"DailyTurismo" (thedailyturismo)
07/08/2015 at 16:31 • Filed to: Daily Turismo, Blog, SCCA, MX-5
6
9|
"DailyTurismo" (thedailyturismo)
07/08/2015 at 16:31 • Filed to: Daily Turismo, Blog, SCCA, MX-5 | 6
| 9 |
Answer: An SCCA National E-Mod class winning autocrosser Miata powered by a Mazda 20B 3-rotor wankel putting out 400 horsepower into a 2-speed powerglide transmission.
Do you enjoy the style of a wide brim straw hat all year around? Do you love thumbing through pages of mind numbing arbitrary rules, or making sense of the minutes of a meeting populated by ornery cantankerous curmudgeons? Do you enjoy weighing a collection of 100 lug nuts to find the lightest ones and then lodging formal complaint against your competition, accusing them of using their Pirelli connections to get illegal tires? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you might be ready for SCCA Solo II autocross. Better yet, if your relish the thrill of spending three days towing a “race” car to some godforsaken hell hole like Toledo or Wichita, and then standing in the hot sun for 4 days just to race for 40 seconds for the remote chance of being lucky enough to win some Taiwanese made jacket...then this next thing might be your ticket to jacket heaven. Find this
!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!
offered for $12,000 in Bentonville, AR via craigslist.
Tip from Vance.
If you show up at SCCA National event in the typical hot rod !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , you have about as much chance of standing on the podium in E-Mod as Amy Schumer does at winning the Miss Universe pageant. Autocross is an entirely different animal than the average track day, and the E Modified class is where all of the lunatic machines that cannot be otherwise classified end up — tube frame !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , rotary powered !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! that seems to !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , and today’s flame shooting out of its exhaust stack Miata.
The thing about autocrossers is that they do weird stuff to bend the rules go fast. I knew a guy who had a single cab F-150 specifically because, with the engine idling and the heater running it would get to pizza oven temperatures inside (higher than any other car he tested...yes...tested), and while technically, you are banned from using tire warmers, nothing stops you from storing them inside your pickup during the middle of the day with the heater cranked to thermonuclear. Never mind the welding gloves he had to use to hold the wheels while mounting them minutes before his run, a tenth of a second is a tenth of a second. Keep that in mind when you look at the creature comforts of a properly prepared E-Mod car, because everything is there to go faster — you are lucky to have a seat belt.
This is no ordinary MX-5 on steroids, this is the Predator that beat the Terminator in best 3 out of 5 and is now hunting Godzilla for sport. The nuclear tipped Tomahawk at the knife fight here is a Mazda 20B 3-rotor that is polished, ported, and prepared to push out 400 horsepower running on methane and the tears of Regional losers. It is mounted somewhere next to the driver’s feet and puts power to the rear wheels via a 2-speed Powerglide automatic, which is the most efficient (but less apparent) way to channel 400 hp to the rear of a car when racing speeds are restricted between 30 and 80mph. Enjoy !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! of (what I believe is) the monster racing in 2006.
Originally published as
!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!
on
!!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!
.
See a better way to get your E-Mod fix? !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!
Kanaric
> DailyTurismo
07/08/2015 at 16:41 |
|
this must be one weird car to drive.
jjhats
> DailyTurismo
07/08/2015 at 16:42 |
|
how is it a powerglide and a manual? whats the point or having a clutch? this thing is stupid nuts
tromoly
> DailyTurismo
07/08/2015 at 16:44 |
|
Still like Jeff Kiesel’s Sprite better, as you mentioned it’s a beast.
If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
> jjhats
07/08/2015 at 16:48 |
|
I think it’s just an automatic that’s been rigged so you have to manually toggle between hi and lo.
|
DailyTurismo
> jjhats
07/08/2015 at 16:52 |
|
A torque converter isn’t as efficient and adds slop to the drivetrain on transients. The shifting is done via hydraulics like a regular powerglide, but instead of the hydraulic torque converter, it has a clutch. It is an autocrossing thing, basically you setup 2nd gear to go to 88mph, start in first, redline, shift into 2nd, stay in 2nd for entire run.
|
jjhats
> If only EssExTee could be so grossly incandescent
07/08/2015 at 16:52 |
|
but then why bother with a clutch. why not just make it like a drag car which has gears and shifts manually but doesn’t have clutch. you aren’t getting any benefit out of ditching the torque converter.
|
DailyTurismo
> Kanaric
07/08/2015 at 16:53 |
|
You must be typing from a phone because when you wrote “totally and inexplicably awesome”, it autocorrected to “weird.”
Bob Loblaw Made Me Make a Phoney Phone Call to Edward Rooney
> jjhats
07/08/2015 at 16:59 |
|
The first line: driveline efficiency and decreased slop.
GregM12
> jjhats
08/16/2016 at 11:06 |
|
You need a clutch to get moving. Once you're in gear and moving you only need the clutch to stop (w/o stalling)