Last week I ordered up a boatload of parts from Mazda Motorsports to begin the Spec Miata race car build. Mazda has possibly the best motorsports team support program of any car maker. If you do as few as three autocrosses a year, you can sign up for the Mazda Motorsports (a.k.a. MazdaSpeed) that allows you to buy factory parts, and a few common aftermarket competition parts, at wholesale prices. You also get discounts on Mazda cars and access to a ton of technical information. I really can't say enough good things about them (other than maybe the eternity it took for me to get my application approved).

Now that some of those parts have come in, it's time to begin work on the Spec Miata race car. The car will be getting a full "makeover": a refresh (or possibly rebuild) of the engine and transmission, a new exhaust system, a new limited-slip differential, a factory hardtop to replace the convertible soft top, a full rollcage and other pieces of safety equipment such as racing seat and harness belts, removal of most of the interior pieces and trim, whole new suspension, new wheels and tires.

First things first though; here's the humble little $4500 Miata on its final evening as a bone-stock street car:

A rarity: a Miata with a front license plate!

The rollbar comes from Competition Autoworks, a well-known Spec Miata race shop, so it should fetch a good price.

And here's a trunk full of Spec Miata parts:

Trunk chock full o' SM suspension bits!

Not seen are the swaybar and exhaust kits, which were too big to fit in the trunk. Speaking of swaybars, the Eibach swaybars were the first racing parts to be bolted to the car:

Front swaybar...

... and rear swaybar.

There's tons more to do so a lot more to come... Stay tuned!

With the Lemons Race now out of the way, and the Lemons race car soon to be put out to pasture (literally--it'll be getting towed out to storage at former team member Tony's barn or possibly the grassy field next to it), it's time for me to get my other projects back on track. First of all there's the Evo rebuild, which I'll write about later. Secondly, there's the silver '99 Miata I acquired a few months ago with the intent of making it into a turbocharged monster race car.

My experiences over the past few months have only served to strengthen my love affair with the Mazda Miata. At the licensing school I learned how much fun an "underpowered" car like a Spec Miata could be to drive. Then, I thoroughly enjoyed driving my even-slower street Miata at Thunderhill and Reno-Fernley. Working on the Lemons racer, I learned how easy it was to work on the Miata; at the Lemons race the Miata was a pleasure to drive and an unbelievably reliable vehicle to boot.

After much consideration, I realized a couple things: 1. building a "monster" Miata would be a bad idea, at least in the near term: the Evo is enough of a money pit, so I hardly need to create a second one; 2. it doesn't really matter what I race, as long as it's fun to drive and reasonably competitive in its class—I just want to go racing. Following those two conclusions, I figured the cheapest way to go racing (Lemons notwithstanding) would be to campaign the Miata in the SCCA's Showroom Stock B (SSB) class—basically throw a cage and other safety equipment in the car and go racing. The one flaw in that plan became evident when I checked this year's race results: one one or two other drivers could ever be found running that class. Driving by myself as the only competitor in a class would totally miss the point of going racing, so that ruled out SSB.

That basically left the most obvious option, Spec Miata. I've sometimes heard of SM being described as something of a demolition derby, what with fields of 60 or more cars being commonplace. I had trepidations about this... until I ran the Lemons race in a Miata. Driving a Miata around a 1-mile track with 60-80 other larger cars mostly driven by clueless idiots cured me of any fear I had of racing in Spec Miata.

And so for now, the silver '99 will be a Spec Miata; I may upgrade it later into the fearsome beast I'd originally envisioned, but for now it will serve as my "economy" race car next to my considerably less economical Evo.

It turns out that Miata factory wheels are, to put it mildly, cheap. After getting back from Reno I immediately posted up a want ad, on BAAutoX.com, a local autocross message board, about my little mishap and how I needed replacement stock wheels as a result. (Because I run the car in C Stock class at local autocross events, the only wheels I'm allowed to use are stock-sized wheels... and there are almost no aftermarket wheels available in 15x6 size; or at least, none more desirable than the stock ones which are surprisingly light.)

I quickly, over the next day, received three separate offers. The first was for a set of wheels with old, worn Kumho VictoRacer race tires (same ones as I've previously used on my Evo), on a set of stock wheels, only ever used at autocrosses and never street-driven, for $200. Hours later another fellow autocrosser offered me a set, without tires, for $150. The next day, yet another racer offered me a set for $100... but he lived so far away it would have cost about $50 in gas just to go pick them up. In the end I went for the first set since they came with old, but usable race tires.

I also received and installed new brake rotors last week. $110 for a full set of rotors, i.e. less than half the cost of one front rotor on the Evo. Gotta love Miatas. The Porterfield R4S street pads went back on; I decided that the Hawk Blacks just weren't suitable for driving on the street for any amount of time.

Anyway I spent another weekend at Reno-Fernley Raceway. This time I was there primarily as an instructor and didn't expect—nor get—to spend much time doing hot laps on the track. In fact, according to the data logs, I got a sum total of three fast laps the entire weekend. Three, however, was plenty to take advantage of the VictoRacer tires. On my first hot lap, I beat my previous personal best by 2 seconds. On the next lap, I beat that time by another 2 seconds. On my final fast lap, I took another half-second off that, circling the full course configuration in 3:18.0. Still over 17 seconds off my personal record in the Evo, which is actually a bit better than I do at Thunderhill where I'm about 15 seconds off my Evo's time on much shorter course. Thanks to the race tires I was able to carry much greater speeds through the turns, which is the key to making a good lap time in the low-powered Miata.

Hot laps aside, it was a good weekend and it was refreshing to have a first-time student who drove within their limits and proved to be very "teachable". I think I learned quite a bit about instructing in the process.

Took the daily-driver Miata to Reno-Fernley Raceway for the weekend with NCRC. Ran track configuration F the first day, and the full 4.1-mile course the second day. It was also the first time out at the track for Janice (my girlfriend), albeit in a spectator capacity only. Hopefully I can get her driving on track later this year or next. The facilities at the track are still non-existent, unlike at other tracks, so I was worried this would give her a negative impression of track days; luckily my friend Navid (or rather his co-driver Ron) had his mega-motorhome there so thanks to him she was able to hang out there and stay shaded and cool.

The weather was sunny and mercifully mild all weekend. On the second day I got my lap times down to a 3:22, late in the day. The time itself was a bit disappointing, since it was only a few seconds faster than the last time I'd run Reno-Fernley in that configuration in that car, which was also the first time I ran the track in that configuration (and only three sessions at that). Obviously the track conditions had changed but still I'd expected to pick up a lot more time.

The Falken RT615 tires didn't show the gradual loss of speed that they did at Thunderhill (they are known for "greasing up" as they get hot), or maybe my own driving was improving enough session over session to negate that effect. I wanted brake pads that wouldn't fade on me at all, so I replaced the Porterfield R4S street pads with Hawk Black racing compound pads the previous week. That turned out to be a mistake: despite information I'd received to the contrary, when cold they ground away at my brake rotors, which were noticably grooved after only a couple days driving them on the street. So new brake rotors are on order.

Inside of an apex berm took a bite out of that wheel. Oops!

Also to be ordered will be a replacement stock 15x6 wheel. During the second afternoon session on Sunday, I spun the car due to excessive trailbraking (or maybe a slightly abrupt lift off the brakes) while diving downhill into Turn 18. I went off the right side of the track, across the dirt/gravel runoff and then hit the inside of the berm on the second part of the turn, cracking the right-rear wheel. This also caused the car to go slightly airborne, spinning across the track and finally "pancaking" on the left edge of the track, putting a huge but shallow dent in the bottom frame rails.

The damage could have been a lot worse I suppose. Despite the frame rail damage, which didn't do the car's structural rigidity any favours, everything still seems firm and straight. I put on the spare tire and we drove home at a leisurely 60 mph, getting 38 miles to the gallon in the process.

I just hope I can get everything fixed this week since I'm off to Reno again next weekend, instrucing with Track Masters...

I've long entertained the idea of building a Miata-based race car, and a few weeks ago I decided to start searching in earnest for a donor vehicle. I decided I wanted a second-generation ("NB") car, preferrably a 1999-2000 model year (they got heavier after that). While the first-generation MX-5 also makes an excellent race car, I chose a second-generation partly because I preferred the looks, but also for the improved technology of the second-generation 1.8L car and possibility of swapping parts between the race car and street car as needed.

Last week I finally made the purchase: a well-cared-for '99 Touring package (49-state non-CA car: no A/C: excellent; no LSD: obviously one will need to be installed) with 140k miles on the clock, one owner. I think a car with no air conditioning must be tough sell in the California's sun-baked central valley, because I paid almost half what I paid for my white Miata. The car looks to be in excellent mechanical condition. As I'm currently busy with the Lemons race car and rebuilding the Evo, my plan is to leave this car alone for now and start the race car buildup later this year once I've thought out what exactly I want to do with it.

Current thoughts are to build a "monster Miata", something with 250 or more horses at the rear wheels, with maximal weight reduction for an unloaded weight right around 2000 pounds. That should yield a vehicle with a slightly better power-to-weight ratio than the Evo, and thus could potentially be faster. I'm eagerly looking forward to working on this car.

I am now a licensed racing driver!

Arguably I should have waited until the morning after coming back from the school to snap this photo.

Okay, if you want to be pedantic about it, I have a Novice Permit, which allows me to race, and I need to complete two races before obtaining my Regional Club Racing license, and six before obtaining my National license. Regardless, after having completed the 2007 SFR-SCCA Driver Licensing School, I'm now licensed to race in regional club race events.

The school was a lot of fun, more fun than I'd expected in fact. I'd expected a lot of structured exercises like the ARC and Driving Concepts racing schools but other than the initial "brake and turn" exercise—where they made us lap around a really small loop of the track, just to make sure we understood how to, well, brake and then turn, heel-and-toe downshift, etc.—and the first track session when passing was only allowed with point-by on the straights, all the practice sessions were pretty much open track time. The difference was that unlike track days, racing was allowed, even encouraged. They threw a few practice (and real) flags up to make sure everyone paid attention and understood them, but that was pretty much old hat to me.

I was surprised how many people at the school had never done so much as a track day before. They pretty much formed the back half of the 26-car grid in our group.

Driving a Spec Miata was a lot of fun as well. I was pleasantly surprised how much better a 1.6L SM drove compared to my street Miata—the tires (Hankook C50s) and suspension seemed to yield what felt like twice the amount of grip in turns. I kept using more and more throttle through Turn 2 until eventually I just went wide-open-throttle through most of it and the car just kept gripping.

The last two sessions of the weekend were races. The instructors gridded people for maximum education and "entertainment" value. The first race, I was gridded 21st. I didn't get a good start but quickly made my way through half of the pack. Then the course went yellow—not a practice, someone's car actually broke—and we had a couple of safety car laps, and I got pissed off at a back marker (a driver in slow lapped car) in front of me who didn't seem to understand the concept of catching up to the pack during a SC period.

Anyway two laps of shaking my fist and screaming at them threw me off my game, and on the restart I made an over-optimistic dive inside Turn 1 and ended up driving off the outside of the same turn. Unlike the car in front of me that attempted the same thing, however, I didn't spin back across the track right into the middle of traffic; I thought he was going to get hit for sure! I decided I didn't want to try to re-enter in the middle of that mess and just bounced around in the grass, getting back on the track just before the Turn 2 "3" brake marker. All that silliness cost me some places and I think I finished around 8th or so after making up a few places.

The second race started well, I was gridded seventh ("I was seventh!"), got a good start that moved me up to fifth before Turn 1. We five cars at the front quickly left the rest of the pack behind and started racing amongst ourselves. Lap after lap we'd swap a place here, a place there. Problem was by that time the alignment on my car was a bit tweaked, and I was riding on mismatched backup tires, so I couldn't stay flat out through Turn "9" (usually known as Turn 15, but on the shortened course) and would lose a few seconds on the front straight each lap that I'd make up through Turns 1-2. The highlight of my race was making a successful pass going over the top of Turn 5, "The Cyclone". I'd noticed that our pack of five cars, racing nose-to-tail, would check up every time we got to Turn 5, so one lap I decided to dive to the inside on the way up the hill, and I managed to make the car stick on the inside.

Unfortunately during the 7th or 8th lap I was trying to pass on the outside of Turn 2 and ended up spinning off the outside. I'm not sure why exactly, I figured I'd just hit some dirt or something but afterwards we found a little mark of white paint on my car's left-rear corner so it's possible I had a little "help". Anyway I did a poor job recovering from that, tried to get going again too fast with dirt all over my tires and ended up driving off the outside of the next turn (3), and again off Turn 5. After that I got my act together and drove cleanly long enough to clean off the tires but my race was basically over; I limped the car around the track for the rest of the race to finish 11th.

All in all it was a great weekend, and I'd highly recommend the school to those who have some track experience and are interested in moving up into full wheel-to-wheel racing.

Installed a new transmission, clutch and flywheel on the Miata on Saturday. It was a fairly gruelling day's work: not counting the time spent on lunch and an unforeseen trip to "Orchard Supply Racing ", it still took us (big thanks to Dave Theodore for helping out) about eight hours from start to finish. It was a simple job, however it turns out that "simple" does not always mean "easy".

Even with a lift it was still a challenge, most notably reattaching the tranny to the engine. Removing the tranny is easy: once it's unbolted from the Miata's "power plant frame", the tranny-engine assembly sags downwards, making it easy to slide the tranny's splined input shaft out of the clutch-flywheel assembly (which is bolted to the engine). With the tranny off, however, the engine no longer leans back, so sliding the same shaft back into place was a major challenge; lifting an 80-pound transmission over our heads and precisely maneuvering it into place was the most physically demanding part of the operation. (I did have a tranmission jack, but was so low it wasn't of any use with the car on a lift.)

Lesson learned? Even if I could do it twice as fast the next time around, the $200-$250 most shops charge for a Miata transmission change would be money well-spent. The only time I could see myself doing another transmission swap would be at a racing event; and with the car only on jack stands, with poorer lighting and fewer tools, I can only imagine what a painful task that would be.

It took over a month, but all the parts needed to rebuild the front end of the Evo finally came in. The reason it took so long was that some of the parts were hard to find and I believe had to be shipped from Japan. Those parts aren't commonly replaced because typically, cars with that much damage are considered totalled and therefore junked.

I've learned a lot about the Evo's construction in the process. I'd always thought of a unibody construction as meaning that most of the car is a steel "tub" made from a single piece of metal. It turns out that the unibody chassis only goes up to the firewall; the front-end structure forward of the firewall is composed of many pieces that are welded on. The good thing about that is that it's possible to replace those pieces and end up with a front end that's as good as, or maybe even better than new, depending on the quality of the welds.

The Evo's front-end structural components.

I didn't make a huge amount of progress in the meantime, since I wanted to wait for the body work to start before starting the engine and transmission rebuilds. I did however install a new door to replaced the heavily-dented one:

Look Ma, no dings!

I also replaced the broken passenger side mirror by installing a set of lightweight aerodynamic APR racing mirrors. Actually I'm not done with these yet, because it turns out that one of my rollcage support bars partly obstructs my view of the passenger side mirror. I will solve that problem by customizing the mirror "arm" rod so that the mirrors can sit slightly further back.

Although I haven't done much work on the car itself for the past couple months, I've managed to procure a lot of replacement parts for free or cheap. (Big thanks go out to all my friends over on NorCalEvo!) The nice thing about needing stock Evo body parts is that because many cars tend to get modified with aftermarket components, it's easy to find the orignal (OEM) parts for very little money. The ever-expanding pool of wrecked Evos out there is another cheap source of parts as well. 

Sexy APR GT carbon-fiber mirror.

Last weekend I towed the car to EIP Racing nearby for the needed body work. I had considered putting the front end together myself but quickly realized I had neither the equipment, skill nor experience to do the work. I'm glad I took the car to EIP; because after only a couple days they've already made excellent progress on the rear of the car. I can't wait to see the Evo with a front end once again!