Author: occamsracers

Building to a Time Trial Series

There is a new time trial series in Florida called FARA Super Lap Series, and one of my regular readers asked if I could help him optimize a car for that. I took a look at the rule book, and I must say, the philosophy and ground rules are excellent. But the classing system is probably one of the worst I’ve ever seen.

Now before I go sniping at them, I also want to acknowledge the hard work that goes into creating a racing series. This includes securing track dates, building a website, wrangling sponsors, writing a rule book, etc. It appears that FARA has done an outstanding job with 95% of it. It’s only the classing rules that are out of step with an otherwise excellent effort. Bravo.

So let me apologize ahead of time for any feelings I hurt, that is not my intent. That said, let’s talk about the classing system and how I’d build a car to the limit of the rules.

Classing

The classing structure is based on points:

  • SL5 – Up to 7 points. Unless you’re racing in Grid Life Sundae Cup, I’d stay out of this class, it’s just too limiting.
  • SL4 – Up to 14 points. Shitty Miatas.
  • SL3 – Up to 21 points. Could be fun.
  • SL2 – Up to 28 points. My Veloster would go here.
  • SL1 – Up to 34 points. Could be fun.
  • SLU – 35+ points. If you’re building for the unlimited class, you don’t need to keep track of points. Fun build, but not relevant to this article.

To find out what class you go into, you add up the points for the car’s power to weight ratio, tire choice, tire width, aero, suspension, brakes, drivetrain, and gearing. I’ll look at these in turn.

Power to weight ratio

To figure out your power to weight ratio, the rule book gives you the following formula:

If I use this formula to calculate the power to weight ratio for a Miata, I get 31 lbs/hp. Oops, the 2 is on the wrong side of the parentheses. Certainly the intent was to add peak hp and peak torque together, and then divide by two, not add half of the torque to the horsepower. Anyway, good for them to include torque in the calculation, I get what they meant, even if the formula is wrong.

Once you have the (correct) power-to-weight ratio for your car, you can see how many points that is using the following table:

Right away I see a huge mistake, which is that the point system goes in the opposite direction than it does in reality. In the real world, adding power has diminishing returns: the more you add, the less you gain. But you can see in the formula there’s a straight rate of 1 point per interval until 12 lbs/hp, and then you take two points per interval. This is so backwards I have a hard time wrapping my head around it.

What that math results in, is that if you take a stock Corvette or similar car with a power-to-weight better than 10, it’s going to be in the Unlimited class, even if it’s on all-season tires. I’ll run some simulations later, but I can see right away that this wrong.

Anyway, I have the first principle for any FARA build, which is to build to a 12:1 power-to-weight ratio, or worse. (Unless building for the Unlimited class, which I will hereafter ignore.)

Tire points

The fact that the power-to-weight points goes in the opposite direction of reality prepared me for how FARA treats tire points: Fantasy land. FARA bases tire points on treadwear (UTQG) value!

  • 300 TW or more, 0 points
  • 200-280 TW, 3 points
  • 100-180 TW, 6 points
  • Less than 100 TW, 9 points

If you follow recent trends in tire performance you know that tire grip has nothing to do with the treadwear value! Any race series that bases performance on treadwear values needs to look at the work Andy Hollis has been doing for Grassroots Motorsports. He’s tested lots of tires and then gives them letter grades (from D to AAA) in different categories. Most importantly, he ranks the tire on time trial pace, and this requires evaluating every single tire, not looking at what the manufacturer writes on the sidewall.

Image courtesy of Grassroots Motorsports. Please subscribe to them to support this kind of testing.

So let me break down these FARA tire categories, and which tires I’d opt for:

  • Any tire with 300 TW or more is zero points, and so while some performance cars come on a 540TW tire (I’m looking at you Corvette C8), you’re basically talking Michelin Pilot Sport 4S vs Continental ExtremeContact 02. Andy Hollis rates the ECS02 as B- grade and the PS4S as a C grade, but everyone else puts them as equals. Lots of high-end sports cars come with the PS4S as original equipment, and so I applaud FARA for having a 300TW category.
  • In fantasy land, 200 TW tires all have the same performance. In reality, some 200 TW tires (Valino GP08R, Accelera 651, Armstrong Blu Track Race, Kenda KR20A, etc.) are slower than a 300 TW tire, while many of the super 200s (A052, CRS, RE71RS, etc.) are faster than 100 TW tires. And you also have the Hoosier Track Attack Pro and Vitour P1 Tempesta, which somehow get a 200 TW rating, and are faster than 60-80 TW tires.
  • 100 TW tires are a loser’s choice in FARA. With the exception of the Goodyear Eagle Supercar 3R, there isn’t a single 100 TW tire that is faster than a mid-tier 200 TW. Just use the best 200 and stay away from this category.
  • Any sub-100 TW tire is 9 points, but there’s a chasm of performance between a Toyo RR and a Hoosier A7.

So if you understand that treadwear has nothing to do with grip, and that there are outliers within every segment, then there are only three tires to choose from: Conti ECS02 (300 TW, 0 pts), Hoosier Track Attack Pro (200 TW, 3 points), and Hoosier A7 (under 100 TW, 9 points). Note that the Hoosier TAP is new and there aren’t a lot of sizes available yet, so if you can’t find them in your size, get the Vitour P1 Tempesta. (Which is a A+ tire rather than a AA tire, so how much are we splitting hairs here, Andy?).

At this point it’s appropriate to mention coilovers. If you’re using a 300 TW tire you can get away with stock suspension, but any performance tire pretty much requires coilovers for the negative camber alone. FARA penalizes 1 point for 1-way adjustable coilovers and 2 points for 2+ damping adjustments. Good lord that’s a cheap price to pay for making your car lower, better sprung, corner balanced, and with camber. Ergo, going forward in this article, I’ll add one point to the 200 TW and A7 tires for coilovers, as it’s a no-brainer.

Tire width

Tire width is another area FARA kinda misses the boat, as they assign points using a straight scale (sigh). It goes like this:

  • 225 and less – 0 points
  • 245 – 1 point
  • 265 – 2 points
  • 285 – 3 points
  • 305 – 4 points
  • 315 and over – 5 points

The first problem here is that heavier cars use wider tires, but don’t get a huge advantage out of the extra width. If you’re going to evaluate tire width, you need to take into account the weight of the car. The real imbalance is when you have a lighter car that is using a wider tire for its weight.

Most cars weigh about 13-14 times the tire width. Ish. So a car with 245 tires is going to weigh in the neighborhood of 3200-3400 lbs. And that’s a fine width for an OEM tire, but track cars typically have much wider rubber. For example, my 2000-pound Miata also uses 245 tires, and it get’s proportionately more grip out of the same width.

If the FARA people had looked around, they’d have noticed that every other racing series that uses tire width as a variable either sets a limit on max width, or sets tire width based on the weight of the car. So FARA could have said SL5 max width 205, SL4 max width 225, and so on, and it would make more sense. Or set the tire width based on weight.

But here’s something that’s also true: wider tires don’t make you go any faster! Unless you have a wider wheel to support the extra width, wider tires are often slower. A 245 tire on a 7″ rim is not as fast as a 225 tire on a 9″ rim. Tire Rack did the testing for this, and it’s not even close. So if you want to accurately assign tire width as a factor, you also need to take into account the wheel width, and honestly, it would be more accurate to track the wheel width alone and ignore tire width altogether. Or use NASAs time trial rules and force all competitors to measure their mounted tires with a caliper.

The other reason tire width is a problem is because tire manufacturers lie about tire width the same way they do with treadwear. They can write whatever they want on the sidewall, and so most of the Super 200s run a full size wider. If you measure a 225 A052 or RE71RS, you’ll find it’s about as wide as most 235s. And the most egregious offender is Hoosier; their 225 A7 is wider than many 245 tires!

So, given how FARA treats tire width, what would I do? I’d run the widest wheels that would fit my car, and then select a tire with a tread width (not section width) that matches my wheel choice. On my Miata, that could be a 225 on a 9” wheel or a 245 tire on a 9.5-10” wheel. On a heavier car, I might lean into a 265 tire on a 10.5-11” wheel, but I’d have to see how the points shake out. Tire compound is way more important than tire width anyway, so that’s going to be the thing to simulate.

Aero

Most aero items appear to be free, and so if your car has hood and fender vents, canards, a diffuser, or other unlisted aero items, you’re only bound by the “can’t be overly large” clause. The only thing FARA penalizes are splitters and rear aero. And honesty, I agree with that.

  • 2″ splitter – 1 point
  • 4″ splitter – 2 points
  • >4″ splitter – 3 points
  • 150 square inch spoiler or wing – 0 points
  • 249 square inch spoiler or wing – 1 point
  • 499 square inch spoiler or wing – 2 points
  • 699 square inch spoiler or wing – 3 points
  • 700+ square inch spoiler or wing – 4 points

I’ll have to run simulations to determine which aero items to choose, but the 2″ splitter and 249 square-inch spoiler (not wing) would be a good low-DF combination for 2 points. A 4″ splitter and 699-ish wing is a proven combination on tracks around the world, but for only 2 more points I might rather use a larger splitter and a dual wing. Running simulations will be important here.

Misc points

I already went over coilovers, and so the remaining things FARA assigns points for are the following:

  • Aftermarket brakes (1 point) – You only need to set one fast lap in time trials, so I wouldn’t opt for aftermarket brakes.
  • DCT-type transmissions (1 point) – I guess this is an advantage, but I would personally never. OptimumLap does instantaneous shifts, so I have no good way to simulate this, so I’ll ignore this for now.
  • Changing the gearing (3 points) – I have run thousands of simulations in OptimumLap, and I can tell you with certainty that gearing is the least important factor. I’m not sure why FARA charges 3 points for this, and no build I’d spec would change the gearing. And how were they going to police this anyway?

Guidelines

After reading the rulebook, I’ve got the following parameters:

  • 12 lbs/hp or worse.
  • 200 TW or A7 on the widest wheel possible; tire width TBD.
  • No aero vs small splitter with 249 square-inch spoiler vs unlimited splitter and max wing.

OptimumLap Simulations

To calculate lap times, I’ll build the various cars and test them at Sebring. I don’t have Homestead in my list of tracks, but if someone gives me 10hz GPS data I could run some simulations on that as well.

The first thing I’ll do is load up a test vehicle to represent an average car. It weighs 3000 lbs and has an even power spread with 150 hp and torque. Don’t worry about that 20:1 lbs/hp ratio, because I’ll be using the Power Factor modifier to make adjustments up and down the scale. I’ll also specify some round numbers for frontal area, drag, etc. But take note that the coefficient of downforce is -0.15, which is a negative number and represents lift.

Screenshot
OptimumLap uses a coefficient of downforce, not lift, and so if you are used to using negative numbers to represent downforce, invert them. Most passenger cars have around .15 positive lift, and so you’d enter -.15 in OptimumLap.

Note that the lap times are not supposed to be 100% accurate, but the deltas are. In order to get accurate lap times, I need to factor in things like surface grip, camber, and other variables, which are time consuming. I’m really only interested in, is this faster than that, which I can get from OptimumLap without doing the corrections.

Next I’ll do a Batch Run simulation and sweep the Power Factor in 20 increments. This will allow me to see how the various lbs/hp ratios and lap times play out. I’ll run the batch simulations three times: once for the 300 TW, once for 200 TW, and once for Hoosier A7. It went like this:

Batch simulation runs for the three tire choices.
  • SL4 (yellow) – Given 14 points to work with, the fastest lap is with 200 TW tires. It’s 3.4 seconds faster than the 300 TW, and 1.1 seconds faster than the Hoosiers.
  • SL3 (green) – With 21 points to spend, the results are pretty much the same, and I’d want the 200 TW tire.
  • SL2 (cyan) – Same deal with 28 points, but the Ho-hos are catching up.
  • SL1 (orange) – With more points for power, I’d be smoking purple crack. The Hoosiers go 1.3 seconds faster than 200 TW.

I haven’t factored in aero yet, but the trend is pretty obvious for SL4 and SL3: use 200 TW tires unless you have 34 points to work with. Next I’ll build a couple aero cars, but I don’t need to sweep all the values, just simulate builds that correspond to 14, 21, 28, and 34 points. Like so:

Which results in the following summary of classes and lap times.

Lap times by class and build.

Given all of these simulations, here are the builds:

  • SL4 – 19 lbs/hp with a 2″ splitter, 6″ spoiler, and a 225-width 200 TW tire on a 9″ wheel. This is probably a NA/NB Miata with a few bolt ons.
  • SL3 – 15.5 lbs/hp with no aero, 225-width 200 TW tire on a 9″ wheel. There are a lot cars around this power-to-weight ratio, from ND1 Miatas to Mini Coopers to BMW E46s, etc.
  • SL2 – 12 lbs/hp with a 2″ splitter and a 6″ spoiler. At this power level, you’re probably looking at a 245-width 200 TW tire on a 10″ wheel, and that would cost another point for tire width, so the car would be at 12.6 lbs/hp. No big deal. My Veloster N would go into this class, as would many faster cars.
  • SL1 – Same car as above, but now on Hoosier A7s.
  • SLU – A Corvette C8 (stock, as delivered) would go into the Unlimited class based on power-to-weight ratio and tire width. It would do about the same lap time as the SL3 car. This shows you just how imbalanced GT the FARA system is, and how building a car to the limit of the rules is a huge advantage.

Before I go, I guess you might be wondering why I specced a spoiler and 2″ splitter. Well, a single wing (499 sq-in MSHD) and a 4″ splitter would cost an additional 2 points. And while this would confer more aero benefit, I feel the results would be quite similar. I guess if you really want me to know the values, buy me a coffee and I’ll run those, or get OptimumLap (it’s free) and do them yourself.

Conclusion

The primary purpose of an amateur time trial series like FARA is to get like-minded enthusiasts together and have some fun. If the existing rules do that, then I’d call it a success. But if rules result in bad feelings and unfairness, then that’s not a success. However it shakes out, I really like FARA’s philosophy and general intent, and wish them and their competitors good luck.

If I was going to fix the rules, I’d do this:

  • Reverse the weighting of points in the power-to-weight rubric so that it matches the real world of diminishing returns.
  • Create a tire point system based on GRM letter grades. The best way to do that would be to runs hundreds of simulations; an easier way would be a straight scale: D = 0, C = 2, B = 4, A = 6, AA = 8, AAA = 10.
  • Penalize points for tire width where vehicle weight is < 11 times tire width (wide tires) and give back points where vehicle weight is > 13 times tire width (skinny tires). Or, just ignore tire and wheel width altogether.
  • Double the points for coilovers (2 points for 1-way, 4 points for 2+ way).
  • Throw out the points modifiers for aftermarket brakes and gearing changes.

Long Live the Hankook RS4

My all-time favorite tire is the Hankook Ventus R-S4. They grip well, break away predictably, howl audibly, and stay consistent for hours on end. The symmetrical tread pattern allows you to flip the tire on the rim, and so if you have a camber-challenged car, you don’t have to throw out the tire after wearing out the outside shoulder. On a performance per dollar basis, there is no tire that can equal its combination of grip, durability, and value.

I have heard people complain that they are slow, or suck in the rain, but those people must be comparing them to a Super 200, like a RE71RS or A052. In the Enduro 200 segment, the RS4 is equal to or faster than any other tire.

Several years ago my brother and I tested four 200 TW tires at Thunderhill West in his Yaris. The RE71R was the fastest, but only barely faster than the RS4, and I was most consistent on the kooks. You can read about the subjective testing in Part 1 and data analysis in Part 2. The big takeaway wasn’t just the lap times, but how the tires felt, and the RS4 was my favorite.

If you don’t trust my driving skills, Tire Rack also tested the RS4 versus various other tires. The RS4 was a second faster than the slowest tire in the test, the RT615K+, but lagged 1.5 seconds behind the fastest, the RE71RS. But compared to other Enduro 200s, the RS4’s lap times were right in the middle of the range, equal to the Continental ExtremeContact Force, Michelin Cup2 Connect, and Yokohama AD09.

Tire Rack’s testing of various 200TW tires puts the RS4 right in the middle.

Of course Andy Hollis has also tested the RS4 for Grassrooots Motorsports, and you can read those comparison tests here and here. But another tire test you may not have seen is one of the best tire evaluations I’ve seen anywhere, and it’s from Rugged Badger Racing. What Roy has done in this video is look at tire tests performed by Grassroots Motorsports and others, and normalize the data using tread width and tire width. After much exhaustive research, and a fabulous spreadsheet (which he links to in the comments), he’s determined the speed of each tire, and the cost to run them.

Roy’s data analysis comes from a lot of personal tire testing, as well as research across multiple online tire tests.

As impressive as Roy’s spreadsheet is, there’s a lot of extra data in it, and so I made a copy, hid several columns, and offer you the following distilled version that applies to Miatas only:

Estimated lap time and costs in 15” Miata sizes.

Note that I deleted the Nexen Sport R tire, as they seem impossible to get. I also made the lap time basis an even 100 seconds, so the faster tires can be seen as a percentage faster than the RS4. Otherwise all of the data and analysis is his, and I want to say a big thanks to Roy for nerding so hard on this.

Now if you’re looking at this data and wondering why the A052 is the same speed as a RS4, it’s because the A052 only comes in a 205 width. You really need to watch all of Roy’s video to get the explanations, but as you can see, the 245 RS4 is still the best Miata tire for endurance racing, being only a second or so behind the fastest in class, while costing much less. The Continental ExtremeContact Force is 0.1% faster, but it’s about double the running costs.

Another reason Miata people love the RS4 is because it comes in all the Miata sizes.

  • 195/50-15 – Don’t think of this tire as a 195, it’s actually wider than most 205 tires. This is the perfect size for for 6.5-7.5″ wide wheels.
  • 225/45-15 – This tire on a 9” wheel is one of the best combinations for track driving. The sidewall stretch makes for a very precise turn-in, and a playful and predictable feel.
  • 245/40R15 – The widest 15″ size gives more grip and longer wear, but you should run this on a 9.5″ wide wheel for the best results. If you have a boosted or swapped Miata, these are your dancing shoes.

But not for the Veloster…

As much as I love the RS4, I’ve never had them on my Veloster N. The reason for that is twofold: 19” tires are stupid expensive, and the Veloster can’t easily fit a 245/40R18.

To the first point, I can get a 235-width RS4 in a 19” diameter at a heady $326 apiece. But I wouldn’t put track tires on my OE wheels, nor would I buy aftermarket 19” wheels. This is because, like most track enthusiasts, I swapped the heavy OE 19×8 +55 wheels for aftermarket 18×8.5 +45 wheels. This drops about 10 lbs per wheel, plus the tires are typically 20% cheaper.

Hankook makes a 245/40R18, but it runs wide, and it won’t fit a Veloster N easily. One of the major problems with the VN is the inability to use wide wheels and tires. A Civic Type R comes with 10″ wheels and 265 tires, while the Veloster struggles to fit a 8.5″ wheel and 245s.

This combination just barely clears the fenders with some of the narrower 245 tires, but you might need to roll and pull on the metal to avoid cutting the rubber. If you have coilovers you can get more negative camber, but with just camber bolts and stock suspension, you’re typically stuck with a 235 tire. And this sucks because many of the 200 TW enduro tires don’t come in a 235 width. Continental ExtremeContact Force, Maxxis VR1 or VR2, and my favorite, the Hankook RS4, come only in a 245/40R18.

Coming soon, 235/40R18

I just looked at Tire Rack and saw that they have the RS4 in 235/40-18. Now this was a surprise, because I have absolutely checked Tire Rack’s website many times for this phantom size, and it has never existed before. Thinking this was an error, I went to the Hankook website, and sure enough, the manufacturer doesn’t list this size at all! (Update, now it does, but not on the Shop page.)

I called Tire Rack to investigate, and they assured me that they had this size tire in stock, but there was only one tire. They were as perplexed as I was about why they had just one tire of a new size, but perhaps they were sent an early sample to measure it up?

Looking at the specs of the tire, right away I think I see a mistake. The tread depth is listed as 7/32″, while every other RS4 is listed at 8.9/32″. I think I know what’s going on here, which is that 7mm is equal to 8.9/32″, and so someone entered the tread depth information incorrectly. However, this being a new size, perhaps they changed something? When you create a new tire mold, I imagine there’s an opportunity to sneak in some updated technology, and reducing tread depth would certainly make the tires faster off the shelf.

Speaking of specs, the tread width measures 8.6″. The rule of thumb is to match wheel width with the tire’s tread width (not section width). Many people believe you should fit the widest tires you can, but it turns out that’s not true. Tire Rack did a very good investigation into wheel and tire widths, and found that properly sizing the tires to the wheel width makes the fastest combination, and narrower tires were often faster in the dry, and always faster in the wet. (As a side note, when Tire Rack put out this report and accompanying video, my brother and I vowed to buy all of our tires from Tire Rack in the future. This is the kind of reporting that buys our allegiance.)

So that you can choose the appropriate tire for your wheel width, I made the following table listing various track tires by tread width:

Common wisdom is to match tread width (not section width) to wheel width.

Notice the average tread width of a 235-18 track tire is about 8.3”. Continental and Michelin tires run a bit narrower, while the Super 200 cheater tires (A052, RT660, etc) run wider. But RS4s are also on the wider side, and at 8.6”, the 235 RS4 should be ideal for my 8.5″ Konig Countergrams. Given Tire Rack’s testing, I’d bet even money that the 235 is faster than 245 on 8.5″ wheels.

Up until a day ago I didn’t know which tires I was going to use this year. I almost resigned myself to buying off-brand all-season tires in an effort to find the best of the worst. As fun as it sounds to gather that data, it’ll be great to be back on the kooks again.

Despite only having a single tire in stock, Tire Rack assured me that they would be regularly stocking this size in the future, and that the first shipment is due on April 1st. Trusting this isn’t an April Fools joke, I gave them my credit card number so I can be at the front of the line when they unload the first shipment.

Thank you Hankook for making the RS4 in Miata sizes, and now a Veloster size. Thank you Tire Rack and Roy for exhaustive testing and reporting. Let’s get this track season started already!

Update: Buy your wheels and tires from Tire Rack

Since posting this article I’ve added wheels to my order, and this is significant news for one thing that I just learned: you can order any wheel you want from Tire Rack.

If you use Tire Rack’s website and search for wheels, you must enter your car info. They won’t sell wheels without knowing what car they are for, and they won’t sell you anything with an aggressive fitment.

The only 8.5” wide wheel they’ll sell me for my Veloster N is an Enkei with +50 offset. It’s a fine wheel but at 20 lbs, it’s 2-3 lbs heavier than a Konig wheel of the same size. And while I like the 9-spoke pattern on the TS9, I’d prefer a 10-spoke.

What galls me is that I know for certain that a +43 offset fits just fine, and I also know Konig has a bunch of wheels in the +43-45 range. I also know Tire Rack sells them, but there’s no way to actually order them for my car using their website. However, there’s a simple workaround.

It feels so 1999, but call 888-456-1732 and press 1 for Sales. I talked to Luke, who absolutely knows his shit, and he set me up with bronze Konig Dekagrams in 18×8.5 +43. The price was the same you’d see anywhere else, but also cheaper because Tire Rack will fit the TPMS sensors, plus mount and balance the tires for free. If required, they also send centering rings, lug nuts, and a drive tool for free.

Tire Rack hooks you up with the freebies.

I was already pleased as punch, but then the very next day I got an email to say my order has been shipped! Well either they were sitting on more than a single tire, or that April 1st shipment arrived early. Either way, track season has begun.

Circuit Florida, Florida Man, and The FIRM

This winter I went to Florida to visit my in-laws for a couple weeks. My original plan was to drive my Veloster down and do some track days. I’d take a break from pickleball and cribbage, and do some driving at a couple tracks I’ve been to before, The FIRM and Sebring. And then maybe pick up a new track sticker after hitting Homestead.

But The FIRM didn’t have any open track days for the two weeks I’d be down south. Same deal with Homestead. There was only one open event at Sebring, but it was a Track Night in America, and I swore I’d never do one of those again. The one TNIA I did at Palmer felt like UDWFCNIA (Unskilled Drivers in the Wrong Fucking Class Night in America).

So with no public track days on the calendar, the only chance I’d have to drive on track would be a private race track. As luck would have it, Circuit Florida is near my in-laws.

If you haven’t heard of Circuit Florida, it’s because it’s a members-only track, similar in concept to Monticello, M1 Concourse, Apex Motor Club, Atlanta Motorsports Park, etc. These are exclusive country clubs with initiation fees that range from $15k to $115k, and you pay annual dues on top of that. Many of these tracks have onsite garages and/or condos, and some require that you buy property to get into the club.

It’s so perfect it looks like a rendering. And the inside of the condos are stunning.

As expensive as they are, this business model seems to be gaining in popularity, and more private tracks are popping up. From a historical standpoint, it’s not surprising. Horses were once used for transportation, but are now mostly a pastime for the wealthy. In the future, that’s the way it may go with cars; most of us will be transported by electric self-driving shitboxes, while rich people will keep a stable of cars, and use them for recreational track driving.

Whatever happens in the distant future, the immediate future required a call to Circuit Florida to make an appointment. The track manager, Adam Ricardel said I could take some laps in my Veloster. But in the end I decided not to put 2400 miles on my car for a few parade laps. Instead we took my wife’s Mini Cooper to Florida, which is on excellent snow tires, and that would turn out to be important an important decision for the return trip.

Circuit Florida is awesome

Circuit Florida is the brainchild of Paul Scarpello, a successful businessman who had the means to buy the land and build the track by his lonesome. As such, the entire operation isn’t a fantasy-land held up in committee, but a real-world commitment driven by a single vision. That vision includes hiring Bob Barnard to design the layout, acquiring the most expensive motorsports-grade asphalt available, doing a tits job of paving it, building upscale condos and garages, and executing all of it with pace and precision.

Paul’s track manager is Adam Ricardel, who has a long list of credentials (Chief Instructor this, blah blah blah that), but I’ll tell you the one thing you need to know about the quality of his character: he races an E30 in Champcar (I’m pretty sure I’ve raced against him at Sebring and possibly WGI). He’s a savage wheelman who can can talk at eye level with both millionaires and average Joes, and is exactly the guy you’d want to be in charge of the track.

Circuit Florida has a paperclip layout, optimized for the available space, with 1.7 miles fit into fast straights and technical corners. Adam drove me around in one of the track’s fleet, a Mustang something or other, and while the car was forgettable, the track was not. It’s goddamn fantastic.

There’s 30 feet of elevation, which is well placed.

Being situated in Florida, you’d be right for thinking it’s flat. But then you’d be wrong. There is a surpising amount of elevation on this track, and it’s used strategically to create a more technical layout. With long straights and slower corners, both supercars and Miatas would be at home on this track, but the latter would be more fun. In fact the club is buying a fleet of MX-5 Cup cars just for members to race around in.

Of course there will be a swank clubhouse, and they are building a gym and restaurant, and maybe a business center, I forget. That kind of thing doesn’t blow my skirt up, but the track has my utilikilt up around my shoulders. And here’s the kicker, Circuit Florida recently received zoning and site plan approval for an extension of its racetrack to 2.4 miles, a skid pad, off-road driving course, a 6-acre industrial pad site, and 75 additional trackside condos. Hallelujah.

There’s a bit of elevation here at pit entry.

So what’s all this going to cost? About $20k for a one-year trial membership. If you’re all-in from the get-go, the initiation fee and monthly dues also works out to around $20k per year for 10 years of membership. This is a rich person’s playground, and my Veloster would look a little out of place next to the member cars I saw lapping on track. There was a brand new 911, a Lamborghini LP610, a brace of McLaren 720S (one with an extra 150 hp), and a AMG GT with all the options. I’d have passed every one of them, but there’s always an inverse relationship to money spent and skill, especially with these kinds of clubs.

Typical member car. Just point me by, please.

Frankly, these are not my people, and it feels weird rubbing shoulders with people that don’t have dandruff on them. But if I lived in Florida, I’d join this club for the same reason I pay for YouTube Premium: I hate commercials. But in this case it’s not so much commercials, it’s the morning drivers’ meetings.

8 am drivers’ meetings are a vampire draining 30 minutes of life from 100 people at a time. It’s the same shit every time: thanking the registrar and other clerks for doing their jobs, going over the flags we’ve seen before, how to do a point-by, basic safety rules, dumb jokes, and all the other shit we’ve heard over and over again. The unfortunate part is, if there’s truly anything important to be said, it’s lost in the chaff of sameness. There ought to be a TSA-Pre version of drivers’ meetings where we get a 3×5 index card with any important safety issues. And nothing else.

Rant off. The other reason I’d join Circuit Florida is the convenience. I like to be able to show up whenever I want, run some laps, and go home after a couple-three sessions. I also do a lot of aero and tire testing, and I need a fairly open track and the ability to pit and change things every few laps. I get that now at Pineview, and I require more of the same.

I’ve been a member at Pineview Run since 2019, and the experience has spoiled me rotten. Even if Pineview Run is rather small, being able to drive at a moment’s notice outweighs the combination of cost and butting heads with management. So, yeah, I’d pay a ridiculous amount to belong to a private track club in Florida.

And it’s honestly not that ridiculous. If you consider the average track day is $400, I’d break even after 50 events. I mean, if I was living in Florida, what else am I going to do with my time? I would 100% join Circuit Florida.

Florida Man

Florida Man is an Internet meme first popularized in 2013,[1] referring to an alleged prevalence of people performing irrational or maniacal actions in the U.S. state of Florida. Internet users typically submit links to news stories and articles about unusual or strange crimes and other events occurring in Florida, with stories’ headlines often beginning with “Florida Man …” followed by the main event of the story. – Wikipedia

I’ve laughed at my share of Florida Man memes, and it makes me wonder how many are actually true. Well here’s one that’s real:

“Florida Man discovers that a small corner of a race track is within the restricted flight path of a neighboring airport and closes the track, incurring the wrath of local car racers, and nullifying years of track data.”

This amount of turf is apparently very important to someone in the air. Only in Florida.

As the story goes, some Florida Man made an airport surveying error back in 1999, and when The FIRM took over the lease in 2013, they had no idea said map was off by a few feet. But Florida Man 2025 decided that this is an important piece of real estate for a flight path, and shut that part of the track down.

I have to think that if it was me that noticed this tiny discrepancy, I would have let it go; it obviously hasn’t been an issue in a quarter century of takeoffs and landings. But Florida Man got a bug up his fuselage about it, involved the FAA, and now The FIRM is embroiled in a legal battle with a Government agency. I can’t imagine how much fun that’s going to be. Thank you Florida Man, I’ve got a dick punch and a hertz donut for you.

The FIRM

I only have one day of driving at The FIRM, in my buddy Brad Alderman’s ND2 Miata. The track is short and mostly flat, but it’s a fun combination of technical corners, one high speed pucker, and the biggest wall of Armco you’ve ever seen. Compared to places like Watkins Glen or Lime Rock, The FIRM is insignificant. Except for one thing: the Grassroots Motorsports leaderboard.

If you want to research car performance, a lot of people’s first stop would be the lap times from the Nurburgring. On this side of the pond we have don’t have the same kind of proving ground, but some journalists get together every year for Car and Driver’s Lightning Lap, which is a measure of something (if not an entirely accurate one). And then you have smaller and more accurate leaderboards, like the one GRM keeps at the FIRM.

If you check out Grassroots Motorsports ultimate guide to track car lap times, you’ll see a very good example of how to keep an accurate leaderboard. They list the tires, weather, and try to use the same driver as much as possible. If you click on the car, you’ll see an in-depth article, or even a video with data analysis. Unfortunately, whatever The FIRM does next, GRM is going to lose the ability to test new cars and compare that directly with the historical data that they’ve done such a great job acquiring.

Maybe there’s an upside to all of this, though. When The FIRM redesigns the track, perhaps they’ll be able to make some improvements. The big Armco wall is a tad intimidating, and the esses are so mild people just drive a straight line through them. So let’s be optimistic about the change, and maybe someone can figure out a correction factor to equate the old times with new.

In the meantime, did you know that the lap times from Toronto Motorsports Park are pretty close the The FIRM? Yeah, check out Speed Academy’s leaderboard and it’s nearly the same times. Let’s just cross our fingers that they don’t have a Canada Man.

Ecotec Miata Swap FTW

Miatas are underpowered from the factory, but because they have rear-wheel drive, perfect weight balance, and skinny tires, they are fun to drive. Combine those traits with sporty suspension, precise steering, and a slick 5-speed manual, and you have the ideal recipe for a backroads sports car.

But take that same car to a race track and it’s a fucking embarrassment. Worse, it’s a rolling roadblock. If you look at historical data from Car and Driver’s Lightning Lap, there are only two cars slower than a 2006 Miata: a Honda Fit and a Kia Carnival (a minivan FFS). Miatas have gotten faster through the years, but even the fastest one, a 2019 RF Club, was humiliated by two generations of Honda Civic. No, I’m not talking about the Civic Type R, but the pedestrian Si model.

Historically, the problem with older Miatas is the engine, and so the aftermarket is rife with options, from bolt-ons, to forced injection, to motor swaps. One day I’ll write an article sorting these out, but for now I just want to talk about what I feel is the right amount of power, and what I feel is the best way to get there.

The right amount of power

I’ve driven Miatas from 90 to 250 hp, and I can tell you that from my point of view, the sweet spot is below 200, and probably somewhere around 175 hp. To be clear, I’m talking about track driving, not about drag racing, highway pulls, or other straight-line bullshit that ignores the Miatas purpose.

A track-prepped Miata at 2350 lbs (with driver) and 175 hp at the wheels has about 13.5 lbs/hp. For comparison, that’s about the same as a track-prepped E36 M3, and that’s good company to be in. Of course more power is faster, but there are diminishing returns, and after a certain point, the engine begins to dominate the experience. That’s fine if you like muscle cars, but Miatas have always been about balance, and being more than the sum of its parts. As such, I don’t believe 200 hp is what this platform wants or needs; there are better cars for that.

13.5 lbs/hp is plenty fast, and with a little ballast, it would be possible to race in NASA ST5/TT5. At one point I was also considering GLTC, and after taking points for aero, the car can be no better than 13 lbs/hp. Now I’ve seen the lap times TT5 and GLTC racers put down, and I don’t need a Miata to go any faster than that.

I’ve also driven three very different Miatas back to back to back on a race track, and to my surprise, my 145 hp 1.6 Miata was faster than a 200 hp K-swapped Miata. The KMiata was on better suspension and tires, and yet both drivers went faster in the less powerful car. And so I know for certain that 200 hp isn’t the answer, and that less is sometimes more.

But the star that day was Dylan’s VVT swap, which remains one the best Miatas I’ve driven. It struck an ideal balance of power and drivability, retaining all that is good about a Miata, with a motor to match. Dylan later added a turbo, but after finding out his car was better without it, reverted to a normally aspirated build. See? More evidence.

For all of those reasons, I believe 175-ish whp is ideal for a NA/NB Miata. So, what are the options to achieve that?

  • VVT 10/10 – Getting a BP engine to 150 hp at the wheels isn’t terribly difficult, but 175 hp sure is: full bolt-ons, head work, cams, a custom exhaust, a standalone ECU, possibly ITBs, and of course, lots of dyno tuning. They say the last 10% of performance is 90% of the cost, and that’s where you’ll be. This isn’t the best use of money, but if you want this option, contact Stefan Napp.
  • Turbo – Even the smallest turbo will easily make 175 hp on an otherwise stock engine. It’s cheap and easy, but in exchange you have turbo problems. Many people accept that trade, but I’ve seen too many broken turbo Miatas to take the plunge. Also, it seems like most turbos end up above 200 hp, and thus beyond my needs.
  • Supercharger – An M45 supercharger with an intercooler and smaller diameter crank pulley can get close to 175 hp, but the problem is heat soak after multiple laps. So this is a better option for a street car than a track car, but I heartily approve of the quantity and quality of power, and of course the sound.
  • K24 – As stated earlier, I drove one on track and it was slower than my cammed 1.6. I know a lot of people are happy with their K swaps, but for me it’s too much engine, too expensive, and too Honda.
  • Hayabusa – A gen-2 Hayabusa swap from Spec13 probably won’t make 175 hp, but since the engine is lighter, the end result should be in the ideal lbs/hp range. What’s not ideal is the lack of reverse gear, and less than 100 ft-lbs of torque. I’m currently part way through my own Busa swap, and so I obviously think this is a good option for a hardcore race car, but this swap isn’t for everyone.
  • Ecotec – To get a BP Miata engine to put out 165-170 hp is a lot of money and work, which is where an Ecotec fuggin starts. The path to 175 hp is cheap and easy, and there’s buckets of torque that a BP engine can only dream about.

An Ecotec swap makes a lot of sense. Sensible person that I am, I contacted EcotecMiata a couple years ago and asked them to do a turnkey swap. I’d simply drop off my car at their headquarters, and pick it up a few weeks later ready to drive. But they were terrible with communication, and so despite several attempts, it just never happened.

Fast forward a couple years and EcotecMiata is now under new ownership. The new owner, Cameron Recknagel, is solving some of the age-old problems with the swap kit, adding new performance options, and most importantly, communicating with customers.

I’ve known Cameron for several years, his Star Wars themed Miata was the first car I featured on this blog. Back in 2019 he had a tuned BP and raced Lemons, but in the quest for better race results, and junk yard available engines, he swapped in an Ecotec. His wealth of knowledge on the platform is another strong reason to choose this swap.

Ecotec problems… solved

Every motor swap is in some way or another a disaster, and as an early adopter, Cameron experienced several of these teething problems. The biggest hardware problem was a leaking oil pan; it wasn’t always straight, had bad welds, and the baffles inside would break.

1” thick aluminum adapter plate.

Cameron’s solution to this is simple; use an existing oil pan from another car and make up a custom adapter plate. He let the OEMs do the hard work and adapted an off the shelf stamping to an inch of billet aluminum. Don’t worry, the oil pan sits flush or slightly above the subframe, and so it’s not going to deck out; the lowest part on the car is actually the exhaust crossover tube.

This was always a problem with the swap, because the exhaust is on the other side of the car. The exhaust needs to cross over from passenger side to driver side, but the PPF is in the way. And so is the clutch fork.

Cameron’s solution to the clutch fork problem was the same as the oil pan: use existing parts. He took an existing hydraulic throwout bearing kit and moved the clutch slave inside of the transmission. This makes routing the exhaust much easier, and his internal clutch slave kit even works with other swaps so long as they are using Miata clutch kits and transmissions.

So let’s talk numbers, most importantly cost, hours, horsepower, and torque.

Ecotec by the numbers

I’d guess most people choose an Ecotec swap because you can find junkyard motors for $200. This is dirt cheap by any measure, especially with Miata motors going for over $1200, and K24s going for a couple thousand. On a dollar for dollar performance calculation, the Ecotec wins. 

The other part of cost that you need to factor in, is how long it takes to do the swap. Most other engine swaps require modification of the stock subframe, which isn’t necessary with the Ecotec Miata swap. And unlike using forced-induction on a BP, the stock radiator is ample for the 2.4L Ecotec. It’s not a terribly difficult operation to swap in the motor, and three people can do the full swap in a weekend.

Three people? Well, extra hands help. An Ecotec is about 40 lbs heavier than a BP motor. The head is a lot bigger, and inside the block you have a heavier crank and balance shafts.

Bigger, but still plenty of room. Notice the intake is now on the cold side of the engine.

Power-wise, a bone stock port-inject Ecotec swap with a drop-in tune will make between 165-170 hp. I don’t think a Miata needs any more power than that, but if you have a heavier car and/or simply want more power, common bolt-ons include replacing the cast-iron exhaust manifold with a Polaris header, and something Miata people are familiar with, swapping OE cams.

On Miatas, you can modify the exhaust cam and swap it onto the intake side, which provides a little more duration. The exhintake cam swap can make up to 8 hp when properly timed and tuned. The Ecotec cam swap is the opposite; you put the intake cam on the exhaust side. This gives more lift and duration, and results in 15-20 hp. Because you can pull a cam at the junkyard for $20, there probably isn’t a more cost effective gain to be had anywhere. 

The cheapest power you can get.

For additional power, some people may want to remove the balance shafts and/or water pump, but Cameron advises against this. The small amount of power gained simply isn’t worth the loss in reliability, or the headaches that ensue. With the balance shafts in, you end up with a Singer sewing machine up front for your daily commute that’s hiding +175 hp for the track. Keep this engine under 7500 and you can beat on it like it still owes you that $209.99+tax. Just make sure to put good oil in and a Hengst oil filter (seriously, use no other filter, they like to collapse).

If you need more power, race camshafts, a plug-n-play standalone ECM from BMEP Solutions, and turbo kits are a call away. While the internet isn’t ripe with aftermarket parts like a K-motor, parts are still readily available, and Cameron assures me Ecotec Miata is there to help.

But like I started with, I don’t want anything north of 200 hp, and so a basic kit would get me there. Here’s a dyno chart showing a bone stock engine that makes 160 hp. This is a little on the low side compared to some junkyard engines, but with a Polaris Slingshot header ($200) a shorty ram intake, and a little tuning, you can easily make over 172 hp.

Red: stock. Blue: short ram intake and BMPE tuned.

Cameron’s personal endurance racing engine sports regrind cams, and smartly retains the water pump and balance shaft for all-day running. Even with worn out piston rings this put out nearly 200 hp. See for yourself.

The swap kit is competitively priced at $4500, which is similar to a Busa swap, but cheaper than most others. The real savings is the $200 motor, and how cheaply you can get another 20 hp. With a weekend of wrenching you can upgrade that moving chicane to something that will keep putting a smile on your face, and give German sports cars something to worry about.

Occam’s Racer Discord Server

I’m going through a change that I don’t understand yet, but is affecting this website and the content I write.

It started a few years ago after two heavy bouts with Lyme disease, a couple surgeries, pain meds, and PT. Since then I’ve had and a loss of balance and focus, and I felt I could no longer trust myself wheel to wheel racing. I’ve only done one race since then, but it was a fine one to end on.

Last Spring I quit drinking. I wasn’t much of a drinker to begin with, but I love the taste of beer, especially strong stouts and big IPAs. I don’t know why I quit, but I’ve been drinking N/A beer since May, and while the taste is worse, life is better.

Then in June I quit my job at Google. Partly this was because I didn’t want to work with AI. I think making something smarter than you are is the route to extinction. Maybe not of the species, but of original thought, and what it means to be human. I won’t be a part of that.

This week I am leaving social media. My Facebook feed is largely ads and suggestions to follow people or groups I don’t care about. I could just ignore and scroll, but leaving social media is like quitting drinking; it’s something I don’t understand yet, but a necessary part of a larger change.

As of today I’m unlocking all of the password protected articles. It’s not like I was making a lot of money from this site, and I think it’s more important to support the small number people who still read and think than it is to try and squeeze money from them. The previously locked articles are the following:

I have a lot of new articles, but I can’t seem to finish them because I have a conflict of purpose. I used to believe it was important to be a shit disturber; to disrupt the status quo with data and facts. Now I feel like it’s more important to simply be kind and help people. You may see some of that old type of article as I finish up existing drafts, but new content will be of a different sort.

Without social media it will be more of a challenge to learn from others, so today I started up a Discord server to discuss car aerodynamics. Please join the community: https://discord.gg/bhDAe57e3m

Welp, here’s to change in 2025 (as I raise a glass of thin and disappointing N/A beer trying to pass itself off as an IPA). Let’s see how this Discord thing works out, and maybe we can create a respectful, helpful, and fun community. See you there!

PS – after posting this, a couple friends have reached out to enquire if I’m OK. Yes, everything is fine; there is a significant life change on the horizon, but I can’t see it yet. Just like I would when racing, I’m discarding all the heavy parts, so I can get there as quickly as possible.

Time Trials Rules and 2025 Leaderboard

I have it in the back of my mind to host a time trial competition for front-wheel drive cars. Only. I’d call it FF/TT, and hold the race at the most challenging track for FWD cars, Pineview Run.

What makes it so challenging is something I debate with my brother. Partly it’s the uphill esses, which take the weight off the front, where you need traction for acceleration and turning. Partly it’s the long slow corners, which show up in the data as lower lateral Gs. And partly it’s I don’t know why; it’s just so goddamn slow in a FWD car.

As an example, on the original track, I drove a Mini Cooper R50 on 205 RE71R tires and struggled to get a 1:22 lap. In a Miata with the same power to weight ratio, and on similar tires, I could do a 1:18 all day long. Similarly, in my Veloster on V730 tires I can do a 1:16 on V730 tires, but a RWD car of the same specs would be doing 1:13 easy.

Now these examples are from Pineview’s original track, and the new track extension should balance the scales a little bit, being faster and longer. But it will still be more difficult for FWD cars, and that’s what makes Pineview a great place for a FWD TT.

I was thinking about how to class the cars and came up with two obvious ones right away:

  • B-Spec, Sundae Cup – These cars are close enough in spec that I’d lump them together and have them on similar tires.
  • Unlimited – The fastest FWD car must emerge as the overall winner.

There’s a chasm of performance between Sundae Cup and Unlimited, and so there should be a few classes in the middle. To determine where to divide the classes, I ran hundreds of computer simulations in OptimumLap, using Pineview’s long track. I used cars that ranged from 10:1 to 20:1 lb/hp, and choose tires of various grip levels and different aero parts. From this mound of data, I sorted all of the cars into classes separated by 2.5 seconds each.

I also tried sorting cars into classes based on 1.5 and 2 seconds, and while this would bring more parity within each class, it increases the number of classes from an easily manageable four classes, to five or six. That’s nothing compared to the thirty-something classes in SCCA autocross, but I’d like to keep things much more manageable.

In the simulations, mechanical grip was the most important factor by a long shot, and so the classing system is largely based on tires and things that affect grip. Because Pineview is a low-speed track, there are diminishing returns to adding more power. In fact, after about 10 lbs/hp, lap times didn’t change much at all. Likewise, because of the slow corner speeds, aerodynamic downforce doesn’t come into play much.

OptimumLap doesn’t discern between FWD and RWD, and so my classing system is generic to all cars. However, most racing series recognize that FWD cars are at a disadvantage, and give them a slight performance boost. For example, NASA TT gives a +1 bump to lbs/hp for FWD cars (or + .5 lbs/hp if it’s a factory built race car). I’ll do something similar for FWD cars, but I’ll modify grip rather than power, because that’s actually where the discrepancy lies.

Time trial classing

To class your car in my system, do the following:

  • Log the weight of your car, with fuel and driver, ready to race.
  • Add together your car’s maximum hp and torque and divide by two. These figures are assumed to be measured at the wheels on a Dynojet. (Using both hp and torque should put both peaky and flat-tuned engines on more equal footing.)
  • Divide weight by power, and save this as your Lbs/Power figure. (Which I may call lbs/hp for convention, but it always means an average of hp and torque.)
  • Now find your tire’s Time trial pace on GRM’s Ultimate track tire guide.

With these values, you can now find your class in the following lookup table.

Power to weight ratio and tire choice are the primary factors that determine your class. Other options move you left or right in the columns.

Modifications to classing

There are several modifiers to the class, which move your car left or right one more columns. I may come up with more modifiers, but I’d also like to keep things simple.

  • Tire width – For most cars, tire width falls into a standard range that’s 11-13 times the weight of the car. So a car that weighs 3025 lbs will have a tire in the 235- to 275-width range. If your car weighs more than 13x tire width, your car has skinny tires and moves left one column; If your car weighs less than 11x tire width, your car has wide tires and moves right one column.
  • Suspension – Coilovers allow more camber and the ability to corner weight, and so they move the car one cell to the right. If you have multi-adjustable coilovers, move two columns to the right. RWD cars with a solid rear axle move one column to the left.
  • Aero – Cars with aero move one or more columns to the right, depending on how much aero. But know that aero doesn’t help that much at PV.
  • Drivetrain – FWD cars move one cell to the left. I feel like they deserve more help than this at Pineview, but let’s start here.

You may notice that the table doesn’t include cars that are slower than 20 lbs/hp. If your car is that slow, get it to 25 lbs/hp and race in Sundae Cup. Likewise the table doesn’t include anything more powerful than 10 lbs/hp, because at this track, there are diminishing returns at higher power, so just use 10 lbs/hp if your car has more than that.

Classing examples

Here are some cars and which classes they’d fit into on different tires.

  • Corvette, 10 lbs/hp – Class C3 on a RT615K+, C2 on Kumho V730, and C1 on a RE71RS. (Most Corvettes have better than 10:1 lbs/hp, but this is the maximum for the chart.)
  • Civic Type R 11 lbs/hp – Moves one column to the left for FWD. Class C4 on RS4 C3 on V730, C2 on A052, and C1 on Hoosiers.
  • My Hyundai Veloster N, 13 lbs/hp – It’s FWD and has skinny tires for its weight, and so it moves two columns to the left. But I have front and rear aero, so it moves two to the right. In the end, it stays where it is. Class C4 on RT615K+, C3 on ECF, C2 on RE71RS, and C1 on Hoosiers.
  • ND Miata, 15 lbs/hp – Class C3 on V730s, C2 using CR-S V2, and C1 on Hoosier R7s.
  • Mini R56 JCW 16 lbs/hp – FWD so it moves one to the left. Class C4 on AD09, C3 on RC1, C2 on Hoosiers.
  • Typical Track Miata, 18 lbs/hp- Most of these have front and rear aero, wide tires, and coilovers, and so they move four columns to the right. Class C3 on RS4s, C2 on RE71RS, and C1 on SM7.5.

FF/TT or a Pineview leaderboard?

A front-wheel drive only time trial sounds like a fun event, especially at this very challenging track. I envision this as a Saturday race, with optional practice on Friday, and an optional HPDE on Sunday. (Optional days because it’s unlikely the track could be reserved for a full weekend event; Pineview is a private member club, and they have the first rights to drive.)

If this idea interests you, let me know, because it will take some momentum (and convincing Pineview’s owner) to make this happen.

But even if FF/TT doesn’t happen this year, I think this classing system works great for a leaderboard. Show up at the track whenever you want, set a lap time on any 10hz GPS device (Aim Solo, Garmin Catalyst, phone app with 10hz antenna, etc), send me the lap time and your class, and I’ll add it to the online leaderboard.

On the leaderboard I’d keep track of eight classes:

  1. Sundae Cup – For B-spec and FWD Sundae cup cars on RA1 or RT660 or RT651 tires only (no z214, Toyo RR, etc).
  2. C4 – Per the classing chart. RWD Sundae cup cars go here.
  3. C3 – Per the classing chart.
  4. C2 – Per the classing chart.
  5. C1 / Unlimited – C1 is essentially an unlimited class, this would be for any drivetrain.
  6. C1 / Unlimited FWD – I’d keep track of the fastest FWD separately.
  7. A/S Open – 500 TW, no restrictions.
  8. A/S FWD – 500 TW front-wheel drive, no restrictions.

You might question the 500TW categories, but there are quite a few Pineview members that regularly track their car on 500+ treadwear tires. Dennis, Ed, myself, and even Pineview owner Todd Milton regularly choose to drive on all-seasons. Not only are all-season tires a lot more economical, they are the great equalizer between cars, and quite a bit of fun.

I’ve tried to convince Todd that he should hold the first and last race of the year on all-season tires, but that hasn’t gotten any traction with him yet (chortle). I’d make it a point-to-point race with autocross timing lights rather than transponders, and bring the track rats and cone dodgers together to see who’s the fastest on the worst tires. That would be a great way to kick off the season in March and put it to bed in November.

Veloster N Long-term (Track) Report

I’ve had my Veloster N for a year and a half, and with two track seasons finished, it’s time for a retrospective. I’m not going to get into daily driver details, just going to review the important things; race track things.

Wheels

Most people downsize the OEM wheels from 19” to 18” because aftermarket wheels are much lighter, and 18” tires are usually about 20% cheaper. The big challenge is fitting wider wheels and tires; unless you cut the fenders and install flares, the Veloster N can’t fit wide tires. When you compare the wheel and tire sizes to other cars, the Elantra N can easily fit 245 on 9”‘ wheels, while a Civic Type R can fit a 265 on 10”. It’s just not fair.

Ergo, VN track drivers typically fit a 235 tire on 18×8.5 +45. My buddy Chris was able to fit a 245 RT660 on a 8.5 +50, but he was at stock ride height. I tried the same tire on a 8.5 + 45 with 1” lowering springs, and it rubbed front and back.

On 1” lowering springs, a 245 RT660 on 18×8.5 +45 rubs front and rear. The same tire on 18×8.5 +50 will clear with stock springs.

I have three sets of wheels:

  • OEM 19×8+55 – Theres nothing to like about the stock wheel, it’s narrow and weighs over 29 lbs. When I wore out the OE Pirelli PZ4 tires, I put $65 Linglong Crosswind tires on these wheels, which is better rubber than they deserve.
  • Konig Countergram 18×8.5 +43 – I bought these because I like the black center and polished aluminum lip. They were about $300 at Fitment Industries and weigh 19 lbs. I have only used these for Kumho V730s, and they fit fine.
  • Motegi MR140 18×8.5 +45 – These are a bargain at $173 from Phil’s Tire. The only downside is the mounting holes are super narrow, and even 17mm lug nuts won’t fit, so you need to use spline (tuner) nuts, which I fucking hate. Anyway, the wheels are cheap and at 19.1 lbs, quite light. I used these for the 18” PZ4, Blu Trac Race, Pilot SS, and RT660.

I’ve read somewhere that reducing rotating weight is 3x more important than weight elsewhere on the car. So taking 10 lbs off each wheel is a huge benefit for acceleration and braking. Being unsprung weight, this also helps handling.

Tires

I put camber bolts in my Veloster N, and it maxes out at -1.8 degrees of camber. I understand that the DCTs can get more camber than the 6M versions, but I don’t exactly understand why. In any case, this doesn’t allow my car to get the most out of a proper track tire, and so the difference between an all-season and a super 200 is less what it should be. Or another way of putting that is that my car goes well on shitty tires.

At this point I’ve track tested eight different tires, from cheap all-seasons, to max performance summer tires, a few 200s, and a premium 100 treadwear. All of these were properly abused on the same race track, and I dutifully collected data for comparative analysis.

I’ll list them in the order I drove them (including two tires on a friends Veloster N), and sum it up with a report card.

  • Pirelli PZero PZ4 – I’ve had these in the OE 235/35-19 on 8” wide wheels, and 235/40-18 on 8.5”. I felt they were decent rain tires, but otherwise just average. You need to keep the pressures high to keep them from rolling over, and rotate them frequently, as they deteriorate quickly on a dry track.
  • Falken RT660 – I drove these in a wider 245/40-18 on my buddy Chris’s VN, and came away solidly impressed. On an otherwise stock VN I was only .25 seconds off Pineview’s all-time FWD record. Chris’s car doesn’t have a lot of camber, but he had the tires heat cycled before delivery, and thus experienced none of the center delamination or tread splice issues that others have reported.
  • Maxxis VR1 R2 – The Hankook RS4s used to be my favorite dual duty tire, but it’s not always available, and rarely on sale. Maxxis VR1s are pretty close in performance, and a great second choice. I used this tire on Chris’s VN and went a little slower than I did on the RT660. On the other hand, Chris didn’t like the feel of the Falken’s and went faster on Maxxis. This goes to show you that it’s not always the outright grip that matters, and you might turn a faster lap on a tire with less grip. Feel, feedback, and confidence are important.
  • Linglong Crosswind UHP All Season – I bought these because I needed something (anything) to put on my 19” OE wheels after the PZ4 wore out. At $65 on sale, I didn’t expect much more than round and black, but I took them to the track just the same. The sidewalls were mush and they howled like a chorus of tone-deaf banshees, but the performance wasn’t terrible. Three different drivers flogged them all day long, and the budget 400 TW tires earned some respect.
  • Kumho V730 – This is a good dry track tire, but worthless in the wet. It has a NT01 feel, with great feedback and grip that’s good down to the cords. While searching for more grip, I aired them down too low and corded the outside shoulder with half the tread remaining. I can’t start these at less than 32 cold, which means they’ll come up to 41 psi hot, and so I have to pit once and air them down, which is a PITA. They are cheaper than most 200s, and if the car could get more camber, I’d use nothing else.
  • Armstrong Blu-Trac Race – Armstrong left the e off of Blu and the k of off Trac and the grip off a 200 TW tire. And yet this was the most fun tire I’ve tried so far. They break away very early, but are super easy to control when sliding. You can get them with a money-back guarantee, and they go on sale a few times per year. This tire puts the E in HPDE.
  • Goodyear Eagle Supercar 3R – I admit that I often order food looking at the right side of the menu, and so it’s not surprising that I buy tires by price. But this summer I decided to spoil myself for once and get a premium tire and set some PB laps. The grip of the SC3R was incredible, if inaudible, and the turn-in was so insanely quick, it felt like I was driving a completely different car. All the ingredients were there, but the lap times never materialized. The tires made the car feel like I had all the nannies on, and took the fun out of driving. In the end, I went a second faster on V730 than I did on SC3R. I recently traded them away for a used set of RT660s. I’ve also had the devil of a time getting my rebate, which is part of why I bought them in the first place. I’m done with Goodyear.
  • Michelin Pilot Super Sport – These were the OE tire on the base Veloster N (non-Performance Pack), and came in a smaller 225/40-18 size on that version. I got them for free on Facebook Marketplace with half the tread remaining. They are easy to drive at the limit, but have an unusual sound, more of a protesting whine than a painful howl. The PSS are a generation older than most 300 TW tires, but were within a second of the V730 or SC3R. I corded the outside shoulder, just like every other tire. Man I need coilovers.

The following table is how I’d rank the tires on my Veloster N. I’ll probably get some disagreements here, but I like a playful tire that lets the car dance, and lap times matter don’t as much to me as having fun.

TireGripLongevityPriceFunGrade
SC3RA+DD- ($325)DC-
PZ4CCB ($175)CC+
RT660ACC- ($250)CC+
Crosswind DCA+ ($65)CC+
PSSCBC+ ($175)BB-
VR1BBC ($230)B+B
Blu TracDAB+ ($165)AB
V730ABB- ($200)B-B
Tires by grade.

In the future I have two choices: get coilovers so that I can use better track tires, or switch to endurance tires with a symmetrical tread pattern. RS4s are the easy button, working well with camber challenged cars, and allowing me to flip them once, after I wear the outside shoulders.

The more expensive choice is to buy coilovers, which allow more camber and corner balance the car, and that would reorder my tire list completely. The negative camber would also allow the wheels to tuck under the fenders better. With that I might be able to fit 18×9 +45 wheels and 245 tires.

But… this is still a street car and I’ve ruined other cars in the past making them too track focused. I’ll revisit this conundrum in 2025.

Brakes

Muzafar Umarov manages the N Track and Autocross group on Facebook, and is a knowledgeable source on all things N. From him I learned that the Veloster N brake bias starts at roughly 70% front, but changes dynamically based on slip. Brake bias is controlled electronically for each wheel, and can shift to as much as 93% front if the rear wheels are locking.

This is both good news and bad news. If you’re accustomed to using the rear brakes to rotate the car on corner entry, you’ll be disappointed. The system essentially prevents corner entry oversteer, intentional or not. This infuriated my brother, who swore the traction control was on, even though it was turned off in the custom settings.

This also means that putting higher friction brake pads on the rear is a waste. Just as the dynamic brake bias system won’t help you turn the car on corner entry, it also won’t stop the car any faster. The sticky rear pads will just transfer more bias to the front brakes sooner. As a result, even the very serious folks at GenRacer are still using the OE rear brake pads.

And for that reason I’m also using OE rear pads, and will be for the foreseeable future. They are inexpensive, wear is imperceptible, and there’s no reason to use anything else. Life can be just that simple.

The OE front brake pads are reported to be quite good as well, and can do autocross and light track duty as long as you use the OE tires. But they are a little expensive, and the cheap hack is to use the Elantra N pads, and reuse the Veloster N shims.

But I don’t know about that, since once you upgrade the tires, you’re going to want better than OE pads. Knowing this, I switched the front brake pads to Porterfield R4-E immediately upon delivery.

This is a pad I have racing experience with, and as someone who’s never had antilock brakes on a track car before, I typically prefer pads with a lower friction coefficient. I believe the R4-E (E is for Endurance) come in around .46 mu, which is quite a bit lower than most serious race pads. As a result, they probably require more brake pressure. But I like the way they feel as I release the brake pedal, and that’s more important to me than initial bite or maximum stopping power.

Another reason to use a less aggressive pad is that several Veloster N owners have reported getting ice mode when using higher friction track pads. This can overwhelm the stock calipers and ABS system, and send the car into a panic. And so there are at least a few reasons for me to use the R4-E (the E is also for Economy).

The pads cost $210, which is $100 less than what you’d pay for most hybrid street/track pads, and half the cost of a dedicated track/race pad. I leave the R4-E on for daily driving, and they stop fine when cold and don’t squeal annoyingly like an aggressive track pad. (Although I understand some people like that.)

The way the R4-E work on both street and track remind me of the old Stoptech 301, before they switched manufacturing plants. That was a true dual duty pad, but it lasted about half as long as a R4-E. Still, they were less than half the price, and I used them without complaint for years.

Admittedly, I don’t experiment much with brakes, but Gregg Vandivert has done a ton of brake pad testing on his Elantra N. He had a problem using the Porterfield R4 (not R4-E) compound; the pads cracked and separated from the backing plates. The reason this happens is because Hyundai uses a cheap single piston caliper, and so the backing plate needs to be ultra stiff, or it flexes.

Gregg says Porterfield has two thicknesses of backing plates available, and you can special order pads with the thicker ones. Well, my R4-E pads have not cracked or separated, and so perhaps the E pads come with thicker backing plates to begin with? I will need to ask the folks at Porterfield at some point.

In any case, the brake pads are just fine for street and track driving, and they held up for over a year of both. Eventually the brakes started to fade on track, and I figured it was time to change them out. When I pulled them off I noticed they wore evenly inside and outside, and I had used 99% of the friction material without getting into the backing plates. I got lucky there.

I got everything out of them.

Moving on from pads to rotors, I’m now just onto my second set. The service limit is 28mm and that’s where mine are at the outside edge, but down near the center they are 27.2mm.

It looks like I’ll need to replace rotors every two sets of pads, but if I get pad-curious then I’ll do both at the same time so they bed in properly. I paid $140 at Parts Geek for the front rotors, while my local Hyundai shop wanted $400 for essentially the same thing. Areyoufuckingkiddingme?

Two sets of front pads and one pair of rotors works out to $540, and that covers maybe two years. I don’t know how long the OE rear pads and rotors last, but certainly longer. That’s some serious economy, and it surprises me that Veloster brakes are as cheap as Miata brakes.

Fuel and engine modes

The Veloster manual says to use 91 octane, but I use 93 most of the time, because that’s what’s available. However, many of the pumps here only have non-ethanol 90 for Premium (lots of boats and such in this area). I don’t know what the power difference is between 90 non-ethanol, 91, and 93, but it may get more power out of 93 because of the higher octane. I don’t know if the VN has the “octane learning” feature of the EN, but I’m pretty sure the ECU will pull out timing when it senses lower octane. But then again, ethanol burns at 80k BTUs, while gasoline burns hotter with 118k BTUs, and so maybe I should be running non-ethanol?

I get exactly 7.0 mpg on track at Pineview and NYST. Every time. My friend Chris is only a couple tenths of a second slower than me on Pineview’s short track (45 second lap) and gets 2 mpg more than I do. So it’s interesting to see the diminishing returns on driving the car harder. At Watkins Glen I get a miserable 6.0 mpg. In practical terms, this means emptying a 5-gallon jug every track session.

On the highway I get mostly 32-33 mpg with the N wing, and I lose maybe 1 mpg with the ducktail spoiler. With a wing on the car, it gets just under 30 mpg, which is kind of surprising, because I thought that ducktail would have more drag. I haven’t done an accurate two-way test over a distance though.

The Veloster N has four different pre-set driving modes that change engine response, exhaust note, suspension stiffness, steering quickness, traction control, rev matching, and the electronic limited slip diff. I only use one of the pre-set modes, Normal. Economy mode doesn’t do shit, and the performance modes are a collection of settings I’d never use together.

Thankfully Hyundai made a N Custom mode that allows you to adjust each setting individually and save it as a custom setup. Mine has the suspension set to soft, and a quiet engine note with none of the pop and burble nonsense. I turn all of the nannies off, including rev matching, and max out the eLSD. I haven’t decided which of the three steering modes I like best, but I can change that on the fly using the touchscreen.

I use the Normal driving mode when I’m on the street, or when I am on track and it’s raining a shit storm. Compared to my N Custom mode, Normal is about a second faster in the wet and about 1.5 seconds slower in the dry. So I definitely appreciate having the options.

I dyno tested all the engine modes and they put out the same power. Eco mode is supposed to limit boost pressure, but it doesn’t make a difference on my car. I got 244 hp at the wheels on a Dynojet, and that’s 10 more than I expected.

Someone said the different engine modes don’t change power, they change how the engine responds. But given how the modes are identical on the dyno, I’m skeptical, I’ll A/B test engine response on track and see what the stopwatch says.

Finally, there was a recent software update that changes a bunch of things in the N Custom mode. I like the new layout, and appreciate that Hyundai is still making updates to a car they discontinued. I keep the updated software on a keychain USB drive in case I meet someone with a EN, KN, or VN that hasn’t made the update yet.

Track warranty

Arguably the best reason to buy a Hyundai is for the 10-year powertrain warranty. I bought mine as a Hyundai-certified pre-owned car, and so I’m covered until November 2032. I also upgraded to full bumper to bumper coverage, and so if anything goes wrong with my car in the next eight years, someone else is fixing it. And because this is a N car, the warranty extends to track use.

In fact, I’ve already used the warranty. The engine blew up on track at Waterford; Hyundai picked it up at the track, fixed it, and delivered it to me 500 miles away. They even paid for the rental car to get me home. I suspect in the next 8 years I will be using the warranty again.

Hatchback life

There aren’t a lot of sports cars that have enough room to transport a set of tires inside the car. Of course most 4-door sedans can do this, with two in the boot and two on the rear seats, but how many proper track cars can swallow a set of slicks? The Subaru-Toyota BRZ-86 was apparently designed to carry a set of track tires in the back, and I’ve seen four tires disappear inside a BMW 1-series. So I imagine that most BMW coupes can manage this as well.

Hatchbacks have the advantage here, and when you fold down the rear seats, even a diminutive MINI Cooper can carry four tires inside. But can you name any track car that can transport eight tires inside? With the space-saving Modern Spare in the well and one on the front seat, that’s actually nine!

Shocker! Seven in the back and one in the front.

The first time I went down to the A2 wind tunnel, I transported three splitters, five wings, two spoilers, a diffuser, boxes of tools, spares, and other parts inside the car and drove the 10 hours to Moorseville. Try that in any other car you’d actually take to a wind tunnel.

That’s a lot of junk in that trunk!

And if this wasn’t enough space already, I added a trailer hitch so that I can use a cargo tray or small trailer. The Veloster trailer hitch was designed for the base model Veloster, and required some modifications to fit my car.

Aerodynamics

My Veloster has been to the A2 wind tunnel twice, and now I know more about hatchback aerodynamics than I ever dreamed I would. The OE body has a drag of .416 and makes a tiny bit of downforce, which is pretty surprising, since most cars make lift.

Front downforce was easy to get, and even a flat splitter made 135 lbs of downforce at 100 mph. My curved splitter made 195 lbs, and coupled with upper and lower canards and hood vents, total front downforce was north of 300 lbs. And this is without cutting vents into the fenders or extracting air behind the wheels, which you would do on a proper race car, but I may never get around to on a daily.

At the other end of the car, wings didn’t perform as well as I expected, and even the Kamm-back shape is a compromise over a proper coupe or fastback. As such, most wings up to 55” span had lift-to-drag ratios less than 4:1. A 70” Wing Logic gave the best results at 7:1, which is more a function of the wingspan than the shape of the wing; it’s obviously important to get the ends of the wing into clean air where they can get away from the hatchback roofline.

If wings were disappointing, spoilers were a revelation, as they made both front and rear downforce. (Wings reduce front downforce through leverage; Spoilers aggregate pressure over the l roofline, and some of that is in front of the rear wheels.) Spoilers can’t get as much total downforce as a wing, but they work surprisingly well if you’re not going to add a splitter.

The biggest surprise was that adding a 1” Gurney flap on the OE N spoiler gave a better L/D ratio than all but the largest wing.

1” angle aluminum Gurney flap. In the wind tunnel I used duct tape, here it’s fastened with rivets, and in the future I’ll drill those out and use rivnuts for easy on/off. Notice I also added slightly taller end plates, but I didn’t do that in the wind tunnel.

At 100 mph, the OE wing makes 30.8 lbs of downforce and loses 2.5 hp due to drag. With the wicker-kicker it makes an astonishing 123.6 lbs of downforce and uses 8.3 hp. (These numbers are compared to the base model, which has a roof extension, but no wing).

Rear view of wicker, kicker, Gurney flap. I’ll probably paint it black at some point in the future.

The Gurney flap information isn’t (yet) in my wind tunnel report, but there’s over 50 pages specific to the Veloster N, going nose to tail on aerodynamic parts, simulated lap times, and a lot of discussion.

I also did some practical testing of wings and spoilers at Pineview Run and NYST. The short story is that my Veloster went 2.5 seconds faster with rear downforce alone. Given that, I wouldn’t even bother adding front downforce unless you have a really significant wing to balance it out.

Conclusion

In the past year and a half I’ve done probably 30 track days in my Veloster N; I’m still smiling. It’s got enough cargo capacity for everything I bring to the track, and a comfortable ride that makes long-distance track treks a pleasure. It has adequate power, and handles better than it should. Even on track like Pineview, which has a lot of long corners and uphill switchbacks that punish FWD cars, it’s fast and fun to drive.

As track cars go, it’s economical. It doesn’t need expensive brake pads or ultra grippy tires, and seems to work just as well with mid-performance items. If you want to keep the warranty, you can’t modify engine parts or tuning, which leaves very little to spend money on. Except gas, as it is pretty thirsty.

The funny thing is, I’m actually looking forward to when the car is out of warranty, and I can install a bigger turbo. With a larger turbo, all the bolt ons, and a ECU tune, it might get down to a 10:1 lbs/hp ratio. Then I’ll gut it, cage it, and race whatever dumb series will have me. But I’ve got 8 years of wringing the snot out the stock engine, and I’m not at all disappointed with that.

I daresay I’m forming an emotional attachment to this car! It’s the amalgamation of so many cars I wanted and never bought: It’s the Honda CRX I pined for in college, but modernized and powerful; It’s the later CR-Z with double the power and nearly the economy; It’s the 3-door cousin of a MINI Clubman JCW, but with better aerodynamics; It’s as weird as the M Coupe “clown shoe” I nearly bought, but easier to live with.

And it’s so much fun! I love tossing the car into an early apex, forcing it into a four-wheel drift, and then digging it out with the front wheels. It’s Miata like, in its combination of economy and ability to bruise egos everywhere it goes. If you have a BMW M car, Corvette, or Porsche, you’d better be a decent driver, because the hurt machine is coming though!

This is probably the last car I buy that isn’t an electric self-driving killjoy mistake, and so I’m going to continue to modify it for more fun. I’ve already removed the rear seats and put in a flat cargo floor. Next I’ll install a harness bar and race seat. Sometime this winter I’ll figure out a DRS dual wing, because hitting a button on the straights is a plus one to fun. And maybe I’ll hook that up to an adjustable splitter as well. Let’s see what happens in 2025.

As if the car needed more space.

Testing Wings on a FWD Hatchback, Part Duh

In a previous post I put various wings and spoilers on my Veloster N and tested them at Pineview Run. What I found was that a ducktail spoiler or single wing was about .7 seconds faster than the OEM N spoiler/wing. And then I tried a dual element wing, which was another .6 seconds faster.

Pineview is a small, slow track, and there are only a couple corners where aero matters, and so 1.3 seconds is a significant difference. I opined that on a longer track with faster corner speeds, the lap time delta might double.

I got a chance to put my money where my mouth is at private open track day at NYST. The track closed for the season a couple weeks prior, but somehow Brad at S2K Takeover got his group a bonus round, and they invited me along. It was cold and damp at the start of the day, and this affected things slightly, but I got in a lot of consistent runs as well.

Rear aero options

For this event, I didn’t have much front aero on my Veloster N, just a hood vent and an aluminum undertray. Those are mostly for cooling, but they might provide around 60 lbs of front downforce at 100 mph. I have splitters and canards aplenty, and can get five times the downforce with those, but I wanted to test the exact same car I was using at Pineview last time.

Lots of rear aero options, and nothing on the front. Tires are 235/40R18 V730.

Well, not exactly the same, because I didn’t bring the ducktail spoiler. At Pineview, the single wing was about the same performance, and so I left the ducktail at home. This would allow me to make faster setup changes, as I could keep the same roof extension on for every configuration.

If you are a regular reader, you know I’m a shit disturber; I like to challenge the status quo, and disprove common misconceptions using data. That’s another reason there’s no front aero on the car. Adding rear aero alone on a FWD car throws the aerodynamic balance out the window, and is the opposite of what most aerodynamic pundits suggest.

The rule of thumb is to match your aero balance to the chassis balance, so that you don’t change the balance of grip as the car changes speeds. And so if your car has a 50/50 weight distribution, then you add the same amount of downforce front and rear. Or in the case of this FWD hatchback, if you have 67% of the weight on the front, then you should add twice as much downforce on the front as on the rear. But I purposefully didn’t do that; I only added downforce to the ass end.

I tested seven rear aero options:

  1. No aero – The base model Veloster didn’t come with a wing or spoiler, just a roofline extension. I built my wing mounts on top of this, and so the no-wing setup has two vertical wing supports. This might provide some stability in yaw, but they wouldn’t add downforce or affect the lap times much.
  2. Single wing, 0 degrees – This is my DIY S1223 wing, which I recently modified with glassed-in endplates. This is also the lower wing for all of the dual element wing tests.
  3. Dual wing 0/0 – This setting adds an upper wing element at zero degrees. This represents a dual wing at the lowest drag setting.
  4. Dual wing 0/26, standard gap – I then set the upper wing to 26 degrees. This is a fairly conservative angle of attack for a dual element wing.
  5. Dual wing 0/26, small gap – I kept the angle the same, but moved the upper wing down (closer to the main wing) and forward, so there was more overlap between the wings. This is the only wing setting where I used this gap and overlap.
  6. Dual wing 0/40 – I put the gap and overlap into the original position, and then raked the upper wing to 40 degrees, which is typically the maximum angle you can use with a dual element. At this AOA I’m flirting with flow separation, but what can I say, I’m a flirt.
  7. Dual wing 0/40 Gurney – I added a 1/4” Gurney flap. At high angles of attack, a Gurney flap can often help keep air attached. This setting should have the highest downforce, but also the most drag.

Let’s see how these compared in lap times, from slowest to fastest.

No wing 1:41.546

I tested the wingless car on the last run of the day. The track was in perfect condition by this time, now completely dry and warmed by the sun. I was also driving at my best, with enough laps under my belt that I wasn’t losing time anywhere for silly mistakes or a lack of reference points. And yet I set my slowest lap time.

The problem was mostly that I’d gotten used to rear aero, and without it, the car felt sketchy. On my best lap, the rear end got scary loose while braking on the front straight. And then I almost shit my pants braking into T5, as the car skidded in a way I hadn’t experienced before. I intentionally drive a tenth under the limit at this track, and I honestly thought I was about to put it in the grass.

That nervousness braking into downhill corners may be partially down to the Hyundai’s dynamic brake bias, which senses wheel speeds on each corner and then loads more and more front bias as the rears sense lock. This can put up to 93% of the bias on the front tires, making the rear end rather irrelevant. Without rear aero, that balance shifts earlier.

So let’s move on from braking zones to corners, and in the slower ones, the non-aero car handled the best and was the most fun to drive. Rather than forcing the car into rotation early in the corner, I could just lift a little and get a mid-corner pivot.

From start/finish to T5, the cars were very evenly matched, but from the downhill braking zone in T5 to T11, the car was 1.5 seconds faster with a single wing than without. Sans wing, I had less confidence in turns 8 through 11. From T12 to the end of the lap, the cars were again very evenly matched.

Red is single wing, blue is no wing. They are pretty evenly matched in the slow corners, but the non-aero car loses ground in the high speed sections.

If you look at the speed trace, you’ll see that right around 52-54 mph is where the difference is; go faster than that, and you want a wing, go slower, and you don’t. Ergo, using rear aero alone on an autocross course could be useless, but on a race track, you definitely want it.

Double wing 0/0 1:40.370

Most people wouldn’t set their dual wing to zero degrees top and bottom, it doesn’t take advantage of the convergent gap, which allows more secondary wing angle. Where you see this setting is in Formula 1, when the upper wing goes into DRS mode.

And that’s exactly why I wanted to test this setting. Next year I plan to build a DRS upper wing, and I wanted to see what the speed advantage was on the front straight. So here’s how that shakes out.

The DRS 0/0 double wing had an average top speed of 107.4 mph, while the 0/26 setting had an average of 106.8 mph, and the 0/40 had an average top speed of 106.4 mph. So DRS was worth about 1 mph from the highest to lowest drag settings. This doesn’t take into account that the higher downforce wings would have a higher min speed through T18, so let’s call DRS a 2 mph advantage on this track.

DRS 0/0 in blue, high downforce 0/40 in red. You can see the top speed advantage of the low-drag setting, but this is offset by being able to brake later with more downforce.

Surprisingly, that’s not worth a lot in a lap time, as the reduction in drag isn’t noticeable until about 88 mph, which happens about half way up the front straight on the 3rd to 4th gear shift. From there until the braking zone is where DRS makes a difference. Still, DRS sounds like a fun project, and on a track like Watkins Glen or VIR, the drag reduction would be more worthwhile.

Single wing 1:40.081

The single wing is the bottom wing for all the dual wing setups. It’s my DIY S1223 with a 1/2” Gurney flap. In the wind tunnel, it was nearly the same downforce as a 55” 9 Lives Racing wing (185.4 lbs) and 55” PCI wing (182.5 lbs).

With the wing on, the car was much more planted in the braking zones and in the fast esses. The downside is that is the wing took away some of the fun in the low and medium speed corners. For the gain in lap time, and especially the braking stability, I’ll take that trade.

If I look at the theoretical lap times, there’s a full 2 seconds between the single wing and no wing. And this is without changing wing angle at all. If I had added more wing angle, the car would have turned an even faster lap time.

But let’s get back to the real data, and that was that the single wing at zero degrees was 1.5 seconds faster than no wing. This is just over double the delta I saw at Pineview, and so I guess I was right about that prediction. And with that, I’ll make another prediction, which is that this wing would be worth 3 seconds at Watkins Glen.

Double wing 0/40 Gurney flap 1:39.970

You may recall that the lower wing has a Gurney flap on it already, and for this run I put a 1/4″ Gurney flap on the upper wing as well. The upper wing measures 4.7″ chord, and so the wicker is about 5% of the chord, which is a typical size.

This configuration drew the short straw, because the track was cold and damp when I tested it. Top speed was down a hair from the other 0/40 test runs, but not as much as I thought it would be.

I’d like to re-test this one at Pineview Run, as the extra downforce might have some benefit in slower speed corners. But given that the 0/26 setting was faster, I don’t think there’s a reason to use double Gurney flaps and a 40 degree angle on this car, unless I add front aero.

Double wing 0/40 1:39.447 and 1:39.435

I did several laps with the Gurney flap on and then quickly pitted, ripped it off (it was duct taped on, just like I would in a wind tunnel), and went right back out on track again. Although the track was still damp, the conditions wouldn’t have changed much in those 60 seconds, and so I feel the comparative data here is really good between with and without the Gurney flap on the upper wing. The data shows that there’s about a half second between them, and no Gurney on the upper wing was faster .

On the second to last run of the day, just before testing the single wing, I retested the 0/40 dual wing, because I didn’t feel I gave it a fair shake on a partially damp track. The best lap was only .012 seconds faster, and so I think there wasn’t that much time deficit in the damp track after all.

Double wing 0/26 small gap 1:39.230

I wanted to see what would happen if I changed the size of the gap between the wings, and the amount the top wing overlaps the bottom wing. It would be better to run a sweep of offsets in a wind tunnel, but I figured what the heck, I’ll make one radical change and maybe I’ll notice a clear signal in the deltas. I did not.

The smaller gap had a slightly faster top speed on the front and back straight, but the differences were so minor I can’t attribute it to drag reduction. But the minimum corner speeds were all slightly less than with the larger gap, and maybe this is a lower drag, lower downforce arrangement after all. I can’t say for sure, and with lap times this close, kinda don’t need to retest this one.

Subjectively, I can’t say I felt huge difference between any of the 0/26 settings and 0/40 settings. They all made the car a little more stable, and required a little more effort to turn the car. But if you changed wing angle or Gurney on me without knowing, and sent me out on track, I wouldn’t know which I was using.

Double wing 0/26 1:39.104

The fastest laps were set with the top wing at 26 degrees with the standard upper wing gap. These laps are shown here in blue vs the 0/40 runs in red.

A – You can see the 26-degree angle has less drag and a higher top speed than the 40-degree.

B – The only place the 40-degree angle has a clear advantage is in the carousel before wheelie hill. More downforce means a higher minimum speed all the way around.

C – For whatever reason, the lower wing angle carried a higher speed through the esses.

Other than those areas, there wasn’t a lot to choose between them. Given that, there’s enough evidence to say that somewhere around 26 degrees is the best setting. Certainly the 40 degree angle was slower, as was zero degrees.

It’s funny, that when I originally built this wing I set the upper wing to 30 degrees and made no provision for adjustment. I was simply testing a proof of concept at that time, but damnit that might actually have been the best setting.

Conclusions

Here are all the fastest laps and theoretical laps for each configuration.

AeroBest lapTheoreticalFront MPHConditions
No wing1:41.5461:41.192108.3Dry
Dual 0/0 DRS1:40.3701:39.903107.6Dry-ish
Single wing 01:40.0811:39.217107.3Dry
Dual 0/40 Gurney1:39.9701:39.693107.0Damp
Dual 0/401:39.4471:39.061106.8Damp
Dual 0/40 retest1:39.4351:38.785107.2Dry
Dual 0/26 small gap1:39.2301:38.651107.7Dry
Dual 0/261:39.1041:38.506107.6Dry-ish

In the previous article, I forecasted that the single wing’s .7 second advantage and the dual wing’s 1.3 second advantage at Pineview might be worth double at a longer track, and it was almost exactly that. Like Pineview, NYST had only has a few corners where aero matters, and on a track with more fast sweepers, the advantage might double again

So I would also guess that the single wing’s 1.5 second advantage at NYST might be 3 seconds at Watkins Glen. However, I wouldn’t extrapolate this and say that the dual element wing would go 5 seconds faster at Watkins Glen, because the double wing is pretty draggy.

A single wing is more efficient, and a longer wing span might give similar downforce as the double wing at 0/26, while also having less drag. A single wing is also a lot easier to optimize, with just the angle of attack, height, and setback distance to monkey with. The dual wing has twice as many variables, and hitting the sweet spot may be down to luck. I’ve started building a larger MSHD, and I’ll test that next year, along with a new DRS wing.

Speaking of DRS, it seems like I’d want to have three settings:

  1. Low speed – In slow corners, the car doesn’t benefit from rear aero, and it’s more fun to drive without it. I’d activate DRS at 50 mph and under.
  2. Medium speed – For corners above 50 mph, I’d put the wing into full downforce mode.
  3. DRS – On any significant straight, I’d go back to the low-drag setting.

Another discovery from this test is that I’ve found the tipping point where adding rear aero stops making the car go faster. This will help me figure out how much rear downforce I need when I put my splitter and canards back on. Those items are worth about 300 lbs of front downforce at 100 mph, so in order to achieve the same balance I found in this test, I’ll need to add at least that much more downforce in the back. Here’s why.

My car weighs 3200 lbs with me in it, and because I’ve removed some weight from the rear, the weight balance is about 67/33. So that’s 2144 lbs on the front tires and 1056 on the rear. The typical aero rule of thumb is that if I add 300 lbs of aerodynamic downforce, then I should split that 200 front and 100 rear. This retains the same chassis balance and mechanical grip that the engineers designed.

However, the fastest configuration I tested was with 60 lbs of downforce on the front (the hood vents and undertray) and probably 240 lbs on the rear. This adds up to 2204 lbs on the front and 1296 lbs on the rear, which works out to a 63/37 balance. Mathematically, I’ve moved the grip 4% rearwards at speed, using aerodynamic downforce. When I add my splitter and canards, I’ll want to be in the same range.

Now of course none of this make logical sense. When you put rear downforce on a FWD car, it takes away from the front tires, which is a problem because they are doing all of the steering and accelerating. But logic be damned, the reality is that I went 2.5 seconds faster with way too much rear aero bias.

If I did this same experiment on a RWD car, the results would likely be even more dramatic, because the rear wheels are responsible for acceleration and have more weight on them for braking. This supports the case for having heavily rear biased aero on a RWD car as well.

When you load a car with too much rear aero, it understeers in fast corners, but also makes for a safer and more stable car that requires fewer corrections when you lose control. The downside is the car will be boring to drive and harder to turn. But that’s what the brakes are for.

If you don’t care about lap times and want a car that is fun to drive, set your aero balance however you want. But if you care about lap times, ignore the rule of thumb and see what happens when you keep adding more and more rear downforce.

One day I’ll have enough information to write an in-depth article on aerodynamic balance, but until then, chew on this nugget: if you like the way your car handles, you don’t have enough rear downforce.

Readers’ Rides: CJ’s 3D-Printed Miata Perfection

CJ Oldham began autocrossing in 2012 with a V6 Camaro. Two years later he bought a 1993 Miata, with the intention of running the popular ES class. However, the one-wheel peel was no good for dodging cones, and this lead him to installing a 1.8 BP4W motor (VICS not VVT) and drivetrain.

An intermediate stage of the car with 1999 drivetrain and mild aero.

While the 1.8 was an improvement, CJ wanted more power. He looked at Kmiatas, but had seen some people have issues with that swap, and in the end, taking an inline four out and replacing with another just had no interest for him.

CJ’s dad is also a Miata guy, and had an MSM with typical mods. But as it goes with dads and sons, CJ didn’t go the same route, and he chose a Rotrex supercharger. This would fit with his goal of keeping things simple, by using as many Miata parts as possible.

Which is not to say the build was easy. Apparently Trackdog Racing had a new machining vendor at the time, and this caused the engine to have an appetite for belts. But once the belt alignment was sorted out, things have gone swimmingly. Check out the dyno graph, with 235 hp and 180 torque at the wheels.

This is the kind of linear power that makes a car easy to drive off corners, and a demon on the straights. Yes please.

You can see from the dyno chart that the Rotrex supercharger builds power linearly from down low. Looking at that torque curve, which peaks at redline, I have to wonder how a BP05 (1994-97) would do in comparison, possibly not much different.

The gradual buildup of power is kinder to the driveline, and as the revs rise, the boost builds, and you have turbo power at the top end. As good as modern turbos are, they still rely on exhaust gasses to spool up, whereas a supercharger gets going immediately. Theoretically, the SC should have better throttle response and modulation low in the rev range.

How important is that? Speaking from personal experience, there was that one time at band camp (Pineview Run) when my normally aspirated 1.6 Miata beat a K24 Miata and took its lunch money. Stefan, the owner of the K24 (of Napp Motorsports) turned faster lap times in my normally aspirated 1.6 BP than he did in his 2.4 liter K. Hell, we both did. If you don’t believe me, I do a deep dive on the data in that article, and what it comes down to is we were both sooner to full throttle, and that was more important than top end power later on. Less is sometimes more.

But even if gradual power is easier to drive, and easier on the clutch, transmission, and ring gear, there’s no way you’re going to get a NA6 driveline to survive a Rotrex. Like any sensible person, CJ had already replaced the 6″ ring gear with a later 7″ ring and pinion. He also added a Torsen, which was really the prime motivator for the whole project. To this he added a Supermiata organic clutch and lightweight flywheel.

The final drive has a 3.9:1 ratio, which gives a theoretical top speed of 150 mph at 7000 rpm. Personally, I might opt for the 4.1 because that’s still good for 143 mph, and since nobody wants a 4.1, they are a lot easier to find and replace. The 3.9 is going to buzz less on the highway, though.

CJ is not one to scrimp on anything, and so he has Xidas in 800/500 spring rates. Some people might say those springs are on the lighter side for a car with aero, but I heartily approve of a softer car.

Front brakes were upgraded to Wilwood BX11, but since modifying the car for NASA TT4, he’s supersized to the BroFab Bigger Brake Kit with 1.25” AFCO rotors. The rear brakes are NB Sport rotors with NA6 calipers. Wheels have been similarly upsized from 15×9 FM Kogekis shod with 225/45 R15 V730s to big boy 15×10 Dekagrams with 245 Toyo RR’s. This is a proper Miata.

Done right, this is what a track Miata looks like. Pic by RogoPhotos.

CJ hasn’t gone off the deep end adding lightness, and in fact has all of the sound deadening and carpet still in the car. As such, the supercharger whine is quite subdued and sounds more like a soft jet engine than the whirling and whining of gears. The car weighs in at 2500 lbs with driver, and that calculates to around 10.6 lbs/hp. At the speeds this car is capable of, you’d better have some aero, so of course it does.

Aero

CJ Oldham designs and manufactures most of his parts. He went to school for nuclear engineering, but has always had an interest in the mechanical/aerospace side. And it shows. He starts by scanning the car with Revopoint products, and then designs most of the parts in Fusion 360. This allows him to rapidly produce 3D printed parts with great accuracy.

64 x 11 MSHD with tapered ends. It won’t surprise me if this is 700.5 square inches.

For example, there’s his wing. After hearing about about the MSHD airfoil, I added it to my article on Car Wing Comparisons and planned to make my own shortly after. Damnit if CJ didn’t beat me to it! My construction methods take slightly longer, while he was able to quickly print a wing in ASA. He chose a 64×11 size, and when you factor in the slight taper at the ends, you’d bet it fits exactly within the GLTC maximum size. That level of detail makes that you question how many rulebooks he’s reading.

Indeed, he also has 12″ side skirts, which are the maximum size allowed in the Max category for SCCA Time Trials racing. This is a person who’s level of detail extends in all directions, including a very lawyer-like reading of many rulebooks!

Side skirts are 12” total, to SCCA TT Max 3 specs.

Of all the masterstrokes on this perfect Miata, the NB-esque nose on his NA Miata is what does it for me. Big plastic airdams are the lazy man’s way to improved front end performance, and to most people, they look like Tupperware. But CJ shows not only his ability to design function, but a pleasing form. Take a look.

In the image above, I especially like the pic that shows the red NA nose underneath the new one. You can see how much more coverage CJ’s nose has by comparison. In the pics below, you can see that the Racebred splitter, front tire spats, and brake duct holes were clearly not afterthoughts, and integrated nicely.

A peak behind the curtain shows a lot of thought went into cooling the engine and brakes.

After mocking everything up, CJ did a great job finishing the work, which results in a near OE finish. Bravo my man, brav-fucking-o. It’s not just the nose that is 3D printed, but the hood and fender vents, as well.

From scan, to plan, to painted, it’s top-notch work.

CJ and his dad have done all the work themselves. Other than going to a shop for dyno tuning and alignments, it’s all DIY. I just love that spirit, and the execution is near flawless. Damn dude, you just totally raised the bar.

You don’t see many Miatas in TT4; they just aren’t fast enough. But this one is. Pic by RogoPhotos.

DIY Dual Element for S1223

When I built my DIY S1223 wing, I chose a wing span of 53.15” and a chord of 11”. The chord was chosen just so I could say “this one goes to eleven,” but the reason I chose such a short wingspan was so that I could later make it into a dual-element wing. You see, you can buy a 135cm (53.15”) wing on Amazon or eBay for $60 or less, and I had that in mind from the beginning.

The other advantage of a short wing is not bumping into it. I have a decent sized “race barn”, but the garage door isn’t very wide and you’d be surprised how often a wing is just a pain in the ass. Or head.

The short wingspan and large chord combine for a low aspect ratio, and that’s not a recipe for performance. High aspect ratio wings are generally better because they suffer less from the detrimental effects of wing-tip vortices. Just the same, I had good reasons to build it this size, and so let’s get onto the dual wing aspect.

Dual wing end plates

To mount the upper wing I made new larger end plates and suspended the upper wing between them. In the past I always made end plates out of street signs, because I can get them for $1 per pound at my metal recycler. But for this project I decided to use marine plywood, which is considerably stronger at the same weight, and the additional thickness should allow me to reduce drag. Say what?

You might think a thicker end plate is more drag, but because I’ve shaped them as an airfoil, it should be less. That is, the leading edge is rounded and the trailing edge tapered to a sharp edge.

Rounding the leading edge it’s important, because it keeps air attached. For example, when the car is sliding through a turn, the car is in yaw, and airflow hits the end plate an angle. On an aluminum end plate, you might get flow separation on that sharp edge. However on a thicker end plate with a rounded nose, airflow should stay attached for longer.

The leading edge of the end plate is well rounded, and should help air stay attached longer when the car is in yaw.

I also tapered the trailing edge of the end plate on the inside. This, combined with the rounded leading edge, forms a curve like an airfoil. This should accelerate air under the wing, which drops the pressure further and creates more suction.

The trailing edge of the end plate is tapered to reduce drag and promote more suction inside the wing. Note that the bottom wing has a Gurney flap, and the gap is large because of that.

For initial testing, I set the upper wing at a fixed 30 degrees. I honestly didn’t know if this was going to work or not; I suspected that the extra downforce could make things worse, and I was sure there’d be more drag. So I wasn’t going to put effort into making the upper wing adjustable for gap, overlap, and angle, until I’d tested it.

Now if you’ve been reading my other articles, you know that it’s important to set the gap and overlap correctly, especially since the bottom wing has a Gurney flap on it. Putting a wicker on the bottom wing can increase downforce and L/D ratio, but the gap can be finicky. To avoid that I eyeballed a large gap and set a conservative angle of attack.

The main pieces of the wing assembly include the wing mounts, which are glassed into the roof extension.

When all of the parts were completed, I weighed the lot: The main wing weighs 6.6 lbs including the bottom mounts, end plates, and Gurney flap; The upper aluminum wing is 4.6 lbs; The roof extension with wing mounts weighs 7.2 lbs. When I put it all together, that’s 18.4 lbs. Total cost was maybe $150.

For comparison, a 55” 9 Lives Racing wing with The Deuce kit, plus universal hatchback wing mounts would cost $1800 and weigh north of 30 lbs. And so I’ve saved a lot of money and weight. But I also did a shit ton of labor, and I can tell you right away it’s cheaper to buy one than to make one.

Note that the OEM spoiler/wing on the Veloster N weighs a bit over 11 lbs. When you consider my double wing is only 7 lbs more than that, it’s pretty damn light.

Testing

I tested the dual wing at Pineview Run, with the long track extension. This isn’t a fast track, and there are really only a couple turns where aero could potentially help out, and one straight where drag could come into play. I also tested other rear aero options, including the OEM wing, a single wing, and a ducktail spoiler.

You can read the results of that test if you have the password to the locked articles. If you don’t, you can get the password to it and all the other articles by buying me a coffee. Sorry about that, but this wing took a lot of effort to build, plus I had to get back to back data, analyze it, etc. All of it is a lot of time and expense, and I’m not going to give that away for free.

Version 2

After initial testing I decided to improve the wing further so that the upper wing can adjust for angle and gap height. Similarly to how I did it on the Wing Logic dual element, I made inner end plates that allow the upper wing to adjust X-Y-Z coordinates for gap height, overlap, and angle of attack.

I also decided to glue the wing directly to the end plates. I did this for two reasons: 1) To take any bit of flex out of the system. Since the upper wing is supported only at the bookends, I wanted those to be ultra strong. 2) To avoid intersection drag from where the end plate boundary layer interacts with the wing’s boundary layer. This can cause flow detachment on the inside corner, and so I rounded and then fiberglassed this joint.

Epoxy and silica microspheres smooth the area between the end plate and wing. The joint is then fiberglassed and faired in.

As a result of the inner end plates and glassing, the wingspan got a little wider, and so now it’s 54” even. This is still a rather short wing, and I’m certain longer would be better.

So I’m already thinking about version 3, which will be a longer dual wing with manually activated DRS system. I’ll use a different upper element as well, probably with a 5.6” chord. But that’s a winter project, and I have a few more track events to close out this season and get some final testing data (gap, overlap, angle) for this dual wing. With any luck, you’ll read about that in a couple weeks. Onward!