In reply to Tx4Codeman :
I have not come across anything for the rears. Carson was working on something that used miata brakes out back but he seemingly fell off the face of the earth.
The MazdaRolla upgrade is 95 corolla calipers and 95 Protege 1.8 rotors. The calipers require grinding some off the mounting face to correct the offset ovwr the rotor. Its easy to do...just measure alot and check on the car to be sure and keep it square..usually its like .10-.15" need to be removed. Some times you might have to lightly grind the hub on the 4 outward bits to allow the rotor to fit. Its my go to upgrade and even with basic street pads its a fantastic upgrade.
There is not much going on with Earl after I fixed the brake lines. Its parkes for now in storage in the 'cold side' of my 2 car garage with the 4dr i picked up to make into a caged race car eventually.
The heater core is blown so winter driving has dictated to park it.
Thank you for the brake tips. It'll give me something to tinker with while waiting on the motor mounts to be done up on the motor swap.
The other week I replaced the heater core finally and it really wasnt too bad to do. Also replaced the noisy, chinese throwout bearing that came with my ebay clutch with a new Japanese unit. Also put better bumpstops up front to help with the ground control coilovers on soft dampers. This car is so good now...just in time to not be able to drive it...
Alot of changes. Signed up for Trackcross which accerated putting in some work.
I did Porterfield rs4 rear shoes with all new hardware, WCs, drums and bearings.
Then I measured brake master cylinder deflection when pedal pressure is applied...it had a good nearly 1/4" of flex. So I whipped up a stopper outnof scraps that cut the movement in half. I plan to make a better one soon.
Ran trackcross last weekend and pretty much finished off the dampers so yesterday I swapped my Fortune Auto coilovers on from my other car and did an eyeball alignment until my new inner and outer tie rods show up along with cam bolts.
Hey sorry to resurrect the thread but my team and I had a few questions. We've been tracking a tercel as a lemons car, went and got a donor with a 4efte and some JIC coilovers. What spring rate are you running, and do you have any good sources for factory fit braided front lines? We had one nearly blow on us at a 24 hour race a few weeks ago. Inner liner failed, the outer liner was the only thing holding pressure. Anyway we don't know where the lines came from, they were spare parts that came with the turbo donor.
We are running 95 corolla calipers and rotors, XP8 carbotech pads, with a 6mm spacer behind the rotor. Stock tercel lines bolt up so we can always go back to that. Any help would be appreciated.
In reply to clowe1965 :
I always used TechnaFit lines. There is a few others out there, but I do not have any direct experience with them. Soon Ill be ordering a set of TechnaFit for this car, time to do my MazdaRolla brake upgrade as I now have way more tire then brake lol.
As for spring rates, I have 6k front, 4k rear. If track only, Id probably go much higher then that. I usually like to spec out street stuff at 5k front and either 3 or 4k rear. Track only Id probably start at 8k front, 10k rear depending on set up. Ive changed my bumpstops around to work with my spring rates and give me the best of street and track. But as this car becomes more just for track stuff, Im going to start creeping up on spring rates here soon and see how things go with these dampers.
Action shot from last weekend courtesy of Dan from MachV
malibuguy said:
In reply to clowe1965 :
I always used TechnaFit lines. There is a few others out there, but I do not have any direct experience with them. Soon Ill be ordering a set of TechnaFit for this car, time to do my MazdaRolla brake upgrade as I now have way more tire then brake lol.
As for spring rates, I have 6k front, 4k rear. If track only, Id probably go much higher then that. I usually like to spec out street stuff at 5k front and either 3 or 4k rear. Track only Id probably start at 8k front, 10k rear depending on set up. Ive changed my bumpstops around to work with my spring rates and give me the best of street and track. But as this car becomes more just for track stuff, Im going to start creeping up on spring rates here soon and see how things go with these dampers.
Action shot from last weekend courtesy of Dan from MachV
I was there in the white Fiesta ST car number 325. We were in the same heats(Heat A and C). The Tercel did great! Looks the part also.
I was wondering what was with the smoke? Valve seals? Seemed to only happen on take off then the car just scooted.
Man, that BOV pipe is a hell of a thing!! lol
In reply to kevinatfms :
The smoke is just typical tercel valve seals, it always seems to disappear after I get into 3rd gear, lol. Car does really well for 90hp. But it kind of sucks as there is not any real HP to gain this side of boost. Ive tried many things on past cars with usually naught to 1whp gains at most.
Im trying to max this out essentially as is until Im caught up on my other projects then I got the hardest choice to make, which turbo in my pile of turbos do I use
In reply to Vigo (Forum Supporter) :
Haha. Different rules in lemons, everything is budget conscious ($500) so that meant reusing the stock intercooler instead of buying a new FMIC. As the TMIC had kind of weird inlet/outlet angles had to make something work, mounting it at the headlight bucket opening was pretty economical. Also first time TIG welding, so I wanted to minimize the number of welds. We did find a different solution for the "plug/eyebolt" but it still looks ridiculous. More BS points if it looks janky.
In reply to malibuguy :
Thanks for that, I'll give technafit lines a look. Again sorry for the hijack. While we don't need more braking capacity, after a post race inspection there is a lot of heat being transferred to the hubs. Found online that you can get a 90's celica st185 setup to fit the tercel spindles, so after these pads are gone we will be converting. Gets us from 255mm to 276mm diameter, and 2 piston calipers. The pic is a new rotor we put on about 5 hours into the race. So 750 ish track miles. We are not running ducting.
We had 6k-8k springs on the front and rear, but I raised the height a lot to clear the tires, and the only way with these coilovers is to increase the preload. I think I overdid it, every bump would bounce us in the air instead of being absorbed. Also here is the rear sway bar setup if you were interested. So we can buy anything that bolts onto a stock miata and get it to work. I think the next setup we do is going to be coil overs all over, disconnect the front sway bar and keep the rear in and see how that handles.
In reply to clowe1965 :
I like that sway bar idea. Unfortunately that really gets into the area for running the exhaust for a street car. But for side exit race car thats great.
When I used to lap in my white car, I went thru all the easy brake upgrades. The mazdarolla set up worked very well for me, tho I did end up running ducts as in the summer I noticed the slightest bit of fade even with Porterfield track day pads (summit main I would do 120-125mph on the main straight then throw out the anchor and bang a right). I was simply at the max for Summit. Im sure other tracks are more demanding. If you can budget a larger intercooler somehow definetely do so, and keep the piping small, 1.75 or 2" max.
You'd have to take the exhaust down to install this particular setup but it would clear most aftermarket setups. Not sure on the stock system. It would be tight.
We are racing at Carolina Motorsports Park, supposedly hard on the pads. It's got 3 long straights with <40 mph turns at the end, we were getting up to 70-80 with the stock engine at the end of each of them then jamming the pedal. I can't say I'd recommend the carbotech pads we have for a street car but they are great for the track. If you haven't dealt with them they are a direct order company with pretty good technical support, they wouldn't sell us the pads without running our weight, hp and intended tracks through whatever system they use.
Ducting might help a lot. We don't have fade. I'm more concerned about the hub bearings and seals.
In reply to clowe1965 :
I tried carbotech pads. I got one weekend out of them. Told them everything, car, weight, tires, track etc etc. Total garbage. They blamed it on the car. They were nearly down to metal. Waste of $200~.
Tried the porterfields and they finished the season off and still had enough meat to probably go 1 more track weekend. But I started the season off with a fresh set. I like the feel of them and very easy to modulate. Not street car stuff either. They are fine to drive to the track on but not DD type stuff. I always had a set of matched set of pads and rotors for the street and then my race pads and rotors would go on about 2-3 days before a weekend. Do a system bleed and check then head to the track.
Huh that's weird. Our car is stripped down, but after all the safety equipment its probably about the same weight. The XP8's have about 35 hours on them, and I expect to get another 15 hours out of them without issue. They were $300. There is about 1/4" of pad left. I'll look at the porterfields, first I've heard of them.
In reply to clowe1965 :
I thought so as well. As alot of fast guys were using them at the time, which is why I tried them. I too was on the XP8, maybe I got a weird bad set I dunno. I remembered liking their characteristics. But I needed something that lasted at least most if not a whole season. At the time I had some money to play with, I was willing to buy what I need. However I was not in the position to buying a set everytime on top of my typical $400-450 for a track weekend. That car was 2080lbs plus I was floating around the 190 range (i miss those days). I forget how I came to Porterfield, but every time dealing with them has been great. I recently got their shoes for the back of my grey car, as I wanted a little more rear bias.
We are still running the stock 270k+ mile shoes, I didn't even try to find performance shoes for a tercel, figured the pads would be hard enough to get. Lot of guys run hawk pads in lemons. We might try to get a starlet rear rotor set, just to help pedal feel more than anything else. The lovely 70/30 weight distribution will always mean the rear is never going to do much more than keep the bumper from dragging the ground.
At this point we are just ecstatic that the car lasted for 24 hours with all the unconventional rerouting we did. Still at the stock 9 psi for the motor, able to keep up with the milder miatas. Got our butts kicked in the corners with the stock suspension though so we are gonna have to experiment on a few track days till we figure it out. Also got to figure out some driver comforts, we have a range of 5'-7" to 6'1" 170 lbs to 300 lbs so an adjustable chair is on the team wish list.
In reply to clowe1965 :
youd be amazed what a good set of shoes would do to the car, it hunkers it down very well, goes from a nose dive to like an all around squat under hard braking. Personally I wouldnt even bother with starlet brakes, cuz if something happens,, you cannot just go to the local autozone and fix it on a typical track weekend ;)
If you want feel...get someone to hit brakes while you watch the master...its alarming. Make a brace.
In reply to malibuguy :
O I am definitely copying that. And yes, the downside is availability. We should probably replace the master as well. We replaced the slave and master for the clutch during tech inspection, it failed the night before when I was loading it on the trailer.
Not much new going on. But the wheels are turning for this car. I want to do another turbo build and I have the turbo I want to use. I have already cut off the old turbo manifold I had built for my pink car to reuse the flange for what I plan to build for the grey car.
The plan is do something mild and simple. Going to use a Volvo turbo. Also use the internal gate and bypass valve. Bonus is then I dont have to use any of mine or buy any. Next is choosing a IC. I have several in my stockpile.
Torn on ecu decisions...but leaning towards MicroSquirt. I know nothing about configuring a stand alone but that will be something I'll learn when I need to.
Anyways. Drove it around today. Replaced my seatbelt receptical so its safe again. Also picked up some miata 14s with tires for my 4dr tercel today.
I built a strut brace that integrates the firewall on my pink (Floyd) one years ago. And well I had plenty of people ask for it. So I started reproducing them this week. Eventually one will go on Earl (grey) too. So that is pretty exciting.
First production strut bar I built out of my jig and fits perfect. Even on the street 14s the car just feels nicer, especially over potholes. Like its making the dampers do more work.
This week I finally upgrade this car to MazdaRolla brakes and this weekend is its last trackcross event in the foreseeable future. Moving onto a different series this year.
Big brakes are on along with all new flex hoses.
Ill see you at Trackcross this weekend. Not going to bring the Fiesta though, we will have our Elantra out there. Ill come say "hi" from a social distance.
