Daily Hillclimb Build (s30)

[drummingpariah]

I was under the impression that the IAT needs to be ~6" before the throttle body and not inside the intake manifold because of all the turbulence. I could be wrong though, just thought i would mention it.  

I've seen people on the MS boards argue both ways. My thinking is that if it works fine for ITB installs to have it past the TB, it'll work for me. Basically, I want the IAT reading to be as close to what's going directly into the engine as possible.

 

I think the turbulence would help get a better reading, if anything. The more flow past the sensor element, the better. However, my placement is definitely sub-optimal, and it may read engine temp as much as the intake charge temp. Heat soak is a big concern.

[aintnobiscuit]

That makes sense to me. 

[drummingpariah]

UPDATE
This shouldn't be as exciting as it is, but I feel like this is the first time I've installed a part with the intention of keeping it there. For once, I'm done removing components and get to add stuff! Excuse the crappy cellphone pic (the sun was just about to set, and it started to rain, so I just wanted to snap some progress) and the lack of a throttle body (it's in the garage, ready for install).


The other intake manifolds that will either be sold or hacked into:


I'd like to start cleaning the interior; Does anyone have any experience with the small Harbor Freight shop vac? I've been putting off buying a shop vac for awhile, and now that I'm more-or-less ready to take the plunge, craigslist is failing me pretty hard. It'd be nice to know what's under all the sediment and grime and be able to actually paint my floors before they rot through.

[drummingpariah]

Finally moved into the new apartment. A little cleaning goes a long, long way.

[seattlejester]

Hmm, I am kind of concerned about the IAT sensor as well. 

 

With an ITB setup it would make sense to put it in that area since the throttle bodies are essentially in the runners. I've actually seen people moving the the IAT further away to more accurately read the actual IAT instead of the heat soaked IAT in the manifold. To the point where some people running ITB's without a collecting manifold will leave the sensor dangling in front of the air funnels. 

 

I suppose it is a minor concern though. At worst it will run rich as a pig and you can plug the hole and move it to the intercooler piping when the time comes.

 

Starting to shape up! Looks like you've got a bit of rust repair ahead of you.

[aintnobiscuit]

Ahhh thank you, heat soak was the other reason. I completely spaced out on that one.

[drummingpariah]

Starting to shape up! Looks like you've got a bit of rust repair ahead of you.

You've never been to New England, apparently. There's more steel than rust, which means this is in near-perfect condition! I did take a look under the floors the other day, and the bottom is pretty rough.

 

In short, with only one weekend remaining before Ascutney I and a 2010 Yaris Sedan as my backup race car, I had to take drastic action. I had to come up with an answer to 'how do I race my daily driver, but not race a Yaris?'  As everybody knows, the answer is always Miata.

 

Unlike most small-car enthusiasts, I'm not in love with the Miata. It has many good traits, but I'm just not attracted to it. It's much more fun to drive than the Yaris, but it's absolutely no replacement for a mean s30, so it's a perfect daily driver. I have no plans for heavy modifications on this thing. I'll get it ready for Ascutney I (because the s30 won't be ready/legal/etc in that time, even if it's running), then put the Yaris up for sale and only have the Miata and Datsun.

 

Not to get too off topic, but the plan for this weekend is to:

1. slap some 205-50-15 Kumho XS tires on the existing 15x6 wheels (skinny little things)
2. tighten all the suspension bolts
3. possibly replace a couple bushings here or there
4. flush all the fluids
5. Replace the brake pads
6. Turn the 'lol bar' into a 'roll bar' - A larger project, but in order to participate I need to have something better than a mousetrap waiting to chop my head off.

(lol bar - has no bracing anywhere, just one bar ... the plan is to add bracing like crazy)

 

Let's close this update up with an on-topic photo. Nestled into its new garage rather nicely, I think.

[TENDRIL]

do you make these as stickers?

 

[aintnobiscuit]

I LOLd so much  on that last post. so much win.

 

Good luck with the miata and the LOLbar. Try to take some pictures or video if you can :D

[drummingpariah]

do you make these as stickers?

 

Coming soon, along with hats (and maybe more). We're still trying to decide what sizes to print. Keep an eye on the site for updates, we've got a lot of content in the pipeline right now.

 

I LOLd so much  on that last post. so much win.

 

Good luck with the miata and the LOLbar. Try to take some pictures or video if you can :D

It's not a Miata forum, so I was holding off on throwing updates all over the place. The Datsun has been sitting since my last post, and prepping the Miata has been priority #1.

 

Laurie and I hammered it out this weekend, with nothing more than a couple angle grinders and her TIG welder (and welding skills).

 

I'm getting my tires, alignment, inspection, sa2010 helmet, and installing the fire extinguisher tomorrow. I might even make time to paint the lol bar. The weather is looking pretty wet for the weekend, and I'm starting to think the Kumho XS tires I ordered aren't going to be the best option. I'll still get up there and have fun, though!

 

All my hammock camping equipment is getting packed tonight so I'll have somewhere dry to sleep during the event, and I'm studying the shit out of previous seasons' race footage and the course maps:

 

Okemo is right around the corner (June 6) as well, and I'm not sure I'll have the money to finish the Datsun for it or if I'll have to pull the Miata up there too.

[aintnobiscuit]

Damn man, those welds are so clean....... i really need to step up my game.

[housew]

awesome.

 

im decently local in maine and would LOVE to get myself into some hill climb. I need to read up on the rules cause i don't have anything with a cage (besides my jeep) but i can see that as being a TON of fun. I do some autocross now, but hill climb looks like more fun.

 

Nice build too BTW. I know almost nothing about the 2.8 turbo but i think it going to be great.

[housew]

so looking at your roll bar its still only 4 points, doesn't have bars in front of the driver ect so its still not considered a cage. So you'll be racing "unprepared" or "street prepared" and trying to stay under the "break out time"? Seems like if you go faster you need a full cage, fire suit, extinguisher, kill switch, ect.

 

having no clue where the "break out time" falls in relation to speed / excitement I'm assuming a stock miata (or my similar porsche 914) wouldn't have a problem staying over the break out time and still having fun. Your s30 on the other hand would require a full cage ect ect since it will probably be a good deal quicker.

 

Miatas don't do anything for me either (i had a 92 at one point) but for cheap thrills / NE club racing they definitely have my respect.

[Dime Dave]

Break-out at Ascutney is 3:20.00 over 3.1 miles and 29 turns. So in a small horsepower street car on your first couple times out, it is not that easy to run under the time.

 

The event is operated by the Sports Car Club of NH. Their web site - www.sccnh.org (SCCNH also holds autocrosses at NHMS)

 

The Ascutney hillclimb is part of the New England Hillclimb Series run under the rules of the New England Hillclimb Association.  Website - www.hillclimb.org

[aintnobiscuit]

Thanks Dave! Are you aware of anything in southern california or within a hundred miles or so? I'm on my way to that website to start looking at stuff.

[housew]

Very cool dave. So I could show up in a steel roofed street car (510 240z older 911, wrx, m3 ect) drive as fast as I can (under the correct assumption I'm not awesome at competition driving) and most likely still be over the breakout time?

 

I don't care if I'm out of the point standings, I just don't want people to think I'm driving dangerously.

 

Enough highjack. Awesome build, and Hopefully I'll see it some day

[Nite_Grind]

bad ass! KUTGW!

[drummingpariah]

Damn man, those welds are so clean....... i really need to step up my game.

 

She's a pretty awesome fabricator, even with nothing more than an angle grinder and a tiny little TIG.

 

awesome.

 

im decently local in maine and would LOVE to get myself into some hill climb. I need to read up on the rules cause i don't have anything with a cage (besides my jeep) but i can see that as being a TON of fun. I do some autocross now, but hill climb looks like more fun.

 

Nice build too BTW. I know almost nothing about the 2.8 turbo but i think it going to be great.

Okemo is right around the corner (June 6-8), and you don't need a cage. As long as you stay slower than the 'breakout time' for that hill you can just put an X after your car number, and you're good to go. If you do break out, you'll get a "simmer down" warning, and if you break out again you can't run that car/driver combination on that hill until it has a cage. 

 

Break-out at Ascutney is 3:20.00 over 3.1 miles and 29 turns. So in a small horsepower street car on your first couple times out, it is not that easy to run under the time.

 

The event is operated by the Sports Car Club of NH. Their web site - www.sccnh.org (SCCNH also holds autocrosses at NHMS)

 

The Ascutney hillclimb is part of the New England Hillclimb Series run under the rules of the New England Hillclimb Association.  Website - www.hillclimb.org

We ran the long layout, so it's 4 miles and breakout was 4:20.00. I don't imagine the long layout is going to happen again for a few years, since logistics are so much more complicated and so many safety workers are required. Also, the top of Ascutney is really rough - I didn't have any issues on stock suspension but there was a lot of scraping and bouncing happening out there. 

 

To put it into perspective, we had another gutted 1.8 Miata on sticky tires with decent coilovers who ran a 4:23.5 and was ecstatic about that. He was ecstatic to get so close to breaking out, and he's fairly familiar with that hill and his car at this point.

 

Thanks Dave! Are you aware of anything in southern california or within a hundred miles or so? I'm on my way to that website to start looking at stuff.

This hillclimb association is almost exclusively Vermont-based. Hillclimbs aren't very popular on the West Coast for some reason, but VA, PA, and VT (and CO, as I'm sure you know) all seem to love them.

 

So I could show up in a steel roofed street car (510 240z older 911, wrx, m3 ect) drive as fast as I can (under the correct assumption I'm not awesome at competition driving) and most likely still be over the breakout time?

 

I don't care if I'm out of the point standings, I just don't want people to think I'm driving dangerously.

 

Enough highjack. Awesome build, and Hopefully I'll see it some day

 

Make no mistake, you'll be competing with yourself exclusively. The rule of thumb is that a driver should have ~50 runs before they're really familar with a hill and can really push their car. "As fast as you can" should be corrected to read, "As fast as I'm comfortable with."

 

This weekend, we got 3 runs and there was only one 'off-road excursion' (which means there weren't many interruptions to the day).

 

We refer to trees, rocks, rivers, cliffs, and mountain faces as 'consequences' on the hill. Driving a little to hot through any given corner may require you to deal with those 'consequences'. You don't want that. It's better to have your slowest run to the top than to have your fastest run into a tree.

 

The only reason I needed a roll bar was because I'm in a convertible, and convertibles don't have enough roll-over protection. Because I had a soft top (which rips away as soon as the car goes upside down) I also needed arm restraints, which keep your arms inside the cockpit in the event of a rollover.

 

If I had to guess, I'd say half the cars on the hill this weekend had cages.

 

Update Time!

Now that all that replying stuff is taken care of, I can say that this weekend went great. I won best in class with a 4:48.0 - my goal was to be under 5:00.0

 

I'll have video a bit later, after I've unpacked my camping/racing gear.

 

 

[aintnobiscuit]

I love WRC and hill climb. It's a damn shame you can't watch any of that kind of stuff in CA. Even the speed channel doesn't show WRC anymore that I'm aware of. I did some amateur when i was a little younger and really enjoyed it. I'd like to put another car together at some point but i'd probably just use a stock car and have fun with it. It's so easy to sink a down payment on a house into cars. 

[drummingpariah]

I love WRC and hill climb. It's a damn shame you can't watch any of that kind of stuff in CA. Even the speed channel doesn't show WRC anymore that I'm aware of. I did some amateur when i was a little younger and really enjoyed it. I'd like to put another car together at some point but i'd probably just use a stock car and have fun with it. It's so easy to sink a down payment on a house into cars. 

I'm only making modifications that I have to in order to fix what's wrong with the car. Production cars are just too expensive to make fast - if you want to be reasonably serious with this, you'll want a purpose-built car (like a Troyer). Just looking at what A-arms costs on those, and how they're designed to shear off makes me jealous. If I crash the Datsun, I might as well start over with a new shell. If I crash a Troyer, I could be back on the hill the next morning. If I just wanted to jump into something, it'd probably be a FWD econobox - maybe an 8v VW or CRX or similar. They're a blast to drive, inexpensive, and easy to work on.

 

Previous post edited to include one of my runs from Sunday. Not fast by any stretch, but I'm very happy with a run like that as my first time on the hill, and my first time in that car.

[Cpl620]

work it looking pretty legit so far. that thing was looking pretty rough before. keep it coming.

[drummingpariah]

Well, it's been awhile. I'll keep my update as brief as possible. I won my class driving the Miata last season, and am in the process of caging it right now. It's been my daily and my race car. At the last event, I installed some new fenders just after the practice day, so I could fit the wider ra1's on it without rubbing. I'll race the Datsun as soon as it's ready, but this is suiting my needs for now.

 

I also picked up an ex-rally rx7 because it seemed close to being very competitive ... but I think I'm just going to sell it instead and focus on the s30 and Miata.

I'm also planning to sell the Megasquirted l28et, and replace that powertrain altogether. If you're interested in it, let me know. I'll pull it out (from driveshaft to radiator, including megasquirt and the transmission) as soon as I have a serious offer of $2k plus shipping.

 

During all this downtime, I decided to get rid of the Chapman rear suspension and go with something more modern, tunable, and with more differential options. After spending some quality time with an angle grinder and plasma cutter, I now have an s13 rear subframe rough-fit in. It needs final alignment and welding, but even without springs or dampers, it's good enough to roll the car around again.

The tube steel suspension pickup points will be the foundation of my roll cage, since they're ideally situated for it. The tubes will be plated to the frame, and part of the roll cage, so they're going to be pretty firmly fixed in place once I have the alignment finalized.

A nut threads on to the bottom, securing the subframe to the tube.

The track width is quite a bit wider though, so I won't be able to run the same wheels in the front and rear (unless I swap out the front end as well, which is certainly an option).

 

If you think that looks cool and you're interested in doing it, I recommend backing away slowly right now. This is not for the feint of heart. Not only are the suspension pickup points in the wrong places, you'll have to chop away a bunch of 'unibody frame' in order to place the pickup points. I'll need to build a differential alignment tool and take a few measurements on the chassis to make sure the rear end is actually pointed forward, but I'm about halfway through this install.

 

This is what my main entryway into the apartment looks like, proving that I have the best girlfriend in the history of the world.

 

More updates to come soon! Remind me to keep this thread up-to-date, and you'll get much more regular news.

[ByStickel]

Thank you for introducing me to the NE hillclimb events.

 

I'm moving up there and hope to keep a pipeline of southern cars/parts going.

 

Best of luck with the Z, I hope to see it, soon.

[drummingpariah]

Thank you for introducing me to the NE hillclimb events.

 

I'm moving up there and hope to keep a pipeline of southern cars/parts going.

 

Best of luck with the Z, I hope to see it, soon.

Are you coming out for Okemo on the weekend of July 10th? I have some fun plans for the Miata, if everything comes together reasonably well. Dave is probably the fastest Datsun I've ever seen up our hills, but we don't see him all that often any more (I think just for Mt Washington last season?). It'd be great to get a few more, but be aware that there are consequences for going off the track out here, and our tech inspection is fairly stringent.

[drummingpariah]

I got a little caught up with the race season this year, and am now trying to clean up the aftermath. It was a good season in the Miata, and I ended up in first place in my class (street prepared 6) as well as winning the Killington Sports Car Club points overall (against much faster cars, with much faster drivers). It's calculated against the number of other competitors in your class, and I consistently won a consistently well-populated class. Winning feels pretty good!

 

 

I really really want to step up my game for 2016, though. That means getting ready for some heavy-duty work. I only have from Nov-April (roughly 30 weekends) to prepare the new car from start to finish. In order to make that happen, I need to put in time to make sure that I can work effectively. I'm always frustrated when I can't open both doors of the car, or when I bang my head against shelves, or can't move freely with a car in the bay. With such a small garage, it really takes some forethought to make it bearable.

 

I spent the weekend going from this:

 

... to this:

 

It required disassembling the shelf in the engine room (it was shaped like a workbench, but particle board with a bunch of screws in it is just a shelf), and moving one of the benches in its place. Right now, the engine room is an absolute disaster, but I hope to get back to it after work a few days this week.

 

The second steel workbench will also go in there, freeing up even more space in the garage bay. Ideally, I want the garage bay to be for welding and car assembly/disassembly. To support that effort, the workbenches are coming out, and I'm building some metal stock storage:

 

Once I finish that up, I'll build a cart for the welders, and add some shelves in the closet and on the walls, so I can actually WORK in this space. I'll also need to finally get a bottle for the MIG welder, since TIG isn't always appropriate and flux-core is just too messy. 

 

Preparing to start work is a lot of work, and I still have a fair amount of work to do on the Miata to prep it for winter ... after the garage prep work is done.