Dan's NC track toy

greenMachine · Postby **greenMachine** » Mon Mar 07, 2016 12:50 pm

NB doing 10s/high 9s - T1 definitely flat for me. If you are not flat, when you do get there watch your braking marker for T2 - don't get caught in the thrill of the moment, there is not much room between T1 and an early braking marker if you need it.

Also, don't forget you can play with your wing AoA, it will alter the rear DF, but also drag. This will be more noticeable at say SMP GP circuit, where a small adjustment moved the point of my terminal velocity by more than 100m :shock:

, than WP or SMP South, where TV is not relevant.

:mrgreen:

Dan · Postby **Dan** » Mon Mar 07, 2016 1:23 pm

greenMachine wrote:NB doing 10s/high 9s - T1 definitely flat for me. If you are not flat, when you do get there watch your braking marker for T2 - don't get caught in the thrill of the moment, there is not much room between T1 and an early braking marker if you need it.

Also, don't forget you can play with your wing AoA, it will alter the rear DF, but also drag. This will be more noticeable at say SMP GP circuit, where a small adjustment moved the point of my terminal velocity by more than 100m , than WP or SMP South, where TV is not relevant.

I think you are talking about T1 at Wakefield since you are talking about 9's and 10's? We were talking about T1 at SMSP GP.

My car only breaks 160 on the straight at Wakefield so it's definitely flat through there for me.

Out of interest how much difference did you find your wing made to your top speed on the straight at SMSP?

greenMachine · Postby **greenMachine** » Mon Mar 07, 2016 2:46 pm

Haha, that makes a lot more sense!! I am flat through there too, but that is a much edgier performance than at WP.

I can get to top speed, it is just a matter of when - high AoA means more drag, therefore takes longer. Trim the wing off, and the drag is lower and you get there quicker, at the cost of some DF.

However, that diff is about to come out, and I doubt I will see 8000 in top again

.

Magpie, it is a pretty simple corner, just fast and that is intimidating. Took me a while to build up to it ... The secret is in committing to it, and not lifting no matter what. If it looks like the car has got away, either steer for the outside and use the outfield, or lock everything up. Too many cars have hit the inside wall while trying to 'catch it' ... Next time you are down, get someone to show you the turn-in point, and the apex, that will speed things up for you.

:mrgreen:

Dan · Postby **Dan** » Mon Mar 07, 2016 3:49 pm

It sounds so simple :mrgreen:

How quick is your car at redline out of interest?

greenMachine · Postby **greenMachine** » Mon Mar 07, 2016 5:22 pm

Dan wrote:It sounds so simple

It is, you just leave your survival instincts in the garage ... :shock:

Dan wrote:How quick is your car at redline out of interest?

Redline is around 215kph. That will go up to about 240 with the 4.3, but I think drag will keep me well away from that.

:mrgreen:

Dan · Postby **Dan** » Thu Mar 10, 2016 5:16 pm

So I put the wing back on without the risers in preparation of this weekend's track day. I think the riser made it look a bit ridiculous but I'm a fan without it and the car as low as it is now.

I drove around the corner from my place and snapped some pics

mx5002 · Postby **mx5002** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 9:39 am

That looks awesome Dan.

I haven't seen this car in the flesh for a while now. I've only been getting to the club track days this last year.

david_syd_au · Postby **david_syd_au** » Fri Mar 11, 2016 11:18 am

Dan wrote:It sounds so simple

It is, but takes some time to work up to it, unless you have no fear.
BTW, even if you go flat into and through SMSP GP T1 you may still find you loose speed.
My NB goes into T1 on full throttle in 6th at a bit over 190kph, and even with consciously keeping the throttle flat to the floor it still drops 10 to 15kph through the corner.

The Green Goblin · Postby **The Green Goblin** » Sun Mar 13, 2016 12:42 pm

looks tough mate!

Dan · Postby **Dan** » Sun Mar 13, 2016 7:34 pm

^ Thanks

Just got home from the RTDC day at SMSP South. I had a great day, I did a new PB (1:03.58 on Natsoft) which is an improvement by a couple of tenths but my consistency improved dramatically which I was very happy about, I was doing mid to high 1:03 laps consistently.

It was fun being around all the high powered Jap cars in attendance (WRX, Evo, Skylines etc..) having them leave me for dead on the straights and then reeling them in during the twisty bits, I ended up being the 7th fastest overall for the day. Was fun watching suprised faces when people asked what I'd done to it and how much power it makes

With the wing set on 8 degrees angle of attack (measured in the centre section) my speed on the straights was around 2km difference and the car felt good. Since I've done the wing and suspension it's hard to seperate them from each other but the car is much easier to drive than with the BC's (I fiddled with the coilover settings and stiffened up the rear a bit to allow more oversteer in the slow corners).

I really need to hit Wakefield or SMSP GP to see how well the wing works.

Here's a video of a couple of 1:03 laps taken off my AIM SmartyCam:

Magpie · Postby **Magpie** » Mon Mar 14, 2016 5:26 am

Great news!

Need more aero now

Dan · Postby **Dan** » Mon Mar 14, 2016 10:33 am

No more Aero for a while, just tuning the suspension and Aero right now.

I had a look at the logs in a bit more detail last night. It looks like the straight speeds overall were roughly the same prior to the Aero BUT previously I had wider tyres (235/45 rather than 215/45) and I also had about 30kg more weight in the car so the Aero probably was slowing the car down a bit but it made up for it in handling.

Power is next. I have a set of Cams sitting in Daniel Deckers shop which should be good for anouther 10-15kw.

Ralph has the front running road registered NC, I'm just under 0.9 seconds off his time at this track and just under 0.5 seconds at Wakefield which is more of a power circuit, since he has about 20kw on me I'm pretty confident the Cams and some small improvements in other parts of the car can comfortably get me there

Sent from my SM-N9005 using Tapatalk

mx5002 · Postby **mx5002** » Tue Mar 15, 2016 9:50 pm

Dan wrote:^ Thanks

It was fun being around all the high powered Jap cars in attendance (WRX, Evo, Skylines etc..) having them leave me for dead on the straights and then reeling them in during the twisty bits, I ended up being the 7th fastest overall for the day. Was fun watching suprised faces when people asked what I'd done to it and how much power it makes

I was having a chuckle myself when i saw that on natsoft on Sunday arvo. You're mx5 would have been close to the lowest powered car there!

Dan · Postby **Dan** » Tue Mar 15, 2016 10:36 pm

^ haha, yeh I think it was 5th 'lowest power' car in front of a Toyota Echo, an Excel and two Corolla's.

Found a cool photo that was snapped on the day too, should of had the numbers a bit straighter though :lol:

Dan · Postby **Dan** » Mon Feb 27, 2017 9:55 pm

So it's been nearly a year since I last updated the thread. Have been pretty busy with work, travel, sick family member, other cars etc.. but I'm in the process of de-modifying the MX5 into somewhat of a..gulp..Street friendly MX5 which can go to the track.

While an MX5 with no stereo, weld in half cage, Cusco 1.5 way LSD, fixed race buckets and Carbon Hardtop is probably not everyone's idea of a street friendly MX5 it's relatively more friendly than it was before.

The car had mainly been sitting in the garage for the last 9 months or so till I decided a bit over a month ago to fix a couple of little things like raising the suspension, sealing the hardtop up with rubber seals I got from clark rubber to make it poor weather friendly rather than relying on stuffing a rag in the window if the rain comes down, I plugged the exhaust with a silencer to reduce a bit and I got some rubber plugs for the holes where the wing goes on the boot (the wing is easy to put on and off so I'll put it on when I go to SMSP North/GP and take it off for elsewhere) and I also put the stock wheels on for the street which I'll replace with my track wheels anytime I go to the track.

Even with the plug the exhaust is still pretty loud so I'm on the lookout for a stock exhaust at the moment, the plan is to basically do a Phil and have a stock exhaust on for putting around the street and then when I get to the track chuck a race/street single on for the track to reduce a bit of weight and give it a bit more go.

I've enjoyed a couple of nice drives recently in the MX5 on the weekends and am going to make the effort to come to a few club events including the club track day on the 23rd of April (will be in Japan for the next one on the 5th of March).

Here's a before and after comparison:

As an aside I also thought I'd post this as a sort of PSA for anyone running lightweight wheels. My Weds TC105N on my MX5 (2k+ set of quality Jap wheels for those that don't know then) took a bit of an impact presumably from the inside or a curb or something and had a crack in them after an SMSP South track day, I might not of noticed if my tyre didn't lose all of it's pressure a couple of days after the track day (I went looking for a puncture with none to be found). This crack could of pretty easily spread across the wheel and caused a serious accident if I wasn't careful so if you have lightweight wheels maybe keep an eye on them