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That's really good to know. Plenty of Spec Miata stuff will be available. That also means OEM Miata seats could be swapped in too.

The thing I like about Kirkey race seats is that you can send them back for re-certification, covering, and upgrades for a really reasonable fee. And, since it's AL you can weld on attachments such as a drink bottle holder or a roll cage bracket.
 
The thing I like about Kirkey race seats is that you can send them back for re-certification, covering, and upgrades for a really reasonable fee. And, since it's AL you can weld on attachments such as a drink bottle holder or a roll cage bracket.
Yeah, they're a great racing seat for those reasons. I only mentioned the OEM Miata seats for those who might want a non-racing seat option. I think you're on the right path for what you're doing.
 
So I've been waiting on my guy to finish moving shops before picking it up for the suspension set-up work. However, I've been able to locate the necessary EVO III components for a TRE Stage 4 build in Europe. So hopefully, those will ship soon and the next phase of Talon's build will start :)
 
  • BC Racing ER Coilovers with Swift Springs (15k Front and 16k Rear

Those springs rates will handle awesome on a smooth track but I imagine they're brutally rough on the street. My back hurts just reading 15k/16k LOL
Keep up the awesome build and thread, nice work!!!
 
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Those springs rates will handle awesome on a smooth but I imagine they're brutally rough on the street. My back hurts just reading 15k/16k LOL
Keep up the awesome build and thread, nice work!!!
Just noticed those rates... that's damn stiff for a 2g. I remember some of the fast guys going pretty soft in the rear for the 2g, but that was long ago. Curious to see how it rotates for him, and how compliant it is.
 
It's def. stiff for the street. but living in FL where the roads are smooth it's not so bad. If I was still in LA or using it for a daily that would be overly harsh. Once I get some more track time on them I'll have an update.

I've AutoX'ed on them only twice and in order to get the car to turn, it required full commit on the braking in order to get it to rotate. But once I got a feel for it, it became much to drive.
 
Fresh parts incoming for the start of Talons "Hopefully Never Gonna Break It' transmission! All of the used parts are in great shape. The guy I've purchased everything through has been super helpful and transparent. He specializes in Evo 1, 2, and 3 parts both new and used. If you would like his Facebook contact info. please PM me.

Used Evo 3: Input Shaft
Used Evo 3: 1st Gear
New Evo 3 3rd gear, used sub-gear, and used snap ring
New Evo 3: 4th gear
New shift fork Evo 3 Rev 2, this version has a plastic wear surface seen below.
Used 3rd/4th gear hub and slider

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So Dan Partelo (https://www.facebook.com/DanParteloRaceCars/) came by the house today to pick up Talon! I really do appreciate the guy driving 2-1/2 hrs to pick up the car with his own truck and trailer. He was extremely friendly, inquisitive, and willing to listen about all of my wants, needs, and concerns. He's got an event in Sebring coming up and he's told me it'll be ready around June 13-14th.

Super excited to get the next phase of this project started and to begin putting some shakedown miles on the car both on the street, autoX, and trackways. Dan also provided a very useful suggestion about carrying spare helm joints for when I'm at the track, as he's seen these wear our or fail and their the one thing you can't quickly go to an autocrats store to get replaced.

In other news... I GOT ENGAGED!

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Which means that new part purchases will prolly be limited for a little while. But fear not, there are plenty of goodies incoming! I think it was wise of me "sneak" them in before the wedding plans began in earnest... I'm totally not going to get in trouble for this right? I mean... it's not like she has to know about aaaaallllll the parts? Engineers rule applies in my opinion, if knows of over 50% of the parts, I round up to 100%.:thumb:
 
While Talon is off getting is suspension aligned, I've got the opportunity to complete the assembly and installation of a carbon fiber trunk and lexan rear window. This will def. shave a bunch of weight off the rear, hopefully lowering the center of gravity, and improve vehicle performance w/o making it too tail happy. (the latter point has already made me begin considering lower spring rates)

I picked up the rear lexan from @ec17pse group buy: https://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/2...formed-poly-carbonate-window-1-window.525273/. Bobby did a great job setting this up and as the post states ACW can now make them by request. The quality is excellent and ACW was great to work with. https://www.acwmotorsportplastics.co.uk

I picked up the carbon hatch ~3-4 years ago and I was told it was Seibon but to me it doesn't really matter as it fits up well and will look great once it's painted. Below is my plan to install the lexan to the hatch.

Step 1: Use cleco pins spaced spaced ~4-6 inches apart to locate, mock-up and secure rear window to the rear deck lid. If anyone has experience with the correct spacing distance or know of an SCCA / NASA rule dictating this, please feel free to post below.

Step 2: I decided to go with 6 or 8mm Rivenuts and picked up this tool from Amazon to make install easier and faster so that the rear deck lid can be removed should it need to be serviced or replaced later if it starts to discolor.

  • Should If the rivenuts end up cracking the carbon or simply don't work, I'll either have to rivet them in (not ideal) or maybe use zues fasteners. The latter option will require me to cut into the underside of the rear carbon layer in order for them to be secured.
Step 3: After all of the rivenuts are installed and test fit, the window will be glued in with 3M Black Super Weatherstrip and Gasket Adhesive to prevent leaks. These tubes were ~$15 each from NAPA and are much smaller than I would have liked. Hopefully 2, 5oz tubes is going to be enough to cover the entire circumference of the rear window.

After all that's done I need to figure out what Im going to do about inside of the hatch. I would love to mount the factory plastic pieces but the hatch doesn't have mounting holes. In addition, there's no sound deadening and I would really like to be able to use this on the street w/o it rattling my teeth.

If anyone has any suggestion on how to mount the factor plastic pieces lemme know!!

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Dan Partelo picked up Talon a couple of weeks ago to get the suspension set up. He offered great service and asked good questions while setting it up. Below is the cross weights, along with his set-up sheet should any of you guys wish to utilize the same settings.

As you can see, Talon has not been hitting the gym like I've told him to and he's bulked up to a whopping 3,300lbs! Time to diet! :cry:

While setting the car up, Dan noticed that the front wheels have been hitting the BC Racing external reservoir. Unlike most external reservoir shocks, this one is has the reservoir bolted to the shock body. Most use a steel beaded line that allows the reservoir to be mounted somewhere more convenient or easily accessible.

I noticed contact as-well but thought it was do to poor alignment. Without using wheel spacers Dan was able to get 20 deg. of steering angle or ~3/4 of a turn on the steering wheel. This will be fine for road racing but is going to be a challenging for moving around the paddock or for the street.

New Project: Contact BC racing in Orlando to see if I can send them my shocks and have the reservoir mounted on a flex line. This will give the clearance needed for full steering lock.

I really can't say enough kind words about Dan. He's a good man, honest, knowledgeable, and his prices are very fair. Link to FB page below:

https://www.facebook.com/DanParteloRaceCars



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While Dan had the Talon I attempted to start work on the CF rear hatch, which... has def. been a learning experience.

Before drilling any holes, I measured the inner perimeter of hatch using some string. After making a full loop, I untaped it and stretch it out on the garage floor using a 25' tape measure. It came out to a very satisfying 12'. So doing some quick math, using nutscerts spaced at 6" apart, a total of 24 nutscerts are required to encapsulate the lexan rear window.

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"But Roger..." I can hear you all saying, "...24 is a terrible number! It means that you have a starting hole that's off-center! Somewhere between 5 and 7 o'clock but not 6 o'clock! OUR COLLECTIVE OCD CAN NOT HANDLE THIS NUMERICAL INJUSTICE! YOU WILL BE BANISHED TO THE NETHER REALM OF 1G LIFE SHOULD YOU CONTINUE DOWN THIS PATH!"

Fear not my Queens of Internet Judgements, there is a solution. By using a 5-3/4" spacing, a more harmonious number of "25" nutscerts can be used with the starting hole being located in the proper 6'oclock position. You may now un-grasp your silky white blouses, have a laudanum to ease the nerves, take a week of rest so that you can recover from the almost tragedy that was the number "24".

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The nutscert kit, came with a bunch of different sizes both English and Metric but I decided to use Metric to keep things consistent. I was debating between using 6 mm and 8 mm bolts and in the end decide to go with 6 mm. If for some reason one of the nutscerts has an issue in the future, this gives the opportunity to drill the hole out slightly larger and install the next largest size w/o making it look crazy.

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Having not much experience working with CF or lexan, I decided to run through entire install process using the first nutscert. That way, if something goes terribly wrong, I'll only have 1 hole to or repair not 25. Aaaaaannnnndddd this is where things start to get interesting.... first Cleco went in great. Easy to drill and the lexan didn't melt. Cool.

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Drilled the hole for the nutscert, no problem. Slide the nutscert on the install tool, start applying a little bit of pressure to clamp, and then I start to hear cracking... rut roe... So I stopped, didn't see anything visibly wrong. But I know this this nutscert barely has enough pressure on it to hold it in place. So after fiddling with it for a little while and another couple frosty beverages of "Encouragement", I just say "eff it" and go give it the beans. See end result below:

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The lessen here kids, is that, if you know something is a bad idea bad idea you go FULL COMMIT!

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What was that I was saying earlier about not having to fix many mistakes... just one? Just do I say, not as I do.

After the over confidence of the first one install and a few days later, I decided to retry on the 2nd using less pressure. I only used a mild / medium amount of clamping pressure on the 2nd attempt. I then gave it some pretty firm "whacks" with the dead blow to see if it would pop out and low and behold it didn't! So moving forward I'll probably glue AND mechanically fasten each nutscert in place just to be extra sure.

Once I get everything finished up I'll have another update with the rear hatch installed.
 
Sooooo I bought another transmission thing. I promised my Fiancé this was going to be last transmission part I would buy. It also happens to be final parts on my list :)

These Frontline Fabrication parts are super awesome and I can not recommend them enough.

The plan now is to send everything to Mr. Zimmer after the motor is built.
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I woke up Monday morning @ morning 0300 that there are probably different kind of Rivenuts... DOH! The bottle of tequila that cause me to wake up at 0300 with a splitting headache also cause me to remember that McMaster Carr has a solution to every problem. And so some “yellow sink chrome plated steel” M6 revnuts designed for use in composites were ordered! Solving the problem of cracking the composites.

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here’s a comparison of the rivet nuts used for sheetmetal and composite

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The additional length did not seem like a problem till I tried to thread it on my installation tool. It took me awhile to figure out, but I was able to use some washers to get some additional thread endgame to on the mandrel and to take up some slack in compression arms.

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I forgot to take some pics of them installed but overall it cam out great! No cracked carbon and good thread engagement.

Here’s what it looks like after you’ve squished one down all the way.
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You will always find a solution and you being you i know you search like crazy for an idea or way to make it work better
 
Thanks Bobby! I just wish the simple solution took less time to figure out, haha.
Sometimes it dont enter your mind till your doing the job and figure the issue to begin with. I sometimes randomly stumble across things of interest and i save the pages but normally forget what i saved and what it would be good for haha
 
Sometimes it dont enter your mind till your doing the job and figure the issue to begin with. I sometimes randomly stumble across things of interest and i save the pages but normally forget what i saved and what it would be good for haha


I do the exact. Same. Thing.
 
I do the exact. Same. Thing.
We too alike dude. Always thinking of a solution before its happened. I think our jobs make us this way or we just like that in general in life
 
Not a whole lot to update, cars been down for a couple weeks due to trying to put an exhaust on the car. FYI, the STM downpipe is not compatible with the factory O2 housing due to the DP inlet being 3”. You need to get their O2 housing or an o2 housing that’s got slotted flange bolts that can fit a 2-1/2” or 3” DP inlet.

While it was down, my friend and I detailed the car and gave it a new nickname! It’s now called “too smooth” due to the paint looking so good and my smooth driving style!

More big updates to come soon!

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