JMortensen

Definitely still need the spacer. Other likely problem is that the dust seal isn't installed all the way and the seal lip is dragging on the CV adapter. Enough people are running these that there is no question about them. If they don't work on your car it's probably because something is installed incorrectly.

I'd try Fat Cat Motorsports. http://www.fatcatmotorsports.com/ Just give the guy a call. Everyone says he's super helpful, although I haven't talked to him personally.

That's what my Miata was doing. Felt like it was going to shake my teeth out. The bumpstops that came in your bushing kit are poly. 3 options I see: 1.Swap them out for FCM or Koni stops 2. Raise the car 3. Up the spring rate so that you don't hit them as often

Really? Famous racer and designer. Designed the Daytona coupe, worked on Cobras back in the day IIRC, ran Brock Racing Enterprises which built and ran 510s and Zs and I think roadsters too in SCCA racing, won a bunch of championships. Pretty well known, and not just for Datsuns. I'm sure he had more going on after that, but I'm familiar with the Shelby and Datsun stuff. If you search google, don't get confused by Pete Brock, Australian Supercar driver who died recently.

Not sure I like the leave it loose method. I would sand the bushing down so that the steel sleeve is the same length when installed, so that when the nut is torqued there isn't a lot of preload on the bushing. I haven't tried it, but I think on the front control arm you should also be able to add a zerk and grease the bushings. Doesn't work with the rear inner bushings, but I did that on the rear outers and it worked fine. Basically the bushing has to be tight in the arm so that when you grease it the grease makes its way between bushing and sleeve. Also, run your shocks on 1 or 2. I ran 200/250 with Illuminas and my 75 year old dad's comment when he got out was about how comfortable the Recaros were. If you're getting harshness on 1 or 2, it's probably because you're bottoming out. Another thing to look at is bump stops. Having recently gotten into Miatas, I can say that they are light years ahead of us on bump stop tech. Most of us use Energy Suspension poly bumpstops, they have different stops with different spring rates, progressive, linear, etc. Fat Cat Motorsports has a wide selection. I just changed my stock rears to Koni 40mm bumpstops and had a huge improvement over concrete joints. Miatas run practically sitting on the bumpstops, so they're much more important. You might now be in the same boat if you've got 17's and you're trying to run it low enough to "look right".

Dropping off axles at heat treater tomorrow.

Regardless of whether it broke because it was not heat treated correctly or because of the stress risers, I'm disappointed that you didn't take my advice and stop running it.

Got the new length shafts in. Have talked to several people who have just sent their axles in. Need to get a few more back before I can go to the heat treaters. Two guys who just sent them back are east coasters, and I've checked and several people who haven't sent them yet are east coast as well, so I'm going to do a little prodding so we can get this thing going. Figure if I'm lucky I might get the shafts by the end of next week.

Gary, have you looked at the wind tunnel tests? Drag is pretty much a non-issue. As to front lift, that's a separate issue, and yeah, it's never a good idea to make a bunch more downforce on one end and ignore the other.

I've gotten some axles back but still waiting on a few people. Please get them in so I can fix this and return them to you.

I don't normally link to Facebook, but see if you can view this picture: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=403806673001975&set=a.301931639856146.70083.100001179367953&type=1&theater I wouldn't make your uprights anything other than straight vertically. Too much pressure at speed, and if everything is not super stiff you can get cavitation (flutter) which will beat the hell out of the mounts and uprights. If you went with separate mounts for the wing and the spoiler, you wouldn't have this issue. If your uprights fold as you go through a turn at 140 mph or into a braking zone, you might leave the track at very high velocity. There are vids of wings and supports failing on youtube. Get a quality wing and get it mounted securely. I don't know about that APR wing that you have, but I do know that I was at an autox a couple weeks back and a guy with an EVO had their double element aluminum wing and it was cracked pretty badly where the uprights bolted to it. He was aware of the cracks and said that they happened at a track day and he hadn't bothered to replace the wing yet.

Not sure you you would attach the uprights without it looking really kluged. I'd just go buy a spoiler and get a good wing and install them separately.

Good lord that is awesome. oOo

Sounds great!

You might just do a smaller commonly available spoilers like the BRE, the 5.25" tall one, etc to see if you can tell the difference. Lots of race cars use a spoiler under a wing, Daytona prototypes, ALMS, etc. There was a guy on a Porsche forum who ran a duck tail under a spoiler and did yarn tuft testing and showed that the airflow was pretty laminar in the area of the wing (wing not installed during test). His wing was pretty high though. I had the idea of a slotted piece of Lexan that bolted to the trailing edge of the hatch like a Gurney that you could slide up or down to vary the effect (I know I've seen this on race cars but I can't remember where), but you can't go really big with that because the hatch edge won't take a lot of pressure. Maybe if you reinforced the lip you could go bigger.

I'm glad I have your confidence. Only wish I had more of your ability to get things done, rather than just theorize about them. Another thing I noticed in taking a closer look is that you don't appear to have very much lip hanging out in front of the airdam there. Looks like maybe 2". You might have to lengthen the splitter to get the downforce necessary to balance a wing in back. Speaking of which, what wing are you running? I've been looking at Kognition. They seem like good value for money, and G Stream looks good too. My understanding is Kognition uses old F1 profiles. Simon McBeath makes some nice wings too through the Wing Shop, but he's in England and his stuff is more expensive. Whatever wing you go with, I'd tie it into the frame rails down below and not just bolt it to the hatch. Your car is too fast to half ass it.

Have you considered a diffuser on the backside of that splitter? I know it doesn't seem like it would do much, but the NASCAR guys were able to get some very noticeable effects from a diffuser that led nowhere (I want to say 80 lbs additional downforce and they have no undertray behind the splitter/diffuser), just because it increased the velocity under the splitter. Even cars with full undertrays will run diffusers behind the splitter for that reason. Look at ALMS cars, etc for ideas. Probably find some info at mulsannescorner.com. Could also do diffusers into the wheel wells.

Mikini manifolds only come with supports at the front and rear. My 10mm chrome rod was bent and I think the reason was because of the pull from the return spring on the middle of the unsupported shaft. One of the things I was planning to do was to get a 3rd rod end in the middle there. In fact, I think I sent 3 rod ends to the guy who bought my carbs.

Get rid of linkage from the firewall to the carbs and run a cable. I modded a mid 90's Nissan truck cable, it was easy to do.

Yes.

We used two shops to make these axles. The first shop heat treats the shafts in an oven to the mid 30s Rockwell C, roughs out the shaft then induction treats the shaft to mid 50s bends them back to straight, then does the finish machining of the splines. The shop that did the axles for the second group buy did the machining of the splines, then heat treated the axles in an oven to around 40, then turned them to straighten, then sent them to us. The black on some of the axles is just mill scale and oil that was cooked on and turned black during the heat treat process. It plays no part in the heat treating and is not important in determining whether an axle was treated or not. If you got your axles in the second group buy or later, you got the axles that have a problem. The problem is not the material and it is not that they weren't heat treated, it is the heat treat that the second shop used was not sufficient. We now have a pallet of replacement axles which are heat treated to 40 ready to ship to me. They should be here Tuesday or Wednesday. We talked to heat treat shops this week and the solution here is to induction harden the splines. Yesterday afternoon I picked up a shaft which had been treated to mid 50s on the ends as a test. The gears still fit perfectly on the ends, and the shaft is not bent. This induction method is a common way of heat treating axle shafts because it avoids the axle bending after the finish machining is done. The stock CV shafts are induction hardened on the ends and one of the shops that I talked to does the exact same thing for the desert race truck axles that they manufacture. The problem for us is that we have customers who have the second group buy 14 13/16" length shafts that need this second stage of heat treating to be brought up to par. We are going to send out emails with shipping labels today and we would like your long axles back. The good news, if there is any out of all of this, is that the heat treating process isn't a time consuming one. The shop that did my test axle said they could get the axles done in about a week if they were busy, less if they weren't when I brought them in. Also they are local so I don't have to wait for shipping when they are done, I can just go pick them up. What we really need from you guys is to get the long axles back ASAP. The quicker we get them back, the quicker we can send the replacements out. For what it's worth, the first shop using the mid 50's heat treat said that it's very common for their drag racing customers to have axles twist more than a spline and then "take a set" and stay like that for years and years. They actually suggested that Josey continue using his shaft, but because of his description of "no drag launches" I had a feeling something else was going on and told him not to use it. The shop told me that a hardened axle will not snap before it twists the splines, unless it is manufactured with what they refer to as a "torque fuse". The first shop said that the stock axle, where it necks down after the spline, has a torque fuse and that it will likely break there first if pushed hard enough. They also said that they try to never machine axles with a torque fuse unless they are being installed on a car that has a very rare differential and the customer would prefer the axle to break rather than damaging the diff.

OK guys. Got one more thing to check on, and then I'll let you know the whole story tomorrow. Axles should be on the way to me tomorrow or the next day, I'm going to have to have them tempered when I get them, and then we'll forward them on to customers.

Can you all quit the incorrect speculation please? ALL the shafts were hardened. Some were turned after hardening because they bent during the process. Figuring it out is taking some time. Posting wild guesses isn't helping anyone.

Thought that would be the answer from you. It's going to take a couple more business days to figure it out guys. Be patient.

Sorry guys, still working with the machinist to see what we are going to do.