80mm over fenders (ronin speedworks) with an 18x12 +0 (+20 with a 20mm spacer)

 

I finally got around to doing the starter relay mod... it works great! no more clicky starter and it cranks nice and fast every time. Now this is just a band aid... in reality, I probably should take my ignition cylinder apart and clean it. But even if I did that I might still leave the relay in place to get around mazda's dumb wiring.

picture of it:


If I were to do it again I'd probably make the wires a bit longer, these are just the wires that were on the relay socket. they're a bit short to put the relay in a decent spot.

Where everything goes:


Final Automatic starter review:
It's pretty nice. cranks a bit faster. seems to help my car start a bit better on hot starts (has been a problem). Maybe I'll post a video of it cranking if I think about it. It works well enough that I'm going to throw that small battery I have in the car I do think it requires more voltage to turn over though, (made my clicky starter problem worse) so make sure you have that fixed before you install it...

Second autocross event was this weekend. It went ok. it was a bit cold so the old hoosiers didn't like it much... but my last run was at least semi-decent. still first in my class, but SM beat me by a lot more this time

I did buy a nice datalogging program called solostorm. I'm actively trying to get him to connect with my megasquirt so I can get a bit more data. but for now it's pretty nice. I can compare lines on runs (with a bluetooth 10Ghz gps) and overlay data onto videos. The G meter seems a bit wonky, it might have to do with the fact that our site is on a giant hill...

I also tried to point the camera a bit lower to get the AFR gauge... that back fired. not only is the AFR gauge un-readable.... it's a lot harder to see the course. I'll fix it for next event.


next autocross is in a few weeks... so it's time for some aero

 

Excellent driving!

 

 

sunroof up for extra downforce?

 

for extra head room

 

I lol'd. I like to believe it helps /shrug

 

It's actually terrible for aero... it separates the air flow from the hatch making all the air after the sunroof horribly turbulent causing lots of drag...

which brings me to what I did tonight!

since I don't fit in my car with a helmet on without the sunroof popped (I'm 6 foot with a long torso) and I'm putting a wing on the car... I took out the sunroof!





it weighed ~30 lbs.

if anyone is planning on doing this the correct way to do things is to open the sunroof while taking the head liner out (there are clips around the opening that you have to unclip) and then close the sunroof and start unbolting things. there are 8 nylon lock nuts, 4 nuts that spin in place, and 4 bolts in the back... and then it just drops out.

luckily I I could remove it without taking the roll bar or seats out! that was nice...

I'm replacing it with this stainless panel for now (thanks LOF!)


just have to paint it...

I had a bit of a paint disaster while painting wing uprights and endplates, so it can get painted along with the second attempt on those...

I do have a mazda OEM replacement non-sunroof roof panel... but that'll have to wait until I want to put my car in the paint shop...

 

Two words:
Gurney Bubble.

 

Travis R Two words:
Gurney Bubble.


Ha ha, yeah when I saw the 3rd gen solid roof was still available and the FC one was NLA I briefly entertained notions of blending the FD double bubble top onto the FC.

Probably be ugly as sin

 

The FC roof is still available, I bought one a year ago and mazdamotorsports still says it's available.

FC01-70-601

the brace across the top is NLA though.

but yeah, the lack of sunroof should completely solve my head room issues (since I was fine with it open), no need for a gurney bubble

 

Nice, they must have done another run of the roofs.
Back in '08/'09 when I had my roof done Mazda was out of the roofs, but they did have the "brace" which I used.

 

i think thats right, as i have a pair of braces, but no roof!

 

you want to get rid of one of those braces?

 

made pretty substantial addition to the car last night:











most importantly though, I was able to save the RX-7 badge

 

the wing elements are custom length (65.5") APR GT-1000 elements. Per the rules, the wing has to be no larger than the width of the cars doors.
GT-1000 Dual Element Adjustable Wing | APR Performance

per APR's spec sheet, it should make ~500 lbs of downforce @ 80 mph.

endplates and struts are from ciro design racing:
CiroDesign Racing

I still need to:
- rivet on some mid length supports between the 2 elements
- add a 1/2" gurney flap
- add some support underneath the wing mounts.

 

 

Sorry for the h/j but does anyone have a pic of the roof skin installed ?
Awesome thread brotha also

 

what do you mean...?

the roof skin we're talking about is a stock replacement panel. Any FC without a sunroof has it installed.

 

I was referring to the gurney bubble . Which I googled to see how it looked . I figured there was a roof skin with the hump for head clearance .

 

There is nothing with organic rounded curves on the FC, I don't see how a bubble roof or Gurney Bubble would look decent.

On the FC I would do more of the split roof style by angling the sides up toward the middle and placing a cut out in the middle to re-attach airflow to the hatch.

More like this style-

 

yeah, the BRZ has something similar... I think that would be way too much work though, I think just not having a sunroof is going to solve all my issues

 

Sorry to bring up this old post but my starter is starting to take a dump. Did you order the s5 na AT starter? I'm debating on going to my local parts store, because their starters are cheap, but sometimes give out right after the 1 year warranty.

 

Love your build! I have a question thou since you seems to have come such a long way with your chassis race wise, have you measured your scrub radius with those monster tires of yours? Reason i ask is that i want to go widebody aswell but i am limited to maximum of 50mm of scrub radius to make it legal :-)

 

Yeah, it's an NA Auto starter. S4 and S5 are the same. Are you sure it's your starter though? look back a few pages to what I did with a relay and my starter, that fixed all of my starter issues that actually got worse when I installed the auto starter.

I have no measured it... there was talk about it when I originally installed the 18x12s though if you look back in the thread.

the jist of it was:
stock tires are +40 offset
my current 18x12s are -10 w/ spacers

so I've added 50mm of scrub.

but I've also increased the angle of the strut a lot with my camber plates. I have no idea how much that moves the scrub point, but probably not a whole lot. maybe 10mm?

you also don't have to run an offset that extreme with smaller wheels. 18x10.5s would fit a lot more easily.

if you measure the stock scrub radius it's pretty easy to see what it would turn into with larger tires.