With 2 days to kill before our time to practice and qualify at Long Beach we loaded up the trailer after FormulaDrift Media Day and decided to take a 1.5 hr drive out to the high desert which is Willow Springs Raceway. I must say I wish Las Vegas Speedway had the same feeling about their tracks. We get no love out there in terms of events or even use of the tracks. Willow Springs on the other hand has a basically free open rental at any open day to use a few of their tracks. Left at 10am after finally getting some sleep. Arrive at Noon with a bunch of fresh mounted Falken 615k’s and was time to shake the car down. My boys from DDS performance(Kyle and Dave) do some calculations and put an alignment on the car and we set all the suspension to pretty neutral. Wanted to get some real baselines of the stuff and change accordingly. The key with testing is to make adjustments with 1 thing at a time so we know what each adjustment did and if it made the car better or worse. I have a sweet spot of where I like things and Kyle and Dave dialed it in pretty quik.

This was also the first time we had mounted the new tires. The car previously has always ran 205-50-15′s all the way around and now with the need to keep up with the big teams we jumped 20mm on the rear and also went to a 16″ wheel giving us a little more contact patch. The new 225-50-16 tires were alot bigger check it out…..

With the change to the rear tire size and the alignment all done it was time to actually drive the beast.

Go out slowly and just do some soft swerving around and instantly the rear of the car was so much more planted, before I could do the same swerving and would have the rear become very light and start to slide. Now I was getting understeer (for those who don’t know, it is when the front tires are trying to turn but are past their grip potential causing it to push or not turn). The now cam’d ls1 and our superior cooling system takes a bit to warm up, soon as the 2 lights go out on the AIM dash I know the car is ready for action. Go to the normal starting line of the “Balcony” track and pop it into 2nd gear and pop the clutch and put the hammer down. (car is so light and the motor is so awesome we don’t use 1st gear anymore). The Falken’s plant hard and send the 2100lb Miata on it’s way to the first corner, grab 3rd gear and then 4th with what feels to be only a few seconds and we are entering our first clipping point at maybe 80mph. Clutch kick and bam car is floating sideways and my natural reaction is to put the gas to the floor. The car instantly feels amazing and with the newfound grip I can really lay into it. Make the transition and come around in front of Kyle and Dave as they watch from the sidelines and give it 100%. The Falken tires stay quiet with grip and start smoking like a early Freight train going up a grade. I start to giggle like a 5y/o girl and get chills all over. The car is everything I had hoped and what a difference in grip. I could flick it harder and faster then before in what felt like an unspinnable Miata. After 2 sets of 615k’s and the 5pm closure of the track we were all feeling very confident in the ability of the car and myself. Can’t say enough about Kyle for putting all the final touches on the car. The cooling system is flawless, the wiring, and the trackside support. I am very thankful that it all worked out this way. Dave and his over engineering mindset will be a huge help on the track with spotting and taking notes on the other drivers.

Willow Springs Test Day

The first photo action from media day comes from Wrecked magazine! Thank’s guys.

They have a huge list of pics from the day if you want to check it out here it is.

http://www.wreckedmagazine.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=274

Here is the couple shots we got and the new wrap layout ect!

Thanks guys for the mentions! Super stoked to see the car elsewhere and not just in my garage!

Car has been taken down to Kyle at DDS Performance for the wiring and cooling stuff I needed help with. Let’s start with the wiring!

There is ton’s of places out there that do custom ls harness work. All I did know is that I needed to stay away from the PAINFUL stuff.. I wanted a basic stand alone custom harness unloomed and cheap! Kyles would be going over it all and removing a few things and tucking things where he likes them. We are still maintaining the easy approach to keep things simple and serviceable. so after doing some looking around for the harness I came upon Sand and Street Performance out of Arizona. I made a simple call and got the owner himself on the phone. He does everything himself and knows everything there is to know about it. Told him what I needed and he was all about it.  So talk a bit further and now SSP WIRING is a sponsor for the car! I sent the ecu down just to make sure everything was still solid from before. He can do custom tuning, remove the vats, also live tests everything he does to Guarantee the quality.  3 days later I had my all new custom harness!  Props to them for the quik service and a super rad harness! Go check em out, cheapest I could find out there and super willing to work with you on whatever special requests you may need!

Kyle started with making out main electrical panel shown below. Easy to get to and has all the relays and a spare in case of an issue for a quick fix.

Wiring was ran along the passenger side rail. Things were split into “to” power and “from” power and “signals” so we could get and figure quikly.

Goes along the rail up the the kill switch and power block. And of course meets up with the ecu which will sit on the tunnel there along with the obd2 port for easy plugin and checking of the system. Custom waterjet plate cuz for the switches Kyle made.

 Super rad connector Kyle made to pass the coolant and wiring through the firewall without buying expensive mill spec bulkhead connectors.

Ok that is most of that. Huge Thanks to Kyle from DDS Performance and from SSP Wiring for the hookup and a solid product!

Moving onto the coolant aspect of the build. Now I have never heard of a Miata with a rear mounted radiator so this was a “let’s give it a try” effort in the quest to get the weight balance alot closer to perfect then the horrid old setup.  I am running a typical electrical water pump from Mezeire. Bolts onto the stock location, has better pumping( no cavitation at high rpms, works while motor is off, ect) along with the way better looks and the ability to the run the short belt for just the alternator! CLEAN! Kyle welded up a bunch of pie cuts from the 1 3/8″ piping I got local. We made a few hose joints so the system can be removed from the car if ever need.

The radiator is a dual pass Howe unit from local race shop. I ran this setup with the old motor and never had heating issues. I wanted to keep it that way and its overkill size brings some weight to the back to helpout! This is almost 4 gallons of coolant in the system! Kyle weldedthe outlets a bit to get where we needed them.

We started to figure out what was going to work and how we were going to fill and bleed the huge system. Thought about a tank up front and a fill in the rear as well.. Doing some measurements we decided the rear was still a good amount higher in the car and we could eliminate any system in the engine bay helping with weight and the clean look we wanted. Kyle started working on a custom fill/over expansion tank in the back only! Clean!

Engine bay all clean! You can sneak a peek here at the cusom mounted s14 sway bar

Here is the rear of the car all finished. The quest for killer cooling was found awhile back when  searched what was the baddest fan out there. Ford Taurus 2 speed fan from any 3,8 motor setup which are cheap from a junkyard or not to crazy new. They flow over 4000 cfm and are oem reliability!

I went the next best step and heard about the Lincoln Mark VIII fans found on the v8 cars. 2 speed 1″ bigger to a 18″ fan and a capacity of 4500-4800 cfm depending on the actual fan. Mine was a full new unit I think I paid $180 bucks. This thing yanks air!

Fill the car from the rear tank here turn the waterpump on and Bam all bled!