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you'll probably have to add a pedal stop so you don't over travel the pressure plate fingers. how does the pedal pressure feel compare to stock? if it's lighter, then you wont need to add braces to the pedal.
Class says I can't use a dual element, so I needed to make some endplates for the spoiler to have the element gone. I tried doing some research about how to make some good endplates.. but in the end it sort of just came down to copying designs I saw on WEC GT3 cars since pressure curves and flow simulation proved to be too complicated for me to make sense of vs the gain for the effort.
So yeah. CADed up these guys, 3d printed mock ups, and then ran em in the router at work with some 3mm aluminum. They look good... probably perform fine? I have no idea! I added slot adjustments for angle of attack increasing.. but not decreasing.. which probably won't matter.. and I also didn't measure the amount it needed to change against the wing adjustments, so they may be useless.. but hey.. I can always iterate.
Couple little things:
-Ordered an Agency Power midpipe since I blasted the OEM studs finally and just am noping out of that all together
-Reprinted out my intake mount as it appeared to break after it's first day on track.. I added more infill, and thickened the interface with the bolt.. we will see if it holds up better. I think the design is just kind of shitty in general, but whatever
Yay! Car is on the ground and I spent almost all of Saturday morning driving around before the rain came.
Gotta say, extremely impressed with clutch feel, and the lighter flywheel weight. It's exceeded my expectations as far as something that needed to be done.
I was also able to flash the ECU for the higher rev limit, fix the midpipe exhaust leak, and drive with the new rear sway bar. Car feels as light on it's feet as ever. May need to dial the bar down a bit, but it's definitely gotten rid of the understeer I had felt after some roundabouts at way too fast to be street testing.
As far as the shifter feel, honestly don't there's been any differential in anything with the brass bushing aside from better heat transfer to the shifter. We will see if the 4th gear grind is gone when I can wind it out properly on track. Looks like May 25th is the first day I've got planned... maybe May 5th if I can get some time off work.
Also.. fun times.. door handle broke. I don't ever want to remove the door card with the door stuck closed ever again. Luckily I have extra parts laying around, though the hairdresser that watched me try and crawl in the car through the trunk pass through in the Great Clips parking lot will never get those 30 seconds of her life back.
if there’s wear between the shifter ball-swivel and the white plastic carrier cage it rides in, then I believe replacing the shifter is the only solution
I might have a good one I can send you to try, lmk
Lil bit of added protection in the car now. Kind of a pricey piece, but I didn't feel like making my own. The quality and usability is super nice, though I would say for the price better clamps should have been used.
Midnight Track Day - Grattan Raceway - May 22, 2021
Hey ho, it's been a bit... which is pretty much how it feels like I've been with this car.. just watching it sit waiting to use it. So this past weekend I was finally able to get some time to get on track and beat up the RE71Rs for the last time (for now).
tl;dr standard issue open track day
It was hot out, ambient around 85-87F with the sun blasting and the car performed great.
The Goods:
-New swaybar eliminated ALL understeer I had with the factory one. Score one for doing the math and not over bar-ing the car
-Oil temps topped out around 114C, though I'd have expected those to be a bit higher if I could get out of traffic. Still well within reason
-New rev limit helped TREMENDOUSLY on little areas. It's amazing what an extra 500RPM can help you with as far as breathing room and shift points
-Flywheel and clutch were amazing. No more high RPM 4th gear CRUNCH
-6 seconds faster lap time than my previous best, which usually happens when you've only run a course twice lol
The Curious:
-Flashing CEL for literally the entire session, 3 times in a row until a persistent CEL was on. Didn't feel any sort of issue/misfire so I just kept going
I figured, much like in the Subaru world, the lightened flywheel makes a misfire diagnostic a bit overly sensitive, or downright incorrect. Or maybe perhaps that combined with a higher rev limit was making the ECU pissy. I did some research after the fact and it SEEMS like there is an E-shaft learning parameter table stored in NVRAM of the controller which could POSSIBLY set misfire codes without actual misfires. When I looked at a dump of the ECM EEPROM I took, contents in it sure does look like a stored look up table, so sure.. I believe it. I did the 20 pump brake trick to clear it out once I was back home. Saw my oil pressure sweep, so I know the ECU "took the command". Haven't driven it yet, but will report back.
-Light load misfire (not that bad, maybe misfired 5-6 times) around 4k RPMs cruising around on a cool down lap. Didn't come back after the car cooled down, and not a single beat missed on the drive home. Curious if this is a coil issue when hot, or if the ECM pulls timing due to IAT causing some weird misfiring. I've had this happen on my Subaru at lower RPMs coming off a hot track and then never had it come back after the car was cooled down. I don't think I see IAT based timing compensations in my Versatuner maps.. but that doesn't mean they don't exist since the Versatuner stuff is pretty light on the reverse engineering.
Think I'll grab some plugs/coils just to have on hand since it seems like (and make sense) that race heavy RX-8s like to chew through em. Cheap enough to have some backups to easily swap at the track/before a track day.
Other than the car, I made some friends with another RX-8er and did some back to back racing, and also kept getting caught up with some high power/low grip racers which was actually a fun look at how different cars can run similar lap times. Video of that here:
And of course some photos. Helps bringing your own personal photographer to the race track with you..
Next stop in Gingerman in a week and a half for some proper Time Attack! I should probably stop driving the car to the events and back...
Time to fix the windshield, put on tires, corner balance, align to the best of what stock stuff can do, remove some weight... etc etc etc, we all know the list doesn't stop.
^^there are a number of Mazda software strategies that will always be holding you back until ditching the factory ecu, not sure why you’d still be on it with a dedicated track car
the prior comment was intended to the dedicated track car guy, not you, because I understand your need for having the car registered for street legality reasons
which again there are programmed strategies in the factory pcm not easily discerned that are going to be limiting the potential under various circumstances/conditions, it has nothing to do with the flashing cel light or the cause if it, probably shouldn’t have even mentioned it but had thought he was already on the Adaptronic modular and kind of surprised by his comment.
Was great to meet you at gratten this weekend.
Your car runs great. After we talked and ran a bit together I realized I need some sway bars.
Some of the photos from the event show my inside tire in the air and you car looks like it’s just relaxing.
#GRIDLIFE Spring Kickoff - Gingerman Raceway - June 4-6, 2021
Woo! Time Attack time! Lots of things learned, and lot of car to still drive faster with. It was a hot weekend full of a lot of vehicles and a lot of oil on the track, a lot of dust and a lot of fun.
Let's start with the positives:
- I drove the car to and from the event, I really shouldn't be doing this.. but.. is what it is
- Car ran great, only minor hiccup I had was getting gas right by my house before getting on the road where it just randomly stalled at a light, turned right back on and never happened again
- Car stayed cool considering the conditions, the coolest session of the weekend was at 87 *F ambient. Highest oil temp I saw was 124*C
The not so positives:
- I REALLY need to redo bushings and other suspension arms, the alignment is holding me back
- Car was SLOW comparatively to the other field, time for some weight reduction
- Car still had a tad bit of understeer in some higher speed corners, didn't want to dial the bar up as I really liked the neutralness with a touch of oversteer of it everywhere else
- SCS was kicking in randomly... I am the biggest of big dumbs and didn't realize the "hold the switch for 7 seconds" method existed. Derp.
- RT660s (in my opinion) do not seem like they have as much grip as the RE71Rs. Not a huge problem for my class since it's a spec tire, however put a bit of an expectation correction on my end for the kind of times I could run.
Okay cool. lots of positives, lots to work on.
The races itself were good, track was suuper dusty, and competition was hard. Out of 20 entries I pulled up 15th with a best time of 1:47.32. I believe that's the fastest I had gone in that car from a 1:48.07 in October when it was 50 degrees cooler (and on RE71Rs), so I guess in reality with doing nothing else but changing tires and some maintenance that was a pretty good drop in time.
Class results:
Being close to the 777 BRZ makes me pretty happy seeing as I know the drivers of the car, and they constantly win the Street Mod class. I must be doing something right with a car of a bit lesser preparedness. The K swapped civics and S2ks really have an upper hand in the class, but that's fine. I knew I wasn't going out there to win this weekend.
Video of the fastest lap (one day I'll be able to setup a GoPro):
Coming out of this event I feel really excited for more Time Attack, and already have some plans to go faster.
- Front splitter, I've already started a design
- Weight reduction: Pulling all airbags, radio, and moonroof guts to start off
- Suspension time, it all needs to go and I need some components to get a quality alignement. Focusing on busings (would really like some spherical stuff, but not sure of the benefit to be had on double wishbone suspension) and getting rid of worn OEM ****
- Proper rear LSD, looking at some Cusco units, probably a 1.5 way
- Cutting holes in front bumper to TRY to promote some better airflow into the intake.. doubt this will net any benefits, but hey.. I like drilling holes (also really on the lookout for a Mazdaspeed front bumper, this will let me do everything better in the front)
- New oil cooler cores + AN lines, the OEM ones are beat up and it'd be nice to run a tad cooler
This should at least set me up for some success if the nut behind the wheel can go faster!
Decided to finally pop on the new coil bracket I had sitting around so the coils were bolted in and not fastened by zip ties.. also decided to swap out the plugs while I was in there since I had a set I had planned to swap out anyways.
Sure glad I did.. I think I found some missing power on the rear trailing leading rotor -_- (though the dead plug was still arcing when I tested it).
Idle is definitely cleaned up. Weird. Wonder how long it's been like that. I replaced plugs at the end of 2019, and car didn't really see the road until mid 2020.
broken ground strap on oem leading plugs is common. happens to me twice already and a few other track rx8 cars i know of. i switched to R7420-10 race plugs and so far so good.
Interesting. I'll have to have a look at those plugs. Definitely seems like it is an issue.. and I could see it just happening again with how tacked on the ground strap looks.
Headed out to Joliet tomorrow for Autobahn CC.. wishing I had a trailer and a truck
I mean literally I would imagine they are laser welded on or some sort. They aren't casted. But who cares, kind of a moot point.
Yeah, I would assume they would fail for a reason... not too sure what it could be. I would assume heat and pressure would play a role, so maybe some high EGT cycles + cooling off = crack. Que next combustion and boom, out it goes. All speculation with no hard evidence here though.
Not too sure.. really wish I had some monitoring equipment for both EGT and AFR, but the easy fixes for that would cost less to throw parts at then to get the equipment. :shrug:
Did the research after seeing the same trailing leading rotor's plug not broken, but definitely looked a bit melty. Would it make sense the rear rotor trailing leading would get hotter combustion temps than the front? I can't logically deduct why that would be the case with what I know about the engine currently. Maybe just more airflow around the housing/front iron??
I went with the R7420-10 and bought a set of 4, we will see if there's less meltage. Unsure of other consequences of a 10L and 10T heat range, but under racing conditions I don't think there should be any. Worst case I can bump idle up if the leading want to be annoying and foul up during open loop warm up.
Car drove to, drove at, and drove home from Autobahn CC with no hitch sans one cutout on track that cannot be completely explained, though I attribute it to fuel cut since I was running the tank low in an attempt to keep weight down (more on this later).
I've got an Auto X this coming weekend I am running and letting a friend also run the car. Don't think anything will get as hot as it does on the track, but heatsoak is a bitch.
Last edited by equinox92; 06-28-2021 at 11:34 PM.
Reason: trailing vs leading is hard and I am the big dumb
Where were you able to track down those plugs?
I tried the week before that gratten event and only could find 2-3 all coming from different places. Had to get 9-10 range denso. But want to go the same route you did after reading the thread and some help from team. Just was unable to find a supplier.
10.5 for track use would be better still, but it shouldn’t take more than a week to receive them through RHDJapan
Yeah almost went with those, but the number of hours the car sees cruising on the highway until I can get myself a tow rig made me re-consider going colder. We will see. Can always change it up, I am always open to choices I make being the wrong ones haha.
Originally Posted by Snox801
Where were you able to track down those plugs?
I tried the week before that gratten event and only could find 2-3 all coming from different places. Had to get 9-10 range denso. But want to go the same route you did after reading the thread and some help from team. Just was unable to find a supplier.
Rock Auto had a bunch in stock, and always has a 5% off coupon.
03-07-2021, 01:32 PM
