build diary

June 5, 2007:
I mentioned Eric was in town last week, but I didn't mention why.
I got married. What sort of girl would marry me? The sort that thinks it's a good idea to use little Miata and Lotus models as cake toppers. Don't worry, we did have a real cake as well!
entry 1374
Another picture from last weekend's autocross.
I like the sense of speed in this one.
entry 1375

June 6, 2007:
There was one failure at the autocross.
Early in the day, the alternator stopped charging. It's always been a little slow to energize on startup. If I didn't give a bit of a throttle blip, it wouldn't light up. Well, the old one simply had enough. I spent the entire day - probably at least a dozen runs between myself and Bill - running the car off the battery. That little Odyssey is a tough little critter, it didn't show any signs of flagging at all.

I replaced the alternator with a new one last night and everything was much better. Okay, not new. Another junkyard alternator to replace the previous junkyard alternator.
entry 1376
The Seven has a very high-end car cover.
I'm painting some parts for the Targa Miata in my "paint booth" (aka plastic sheeting hanging from the ceiling) so I have the other kids covered up. HVLP paint guns don't produce a lot of overspray and the plastic traps it all, but I'd be pretty upset with myself if I managed to get overspray on the Seven!
entry 1377
This turbo Elise stopped by Flyin' Miata.
It's the first time I've seen Chrome Orange in the original application. You know what? It looks better on the Seven. Granted, I didn't get to see this car in the sunlight where the yellow pearl lights up, but it just didn't work as well as I'd expected. Perhaps a few more details like black wheels? It sure it eye-catching though!
entry 1378

June 18, 2007:
It's setup time!
The FM Westfield is going to be heading for some magazine tests in a month. That means it's time to get into high gear sorting out the brakes and handling. The Seven will be the benchmark of course, and it's in large part to the Seven's abilities that the Westfield got invited to play with the magazines in the first place. So I'm going to be a little busy.
entry 1379

June 27, 2007:
The Seven finally gets on the cover of a magazine!
Wired magazine?

Okay, I cheated. Wired had a special program where subscribers could get their picture on the cover of their issue, and I sent in a track shot. I think the fact that it's embedded in a "you are here" bubble is pretty funny - it's like they caught me speeding on a city street with a helmet on!
entry 1380
This super-sexy race seat is a Westfield part.
I've been considering installing a pair in the Seven to drop myself further down in the car and to save a chunk of weight. And also because they look soo gooood!

They're skinny, though. And expensive. I barely fit inside and I'm not sure I want to drop that kind of dough on seats when I already have a set. But just look at them!
entry 1381

June 28, 2007:
Well, the seats aren't going to work.
While the driver's seat fits nicely into my car, the passenger's side is much too small. It's probably just as well really. The price on those seats is eye-watering. And it's not as if there's little to do on the car.
entry 1382

July 9, 2007:
No Seven fun for a while.
As part of trying to sort out the handling of the Westfield, the Seven's rear springs sorta got borrowed. Sigh.
entry 1383

July 15, 2007:
Westfield development time.
I've been trying to apply everything I learned with the Seven to the Westfield. And I think it's working. The car is really coming together well. I've been at the racetrack a couple of times sorting things out, and on my first session in the "normal" direction, I pulled a 1:04.6. That's 1.3 seconds slower than my outright record! In a car with a (basically) stock 1.8, unfamiliar ergonomics (I'm still getting used to the pedals), no recent track time on my part and some sorting left to do. Outstanding! The car feels really good and has endless brakes, modeled after mine. I need to get mine to the track with good tires so we can do a back-to-back comparison, but I think Bill should be very happy with his Westie. One problem his car has that mine never did is cooling, although we were torture testing the car on purpose.

We're loading the Westfield up on my poor trailer and dragging it to Michigan so both Automobile and Car and Driver can have their way with it. I'll be on the road for over a week and kicking back in Ann Arbor during that time. Once I return, it's time to get the Seven back into shape (I want my springs back!) and then we'll have a lightweight car showdown!
entry 1384

July 25, 2007:
I spent the past week in Michigan with the guys from Automobile Magazine and the FM Westfield.
I got a chance to see Larry Webster again as well, it's always fun catching up.

Automobile tested the Westfield for performance numbers, and the results are interesting. It turns out Car and Driver (and most other magazines) subtract a "rollout" correction factor, basically removing the time it takes for the car to move the first foot. I'm not sure why, perhaps it removes some of the variation between testers. Automobile does not.

The Westfield was fitted with a 1.8 Miata engine that was stock internally and I'm going to guess it's making about 110 at the wheels. That's down on my car, but it also should have more torque. The 0-60 time was a half second slower than my car. The braking was about 15' longer, probably due to different proportioning. Since the Westfield was tested on a proper skidpad on the Bosch testing grounds (as opposed to a small dusty parking lot at a Texas dragstrip), lateral acceleration was a very strong 1.15g. The interesting bit is the quarter mile, though. The elapsed time was a half second slower, but the trap speed was within a couple of mph. Meanwhile, my car was a full 2 seconds faster to 100 mph. That doesn't make much sense to me, but I'm not a drag racer.

There's a track day this weekend and I'm considering taking the Seven, but I think the recent push to get the Westfield finished and the 3000 mile road trip has me too tired. Besides, my rear springs are on the Westie and I'm not going to get them back until next week! But then it's time to get the Seven on the dyno and into top shape, it's going to be quite a battle for the lap record at the Open House this year. Not only will the Westfield be chasing, I'll have a turbocharged Caterham to deal with.
entry 1385

July 30, 2007:
Trackday time!
We're having a company track day on Thursday - one of the perks of working at a place like Flyin' Miata, although I must admit that spending four days planting subliminal messages in the boss' brain while driving to Michigan and back probably didn't hurt. Of course, my idea of "subliminal" is "Hey Bill, we should have a company track day".

This will be the first chance for the Seven to truly chase the Westfield around the track. Well, it will be if I get my rear springs back and manage to finish painting the Targa Miata in time so I can get the Seven out of the garage. Some work lies ahead.
entry 1386

August 1, 2007:
The springs are back!
Bill returned my springs after installing a truly drool-worthy set of Nitron shocks on the Westfield. He also handed over the Westie's original shocks - that's the black one. I'd heard they were made by GAZ and the construction certainly backs that up, but notice it has more travel both in extension and compression. Nice! I don't really have any droop travel right now thanks to the stiff rear springs and the ride height I'm running, so I figured I'd install these instead.

Alas, it was not to be. Turns out the bushings are sized for a metric bolt, or at least a smaller bolt than I used. Nuts!

The track day tomorrow should be fun, but I hope I can play for a significant period of time. One of my RA-1s took a lot of wear when I ran it on the track on a Miata and it's starting to cord on the edge. I really shouldn't take it out at all, but I'll monitor it closely. At least it's a slow track! Or I could just take the Mini instead, but that means I can't chase the Westfield...
entry 1387

August 3, 2007:
Back at Grand Junction Motor Speedway for the first time in a year, other than a few laps testing the Westfield.
It was immediately obvious that the engine wasn't happy, so my coworker Jeremy laid his hands upon the ECU programming and sorted things out nicely. He's good like that.

On the track, it was fun. Since it was just the FM employees and a couple of invited guests, we ran closer together than we usually do on this track. Specifically, Bill and I spent some time chasing each other around in the Westfield and the Seven. I was tentative at first because I was concerned about the tire, but then eventually decided to just run hard anyhow. Bill and I had a ball - the cars were pretty well matched, his extra torque helping out of corners while my extra horsepower helped out on the straights. The biggest difference was the big guts corner, the downhill off camber decreasing radius "straight" that goes into a 180 degree hairpin. If you can manage to keep your foot down all the way - 148 hp running for the top of third gear before braking hard in a short chute for the hairpin, you can make up a lot of space on someone who's a bit more conservative. If you're going to feather the throttle or brake any earlier, you have to do it quite a bit earlier due to a sharp kink in the corner. It really tests your commitment, and it's the best part of the track. Bill wasn't quite as committed as I was and didn't have quite as much horsepower so this was a significant difference. Still, we did take turns playing leader and making big slidy mistakes to let the other guy through. Great fun! Unfortunately, the Seven was running hot. Every other car there other than the Westfield was as well, and we'd just finished a bunch of work on that car. The track is tough on cooling, being relatively slow, high altitude and lots of full throttle. But still, the Seven's never had trouble before and it wasn't that hot. I was getting whiffs of coolant on my first lap or two, making me wonder if the radiator cap was failing. On my last session, I noticed the alternator light came on as I cooled down - that's odd.

Popping the hood off revealed the reason - the alternator belt was gone! It also drives the water pump. Hmm, very odd. Was it slipping earlier, is that why I was running hot? But it never squealed at all. A mystery, and one that will take some extra investigation. I'll test the cap before the Open House and also check out a bit of play in one of the rear wheels. The Seven's been seeing almost exclusively hard running of late, and so it's time for some race car levels of maintenance.
entry 1388

August 7, 2007:
I skipped an autocross this past weekend.
Well, I didn't skip it - I was running it - but the Seven stayed home. I want to find out why that belt disappeared before running the car too hard. The FM Open House is coming up in a bit over a week so I'll have to have the car ready for then.
And of course, the mutated rotary Fiat showed up. It would have been good to have another shot at head-to-head competition with him.
entry 1389

August 9, 2007:
Time for some new shoes.
The last set of RA-1s lasted through a whole bunch of track time, the destructive and entertaining drift session with C&D, an Atom test and even some (gasp!) street driving. There was still some good life left in three of them, but with significant cord showing on one I decided it was time to buy another set. The water pump belt is back on and a few bolts have been tightened up in the suspension, so it's almost time to defend my lap record at the Open House! This year I'll be under attack from not only the usual turbo Miatas, but a turbo Caterham and a turbo Westfield. It's going to be tough to say the least.
entry 1390

August 14, 2007:
Go buy this magazine.
The October 2007 issue of Grassroots Motorsports should start hitting newsstands around August 21st. Subscribers are seeing their copies now. Heck, you can go to GrassrootsMotorsports.com and ask for a free copy to be sent to you. But why should you care?
Because it has B.S. Levy's highly entertaining article about the Ariel Atom vs a particular Locost - remember that trip to Texas last spring? I won't give the result away, only say that I'm quite happy with how he wrote it up. There are lots of great pictures of the Atom along with his reactions to it, and of course there's my favorite little orange car right in the thick of it. The funniest thing is that I got called a ringer again. After taking on a $75,000+ car!
To celebrate, I've got the Seven ready to defend my track record this Friday. It's the FM Open House again, the third anniversary of the Seven's "coming out". This year, it's the Targa Miata that will likely get the majority of the attention, but I do have a challenge ahead. Skip reports that his turbo Miata powered Caterham isn't up to snuff, but I know that the Westfield has a lot of potential. We'll see how this goes.
entry 1391

August 19, 2007:
Open House time!
I think of the FM Open House as the Seven's "birthday", as that first track outing was a big goal. Well, I was back at the track this year in the company of my latest project, the Targa Miata. So it was a full day.
entry 1392
The challenge this year was to keep the lap record.
As I've mentioned, I had both a turbo Caterham and the FM Westfield gunning for me - and gunning hard. I haven't been on this track all that much in the past year and the Seven's been a little neglected for the Targa car, so it was a bit of a gamble. Other than the repairs to the head after the lifter failure back in May, I haven't done anything to improve the car.
entry 1393
This is the corner that will make or break a lap in this configuration.
I'm screaming down the hill, in a corner that tightening up and a bit off-camber. The engine is roaring away and the car is right in the middle of its best acceleration zone. All four wheels are sliding - it's the corner where I drive the Seven closer to its limit than anywhere on any track. Oh, and to add to the challenge, there's a hairpin at the end. The braking zone is short and the car's unbalanced when it comes in, so it's where I can use the Seven's low CG, fast reflexes and great braking to take big chunks of time off other people. Well, assuming I get it right.
On my first fast lap, I discovered that I must have moved the brake bias to the rear at some point. Oops - I ran off the end of the track. No harm done, and there's a reason I put the bias adjuster in the cockpit!
entry 1394
I put this picture up because I liked it for some reason.
Anyhow, after my first session Brandon noticed fresh antifreeze on the side of the hood. After a bit of hunting, I found a rubber cap that had sprung a small leak. It would have also been leaking onto the belt, could that have contributed to the break? It certainly would have hurt my cooling, as the system wouldn't have pressurized. Bill and I came up with a good temporary fix.
While the sweeper was the challenging corner, the most entertaining was probably the first one after the front straight. I was going in pretty fast, and the car rotated really well. On one lap, I basically turned in and then straightened the wheels, letting the back end just smear around the entire sweeper with no lock on at all. It felt wonderful.
entry 1395
The track looks nuts from this angle.
Yes, that's all the track, there are no access roads visible. I just found out that it's visible on Google Maps from satellite: here. We were running counter-clockwise, and the big sweeper is the fun part. My goal is to start braking when my left front wheel hits the kerbing before the hairpin.
entry 1396
The real race was between Bill and I.
The Caterham wasn't in the hunt, as it's a freshly finished car with a driver that's still getting used to it. At one point on the track, Bill and I would come into sight of each other going in opposite directions. We each would check the position of the other to see if the gap was getting smaller or larger. Overall, it wasn't really changing. We were 0.2 seconds apart on one session. In the next, Bill got faster - but so did I by the same amount. Still 0.2 seconds. The times weren't challenging my lap record (probably due to the brand new tires in my case) but it was a good race.
After every session, Bill and I would come in to the pits and park side by side. We'd pull off our helmets, look at each other - and just start laughing. We were both having a ball.
The end result? 1:03.733 for me, 1:03.913 for Bill. Phew, I stayed on top for another year. But I've got some real competition now, as Bill's only starting development. He has some horsepower planned that might make a difference on a couple of straights...
entry 1397
For one session, I took out a photographer.
Bill tucked in right behind my wife Janel in her little turbo Miata, and I planted myself on his tail. The poor photographer was having a bit of trouble hanging on to the camera!
After he was done with the pictures, he asked me to get the car sideways. Well, all right. So I booted the throttle coming out of a tight corner and the tail went wide...and the car snapped into a spin. We stopped parked backwards on the track with the engine stalled. That's odd, I had the clutch in. I looked down, and discovered the photographer had been using the only handle he could find to brace himself - the handbrake. When the car had started to slide, he tensed up and locked the back wheels on me! Thank goodness it happened on one of the slowest corners on the track. Everyone in the pits made sure I knew that they'd seen me spin the car, of course.
entry 1398
A bit of a family portrait.
The Seven, the Westfield, the Targa Miata and the little turbo Miata street car. It's a fun collection.
entry 1399
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