the car up on Wednesday for a Thursday evening departure to Chicago, so I decided that I'd just do a quick run to the gas station and test drive before then on Tuesday.
Tuesday evening, I swapped rear brake rotors on the car, push back the rear calipers a touch for the less worn new components, standard issue stuff and nothing really worth taking a test drive for, so I didn't think much of it.
I run up and down my road and before making it to the main street, I notice the brakes are grabbing while not on the brakes. Ugh.. did I really have a rear caliper seize up on me after pushing it back a bit?? I've had this happen before so a certain extent... but this felt a little odd given that they were totally fine at Lime Rock. Pilled the car back in the garage, said screw it and threw on new rear brake pads since I had them as a backup and if I was going to totally run in the calipers, I may as well do it. The brakes were super hard to compress back fully (F O R S H A D O W I N G), but I didn't think anything of that aside from "rear calipers were trashed".
I ended up pulling off a corner and using parts from my rear caliper graveyard, rebuild it and throw it on the car. All seemed okay, and it was getting late so I said whatever. I'll test drive it on Wednesday before load up.
Wednesday comes around, and I take the car out for a test drive. I was first just going to do a small loop at a roundabout on the main road near my place, and if all went well a bigger loop. About halfway on the roundabout loop the brakes are starting to grab again. Uh oh. So, the thing about race brakes too is that they work REALLY well when they are hot. Like so well that they provide enough torque to overcome all of the wheel torque even in first gear, and they will stay that way even when hot. Not too long after the brakes started to grab, and I already started my way back to get off the main road, the brakes went into full grab and I was now stuck in the middle of the road with a full throttle WOT in first gear unable to overcome the wheel torque. It wasn't just the rears either... so there I was at the bottom of a hill, stuck in the middle of the road. At least the car was generic looking and not flamboyant at all with my name on it and everything .
Leaving out some details, or else this post would go on forever, I eventually was able to get the car back to the garage after sort of pumping the brakes, unplugging the ABS controller, and having a buddy come out to play traffic blocker. One problem solved.
The other problem was that the car needed to be in tip top shape to go on the trailer for this event... and now I have a car with an unknown issue... two trips to pack for..and negative time to deal with it. This part sucks. The issue was also more than I had originally thought, with the fronts AND rears grabbing, and not just one cross channel. My buddy wanted to swap out the entire ABS controller and HCU thinking it was the ABS giving some issue. I was very much of the opinion of this not being the issue, as it's never given me an issue before. Instead of bickering, I made the compromise of swapping the ABS ECU, but not the hydraulic block. No change, as expected.
I fired up the laptop and brought up brake controller metrics on FORScan. I noticed there was still pressure in the system, even though I was off the brakes..... hey wait. I swapped in the Mazdaspeed strut bar with the MC brace I kinda kluged in to work with my G45 master. It suddenly all made sense now... the brakes being hard to compress back, more than just the rear brakes locking up and not just a single cross channel.. the damn master cylinder brace was causing something to stick, and pressure stuck in the system! What a DUMB problem to have, but of course it was related to the once thing that changed in the system. Was a good reminder to be objective in your diagnosis of components.
We ripped off the Mazdaspeed strut bar, and tossed back in the original. Went for a drive... problem solved. God. Damn. It.
It was getting dark, and we finally were able to get the car on the trailer. Boy howdy, this isn't the way I like to start an event.
We rolled out on Thursday evening, and really didn't run into as bad of Chicago traffic as we usually do..maybe it was a reward for the pain we had gone though the night before.
Autobahn South course has always been a course this car has been strong at against the field, as it really is a slower course than others we run at. My power and weight disadvantage show up less here, so there was a good chance that I would place well. The weekend was going to be hot during the day, and cold in the mornings so those early sessions would be key. The car was lacking a set of good tires, and had the new splitter that would be something to get used to.
First session out I managed a PB by a few seconds, which put me in 4th place overall. Damn! Okay! The car with the new splitter was better, but I could feel the lack of grip from the front tires being heat cycled out. The rest of the day was me basically just going slower as it got hot, and everyone else catching up to the times I had set.I think I got pushed back to 8th or 8th by the end of the day. I made some damper adjustments to deal with the washboard brake zones, and to deal with the curb at the end of the back straight. The car was really having a hard time dealing with these obstacles, and I was wishing I had swapped out dampers like I had planned to at the start of the season. A suspension program is in the works for the winter! The only adjustment I had left was to swap the rear tires to the front in hopes they were a little less worn. We did that for the next day.
On the less racing side of things, there was another RX-8 running ClubTR that weekend (Hi Cory, I know you're reading this!), and it was good fun chatting with someone else running the same car throughout the weekend, and helping try to debug some issues with the car. I am glad you kept getting it out there!
I can't remember which night, but I think it was both, our whole group ran the karting circuit which is always open after the track is cold. 10/10 time, would recommend everyone out racing at Autobahn goes and races it. A bunch of other Gridlife competitors were running it too, and I think I at least took the victory there.
The next morning was the session to do the work in. If I was going to make it to the Podium Sprint (and change my flight for my work trip), I had to make some jam now. The car had more front grip with the tire rotation, and on my hotlap for the session I ran .01 seconds faster than my lap the day previously and annoyingly all the time the lap would have given me was lost due to a slide in T6. (INCOMING RACER EXCUSE) Looking at data, it would have potentially been 1.5 seconds faster, and even a bit faster if I hadn't turned in early for Patience (END RACER EXCUSE), which still wouldn't have been fast enough to do any damage. Ah well. I ended up 11th overall for the weekend.
We ended up packing up early so I could make it to the airport in Detroit in time, and that was that.
Sidenote: Flying into Phoenix, and driving into Yuma at 2am local time after racing all weekend in Chicago makes you feel a certain way. That way is tired.
Sidernote: My footage for my fastest lap got corrupted, and getting it back was a pain in the ***. I also ended up breaking my GoPro SD card in half at the airport. Yeeeeesh.
maybe you’re over tightening the MS strut brace MC support? It doesn’t need to be set at a high interference force. The purpose is to keep the sheetmetal mounting surface from flexing forward. Not for pressing it rearward with the MC brace.
maybe I misunderstood and there were other posts in the thread that were possibly deleted in the FS ad before it was closed, but the guy from RX7Club inquiring about the MS strut bar purchase appears to be legit:
I had the same issue with the MS brace and a custom fabbed one I built. You over-tightened it, as Mark said. It just needs/wants to be snug. I had the same "wow the brakes seem to be dragging" issue as you.
I don't have a Mazda brake master, there were clearance issues that were separate, though the same result, as over tightening it, hence just ditching it.
Trackilicious Track Day - Grattan Raceway - October 4-5, 2025
Nothing like getting back to this MONTHS after it happened.. but it's worth writing some of this stuff down. Stuffed between 2 work trips, and another track day, we managed to get the whole crew out for just some open track day fun so it wasn't only time attack cars that could run.
My car basically sat on the lift after getting back from Autobahn and hopping on a plane to Arizona, so I did 0 prep and put it on a trailer. The goal was just a low stress, low effort track weekend, and very much so the last event of the season so whatever happened, it didn't really matter.
Upon arriving to the track, while it was dark, we unloaded my car and when trying to put the splitter on I noticed one of my aluminum uprights I made had failed. It was probably broken at autobahn, and I just never noticed. The 90 degree metal tabs has broken off at the welds, which I did myself... so I am actually surprised they lasted this long.
(We already fixed the part, after the weekend, and did a completely different method of welding the tabs. I am not a welder lol)
The quick fix for the weekend was to ratchet strap the hook on the splitter to the oil cooler line support bracket in the car. It worked enough in the direction it needed to.
With that band aided, I got the car parked up in the garage and we setup camp. It seemed like we were the only people camping at the track this weekend, so had the facility to ourselves.
The next morning was a beautiful morning with a little fit of fog on the course. It was quite cold the start the weekend off, so getting grip on the beat up surface was difficult. Basically ever session we ran I ran with a passenger. Everyone wanted their turn going over the jump. This had been my first open track day in years, and I had to tether my expectations for passing a little. While we were in the advanced group, there seemed to be this level of "car behind, must let it go now" which put me in some odd places to make a pass, but whatever. I also had the typical drag racers on the straights not understanding that just because they have 600hp, doesn't mean I do, even though I am passing you. Standard track day stuff, but it had been a while.
The evening after the first day, we expected a bit more people staying around, but once again we had the facility to ourselves... so just just decided to bring our own party.
I ended the weekend off running a 1:25.3, which I was pretty happy with as the last previous time I had been to this track, years ago in this car, I ran 1:35.58, which admittedly was quite a different car ago.. but nonetheless. The goal at this track is typically to get a sub 1:25, so with a passenger and totally blowing one of the hairpins.. I'm not to upset with being that close.
One of the main features of this track is a nice jump before some S curves, and on the last session we ran of the day I had noticed one of my splitter rods flapping in the wind (as if I didn't already have enough splitter mounting issues). I had been hitting the ground on the jump landing with the front splitter, that the bolt head had ground itself down to nothing and came apart. On further inspection when we got home.. I think the splitter took a beating from lack of upright, as well as from some of the curbs at Autobahn. Time for some rub pucks!
Just a small update: It's cold here now, so I am working on adding some features to my FlexFuel ROM.
I added in a simple cold cranking injector pulse multiplier table based on ethanol content, as well as added some defs for stock cranking parameters to the FlexFuel defs and regular ECM ROM defs.
I also added a PID to understand the cranking multiplier, just to make sure software was working as intended.
Code:
void getCrankingFuelMult(){
cranking_fuel_mult = Lookup2d(ðanol_content_to_cranking_fuel,ethanol_content_pcnt);
//Set boundries
if(cranking_fuel_mult <= CRANKING_FUEL_MULT_MIN){
cranking_fuel_mult = CRANKING_FUEL_MULT_MIN;
}
else if(cranking_fuel_mult >= CRANKING_FUEL_MULT_MAX){
cranking_fuel_mult = CRANKING_FUEL_MULT_MAX;
}
}
void setCrankingInjectorPulseTime_FlexFuel(){
//This function will overwrite the OEM function for cranking injector pulse time, so it is a copy of that function with added multipliers
if(*engine_running_bool == 0){
getCrankingFuelMult(); // Not sure if this is the right place for this, but want to not run this function while engine is running
*primary_fuel_injector_pulse_cranking = Lookup2d_unsigned(&oemInjectorCrankingPWTable,*coolant_temp_post_fault_detection_degC);
*secondary_fuel_injector_pulse_cranking = 0.0f;
//FlexFuel logic
*primary_fuel_injector_pulse_cranking = *primary_fuel_injector_pulse_cranking * cranking_fuel_mult;
}
}
So far, I've had some decent success with helping cold start at ~0degC, but some more work is still needed (likely just calibration). The original ROM startup on E85 was ~6 seconds. I've gotten it down to 2.6 seconds or so, but still stalls out twice before maintaining idle. I think some of this is due to some maintenance the engine needs, and some older hardware I am running driving the ethanol content over CAN.. but I believe it's most due to the lack of combustion due to E85 not vaporizing. Once the EGTs get above ~100degC, the fuelhas no issue combusting.
I also will likely need to add in either another water temp decay, or just a 3D table with water temp and ethanol content as the axis to create the right cranking strategy. I am not sure if you'd need all the extra fuel at HOT start. TBD. Another avenue would be to also increase the OEM decay table at higher ethanol contents, but I'll play with it and add software as needed.
or just a 3D table with water temp and ethanol content as the axis to create the right cranking strategy.
This is the right move, it's how I handle it in my Link, the table is eth % vs CLT. Ford's flex fuel system has two tables, one for 0% ethanol and one for 85% ethanol, the axes are CLT vs. barometric pressure, and the tables get blended based on actual eth %.
), and we used a jump pack to get back to my grid spot. The battery voltage checked out, however as soon as any load (even just my AIM) was applied, it just quickly dropped to 6V and shutoff. She's dead.
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