PROJECT ND: Parts Development, Testing, Measurements, DYNO

Miata Parts, Intakes, Superchargers, Headers, Exhausts, Shocks, Springs, Sway Bars, Brake Kits, Autocross and track mods.
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Re: PROJECT ND: Parts Development, Testing, Measurements, DY

Post by Brian »

First Full Day of MRLS!

Fun Day, thanks to all who stopped in for Coffee and Rides and Good Times!

Lots of folks asking if the FM turbo is really 5 seconds a lap faster than the supercharger kit as they posted at Miata.net thread. Perhaps that data was high altitude track near their home location where the turbo compensates and supercharger boost is locked, because at Laguna the turbo was no challenge for our Edelbrock Supercharger ND...we ran their turbo car down easily and the result looked like this over and over and I am only doing about 8/10ths because old scrub tires and passenger and this is just not a fast event (I never buy tires for this event because it is not a fast event).

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Re: PROJECT ND: Parts Development, Testing, Measurements, DY

Post by Brian »

Laguna Supercharged ND...
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NathanD277
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Re: PROJECT ND: Parts Development, Testing, Measurements, DY

Post by NathanD277 »

How are the diff and trans cooler scoops doing for y’all?
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Re: PROJECT ND: Parts Development, Testing, Measurements, DY

Post by Brian »

We can check diff temp when we get home and get it on the rack, trans hit a max of 270 F....that is normal range for many cars but I would like to see peak of just 250 with the air cooling. We have some ideas on how to get there without massively more complete fluid cooling, starting with a big heat sink that uses the extra air of our scoop and is attached to the transmission. More testing on that soon. Other ND drivers with boost reported over 300 F, that includes FM Turbo car before they went with fluid cooling. They have gone with fluid cooling that is a little more simple than Global Cup Car setup (more simple is a good thing here if it works). The FM test setup uses cooler in the nose and pumps it back and forth to the trans, and dedicated fluid cooler for the diff with pump, no fans...both depending on moving air. My guess is that without fans the Fm setup is lighter than the Global Cup Car setup, which I like. We might have to get that serious....but we imagine all sorts of issues when a car goes off track with fluid lines under the car, more points of potential failure with those lines and pump and power to the pump, etc. So we would like to avoid that potential if we can so we will keep seeking to perfect our air cooling upgrades.

The real analysis challenge is how to compare the FM liquid trans cooling results, a claimed drop of about 90 to 100 F, with our results? They told us they hit 310 F for trans before the fluid cooling, and this weekend 210-220 with fluid cooling. How do you compare their results with fluid cooling to our current progress on air cooling and peak trans temps of 270...when their laps times are a good 5 seconds slower? We were on scrubs, old race tires too slow for autocross, too many heat cycles, but with plenty of good rubber for track days and they served us well for the three days. I believe FM was on street tires. Their laps times with turbo were slower than my lap times last year with just header and suspension in the car on Rival street tires. Our faster laps mean a lot more heat into the trans and diff. Heat levels are not linear, when ability to shed the heat is exceeded, the peak temp can spike upwards in a very non-linear manner. I wish the FM car has matched our lap times because then we would have a basis for comparing their liquid cooling to our air scoop results...but without that lap time match I cannot see how we have relevant comparison data. Similarly, their publicity stunt of running fast groups and ALL the slower run groups might make good marketing, but they had to restrict their speed with the very limited passing zones of the slow groups, which meant they were in a slow conga line much of the time, with resulting lap times for the turbo FM car that were far slower than our cool down lap at the end of every group A/B session. Thus data from the slow groups is not relevant data, two minute lap times in the fast groups and slower in the other groups means they effectively did 50 sessions of cool down laps. Nothing learned without pushing the limits of the system in the car. Some might think I am happy about that result, but as a data junkie trying to plan what we need for future full tilt events that lack of parity means we cannot learn anything from FM's 'data'...and besides I had hoped to have some fun on track with the Turbo/Supercharger dice up with cars so apparently matched on dyno results and that didn't happen....boring!

Though this was not a full speed event, we pushed as hard as cooling system allowed, which was not near as fast as our supercharged prior gen Miatas. Big ambient temp swings, we could go full throttle out of the corners all morning when temps were cool 60s, afternoon temps pushed into the 80s on Saturday in particular and at that point lap times under about 1:45 sent the coolant and oil temps soaring. Back off to 1:50 for a lap and temps would drop to normal again. This was with upgraded rad and added oil cooler already in the car (though no hood vents yet). Thus, so far I love boosted ND for street use in my wife's RF, but track use for boosted ND has a long way to go, much development in cooling needed before we can hope to match lap times under1:40 with passenger of our boosted NC and earlier gen Miatas. Engine oil temps spiked high enough we did quick and dirty track mod to lower our oil temps from 250+ back to 220 range. Had to drill the grille! How is that for commitment? Look CLOSE at holes we cut in the factory grille in the lowest track pic and it looks a little BMW-ish but it worked. Will clean the grille mod up when we get home. It was my hope that the CarbonMiata Speedster grille would arrive in time for this event, the mesh of that setup is open everywhere...unlike stock grille that is closed along the top half foot. Hope to test that grille soon as part of our cooling solution, despite fact their intent was style instead of cooling upgrade.
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Re: PROJECT ND: Parts Development, Testing, Measurements, DY

Post by DanielS172 »

Why is the ND so susceptible to trans and diff temp issues? I don't recall such issues for any of the previous generations... :shock:
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Re: PROJECT ND: Parts Development, Testing, Measurements, DY

Post by Brian »

We blew up plenty of NC transmissions with track use and boost...lost count of how many I blew up. If you search it at Miata.net you will find the 5 speeds from the NC were particularly weak under such load, plenty of folks have blown up multiple units. Guys running Continental Tire series in the NC often had a dozen dead NC five speed transmissions, the 6 speeds were better. We destroyed both the NC 5 speeds...and the later stronger 6 speeds. I would say the ND transmission is a lot more delicate than NC 6 speed, but not much more so than NC 5 speed. It was on the NC that we first used air scoops to cool the transmissions to help them live longer under the abuse. Hope to solve our issues here with just another variation of what worked on the NC transmissions.

We just ran our ND trans HARD for three days of track use, an air scoop to help handle the extra heat loads, and it came home working great. :D
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DanielS172
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Re: PROJECT ND: Parts Development, Testing, Measurements, DY

Post by DanielS172 »

Interesting... Good thing I have the 6 speed for my NC. Many track days on it and it's still buttery smooth :D

What about diff temps? Did any of the other generations have diff temp issues? Or am I just misreading this this and there are in fact no diff temp issues for the ND? I can't tell if the possible solutions you're talking about are for trans or diff temps, or both.
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Re: PROJECT ND: Parts Development, Testing, Measurements, DY

Post by Brian »

I blew NC diffs too, it's all a question of how much horsepower and how hard you run it. We have prototype air scoops on both our ND trans...and the ND Diff. We have been collecting data for both. When we get home we can read the temp data on the diff, but at Mazfest the diff air scoop was proving so effective that the diff was under 200 F so we were less worried about the diff for Laguna three day event than the transmission.
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NathanD277
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Re: PROJECT ND: Parts Development, Testing, Measurements, DY

Post by NathanD277 »

You’re running the LRR 3rd and 4th gears in this trans, correct?
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Re: PROJECT ND: Parts Development, Testing, Measurements, DY

Post by Brian »

NathanD277 wrote:You’re running the LRR 3rd and 4th gears in this trans, correct?
Yes, and our box is version 3 from Mazda (my wife's RF has version 4 if memory serves me).
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