The carbon fibre time attack/superlap MX5 NB twins blog

lightyear · Postby **lightyear** » Mon Feb 13, 2012 4:32 pm

It would be less challenging if you did the same lap times as you did on non r specs. But if you think it is less challenging going 3 seconds (or 5 seconds in my case) faster your dreaming.

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Tue Feb 14, 2012 1:24 pm

Nope I'm not dreaming Dave :lol:

. I regularly swap from R-specs to street tyres on my car, and the difference in laptimes is 2 seconds at Wakefield Park (probably more at Phillip Island, as you've found). The R-specs are faster, but I find that I have more fun with the street tyres because they have less grip. Extracting the maximum while skating around all over the place is a huge challenge. Personal preference I suppose.

Postby **beavis** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 8:33 pm

In terms of having fun, I agree, slideways on crappy tyres is the way to go.
But for enjoying a track car, I'd prefer smooth balanced driving on sticky rubber.

Postby **beavis** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:39 pm

lightyear · Postby **lightyear** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:44 pm

Doesn't look very impressive does it.

Guran · Postby **Guran** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 5:49 pm

Looked impressive to me! Going off at turn 1 must have been a massive brown moment for Brendan. Well done Dave in backing off and avoiding the risk of Brendan's car spearing across in front of you.

Man those Skylines were slow in the corners! :roll:

Postby **beavis** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 7:00 pm

Don't take the video with the skylines too seriously, it was the last run of the day and we were just having some fun.... Surprisingly their corner speeds are about the same as the mx5 in many places.
They both do around 1:51 at PI.

lightyear · Postby **lightyear** » Sat Feb 18, 2012 8:07 pm

And it was the out lap.

lightyear · Postby **lightyear** » Tue Feb 21, 2012 6:02 pm

I dropped the car off for the exhaust today. And decided to remove the body so it doesn't get damaged.

lightyear · Postby **lightyear** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 2:21 pm

The morning after i took the car down, he rang me up and said he has too many cars and can't do the exhaust. And i have to pick the car up straight away. Same old story with that guy. I forgot how unreliable he is. So now the car is back at home and i am tacking the (full stainless) system together. 3" is a lot harder to fit in an mx5. I ordered the muffler, and it should be here monday. Then i will drop it off to him to get it tig welded. The exhaust runs down along the tailshaft like normal, but turns out the passenger side just before the rear wheel. That's where the muffler will be. Then i have to cut a big hole in the lower 1/4 panel/rocker panel in front of the rear wheel (only bit left that isn't cut off) for the exhaust to exit. Also need to cut a hole in the c.f.

bruce · Postby **bruce** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 2:33 pm

And here I was thinking that section of the body had too much metal!

deviant · Postby **deviant** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 2:44 pm

lightyear wrote:The morning after i took the car down, he rang me up and said he has too many cars and can't do the exhaust. And i have to pick the car up straight away. Same old story with that guy. I forgot how unreliable he is. So now the car is back at home and i am tacking the (full stainless) system together. 3" is a lot harder to fit in an mx5. I ordered the muffler, and it should be here monday. Then i will drop it off to him to get it tig welded. The exhaust runs down along the tailshaft like normal, but turns out the passenger side just before the rear wheel. That's where the muffler will be. Then i have to cut a big hole in the lower 1/4 panel/rocker panel in front of the rear wheel (only bit left that isn't cut off) for the exhaust to exit. Also need to cut a hole in the c.f.

I hate service like that!

You might not need much of a muffler. My turbo race car had something of a similar design to your plan but ran straight back from the down pipe rather than over to the centre of the car. It had a hot dog muffler under where the passengers feet would be and then just turned 90 degrees and out the side.

It was surprisingly (dissapointingly) quiet!

lightyear · Postby **lightyear** » Sun Feb 26, 2012 7:49 pm

Yep, just running a hotdog.

lightyear · Postby **lightyear** » Tue Mar 06, 2012 8:51 pm

I have not got much to show on the c.f car. The exhaust is half done.
On another note i decided to go up to winton to do the short track as i have never done it before. I took the na8b up, untouched from the p.i round. It was wet so i used the old starspecs, and as it dried up i got down to a 1:11. After the 3rd session it looked like the rain was not coming back and i threw the kuhmo's on. Went out and had an epic battle with cookie for the whole session. Best time was a 1:08.7 - only a few 10ths of the outright record. This car definately bats above it's weight, i ended up with the 2nd fastest time of the day, in a fairly standard car. Short course is a lot more fun than i thought it would be. And after the end of the day my arms where killing me from all those corners, wide tyres and no power steering.
Here is a video i made by filming the laptop with my ipad. Can't get the new camera videos to edit. Brendan will upload a good video when he gets time.

But for now check this out- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo6GFnMy ... ature=plcp

My plan was to go out and build up some speed over 2-3 laps (come in check tyres temps and pressures, etc and adjust)and get a feel for how much grip there was with the different tyres on. But with cookie there i started picking up the pace a little earlier.

And it's not like he was driving slow as he set the fastest outright time of the day in that session.