New TURBO NC for XP Class...Our New "NC-EXTREME" PROJECT!

[Ryan @ GWR]

Friday dyno fun with the NC Turbo!

After working through a few hiccups we now have a solid, safe tune with 380hp and 340ft-lbs of torque. That should move the 2250 lbs along quite nicely!

Horsepower:

Torque:

[Ryan @ GWR]

Last weekend we took the car out for a shakedown at the local autocross and had a great opportunity to learn a lot about the car. Love these local events so we can test/tune conveniently before all the effort involved in going to the track. Keep in mind, this is the first time this car has really ever been taken around a corner fast - it's previous life as a drift car it was never dialed in to do this!

Great example here of something that guys often overlook - that an assembly of parts only gets you so far, tuning and revising is what makes a car fast. SO many elements that were completely un-tuned at this point.

First few times out with both Sean and I driving, our initial impressions were this car is a BEAST - lots of GO and tons of power, but lots of understeer and NO brakes - which made the power even more... "thrilling"

A few tweaks later we had it rotating better and starting to get some feel in the steering, but nothing much we could adjust track-side to get the brakes working; going into this shakedown we just bled the brakes and ran whatever the drift guys had put on the car so many years ago, plus it is a full manual brake setup with no booster whatsoever, so lots of variables and unknowns there.

With suspension adjustments made, we went into the timed runs and I was able to wrestle the car to a Top Time of Day despite being in such an early state of tuning, which tells me we have TONS of potential in this car as we get things dialed in.

Much learned and more things added to the to-do list that hangs in the shop by this car.
This is all part of the process

[jboemler]

Glad you posted text info! From the pictures, I thought you were building a Cone Collector to speed the course tear-down!

[Ryan @ GWR]

Haha indeed we haven't taken the timid approach with the front splitter. There's much more I'd like to do with the aero package for this car, but first priorities within a limited timeframe were to get the big primary elements done that will net us the most downforce for time spent. That means BIG wing and BIG front splitter, applying the tricks we know to designing aero to get the best results.

Didn't spend any time making aero adjustments at this shakedown, many other things to focus on and we'll wait until we're at the racetrack where the aero really comes alive. Other elements can be added later to fine tune the setup.

[jboemler]

All kidding aside, doesn't a splitter that big really interfere with the ability to slither among the cones? I realize the courses are faster down there than the tiny venues up here, but it still seems like you might as well be wheeling a fire engine around.

[Brian]

Built for track... merely getting tested in local autocross.

Nonetheless, look at A-Mod autocross cars, about 25% of the total length is invested in the front splitter... and they do it because it works.

[Ryan @ GWR]

Brake pads in the car were old and crumbling stuff, those are being swapped out to our high-torque Porterfield R4-1s.

One of our distributors is a great guy who specializes in brakes and has lots of experience building braking systems for Grand Am and World Challenge teams. I pulled all the measurements off our current setup, sent those to him and he did the math on the hydraulic system for us. We decided to change master cylinder sizes to give us more line pressure from less leg force. This should make it easier to drive fast consistently. We're also adding a remote knob so that we can make small adjustments to the bias on-the-fly from the driver's seat:

Brake bias knob installed below the shifter so it's within easy reach (seat position is so far back that you have to extend your shoulder out of the seat to reach the center dash console). Our steering wheel extension also arrived to place the wheel where we need it given the seating position - it was quite a reach to the wheel without it last weekend, so the ergonomics are now sorted out:

[Ryan @ GWR]

Sean was configuring sensors with the AIM dash and wrapped things up with a new start-up greeting:

[Ryan @ GWR]

With track time coming up fast, still on the list was to give the car some fresh new colors.

We went with a dark gray metallic. I like how the yellow in the interior pops where you can see it against the gray, and it's a little less in-your-face than having the whole car yellow

We had a sunny day in the mid 80's out at Chuckwalla Valley Raceway for testing. Sean brought out his Track NA as well:

Lots of great initial impressions from the test day and we're starting to get many elements dialed in now. We ended up blowing the weak NC1 transmission, but not before we made good progress and all of the data and sector times are pointing towards us having a very capable machine in the works here. We'll be putting a stronger NC2 6 speed in shortly.

It's a rather fun experience, usually we Miata guys catch all the giants in the corners and then they rocket away on the straights. Not so with this car... Porsches, Corvettes, etc. - this car catches them in the corners and then charges right by them at full throttle on the straights!

[eflove]

Nice. Are you running a RX-8 diff? Good luck with the trans if you stripped a gear. As long as I stay out of 6th things hold up. The physical size of 6th is just too small. it doesn't stand a chance.