The latter. Haven't found it, but that mount area (you can see how it's recessed) is notorious for catching hardware. It may still be there, I didn't really think to root around in there with my magnet. I'll probably do that today.
D Prepared Miata Build
- Thread starter aMaff
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The latter. Haven't found it, but that mount area (you can see how it's recessed) is notorious for catching hardware. It may still be there, I didn't really think to root around in there with my magnet. I'll probably do that today.
So this may turn out to be not as painful as I anticipated.
I ordered new shock mount hardware (for all 4) from Mazda today, and after a call to Flyin' Miata found that they sell service parts for the shock hats. I've got a new bearing for the damaged one and new sleeves for both rears coming in as well.
I also talked to Koni Lee (if you've dealt with Koni motorsports before, you likely know who that is) today. He took a look at the pictures of the shocks and thinks that the threads are likely salvageable. I've got a call in with a fabricator friend to see if he's got the right die for the threads (they're 12x1.25, and I've only got 12x1.5 and x1.75... figures) to see if I can't salvage what's there. Worst case, I'll have to replace the shock, which'll come out cheaper than repairing / refurbing them. For the race & higher-end shocks (28 / 30 series) it's way cheaper to service them, but the OTS stuff is about the price of a rebuild without the down time. So, we'll see how that pans out.
In the mean time, here's some close-ups to the damage on the shock hats.
Now that I've had some time on them, I absolutely love the design of these things:
Just a small amount of metal-shavings on the bearing
I ordered new shock mount hardware (for all 4) from Mazda today, and after a call to Flyin' Miata found that they sell service parts for the shock hats. I've got a new bearing for the damaged one and new sleeves for both rears coming in as well.
I also talked to Koni Lee (if you've dealt with Koni motorsports before, you likely know who that is) today. He took a look at the pictures of the shocks and thinks that the threads are likely salvageable. I've got a call in with a fabricator friend to see if he's got the right die for the threads (they're 12x1.25, and I've only got 12x1.5 and x1.75... figures) to see if I can't salvage what's there. Worst case, I'll have to replace the shock, which'll come out cheaper than repairing / refurbing them. For the race & higher-end shocks (28 / 30 series) it's way cheaper to service them, but the OTS stuff is about the price of a rebuild without the down time. So, we'll see how that pans out.
In the mean time, here's some close-ups to the damage on the shock hats.
Now that I've had some time on them, I absolutely love the design of these things:
Just a small amount of metal-shavings on the bearing
After further discussion with Lee, and playing with the "good" one out of the car (it, also, had the nut loose, but not to the point of damaging anything, yet), I think we've found the Root Cause of this. The way they ship from FM, there's a lock washer that basically fills the area in the hat just over the spherical-bearing, with a nut on top of that. This essentially doesn't allow much deflection in the bearing. That deflection put a lot of force on the washer and nut, wearing away at the housing and forcing the nut loose, which we can see here:
Solution: instead of using the lock washer directly on top of the spherical, I've got a couple of conical retaining washers for spherical bearings coming in to use that will allow the needed deflection, taking a lot of force off of the lock washer and nut, and side forces off the shock shaft.
Now the final piece of this is to see if I can repair the shock myself, or if I need to order a new one. Fingers crossed. Yay for problem diagnosis!
Solution: instead of using the lock washer directly on top of the spherical, I've got a couple of conical retaining washers for spherical bearings coming in to use that will allow the needed deflection, taking a lot of force off of the lock washer and nut, and side forces off the shock shaft.
Now the final piece of this is to see if I can repair the shock myself, or if I need to order a new one. Fingers crossed. Yay for problem diagnosis!
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Just wanted to pop in and say this is a great build Amaff. I'm doing pretty much the same thing and converting my STS car into a DP car. I've been reading this quite a lot in the off season and getting ideas. Kudos to documenting it all.
Question: how close are you to min. weight? Based on what you've done it looks like you should be pretty close or already there
Question: how close are you to min. weight? Based on what you've done it looks like you should be pretty close or already there
Very close but at the same time not all that close. The ultimate goal for me is to make it a dual use car, for autocross primarily, but up to code to partake in some of the SEDiv Hill Climbs / Time Trials (but mostly the Hill Climbs). As such, the cage will be finished hopefully at the conclusion of this season. So, I'm pretty much hovering right above minimum right now, but the cage is going to "fix" that problem for me. That said, it's not like there still isn't weight to take out, but I'm approaching the point at which it stops being "hit it with the angle grinder!" and turns into "break open the wallet!".
Thanks for stopping by, Andy
EDIT: I spoke with my cage builder today about this, and rough guess on the weight added to the car with the front-half of the cage will be about 50-60 lbs or so, high end. So, still pretty close to min-weight with a few small adjustments here and there. Not as bad as I thought, as I was expecting double that just for the addition.
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CR3 Motorsports
Member
Subbing for a later look at the full thread. =)
We are pretty much in the same boat on the weight. We are going against convention and will be running a hardtop. Its a lot of weight up high but for the moment its the easy button. We've done pretty much all the same gutting and its looking like min weight is within reach. Anyway, I was curious to see where you were in comparison with the cage and I'll be looking forward to the updates.
Right: Yesterday the new sperical and sleeves from FM came in, and this morning the die for the shock threads came in. I'm going to get to work on the shocks tonight to see if they're salvageable or not. Finger's crossed.
By the end of the week I should have the new hardware from Mazdaspeed and the retaining washers from Pegasus, to put this whole deal behind me (hur hur hur, cuz it's the rear suspension, hur hur).
By the end of the week I should have the new hardware from Mazdaspeed and the retaining washers from Pegasus, to put this whole deal behind me (hur hur hur, cuz it's the rear suspension, hur hur).
Before:
After. Not perfect, but the 2 threads that weren't brought back to brand new will be covered by the conical retaining washer (see below)
See if you can spot the problem. Maximum bearing deflection as delivered from FM:
Maximum deflection with the conical retaining washer. I think we may be dead on in finding the culprit:
Still waiting on the new hardware from Mazdaspeed to come in, but I should be able to get this buttoned up by this weekend
After. Not perfect, but the 2 threads that weren't brought back to brand new will be covered by the conical retaining washer (see below)
See if you can spot the problem. Maximum bearing deflection as delivered from FM:
Maximum deflection with the conical retaining washer. I think we may be dead on in finding the culprit:
Still waiting on the new hardware from Mazdaspeed to come in, but I should be able to get this buttoned up by this weekend
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Allrighty then. The suspension is back together and in the car now, with fresh hardware.
I also re-epoxied the center tail-light lens back into the truck lid... apparently the first time I did it, I did a crap job.
And I finished applying some rust converter / flat black paint to a few places where I'd cut excess weight and neglected to do so prior, and touched up a couple of small surface-rust spots I was seeing.
Aaaand I got some anti seize on all the wheel studs.
I think that's it for what we got accomplished last night. It's amazing what you can get done over some pizza and beers with a friend when the kids are asleep in their room and your wife's out of town
Oh right, and we got about 75% done building a 4x8 Harbor Freight trailer for my buddy in my garage for his Kart (the one that you see in the background of a lot of images in my shop) now that he's got the space for it where he's living. Dori's going to lose her roommate lol
I also re-epoxied the center tail-light lens back into the truck lid... apparently the first time I did it, I did a crap job.
And I finished applying some rust converter / flat black paint to a few places where I'd cut excess weight and neglected to do so prior, and touched up a couple of small surface-rust spots I was seeing.
Aaaand I got some anti seize on all the wheel studs.
I think that's it for what we got accomplished last night. It's amazing what you can get done over some pizza and beers with a friend when the kids are asleep in their room and your wife's out of town
Oh right, and we got about 75% done building a 4x8 Harbor Freight trailer for my buddy in my garage for his Kart (the one that you see in the background of a lot of images in my shop) now that he's got the space for it where he's living. Dori's going to lose her roommate
lolFinished getting the car ready for our season, which may or may not start next weekend... apparently there may or may not be a scheduling issue... and got it back on the ground:
Then serviced the trailer's brakes and bearings, put new wheels and tires on, and set up how I want to secure my new ramps (finally getting rid of the old bent ones).
...and then a CR125 motor exploded onto my workbench.
Then serviced the trailer's brakes and bearings, put new wheels and tires on, and set up how I want to secure my new ramps (finally getting rid of the old bent ones).
...and then a CR125 motor exploded onto my workbench.
Probably not this year. Leaving the wife alone with twin toddlers while I go off to drink / autocross for a long weekend isn't exactly an easy sell... spending a couple hours alone with them is a beating enough lol. Naa, sticking to locals for now. I would have liked to make Dixie, honestly, but the timing just isn't there, budget wise right now (we just got done doing a little traveling).
I agree on both counts. The car just is so much damn fun now. I usually compete with my local Prep/Mod classes "indirectly", as we have a decent number of pretty serious cars that are well drivenIt would be nice see a few more DP cars out there. Thats one of the big downsides is that there aren't too many out there and direct competition is polar opposite of STS. The slicks are to darn fun so I guess I'm ok with it.
How convenient, I'm RIGHT at the old minimum weight, as DP gets a new weight formula and now I'm over by about 60 lbs lol. Oh well, still lots of work to do. Min. weight is now 1695-ish, and without the driver (which is how Prepared classes are weighed), I'm at 1755. Still, not bad.
I'm pretty pleased about the next part. After putting driver's weight in the car and setting the cross weights:
Perfection!
And, slightly less important but still not bad at all, F/R:
onoez it's not 50/50! Yeah well, the important one (cross weight) is! (mj)
I'm pretty pleased about the next part. After putting driver's weight in the car and setting the cross weights:
Perfection!
And, slightly less important but still not bad at all, F/R:
onoez it's not 50/50! Yeah well, the important one (cross weight) is! (mj)
