During our last day at the 2015 SEMA Show, we finally cruised the South hall where most of the wheel and tire manufacturers can be found. We often leave this til the end since it’s mostly full of cheesy 24” wheels promoted by scantily clad models with oversized bolt-ons of their own. We always feel like creepers taking pics or video of booth babes, even the classy ones who manage to do a thankless job with an amazing amount of dignity, but we did snap 1 pic that I’ll save for the end. Consider it a reward for getting through the rest of the story.

The other reason to visit the South hall is that there’s a second level, and up on that level you’ll find a lot of newer vendors. Not necessarily new to the industry, but new to SEMA. Fortune Auto, for example, is up on this level and we were happy to get a close look at their new Air Piston Lift System. As you can see, the air cup slips over the piston shaft between the top hat and the spring, allowing race cars to lift their front end to get up ramps onto the trailer, for example, or allowing aggressively lowered street cars to clear curbs or speed bumps with the push of a button.

Of course Fortune Auto is better known for their motorsports coilover kits, the Dreadnought Pro being their top of the line offering in either 2-way or 3-way flavours and this Generation 5 version using their latest and greatest CFD piston technology. Like all of Fortune Auto’s coilover systems, Dreadnought Pros are custom built to the exact specifications of the customer, and unlike the 500 and 510 series they also come standard with Swift springs and external reservoirs with 24-step independent rebound adjustability along with 24-step compression adjustability via a knob on top of the piston shaft.

There are a ton of off-shore, no-name wheel companies peddling their wares on this floor of the show, but there’s also world leaders in the wheel industry here including Enkei. It’s always refreshing to take a good, close look at wheels with this level of design excellence and engineering built into them.

Due to be released in early 2016, the GTC01RR showcased on Goble’s FormulaD S13 is based on the extremely strong GTC01 but has been lightened to the weight of a RPF1 without sacrificing any of that strength. It’ll be available in three different concave faces in an 18” diameter with a matte gunmetal finish. We like!

Enkei’s Tuning collection of wheels offer an attractive combination of style, build quality (using Enkei’s MAT process), and affordability. We’re particularly big fans of the Kojin and Raijin, both of which can be had with aggressive face concavity.

Having just acquired a ’77 Toyota Celica GT, I find myself looking more and more at old school style rims like the Classic collection offered by Enkei. Something about that 4-spoke style gets me every time.

Have you ever heard of Rolloface before? Neither have we, and although we didn’t look too closely, they seemed like just another example of marketing. Shiny off-shore big brake kits + shiny wide body BMWs on display = profit!

BBS certainly isn’t trying to influence anyone with a fancy booth or wide body show cars. Instead this world-class wheel manufacturer had a rather small put tasteful booth tucked away on the second level, but that didn’t stop us (or anyone else) from marvelling at the design and engineering excellence that go into these wheels. Truly impressive stuff, but not for the light of wallet.

Of course wheels are just pretty round coffee table stands without something sticky to wrap them in, so we did spend our fair share of time looking around the major tire manufacturer booths including Toyo Tires. We were pretty awestruck by this Varis kitted BMW speedster from our friends at Bulletproof Automotive. It’s one of those SEMA builds you just have to spend some time with to soak up all the details.

Toyo Tires also had an incredible outdoor “throughway” connecting the Central (Performance) and South (Wheel & Tire) halls, where some of the coolest import cars of the show were on display. The Bulletproof M4 was particularly stunning with a really attractive and modern spin on BMW’s classic motorsport colour scheme. I especially loved the grey stripes out of the fender vents which mimic the smoke airflow trails you’d see in a wind tunnel.

This Datsun pickup with a Hakosuka Skyline front end was also a major attraction in the Toyo Throughway. The execution of this odd merger was flawless and really worked surprisingly well, and check out that carbon fiber trunk bed.

Kudos to Toyo for putting together such a killer collection of cars for everyone to enjoy while hoofing it between halls, plus Scion had a voting contest going on to pick the best iM build of the show. As you can see, Peter had his usual effect on the charming young lady taking the votes and handing out some sweet Scion swag (we grabbed a couple beanies, because winter’s coming).

Having added a few new cars to our project car fleet lately (more on those soon), and with wide fenders going on the S2000, we’ve been doing a lot of wheel fitment research lately. The problem with researching this subject online is the definition of “does it fit?” varies a lot from person to person. The Stance dudes think anything fits with enough camber and enough fender pulling, while grassroots racers like us tend to have a stricter definition since we’re focused more on functional wheel alignment and full suspension travel and steering angle without fender or wheel well or control arm contact.

That said, as we proved with the ASS2000, we’re not afraid to aggressively roll and pull fenders to fit wider wheels and tires in the name of more grip and faster lap times. But since we’re putting some Downforce USA +30mm front fenders and ASM +25mm rear over-fenders on the car, we really need to nail the offset of the 17×10” wheels we’re planning to order this winter if we want to avoid putting a hurting on these. The idea is, after all, to make the S2000 as pretty as it is fast while also allowing us to fit an even wider set of wheels and tires.

Point being, selecting the right wheel size and fit for your car is absolutely critical if you’re trying to maximize performance and minimize clearance issues with the fender lips and within the wheel wells. But before we get to some practical guidelines for selecting the best wheel fitment for your car, lets quickly review what wheel offset, back spacing, bolt circle diameter (or PCD) and center bore are so that you can better make sense of the ways wheel manufacturers list their products.

Source: http://b.cdnbrm.com/images/prm/homepage/TouchClarity/images/articles/wheels-rims/wheel-fitment-diagram-1.jpg

Wheel offset if the first place most people start when selecting new rolling stock for their street car or track car, and for good reason. As the diagram above illustrates, offset is a measurement of how far inboard (negative offset) or outboard (positive offset) the back of the wheel’s mating surface (axle pad) is from the wheel’s cross-sectional centerline.  To achieve that deep dish or concave face everyone wants on their wheels these days, you either need a wheel with less positive/more negative offset or you need a wheel that has a spoke design with some outward curvature that creates the illusion of concavity.

Measuring offset yourself it quite easy, but also keep in mind that most wheels have the offset cast or stamped into the backside of the wheel somewhere, often on the back of the spokes or axle pad. As you can see above on an Enkei TSP6 wheel the size is cast in the back of the axle pad with a 17x8J (meaning the wheel is 17” in diameter and 8” wide) and the +35mm offset is cast in where it reads ‘Inset 35’.

Source: http://images.carcraft.com/techarticles/ccrp_0610_03_z%2Bwheel_and_tire_fitment%2Bbackspace.jpg

But lets say you’re looking at buying a used set of wheels and the sticker or casting mark with offset information is missing. To determine offset you start by measuring backspacing by taking a measurement from the inboard flange or inside lip of the wheel to the back of the axle pad on the flat surface where the wheel would sit flush against the hub when bolted down. This distance gives you your backspacing. Make sure to measure from the flange, not the bead lip which often pokes out further than the flange.

Source: http://www.more-japan.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/photo-31-1024×764.jpg

Next you need to take a measurement of total wheel width by simply measuring the distance from the inside of the inboard and outboard lips or wheel beads. This is critical to get right, since if you measure from the outside of the wheel bead you’ll get too wide a measurement and this will throw off your offset calculation. Once you’ve correctly measured wheel width, divide this measurement by 2 to get the wheel’s centerline. So on the 9” wide wheel above, the centerline is 4.5”.

To calculate offset, now all you need to do is subtract the centerline measurement from the backspacing measurement. So if the backspacing measurement is 5.88” and the centerline is 4.5”, then you’ve got a a positive offset of 1.38” or 35mm, just like those Enkei wheels were marked with. Congrats, you’re now an offset calculating ninja!

The other measurement that’s important to consider when shopping for wheels is bore center. This is simply the diameter of the wheel’s center bore that is meant to be seated on the hub so that the wheel is perfectly centered and balanced forzero vibrations at speed. You can use centering rings to fit wheels with larger center bores than your vehicle’s hub diameter, but be sure not to buy wheels with a center bore smaller than your hub diameter because in most cases you really shouldn’t have the wheel’s center bore machined out to a larger diameter because this will compromising its structural integrity.

Source: http://www.roadkillcustoms.com/hot-rods-rat-rods/media/images/wheel-bolt-pattern-how-to-measure.jpg

And of course you also need to have the correct wheel bolt circle or bolt pattern for your vehicle’s hubs, since changing the hub bolt pattern requires swapping hubs or using hub adapters, both of which are expensive and impractical in most cases. As you can see from the image above, bolt pattern is simply the distance between bolt holes or stud holes on opposite sides of the wheel. Note that in the case of 5-lug wheels you measure from the center of one bolt hole to the backside of one of the opposing bolt holes.

Ok, so now that we’ve covered wheel anatomy basics, lets take a quick look at how wheel diameter and wheel width effect performance.

Source: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/C-Zero/000_0041.jpg~original

Source: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v169/C-Zero/000_0042.jpg~original

Wheel diameter can have a major impact on fitment, since a larger diameter wheel than the car was designed for can sometimes mean you’re stuck running a “taller” tire (greater overall diameter) because you can’t get a tire with a low enough aspect ratio (or short enough sidewall). This will result in the car either having a raised ride height, or if you lower it to compensate you’ll end up with reduced fender to tire clearance. Plus a taller tire has the effect of lengthening gearing, which hurts acceleration but helps top speed (not a good trade-off since you do a lot more accelerating than you do top speed runs). So be sure to factor in the overall diameter of your wheel and tire package when considering how much rubber you can stuff under the stock fenders and try to keep the overall diameter the same or even slightly smaller than stock if your focus is on performance. Or just stuff some chrome 22’s under your S2k and call it a day. The choice is yours.

Here’s a handy dandy tire size gearing calculator that shows the effects of changes in tire diameter on gearing. Play around with this a bit and you’ll see what I mean about a taller tire changing gearing.

Source: http://949racing.com/15×9/15x9_G4_Bronze_1.jpg

Wheel width can have a surprisingly large impact on performance too, especially tire performance since a wider wheel will effectively widen the tire’s contact patch and will also put some tension into the sidewalls which helps sharpen turn-in response and reduces sidewall deflection and contact patch distortion. In fact, a number of reputable sources have tested increasing wheel width on the same size tire and found that for every inch of wheel width added, lap times are reduced by about half a second per minute of elapsed time. Of course there are a lot of variables at work here, including the track itself, the tire in use, suspension and alignment setup, etc. But in general and within reason, a wider wheel will deliver better tire performance, and nothing matters more than tire performance when it comes to turning faster lap times.

A more aggressive (less positive) offset also has its advantages, since this pushes the wheels and tires out further and effectively widens the track of the vehicle. As I learned when experimenting with wheel spacers on my CTCC Honda Civic, even a 5mm spacer on the front wheels can noticeably improve front grip and change handling balance too (in either a negative or positive way, depending on how the rest of the car is setup), so be prepared to do some fine tuning of your suspension settings if you start to make changes to track width via more aggressively offset wheels, especially if you just widen track width across one axle.

Source: http://image.superchevy.com/f/70003958+q80+re0+cr1+ar0/1956-bel-air-wheel-tire-measuring-sidewall.jpg

Ok, so it’s finally time to bust out the tape measure and figure out how much wheel and tire you can fit in your wheel wells. I like the L-square ruler approach like you can see in the image above as an easy and fairly accurate way to measure out from the face of the hub to the fender lip as well as back into the wheel well. It’s important to have the hub in a position that simulates the car being on the ground, so I use a floor jack to raise the knuckle to the position it would be in if the suspension was under load.

Source: http://image.superchevy.com/f/70003961+q80+re0+cr1+ar0/1956-bel-air-wheel-tire-measuring-rear-end.jpg

To check for points of contact within the wheel well including steering and suspension arms, clamping a straight edge to the L-square is an easy way to get a consistent measuring point to work from. For the front end, be sure to move the steering through full lock in both directions and again be sure to have the hub in a position that simulates the suspension being under load.

Source: http://www.speednik.com/files/2013/01/wheel_fitment_diagram.jpg

As a general rule you want to have at least a 1/4” to a 1/2” of clearance to anything in the wheel well, since compliance or squish in the suspension bushings and movement of the tire under load means that clearance you thought you had can suddenly disappear under real world driving conditions, especially the high loads the bushings and other suspension joints on the chassis see at the race track.

Here’s a link to an excellent wheel and tire size calculator that gives you a visual representation of the size of the wheel and tire package and how changes in wheel width and tire diameter change the space used up by them. So if you’ve taken measurements and have a good idea of what will fit, playing around with this calculator can help you dial in on a wheel and tire package that maximizes grip without fouling on the fenders, chassis or suspension.

http://www.tire-size-calculator.in

If you’re willing to spend $80 for a tool specifically designed to measure wheel and tire clearances, check out the Percy’s Wheelrite tool. Above is a video showing you exactly how it works. If you’re not confident in measuring clearances with a L-square, measuring tape plumb bob, and/or straight edge, then buying a Wheelrite tool may be your best option for avoiding an expensive wheel purchase that doesn’t fit your car.

Cross-referencing your measurements with information on your favorite online forum isn’t a bad idea either, but we’d certainly recommend focusing on what the guys/gals in the Racing/Autocross/Time Attack forums say fits and try to focus in on wheel and tire setups that real competitors use on their track cars with no clearance problems to report. The Internet told us our 17×9 +40 Gram Lights with 255/40R17 tires would fit the S2000 without having to do any crazy pulling of the fenders, but we learned the hard way that serious rolling and pull was required, at least at the ride height and camber settings we settled on.

Source: http://i403.photobucket.com/albums/pp112/sweetdill/c15c8cbf.jpg

These 17×10 +45 Volk Racing CE28N‘s clear everything in the wheel wells, but as you can see the fenders have been rolled and pulled a fair bit for clearance on the outboard side. How will they fit with our over fender setup?

Our friend Chris is running the same over fender combo we’re going to be, and his 18×9.5 +35 Volk Racing RE30’s appear to fit quite well, but he told us the front fenders needed to be trimmed along the fender lips to stop the rubbing. Pictures on the Internet can be deceiving, so we’ll be test fitting our over fenders, taking some measurements, and perhaps using some of our 5×114.3 wheels and tires from around the shop to see if we can hit on a wheel width, offset and backspacing, and tire size that we’re confident will work. Expect to see a video an a story on this process sometime this winter.

We’ve had quite a few requests to shoot a video on driving techniques for the race track, and although we do plan to shoot a video on that subject in the Spring, I thought I’d put together a story covering some of the basics as a way of giving you aspiring hot-shoes something to read during the off-season.

For starters, lets cover driving position relative to the steering wheel, shifter and pedals.  First of all, unless you’re in a Formula car, forget that gangster lean. At the race track, you want to be seated in an upright position for the best forward visibility possible while still having sufficient headroom to wear a helmet.

Source: http://cdn.bmwblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/bmw-z4-gt3-zanardi-images-30.jpg

You also want to be a lot closer to the steering wheel than you’re probably accustomed to. It’s going to feel weird at first, but with your hands at 9 & 3 on the steering wheel you want to be sitting close enough to have about a 90-degree bend at the elbows. A simple way to put yourself in a good position relative to the steering wheel is to move the seat forward until you can rest the bottom of your wrists on the top of the steering wheel with your arms comfortably extended and your back firmly in the seat.

Source: http://www.playseat.com/page_content_files/rbr1_images/webber1_b.jpg

The reason for this is simple. The closer you are to the wheel, the faster and farther you can turn it before your wrists come together. If you hold a book or something that simulates a steering wheel in your hands and hold it out in front of you with your arms fully extended and then turn left and right until your wrists come together and then repeat this with a 90-degree bend in your elbows you’ll see that you can turn the wheel farther and faster. You may not have guns like Mark Webber, but as you can see he’s got a nice bend in his elbows and knees in this F1 simulator. In a road car you’ll obviously be in a much more upright seating position, but Webber’s body is otherwise in an excellent position for performance driving, even if this is just a video game simulator.

Source: http://s.hswstatic.com/gif/engine-lose-power-4.jpg RELAX, BRO!

The other advantage of being closer to the steering wheel is that it allows you to relax your shoulder muscles. While you’re at it, make sure to relax your grip on the wheel too. If you’re strangling the wheel like your life depends on it, you’re reducing how much subtle information the wheel can communicate to you through the steering system, plus you’re exerting energy and putting strain on your hands and forearms that will wear you out after a few laps. If you’re a golfer, you’ll be familiar with the importance of relaxing your grip and reducing muscle tension in the upper body so that you’re able to move more freely and athletically, and the same principles apply to high performance driving. The dude in the image above is DOING IT WRONG.

Pro Tip: If your steering wheel is slippery and that makes it hard for you relax your grip while still maintaining a secure and confidence-inspiring connection, try a set of racing gloves with a grip enhancing surface on the palms and fingers like these Alpinestars gloves we use. These have printed silicone palms and fingers for superb grip and they also have pre-curved fingers for added comfort and reduced fatigue.

The saying “smooth is fast” is something you’ll hear at just about any race school, and for good reason. Watch in-car video of a top notch driver and you’ll notice all of their inputs are smooth and as minimal as possible. The reason for this is simple: smooth inputs will result in less drastic weight transfer and that means the car’s mass is more evenly distributed across its four contact patches, which in turn means you’ve got more grip and better traction. Conversely, rough, jerky driver inputs (I’m talking steering as well as shifting, braking and applying the throttle) will upset the car’s balance, cause rapid weight transfer which can induce sudden understeer or oversteer by overloading some tires while unloading others, all of which kills momentum and robs speed. Watch this quick summary above from Ross Bentley of Speed Secrets fame for an excellent summary of why smooth is fast.

Can you imagine driving a car as awesome as the Fugu Z with anything other than a good, old fashion manual transmission? Answer: No. No you cannot.

Ok, so now that you’re sitting in the correct position and understand why smooth is fast, lets talk about how you can work on smoothness. If you’re driving a car with a manual transmission — and PLEASE tell me you’re driving a manual if you take your car to the track with any regularity — perhaps the biggest challenge is learning to downshift smoothly.

But first, a pep talk. Please don’t rob yourself of the involvement and connection that comes with driving a car with a manual transmission. Learning to heel & toe downshift takes time and effort, but the feeling of perfectly rev-matching while braking and downshift and then rolling back onto the throttle in a perfectly orchestrated sequence of driver inputs is one of the purest joys you can experience from behind the wheel.

You’ll get a good look at my heel & toe downshifting technique in this video starting at the 6:53 mark. I’m by no means the benchmark of heel & toe excellence, but I’ve been working at it for the better part of a decade now and have a pretty good handle on it. But it took a lot of practice before it became second nature, such that I wasn’t having to think about the timing or coordination of the gear change and throttle blip. It all just happens via muscle memory now, which frees my limited brain capacity up for more important things, like not crashing.

Source: http://www.drivingfast.net/images/car-control/heel-toe/3.png

For those of you who aren’t sure why heel & toe downshifting is even a thing, the reason to blip the throttle when downshifting is to match engine speed to the road speed of your car. By synching these up as best you can with a blip of the throttle while braking and downshifting for a corner, the clutch can engage smoothly without causing a sudden rise in RPM known as engine braking. In severe cases a poorly synchronization downshifts with no rev matching can lock up the drive wheels completely. In a FWD car this will result in severe understeer and in a RWD car sudden and potentially dangerous oversteer, both of which upset the car’s balance and slow you down.

Personally I find the name “heel & toe” a bit deceiving, since most driver’s (myself included) rev match with the technique seen in the video above. As you can see, the ball of the foot is used on the brake pedal and then the heel of the foot is rotated towards the throttle (thus the name “heel & toe”), but it’s actually the middle of the outside of the foot that ends up on the throttle pedal during the blip. So don’t fixate on the heel part of the term, and instead simply think of it as rotating the back of your foot towards the throttle while braking so you can blip the throttle with the outside of your foot while downshifting and releasing the clutch. There’s a lot of things all going on at once here, so getting the timing just right on your blip, downshift and clutch release takes practice.

Source: http://teamspeed.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=36445&stc=1&d=1257538971

Ok, so you’re committed to becoming a heel & toe pro, and since part of this process involves using the brakes, lets talk more about that all-important middle pedal. I know most of you are in love with the throttle pedal (and so am I!), since it makes cool noises and results in acceleration. But it’s actually your use of the brake pedal that is, more often than not, going to have the greatest impact on your lap times.

Source: https://pavemaintenance.wikispaces.com/file/view/Figure_2_pavement_friction_vs_tire_slip.jpg/207423378/Figure_2_pavement_friction_vs_tire_slip.jpg

That’s because unlike using the go-pedal, using the slow-pedal is somewhat counterintuitive, at least at first. The tendency of most novice track drivers is to not brake enough at first, which forces them to add more and more braking pressure as they approach the turn-in point, sometimes to the point of going past that critical slip point where braking force and tire grip are maxed out and the tire starts to slide rather than grip. This causes greater and greater forward weight transfer, which in turn overloads the front tires and tends to result in understeer and blowing past your turn-in point.

Source: http://biketrackdayshub.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/images_MotorcycleBrakingTips.jpg

The proper technique is to smoothly ramp up to maximum braking force (or threshold braking) early in the braking zone and then gradually reduce brake pressure as you approach the turn-in point. This results in a better balanced car when you initiate the turn, and if you go back to that Speed Secrets video you’ll recall that cornering speed is all about balance and the traction that comes with it.

Source: http://www.structive.com/hosted/trailbraking.gif

Once you’ve got a handle on threshold braking and getting most of your braking done early so you can balance the car for corner entry, it’s time to try some trail braking. This is a fairly advanced technique used to adjust the car’s handling balance, so if your car tends to understeer (and most cars do), trail braking can reduce understeer or even induce oversteer by putting a little extra weight on the front tires and a little less on the rear tires while turning. The above diagram suggests trail braking all the way to the apex, but in my experience it’s most effective in that 90% to 60% zone, at which point I’m usually off the brakes and back to wide open throttle or close to it, if I’ve judged my entry speeds correctly.

Ok, I think that’s a pretty decent primer for you aspiring Time Attackers and track day heroes out there, but if there’s anything we’ve missed or would like us to expand on, just leave us a note below or shoot us an e-mail. And remember, there’s no substitute for seat time. Practice, practice, practice and more practice is what you need to master these techniques and go faster at the race track. Be safe and happy holidays!

For those of you unfamiliar with PRI, simply put it’s SEMA for racers. Held annually in Indianapolis, a city that is in many ways the spiritual center of American racing culture, PRI is a no-frills, no hard-parkers show where you’ll only find companies and products with a clear focus on going fast, along with some machinery manufacturers (dynos, CNC mills, welding gear, rapid prototyping machines, etc.) that support the go-fast industry.

Most vendors at PRI put a traditional race car in their booth, but Turbo By Garrett took a more creative approach by building their booth around AMS Performance’s morbidly awesome drag hearse.

The world’s quickest and fastest hearse is the perfect way for racers to be transported to their final resting place, and with twin Garrett GTW3884R 67mm turbos under the hood, 1300-hp on tap and a 1/4-mile record of 9.54 @ 146-mph, it’s more than capable of outrunning Beelzebub.

Honda Racing and HPD took a more tradition approach by having a Formula car in their booth that’s equipped with a naturally aspirated version of the new K20C1 engine seen here.

 The K20C1 is, of course, the same engine being used in the new Civic Type R, though with a turbocharger attached where that block-off plate is. And as you can see from the other side of the engine, it uses a very compact plastic intake manifold. The valve cover is also made of plastic and is shaped quite differently than the K20A and K20Z engines we’re used to playing with. It’ll be very interesting to see how the aftermarket responds to this engine once the CTR (and other models equipped with the K20C1) hits the North American market.

One of the best things about PRI is that you get to check out some super high quality products from smaller companies that you might not see at a bigger and less racer-oriented show like SEMA. Case in point is Radium Engineering, a company that specializes in fuel system solutions that are beautifully engineered and manufactured.

Their fuel surge tank setup is particularly impressive, being the first of its kind to feature a true dual-chamber fuel tank utilizing a single lift pump and up to three surge tank pumps in a compact drop-in package that fits most of the popular fuel cells on the market, but we were also impressed by their new in-line fuel filter. The CNC aluminum housing is sealed with a Viton o-ring, the ORB ports accept a wide variety of adapter fittings, and they offer four different filters to suit just about any type of fuel. And if you mount the filter where it gets good airflow, the optional aluminum finned housing is a very clever way to keep fuel temps down (something Pete could have used when driving his LS3-swapped S13 from LA to Toronto and had to stop every few hours because the fuel kept boiling).

There’s a lot of racing apparel and safety equipment on display at PRI too, including this wall of helmets from Arai. A lot of professional racers where Arai helmets, but as you’d expect from a safety and quality leader, these lids aren’t exactly cheap. Still, you can get into a GP-5w for just over $800 USD, which is competitive pricing for a SA-rated closed faced auto sport helmet from a top name brand.

Our friends from Racepak had a major presence at the show, as you’d expect from a company that specializes in racing data acquisition and display. Ken was particularly taken by this new GPS V-Net module, since his RX-7 is already all wired up with Racepak’s Smartwire system using V-Net connectivity and has a IQ3 digital display onboard so he could add GPS speed, altitude and heading to the on screen data available to the driver. And if you have a non-GPS equipped Racepak data logging system you can now add this data source into the mix for even richer data analysis capabilities. With an 18hz sample rate (18 times per second), you get an incredibly high resolution compared to the more common 5hz and 10hz GPS data acquisition options on the market these days.

Chris from Racepak was also telling us that he was getting a lot of questions about how to turn their Bluetooth Virtual Dash app into an in-car digital display. The actual intent with this app is to make it easy to livestream data from your IQ3 dash or Racepak data logger using their Bluetooth module and an iOS device (iPhone, iPad, or iPad Mini). This allows your crew in pit lane to see all the engine vitals in realtime, just like the driver is seeing them on his IQ3 display. Pretty badass if you ask us, since with a radio comms device a teammate could radio to the driver that oil pressure is dropping or coolant temp is getting too high.

We’ve been impressed by the Stoptech street performance brakes we equipped our S2000 with, but maybe it’s time for us to step up to their Trophy Race big brake kit with forged calipers and floating two-piece rotors? This is a serious motorsport-grade brake kit, and as you can see the internal vanes inside the ventilated rotors have a design that’s similar to the vanes of a turbocharger compressor wheel, so they pump a lot of air through the rotors to keep them from overheating.

Digital dashes and displays were one of the biggest themes at PRI this year, and I’ve gotta say this AiM Sport GT steering wheel with integrated display, shift lights and control buttons is pretty damn cool. This thing is like a DTM race car steering wheel for your street car or track car, with a rev counter, lap timer, and engine vitals display built into a super compact design. I could also see this being a great solution in a lightweight project like a Super7, Ariel Atom, or a Sand Rail where you want as little weight and complexity as possible in the interior.

The new AiM MXS/MXG display is pretty sexy too, thanks to the full colour high contrast TFT screen and unique form factor. I had an AiM MXL in my CTCC Honda Civic and it was a great dash in its day (and still is, really), but it looks positively old school compared to this ultra modern looking dash logger.

C&R Racing, one of the leading heat exchanger and radiator manufacturers in the industry, had their award winning liquid-to-air barrel intercoolers on display. I’d never seen these before and it strikes me as a rather brilliant way to build intercooling into a system that has space constraints. These come in a wide range of sizes and the round form factor should make it really easy to integrate them into the chargepiping, and as you can see there’s a huge amount of surface area to their cores because of the “zigzag” surface design of the fins.

Recently acquired by the PWR Group, an Australia company that manufactures radiators for F1, DTM, WRC and other top level racing, C&R now has access to their wind tunnel facility, where they test the airflow of their cooling products. It should come as no surprise, then, that these radiators are both highly efficient and manufactured to a high standard.

If you subscribe to our YouTube channel then you’ll already know that we’ve renamed the ASS2000 to the BADASS2000 as we continue to build it in pursuit of even more speed.

Part of the badassery will involve installing wide fenders and wider wheels and tires for more grip and a cleaner exterior package, as well as further refining the aerodynamics and lots of other small but meaningful changes. But before we get to any of that, first we need to tackle the Jenvey individual throttle bodies installation, and since controlling the ITBs properly means going to a standalone ECU, we’re kicking off the festivities with the installation and baseline dyno tune of an AEM Infinity engine management system.

As you’ll see in the first video at the end of this story, before we installed and dyno tuned the engine using the Infinity we pulled the Vibrant GESI catalytic converter equipped mid-pipe out of the car and added a bung for the wideband o2 sensor kit from AEM so that we can plug it directly into the Infinity’s S2000 specific Plug & Play harness (more on that in a bit).

To connect the o2 sensor to the Infinity we simply ran the supplied subharness from the sensor through the firewall via the same grommet the main harness passes through and down to the outer footwell area on the driver’s side where the ECU lives.

From there we headed to Total Motor Werkes in Aurora, Ontario where Sasha from OnPoint Dyno met us with his portable Dynapack setup. Usic and the crew were kind enough to let us use their shop for tuning, so Sasha crawled under the dash and pulled the factory ECU and plugged in the Infinity using the AEM Plug & Play harness that’s included as part of the S2k PnP kit. This means there’s no cutting or splicing required, simply plug one end of the AEM harness into the factory harness and the other end into the Infinity ECU and done. Oh, and we plugged the o2 sensor cable into the labelled plug on the PnP harness as well. Easy Peasy Parcheesi.

For us a big part of the appeal of the Infinity is how powerful and complete it is, so no matter what we do to our S2000 in the future the Infinity can handle it. For example, lets say we go fully mental and decide to add forced induction on top of the individual throttle bodies. That’s no problem for the Infinity, since it has integrated boost control using two 2D base duty tables and two 2D boost target tables. The second tables can be used as a trim, and we can choose from multiple strategies including IAT, MAP, Baro (kpa), throttle %, flex fuel content, boost target and more. Or instead of boost lets say we want to add Nitrous to the mix. No problem there either, since the Infinity is capable of controlling a single-stage wet or dry nitrous set up and has nitrous timing delay to account for nitrous bleed out, plus it can be set up for water/methanol injection tuning as well. Point being, the Infinity is a true all-in-one solution for engine management and we’ll never outgrow it or need to add onto it regardless of how bonkers we go building this car.

It’s also equipped dual knock sensing circuits that are highly sensitive and able to filter out noise to a very high degree, so on a tricky setup like a boosted or ITB’d F20C we’d have outstanding knock sensing. And with its integrated engine protection strategies we can further protect our F20C by having the ECU limit RPM, for example, based on engine coolant temperature. There’s also a fuel cut feature to protect against overboost situations as well as engine protection for fuel and oil pressure. As you can see, there’s even a Lean Protect Table that uses fuel and ignition cut if the air/fuel ratio climbs above a level you and your tuner are comfortable with.

Keep in mind, all these engine protection features are fully customizable, so you get to set when and how they kick in. AEM is literally making it as difficult as possible to blow your engine up, something my wallet and I could have seriously benefitted from 10 years ago when I was blowing up Honda engines like a clown at a balloon party.

One of the other benefits to the Infinity PnP setup for the S2000 is that it comes with a start up map, so you can simply install the ECU like we did, use the Set Up Wizard like Sasha did, and then turn the key for party time on the dyno. And that’s exactly what we experienced when installing the Infinity in the BA2k, which meant Sasha could move on to the fun part of optimizing fuel, ignition, and cam timing for maximum power.

Speaking of, it’s important to note that unlike older engine management systems that use injector pulse-width as the basis for tuning, the Infinity uses a volumetric efficiency (VE) or airflow model based tuning system. This means instead of working with injector-on time in milliseconds, which in numeric terms really doesn’t tell you anything useful about whether the fuel mix is rich or lean (is 6ms of on-time rich or lean? Um, I dunno!), with VE based tuning you characterize the engine in the software based on the number of cylinders, engine displacement as well as fuel setup in order to estimate airflow or the volumetric efficiency of the engine. From there its up to you or your tuner to refine the VE map by loading the engine on the dyno at a variety of engine speeds to see where it’s most/least efficient throughout its powerband, and once you’ve dialled that in you can set your target air/fuel ratio and the VE table will ensure the engine runs at that AFR regardless of RPM or engine load. For a more detailed explanation of VE based tuning, check out the video above. It’s 4-minutes well spent.

It didn’t take Sasha long to refine the VE table to his liking, and the results were rock solid. Compared to the power we made after installing the AEM intake and Tanabe exhaust, peak wheel horsepower increased by 8-whp and peak torque grew by 9-wtq, plus you can see Sasha tuned out the dip in the powerband between 5500 and 6500 before VTEC engages.  Some of the gains can also be attributed to the Infinity’s 32-bit 200MHz processor (capable of up to 4-million instructions per second), which allows for more accurate ignition timing and higher resolution fuel control (it calculates injector pulse-width in units of 1/10th of a microsecond).

But of course there’s a lot more to come once we install the Jenvey ITBs and have Sasha retune for what we hope will be a significant upgrade to our F20C’s airflow and thus volumetric efficiency. Plus we’re looking forward to trying the Infinity’s built-in Launch Control and Traction Control systems, both of which have potential benefits for autocrossers, time attackers and drag racers.

Next up we’ll show you the Jenvey ITB installation in as much detail as we can along with a Radium Engineering dual catch can setup, but in the meantime check out our videos covering the installation and tuning of the AEM Infinity.

A few weeks ago I wrote a story about driving techniques for the race track, and that story generated a lot of feedback from readers. I plan to do a follow up to it on braking, since my statement that proper and optimal use of the brake pedal has a greater impact on lap times than the gas pedal stirred up a lot of interest, but before returning to the physical side of driving I’d like to touch on the mental part of the sport.

My journey into mental preparation for motorsport began in 1999 in the parking lot at the Powerade Centre in Brampton, Ontario. I know, a hockey arena doesn’t sound very motorsporty, but it was (and probably still is) a popular venue for autocross events since it has a fairly large parking lot that can be affordably rented by clubs wanting to host a Solo 2/Autocross event (or cone dodging, as I like to call it).

It was at a Powerade autocross event that I saw a competitor sitting in his Miata waiting in line for his run, but instead of rocking out to Lenny Kravitz or chatting with his buddies, he had his eyes closed and was pretending to steer left and right with his hands and rocking side to side with his head. I’d seen downhill skiers use visualization like this to “practice” the course before a run, but I’d never seen it used at an autocross event. This guy was some kind of Zen master!

I was intrigued by the idea of visualization, so I decided to try it myself. Keep in mind, autocross is part driving challenge, part car prep and car setup challenge, and part memory challenge, since you only get 4 or 5 runs on a course design that’s new to everyone. As a result of the limited practice you get on any given autocross course, memorizing the layout well enough that you can attack it is a big part of the game. Before each run I’d sit in my car for 5 minutes and visualize the course and all of my steering inputs, pedal inputs and shifting, revising my visualization after each run so I could “practice” what I’d just learned.

That smug bastard is not me, but it’s how I felt after my first class win in a local autocross series.

Lo and behold, I won my class in a bone stock car with OEM tires against a bunch of guys on much stickier rubber and better prepped cars. I was officially sold on the power of visualization, which in turn led me to research other mental tools for improving my performance as a driver.

I continued to use visualization when autocrossing, but when I started to compete in Time Attack at permanent race tracks, memorizing the course wasn’t really an issue any more. Now the challenge was more about learning to carry maximum speed into a corner, preserve momentum through the corner, and find the technique and the courage to go faster in places I didn’t think there was more speed to be found.

There is, of course, always more speed to be found if you’re willing to look for it in the right places. For example, during my second year of Time Attack competition in what is now called the Ontario Time Attack Championship, I was struggling to beat a couple of first-gen Eagle Talons in my class. My ’99 Honda Prelude was well prepped for the class, but I’d convinced myself there was no way it could go flat out through turn 1 on Shannonville’s Nelson configuration, a deceivingly quick right-hander thanks to the camber in the road surface down by the apex.

Ok, so this pic isn’t from my first win in the Prelude, but rather a win in my trusty old EG Civic a few years later, but you get the idea. Winning feels good at any level and mental preparation plays a surprisingly big role even when you’re just trying to beat a few other duffers at the grassroots level.

It was the last event of the year and I was desperate for a win, so after a lot of deep breathing and a scream of “banzai!” as I blasted down the front straight toward turn 1, I kept the throttle matted. Much to my brain’s surprise, the car gripped strongly through the apex and gained enough exit speed that an extra upshift was needed before the next braking zone. Breaking through this mental barrier not only led to my first class victory in a time attack series, it made me realize just how big a factor my mindset is when driving and how learning to control my emotions and focus my mind would be key to any future successes I might have behind the wheel.

It was around this time that I decided to take my mental preparation for racing more seriously, which meant reading everything on the subject I could find.  One of my favourite books is by highly regarded Canadian racer Ross Bentley called Speed Secrets: Professional Race Driving Techniques, which is a practical guide to improving yourself as a driver. This quote in particular has stuck with me: “Your mental approach to driving may just have the single biggest effect on your success.”

Although this book is focused more on the physical aspect of driving, there is a short but insightful chapter (Chapter 14: A Racing Mind) that outlines a variety of “secrets” related to optimizing your mental approach to race driving. Getting into the car with a relaxed and focused mind, focusing on your own performance rather than on the competition’s, focusing your eyes on where you want to go on the track (not where you don’t want to go), looking and thinking as far ahead as possible, expanding your comfort zone (or feeling more comfortable at full speed and on the edge of adhesion) through practice and experience, and learning to use visualization to focus your mind are all practical suggestions discussed by Bentley and ones I know have helped my own on-track performances over the years. Bentley has since written a series of books including ‘Inner Speed Secrets’ that focuses solely on the mental approach to driving.

I was also surprised to learn at a Corvette press event where three-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Ron Fellows was the guest of honour that he was working hard on his mental approach to racing under the guidance of Psychologist Dr. Jacques Dallaire. Fellows, in his trademark lighthearted style, described some of his training with Dallaire, which included some “mind speed” drills where he’d have to react as quickly as possible to points of light or other types of stimuli in his peripheral vision as well as other drills designed to both focus the mind and speed its processing. Fellows went on to describe the brain as being like a muscle in the sense that you can improve its performance with the right exercises and that his mind speed training with Dallaire had contributed greatly to his ability to perform at the highest level in what is arguably the toughest and most competitive race in the world (Le Mans).

In fact, Fellows is so sold on mind-speed training that he’s integrated it into the curriculum at his Corvette Racing School at Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch. A number of other noteworthy high achievers have also used Dallaire’s approach to mental focus and mental toughness as outlined in his book ‘Performance Thinking’ including actor/racer Patrick Dempsey and three-time Indy 500 Champ Helio Castroneves.

In this book Dallaire tackles classic psychological pitfalls like self-sabotage and how they impact on our performance as athletes (and of course it applies to other areas of life as well). He then moves on to offering a method (which he calls A.C.T.) for focusing the mind on a single positive, task-oriented thought so as to block out any self-doubt or that little voice in our heads that say “You’re not as talented as those other drivers.”

As a part of his method for developing a more singular focus and greater mental toughness, Dallaire presents the seven Rules Of The Mental Road, the 7th striking a particularly strong cord with me. It states, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” This reminded me of one of the earliest lessons I learned when I started to compete in Time Attack, which was to fight my tendency to drive the same corner the same way every lap.

That is to say, it’s very easy (at least for me) to fall into a pattern where I drive by muscle memory. I’m able to turn consistent lap times because of this, but it was preventing me from exploring different lines, trying different braking points, and pushing myself outside my comfort zone in search of more speed. To this day I still have to remind myself that the track is changing, tire conditions are changing, engine conditions are changing, and that my “comfort zone” is always at work like some sort of speed-hating sedative.

We’ve been big fans of the Do It For A Living podcast since the day Reid Lunde from KaizenSpeed launched it, and we’ve learned a lot as listeners. It’s an incredible resource for anyone currently working in the automotive performance aftermarket or aspiring to be, and we’re truly honoured to have been invited to contribute to this treasure trove of information and inspiration.

We’d like to thank Reid for starting something very special and generous with DIFAL, and we’d like to thank Kevin Dubois and Todd Earsley from Evolution Dynamics and MyShopAssist for partnering with Reid to keep it going. We encourage you all to subscribe to the podcast, because you’re sure to find a guest or two on their growing playlist that specializes in your personal areas of interest. Or if you just like swearing, Paul Yaw from Injector Dynamics is a must-listen (plus the dude is super smart and has a lot of insight into this industry).

Without further ado, we hope you enjoy our chat with Kevin and that we offer up something useful for the hour of your life you may choose to spend on it.

Peter Tarach & Dave Pratte discuss how they transitioned from print media to producing online content

Back in July or August we grabbed my neighbour Mike’s 2011 Scion tC2 so we could upgrade the intake to an AEM performance air intake and a Dezod Motorsports Red header. You may remember Mike’s tC from a wheel, tire and suspension upgrade story we did with it, along with a little track test video, and we really wanted to keep on helping Mike build his tC, but life has a way of intervening sometimes. More on that in a bit.

Once we arrived at Make It Shine, our favourite detailer and paint correction expert in the Greater Toronto Area, we helped Sasha from OnPoint Dyno unload and setup his portable Dynapack dyno setup so we could do a quick baseline test of the tC.

After doing a few runs on the dyno, the best result we could get was a somewhat disapointing 123.5-whp at 5600 RPM and 127-wtq at 4700 RPM. Typcially the 2AR-FE engine, rated at 180-hp from the factory, does a fair bit better than this in dyno testing, but it’s important to keep in mind that Mike’s tC has an automatic transmission and this robs a lot more power at the wheels (or the hubs, in the case of a Dynapack) than a manual gearbox, plus we know from past experience that the OnPoint Dynapack reads quite conservatively on lower powered cars. In any case, this gave us our baseline, which includes the World Racing Descendant cat-back exhaust system Mike had previously installed.

From there we backed the car out of the shop (so Sasha could dyno test our ASS2000), where Ken and I worked on removing the factory intake and exahaust manifold.

As you can tell, Ken was thrilled to be working on Mike’s Scion in the blazing sun right next to a trash-filled dumpster. Stay classy, my friend!

For starters we pulled the OE header so we could install this bad boy, Dezod’s Red Header.

As you can see, it’s not red in colour (on the right; OE catted header on the left), but rather in name only since it deletes the catalytic converter. Dezod’s Green header has a built-in high-flow cat. Green for eco-friendly, Red for not-so-much. You get the idea.

As you can see from the tag, it’s made of stainless steel, has 1-1/2” primaries that gather in a nice merge collector and then into a 2-1/2” downpipe that connects to the cat-back exhaust system using the OE donut gasket and bolts (we ordered a new gasket and bolts from Dezod with the header just to be on the safe side).

We also ordered this Vibrant Performance J-style oxygen sensor restrictor fitting from Dezod’s website. This moves the o2 sensor back out of the exhaust flow enough that it won’t throw a check engine light.

Ken’s good mood continued while removing the stock header.

He did seem a fair bit more cheerful while installing the Dezod Red header, though.

Maybe it was the sexy stainless steel construction, or just the overall excellent fitment that made him happy. Either way, we’re grateful for the mood improvement.

He celebrated the successful header install by showing off his new hipster summer scarf. Available with every purchase of a Dezod header. Maybe.

Just in case you haven’t seen our videos covering the installation (you’ll find some in the story below and the rest in our YouTube playlist), we’re going to walk you through the process of completely installing Jenvey individual throttle bodies on our AP1 Honda S2000.

Some viewers commented on our installation videos that Jenvey mustn’t know what they’re doing because we had to do some custom work to fit the ITBs to the BADASS2K’s F20C. However, as we pointed out in the videos as often as we could without sounding like parrots, Jenvey didn’t design these ITBs to be a bolt-on kit for the S2000 chassis, but rather a motorsport grade product for S2000 owners or anyone with a F20C powered vehicle.

Our buddy Miles in his insane Super 7 with a turbo F20C under the hood. This thing is our kind of stupid.

As the above image suggests, F20C engines are a popular choice for all manner of RWD track car builds, from Formula cars to Super 7’s like our buddy Miles’ here. So it’s important to understand that Jenvey designed and engineered the SF Taper Throttle Body Kit with a motorsport end user in mind, meaning custom solutions to things like fuel lines, a vacuum setup, and throttle cable mounting and routing would all be required. And we fully understood this going into the project, and frankly for us this was part of the appeal, because it’s fun to sort out these kinds of details and really make the installation and the project our own.

With that said, Jenvey does provide all the major components required to convert an S2000 to their ITB setup, and it should be stated that we decided to go with Jenvey (there are quite a few other ITB options for this engine) because their kit consistently produced the best power numbers on the dyno when we researched our options online. We like to use the best parts possible whenever we can, and in our estimation Jenvey’s ITBs are the best performers for the F20C.

We bumped into the Jenvey guys at the PRI tradeshow back in 2014, had a great chat with them, and could see the high quality engineering and manufacturing in the products firsthand. As the Jenvey guys explained, they design and build everything in-house at their facility in England, from 3D CAD, tool and patternmaking, prototyping, foundry, and machining by CNC as well as CAD/CAM.

They even make the ITB housings, spindles, butterflies, levers and fuel rails in-house, giving them very tight quality control over the entire manufacturing process, key to producing motorsport-grade products that make real power lap after torture-testing lap.

Jenvey ITBs for your Chevy LS V8 swap? Yes, please!

We also met with their American distributor Fox Injection at PRI in 2015 and could see the pride these guys had in distributing an industry-leading product. That really sealed the deal for us and led to a very enjoyable installation process, but one that does take some planning, which this story will hopefully help you with should you decide to install Jenveys on your S2000.

Obviously the first step is removing the intake system and intake manifold, which you can see in Part 1 of our video series. Since we had an AEM dual chamber intake on the car, we simply removed the section that connects to the throttle body as a starting point.

I won’t bore you with too many details on removing the intake manifold, since we cover that pretty thoroughly in the Part 1 video. But to quickly summarize here, you can see there are coolant lines and vacuum lines that need to be disconnected (as well as a few sensors) before you can pull the bolts that hold the manifold to the head. And of course you’ll also need to disconnect the throttle cable from the throttle body. It’s not rocket science, it just takes a bit of time. Pro tip: drain the coolant system before starting or you’ll end up spilling coolant everywhere during the removal process like we did.

Oh, and that hideous valvecover with flaking red paint? We had our buddy JP at Stripping Tech give it a nice fresh powder coat in wrinkle black. So fresh! So clean!

Step 1 for the Jenvey installation process, at least for us, was to temporarily bolt the ITB assembly to the cylinder head so that we could start to get a sense of where we could mount a fuel pressure regulator.

We published a few track alignment spec stories last year including one for our S2000, our FR-S and our S14 240SX. Now it’s time to give you FWD guys some love, and in particular anyone with a double wishbone FWD Honda like my old EG Civic racecar or Pete’s old DC2 Integra track car.

Pete’s old DC2 Integra project sitting pretty at the Modified Mag shop in SoCal. A bit nicer than our current tuning dungeon, huh?

Why do these specs only apply to ’88 to ’00 double wishbone Hondas? Simple, really. Later FWD Hondas, like the RSX and 7th gen and newer Civics switched to a McPherson front strut design and also went to a different rear suspension designs as well, so a high performance or race alignment on these newer Hondas is very different from the old EG/EK/DC2 chassis we all love so much for their lightness and inherently good suspension design.

Source: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-KxAQBNhmmd8/VVr0kNgTTuI/AAAAAAAAAEw/HiOw3pMXvP0/s1600/double_wishbones3%2Bcamber%2Bchange.jpg

One of the advantages of a double wishbone suspension with unequal length upper and lower control arms like ’88 to ’00 FWD Hondas (and C5 and C6 Corvettes and Stock Cars) have is that it dynamically gains negative camber during roll and compression, which means you don’t have to run a lot of static camber to use all of the available tire contact patch in the corners.

So as you can see from the specs above, we suggest you start with about -2.75 degrees of front camber and about a degree less of rear camber. The reason for more front camber is that the front tires do a lot more work on a FWD car, since they’re being asked to both steer and put the power down, and we always want to maximize front grip in the corners and then balance the chassis with adjustments to rear grip. Plus we know from years of racing experience and collecting tire temperature data with my EG and many other Hondas of this suspension type that alignment specs similar to these produce the desired temperature spread across the contact patch in most cases (a bit hotter on the inner third).

Keep in mind, however, that your tire choice and driving style will impact on camber and toe settings that work best for your FWD Honda, not to mention your shock, spring and sway bar setup and the track(s) you tend to do most of your lapping/racing at. So you’ll need to do your own homework, as these specs are really just a starting point and are perhaps a bit on the conservative side (and thus better suited to a street tire or DOT track tire, while racing slicks often need more camber as well as more spring rate).

Get yourself a tire pyrometer and accurate tire pressure gauge and start to keep track of these during track days. Generally speaking you’ll want to see tire temps in the 160-200F range, but do some research on the optimum temp range for the tires you’re running on. Here’s a little video explaining how to use a pyrometer. It’s a quick and painless watch, we promise.

We normally use toe settings to fine-tune the car’s handling balance, so these can be quite subjective and heavily influenced by tire choice and your overall chassis and suspension tuning choices. That said, most FWD cars do understeer and struggle a bit with turn-in response as well, so as a general rule adding some front toe-out can help encourage crisper turn-in. Similarly, a bit of rear toe-out can help free up the rear end and encourage the chassis to rotate rather than understeer. In extreme cases we’ve used a lot more rear toe-out to combat understeer, and we’ve also used extreme amounts of rear camber to effectively reduce the size of the rear contact patch in an effort to reduce rear grip and thus free it up to rotate. Running a reverse stagger tire setup (narrow rear tires) is also a popular way to improve FWD handling balance by limiting rear grip relative to front grip.

My old EG, transformed into a sweet Time Attack car by our friend Luigi, ran a reverse stagger setup very effectively, not only with a wider front tire but also a more aggressively offset front wheel.

Point being, don’t be afraid to experiment with rear toe and rear camber to get your FWD car to understeer less or even rotate a bit. The goal is to get the car turned in quickly so that you can get back on the gas as soon as possible without having to modulate the throttle to hold off any power-on understeer or front end push. Similarly, you can use rear damper settings, rear spring and bar rates or even track width to reduce understeer, but that’s a subject for another post.

One other point worth making about unequal length double wishbone suspension design is that it doesn’t like to be lowered too much. Show up to the track with your ’88 to ’00 Honda slammed to the ground like a stance nation devotee and you’ll almost certainly have a very poor handling car on your hands, since its roll centers will be below ground and it’ll be bumpsteering you all over the track in the corners. You can use bumpsteer and roll center adjusters to help dial some of this badness out, but because of the way double wishbone suspension geometry works, the best thing you can do is not lower the car more than a couple inches below stock ride height.

Ok, that’s it for our quick and dirty FWD Honda double wishbone alignment recommendations. We want to build another FWD Honda soon, so hopefully we’ll be able to show you lots of other FWD Honda setup testing in the not too distant future. Maybe a GE Fit rally car with a Mugen K20 like this one?

Lets be honest. Most people, even diehard car enthusiasts like us, don’t tend to give their car batteries much thought. Just like you, we just want our cars to fire up when we turn the key and we don’t want to be replacing batteries too often, since that gets expensive and isn’t great for the environment either. Beyond that, like a lot of racers, we’ve tended to look at batteries as an opportunity for weight reduction and repositioning, by using small, lightweight sealed batteries installed in the trunk or the cabin.

But as our fleet of project cars has grown over the years and the interval between uses has grown with it, more and more we’ve been struggling to keep our batteries alive. Everybody knows that batteries don’t like to sit for long periods of time without any sort of charging, but we didn’t fully understand the damage we were doing to our batteries until we had a chat with the boys at CTEK during the 2015 SEMA Show. They gave us a quick rundown of how batteries work and why they need maintenance to do their job properly and to live a long, healthy life.

Plus I got on the phone with Smokey White from CTEK for more of an in-depth chat about batteries and how CTEK goes about reconditioning abused batteries like ours. That’s right, it turns out we’re battery abusers here at Speed Academy, even if we didn’t realize it until now. This may not be a recognized criminal offense yet, but we’re pretty sure Elon Musk would like it to be, so consider this overview of how batteries work and why they die an investment in your future, because it may just keep you  out of jail someday.

As Smokey explained, “A battery is a chemical type being. It’s like a baby. You’ve got to feed it, nurture it, so it lives a long and healthy life. If you don’t, it’ll die prematurely.” Obviously we had a bit of a laugh over this analogy, but it makes the point very clearly that if you want your batteries to do their job properly for as long as possible, you’re going to have to think about their “feeding and care”.

Source: http://www.howitworksdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/12.jpg

To understand the feeding and care requirements of a typical lead acid car battery, lets quickly review how these closed system chemical reactors work. As you can see in the above cutaway, a battery has lead (negative) plates and lead dioxide (positive) plates submerged in an electrolyte solution of sulphuric acid and distilled water.  The acid-water solution causes a chemical reaction that produces electrons which flow through conductors to the battery terminals and then on through the vehicle wiring system to the starter motor. When a battery is being discharged during start-up or when you leave the ignition switched on with the engine off so you can rock out to your favorite radio station while washing the car, the sulfuric acid in the electrolyte is being depleted so that the electrolyte more closely resembles water. At the same time, sulfate from the acid is coating the plates and reducing the surface area over which the chemical reaction can take place. Then when you fire the engine up and put it under enough load that the alternator starts to charge the battery back up to its 12.6 volt max, the chemical process described above is reversed, driving the sulfate back into the acid so that it’s ready to be discharged again.

As I’m sure you probably know, There are two common types of lead acid batteries: there’s the old fashion non sealed type that required periodic topping up with distilled water (I can remember my grandpa doing this regularly for his golf cart batteries), and there’s the more modern (but more expensive) maintenance-free types that are sealed and require no topping up of the electrolyte fluid. Sealed, maintenance-free lead acid batteries (sometimes called a valed-regulated lead-acid battery or VLDA)  tend to come in two varieties, either absorbed glass mat (AGM) or gel.

Gel battery design uses a silica gelling agent in the electrolyte fluid that creates a gel-like solution that won’t spill but prevents rapid motion of the ions in the electrolyte. This reduces carrier mobility and thus surge current capability, making a gel battery better suited to energy storage like off-grid systems but less well suited to automotive applications.

AGM batteries, where the fluid space between cells in the battery is filled with a glass fibre mat that’s soaked in electrolyte, like the ever-popular Optima batteries as well as many compact and lightweight motorsport or motorbike oriented batteries from companies like Braille or Odyssey, are better suited to automotive and marine applications since they have stronger surge current capability for firing up an engine. AGM batteries are also significantly less suspectible to damage due to low-temperature use, since the densely packed mat design helps prevent stratification, where the water seperates and rises to the top and freezes if extreme cases.

Alright, so with that quick summary on lead-acid batteries behind us, how can you take care better care of yours and get the longest service life possible from it? According to Smokey at CTEK, the best and simplest solution is to keep it fully charged all the time. As he explained, “The problem is that your car and its alternator isn’t a charger so much as a maintainer. Because of all the electrical demands of the vehicle and the way it’s driven or not driven, there’s a good chance it won’t see a full charge very often. For example, if you only drive your car a few times a week, the battery will lose charge over time because it’s not being fully recharged during driving. So it’ll slowly discharge over time until it’s flat, or when the electrolyte is more like water and the sulphate particles root into the plates and disallows them from carry ions between plates. This can lead to the sulphate particles crystallizing and coating the plates, rendering them less able to do their job.”

So according to Smokey, the key it to keep the battery charged, and the best way to do this is via a maintenance charger like one of CTEK units we showed you in the video above. So far we’ve been super impressed by the CTEK chargers we’ve been using, since they’ve reconditioned two batteries we previously thought were dead and they’ve done a great job maintaining the batteries in the ASS2000, the S14, and the E39 wagon. Even that Buddy Club battery in the video above that we thought was a complete goner has since been reconditioned by our MUS 4.3 Test & Charge unit after having been left on a “dumb” charger for a few days prior to put enough juice in it for the CTEK unit to work its magic.

Of coure the reality is that very few of us are going to connect a charger every time we park our car, since it’s a pain in the ass to pop the hood and hook up a charger after another soul-crushing commute home in stop-and-go traffic. That’s why we think CTEK’s Comfort Indicator eyelet or panel connector is a brilliant idea, since you can install this on your car’s battery and have the connector accessible through the grille or up on the cowl or even on an interior panel so that there’s less effort required to plug your charger in for maintenance charging.

But no matter how easy companies like CTEK may try to make it to plug in to a maintenance charger, the truth is most of us still won’t bother. Because we’re lazy and we just wanna go fast, right? So for people like us, CTEK has evolved their chargers to address sulphation and stratification as a way of putting all those sulphate particles back in circulation so the battery can take a full charge (or close to it). As Smokey explained, “Sometimes the crystals are too hard to put back in service, but we can at least partially revive the battery in two ways. The delsuphation cycle is part of the normal charge, which tests the battery to see how quickly it takes a charge. If it detects the charge isn’t being absorbed into the plate surface because of sulfation, it’ll go into a more aggressive desulphation mode that pulses voltage to help remove sulfation on the plates. Then it’ll go into a Recondition step. If the battery has been left to deeply discharge, where it’s been sitting in a state where acid and water have separated and stratified, the electrolytes need to be stirred up. For this the Recon mode charges at a higher voltage and allows the battery to gas and bubble and stir up the water/acid electrolyte mix. After this process, if you keep your battery at a higher state of charge, it’ll give the battery 2-3x longer life.”

However, Smokey did caution us that if we use the Recondition mode too often, we could damage the battery by gassing it too much. He recommended only using it 1 or 2 times a year if the battery is otherwise in good shape. He also had a cool pro tip that if the battery is struggling to perform, you can run it thru Recon mode a few times consecutively to help revive it. Fancy trick!

Last but not least, Smokey brought CTEK’s new Battery Sense product to my attention, since it’s their latest way of allowing former battery abusers like me to change my behaviour and treat my batteries with the love and affection they deserve. By hooking up the Battery Sense Bluetooth module to your battery and installing theie iPhone app you get realtime information on your car’s battery. I know, only the most hardcore car nerd and tech nerd is likely going to want access to this kind of data on their battery, but it just so happens that I’m exactly that kind of nerd, so I’m going to install one of these on my daily driver Toyota Tundra and report back in a few months on what I’ve learned about battery charge levels during daily use, towing, or periods of inactivity.

According to Smokey I’ll be surprised to see how rarely the battery is actually at a 100% charge level, spending far more of its time in the 70-80% range and dropping much lower than that if I park the truck for a week or two. I’m looking forward to testing this out and geeking out over the 90-day reports the app provides.

Stay tuned for an update once Pete gets back from Arizona with my Tundra and I can start playing around with the Battery Sense app and try some daily maintenance charging with one of our MUS 4.3 Test & Charge units to see how that effects battery performance. I’m going to try to rehabilitate myself from battery abuser to battery lover, I promise, Smokey!

AEM Electronics announced the release of their new X-Series line of wideband air/fuel ratio sensor controllers a few months ago, including the bold claim that they are now the fastest responding wideband on the market based on independent testing against 17 other AFR controllers including all the names you’re likely familiar with. The faster response time is being attributed to AEM’s patent-pending X-Digital technology, which they’re understandably tight-lipped about, but apparently gives these new X-Series controllers the ability to read and report values that other controllers do not. In the right hands this can lead to a more optimized engine tune and a safer running engine, since the controller’s high speed capabilities allows it to identify the slightest fluctuations in AFR and output them in full value.

We really weren’t sure how big a difference AFR response time makes to an ECU tuner, so we asked our local tuning expert Sasha Anis at OnPoint Dyno what he thought. As Sasha explained, “Deadtime [the delay between when exhaust gas composition changes and when that change is reported by the O2 sensor] and overall system response time is critical with an oxygen sensor. That’s why sometimes you see OEM systems getting into funky feedback loops when the O2 sensor is placed too far down the exhaust – the slower the response the slower and less aggressive the closed loop O2 control needs to be or else it can over-compensate and get into a situation where the fuel trim goes full rich, full lean, full rich, full lean, etc. A fast responding exhaust mixture measurement is also really useful for tuning tip-in enrichment, where we are trying to determine what is happening in a very dynamic situation – there’s nothing steady state about stabbing the throttle!”

Sasha’s feedback convinced us that we needed to test the X-Series versus a few of the leading AFR controllers currently on the market to see for ourselves what sort of improvements AEM has achieved in response time. Before diving into the details of our test, it’s worth noting that when tuning an engine using a wideband AFR controller, deadtime effects the data you are looking at because it is reported in a different operating location than when it actually occurred. In other words, the air/fuel ratio you’re seeing on the controller display or in the tuning software is actually the ratio from a split second ago, so the longer the deadtime or delay there is in reporting that ratio, the more difficult it is to pinpoint where exactly in your fuel mapping you need to make adjustments to dial in the air/fuel mixture to your targeted ratio. On a stock, low stress engine this generally isn’t as critical since there’s a safety margin to work with, but if you’ve got an expensive, high compression or high-boost forced induction engine, both of which are sensitive to even small changes in air/fuel ratio, you definitely want the shortest deadtime and fastest response time possible if you’re truly trying to optimize performance and reliability.

Ok, so on to our test results! For testing we turned to another of our go-to tuning experts, Tony Szirka from UMS Tuning in Mesa, Arizona. Tony recently tuned Pete’s Porsche 930 Turbo (which some of you got a sneak peek of during our Facebook Livestream of the event), and having seen him in action at all of the Modified Mag Tuner Shootout dyno tests we used to organized, we know Tony is a very experienced ECU tuner on some extremely high horsepower cars where a precise tune is a must.

We shipped Tony an X-Series AFR controller to test on a MkIV Toyota Supra Turbo making 750-whp. You know, because all Supras need to have at least 700-whp, right?

We also sent Tony a new Innovate LC-2 with a Bosch LSU 4.9 sensor and a new Gen4 PLX DM-6 + SM AFR wideband kit with a Bosch LSU 4.9 sensor so that he could install them all in series on the Supra and see how the compare in a direct data collection session on his in-house DynaPack hub dyno. Here’s what the data looked like after we spent some time going over it in AEMdata, AEM’s powerful data analysis software.

Remember how Sasha told us there’s nothing steady state about stabbing the throttle? Where he’s proof of that. Above is a “throttle lift w cursor” trace,  which shows a throttle lift resulting in a slight lean spike followed by a large rich spike. The X-Series is the only wideband to detect the slight lean spikes just before and after the the mixture goes rich where the verticle blue line is positioned. As you can see from this data, the X-series also gives us a clearer picture of the extent of the rich condition here, and even though the rich condition is only for a short timeframe, it may still cause a puff of black smoke out the tailpipe, which would be the only indication there was a tuning issue if a slower wideband was used. This type of rich moment in the tune can translate to poor driveability, where the car hesitates or jerk when you lift the throttle, plus it can lead to reduced fuel economy and could eventually plug a catalytic converter among other potential downsides.

Next we have the “large AFR gap w cursor” trace, which shows the X-Series responding 0.3-0.4 seconds faster than the other widebands. In the tuning world, this is an eternity. As we explained earlier, a faster response time from the wideband can help the tuner dial in the acceleration enrichment during rapid throttle or RPM changes, so the X-series is really looking like a clear winner from that perspective. It’s also worth noting that during high RPM action, and we are nothing if not high RPM addicts here at Speed Academy, a significant downside to a slower responding wideband is the fact that the air/fuel ratio being displayed on a slower reading  gauge is going to be showing you a safe ratio when in fact the AFR could be dangerous lean just before you hit the rev limiter. There’s a lot of combustion events happening at 9,000 RPM like we rev our AP1 S2000 to, so the last thing we want to do is risk a lean AFR up top by taking our readings off a slower responding wideband.

One other observation Tony offered regarding the AEM X-series wideband’s performance relative to the other two kits is that the X-series signal produces very clean and useable data, offering the fastest response but also the least amount of “noise” on the signal (which can hinder an ECU’s ability to perform fast and accurate fuel trim adjustments). At the cursor in the image above, there is a difference of over 3 AFR numbers between wideband readings. So, if you were using closed loop feedback and targeting an AFR of 14:1 in this condition, the X-Series would tell your standalone ECU that you are close to the ideal AFR where the other controllers would be indicating a rich state, causing the ECU to trim out fuel. Then, as these controllers’ signals ‘catch up’ to the actual AFR value your engine would actually be lean due the fuel reduction from the closed loop control.

So that wraps up our wideband AFR Controller Shootout, and we think the data collected by Tony at UMS Tuning strongly supports AEM’s claims that the X-series is now the fastest responding wideband kit on the market today. We’ll certainly be transitioning our cars over to the X-series, since a more accurate and more reliable tune is a big part of the racing game if you want to stay at the front of the pack. We have tuning sessions coming up soon with our Jenvey ITB’d S2000 and Pete’s S14, so we’ll follow up here with further input on the X-series performance once our local tuner Sasha from OnPoint gets a chance to play around with one.

If you’re anything like us, you’ve spent countless hours playing motorsport video games of all shapes and sizes, from iRacing to Mario Karts and everything in between. And since we like to tinker with our cars as much as we like to race, games that include the ability to modify the cars have always been particularly attractive to us. But what we haven’t tried is a racing game that comes at the experience not from the driver’s point of view but from the team manager’s. And that’s exactly what Motorsport Manager offers, giving you the chance to build your own team including hiring and firing drivers and race engineers, building a racing HQ and conducting R&D to make your cars faster, refining your race-day tactics, and even navigating the politics of the sport.

I’ve just downloaded the highly rated mobile app recently ($2.99) and I must say it’s a ton of fun. The 4 to 5 star ratings its received from its users are very much deserved, and as a racer I find it really refreshing to step back from the driver’s seat and instead engage in the high level decisions that have such a big impact on the outcome of races and championships. And that’s exactly what the newly announced PC (and Mac) version due to be released in September is designed to do in an even more detailed way, as I learned during an enjoyable Skype chat with the team at Playsport Games who, in partnership with SEGA Europe, developed the game and the powerful 3D race engine that makes it go.

“As motorsport fans, we’ve been waiting to play a game like this for a long time. That was how the original Motorsport Manager for mobile devices came about.” said Christian West, Founder and CTO of Playsport Games. “We wanted to take that experience to the next level by building an all new version of Motorsport Manager for PC with massively enhanced gameplay and unparalleled depth. With the help of SEGA, we’re hugely confident of delivering a management experience that fans of motorsport will absolutely love.”

During my Skype chat Christian and his team gave me a sneak peek at the game in action, and I must say it like the bird’s eye view during races. It has a sort of ‘Civilization’ feel to it (if you’re familiar with that game), in that the graphics are quite detailed and give you a great sense of the overall environment but are kept clean and purposeful so as not to clutter up the interface.

I think they’ve struck a really nice balance with the look of the game, and having listened to the developers talk about the many layers the game has, including political decisions, staffing decisions, factory construction and R&D all the way down to choosing your drivers and engineers and making race-day decisions about what tires to use and how hard you want your driver to push, I was left with the sense that there’s a lot of different ways you can play the game.

You could, for example, focus on building your team up from the lower ranks and slowly working your way to the top at the highest levels of the sport, or you can jump from team to team in an effort to climb the ranks in more of a “hired gun” style. You might also choose to focus more on developing the fastest car possible by building a wind tunnel and focusing resources on R&D and manufacturing, or you could instead focus your efforts on signing the best combination of drivers and race engineers. You can even be fired by the team owner if you mismanage the team!

Point being, from the sounds of it Motorsport Manager will offer a deeply layered gaming experience that is continuously evolving thanks to the AI built into it. In fact, the game’s ability to evolve with you over time means you’ll even see multiple generations of drivers emerge from the same family, just like we’ve seen in F1 with the Rosbergs, Villeneuves and Sennas. I should also say that the developers’ enthusiasm and passion for the game was readily apparent during my Skype chat with them, and from my perspective their enthusiasm is well placed given how immersive a motorsport management game they appear to have built.

I especially liked the way you can speed up or slow down the pace of a qualifying or races, so you can play the game in a sort of “speed chess” mode if you want to get a quick race in, or you can slow things down and work on your tactical skills without the pressure of the clock ticking too quickly.

We’ll be getting our hands on an early edition of the game, so once we’ve had a chance to fully explore the PC version we’ll report back, but in the meantime if you’d like more information about Motorsport Manager, point your web browser at www.motorsportmanager.net and check out the video above for a fun teaser of what the game looks like in motion.

If you haven’t seen our two part video on installing Downforce USA +30mm front fenders and ASM +25 rear over fenders sourced from Evasive Motorsports on our YouTube channel, you can find both at the bottom of this story. But for those of you who prefer pictures and words, here’s a recap of how we took our Turn14 Distribution supported AP1 S2000 from mangled OE fenders to fresh and clean wide fenders that’ll let us stuff a little extra wheel and tire under the old girl.

Since Pete was down in Arizona doing an engine build on his 930 Turbo with the dudes at TurboKraft and UMS Tuning, Ken and I started out back since this is a much bigger job than the fronts.

As you can see, these are legit ASM Yokohama rear over fenders, not the icy hot stunta knock-off version you can (but shouldn’t) buy on eBay. Ya, it cost us a bit more to buy genuine parts, but if real enthusiasts don’t support real innovators and real parts makers we’re all doomed to a life of running cheaply manufactured and ill-fitting junk. Be too legit to quit, people!

You’re not just supporting innovation when buying genuine, original parts, you’re also acquiring quality construction and fit. These ASM fenders are really nicely made from FRP, are very thick and strong, and when we held them up to the body they fit absolutely perfectly.

We simply taped the rear flares in position and drilled the holes required to rivet them in place. ASM supplies rivets but we opted to install rivet nuts instead, which we’ve shown you before in our splitter build. We like rivnuts since they let us fasten stuff with a bolt that’s easily removed for service or repair. We got our rivnuts and bolts from Fastenal, opting for steel zinc coated material for strength and rust resistance.

To make use of the extra 25mm of width you get with these flares, you have to cut the OE fenders to ensure the tires don’t rub. This is not a job for the faint of heart since you cut about 2” of the factory sheet metal along the fender lip off on the outer skin and then section and roll the inner skin up and weld it closed so that the body is strong, air tight and protected from water and rust. We covered this process in detail in the first video, so check that out if you want to see the approach Ken used for this.

Once Ken was satisfied the cut and welded fenders were fully welded up, we took the extra precaution of running a bit of automotive grade sealant along the seam just to be double sure. After that dried we primered the exposed metal and sprayed on some “paint matched” Suzuka Blue for good measure (the paint matched spray can from NAPA was too dark but it’s covered by the fender flare so it’s really not a big deal).

Although the ASM rear flares came with small rubber gaskets to seal them against the body, I decided to order these Toyota Tacoma fender gaskets because I like the OE fit and look they provide.

Once we got the flares back from our buddy Omar at Ottawa Auto Body & Repair in Hamilton, Ontario, all we had left to do was bolt them up with the these nicely contoured Toyota panel mouldings and we were officially 25mm wider out back!

If you need quality body repair or paint work and you live in southern Ontario, I can double-vouch for Ottawa Auto Body as they also repaired the rear quarter panel on my MDX after my wife backed it into a giant green bin. These guys do great work (the repair on the MDX is totally undetectible) at a competitive price, and more importantly, they’re true car enthusiasts who understand that car nuts like you and me want the job done right and on time.

Moving on to the Downforce front fenders, as you can see they are built using FRP and are much stiffer than the thin and relatively flimsy factory sheet metal fenders. Downforce also reinforces several of the mounting points with carbon fiber to ensure maximum strength and mounting security.

We test fitted the fenders before sending them out to paint, and although the overall fit was excellent, we did have to tune the mount holes a bit with a step drill bit to get all the bolt holes lined up and the fender fitting to our satisfaction.

With the fenders back from paint, we swapped over the side running lights and bolted the fenders up to the chassis. We did a bit more bolt hole tuning to get them fitting the way we wanted, but in a half hour we had these bad boys bolted up and looking good.

As you can see, the extra 30mm of wideness really helps cover the top of our 255/40R17 tires on 17×9″ wheels and we’re hoping we can stuff some 265/35R18 Hankook TD’s on 18×9.5” Rays wheels for a wider and stickier contact patch without any worries about fender rub.

Downforce USA was also kind enough to send along their carbon fiber side splitters, which Ken and I installed in a snap.

Just like their FR-S side splitters, these fit up beautifully to the underside of the rocker panels, making it a breeze to position them for mounting. There are pre-drilled holes in them, so we simply drilled some small pilot holes into the rockers using the splitters as a template and then used the supplied self-tapping screws which have a nice rubber washer on them to seal them up tight.

All in all, I’m stoked about how good our old AP1 is looking now. It’s really starting to look like the BADASS2000, and with a wider wheel and tire package we should be able to post some pretty badass lap times at Toronto Motorsports Park. As you’ll see from our GridLife coverage on YouTube we have some engine issues to sort out first, but we should have some track testing results for you in the not too distant future. We some some more power mods in the works, too.

If you’re a subscriber to our YouTube channel, then you know one of our major winter projects was installing Jenvey Individual Throttle Bodies on our beloved AP1 Honda S2000, a project made possible by the generous support of our title sponsor and wholesaler of all the best go-fast goodies, Turn14 Distribution.

As you’ll see in our dyno tuning video at the bottom of this story, Sasha from OnPoint Dyno dialed in the Jenvey’s on our Plug ‘N Play AEM Infinity as best he could on a very limited timeline since we wasted three-quarters of the day fixing problems we should have dealt with before showing up to the dyno, like miswired MAP and TPS sensors and a cooling problem that required us drilling out the thermostat. Sasha was very understanding about our lack of preparedness, but for the rest of you, he does have a checklist on his website that you should go over any time you’re taking your car for a dyno tuning session. We also need to thank Chris and the guys from Touge Tuning where this tuning session took place since they hooked us up with a fitting we needed to finish off our catch can setup and we also stole a whole bunch of their distilled water while topping up and bleeding the coolant system.

Having fixed the wiring and cooling issues, we bolted the BADASS2000’s rear hubs up to the OnPoint Dynapack hub dyno pods and Sasha worked his magic for about an hour and a half, less than half the time he’d typically like to work with on an ITB setup like ours (3.5 hours is typically about the length of time he needs to fully dial in a ITB’d engine like ours). Still, after an hour and a half, he was satisfied that the tune was safe and dialed in enough for us to go rip at GridLife, with the understanding that we’d be back for a final tune after the event.

With that in mind, here’s the preliminary dyno results with got with the Jenvey ITBs in place. As you can see, the engine picked up a nice chunk of power and torque from about 5200 RPM all the way up to 8000 RPM, and that should definitely deliver some improved acceleration out on the race track. We did lose a bit of power after 8k rpm, which Sasha says is normal with ITB runner lengths like ours.

He also stated that we really need to build a proper airbox for the ITBs that we can feed a cold-air source to, because as it is they’re going to be sucking in hot engine bay air through that big Jenvey air filter we’re currently using. We’ve considered venting the hood to help cool under-hood temps, but ultimately Sasha is right so we’re going to go ahead and team up with our buddy Kevin from C3 Composites and build a custom carbon fiber airbox that we can run a cold air tube to from behind the front bumper. We may even use our AEM intake for this and mate it to our custom airbox.

And because we feel like there’s still a lot of untapped potential with the Jenvey ITBs, we’re also going to upgrade to a 3” diameter Berk Technology header-back exhaust and potentially upgrade the header and camshafts too. Stay tuned for more F20C NA tuning, because the ITBs were just the first step! In the meantime, check out the preliminary dyno tuning session in the video below.

I bought this 2008 Toyota Tundra SR5 for one reason: we needed a proper shop truck. My Acura MDX was being asked to do things it really wasn’t designed for, like towing a 2o-foot enclosed trailer and hauling engines and transmissions around in the trunk. It was simply time to man-up and get a proper work truck that can handle all the heavy lifting we’d be asking it to do.

Like towing Pete’s Evo VIII back from CBRD down in Pennsylvania as a warm up.

And then towing his 930 Turbo from Toronto to Phoenix, Arizona for an epic engine build at TurboKraft and UMS Tuning. This turned out to be a solid 10,000 km round-trip that included a tour of Napa Valley that Pete took his girlfriend on (that’s right ladies, Pete’s taken).

My first taste of that truckin’ lifestyle came when we transported Beamsy the Blacktop 3SGE engine back to home base, as you’ll see in the video above.

More recently, we also put the Tundra through its paces hauling the S2000 to GridLife in west Michigan, which turned out to be an excellent idea given the engine misfire issue that popped up with the old ASS2k. As you can see, we decided to equip the Tundra with a sexy new set of wheels and tires, not because it was a necessity but because it completely transforms the look of the truck and does give us some added performance, too.

Some people might ask, why Volk Racing TE37’s on a truck? Those people are, of course, dead to us the second they ask. Ok, ok, maybe not dead-dead, but if you don’t understand the appeal of TE37’s on a Tundra then your JDM Fanboy Card is most definitely revoked and you’re banned for life from using terms like Time Attack, Touge, and Zenki or Kouki, nor are you ever permitted to watch Initial D or Best Motoring.

For those of you who get it, I don’t really have to explain, but for the rest of you, Rays Engineering in Japan is one of a very small number of wheel manufacturers in the world producing flow-formed forged aluminum wheels. This process makes for an incredibly strong wheel, which also means you can design them with less material and thus less weight. As a result, Rays produces high-performance wheels for Nismo, TRD, Mugen, and STI to name a few, plus they are wheel supplier at the highest and most demanding levels of motorsport including F1, Super GT, ALMS, BTCC, WTCC, Pirelli World Challenge and Formula D.

Obviously weight savings isn’t really a big issue for us on the Tundra the way it is on our track cars, but it’s still reassuring to know we’ve got the strongest and most durable wheel money can buy on the truck since it will be pounding down pothole strewn Canadian roads while hauling a trailer and race car behind it.

But really, I mainly wanted TE37’s on my truck because they look super badass. For anyone who’s a fan of Japanese engineering and performance, TE37’s are one of the most iconic wheel designs of all-time, which is why we’ve said in our videos a number of times, “TE37 all the things!”

For tires, we turned to our friends at Toyo Tires Canada. We’ve been long-time users of Toyos on our cars, from RA-1’s and R888’s on our race cars to R1R’s on the FR-S last year when we won the Ontario-1500 (a grueling 7-days straight of racing on Ontario’s best race tracks), so we were stoked to get the opportunity to try out their truck tires. If they’re good enough for Robbie Gordon during insanely tough off-road races like Dakar and Baja, we figure they’re good enough for our gravel parking lot at the shop.

If you haven’t been following our RA24 1977 Toyota Celica project on our YouTube channel, we’ve covered the acquisition and teardown in a fair bit of detail, but this is the first step in its reconstruction as a track-oriented but street-legal fun-machine with a more modern powertrain and running gear.

Source: https://farm1.staticflickr.com/669/20786224764_2d1829dce0_o.jpg

I wouldn’t call it a resto mod or a pro-touring build, since neither really capture what I’m going for with the Celica. It’s simply a car I’m nostalgic about since my grandma owned one when I was a kid, plus I just think they’re super cool looking and send power to the driftier end of the car. Matt Panic’s ShaDynasty TA22 early first gen Celica is a big inspiration, though I’ll be setting mine up for grip (but will do a little drifting in it too).

I’m obviously not a purist given what we do here at Speed Academy, so it should come as no surprise that my plan from the very get-go was to ditch the old 22R engine in favor of a more modern and more powerful option. Originally I was thinking a turbo 1JZ, but I’ve always loved the simplicity and throttle response of a high-revving naturally aspirated engine and fell in love with the idea of a Beams 3SGE Blacktop swap.

After a bit of an online search, Pete and I headed to one of the many JDM importers in the greater Toronto area and picked up Beamsy, a complete 3SGE Blacktop with the J160 6-speed transmission.

For a tour of the JDM shop, we picked the engine up from as well as a quick compression test on the motor, check out the video above.

Having already researched this swap into 1st gen Celicas, I knew that by using an AE86 front cross member, which bolts up to the Celica’s frame rails by redrilling the bolt holes on the cross member, I could use Xcessive Manufacturing’s engine mount brackets designed specifically to mount the 3SGE into the AE chassis. So I grabbed an AE86 from our homeboys at Cyrious Garageworks and had it stripped and powder coated by Stripping Technologies in Cambridge, Ontario. Check out the video above for that whole process.

Having worked with Xcessive Manufacturing before on Ken’s RX-7 (they make a super nice cast aluminum lower intake manifold for the 13B rotary engine as well as engine mounts and some other goodies), I spoke to Rich at Xcessive about the Celica project and it turns out he’d just developed some Celica specific engine mount brackets for the Beams 3SGE, so we got an early set of those that position the engine at the right height for good ground and tunnel clearance and a few inches off the firewall for optimal weight distribution while still giving easy access to transmission bolts and the back of the engine.

As you can see, these engine brackets feature super heavy duty 1/4″ thick metal construction and have a zinc plating to prevent rust. Plus Xcessive provides new bolts for the brackets to attach to the engine block.

The bolt holes for the cross member and the engine mounts (you can either use stock AE86 mounts or aftermarket AE86 mounts with these brackets, including Xcessive’s mounts) are slotted, so you’ve got some wiggle room to move the engine up and forward/aft in the bay. We used an old set of Megan mounts that Pat from Cyrious Garageworks gave us, but we’ll be upgrading to some new Xcessive mounts before we call the job complete.

We opted to use Xcessive’s 1″ thick aluminum cross member spacer to lower the subframe and thus the engine and trans by that amount. Again, Xcessive provides automotive grade bolts, nuts, and washers with the spacers. This gives us good hood clearance and tunnel clearance for the transmission, without upsetting suspension geometry too much. Plus, as you’ll see in future stories and videos, we’ve got fully adjustable coilovers, suspension arms and roll center adjusters going on the front end, so we’ll have no trouble sorting out the handling.

As you’ll see in the video above, we used the AE86 spacers with slightly different bolt hole spacing than our RA24 Celica frame rails have, but Xcessive has since released 1st gen Celica spacers that do away with the need to redrill them.

For the transmission cross member, Xcessive sent us this beautifully formed 1/4” thick zinc coated masterpiece, having designed it on Matt Panic’s Beams powered early 1st gen Celica. This is designed to be used with the J160 6-speed transmission that comes with the Beams 3SGE, but it turns out that early first gen Celicas, sometimes called Series 1 or Slantnose, have a completely different center tunnel and trans cross member mounting locations than the late 1st gen (Series 2 or Flatnose) Celicas like mine have.

So, unfortunately, we couldn’t use this piece, but as you’ll see in an upcoming video we modified the OE trans cross member and sent if off to Xcessive so they could fabricate us a Series 2 cross member and make that part available to other Series 2 owners like us. You’re welcome, Flatnose Beams swappers!

While we wait on that custom trans cross member from Xcessive, in Part 2 we’ll show you how we mount and sort out the rack & pinion steering system out of an AW11 Toyota MR2 (which we believe is the same as the manual rack and steering out of a AE86). Fun times ahead!

A few months ago, I wrote about the upcoming desktop version of one of my favorite motorsport mobile games, Motorsport Manager. Having spent many hours taking my team to the top of the standings in this addictive strategy game, I can vouch for how engaging it is to manage a race team, where you’re caught up in the challenges associated with hiring and firing staff, building up the team headquarters, developing new parts for the car, and scouting new drivers while developing your existing ones. You also have to deal with series politics and make sponsorship deals to keep the team’s finances in order.

Add to that the strategy of race day decisions on car setup, driver aggression, engine mode, tire choice, refueling, and pit strategy and you’ve got a really compelling mix of management and strategy gaming, and I’m happy to report that based on my preview of the desktop version, developed collaboratively by SEGA Europe and Playsport Games (the mobile app developer), all of the gameplay I love about the mobile version remains intact and but is now far more detailed and more challenging thanks to the added depth the desktop version provides. Plus it’s a far more visually rich gaming experience with beautifully designed 3D environments and even a customizable avatar for your character.

Some of the standout features of the desktop version (available for both PC and Mac and due to go on sale this Fall) include the ability to develop new parts for your car. This costs money, of course, so you have to pick your development projects wisely. And as I learned while playing the game, some of the parts you develop come with a Risk Level attached to them, meaning the new part will improve the car’s performance but may be unreliable or break the rules. If you get caught with an illegal part on the car, as I did with a suspension upgrade, that race victory can quickly turn into a 6th place finish. This penalty really hurt, since I had selected a Sponsor Bonus that required one of my drivers to finish in the Top 2 spots, so not only did the part I spent $500,000 developing get banned from future use, the penalty also cost me $1,500,000 in sponsorship bonus money. Ouch.

The alternative to developing risky parts is to improve your existing parts, by putting your team mechanics and factories to work on them. This takes time, though, so the speed of progress is slow and in the fast-moving world of motorsport it’s hard to pass on the quicker turn-around of designing new parts, even if doing so comes at a cost and at a higher risk level.

This is just one of many areas within Motorsport Manager where you have to make strategic decisions that will impact your team’s performance come race day as well as during the development cycle between races. Staffing is particularly important since the stronger team you can assemble the stronger your car development and race day performances are likely to be. Hiring a new Chief Designer or Race Engineer isn’t cheap, though, and negotiations can go very badly if you mishandle them. Lowball offers can mean the talent will walk away and never talk to you again, so you have to play it smart here. You also need to look at the financial cost of firing your existing Designer or Engineer.

I really enjoyed drilling down into the many layers of the team building and HQ building process, but the racing is also a lot of fun. Changes in weather can throw off a winning strategy in a hurry, so you really have to keep an eye on weather conditions and be ahead of the curve on pit strategy and in particular tire choice.

You also have to keep an eye on tire temperature and set the driver’s aggression level accordingly, since overheating the tires will cause them to wear out faster and reduce lap times and not getting them hot enough will cause them to grain and lose performance. And just as importantly, you need to keep an eye on the condition of the car and set the engine and driver modes accordingly. If everything looks healthy and you want to attack then turn the modes up, but if some parts are looking like they may not last the whole race you’ll need to turn down the modes to conserve them. And of course you also have to watch your fuel level, since managing fuel consumption and filling up the right amount during pit stops is critical too. Oh, and I also love the fact that you can speed up or slow down the passage of time during races (as well as pause the action), since this lets you control the pace at which the racing unfolds and keeps the gaming experience moving along quickly when you want it to but can be slowed down during those critical moments in the race.

Although the preview version of the game only let me get three races into a season, I can tell you I’m already looking forward to getting my hands on the full version since I feel like I have some unfinished business to take care of. I’m not at all satisfied with the team I assembled or the race strategy mistakes I made, so I’m itching to sink my teeth into the full version and build my very own racing empire.

To pre-order the full version for PC or Mac, point your web browser at www.motorsportmanager.com

When you think race car, the first image that comes to mind probably isn’t the least expensive new car on sale in Canada today, but for me that all changed as I was strapped into the #24 car for the first practice session of the 2016 Nissan Micra Cup season.

Given the modest 109-horsepower 1.6-liter engine under the hood and how closely these little race cars resemble the road-going version, I wasn’t expecting to be thrown around by big power or extreme g-forces, but that’s clearly not the point of spec racing in an entry-level hatchback like the Micra. This series is all about highly competitive racing and low running costs, and as I found out during three drama-filled days at Calabogie Motorsports Park, the first Ontario race in series history, the Micra Cup delivers big-time fun and a far more challenging driving experience than I expected.

THE BIRTH OF A SPEC RACING SERIES

It’s not every day an automaker gets behind a racing series to the extent that Nissan Canada has with the Micra Cup, which started in 2015 under the leadership of Jacques Deshaies, who in 2014 pitched Nissan on the idea of a truly affordable spec racing series based in Quebec. A three-year partnership was forged between JD Motorsport and Nissan Canada, with Jacques and his team running the series and Nissan Canada providing technical support along with Marketing and PR services that tie into their global motorsport initiatives including the GT Academy program (where Sony Playstation Gran Turismo players compete for the chance to become a real-life professional racing driver).

With 25 cars in attendance at Calabogie, the Micra Cup has quickly established itself as a leading option for racers in Quebec and Ontario looking for the unique challenges presented by mono spec racing. And to the credit of JD Motorsport and Nissan, the series presents itself in a truly professional manner, with all the drivers wearing matching series specific racing suits and all of the cars being identically race-prepared by Motorsport In Action out of St. Eustache, Quebec. There’s even a VIP hospitality suite set up to feed series officials, journalists and other guests of Nissan and the series.

THE CAR

Based on the 2016 Micra S base model, which has an astonishingly low MSRP of $9,998 with a 5-speed manual transmission, manual windows and no air-conditioning, a fully turnkey Cup car will cost you a little over $20,000. That extra 10-grand gets you a relatively simple yet highly effective set of upgrades, including all the required safety gear to meet FIA specifications, along with a NISMO S-Tune suspension kit, race-grade brake pads and front rotors, a modified exhaust system to give it that racecar sound, and a set of Fast Wheels wrapped in Pirelli racing slicks (or racing rain tires, as I would soon find out).

After a full season of racing in 2015, the reliability and durability of the Micra Cup cars have proven to be top notch. In fact, the #24 car I was driving, owned by Nissan Canada but maintained and campaigned by GT Racing out of Mirabel, Quebec, was still running the original engine and transmission and felt amazingly fresh despite having been beaten mercilessly by a variety of journalists and guest drivers during the six-race 2015 season.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

I’ve done a lot of racing in front-wheel drive hatchbacks, having campaigned a Honda Civic in the Canadian Touring Car Championship for a few years, so I had a pretty good idea how to peddle the Micra around all 20 corners at Calabogie Motorsport Park, the longest road course in Canada and one of the most challenging and enjoyable.

What I didn’t factor into my thinking was the open differential the Micra has in its surprisingly slick shifting 5-speed transmission. The open diff meant that managing inside front wheel spin as you get on the power while the car’s weight is transferred to the outer tire in corners is a big part of the skill set required to maintain momentum. And as 2015 series champ Olivier Bedard explained to me during a friendly chat in the paddock, maintaining every last iota of momentum is what separates the leaders from the mid-packers.

I certainly found maintaining momentum in the rain surprisingly challenging, but also a ton of fun. The driving style required by the open differential combined with a fair bit of body roll and a short wheelbase is unlike anything I’ve sampled before. It also took quite a while for my brain to accept just how much grip these little Cup cars generate on the Pirelli rain tires, but once I began to adapt to the car and build confidence in the tires and chassis I was able to turn up the aggression enough to place 6th in the practice session prior to Race 1 qualifying. Not a bad start.

RACECRAFT REQUIRED

I was feeling pretty confident going into qualifying, and with fresh brake pads and sticker rain tires bolted up I should have been in great shape to post a competitive time in increasingly wet track conditions. I followed GT Academy driver Nic Hammann out in his #2 Micra, as he was fastest in practice. Hoping to learn something from Nic, he pulled off after the first lap just as we caught up to a pack of cars in front of us.

The lesson I should have learned from Nic was to find space so you can put down a clean lap (Nic went on to qualify P1), but instead, I got into a prolonged battle with a couple of scrappy drivers in front of me. By the time I got past these guys there were only a few minutes left in qualifying. It was time to get my act together, and I had a great lap going when a car went off in the Quarry corner complex and I had to slow for the Yellow flag.

With one lap left before the Checker flag would drop, I carried as much speed as I could onto the front straight and had what appeared like plenty of space ahead of me for a clean lap, but a car a few hundred feet ahead got into a tank slapper on the exit of Turn 1, a very fast left-hander that can be taken nearly flat-out in the wet in these cars. The driver did a good job to lessen the impact but he went into the outside tire barrier at a decent clip. Out came the Red flag and my last chance for a decent qualifying lap was over.

Rather than improving on my P6 in practice, my willingness to spend most of the qualifying session fighting traffic instead of finding space meant I’d start Race 1 in a disappointing P16. Which just goes to show, having good pace is not enough in a mono spec series like this, where all the cars are identically prepared and passing slightly slower drivers is extremely difficult. You need to be strategic and not let your ego draw you into any time-sucking battles when the race isn’t for position yet.

PATIENCE IS A VIRTUE

The rain was still falling pretty heavily at the start of Race 1, and despite my poor qualifying session, I was feeling optimistic about my chances of moving forward during the race given my pace during practice. I got off to a decent start but was passed aggressively by Fred Bernier in the #28 car on the inside of the reducing radius corner called Temptation.

That corner might have been called Foreshadowing since a few laps later I had moved forward a few positions only to find myself on Bernier’s bumper. Following him around for a couple laps I felt like he was braking early and leaving room on the inside of Turn 5 at the end of the long Rocky Road straight.

Rather than patiently waiting for Bernier to make a mistake or for a spot where I got a really good run on him, I decided to tempt fate with a late braking pass into Turn 5. Bernier drove his line and I couldn’t get the car slowed enough after I realized there was no chance to get inside him cleanly, resulting in a pretty heavy hit that left me in the weeds with a cut tire, broken wheel and bent front control arm.

I parked the car a safe distance off the track and did the walk of shame to the nearest Marshal stand, where I watched the rest of the race from. The Marshals were gracious hosts, and  I have to say it was impressive to see how fast the leaders were through The Crown and The Brow (Turns 10 and 11), a high-speed off-camber double right-hander. These little Micras are super fast in the rain, turning lap times that were better than many of the GT and Touring cars that were sharing Calabogie with us this weekend.

HOW TO EAT HUMBLE PIE

With the race complete I hitched a ride back to the paddock, where I made my sincerest apologies to the Nissan folks and the GT Racing crew who’d have to replace the bent control arm and broken wheel. Yannick the mechanic and data engineer at GT Racing had the car looking like new in no time, and from what I was told, the control arm cost about $40 to replace and the wheel only a bit more, so the low running cost associated with a car that’s only $10,000 brand new really came into focus for me.

I also owed Bernier an apology, since my dive-bomb attempt into Turn 5 cut his rear passenger side tire and ended his race prematurely. He was very understanding about it, even sharing a story with me how he tried a similarly ill-advised pass last season and took himself and the car ahead out of the race in the process.

Completing my meal of humble pie was a visit from the series officials, who informed me that I’d be starting Race 2 from the back of the pack since the contact I made with Bernier’s car took him out of the race. I had no objections to their ruling, determined to accept the lessons that spec racing can and will teach you, especially if you get impatient the way I did.

NO ROOM FOR MISTAKES

With 25 mono spec racecars competing for space into the flat-out wall-lined left-hand Turn 1, there’s always the potential for something nasty to happen here. Had I started in P9 where I qualified prior to Race 2, I would have been right in the middle of one of the most spectacular race crashes I’ve ever seen. Several videos of the wreck were posted online, including the one above that gives you a trackside view of the massive seven-car pileup that resulted in a bunch of heavily damaged Micras but no injured drivers, proving just how good the safety package is in these tough little Cup cars.

Having started from the back, I tiptoed through the debris field and then waited for the cleanup and safety crews to work their magic. I wasn’t sure if we’d get any racing in, but once the track was clear we snuck in a five lap race, which proved to be great fun in dry conditions. You really have to manage wheel spin even more on the slicks than on the rain tires, and the higher grip level means you can find some serious speed in the faster corners.

When the Checker flag dropped I finished P10, feeling blessed by the opportunity to sample spec racing and to have avoided the big wreck during the race start. Maybe that boneheaded passing attempt the day before that put me to the back of the pack for Race 2 saved me from a much bigger wreck? The racing gods work in mysterious ways.

THE BIG TAKEAWAY 

What I didn’t take away were any trophies or prize money (and the series does have some nice payouts to the Top 3 finishers in each race: $1500 for the winner, $750 for 2nd, $450 for 3rd and $300 for Top Rookie, plus Nissan Canada awards $7,000 to the series champion, $3,500 for 2nd, $2,000 for 3rd and $1500 for Top Rookie at the end of the season). But I did take away a new respect and appreciation for the challenges presented by spec racing and for the enjoyment the Nissan Micra delivers despite its humble origins. I don’t think I’ve ever had more fun in a racecar, and I’ve competed in some pretty fast and pretty pricey machinery over the years.

In fact, I enjoyed driving the Cup car so much, I borrowed a Micra S road car for a week to see how it compared. Without the slightest embellishment, I can say the Micra S is a surprisingly fun car to rip around town in. It has a delightfully plucky character to it, willing you to give it a good thrashing at road-legal speeds. The steering is light and precise, the turn-in response sharp, and the engine torquey and happy to rev out to its 6,500 RPM redline.

In many ways, it reminds me of the Hondas of the ‘80s and ‘90s that drew me into racing as a younger man with their light, nimble, and exuberant nature. The Micra is a throwback in all the right ways for me, from the crank handle windows to the spartan but comfortable interior. It’s everything a front-wheel drive hatchback enthusiast like me wants and nothing I don’t. The Micra S is simplicity in the most enjoyable sense and I would gladly daily drive one and laugh all the way to the bank with the money saved in the process.

Photo credit: AutoMotoFoto.net

Oh, and just in case you missed it our YouTube channel, check out the video below covering my entire weekend of Micra Cup fun.

If you subscribe to our YouTube channel, then chances are you’ve already seen our Mazda MX-5 Sport Pack road car and Global MX-5 Cup Car track test video (if not, you’ll find it at the end of this story), so you know we love both and were especially impressed by the Cup car’s grip level, handling balance, and overall tossability. I’ve driven a lot of different race cars over the years, but none have felt better sorted or more confidence inspiring than the ND MX-5 Cup car. It really is that good, and below we’ll show you some in-car data that helps explain its inherent goodness.

But first, some background on the Cup Car. Mazda teamed up with some very smart people when engineering the relatively simple yet highly effective set of upgrades that have been bolted to the amazingly light ND chassis, including Long Road Racing for much of the race prep including the FIA-spec roll cage, BFGoodrich Tires for the bespoke series-specific racing slicks, and AiM Sports for that sexy digital dash and data acquisition system.

Rays Wheels is the official wheel supplier with their ZE40 forged monoblock offerings in 17×7.5” size, Brembo is onboard with the front calipers and rotors, and Multimatic Motorsports‘ magical dampers let us pound the curbs at Toronto Motorsports Park like they weren’t even there (Multimatic’s DSSV technology is industry-leading and is used on many of the world’s fastest race cars including the Red Bull Racing cars during all 4 of their F1 championships).

Mazda Motorsports did a lot of subtle but very clever things when developing the Cup car that aren’t immediately apparent, like fortifying the transmission and adding a trans cooler to the package to ensure the longevity and durability of the gearbox (a weak spot on the NC MX-5, particularly when put through the rigors of Cup racing). They’ve also retuned and sealed the GEMS ECU, sealed the Skyactiv engine, added a Setrab oil cooler and differential cooler, and installed a heavy-duty C&R racing radiator with a protection screen. So as you can see, Mazda has gone to great lengths to ensure that the new Cup car is as bulletproof as possible, and also as tamper-proof as possible so that racers can focus on racing instead of building cars and playing rulebook games. Keep in mind, the ND Cup car is now only available as a turnkey racecar bought directly from Mazda Motorsports (for $58,900 USD plus all applicable taxes), unlike previous generation Cup cars which were built by independent race shops or racers themselves using parts specified by the series.

I should also point out a couple things regarding our video review. You’ll notice Pete and I were both struggling for headroom with our helmets on, but as it turns out the seat was set up for a shorter driver and can be easily lowered. In fact, the roll cage and seat mounting brackets are designed to accommodate a driver as tall as 6′ 4” (Pete and I are both around 6′). Had we been smart enough to bring some tools with us, we could have lowered the seat and been much more comfortable.

Our friends at Mazda Canada also pointed out that you can actually buy many of the individual parts used on the Cup car for your own ND MX-5, so like we fantasized about during our closing of the video, it’s entirely possible to build your own track car or road car with many of the upgrades the Cup car gets including the Kooks long-tube header and exhaust system, the Multimatic shocks and the Brembo brakes. Jump on the Mazda Motorsports Parts Store to see what’s available.

Ok, so now for a bit of data geekery. Above is a speed data trace during the fastest lap in both the MX-5 Sport Pack (red line) road car and the MX-5 Cup car (blue line), with the track divided into segments based on corners and straights (the shaded vertical bars are corners and the white vertical bars are straights). My best lap in the road car was a 1:26.8, which is a bit slower than I’ve done in ND press cars in the past but well within reason given inter-car and track condition variability. As you can see, the Cup car was carrying a lot more speed in the corners, but more on that in a moment.

Although I’m focusing on the Cup car here, it’s worth noting that when the track is divided into 4 segments, which gives us a more realistic way of looking at segment times and building a best theoretical lap time, the data showed that a best lap of 1:26.7 was possible, just 1/10th of a second faster than my best lap. This isn’t too surprising since the MX-5 is very easy to drive on the limit and we only did 4 laps each. With another session or two in the Sport Pack car, I feel there’s a 1:25.x in the MX-5. Perhaps I can borrow the Sport Pack car before the snow flies and really try to nail down a fast lap to show the car’s full potential at TMP.

The reason we did so few laps in the road car is because we were having way too much fun in the Cup car. Can you blame us!? In the first session in the Cup car, I did a 1.21.6 and as you’ll see in the video Pete did a 1:21.7, which goes to show we’re equally fast or slow depending on your perspective. In my second session, where I put in an official timed lap for my friends at AutoGuide.com, I managed a 1:21.2 and based on the theoretical best lap time built from the 4 segments above, there is a low to mid 1:20 in the Cup car (two of the best segments came on my 1:21.2 lap, one from my last lap, and the final segment from Pete’s best lap in the car). For a little perspective, that puts the Cup car right there with our much more powerful ASS2000 (on street tires but with a serious aero package) as well as with immensely powerful press cars I’ve tested for AutoGuide including the Camaro ZL1 and Porsche 911 Carrera 4S.

Ok, so how is the Mazda MX-5 Cup car so much faster than the Sport Pack road car around TMP? Looking at the cornering or lateral g-force data trace (Cup car in blue, road car in red), it’s obvious just how much more grip the Cup car generates thanks to its sticky BFG slicks and incredibly well-sorted suspension package including those aforementioned Multimatic dampers (should really be called Multimagic). While the Sport Pack car was averaging over 1g in the corners, which is very impressive for a road car on UHP street tires, and hit a peak of 1.2g in Turn 6, the Cup car was an absolute grip monster with average cornering g’s over 1.25g and it pulled over 1.4g in a couple of corners. With cornering power like this, it’s no wonder these cars can turn a 1:35 lap at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park (Mosport).

This XY or GG diagram generated in AiM Sports RS2Analysis software (timing and data acquisition was done with an AiM Solo), which illustrates lateral and longitudinal g-forces for both cars on their fastest lap, also shows you just how much bigger the friction circle is for the Cup car versus the road car. What really stands out here, to me at least, is how strong the Cup car is in the transitional zone or trail braking zone between peak lateral g’s on the far left and far right and the peak braking g’s at the bottom middle of the graph. Typically race cars on slicks can be very “peaky” because of the way high grip tires and stiff suspensions lose traction suddenly when driven past the adhesion limit, which tends to make them tricky to trail brake in. But not so in the MX-5 Cup car, which is actually very easy to slide around and very forgiving when overdriven. You can trail brake aggressively in this car, and you can really pitch it into corners without worrying about snap oversteer or any other bad habits. The car is just planted and hugely confidence inspiring, and to me that’s the sign of a truly well sorted race car and a race tire that’s very well suited to the suspension and chassis setup.

Kudos to Mazda Motorsports, LRR, and BFG for their combined efforts, because this car is an absolute blast to drive and is worth every penny of the $58,900 purchase price. If Pete and I had this kind of money to invest in a race car, we’d be signing up for the Battery Tender Global Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich Tires right now!