I bought my FD with the intent of taking it to the track during the Summer months. I'm talking road course not drag strip. After blowing a motor last month, I have this nagging worry that the new motor could have a short life if I push the car on the track. Even the SCC project RX7 car toasted another motor recently. Has anyone put a lot of track miles on a FD without major problems?

Mazda built an amazing sports car -- light, agile, powerful, balanced and communicative. Perfect for the track except for the R word.

 

I'm a circle track racer in Japan.
FD is a great car.
There are a lot of sports car in Japan.
Honda NSX is the best.
But, too costly.
Nissan GTR is very good, too.
But it is too heave for the trackracing.
and twice as expensive as FD.
As for 30000US$ range car, Honda S2000,
Subaru Imprezza (Outback in USA)
Mitsubishi Lancer.
Lancer is the fastest.
But, FD is very enjoyable to drive.
I love FD.
But FD is too weak for heat.
If you want to drive on the circle track,
you have to replace Oil coolers and the radiator.
You have to use good quality motor oil.
I use Red Line 15W-50.
And I recommend you to swap an elctrick fan switch.
Stock FD's electrical swich is designed to start high temperature.
It starts at 100 degree in Celcius.
It's too high.
There are more tips.
Why your motor broke down?

 

SCC sucks...they had a coolant leak and overheated it. Its still running, but eventually it will go. Since they're still looking in to getting an ECU on that thing I would draw my own conclusions. Just take care of the car and race it, thats what it was meant for. good luck!

 

DEFINITELY!

The car takes a little more time in prepping, and you have to watch your gauges during the event.

Nothing is more exhilarating than wringing every ounce of performance the FD has to offer on a closed road racing circuit!

FWIW, I've tracked my '93 R1 between 5 and 15 times per season since May 1997. I've travelled as far as 1400 miles, round trip, to go to a drivers education event (Indy to Summit Point; Indy to Road Atlanta). The car will be 10 years old this April! It has 92,000 miles on the original motor and turbos. The turbos are due to be replaced with JDM J-spec 99 twins next month.

On track my FD R1 is faster than 95% of all the track cars that I encounter at the various drivers education and lapping events I've attended.


Do the research. Prep the car well. Maintain it well. And IT WILL PERFORM RELIABLY on track!

 

What mods do you have? If you have a Power FC you can get XS to reprogram it to cut the fans on at a lower temp. I had them change mine to 88C and it made a HUGE difference. If you set it up right from the beginning you should be ok.

All I can say about SCC is they need to come visit the forum.

Later,
STEPHEN

 

hell yeah.

as for the fans you could just ground the fan wire before you race and run both fans full time at high speed. power fc or other ecu is still advisable

 

The new motor is street ported and has 3mm apex seals. Mods include:
Power FC with Commander (tuned by SR Motorsports)
PFS intake
PFS intercooler
Efini Y-pipe
Rebuilt stock twin turbos
Ported wastegate
PFS downpipe
Borla XR-1 midpipe
PFS catback exhaust
Mazda competition motor mounts
Pettit short shifter
Centerforce Gold dual friction clutch with Mazda flywheel
Rebuilt transmission with upgraded 5th gear synchro
Unorthodox Racing pulleys
PFS silicone vacuum lines
20B fuel pump
K&N washable billet aluminum fuel filter relocated to under hood
Taylor 8mm spark plug wires
J&S knock sensor with monitor
Crane HI 6D ignition amp
Mazda competition radiator
Pettit aluminum AST

 

Hopefully they did some coolant and oil-porting while your engine was being done - also the eccentric shaft plug mod - all these help oil and coolant flow at a much better rate. I saw the radiator(good) and the flywheel will really help with road coarse! Another oil cooler would help. I think you are set to kick some booty!

 

And what IC's are preferable for road racers, eh?

 

Even though this probably isn't the problem, tune your PFC or take it to someone that knows how to. SR Motorsports can't tune worth ****, all that guy does is change the base map a little and send it to customers saying it's fully tuned.