949 Racing project car - Blub

[Code Monkey]

Super excited! Any idea what spring rates you are planning on using for track, street, double-duty applications, coupled with alignment and suspension setting recommendations?

[949 Racing]

Originally Posted by Code Monkey

Super excited! Any idea what spring rates you are planning on using for track, street, double-duty applications, coupled with alignment and suspension setting recommendations?

Yes. No point in publishing what our starting points are now however. From what we have observed so far, the typical chassis tuning for this platform is counter intuitive and seemingly not grounded in a methodical setup procedure.
Most cars are setup up very different from the direction we are going. So the parts and setup we offer might be new compared to what the 86 community is doing now.

Current plan is to offer two basic spring packages. A Sport Touring version for best possible daily driver ride quality, some canyons and occasional HPDE or autocross. The other will be our Race package with much higher rates. The Race kit will still work as a daily driver, probably riding about as well as OEM but have the capability of handling 1.5g worth of tire on a bumpy race track with some downforce.
There will also be the option of custom rates but we tend to steer people away from that unless they really understand what they are doing.

[86_IT]

Originally Posted by 949 Racing

86 Xida Protos are here. Testing begins tomorrow. Final production versions will look a little different. 2 piece billet strut flange is adjustable to allow fine tuning bump travel to available tire clearance. OEM stroke so the only limit to bump travel is when your tires run out of room. This also allows you to run OEM or any aftermarket camber plates and still dial in bump travel. Double digressive pistons. Single, triple and electronically controlled semi-active ACE versions. There are more trick design features we'll talk about in the coming weeks.

Hell Yeah!!!

[86_IT]

Originally Posted by 949 Racing

Yes. No point in publishing what our starting points are now however. From what we have observed so far, the typical chassis tuning for this platform is counter intuitive and seemingly not grounded in a methodical setup procedure.
Most cars are setup up very different from the direction we are going.

So the parts and setup we offer might be new compared to what the 86 community is doing now.

I feel like we are about to see something similar to what the aussies to with higher front springrates than rear....

[949 Racing]

Quick look at the new touchscreen controller for Xida ACE shocks.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24CrPhh3JgE"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24CrPhh3JgE[/ame]

[AngelGT86Racer]

Originally Posted by 949 Racing

86 Xida Protos are here. Testing begins tomorrow. Final production versions will look a little different. 2 piece billet strut flange is adjustable to allow fine tuning bump travel to available tire clearance. OEM stroke so the only limit to bump travel is when your tires run out of room. This also allows you to run OEM or any aftermarket camber plates and still dial in bump travel. Double digressive pistons. Single, triple and electronically controlled semi-active ACE versions. There are more trick design features we'll talk about in the coming weeks.

So, it seems like these will be handled similar to the Miata Xidas? A user can opt to run standard shock mounts or option the 949 coaxial mounts/camber plates?



If one already has a set of, say, RaceSeng camber plates, you would theoretically just need to have the correct size spring adapter (I'm guessing 2.25" based on the Miata ones.) If using standard rear mounts, I would guess you'd just need a cup style spring adapter for centering.



Also, nice to see the front is inverted.
I think everyone who came from the Miata community to the 86(myself included) is pretty damn excited to see these come into existence.

[949 Racing]

Yup, any top mount, including OEM. 2.25" springs front and rear. Like we do with our Miata shock, we will provide spring locators to work with the OEM mount.

We have a set of Raceseng plates on Blub now. When researching all this I saw that the stack height for the various camber plates on the market were all over the place. And only one or two were close to OEM. Getting optimum bump travel is critical for this platform as it is for many others. But it is impossible to fine-tune that bump travel with a lighter, cooler running, full stroke fixed length assembly without knowing the stack height of the camber plate. That's why we designed the adjustable strut flange. That gives us full OEM shock stroke which you do not get with a two-piece, length adjustable coilover. So best of both worlds and in terms of both versatility and functionality.

This shock has some features which will allow quite a bit more camber then OEM without the use of camber plates. More details on that to follow.

[Jamestl]

Originally Posted by 949 Racing

86 and ND, we like both. We have nothing to add beyond what you have already read from the automotive press.

ND is a convertible, which can be a magical experience when the weather is right. 86 is a more useful car with the extra storage and interior space.

Dynamically, one is a purpose built, ground up design sports car, the other isn't.

Curious... I thought both were designed from the bottoms up to be sports cars?

[Jamestl]

Originally Posted by 949 Racing

Blub is prepped to the same rules as your car. It is also daily driven. But skeptical comments are the beginning of the resentment. "You guys suck for coming in and blowing everybody away but hey what's your setup?"
No one likes to get beat but they want to know what the fast guys are doing . That's fair.

Frankly when we race in NASA against the best race teams in the country we sometimes get the same reactions. "You guys suck because you're beating everybody, but hey can you help me with my driving line and share your set-up?" On more than one occasion, NASA management actually asked us to win by less margin to make the competition appear closer.

When I think about it more, I don't know how to do things half way. Leaving modifications undone, not fussing over the setup and simply not trying hard is just well.. it's not in my DNA. I am a racer. And yes you can get a ride, get coached by Sonny and learn everything about our setup. Hopefully you will go faster too. In the end that's all we really care about.

But if there is enough backlash, we simply will sell the car and not participate. If that happens there won't be any Xidas or other parts development from us. We breed our parts in competition. That happened in Corvette Challenge when I was personally banned from competition by having a points value assigned to me as a driver. Z06 was sold, no Xidas or Corvette wheels.

We experienced a similar backlash in Miata Challenge so we decided to change the rules to allow shop teams to compete but not be eligible for awards points or prizes. Standing on the podium is not why we do it. Developing the parts and platform while setting a higher standard for lap times, are. For what it's worth we don't plan on doing every 86 cup event. Partly because we're too busy but even if we weren't, we don't want to upset the natural order of things.

I'm disheartened to hear this, and hope people realize that it's a learning opportunity. I have no idea who this guy Sonny is but he seems to be blowing everyone else away, so why not take advantage and learn from him? Put in a data recorder in his car and compare data. I bet he'll drive other people's car faster than they can, and they'll drive Sonny's car slower than him, so why the resentment?

Having an ego in a hobby sport is insane. Frankly having an ego in anything in life where one is not the best is insane. It took me a long time to figure it out but we can all learn so much more if we had a growth approach to everything we do in life.

Keep kicking ass and I look forward to the development of the car!

[949 Racing]

Originally Posted by Jamestl

Curious... I thought both were designed from the bottoms up to be sports cars?

Um, no.

ND platform was designed, ground up to be a 2 seat roadster using entirely new parts pretty much everywhere except the engine, which was a retuned version of the Mazda 3 engine.

Engine almost all behind front axle centerline
50/50 weight distribution
Double wishbone suspension
Extensive use of aluminum and thin gauge steel in tub
Transmission, brakes and diff all engineered just for the ND

86 is a parts bin special.
-53% weight on nose
-Engine almost entirely ahead of front axle centerline
-Struts in stead of wishbones because H4 engine config restricts space for control arms.
-Rear steer (rack behind axle) leftover from front drive architecture.
-Generally all repurposed drivetrain, brakes and suspension parts from FWD Subaru

Don't misunderstand me, we love the 86 and it's a very well engineered sports coupe. Faster than an S2000 with equal mods, despite the S2000 being a truly ground up sports car. But the 86 was not designed from the ground up as a sports car. Many design compromises because of the parts they were forced to use top remain within the development and production cost targets.

Like the 911, which was deigned using leftover beetle parts, the 911 has become something very special. So no shame in being a parts bin special.
In this sense, the ND has more in common with a typical Ferrari, being designed from a clean sheet to be a 2 seat sports car.

When we first sat an pre-production build 86 in our shop Spring 2012, I was disappointed to see the huge gap from the rear plane of the engine to the firewall. The reason? Leftover rear steer from a FWD Subaru. Then we drove it

May 2012

[finch1750]

Originally Posted by 86_IT

I feel like we are about to see something similar to what the aussies to with higher front springrates than rear....

My first coilovers were 7k F/6k R (Feal 441). I actually like them and now that I have more seat time to really understand I hope to try a set-up like that again at some point. I really like how well the car handled but was even more a noob so hard to really know lol.

Would be interesting if that's how the Xidas turn out

[redlined600]

Originally Posted by 949 Racing

When we first sat an pre-production build 86 in our shop Spring 2012, I was disappointed to see the huge gap from the rear plane of the engine to the firewall. The reason? Leftover rear steer from a FWD Subaru. Then we drove it

May 2012

As a two 2x miata owner (one with xidias) The twins are better than they look on paper, imo of course.

I, for one, am glad you have you aboard the train and look forward to future developments.

As long as we are speculating on spring rates I'm guessing somewhere in the 500f/600r range

[AngelGT86Racer]

The nice thing about being a parts bin car, was the extensive aftermarket support already available when the car launched. Our rear subframe is 95% identical to *current* WRX and STI. So your selection of adjustable arms is quite large, subframe inserts were available from day one... etc. Calipers and pad shapes are carried over from other mass produced Subarus.
On the flipside, the ND and previous Miatas have full alignment adjustability from the factory. Granted, I've become a bigger fan of turnbuckles over eccentrics since owning an FR-S and installing aftermarket arms.
Also, nice to know you guys measured 53% front weight bias. When I measured mine, it came out to 55% front.

[949 Racing]

Ours was 54%, but I was quoting factory specs to avoid arguments