Autox/Autocrossing a Mazda MX-6

[miatatude]

Originally Posted by SAdrmmr04

ill see about posting a clip of mine in car and from the outside, i got a pretty generic muffler, but with the intake and headers, it really makes a nice tone

Please do! I'd love to see it.

[ls six]

A short throw will bump you up a class? Thats nuts lol I still say they dont do anything for performance.

[gavin]

Originally Posted by miatatude

For the upcoming season, the plan is to run it in G-Stock but work towards building the car towards STX and then in a few years possibly into DSP. But deffinetly not planning to keep it in G-Stock since its an older car and it seems that older cars are not competitive in stock categories and need a little "help" from an intake and exhaust sytem. The main purpose is to be a local racer, traveling to adjacent regions, I don't think we're even ready to think about competing at a national level. As far as money to invest, its hard to say, we've got about a grand to play with now, but like I said want to keep it in G-Stock for atleast this season.

If the car is to be locally competitive then it just has to be "competitive enough".

You mentioned not keeping the car in G-stock for long because the car is not competitive. 2 thoughts on this... Its been a while since the 2nd gen MX6 has been nationally campaigned. Ryans car notwithstanding, I have yet to see a G-stock build for a 2nd gen using modern technologies/build theory(I have some ideas about this). There may be quite a bit of life left in the old chassis yet...enough to beat the class leading Mini Cooper S? Probably not, but itll be a fair sight better equipped than a G-stock 1st gen which I have campaigned locally and at national tours(And yes..locally I have taken the fight to the Minis and on occasion won in a straight fight).

STX is tricky but dependent on the new crop of tires coming down the pike the car has potential in this class. The car is light(for the class), good starting dynamics, good power and torque. The car needs a wide, short (under 24" diameter) tire to really come alive. Ryan has most of the legwork done for this already.

DSP...I have ideas, there is a lot of money to spend here. I have just finished a lengthy (and somewhat costly) buildup of my 91 GT for DSP. Theres a lot of cars to contend with here that have the same or better suspension, and more power/torque available. Locally the car would be great, but Im not sure if the dollars and sense works out for the cost expenditure to just run locally. Nationally, it gets even harsher.

Gavin

[miatatude]

Originally Posted by ls six

A short throw will bump you up a class? Thats nuts lol I still say they dont do anything for performance.

I agree, it does nothing for performance. The only reason why I compete in CSP rather than STS is my body kit, which is soooo stupid considering my molded body kit ADDS weight, which is obviuosly a disadvantage.

I need to buy new shocks for it and I hear the KYB AGX adjustable shocks are terrific, what are your thoughts?

[daevilone]

Originally Posted by miatatude

I agree, it does nothing for performance. The only reason why I compete in CSP rather than STS is my body kit, which is soooo stupid considering my molded body kit ADDS weight, which is obviuosly a disadvantage.

I need to buy new shocks for it and I hear the KYB AGX adjustable shocks are terrific, what are your thoughts?

it used to be like that here with the body kit, the problem is that not all body kits are heavier... some are lighter, some are aerodynamicly superior.. etc. They all have to be treated the same, and people are going to complain if people can run lighter body parts in the lower classes...

[miatatude]

Originally Posted by daevilone

it used to be like that here with the body kit, the problem is that not all body kits are heavier... some are lighter, some are aerodynamicly superior.. etc. They all have to be treated the same, and people are going to complain if people can run lighter body parts in the lower classes...

Yes I guess I can understand that. Too bad mine isn't one of "those" that actually work to my benefit. Its' a veil side, so its a good kit, but with all the molding it just adds weight.

I'm also looking at Koni Sport shocks, I hear those are the "top dogs."

[gavin]

Get the konis...for both cars(yes there is a koni sport for the 2nd gen MX6).

They arent blingy, dont come with "pirro" balls or anything fancy..they just have the goods on the inside where it counts and continue to outperform the majority of available products out there on the market. Aside from that there is a wealth of information regarding their use, setup information, servicability, upgradability, etc, etc. The folks on .net have gone through pretty much all of the available shocks for the miata and (except for a few notable exceptions) things always come back to konis.

Gavin

[miatatude]

Good to know. I'm thinking I'm just going to lay down the cash for 'em. They have a lifetime warranty, so I can consider this an "investment."

[gavin]

So here is one persons recepie for a 2nd gen G-stock car. If you have talked to Ryan some of this may be duplicate as we have gone back and forth on what a "modernized" G-stock 2nd gen would look like.

First thing(Im sure you have done this but if you havent shame on you) get on the mazdaspeed driver discount programme. OEM parts for cost. Theres no reason to compete a mazda without using this resource.

Going through the rules..the car isnt old enough to inherit the braided steel brakeline rule so get new oem lines if yours look suspect. Its got an airbag so it also doesnt inherit the steering wheel change option.

Get new front control arms, new trailing arms and new lateral arms. 15 yr old bushings suck to run on. If you cant afford all of them get the fronts, the trailing arms and the rear lateral arms.(PS: shop around for the fronts, I was actually able to find cheaper front arms from a parts house than through mazdacomp)

Go through the engine bay for the usual suspects. NGK plugs and wires, new cap/rotors and new ignitor if yours is dodgy(I recall that some of the 2nd gens had issues with the ignitors). Whatever oil you prefer for the engine. The trans oil will be up to you as well, but I like a combo of MT-90 and one quart of synthetic ATF. K+N drop in filter.

Struts: koni yellows (sport) 8610-1305(front), 8610-1306(rear) . These are a european fitment and are about 1" short for the US issued struts, but it fits in the rules which give you 1" to play with for the extended length of the replacement struts. You may need spacers to make up the length, its not hard to do though. http://www.mx6.com/forums/1g-faq-sus...tallation.html (Koni insert installation)

You can keep the struts with the stock valving, but for a top notch build Id have the konis revalved by Koni NA. Itll cost about $650 to have them all done and you have to be specific about what you want. What you want is the Sport Showroom Stock (SPSS3) valving. This is a very aggressive valving that was developed for the showroom stock racers that have to run on stock springs(kinda like stock class autocrossing). The rebound rates will be higher, but with a crapton of low speed compression. It basically tries to mimic the effect of heavy springs on initial turn-in(this is a good thing). Having this valving done will also have the struts degassed a bit which will lower the rude height of the car by about 1/4".

Theres no warrantee after this move though and Itll also rattle your teeth in daily driving even at full soft so consider it carefully.

Want to go even further with struts? Get the 8611 series double adjustable racing strut insert. This is going to involve custom fitting(they need a unique gland nut to hold them in place from the top of the strut body) and theres no warrantee on them, they are much more expensive, but they are a powerful tool as they have both compression and rebound adjustments. Im pretty sure Koni can make a fitment using your gutted struts, if not I know for a fact that Tri-point have the neccessary parts.

Tires: Hoosier A6s. 225/45/15 That is all. Theses tires will be about 2" shorter than the stock tires lowering the car about 1" and lowering the CG by that much as well. The smaller diameter will give a bit of torque multiplication as well but youll have to use more RPMS to get the the same terminal speed as with the stock sized tires. Lucily since the V6 is a revver you can take advantage of its long legs and ability to make power at redline. Tire pressures will be somewhere in the 42psi front and 45ps rear range (+- 3psi)

Cheaper is the 225/50"15 kumho V710s. A little taller than the Hoosiers, they last a bit longer and are a little cheaper. Ive run on both and the Kumho feels a little less sharp on turn in and with less "stick" than the hoosier.... but sometimes the pocketbook dictates other things.

Wheels: You need stock sized wheels that are lightweight and 15x6.5". For decades people have been using the 2nd gen RX7 convertable BBS wheels, and I dont see any reason to change that. They are the correct dimensions are about 10-11lbs apiece and are pretty cheap as well. The only catch is that the hub center hole needs to be punched out a little to fit on the 2nd gen MX6 hub. Generally, not a problem for a machine shop and inexpensive as well. Even doing all of this youll come out with a set of wheels thats way cheaper than volks or SSRs for a "penalty" of 2lbs/wheel or so.

Front swaybar: biggest you can get. I have heard that the ford Probe GTs front swaybar is larger than that of the MX6 LS, Id get that and swap it in. With a strut car, since theres no appreciable camber gain, when the car rolls the outside tire will go to positive camber and have the tire rolling onto its sidewall. Not much traction to be gained doing that. The fix is to reduce that body roll as much as possible with a big front swaybar, keep the tire patches as flat as possible INCREASING the cars ability to corner. Yes, at the limits you can induce understeer, but youve basically overcooked that corner anyway. The only downside to using a large FSB is that youll have a tendency for more wheelspin at corner exit.

Ive run with smaller and larger FSBs and while youll gain traction on corner exit with a smaller swaybar, everything else is worse. The car pushes and ploughs in slaloms and offsets like a pig, long sweepers will have you have less wheelspin, but theres much more push which tends to overheat the outside tire. Personally, I prefer the larger swaybar, the car turns better, slaloms better, is crisper. Youll have to watch your right foot a bit more with sweepers and corner exits, but overall the car was simply faster hands down with the big FSB. If I could, I would have a custom made one that was even larger.

Alignment: A real alignment is key here. Most shop jockeys will just go by what the machine tells them is "ok". Youll need someone who is willing to ignore the machines flashing red lights.

The front upper strut mounts are offset. Rotate the upper strut mouts to the point where there is the most neg camber and most positive castor( should have the struts closest to the firewall and pointing to the engine). f your shop tech is really cool, have them loosen all the bolts on the sturts and subframe and pry everything to its maximum to get all the slop out of it (you can pick up an extra -.5 deg camber sometimes doing this). Then have them bolt everything down tight. For the rear, get the least amount of amber you can. Youll probably get something like -1.5 deg camber front and -.5 rear. It more than likely wont be even side to side but youll have to take what you can get because mazda doesnt authorize crash bolts in the FSM as a fix for camber.

Toe.. front 1/16 to 1"8" toe out. For the rear, the same(1/16-1/8" toe out). Youll need the car to turn in well(front toe out does this) and rotate well(rear toe out). Overall toe alignment will be up to how brave you are and how much you can afford tires. Ive run as high as 1/4" toe out in front and 1" toe out in the rear on a 1st gen and the car was.....er "lively". It was fast and twitchy as hell, but it ate tires like nobodys business. Youll have to strike a balance for yourself.

Cat back exhaust: (well first I guess you actually need to have a catalytic converter ) For a full system people seem to like the borla. Apparently its light and very free flowing. I havent heard it myself but people say that the aural quality is superb as well. According to the rules the most you need is a 4" turndown right after the cat and thats your "cat back exhaust system". his will definetly drop a whole bunch of weight, but Id suggest earplugs.

Think thats about it for a G-stock build.

good luck

EDIT: more strut info

Gavin

[miatatude]

Gavin,

Thank you so much for all the info, it is very helpful and I'm going to print it off and start using it as a checklist! We've already scheduled appointments for an alignment for my miata, and for the '6, so we will deffinetly use your specs on this. We also ordered a front and rear strut tower bar that we think will be similar to what you were explaining.

I'm embarassed to say I've never heard of the mazdaspeed driver program. What is it? How do I sign up?

Thanks again for sharing all the info!

[ragincanadian4]

Originally Posted by miatatude

Gavin,

Thank you so much for all the info, it is very helpful and I'm going to print it off and start using it as a checklist! We've already scheduled appointments for an alignment for my miata, and for the '6, so we will deffinetly use your specs on this. We also ordered a front and rear strut tower bar that we think will be similar to what you were explaining.

I'm embarassed to say I've never heard of the mazdaspeed driver program. What is it? How do I sign up?

Thanks again for sharing all the info!

Here ya go.
MAZDASPEED MOTORSPORTS DEVELOPMENT Racing Support Home Page

[gavin]

Originally Posted by miatatude

We also ordered a front and rear strut tower bar that we think will be similar to what you were explaining.

Strut tower bars are not legal for stock class. Look again, I was speaking of swaybars(anti-roll bars).

Originally Posted by miatatude

I'm embarassed to say I've never heard of the mazdaspeed driver program. What is it? How do I sign up?

You hereby forfeit the use of your miata for a period of one year to be replaced by a 1986 4-cyl automatic ford tempo wagon.

ragincanadian has the link to the site. In a nutshell, if you have a mazda that you compete in a nationally recognized sanctioning body and have at least two records/results of said events, you can sign up for the driver discount programme. You have access to mazdas OEM parts inventory and also their race parts catalogue(lots of trick stuff here for miatas and even for the 2nd gen mx6, but I tend to go for the oem parts). Theres also promotional stuff for new mazda cars at dealer pricing, contingency money if you race the cars nationally and place well and a few other things.

Gavin

[miatatude]

Originally Posted by gavin

Strut tower bars are not legal for stock class. Look again, I was speaking of swaybars(anti-roll bars).



You hereby forfeit the use of your miata for a period of one year to be replaced by a 1986 4-cyl automatic ford tempo wagon.

Gavin

1. Sorry, we did order swaybars, not strut tower bars, I was in a rush and not thinking.

2. [fizzle] [shizzle] [fizzle] [shizzle] [fizzle] [shizzle] [fizzle] [shizzle]!

Just kidding, I did go to the website and register and then emailed my race specs. How did I not hear of this before!?

Have a great weekend everyone!

BTW, I'm going to the tirerck this weekend to buy Koni Yellow Sport shocks for the wagon, oops, Miata! I'm stoked, this will also be my first install of shocks, so I'm so excited to get my hands all greasy and get dirt under my pretty nails! wooohoooo!

[The_Evil_Demon]

lol i should've had you install my k-sports then. Enough grease and oil and gunk to make anyone happy lol

[ls six]

I meant to mention the mazdaspeed program but was in a hurry as well.

gavin has a ton of good advice there and really knows what hes talking about.

I can throw a few more things in though. They might not be legal in a given class and some are still un confirmed or the advantages are debatable.

1. I'm doing a KL-G4 IM swap and I noticed some of the plug wires are quite a bit shorter than ours. They run over the Im instead of all the way around. This means that for the longest lead cyl # 5 i believe the wire is about a foot shorter. All the rear leads are shorter than our stockers. It wont improve HP at all but there are many other advantages like less resistance for a given wire type less chance for cross firing or grounding. It also reduces the load on our famously flaky ignition system. The wires are for the 98+ 626 sedan.

2. I'm basicaly converting my suspention to be mostly 3rd gen (99+) protoge parts.

I never liked the the rear most lateral link's because they are stamped and it also bears the load of the rear sway bar. Stock it proabably works just fine but with sticky tires a heavy rear bar and aggressive driving it has to be bending enough to affect alignement. I believe you can get a reenforced version through the MS program but the protege uses a tubular design ( fitment not confirmed) and the front and rear bars connect to the struts via built in brackets. The front L arms lack the bracket for the FSB and I believe are a bit lighter. If you cant run front camber plates the protege front upper strut mount is a superior design than ours. It uses a lot less rubber and is firmer because of it and it also uses a fail safe feature like motor mounts. The center plate where the strut rod mounts is sandwitched between an upper and lower plate so even if the rubber completly disintigrates it wont drop the strut like ours will.

3. If you want even more torque then you allready have the 93-97 Probe GT transmission will bolt in directly and has a lower final drive ratio. You sacrifice some top end speed and like the smaller tires gavin mentioned you'll be higher in the rev range in a given gear at a given speed. You would proabably loose some gas milage too.


This is a great thread and perfect timing too. I didnt know there was so much AX expertiese on this forum. I just figured on making a lot of mistakes finding what the 6 likes and dosnt like.