Yes, it's still active!

I finally reactivated my account and noticed that it has been almost two years since last update. First, thanks for all of you who have been following this blog! I discovered that this new version can tell some stats about visits and dispite my lack of time there has been some readers' activity.

So, what's new? About year and a half ago I had a spun conrod bearing. That was no biggie and hardly did any damage. Oil starvation during hard driving on the track caused that more or less. Remedy: racing oil pan baffle that keeps oil under the snorkle at all times. Having the engine opened it was also a convenient time to finish all the other stuff that was left half way the year before.

2011 upgrades:
- 160000 km driven short nose cranck -> factory new long nose cranck (balanced)
- Stock rods -> Carrillo A-beam rods
- ACL Raceline bearings (main and conrod)
- 3-angle valve job and valve train rejuvenation
- Toda adjustable cam gears
- DIY CAI with pressure box: inlet pipe from the "mouth", pipe diameter 100 mm -> 76 mm -> 60 mm -> stock TB
Result: Fully maintaned, reliable, in tune B6ZE. More of these will find their way here soon.

Thus summer 2011 was filled with carefree and revarding moments on and outside the track:

Another nice video for you. White gen 1 Miata emits very nice exhaust note (3:00 on, and 4:30)!

Night out

Spring 2010 updates

- The same pattern is repeated every year. In the autumn when the season ends I promise myself that no great modifications will take place next spring. But somehow it always happens that during long winter months some odd parts are piled up in the garage. At the moment I have five projects waiting to get started: oil cooler, Autometer 5" tach (10k scale), fire extinguisher mount, front strut brace and wheel alignment reset.

- All of this is made in the name of better handling, increased durability and safety. I would like to squeeze another one or two seconds from my ordinary "hot" lap at Ahvenisto racing circuit.

Motivation and blue skies for the winter

- Here is a nice blog for those who think small japanese fourbangers are smart pieces of engineering and cool to play with. Yes, its about Toyotas and souping up 4A-GEs. The basics of naturally aspirating engine tuning is the same and all the good advice written here apply to our B6- and BP- motors.
http://www.hachiroku.com.au/blog/?tag=ae86-tuning-guide
- And this is how all track races should look like! Tight matches, close (almost) contact and high pitching engine growl! Yes please:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3dTkMDQmC0

Hot and cold

- Now when the Finnish nature shows its best and there is plenty of snow even in the south most parts of Finland, it’s a bit hard to recall all last summer's overheating issues. But that's the way it was only three months ago.
- I was leafing my old notes from previous driving seasons and to my surprise there was one or two bullets about high engine temperatures already in 2007 and 2008. Back then the only instrument to monitor coolant temp was the car's original temp gauge. Most of time needle stands straight up and too high temp can be observed as a slight tilt towards northeast.
- As I found myself spending more and more time on track I thought it would be a good idea to install a set of real instruments on top of dash. So I went to get two A'PEXi EL-series gauges: water temp and oil pressure.
- I can confirm that NA's (at least in my car) original water temp gauge is there just for show. Original's "normal temperature" = needle straight up means anything from 60-110 deg C. Well, actually that is just fine, but the scale is too rough for my purposes. On the other hand the oil pressure gauge in my 1991 MX-5 is decent. The only problem is that it hides behind the steering wheel, because mine is a bit smaller than the original.
- Now I know that on track, if the day is warm – say +20-25 deg C, coolant temp rises to 100-110 deg C after five to eight hard laps. Even on very cool autumn afternoon, outside air temp showing little less than +10 deg C, the engine heats immediately to 95 deg C. And that's not all, oil temp rose to 110 deg C plus plus. How much above 110? I can't tell any better because the scale ended there.

First of January 2010 in Finland

Subarctic sun at 2 pm. Some -15 deg. celcius by the Finnish Gulf.

Camera: Nokia 3210 classic mobile phone cam.

Functional exterior styling

- Old rims were pretty last season. Because they were working just fine they weren't first in my "mods to do" list. Last fall a guy in the tire shop noticed that two of them were totally "misaligned". Those two had to be installed on the rear axle to cause as little wobble as possible. But hey, now I had a perfect reason to start looking after new set of alloys.
- Lightness is the essence of MX-5. New rims had to be lighter than the old ones which wasn't much to ask. Old 15 x 7" Fond Metals weighted 8,5 kg each – not good. Original 14 x 5,5" seven spoke rims are very light tipping the scale at about 4,5 kg. Those numbers could be reached in today's aftermarket world only with very deep pockets if preferred size was somewhere in the 15"+ region.
- Another thing that I was after was some extra wideness to the car's track. Offset in my old Fond Metals was -37 mm. I wanted to get about +10 mm extra width on each side. Spacers could have been one solution but I decided to try to find right rims for my purposes.
- So back and forth in the internet I went. Supply is huge. There are so many different marks with different specs. One can't argue with the specs, light is light and so on. Looks is something to discuss but someone's ugly is other one's pretty. ATS Super Light DTCs were looking great to me. In 15 x 8" size and -35 mm offset they also served the functional part of the deal.
- Mass came down 2 kilos each. They weren't the lightest ones but looked the best and specs were perfect. They also look good in place and really make the car look planted and ready to go!