99 Miata - We'll Call Him "Murphy"

"Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong" - Murphy's Law

A pile of parts anxiously awaits.

Nothing seems to describe the 99 Miata project any better right now. This weekend I arranged to have lots of help converge on the car and finally assemble all the parts that have been amassing here at NMS South. Saturday things quickly turned for the worse when we discovered I had accidentally ordered some very cheap and defective engine internal parts.  When building an engine, tolerances and dimensions are measured in thousandths of an inch so even tiny imperfections could be disastrous. 

Engine mounted on the stand and ready for building. 

New connecting rod and main bearings as well as piston rings will be on order soon and we'll try it later this week.  On the bright side, with massive help from Kyle D. and Jason, the car now is riding on the stiffer sport package springs and on it's way to a full sport package upgrade that will let us upgrade the car to the absolute fullest extent of the rules for our SCCA class.

The very bottom of the motor, the oil pan holds all the oil and gets pretty nasty over time. Chuck did an awesome job cleaning this one up and made it look brand new.

Trying to build on the positives from another delay, I returned this morning to spend some time painting the engine block and valve cover.  Painting the engine block will help prevent rusting, let us more easily detect the location of oil leaks, and just generally keep everything looking nicer under the hood. The valve cover, well...red is the fastest color so why not. 

After thoroughly masking off the internal areas of the engine block, it was coated with several layers of paint designed to resist high temperatures for these types of applications.

Another massive thank you to the whole crew that came out to support and work on the car as well as Chuck for so generously letting me use his incredible garage space and tools.  There's no way the car would be possible without everyone's hard work. 

The valve cover gets a few coats of more high temp paint after a thorough cleaning.

Slowest Kart in the East!

Kart in Action

Week 2 of the Tidewater Sports Car Club's TSCC LINK winter karting league is now in the books, and once again I'm holding steady in last place! Yes sir, nothing like consistency to tell you you're, uh, consistent! Way back in Week 1, I was up in 6th place, thanks to there only being 6 drivers, but this week I've taken last place down to 10th, so let's make that a positive and say TOP TEN BABY!

Race time! I drove #86, like the NMS Miata!

OK, at least I did manage to lower my fastest lap time from a 28.005 in Week 1 to a 27.715 in Week 2, so that at least makes me feel a little better! Overall I managed to get into the 27 second lap time a total of 6 times, so I'll take that as a another positive. For the two weeks combined, I'm around 7th place.

Baby Needs New Shoes

I'd like to blame the random selection of karts in every race as the reason that I'm so slow, but my hunch is those other guys are really fast drivers! This week I added a new pair of racing shoes to my wardrobe for kart night, so maybe that's why I was faster! Next time I'll have to find some other faster piece of gear, like lighter socks or get a haircut to lose weight and go faster!

Here's a link to the race video: Kart Race 2

Helmet Mounted Video Capture Guy = Dork!

NMS South - Coming Back Strong for 2016

I last wrote back in November about the 99 Miata getting a low mile replacement motor for the paperweight I had created back in June with the Tidewater Sports Car Club in Virginia Beach. Well, we hit a major snag in the most unfortunate series of horrifying discoveries that ended with a conclusion that the "new" motor was worse than the original.  After a pretty stressful off-season and several trips to the machine shop, the old motor is now anxiously awaiting re-assembly this coming weekend when the team makes a final push to get the car ready for the first SCR-SCCA autocross on February 21st.

Although the Miata looks like it's jacked up about 6 inches and ready for some off-roading, this is actually how the car sits without a few hundred pounds of engine and transmission.

In future posts, we'll bring everyone up to speed on the Miata's progress, but in the mean time the Buccaneer Region SCCA had their first autocross yesterday and it was time to shake the rear wheel drive cobwebs loose.  Fellow SCR SCCA driver and newly-formed LeMons race team co-driver, Jason offered me a co-drive in his 07 Nissan 350Z and I was happy to take the wheel.  After 6 attempts, Jason came out ahead with a final time good for 3rd overall and I was 1.3 second back and in 10th overall PAX position out of about 76 drivers.  We had a ton of fun and are fully re-energized to get the little red car back on it's feet.

Just a few of the awesome SCR SCCA folks I get to race with and who have helped make the Miata come together and push me to be a faster driver.  I again found myself driving an orange car.

Coming up in 2016, NMS South is looking to fine tune the 99 Miata and take it all the way to Lincoln, Nebraska for the annual SCCA autocross championship in competition with top drivers from across the country.  I'll also share more information on the development on the 24 Hours of LeMons race team and our 1972 Dodge Coronet race car and see what other low-buck car fun we can find.