| MIATA BUILD |
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 | |  | October 15, 2008 - The weekend after the wet and foggy autocross, I was at it again.
No, you just can't have enough racing. This time, though, I was driving Elvis. That's a Miata put together at Flyin' Miata with an LS1 engine - an all-aluminum Corvette engine, basically. Brandon and I were sharing the car so it ended up being a real driver's competition. I managed to beat him, but by less than 0.3 seconds.
So why is this on the Targa site? Because I think this would be an absolutely killer Targa car. Not this particular one - the suspension is too track-biased - but this engine in the Targa Miata would be a beast. The engines start at about 300 hp/300 ft-lb and go up from there, and the overall weight gain is under 200 lbs. More importantly, the car has almost endless torque and would catapult itself out of corners regardless of what gear you're in. The biggest problem would be getting enough nerve to unleash the beast! That plus the increased rear tire wear.
Actually, the biggest problem is that I'd have to run in Open class, up against the factory teams and the big guns. But this car was so much fun to drive, I think I'd be willing to take that penalty...
entry 634 - tags: v8 | | |  | May 7, 2009 - Open wide!
This is the lineup of cars at the Mitty. The white one (without a lurid Martini paint job) is a car from Grassroots Motorsports. When I was at the Mitty last year, I helped install a turbo on the car and double its horsepower.
Beside that are two V8-powered cars, and of course the Targa car. I spent a bit too long standing in close proximity to the V8s.
Like every Targa competitor, I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the perfect car for the event would be. It needs to have a combination of small size, light weight and speed - and the older the better to take advantage of the longer base times. A BMW 2002 is a very good choice and it's no wonder the car's done well the last few years. I'm thinking a Mk1 Escort with a 1600 BDA might be able to run in class 4 and still have the same power/weight ratio as the Targa Miata as well as factory-developed rally parts - but much, much more time to finish a stage without penalties.
My own class - 8 Modified Small - is a tough one to be competitive in. The difference between the Large and Small speeds is minuscule, so the low-power smaller engine does me no favors. However, I can't increase the engine size more than 20% so the car's stuck there. The fairly new build date of the car hurts too, but dropping back to class 7 would mean using the weaker differential from the 1.6 chassis as well as the smaller engine and a bunch less torque.
Assuming the same level of driving ability - the car certainly is capable of going faster in a different set of hands - the best way to make the car more competitive might be to take it into Open class. Yup, the deep end. The handling is good already. What it needs is blasting power. The ability to teleport up to the maximum 200 kmh at every opportunity.
And that means a V8. Less than a 200 lb weight gain and an extra 200 ft/lb of torque at idle. Heck, probably more. Drop in an LS3 crate motor and there's 430 hp with the factory engineering to run for a couple of hundred thousand miles. The small size and nimble handling of the Miata but with the acceleration of, well, just about anything. The biggest problems would be putting the power down and keeping the driver from wetting himself.
I seem to have rather wandered off on a tangent here, but the logic works. Doesn't it? It's probably just as well we're not liable to be going back any time soon.
entry 675 - tags: Mitty, V8 | | |  | May 10, 2009 - Another track day!
This time, the Targa car sat in the trailer and I drove Elvis, the LS1-powered bar (back in full health) instead. It took me some time to come to terms with the car. It simply seemed squirrely. Not so much under power - it behaved exactly as expected then - but during braking and cornering. It's the first time I've set up a car with this particular tire so that's part of it, and it has good brakes but without adjustment options.
But what I finally realized was going on was that I was expecting its cornering and braking ability to be in line with its acceleration ability. It thunders down the straight like the turbocharged Westfield beside it, but it still corners like a Miata and not a 1300 lb featherweight. So I had to bleed off more speed for the corners, and my Targa braking points didn't work because the car weighs 400 lbs more and was going considerably faster. So the problem wasn't the car's traction, it was simply that I was asking too much of it.
Of course, another problem was the red mist. My first session out, I'd blown away the fastest Miata to ever run the track. So I was hoping to beat the track record for Miatas by as much as possible. I did, by a considerable amount. And now that the mist has faded, I realize that I need to spend some time tuning this car on a big track, where I can get it settled on a long sweeper to set the basic handling balance and then tune the transitions from there. The car still handles well, I just want to bump it up to the top level. Not bad for a street car though.
I took Janel out for a few laps. She was impressed by the violence. It would be a very effective Targa car, but it would take a different driving style than the current setup. The fact that it was faster in street trim than the Targa car is in race trim is a good sign.
Janel also took her own car out for a couple of sessions. Now that she's experienced the Targa car at its best, she was quite adamant about the shortcomings of her previous ride. "I miss my tires! I want my brakes!", she informed me. Oh boy...
entry 678 - tags: other cars, v8 | | |  | November 4, 2009 - Temptation.
Okay, I was really just doing some suspension work on the car and the plastic V8 mockup happened to be used for something else. But wouldn't these two work well together?
entry 717 - tags: V8 | | |
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