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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Brian
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Re: ND Measurements Thread...

Post by Brian »

Our ND arrived with massive front TOE IN....which is relatively harmless except it makes the car slow. Thus, enthusiast drivers should expect to immediately do alignment because as has been true of Miata since the very first, the 'stock' alignment is really no alignment at all.
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Brian Goodwin
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Brian
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Re: ND Measurements Thread...

Post by Brian »

Had a few requests to show location of oil filter, here you go, under front aluminum panel.

And Pearl Voodoo Knob installed in ND.
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Brian Goodwin
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Re: ND Measurements Thread...

Post by Brian »

First ND autocross for our young racers Ryan and Sean....they had a blast!
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Brian Goodwin
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Ryan @ GWR
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Re: ND Measurements Thread...

Post by Ryan @ GWR »

Fun times testing at the autocross!

If there's one thing to take away from the weekend, it's that this new car has SERIOUS potential. More so than we've seen with any previous generation even. ND on hot street tires sets top 3 time out of 80 competitors?? I drove the thing and even I am in a bit of disbelief. It's that good... read on for the details.

So Brian took the ND down to the SCCA event last weekend and came away predicting QUICK times with good tires, with the car only a few seconds off the hot street-class cars.

A week later, now we're out here with the BMWCCA. Lots of non-BMWs here as well, and many SCCA competitors who use these events as test n' tune opportunities. In fact several guys today were prepping for Nationals, so lots of good benchmarks.

This time we were equipped with the Bridgestone RE71R in 205/50/16 on Enkei wheels; this is the current "street tire to have", but still fairly conservative in width. We have our new 6-piston front caliper upgrade fitted over stock rotors, and also some new chassis bracing being tested. All in all, not thaaat much changed from stock. We're still experimenting with spring rates, with current springs stiffer than stock.

So now to the driving. Traction control OFF, stability control OFF, slip the clutch a bit and GO. First impression shifting to second is the appreciated fact that finding gears even when shifting fast with motor revving high is completely intuitive. That gets reinforced when I go for 3rd gear in the middle of a high-speed sweeping right - something my NA does not do quite so effortlessly. The suspension is SOFT, even with our stiffer test springs. That's being exaggerated by the fresh and very sticky tires. Driving at speed takes a very gentle touch. There is much we can improve here to make the handling much more direct and responsive and easy seconds left on the table as it sits right now. The brakes are great! Half way round the lap I'm feeling very thankful that we put the caliper kit on the car as I drop 30mph in a blink for a sharp off-camber left hander. Nice firm pedal with tons of stopping power, at least that's so right up to the moment I overheat the pads on the third lap. For our front calipers we chose to use the mildest pads on our shelf so as to not cause an imbalance with the factory brake pads in the rear, and they just don't have the heat capacity needed for this kind of use. Thanks to a plethora of tried and true pad options for these calipers, this will be a piece of cake to remedy. And the largest factor of all - torque! Like no Miata before it. Forget comments from keyboard racers that it should have more power. I chose to leave it in 3rd gear where in any other Miata I'd have downshifted because the car had no problem jumping from apex to apex even when a little out of the power band.

That's all well and good but how did it drive?? Well, once I adjusted to how the car needed to be driven with suuuper gentle inputs to let the car settle on the outer side and take a set and then carve through the turn, I could look past the body roll and focus on experiencing the balance that Mazda has given us with this new chassis. And boy did they hit this one out of the park. Couldn't have said this back before we "fixed" the alignment, but the car now has that perfect "tail follows the nose" rotation, with every little input from your hands and feet giving you precisely what you're expecting.

Enough of the touchy-feely stuff. That's water under the bridge if it turns out to be slow! But slow it was not, my friends. Check out the results, this just a snapshot of top 25 out of a full field of 80. At the top we have our very own Brian setting the bar in his silver NC that is current points leader in SCCA XP class (heavily modified) on old race tires. 2nd place taken by a very well set-up NB with all the go-fast suspension and differential tricks in the book on wide BFG Rival S tires (comparable to RE71R) . And wait, what's that? The ND in 3rd, just half a second back! On a preliminary testing setup using prototype parts and still just figuring out what the car likes and doesn't like. And 4th and beyond? 76 other cars from mild to wild on a combination of street and race tires. Of this snapshot of top 25, the three LEAST modified cars are the Porsche Cayman, the Corvette, and our ND:
080215 Results.jpg
Sean @ GWR
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Re: ND Measurements Thread...

Post by Sean @ GWR »

After getting a quick feel for the ND on the street last week, I was itching to drive it at the autocross. This weekend Brian brought down the ND for more testing at the San Diego BMWCCA event. Today lots of fast SCCA and regulars were out to play, so it was an excellent chance to benchmark the ND's performance.
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Prior to the event, Ryan finished up the 6 piston brake project and we mounted some fresh RE-71r tires (205/50/16) onto 16x8 Enkei RPF1s. Brian also swapped in an OEM LSD and some lowering springs for testing. Not completely stock but all the upgrades, except the tires, were very mild. Previously, Brian ran the car at an autocross the week before with stock wheels/tires and the LSD upgrade. Based on his results, he was predicting the car would be much faster after springs and some fresh tires.

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On track I quickly learned the car was very soft, even with the lowering springs. You have to be patient with the car rolling onto the bump stops in order for it to go fast. The tires also made this worse, the RE71 has a crazy amount of grip and want way more spring than this car has currently. However, despite the body roll, the ND hauls and it was very easy to drive. In fact, the ND was just as fast as some of the local STR NCs which came to this event to prep for nationals. Ryan was able to get the 3rd fastest time overall (out of 80) and I was only .7 seconds off his pace. It is safe to say the speed potential is very high for this car.

I was also very surprised by the electric power steering in the ND, this was an aspect of the car I was unsure of. Thankfully, the steering was communicative and weighted just right, this made catching excessive amounts rotation very easy. Furthermore, the gearbox was very positive and never left you guessing what gear you were looking for. If I had to compare the gear box to another car, it reminded me of an S2000...only better. Another huge plus was the increased spacing between gates, second to third reminded me of the 5 speeds in NAs.

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Finally, the motor in this car is an absolute gem. Combined with the gearing in the 6 speed, the numbers are a lie. The ND moves was faster than the 155hp would lead you to believe and the torque lets you could dig out of a corner with ease and short shift while still maintaining a very quick pace. Another common complaint I've heard is about the lower redline, after driving today I didn't find myself really wanting more. Again with the power band on this motor, you don't need to go for every last RPM and can go for another gear instead.

In summary, the ND is a Miata on steroids. It does everything a perfectly sorted NB2 track toy could do only better in every conceivable way out of the box. The speed potential for this chassis huge and reminds me the numbers do not tell the story. Mazda really did their home work and I'm excited to see the chassis to be developed further.
Curves
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Re: ND Measurements Thread...

Post by Curves »

A report on the performance of the ND at the BMW autocross today. This is a rather lengthy report but I feel I need to add some context and baselines for it to be meaningful.

The ND looked awesome with it's lowered stance and Brake kit. I was corner working when Ryan of Good-win Racing ran his timed laps. I was impressed with the straight line speed. Cornering – well, it looked fast but still too soft. I come in from corner working getting ready to run my timed laps and am shocked to hear that Ryan ran a 85.464. Although the timer was not running during practice (typical BMW events) my buddy stop watched me in the 84 – 85's s on a few laps. How was this possible when I beat the ND without its recent MILD upgrades by 4 seconds on a 50 second course just last week?

My car is the same setup as last week with the same set of tires. RE-71 now with 80 runs on them. My car was loose all day and my fastest lap was my 3rd lap which is unusual for me in a 12 run event. I normally can pick up 1-2 seconds in Practice 2. By timed runs, I had 90 runs on the tires and the track got really hot with the sun coming out. The car was really really loose. I could not put power down. My tires are heat cycled out. That is my excuse today LOL!. I spun out my first timed run. Coned my second timed run. DNF'd my 3rd run. Fourth timed lap I pulled a little back due to no grip and was 0.5 seconds slower than my 3rd lap in the morning – 86.064. So the ND beat me by 0.6 seconds!

I am shocked it is this fast so early in its development cycle. Now let's ask how good a driver am I and how well prepared my car is? Me in my car is not going to attend nor would it trophy at Nationals. As many know, STR So. Cal has some top national caliber drivers. On a course that I do not have to shift to 3rd I am within 0.5 seconds of the top drivers e.g. last week Jason Munchoff beat me by 0.397 seconds. On the faster 70mph courses were I have to shift to third two to three times, the S2000's and 5-Speed NC (Max Hayters old car) will beat me by 1.5+ seconds.

This course was a high speed BMW event so much longer and faster than SCCA. The equivalent event to this where top STR drivers show up is PCAOCR. These drivers are Bob Endicott, Nick Bjoin and Ken Montonishi in S2000's. They will beat me by around 2.5 seconds. Ken drove my car for 2 runs at the last PCAOCR and was 0.1 seconds faster than me. My car cannot hang with the S2000's at these high speed events. Jeff Cawthorne in his 5-speed STR NC could hang and often beat these guys. But that is Jeff...

Let's hypothesize. If I had grip and a good driving day, I could have run 84.5. Subtract 2.5 and a top STR S2000 would have run 82.0. The softly sprung ND with stock shocks and 205 RE-71R ran 85.4. Damn, it has potential... I think it is going to be faster than the NC but still not sure about the S2000 yet on a higher speed course.

Timed Runs. The two ND drivers drove Brian's ND. WT Wong is an alien driver that produces miracle times in such a low powered car. I (my car actually) is normally faster than WT by 1.5 - 2 seconds consistently at an event like this. But not today...

Brian Goodwin Silver Turbo NC on Street Tires 82.665
WT Wong NB (Xidia Coilovers, 225 Rival-S) 84.953
Ryan ND 85.464
Robert Joe (Me) STR NC 86.064
Carl Lewis STR NC 86.136
Sean ND 86.350
Curves
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Re: ND Measurements Thread...

Post by Curves »

This is my fastest lap of the day. Car was a little loose but much better than timed runs. Using the power of video, I come to 85.0. So grip issues during timed runs cost me 0.5 seconds. An additional 0.5 second slower near the end of the day is normally what we see at Qualcomm during the summer due to heat building up on the Asphalt.

So the ND in its current stage of early development is running as fast as what you see here. The up hill straight I hit 6721 RPM, 73 mph. The straight heading east, I hit 6327, 74 mph. At 74 mph I was off throttle. On throttle I was at 7085 RPM, 72 mph.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D1Wsp0 ... e=youtu.be

If Team-Goodwin have any data to share that would be great. Or even at what points in my video you shifted gears.
Curves
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Re: ND Measurements Thread...

Post by Curves »

WARNING: Do not read this post if you cannot afford to buy springs for your ND :)

Second ND Miata Autocross. A compilation of various runs through the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsB4vKj ... e=youtu.be

Compare this video to the one last week where it was completely stock except for a factory LSD added. Car is still too soft but boy what a big difference! Sway Bars would tame the wheel lift you see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwBtQWFtwB0
Brian
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Re: ND Measurements Thread...

Post by Brian »

Great post, it really does look HIGH in the stock video and the extra body roll is obvious.

Thanks for the post!
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Chuck H
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Re: ND Measurements Thread...

Post by Chuck H »

Brian wrote:Adding even mild springs has revealed that the ND does still have considerable cowl shake, so we are working on ND bracing already too!
That brace looks really good! Is it made with the same aluminum honeycomb material as your NC brace setup? Awesome job on getting upgrades out less than 2 weeks after the car hits dealerships, too!

Can't wait to see some actual pics of the Roadstersport muffler you came up with! Hopefully a midpipe is one of the next projects after the muffler. From the measurements posted earlier in this thread, it looks like the majority of the midpipe is basically 2" piping, unless the pre-production cars had exhaust parts from the 1.5L model on them and the 2.0L exhaust is different. Might be worth getting the calipers up on your production car's midpipe to see if it still measures 2.1". If that's the case, I'm guessing that increasing the midpipe size to 2.25" would give you some high end gains without losing any low end torque. Making the jump all the way to 2.5" may or may not give you any additional high end gains, but might start to affect the low and mid-range torque.
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