603 replies to this topic

[Charlie Hayes]

How about one of you folks that own both a top prep 1.6 car at 2275 pounds & a top prep 1999 car with a weight at 2355 pounds do a test with different restrictors in the 99 while documenting the results. Better yet why doen't the SMAC/CRB do the testing with two top notch cars..

NASA already has data from the whole year with weights close to what was mentioned above.

[pat slattery]

I have an idea! Why don't you guys stop trying to campaign a car that is over 20 years old. Soon you will be able to run them in HRC. I was never for splitting the class but this is the same bull we go through every year. Let the 1.6s have their own class if they want it. It won't affect the Nationals as no competitive drivers are in them anyway.

Where were you and your 1.6 at the Runoffs Jamie?

[Ron Alan]

The purpose of the trackside dyno was indeed to use with a sealed motor program. After a race, test the top guys and a select sample of mid packers to check the numbers and verify who is in compliance.

I really don't see why it would be that hard to implement a sealed motor program. SFR and WDC have done it. There is a track side dyno at both Thunderhill and Infineon. Not sure about Laguna but I have seen portable ones floating around the pits. NASA often has a portable dyno at some races to check AI and AIX cars. There is no such thing as "can't" in this respect. It ain't rocket science. I can see that there are certain people who have invested a lot of money in their motors and wouldn't want such a program but I feel they would be in the minority overall but a vocal, loud, possibly influential minority.

Alberto...couldn't disagree more with your last sentence. This is a blanket statement that seems to suggest if you spend a lot of money(minority) on your motor you are cheating...or that you are against some form of change in compliance. But I would argue that the "minority" of guys who have spent a lot of money on their motors have done so with the ultimate goal of finding LEGAL HP...and would be the first in line to check their cars! What I am hearing is a minority of guys in the know with regards to dyno's saying implementation would be difficult at best.

I would not put the SFR SSM program up as some sort of model...it has it's own flaws to work out!

Though many would argue this is a sport of have's and have nots, and it may well be, lets not go there...otherwise we all lose. I still contend the best DRIVERS will always be at the top, regardless of how much money they spend on their car.

Rob...like your most recent posts Are you going soft on me??

[Alberto]

Alberto,

You need to consider the magnitude of such an endeavor, I think you may be missing the big picture. You posted two regional examples. SM is a national class run at maybe 100 different tracks across the country. And as a nationwide SCCA class, I am allowed to show up anywhere in the country and run a national race by the national ruleset. I can't even imagine a nationwide sealing program fixed at some arbitrary number on one type of particular dyno.

If I show up at one of your local national races and dyno, say 5 hp more, but my car was sealed in TX, then what? Do I get tossed? Does SCCA take posession of the car until they can get it back to TX to validate the seal number on that dyno?

You are correct. I have not considered what is involved in implementation. It took years for the class to get where it is and the slippery slope of engine rules just seems to get steeper each year. I'd like to see a stop to that. In my opinion, it is against the spirit of a spec class. I also dislike reading about the regular rules slips where cheats are approved b/c for some reason the rule isn't being enforced so its easier to approve the cheat than enforce the rule - if the rules do not say you can, then you can't.

Heck, if the 1.6 blocks are indeed so hard to come by that a boring allowance is being considered, why not allow a motor swap to a later motor that is easier to come by or allow full backward and forward swapping. That'll make the cars potential closer too.

It seems like there are too many people saying things can't be done. I don't understand why they can't. Nobody is willing to state why. They just state - trust me or b/c I said so. Sounds like some people are comfortable with the overall strategy of the last 10 years and just want to keep the status quo instead of improving. Granted, the strategy has been pretty good but there are a few things that just bug the hell out of me and now that I'm a part of the class, I voice my opinion and hope to learn in these discussions. The learning part hasn't been very deep in this thread unfortunately...

[Rob Burgoon]

Nope Ron not going soft, I just post what I think and don't take time to sugar coat my responses.

Also, I think you're reading into Alberto a little bit. As someone with a pro engine, he's right, I would lose some of my advantage if we all went to a dyno and seal scheme (which as much as I like it may not be a good fit for this class). I didn't think he was calling me a cheater.

If agreeing with me is making you uncomfortable, just pretend that I said something snarky yet witty about helicopter dads in racing, that should fix ya right up.

[Ron Alan]

Where were you and your 1.6 at the Runoffs Jamie?

Saw your first post before you edited

When SCCA moves from Road America to another track that is more technical and less HP/TQ/top end friendly, all hell is going to break loose. Can you imagine what will happen if a 1.6 wins the big show?? This Merry-go-round will be spinning so fast we are all going to get tossed

Though Jamies post is taking a jab at anyone who would drive a 1.6...at least at the runoffs...if he or any of the top guns felt that was there best chance to win, they would/will be in them.

[Alberto]

Alberto...couldn't disagree more with your last sentence. This is a blanket statement that seems to suggest if you spend a lot of money(minority) on your motor you are cheating...or that you are against some form of change in compliance. But I would argue that the "minority" of guys who have spent a lot of money on their motors have done so with the ultimate goal of finding LEGAL HP...and would be the first in line to check their cars! What I am hearing is a minority of guys in the know with regards to dyno's saying implementation would be difficult at best.

I would not put the SFR SSM program up as some sort of model...it has it's own flaws to work out!

Though many would argue this is a sport of have's and have nots, and it may well be, lets not go there...otherwise we all lose. I still contend the best DRIVERS will always be at the top, regardless of how much money they spend on their car.

Rob...like your most recent posts Are you going soft on me??

Ron,

No, that wasn't the intent of that statement. I find it difficult to try and express/clarify what I was trying to get at but that was not it but that definitely was not it.

Story time...

When I decided to do SM vs ITA or ITS in an RX7, I did so b/c SM is more of a driver's series b/c it is a SPEC class. Then I got to a race at Laguna and had some dude in Dan's (Cooper?) national prep car walk me down the straight after I passed him and then spent the rest of the race trying to pass but not being able to b/c he'd walk me on the straights. I was a better driver. He had a top flight motor - which blew up in spectacular fashion shortly after that race. People said that was the 5th motor from that builder that had blown up this season.

Can I put $5-8k into a "pro" motor to compete at that level? Yes but no friggin way would I do that in an economy and job market like this. F that. My money is best saving for the next rainy day. I spent $25k in the car, tow vehicle, safety gear etc in 2010 just to be at the point where I could get my license and run my first rookie season in 2011.

What I don't understand is that in a SPEC class, why would people think it more appropriate to have built motors than a sealed motor? Is it b/c the big budget National guys are doing it? Or is it for another reason? It doesn't seem to really benefit anyone from my what I can see.

[Charlie Hayes]

The thing is the "built motors" are built to a spec. In my honest opinion engine rules are very clear the way they are and they are not over the top.

Everything in this thread is intended for National ruling. Region's do their own thing hence being Regional.

With that said heres the way I think it would be done:

If Spec Miata was a sealed class only one place can seal the engines. So this would entitle you to either pull your engine and have them seal it or buy a sealed engine from the company that would seal the engines. This is a big expense and loss of time. Now what if you pull your engine, send it away and it comes up short of say 115hp, by 10hp? Now you have an option of either having them fix this (new head/freshen block) or living with being down on 10hp. Which in your case Alberto would put you in the SAME spot you were in at Laguna. The other way is buying a sealed longblock from this sealing company which would be no cheaper than a crate engine from Mazda which is somewhere in the mid $3000 range now? You would need to add injectors, throttle body, intake manifold, header, all the timing bits, ignition, and so on so this easily adds up to what it costs now for a no hassle "pro built super motor"

Sealed engines will be a pain to start now for everybody.

[Ron Alan]

Nope Ron not going soft, I just post what I think and don't take time to sugar coat my responses.

Also, I think you're reading into Alberto a little bit. As someone with a pro engine, he's right, I would lose some of my advantage if we all went to a dyno and seal scheme (which as much as I like it may not be a good fit for this class). I didn't think he was calling me a cheater.

If agreeing with me is making you uncomfortable, just pretend that I said something snarky yet witty about helicopter dads in racing, that should fix ya right up.

No need to sugar coat...your opinion seemed to have changed slightly and there was a small amount of civility in your tone

I will agree on the word "cheater" but to equate money and motives...just doesn't sit well with me...it implies the wrong message IMO.

Helicopter dad???? Man, just stab a guy in the heart...but you got me there. I will admit though, I'm in it completely for myself. Ask anyone who knows me and they'll tell you I'm at the track regardless and always willing to help anyone...even you if you asked

Edit...np Alberto, I understand. It's a dicussion with lots of opinions!

[john mueller]

For those who have floated the Data acquisition idea. Would seem simple enough to have all cars provide a universal power source. Then do all cars have a port or a way to read car parameters (via ecu)readily available? Not up on this stuff...but getting good at changing tires and cleaning windows

The Traqmate systems NASA uses are standalone with their own power. They do not connect to the ECU and are stupid crazy accurate.

[Ron Alan]

The Traqmate systems NASA uses are standalone with their own power. They do not connect to the ECU and are stupid crazy accurate.

So if your not taking car data(ecu), only GPS, you are able to determine"power"by certain track segments? Aren't there some engine parameters that would be beneficial to know?

[Charlie Hayes]

The gforces and GPS mph should be enough. You would be able to tell when, how long, how hard you are on the brakes, when you get back to the gas, and max mph in straights. All which would sum up what we are looking for parity for all the cars. Right?

[Rob Burgoon]

Some others covered this but I'll put it plainly.


Alberto, the way this class works (for better or for worse) is you sit down and ignore everything in the rulebook that is not possible to be enforced in tech.

Blue printing? Parts bin balancing? Unprovable therefore de facto legal. Taking your exhaust manifold apart and redoing the welds? If it doesn't have tool marks and is assembled the same way as the factory, unprovable therefore de facto legal.

All that stuff in the rules about don't do this and don't do that just don't matter. If nobody can tell, it's golden. If there is a coating on portions of your drivetrain that aren't visible, you're probably golden there too.

There's 100% pure white legal stuff too like removing your ebrake cores that's worth some power as well.

The pro engines are just built to the limit of uncatchability. The pro engines are reliable if you use a good vendor (RE whoop whoop) and cost about the same as having mazda seal them. That's why the class is the way it is. Being able to tear motors down and point at and measure an offending part is the model the creaky old SCCA is built on, and is a fairly difficult system to cheat if everyone has enough knowledge and money to tear down effectively. Admittedly this worked better before fuel injection and ECUs showed up.

This may be a driver's class, but as power starved as our cars are, a little extra squirt goes a long way and people will spend the money for it. A better class for measuring driver vs driver and setup vs setup might be a well attended high horsepower class (which doesn't exist). In such a class getting 10% more squirt when you already have too much power probably wont help as dramatically. But that's a tangent.

Anyway, that's why we are where we are, and yes, the mere existence of pro motors drove me batshit insane when I started too.

[Caveman-kwebb99]

Three "facts of life" that make OUR club a mess. SCCA can't seem to embrace change. Maybe it's time to "occupy Topeka" and take back our club.

And Jim, we CAN do it if we get together and demand it. It's just too simple a solution to ignore. If the personnel in charge of SM can't change, then it's time we change the personnel. Politicians (and yes, SMAC and CRB are politicians) just don't seem to realize that they are in their positions to represent the majority, not to protect their turf.

At the very least we can run test programs in some regions in 2012.

Jim Thill

Good luck with that.....
So far this topic is important enough for 65 people to comment on, and half or less seem to support your ideas.

There was probably 65 entrants in SM in one of this years SCCA Florida Nationals. 95% or more of all racers will show up to race in SM no matter where this conversation goes and no matter what the rule set is.

The bottom line is there are people who are on some committees that have hard decisions all the time, and they know that they are never gonna make a decision thats popular.

To me its just comical that you suggest overthrowing the ones that sit in those chairs and make those decisions but nowhere do you ever suggest that you are willing or able to sit on that same hot seat.

As for protecting their turf through decisions, you should note that we cant even get 50% of the 65 brave posters here to agree on jack sh*t. So these pore sloggs that have been made out to be self serving deamons, risk allienating the very customers they do serve when make any of these so called selfish decisions.

It is conversations like this that make very qualified people stay away from decision making possitons within our organizations. I for one don't envy any of those that sit on SMAC, GCR, or NASA's heirarchy.

It is nice that 65 guys have alot of passion for SM and racing though. Now back to the Crucification!

[Jim Drago]

You are correct. I have not considered what is involved in implementation. It took years for the class to get where it is and the slippery slope of engine rules just seems to get steeper each year. I'd like to see a stop to that. In my opinion, it is against the spirit of a spec class. I also dislike reading about the regular rules slips where cheats are approved b/c for some reason the rule isn't being enforced so its easier to approve the cheat than enforce the rule - if the rules do not say you can, then you can't.

The engine rules were basically SS copies until the end of the 2009 season, until then, i don't remember any changes? The rules were completely over hauled in 2009 and while some may disagree, I think hey are very thorough and very clear. They were circulated to ALL the known engine builders to expose any potential problems etc. I have said and will say again, if there is something in those rules that you want more clearly defined or a spec tightened up, please send in a letter. WE have received zero other than Harry Mannings letters asking us to change piston weights as they were too close, which we did. The .25 mm rule was asked for by Stu @BSi and we put it out for input, the input supported the change, the CRB felt is was a good change and the rule will likely be implemented for 2012 if approved by the BOD. That is the way the club works..

These engine specs were put there so ANYONE would have the formula to build a motor to the spec. If ANY competent machine shop built any of these engines to these rules, the engine was put in a car that had a decent alignment and tuned well, through legal means, ALL engines would be within 3-5 IMO, the goal was all legal motors racing tightly together. I think we have succeeded in that goal as most all pro motors are very close. Many others such as Sager and the Runoffs winner do their own engines with non "pro Miata" engine builders. They obviously use very good machine shops, but not "SM " shops. I feel this program is bettr than any sealed program or any dyno option. Tight rules set with enforcement, the enforcement is the problem, the ruleset is not. Until we can enforce the rules we have, it doesn't make much sense adding new ones that require yet more enforcing.

Heck, if the 1.6 blocks are indeed so hard to come by that a boring allowance is being considered, why not allow a motor swap to a later motor that is easier to come by or allow full backward and forward swapping. That'll make the cars potential closer too.

The suspension update that failed last year was the first step to allowing that to happen, the member ship was torn, the BOD did not pass the motion. That plan died there, less a groundswell of support in the other direction. Being it was near 50/50 before I don't think that will happen.

It seems like there are too many people saying things can't be done. I don't understand why they can't. Nobody is willing to state why. They just state - trust me or b/c I said so. Sounds like some people are comfortable with the overall strategy of the last 10 years and just want to keep the status quo instead of improving. Granted, the strategy has been pretty good but there are a few things that just bug the hell out of me and now that I'm a part of the class, I voice my opinion and hope to learn in these discussions. The learning part hasn't been very deep in this thread unfortunately...

Not sure if I am in the many, but if you want a answer to a direct question and I know the answer, I would be glad to answer.
Jim

[Jim Drago]

Nope Ron not going soft, I just post what I think and don't take time to sugar coat my responses.

Sugar?? I was just hoping for salt coating

[Jim Drago]

Some others covered this but I'll put it plainly.


Alberto, the way this class works (for better or for worse) is you sit down and ignore everything in the rulebook that is not possible to be enforced in tech.

Blue printing? Parts bin balancing? Unprovable therefore de facto legal. Taking your exhaust manifold apart and redoing the welds? If it doesn't have tool marks and is assembled the same way as the factory, unprovable therefore de facto legal.

All that stuff in the rules about don't do this and don't do that just don't matter. If nobody can tell, it's golden. If there is a coating on portions of your drivetrain that aren't visible, you're probably golden there too.

There's 100% pure white legal stuff too like removing your ebrake cores that's worth some power as well.

The pro engines are just built to the limit of uncatchability. The pro engines are reliable if you use a good vendor (RE whoop whoop) and cost about the same as having mazda seal them. That's why the class is the way it is. Being able to tear motors down and point at and measure an offending part is the model the creaky old SCCA is built on, and is a fairly difficult system to cheat if everyone has enough knowledge and money to tear down effectively. Admittedly this worked better before fuel injection and ECUs showed up.

This may be a driver's class, but as power starved as our cars are, a little extra squirt goes a long way and people will spend the money for it. A better class for measuring driver vs driver and setup vs setup might be a well attended high horsepower class (which doesn't exist). In such a class getting 10% more squirt when you already have too much power probably wont help as dramatically. But that's a tangent.

Anyway, that's why we are where we are, and yes, the mere existence of pro motors drove me batshit insane when I started too.

Very accurate!

[Jim Drago]

Ok, here is a funny story... Probably putting myself out here for all to flame away.. But fitting for this discussion


Back in the early 90's a friend and I decided to go to the RC track that was 1:20 minutes away in Jonesboro ark. A small working class city... It was a long drive, but it was fun. Make a long story short, we soon entered a $50.00 spec car class, before long we were doing pretty well, winning races, winning features etc. We did this for 6-8 months, somewhere along the line, I had two cars,( 2 and 2t, it was early 90's and CART was king ) both my cars and were the best two cars in any field other than my teammates who were the same, but I drove better than he did so I won more than my share of races. We bought a dyno for the small electric RC motors, we had new tires every race, cases of new batteries etc. We did it "right". At the last feature race, don't remember what it was, but it was a "big" race comparable to the Runoffs for us at the time, I won. The grumblings about the car had long since started and the cars would be torn down for technical inspection afterwards. There was nothing wrong with the car, the guy running the series asked if any of the competitors wanted to look at anything else before he handed me the car back which made it even worse, all were silent as there was nothing left to look at. After that weekend, the series director told me that this was my last race in that series, he complimented me on my driving and then said the following " It is just not normal to put $1000.00 into a $50 spec car series. I still laugh about what he said, but he was right. We tried some of the other faster car series, I won in that as well, but it was never the same. The competition wasn't as good, often only 1-4 guys showed up to race, the cars were fragile. The "fun" was gone for us, so we stopped making the 1:20 drive every Thursday night and getting home at 2-3 am on a work night. I still have the cars sitting in my closet.

I admire the decision that guy made, it was the "right" one. Unfortunately for us, that is never going to happen here, We can't afford to lose all those cars. SM is a victim of it's own success, the popularity, the competition and low costs(despite opinions) is what drew most of us here. If there were another class where the competition was as good, fields as large and slightly faster, many of us would "move up" but those options are not there IMO. I have often been asked if I would run MX5 cup etc, grand am etc. I think about it and always come back to why?? SM has better competition, lower costs, more fun etc. I don't see what any of those classes offer over SM other than slightly faster straight line speed. I have no aspirations of becoming a "professional" race car driver.

Not sure if that story helps or hurts, but 100% true and seems relevant even though it offers little help.

Jim

[Danny Steyn]

SM is a victim of it's own success, the popularity, the competition and low costs(despite opinions) is what drew most of us here. If there were another class where the competition was as good, fields as large and slightly faster, many of us would "move up" but those options are not there IMO. I have often been asked if I would run MX5 cup etc, grand am etc. I think about it and always come back to why?? SM has better competition, lower costs, more fun etc. I don't see what any of those classes offer over SM other than slightly faster straight line speed. I have no aspirations of becoming a "professional" race car driver.
Jim

NAIL - HEAD!!!!

[dmathias]

Still waiting for a low-cost, tube-framed, steel-wheeled, spec "GT" class.