Guran's NA6 "Little Reddy"

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 4:37 pm

I was cleaning out the memory card on the camera this afternoon and found these photos of my son Alex driving his pedal kart around a chalk track I marked in our cul-de-sac. He's always asking me to time his laps. Start 'em early, eh? Looks like his kart could use a bit of suspension and a seatbelt.

IMG_0824 by Guran5, on Flickr

IMG_0833 by Guran5, on Flickr

IMG_0835 by Guran5, on Flickr

CheyneX5 · Postby **CheyneX5** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 4:43 pm

Great shots of the young fella, it looks like hes having a great time!

Im sure he will be doing the same thing in little reddy in the not so distant future

coolabah2002 · Postby **coolabah2002** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 10:51 pm

That's the way!
He is pretty committed through the corners isnt he?

Twiggy · Postby **Twiggy** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 10:29 am

Little Reddy Junior!

sliq · Postby **sliq** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 12:04 pm

sign him up to the Ferrari F1 Academy

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 3:49 pm

Woo-hoo!

My first issue as editor of Club Torque (MX-5 Club of NSW quarterly magazine) is published and arriving in people's mailboxes today. We will be putting a PDF version on the club website sometime soon, but for the moment I'd prefer to allow club members the benefit of reading the FULL COLOUR printed magazine.

Believe it or not, I only just realised that neither Andrew McKay or (our) Alex Hailstone are members of the club, and yet they both feature on the cover! Here's a good reason for them to rectify their non-membership. In any case, the cars for Targa High Country were supplied by Chris Gough from MX5 Racing, who is a long serving member of the club.

ClubTorque_2011_01_cover by Guran5, on Flickr

Regie · Postby **Regie** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 4:22 pm

a sweet upgrade on the magazine Bryan... much better!

gobsmax · Postby **gobsmax** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 4:23 pm

Nice one Brian

bensale · Postby **bensale** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 4:36 pm

Nice, the cover looks great!!! Let us know when the PDF is up, I'd love to check it out! Also not only is your cover girl not a member of the NSW club but the photo was taken in Victoria too...

I'm really enjoying your thread by the way, heaps of good reading, I always check out every update =) Thanks!

KRM · Postby **KRM** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 8:15 pm

Bryan

Received the latest Club Torque in the mail today.

Very well done a very nice presentation and a good read.
You have taken off from Glens level and moved it forwarded.
Well done to all the people who contributed.

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 9:18 am

Thanks everyone. It's great to receive such glowing feedback and confirmation that I'm headed in the right direction with Club Torque. It's very early days for me and Adobe InDesign, and I expect the layout will only improve further from here on. Also, if anyone has need for a high quality printing job at a decent price, I highly recommend Print Media - they've been awesome to deal with.

Dweezle · Postby **Dweezle** » Tue Jan 25, 2011 9:23 am

BRAVO!!!

Love the new look and Layout.
looks like alot of work has gone into it.

Congrats Bryan.

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 10:32 am

Back in August, I wrote about how my PB lap at Wakefield Park (1:17.00 on Adrenalins) compared against the corner speeds recorded by Warren Luff in the annual Bang For Your Bucks test by MOTOR magazine. Was that just a peculiarity of Wakefield Park, given that I've done hundreds of laps there in Little Reddy? Hmmmm ...

February 2011 issue of MOTOR has the annual Performance Car Cup at Phillip Island, so this is an opportunity to compare against the corner speeds I achieved on my 2:08.28 PB lap on 12th December 2010. It's worth noting that this was only my second drive on the track, and the first time I only had a half dozen laps (all but three were in the wet).

Sure, everything there from the Golf R (1:55.3) to the Porsche 911 GT3 RS (1:42.2) blitzed my stock NA6 in terms of lap times. But that's to be expected given the huge advantage those cars have in power/weight, ranging from 127kW/t to 293kW/t (vs 89kW/t for my NA6), and top speed (on track) ranging from 216km/hr to 259km/hr (vs 181km/hr for my NA6).

The slow corners were a different story. My minimum speed at Honda (61.1km/hr) was quicker than everything that Warren Luff tested, and at MG (62.0km/hr) I was only beaten by the semi-slick-shod GT3 RS (63.4km/hr), and everything else was at least 2-3km/hr slower.

On the mid-range corners, my speeds were in the top half of the field:
Southern Loop (100.7km/hr) beaten by GT3 RS (106.0), LP550-2 (103.6), RS5 (103.3), and Boxster Spyder (101.3)
Siberia (84.3km/hr) beaten by GT3 RS (87.8 ), LP550-2 (87.4), Boxster Spyder (85.4), and Megane RS (85.3).

So in those slow and mid-range corners, my NA6 was consistently quicker than C63 AMG, Jag XJ, FPV GT-P, Focus RS, WRX STI, Golf R, and TT RS!!! :shock:

20-year-old LWS tech wins the day!

On the other hand, my pussy-footing through turn 1 was evidenced by my 148.4km/hr corner speed, which was well below the range set by Luffy (152.6-165.8km/hr, and 178.5km/hr in the GT3 RS). I did improve that a bit to 151.0km/hr on the last lap of the day, but there was still plenty to go. So clearly, more bravery is required for my next visit to the Island. :shock:

PI101212_12828 by Guran5, on Flickr

bensale · Postby **bensale** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 12:54 pm

I've been wanting to do the same thing since reading that article! Thanks for that!!!

Like you I looked at the corner speeds and the only two corners we're really off the pace were turn 1 and turn 3. Interesting that based on my minimum rpm on my video and some Motor mag data from the Nov 89 issue which has the na6's speed in all gears at 7000rpm (not a precise science I know but should be close enough) I'm dropping to 158kph in turn one which puts me faster than the RS5, Jag and C63 AMG but still behind even the FPV GT-P so I think i need a little more bravery next time too! The numbers in turn 4 are cool, 5 kph quicker than a GT3RS and over 10kph quicker than the Lambo LP550-2!!! Annoyingly I can't see the tacho in any of the other corners so can't work many of the speeds out...

You doing something like this really explains why the turbo MX-5's are so quick! I would love to see your graph overlayed with the data from the GT3 and also something like an FPV.

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 3:36 pm

Glad to hear you appreciated the comparison, Ben. Yes, it helps having that GPS data for this sort of thing. Have you considered picking up an old Nokia phone, GPS receiver and using Racechrono? Judging by his videos, I'd think Brendan should be able to get you started on that setup. Phil (manga_blue) is a whizz with Racechrono too.

re. calculating road speed from rpm

I think you meant the Oct 1989 issue of WHEELS. I'm not sure how they got those figures for top speed in each gear, because they are slower than what you get from a direct calculation. Here's the equation you need:

km/hr per 1000rpm = PI x 60 x (2 x W x P / 100 + D x 25.4) / (R x G x 1000)

where W is tyre width (mm), P is tyre profile (eg. 60 for 185/60R14), D is wheel diameter (inches), R is differential ratio, and G is gear ratio. With stock gear ratios, diff and 185/60R14 tyres, this works out at (WHEELS figure in parentheses):

1st 57km/hr (55km/hr)
2nd 94km/hr (90km/hr)
3rd 133km/hr (127km/hr)
4th 177km/hr (169km/hr)

I also see figures similar to what WHEELS reported, and that's with changing up a little beyond 7000rpm. Maybe the rev counter tends to over-read the rpm slightly, just like the speedo does? The rpm that gives the closest match to the speeds reported by WHEELS is 6700rpm (they claimed it was 7000rpm). I've not tried logging the rpm - maybe someone who has can comment?