296 replies to this topic

[steveracer]

What are the manufacturing tolerances on that tool? Compensation for wear? Free play tolerance in the valve guides? Allowable TIR in the mill/drill spindle? It's not impossible, but it's not as easy as people make it out to be, and the cutter will never be an acceptable go gauge for it.

 

I'm hesitant how much I trust my measurements below +/-.005" and I have a fair amount of inspection experience. Take a pair of calipers, set them to 0.002" and see what you're actually talking about. The only way I can see through them is to hold them up to my monitor and let light shine through.

I would hope the tolerance on the tool was fairly consistent.

 

.002 is just an arbitrary number I pulled from my Anus to allow for sloppy guides etc, I know what .002 is but I'm just trying to find a workable solution.

 

I welcome feedback/suggestions.

[James York]

It needs to be said that lots of parts are hanging on walls or have been tossed/sold over the years due to rule growing pains, this is not a big deal looking at long term.

 

TSW wheels, gone when 13 pound rule went into place.

 

Mazda Comp Exhaust, gone when JD / Sam Henry was made legal.

 

Cams, gone when we got a spec for them (this is very much like this head deal).

 

Shocks, gone when we got a spec on them.

 

What I forget old timers?

 

Oh, the DDG shirt was for sale on the Cafe Press site, not been there in a bit. He actually meant the other Jim.......  

 

http://www.cafepress.com/specmiata.

 

Not valid argument.  At no times where those items specially spelled out to be legal, then upon a rules reversal made illegal.

 

Your examples (except the wheels and exhaust) were cheats not intended to ever be allowed.  The proposal of stock heads, specifically reverses a rule that makes a totally legal head, non compliant.

 

This proposed change, is the same as if the club now reversed its ruling on requiring 4.3 gears in the early 1.8 or took away the option to run the Torsen in 1.6 and required them all to go back to viscous OEM or Mazdacomp differential.

[Jim Daniels - FIG]

http://youtu.be/7pdWAcK6Eh8

[dstevens]

Duncan very thoughtful response, the problem is we have very limited time and maybe limited data in which to act for or against.  I do think the poll is fairly accurate but the response to NO or Hell NO is coming from multiple reasons.  This is also why I have said what I posted above. 

 

If 70% of the class is for Stock Heads them I am to, even though that is not what I want!

Regardless of what one thinks of the rule change at this point 58 of 80 people on this site in a non scientific poll don't like the idea.  Mazda says 2500 cars but cut that to 1000 to make the math easier.  That's not even 6 percent.  Far too few for an accurate sampling.  At the stated 2500 it's less than 3 percent.

[FTodaro]

Ok, I know we have a 70% agreement for the most part that we should allow replung cutting to do away with cherry picking etc.

 

After this Fast Eddie post, I picked up the phone imediatly and talked to two people I  know who build or have built engines for a living.

 

Their take was this pettition would only gain their cutomers and customers of most Pro engine builders vote if a blend was spec'ed to be some abertrary number.  

 

I feel that 95% + of this class is affected by this new ruling, we are going to have to set our differences and new ideas aside and think seriously here.

 

Is it better to go backwards to buy all new stock heads?  Or should we go forward yes I will call it what it is and reward the cheaters by specing their latest cheat into the rules?

 

Mark my words if we dont swing a bat of 70% of our group any of this talk is just flat a big waste of time.

 

I propose Mr. Sager that although I may personally disagree about wanting blending or deburring legal, this petition in order to stand any chance of making a desired outcome must:

 

Describe how we want this spec to be written to allow blending to ??mm.

 

I will vote yes for this again not what I personally want but what I find to be the lesser evil at this point. 

 

I urge you Tom, to pick up your phone and call Jim Drago, Dan Tiley, Jim Stewart, Rush in CA. and maybe even Bob Thornton.  Find out what would cover 70% of the heads that have been made since 2009 we dont need to go out and cover to most blended but what would make most of those heads legal.  Come to a concensus after talking to them and then get this put up immediatly.

 

Again I know this looks like condoning cheating but I do believe that we cannot get enough people on board if we are dead set to do what I personally would like to see come from this. As many if not most of my best friends in this community will vote against my idea, as it does not go far enough to adress their particular situation.

 

further more I know I may not have named your engine builder, i could not possibly name them all so I went off the top of my head please forgive any omissions, I also tired to name those who have been known to blend not those who profess not to.

So what you are saying is the only way we are going to get a rule that the class can live with is if the Majority of the class, come to an agreed proposal, get behind it in the petition and present it to the SCCA.

 

If we take the emotion out of it for moment, and if we assume that the majority of the class who built a head in the last five years is sitting on a plunge cut head. Can we come to an agreement on a compromise rule and get behind it

 

So if we said a plunge cut to the 12mm or what ever it is, with a blend of xx MM is legal, Can we agree on that?

 

Can we put it in a petition and sign it?

 

If we do not have a plan then how can we expect someone else solve it.

 

I am going to start a new thread

[Caveman-kwebb99]

Regardless of what one thinks of the rule change at this point 58 of 80 people on this site in a non scientific poll don't like the idea.  Mazda says 2500 cars but cut that to 1000 to make the math easier.  That's not even 6 percent.  Far too few for an accurate sampling.  At the stated 2500 it's less than 3 percent.

 

Some will not vote here as it is not annonymous, others dont come here, others have already lost interest.  I personally talked to someone effected more then the rest by this rule he owns 7 or 8 SM's he is at his wits end with this as lets just say this is a 3k per car expense so he has a 20k plus bill coming for just simply following the rules????

 

I did not start the poll I do support having the poll and I believe far more then 50% do not want to go back to stock heads. The real deal is will 70% or more write a letter supporting the same possition??? No idea

[Caveman-kwebb99]

So what you are saying is the only way we are going to get a rule that the class can live with is if the Majority of the class, come to an agreed proposal, get behind it in the petition and present it to the SCCA.

 

If we take the emotion out of it for moment, and if we assume that the majority of the class who built a head in the last five years is sitting on a plunge cut head. Can we come to an agreement on a compromise rule and get behind it

 

So if we said a plunge cut to the 12mm or what ever it is, with a blend of xx MM is legal, Can we agree on that?

 

Can we put it in a petition and sign it?

 

If we do not have a plan then how can we expect someone else solve it.

 

I am going to start a new thread

Frank In doing so please copy and paste my post that you quoted above lets not start another throwing out of ideas.  Also who is coming up with the written petition?  When will it be out? where can it be found? how do we sign on to it? Etc Etc etc.

[Jim Daniels - FIG]

Not valid argument.  At no times where those items specially spelled out to be legal, then upon a rules reversal made illegal.

 

Your examples (except the wheels and exhaust) were cheats not intended to ever be allowed.  The proposal of stock heads, specifically reverses a rule that makes a totally legal head, non compliant.

 

This proposed change, is the same as if the club now reversed its ruling on requiring 4.3 gears in the early 1.8 or took away the option to run the Torsen in 1.6 and required them all to go back to viscous OEM or Mazdacomp differential.

 

I disagree, the cams and shocks were on the shelf at Mazda from SS days with NO declared spec.  We worked towards a spec knowing those shelf parts were going away.  Also, in 2006 the rule was written to make cars legal, that was not the intent of the rules prior.  Had it been, the cams and shocks would have been made legal and not outed with a spec. Same should occur now albeit 8 years late.  Many of us lost parts, so should have the plunge cut crowd in 2006.  IMO

[dstevens]

Some will not vote here as it is not annonymous, others dont come here, others have already lost interest.  I personally talked to someone effected more then the rest by this rule he owns 7 or 8 SM's he is at his wits end with this as lets just say this is a 3k per car expense so he has a 20k plus bill coming for just simply following the rules????

 

I did not start the poll I do support having the poll and I believe far more then 50% do not want to go back to stock heads. The real deal is will 70% or more write a letter supporting the same possition??? No idea

Your emotion tells you it's 50 percent.  In reality you don't know.  

[RussMcB]

So if we said a plunge cut to the 12mm or what ever it is, with a blend of xx MM is legal, Can we agree on that?

This sure sounds like the best option going forward.

[James York]

What is the stock spec for all 4 heads? Is it well defined? If they cannot tech to the current set of rules, how are they going to tech to the stock specs? 

 

A team of local tech inspectors are going to have a seance around a crystal ball to channel the SM god for guidance and see if it "looks" stock.

 

Similar to the the time they prayed to the cam god while looking at cams that incredibly had the exact factory part numbers, "looked" stock but miraculously were better profiled than ever seen OEM.  The cam god handed down commandments with a bunch of numbers on them.

[Caveman-kwebb99]

Your emotion tells you it's 50 percent.  In reality you don't know.  

 

I emotionally ordered 3 stock heads 

[PatrickCleary]

I would hope the tolerance on the tool was fairly consistent.

 

.002 is just an arbitrary number I pulled from my Anus to allow for sloppy guides etc, I know what .002 is but I'm just trying to find a workable solution.

 

I welcome feedback/suggestions.

 

Sorry, I got caught up in your example and lost track of my point. If it's something the class wants enforced, it needs to be realistically measurable. Especially if you don't have operators that really know what they're doing.Tight tolerance bores are hard, rounds are hard (especially to non-square surfaces), and depending on how you specify it, there may be illegal or unintended solutions that aren't caught by the simple sounding spec. Writing unenforceable/minimally enforceable specs doesn't help anyone.

 

So if people care that the "problem" is solved, the best solution may be stock heads and sorting. They may suck and create performance differences, but can likely be verified. If no one cares, open the spec up to whatever actually exists. If you do the later I'd also spend some time looking at the rules, and inspection techniques to see if there is a next place to turn and start closing those openings up to prevent, rather than try to fix problems. Maybe look for ways to hold constructors responsible in the future as well as competitors. Also, being realistic about expectations for tech seems to need consideration.

[Bench Racer]

Lets take a simple ride. If OEM folks do not massage material after their plunge cuts which anyone with half a clue can visually view that they don't, why do the engine builders feel the need to massage after their plung cuts? Oh, I keep forgetting it's standard machine shop practice. If the standard machine practice is soooooo important, why don't the OEM's do it. A second Oh, would be the current rules say don't frik around after the plunge cut. It would seem the cost to hide massaged material after engine builder plung cut would be very costly. Everyone is now somewhat wise to the WistleGate and HeadGate, therefore doing tech became a whole bunch easier.  

 

Then, if the rule remains the same as today pre HeadGate including we don't frik around with material after the plunge cut, how much gain is there to changing the shape of the plunge cut? The OEM plunge cut is always going to be there. If we can't measure the plunge cut OEM or Engine builder, we need to work around measuring the plunge cut.

 

SCCA how about pictures of heads from HeadGate.

 

It's time to quite justifying cheaters (enterant/engine builder) actions as is ongoing within Spec Miata, keep the pre HeadGate rule (clarified) junk the heads. loose the long faces and go racing. Hey, if my head gets checked and is illegal, I buy a new head. It's quite simple.

[James York]

. Hey, if my head gets checked and is illegal, I buy a new head. It's quite simple.

 

And take your ban from SM that you proposed too?  Is it legal or not?

[Jim Daniels - FIG]

I emotionally ordered 3 stock heads 

Why not cast three stock heads like the rest of us?

[Brian129]

As Michael said, if we could develop a Spec Miata head for each Miata engine by CNCing the heads to maximum flow rate, any further work would be futile and probably counter productive.  Once this had been implemented, we could then adjust weights and restrictor size to equalize all cars. 

 

If you had a CNC'd head and decided to leave the class, you could probably get a premium price for your car. 

 

The 1.6 and NA 1.8 could then become relevant again.

 

BTW I had Lingerfelder CNC a pair of Corvette heads using their CNC patterns this included new valves, springs and retainers for $1800.  That's about $900 for each head using my core.  That is less than we are paying for pro built heads right now.

 

I would just like to say,  my point on CNC was that in the end the claimer will not end up making modifying heads go away,  it will just encourage someone to use a more efficient process.  

 

I believe we should come up with a set, and well described specification for it.  

things like "stock", "unmodified" and giving a dimension of modified depth are not clear, and well defined.  

[Jim Daniels - FIG]

This is not just for T 1-2-3-4 you know....

 

http://www.popularme...ic-car-15566080

[KentCarter]

NOTHING will make modifying the heads go away, just make it become more cheaty/expensive:

1. There is significant variation in stock heads due to core shift.
2. There are ways of massaging a head that looks stock in the end. 
3. No one can tell with certainty whether the beneficial profile of the port/bowl area is normal production variation or the work of someone skilled in EDM. 
4. No one is going to put up with mass teardowns at events all over the country, so the middle of the pack will remain cheated up in the existing way and the front of the pack with the high dollar EDM worked heads. 
5. Even if tech detects something they think is fishy in the head, the stewards are not going to DQ because stock heads have such large variation in profiles. Even if the stewards take action, the racer will prevail on appeal. There is just not enough precision in the original castings. Period. Of course, this is for SCCA... NASA will just take them out in the back 40 and shoot them. Oh wait, that will lose them customers. Scratch that. 

Sorry to poop on your 'let's all go to stock heads' parade, but come one.... we are smarter than that. 

[Jim Daniels - FIG]

NOTHING will make modifying the heads go away, just make it become more cheaty/expensive:

1. There is significant variation in stock heads due to core shift.
2. There are ways of massaging a head that looks stock in the end. 
3. No one can tell with certainty whether the beneficial profile of the port/bowl area is normal production variation or the work of someone skilled in EDM. 
4. No one is going to put up with mass teardowns at events all over the country, so the middle of the pack will remain cheated up in the existing way and the front of the pack with the high dollar EDM worked heads. 
5. Even if tech detects something they think is fishy in the head, the stewards are not going to DQ because stock heads have such large variation in profiles. Even if the stewards take action, the racer will prevail on appeal. There is just not enough precision in the original castings. Period. Of course, this is for SCCA... NASA will just take them out in the back 40 and shoot them. Oh wait, that will lose them customers. Scratch that. 

Sorry to poop on your 'let's all go to stock heads' parade, but come one.... we are smarter than that. 

 

You are saying that the folks at Mazda, who race all over the world, can't provide an example of what to expect.   That is much like saying they can't alter rules less member input of two different sanctioning bodies.