Doward's daily does it all: SCCA STX, NASA TT5, Gridlife ClubTR?
 

Hello, Daniel here. Long history in Miatas, autocross, trackdays, time trial/time attack, driver coaching/DE instructing, former IMSA MX5 Cup Crew Chief, 2x NASA National Champ, etc.

This thread will start with a bit of catchup, as the car has transitioned into a bit more of a competition car for me lately.

Like many others, I eventually grew tired of street driving a string of modded NA/NB Miatas and wanted something newer, safer, faster, with better audio, cruise control, etc.

I sold a reeeally nice NB2 Miata that I had prepped and campaigned to a handful of regional NASA TT6 wins and still-standing records and turned those funds into this 2013 BRZ back in December of 2020, when these were still trading near the $10k range.

Early days were pure streetcar duty, daily duty stuff. Clean it up, paint correct, ceramic coat, hitch mount for my bike rack, and the 17x8 6ULs I had on hand already.

Man these cars look so good in red. Nicely done :thumbup:

The plan all along was to toe the line between SCCA STX autocross and NASA TT5. SCCA TimeTrial T4 and Gridlife ClubTR were fortunate secondary possibilities.

SCCA ST classes require keeping one catalytic converter, so the hot ticket for power is to do a catless header and keep one cat in the over/mid pipe.
So I ordered a ceramic coated JDL EL 4-2-1 header and matching "Ultra Quiet" catted and resonated midpipe. That order took forever with catalytic converters disappearing from the world economy at one point during covid.
At some point I also scored a used and unmarried Open Flash Tablet tuner.


Wheel choice is also limited in ST classes, with STX being limited to a 17x9. Options aplenty, but I didn't lke any of the Konigs at the time and 6ULs were actively going extinct. Enter the Enkei PF05. 17x9 +40mm


Did I mention this is a 146k mile, northeast Ohio car that was sold to me with Bridgestone Blizzak winter tires installed? Evidence of the "Salt Life" below:


On the Tomei expreme Ti 80mm exhaust: I love the idea of a titanium exhaust. I actually liked the sound of it below 30% throttle and also above 5500rpm. The problem is that real life driving is none of those things and it made my ears bleed if I wasn't wearing a helmet... More on this later.

Another common theme with my "daily drivers" is that I get a random craving for track time while my racecar is broken that ends up thrusting the streetcar into competition usage. Last year it was the end of BP4W saga, so there was a big round of parts last spring (2021) so I could run a couple HPDEs with the homies.
-Tein Flex Z, off the shelf variety, no special sauce. teinVSQ54-CUSS4
-My favorite dual duty compromise brake pads: Stoptech "309" Sport. sto309.15390 & sto309.11240
-Stoptech stainless brake lines
-Motul RBF660
-Centric Premium rotors. sto120.47021 & sto120.47031
-Whiteline swaybars and endlinks. 22mm front, 16mm rear. whlBSF45XZ & whlBSR54Z
The Tomei 80R exhaust made my ears bleed, so it pretty quickly got replaced with a Revel(Tanabe) Medallion Touring-S Catback. rvlT80166RR
I still have this exhaust, as the combo of it behind the catless JDL EL 4-2-1 and UltraQuiet midpipe was actually perfect, until I took it to a trackday and presumably burned all the muffler packing out of it. It was then incapable of passing the wifey test on pure volume, and also picked up a rasp/fart tone with heavier throttle inputs.


These items remain on my shelf:
rad20-0901 Radium FR-S/BRZ/86 PCV Side Catch Can Kit
whlKCA435 Roll Center Adjuster Kit & Bump Steer
whlKCA326 Rear Camber adj kit-control arm upper bushes
The bump steer kit is allowed in NASA ST/TT but penalized there. It is not allowed in SCCA STX, so it hasn't made its way onto the car.
The offset bushings are waiting until I decide to do a whole car, or at least whole rear end bushing effort, or until the lack of rear camber starts to cost me performance.

Oh yes, I remember those days, when cars depreciated with age and mileage. Now they seem to think it is reasonable to pay roughly the new MSRP for a ten year old car.. :bonk:

Looking good, BTW..

The local SCCA region introduced a weeknight PAX Challenge series, and I did OK at the first of which back in ~May.
I think I was top 10 PAX with the car as it sat, but that just wasn't good enough, so Autocrossification began.


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Primary issue to address was tires.
I had installed a set of RE71R scrubs from a buddies NC MX5 endurance racecar effort. They were made in 2016. They worked great for HPDE and street use, but were clearly lacking in freshness for any sort of competitive environment.

Being an eternal "value conscious consumer" I picked up a batch of used wheels from Blub(949 Racing's r&d car) as well as some 2019 AO52s from a local customer/buddy when I sold him some new ones.
The wheels were mostly all Charcoals, but with a few Berylliums and a Silver that were already rattle canned black to match. They needed a fresh lease on life, so they got further rattle can treatment.
Ultimately, one set received the scrub AO52s and the other some scrub 225/40/17 R7s from another customer for future NASA TT5 shenanigans.
Marked A and B after I checked them all on the balancer. Mostly straight A's for street tire duty went rustoleum metallic bronze, B's got faux Beryllium for race tires.

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At the time of wheel swap, the whole car got lowered a bit more, front quite a bit to introduce some rake, as well as bumped back up to -4.2 front camber. The rear needs more camber as well, but in my interest of keeping it NASA TT5 legal, I am skipping the normal RLCA upgrade that STX cars would get and have a set of offset RUCA bushings sitting on a shelf waiting for install.

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So with still old, but significantly fresher tires, how did it do at a normal SCCA STX points event?

Second(and third) in both STX and PAX. My codriver Brian finishing right behind me in both, but local Todd in a better prepped STX FRS edged us both out for FTD and class win. Todd has brand new AO52s, an OsGiken and some much more focused suspension, lightweight brakes and the allowed control arms for camber.
It was super fun battling with both of them all day, and pretty cool that an FRS on street tires took not just PAX, which is pretty understandable, but also FTD.

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Brian driving:
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I pretty much know by now that I need to "take it seriously" and throw some money at it to match Todd's prep level.
Ideally tires, but I also want more chassis composure to handle Hoosiers for NASA TT5, so maybe a suspension upgrade is in order as well.

Parts rundown as of now:

Tein Flex, regular off the shelf
Whiteline bars and endlinks, 22mm front, 16mm rear.
- this is the smaller rear bar and larger front bar that Whiteline makes.
SPC front crash bolts, one per side
JDL EL 4-2-1 header.
JDL "Ultra Quiet" over/mid pipe combo.
TRD intake
TRD dual outlet catback
stock diff
Motul gear oils.
17x9 PF05 with 245/40/17 RE71R
17x9 6UL w/ 245/40/17 AO52
17x9 6UL w/ 225/40/17 Hoosier R7

Nearly current now.

This past weekend was a regional Tour event, so local fast folks were mostly absent from the local event. I have missed 50% of the Points Events so far this year, and had an open weekend, so I took the chance to claw back some STX points on Todd.
No co-driver, and it was extremely evident that I was not able to get these 2019 AO52s up to operating temp. They had ~100 runs when Nick gave them to me, and this was the 3rd events i've done, plus a codrive at the last one, so they're properly baked at ~140 runs.

119 drivers, I was in group A, run first, work second. They ended up switching the day order to ABBA, so I had a crappy 4 hour break from run 3 to run 4. I sat on top PAX most of the day on my run 3, but Ryan(BMW MS Comp) took it on his run 6. I was able to put things together, and had enough tire heat, on my run 6 to claw back the STX win and overall PAX win.

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Off come the Tein Flex Z, on go 949 Racing BRXidas.
500/500lb setup
949 camber plates
949 front endlinks
Flipchips in max camber orientation.
Still on Whiteline 22/16mm bars, rear on full soft.

The Teins were ~340lb square and the bar balance was perfect for me in the recent autocross events, so I am hopeful the balance remains.
I'll be running the same alignment as with the Teins as well, with -4.5 front, -2.7 rear, zero toe.

NASA Mid Ohio is my annual BDay weekend late this month. The car is on e85, the Xidas are in, the 225/40/17 Hoosiers are mounted.
I just need to remember how to drive.

Initial impressions to come after I get some time to play with knobs. I have an evening SCCA PAX challenge night event tomorrow...

All the suspension travels.

Yay maths!

193.66whp/161.61wtq is as good as 194/162 and i'm super happy with that. 194 peak whp works out to 180.25 NASA AVG.

Reminder that this car has 146k miles and 'just' a fancy coated header and a second hand OpenFlashTablet flash tune. I had no reason to expect 200+ like the healthiest and custom mapped cars are able to manage.

NASA TT/ST rules treat my STI lip and Limited trim package spoiler as if they're 4" splitters and 74" Zebulon wings, so if I made any more power or wanted to pull all my interior out, i'd have to lose the lip and spoiler to 'pay' for the P:W space.

Also, for those unfamiliar, NASA Super Touring and Time Trial series both share a rulebook. So you'll often see ST/TT5 referred to together.
Each step in the Power:Weight ladder has other allowances or modifiers intended to control costs or prevent overdog chassis/builds. 6 being the slowest up through 1, with Unlimited at the top being the fastest.

I have set and currently hold several track records in four regions in this ruleset and I really enjoy the Forza Motorsport PI style build process. The current ST ruleset has proven to create really good variety and parity of builds with no clearcut/obvious overdogs.

Build A:
180 avg
2749lbs, declare 183whp
-.1 weight factor
+.3 for undersized tires
-.7 A arm
-.5 for 'splitter'
spoiler is 'free' by giving up the BTM credit

If I remove the lip/spoiler, I can pull the seats and attempt to get down to 2650 or so.
In doing this, I would also give up the undersized tire credit. That would be offset by also losing the splitter and weight factor hits and gaining the BTM credit:

Build B:
180 avg whp
2650lbs, declare 184whp
+/- 0 for weight factor
-.7 A arms
+.3 BTM

In a vacuum, I'm very confident that Build A would be faster if I had a real wing(Voltex, Zebulon, APR GT250, Gstream, etc) and a class-max 4" splitter. Alas, I do not..
So, I'll throw it on the scales tomorrow or Wednesday and see where it lands with aluminum Xidas, lighter weight 6ULs and Hoosiers with the plan to aim for 2650lbs. That will be simply pulling all the seats out and slapping in my old Recaro SPG on a PCI bracket.

Man every time i see Xidas i want them so bad i need to save up some more money im between Xidas and Tein Flex A CSG and there is a large difference in price too

On Wednesday last week I spent the day installing the Xidas and resetting the alignment/setup.
I attempted to contain the variables by running the same setup as before, with just the springrate and damper change.

Balance was off, car was loose. It definitely turns better, too betterer.
My stock rear bar is long gone, so my only easy fix is to remove the rake and lower the rear end, or pull camber out of the front.

Local seasoned national tour STXer beat me by his smallest margin yet, and I'm still on a customer's 2yr old scrubs. We're getting there. I think with another event or two I can knock the rest of my rust off and win on scrubs before buying fresh tires for 2023.
I ended up 4th in raw time, 3rd in PAX, 2nd in STX. ~85 total drivers.

Looking forward to results from mid o later this month. Car looks good Dan.

Porky car is porky.

All four OEM seats removed and the Recaro SPG in on the PCI dual locking slider got it down to ~2560 at 1/4 tank.
That puts it near 2750 with my 200lb chiseled mass.
I'll need to run it pretty low on fuel to stay near that 2750, but these cars apparently fuel starve below 1/2 tank, so I'll have to be cognizant of that. I did not have any fuel starve at Nelson Ledges, but NL is a primarily right handed corner load, while Mid O T1 is a fast ~88mph left which is prime 86 fuel starve opportunity.

Regardless, its fat enough to keep the "small tires at 2750+" credit and that credit allows me to also eat the Splitter penalty and give up the BTM credit.


2750lbs
Declaring 183.33whp
-.1 for weight factor
+.3 for small tires at big weight
-.7 for A arms
-.5 for splitter

Obviously a real splitter and a real wing would be free speed on top of whatever I am able to run this weekend.

Did you keep the OEM glass in the doors to get the weight?

Yea, the interior is completely stock and intact except for removing the trunk junk, rear seat and passenger seat.

That is why is was 'only' able to get as light as ~2550 with 1/4 tank.

Crazy mixed feelings this weekend.

I set high goals to win TT5 and even challenge the Club Course record in my stupid daily-driver-with-Hoosiers. Short version, that didn't happen. Feel free to look at the pics and scroll right past the rest.

Club Course day one: 1.39.798 2nd place by .023 to a 39.775. Both of us would have also won TT4.
Pro Course day two: 1.38.134 2nd place to a 37.214. Both of us would have also won TT4.

Starting with event prep, pads and tires. Nothing else.
Off came the Stoptech Sports "309" pads I street/AX and did one HPDE at Nelson Ledges on: Left front inner had some chunking. On went Hawk DTC60 square.



Day One: Club Course:
As I said in a previous post, the Pro Course record was set at 2019 Champs, so I knew it was way out of reach.
The Club record was set regionally by a customer, in a very similar FRS but with a wing. He never let me put all the camber in the car that I thought it wanted, so I hoped I could offset his wing/cage/development familiarity with a more aggressive setup and home track Sending It. The problem is that I used his now 2 year old scrub tires.

I ended up a second off the record and .02 off the win. Mid Atlantic fast guy Ricardo snuck it out on the last lap of the last session while following me. He drives a splitter/wing, cable throttle S2K on 255/40/17 RC1s2 on 17x10" wheels, with 20 mph WHP than me.

I turned knobs every session testing in pretty large 3 click increments on both sides of 'middle', was a pyro nerd the first two sessions to get the tires happy, looked over data with Tom O'Gorman. Did everything to try and get up to speed, but the car just never felt like I wanted it to.
I'm pretty sure I know what it needs but need to spend a day confirming stuff on the setup pad and maybe try again at an Autointerest HPDE next month.
Trying to be brief: The front axle is amazing. Front grip, turn-in, steering feel, etc are all amazing, sharp, exact, direct. The rear? The opposite, disconnected, dissimilar, numb. The car never tried to kill me, never did anything to catch me out, but was most definitely loose on entry, loose under braking, and loose at initial throttle input if it was anywhere near 90% lat grip.
I was able to save/catch/correct two BIG slides in T1 and stay on the pavement, but the difference between the axles was troubling. My 22/16mm whiteline bars are already full stiff front/full soft rear. My only tuning tool left was to just drop the rear ride height or remove camber from the front to make the front work worse. I had dropped the rear 4 turns after the AX as a prep and dropped it two more. It is nearly level now and that was as far as I took it.

Today I ordered a Mann Engineering rear bar which is step one.
Step two will be to install the Whiteline RUCA offset bushings I have at the shop for more rear camber.
I also know Emilio is going to read all this and say "well duh, you used ancient brick tires for new setup testing, of course it handled like crap"


Looking at the data, it was clear my rustiness was the major culprit. I had an AIM theoretical of a 38.252 on day one. two different places I could have saved quarter seconds.
It was not a small failure on my part. I ran only two laps sub 40, but 11 laps in the 40s and several more in the 41s. Two Bs and a bunch of Cs got a degree(podium) but it wasn't what I hoped for.

Anyways, all that to explain day two:
Slept on it and made it my Day 2 goal to be as smooth as possible with turn-in steering inputs and much much softer with brake release in order to clean up/prevent all the small wiggles and mistakes that clouded all of day one's laps.
Keynote: These DTC60s are terrible and I now vividly remember why I love my GLoc R16/12 setup so much.
A big chunk of my rust was knocked off and day two went much better.

Session two I threw a CEL after 4 really hard back to back flyers and decided to park it for the day. I had also burned through all of my e85 and another full session probably would have resulted in a min weight DQ for the day.

So for session 4 I hoped into a buddies ST6 car for a TT6 rip. Those four laps were good for the TT6 win and the fastest ST or TT6 miata lap of the entire weekend. I was home.


So anyways, 86 make alot of sense but mine definitely needs more development. Hopefully it never gets said development because my K24 swapped Miata racecar should be on track somewhere before the end of the year... hopefully.

Ricardo's full aero, 255/10" RC1s2 S2K:
He had 20 more WHP, only weighed 50lbs more and had actual aero.
I was taking the same aero penalties, but couldn't get my car any lighter, nor had any power to add, so I ran with a giant handicap.

I had -4.9* static on the front axle and the pyro said the whole left side wanted more. Looking at my LF tire in this loaded up right hander shot is a good explanation of why.

https://youtu.be/wtgYFTGakdI

NASA Great Lakes
Mid Ohio Sportscar Course, Club Course layout w/chicane.
August 27, 2022

Second place lap by .023 seconds. :(
Second place again Sunday, but no video.

2013 BRZ Limited
193.66 peak, 161.8 ftlb

Prepped for SCCA STX:
JDL 421 EL header
JDL UltraQuiet catted front/overpipe combo
Tanabe Medallion catback
TRD intake
OpenFlash Tablet tune
500/500lb 949 Racing Xida coilovers
Whiteline 22/16mm swaybars
Stock RLCA to avoid NASA penalty
17x9 +40mm 949 Racing 6UL wheels
225/40/17 Hoosier R7

ST/TT build:
2750lb min weight, 2763 lowest actual weight.
183 NASA Average WHP claimed, 180.2 actual.
-.7 for A-arms
-.1 for weight factor
-.5 for "splitter"(STI front lip counts, since it is not BTM)
+.3 credit for small tires over 2749lbs
No BTM credit since Limited trim rear spoiler and STI front lip.
No BBK, no RLCA, no ELBJ.
Total mod factors: -1.0

Several 1:40 laps on Saturday, only 2 sub 40. 1.38.252 was the "theoretical" from AIM.
Definitely lots of opportunities for cleanup and improvement, most of them annotated.

No video from Sunday due to SD card corruption, so not much to talk about there.

Still on junk tires? Flying either way. You allowed final drive changes? Sorry for dumb questions.

Front RCA will reduce roll a bit, which reduces need for camber. 86 still needs a bunch, but RCA mitigate that. I presume you don't have points for them though. Key ingredient of Blub's setup.

Yea, using handmedown R7 scrubs.

Trying to balance both rulesets, I am allowed an adjustable RLCA in STX, but penalized for it in TT5.
Lots of stuff 'free' or allowed and penalized in TT5 is illegal in STX(final drive, RCA respectively)
So there is no RCA or final drive change planned, as the car's primary usage is STX AX.

However, Whiteline offset RUCA bushings and a Mann Engineering rear bar are in hand, just need installed. Both will be big improvements for balance.

Then I can make a tire decision between buying new 225/40 R7s or buying bigger 255/40/17 RR/RC1s2/etc, and I am very much leaning toward the latter since this is not a dedicated TT car. I have the k24 Miata for NASA stuff.

In a perfect mix of exact science, procrastination, bigger priorities and regular life, I have managed to make only one change at a time. So, even though I knew the parts combo was "wrong" I waited until yesterday to put the correct rear swaybar on the car...

https://www.mann-engineering.com/pro...stable-swaybar
Its basically a Supermiata rear bar but for the 86 chassis. OE level stiffness, adjustable to softer. It is the hot ticket for most autocrossers that don't do dual speedway style Karcepts bars front and rear.
I gambled on the middle setting, a step softer than OEM since the hot formula I am trying to emulate requires front roll center correction I am not allowed to have, so I erred on the side of caution. It was perfect.

Losses by .059 and .016 to the local STX fastguy have now been countered with last night's victory by .236

Pictured with my buddy's vette. He was FTD and I was #1 PAX.

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...03be23700.jpeg

[IMG]https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.miataturbo.net-vbulletin/1300x867/2cb792b9_cde8_48c2_b474_14db7b4e66f6_2af2303916148 f34***ea981f5207e922b45cfd0.jpeg[/IMG]

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.mia...2034a00de.jpeg

Building on the theme of "exact science, procrastination, bigger priorities and regular life" I have now finally made one more change to the backup TT5 BRZ: Installing the Whiteline RUCA offset bushings for more negative camber.
Between my purchase of these bushings and their install, NASA has since allowed us a "free" non-penalized arm per axle for the express purpose of camber generation. So, if I were starting from scratch today, I would just do an STX legal RLCA instead and save myself a days work of pressing bushings and swapping RUCAs. RLCAs are soooo much easier.
Other rule changes since last time out include ST5/TT5 dropping down .5lb/hp to 14.5:1, from 14:1. This actually helps my particular car, but also makes all previous records that much harder to approach/reset. A-arm penalty is now a bit smaller, .5 instead of .7. This technically helps claw back 'some' of the overall class slowing, but not a huge change by itself.

BRZ is being thrust into TT duty once again as my kswap, while physically in the miata, has not yet run/started. So, Mid Ohio in the spring, here we go!
Gone are my 2019 DOT scrub 225/40/17 R7s, and arrived have a set of 2022 DOT RE71RS. I still have the second/fresher set of 2022 AO52s as well.

Changes since last Mid O:
A bit higher ride height, the rear swaybar, and an alignment tweak. The height and bar were done last year and showed good results in autocross, alignment tweak happened yesterday.
Alignment is now:
-5.2 front (up from -4.9)
-2.8 rear (up from -2.2 with the whiteline bushings maxed out for most possible negative)

Since I was here in August(best lap on Pro course at that event was a 1:38.1), the class has had a few changes in the rules.
-Down to 14.5:1 from 14:1.
-A-arm penalty down from .7 to .5
-One free control arm PER WHEEL for camber correction, plus an additional toe link in the rear are now free.

My car's min weight went up enough that I either simply ate the extra weight or now had to remove the front lip I currently take the "splitter" penalty for. I chose to eat the weight in the form of not swapping to my light weight single exit exhaust, which might also cost me a horsepower or two.
I also elected to run on 245/40/17 RE71RS and AO52 tires instead of the same set of 225/40/17 Hoosier R7s scrubs that now even older with even more untold heat cycles.

Rain all night Friday and most of Saturday. One dry session before lunch before it rained again and dried again for the 5:30pm TT#4 session.

I ran the 71RS Saturday and moved to the AO52 for Sunday.
Best lap Saturday was 1:38.4 on the 245/40 71RS.
Best lap Sunday was 1:38.7 on the 245/40 AOs.
Reference 2022 lap 1:38.1 on 225/40 Hoosier R7

This was my first time track driving on modern super 200s and they definitely move around a lot under braking compared to Hoosier R7s.
Car felt way better on track lifted up off the bump stops, and the rear bar change was also a great improvement. I really dont have any balance quibbles at all anymore.

Its taken alot of time to get here, but the car actually lets me adjust line in T1 and carousel with throttle modulation and finally felt like an intuitive, connected, single vehicle. Gone was the disconnected front axle/rear axle sensation it had last time out on track. It has always felt good at AX, even on the Teins, but now it also feels great at track pace.
I actually had fun just doing laps all weekend in wet/drying/damp/mixed/snow/sleet/whatever conditions. Its just a bigger 194whp Miata now.

So, full rundown for my own notes and anybody wishing to replicate:
949 Racing Xida 500/500lb
949 Racing front swaybar links
Whiteline 22mm front bar
Mann Engineering 13mm adjustable rear bar
Whiteline rear swaybar links
Whiteline offset RUCA bushings
Whiteline rear diff mount bushings
-5.2* front
-2.8* rear
zero toe front
~1/8" toe in rear (not sure what slipped from my zero setting, as I was super ---- about making sure the RUCAs were symmetrical going in)

Hardware changes if I was building one today:
RLCA for camber adjustment(instead of the RUCA offset bushings) now that NASA gives one free arm. SCCA requires the bushing to be rubber/urethane, and only allows one rear arm to be swapped, so again a Whiteline or SuperPro variant works here.




Competitively?
I was 1 second Saturday and 1.4 seconds Sunday off Nick Dugdale in his 2550lb FRS with a wing, splitter and 255 RC1s2. His ACE header and CSG/ECUtek tune make a few less horsies than my JDL/OpenFlash combo but he gets all that weight reduction allowance from the tire credit.
I was still claiming Hoosier R7s and the same aero as him, even though I ran a "lesser category" tire and only have OEM/STI lip/spoilers. My car can't easily get any lighter, nor can either of us easily make any more power. I need to add a wing and HoHos to put up a fight, but both are outside the scope of what my backup trackcar should be doing...
Neither of us had anything for the cable-throttle S2000s that both set new records.

Checked with Tractive, internal shaft diameter on strut is 16mm, so not subject to NASA points penalty

Back to SCCA STX duty. Interior back in, 93oct back in, stickers off.

This weekends course was very power-friendly, and I got raw timed by a handful of things, including this Focus RS, an STU Cayman and my buddy Nick in his STR ND2.
I won STX, was 4th in PAX and 3rd in our regional "ST-all" group.

Car was great. Tires got greasy. This will be the last competitive outing for these 2021 AO52s. Time for them to go away.

This popped up on socials, but none of the paid photog shots were worth buying this time.

An unfortunate series of events had me running HPDE4 at Pitt Race.
My ST5 Miata wasn't ready and TT5 was sold out due to NASA Championships coming to Pitt next month. So I had to drop my registration all the way down to DE4.

Ran it oldschool. Packed the track wheels, e85 jugs, tools, cooler, chair, etc all inside the BRZ and left the RV and trailer at home.

My Kmiata rolled off my 2post finally so i was able to get the BRZ in and address a couple updates.

New style heim joint 949 endlinks for the Xidas, and their new velco shock covers went on during an alignment and corner balance checkup following the Pitt Race weekend. Only setup change ive made is raising the car up another 3-4 turns. It is now at roughly a 4.8" front pinch and 5" rear pinchweld.
Also finally went to an autocross on my RE71RS scrubs after theyve seen two track weekends. No longer using 2019 DOT AO52s with 100+ HCs.

Car was amazing yesterday back in STX trim. Biggest gap I've put on the local fast STX car(lightweight brakes, Giken diff, etc) and I ended up #2 Pax and #3 raw overall. Only got beat by Danny Popp's CAMS C7(raw) and an FStreet SS 1LE(raw + pax).
May have just been a great day from me and a bad day from Todd Kunze, but I've always been on junk tires and consistently close to him, winning/losing by tenths on 2-4 year old scrubs the last two seasons. So it felt good to not have any real equipment excuses anymore.

Rumors of STX changing have me kinda wanting to look at taking this to SoloNats next year, or at least a couple big Tour events. We'll see...

I pray STX doesn't change. I've been in DS holding out and getting nailed by all the gen 2's and CTRs for the 3rd year now. Every year it's "well maybe I'll get suspension and wheels next year".

Those coilover covers are rad. Adding that to my list.

You are having way too much fun, I'm Jealous..

This is a fascinating thread. Good work man.

What are the rumored changes to STX?

2nd gen twins going to STX, making the first gen's pretty much obsolete, unless you're going SSC. 2017-2020's would then be completely outclassed everywhere since they can't go to SSC.

Here's the official statement: "The STAC is considering moving the second generation twins (BRZ & GR86), NB Miata and NC Miata from STR to STX. The STAC has received a high volume of letters regarding these cars and is considering the current competitive balance in STR and STX."

I think there's the argument that STR Miata's are still well ahead of STR 2nd gens. And they just really like catering to the Miata crowd.

My take is at least give the fist gen's a neat place to play (STX) and the 2nd gens, being newer also, have DS to play in and be competitive.

If it goes through my 2017 is basically screwed and I was planning on keeping it long term. :thumbdown:

I do think the NB and NC could go to STX and not upset anything. A better PAX for those are just fine. That makes sense at least. The ND on the other hand is just damn quick. But then you have the slight problem at "street touring roadster"... is well, for roadsters.

They already pulled that proposal.

https://i.imgur.com/m7tFWHol.png

I'm not sure what "ideal" is, but essentially killing the current STX and making it STR.2 so the even older, more expensive and less relevant S2000 can have a place to play seems short sighted.

A new ST class STM was also floated, so that current STX doesn't get destroyed and STR can remain ND2 country.

Currently, STX and STR seem like one horse shows which isnt ideal, but i like my horse and am clearly biased.

Welp...
New year. New autocross season. Even more peer pressure from the local buddies to do a national tour event or something bigger and "more serious" but i dunno...


I absolutely crammed in a bunch of prep on Saturday. New tires, front ARP studs, Whiteline RLCAs, Whiteline shifter bushing insert thing, Recaro SPG back in, and attempted to swap my Deka ETX9 in, but couldnt source M6 to SAE posts anywhere locally :(

I just saw you're in Columbus. I'm on the fence about the Cleveland Tour. 3 hours from me and I think it's only about 2 hours from you. I did Finger Lakes last year in DS and it was an adventure. Wineries, waterfalls... it was more than just taking your 6 runs over two days. Camping on site too, which a bunch of people did. Shower trailer too. But with Cleveland, I can't find anywhere to camp near the site and hotel costs for 3+ days add to the whole thing. I'd recommend doing at least one national level event though. It's interesting.

Do you think the Deka ETX9 is going to be enough power? Only 120CCA - which is the only thing you can really compare vs their other sizes. They don't list regular cranking amps for us fair weather folks. My worry is it might not hold a charge over a week or longer.

I was looking at the ETX-30L with 440CCA mainly because it looks like the height of the case would work well with just bolting it straight in at 6.8". DEKA ETX15L is around 6.5" and might work easily with a washer or two to space on the threads and get it to fit without any real modification. 220 CCA there.

How are you mounting the super small ETX9?