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Yesterday I cleaned my street wheels (19" OZ Ultraleggera HLT in Matte Black). I'm not sure when they were cleaned last but they had a lot of brake dust caked on them. I bought a 26" diameter hot water heater drip pan at Home Depot and set up a wheel cleaning station on a folding table in my garage. First, I removed the old wheel weight adhesive with Goof Off. Then I removed the brake dust with Griot's Heavy Duty Wheel Cleaner and a small nylon brush. I gave each wheel a coat of Griot's Ceramic 3-in-1 Wax so that hopefully it won't be as big of a project next time. I finished up with a coat of Black Shine on the tires.
This morning I replaced the frunk lift struts. The old one's weren't horrible but once in a while a gust of wind would blow it down, usually when I had my head underneath. The new one's are noticeably stronger.
A few more thoughts from the track day at Thunderhill. I ran the tires at 32.5F/33R PSI HOT. The temperature spread on the tires looked pretty good. The rears could probably go down .5 - 1 PSI. The track has 9 LH corners and 5 RH corners. The LH tires were hotter than the RH tires. All four tires were hotter on the RH edge.
Tire temps. I always took them RF, RR, LR, LF and inside to outside. I should have retaken the RF to see how quickly the temperatures were dropping.
The car was pretty solid everywhere. It looks like I could use a little more camber on the RH side, but that would be track dependent. If I could make one change I'd like to loosen up the rear a little. The only adjustments I can make are camber or tire pressures though. I should probably just leave it alone and work on my driving.
I've been super busy at work for over a month and haven't had much time to play lately. I’m heading to Thunderhill West for the first time tomorrow. I swapped out the track tires, wheels and brakes last night. I think I set a personal record. It was less than 45 minutes total.
There’s been a rattle in the back of my car for a while. Sometimes it rattles. Sometimes it sounds springy like a diving board. I was loading up the trunk this afternoon and I realized that the twist fastener that holds the cover for the taillight is completely loose. It was a nice quiet ride tonight.
I ran Thunderhill West for the first time on Saturday. Honestly, it was a perfect track for my car, tight, twisty, technical and a short front straight. I ran 6 sessions and my times improved each session. It was basically impossible to pass without a point by, but I didn't have too many issues with being held up. I tried running staggered pressures to help the car rotate a bit more and it made a huge difference. I would up running 31/33PSI and the tire temperatures looked really even on all four corners.
I was in a group with a few new BRZ/GR86/ND Miatas, all with differing amounts of modifications. They all seemed to all run around the same times as my base Cayman. Another base Cayman owner and I were talking and he referred to it as a fast Miata. That's basically how I feel about the car too. I basically paid what a new BRZ costs. It's more refined than a BRZ/GR86 but it isn't significantly faster (I think they both have ~220 RWH).
One more datapoint: I've been using RaceChrono with a Racebox Mini GPS. I also ran a transponder on Saturday and my lap times from RaceChrono were within .1 seconds of the transponder times.
I'm running close to the same camber specs as you. Thanks for the tire pressure/temp info. I think if we ran closer to -3.0 in the front it'd be more neutral and there wouldn't be the need for the higher rear pressure. I'm running the OEM arms, which are great for my use, but don't have quite as much adjustability as some of the aftermarket LCAs.
I'm trying two new tracks this year. Would love to make it out to Cali sometime and try Thunderhill along with the others.
The temperatures are VERY even. 5 degree spread on the RF and 6 on the RR. They both could use a *little* more camber. There's a .3 degree differential F/R on the right hand side too. At this point anything I do would be fine tuning.
According to the spreadsheet I'm still understeering a little (5degree hotter average in the front). I have a set of 3mm shims I could add. Another .3 degrees of camber in the front could help. That would put me around -2.7F / -1.8 R. I'll think about it.
The video set up is RaceChrono on iPhone, Racebox Mini, OBDLink MX+, and an older Sony ActionCam. So, $19 + $200 + 140 + what ever camera you want to use. My only complaint with this set up is that there is an involved process to copy the video to the phone and another involved process to align the video with the data. It would be easier on a PC, but RaceChrono doesn't support PC.
I love driving this car and drive it every chance I get. I don't baby it. So it gets DIRTY. Last week I cleaned the wheels and then applied a coat of Griot's Black Shine to the tires and wheels. Yesterday I had some free time in the afternoon so I pressure washed the heavy stuff off, foamed and then hand washed the car. After it was dry I wiped the entire car down with detailing spray.
After dinner we took a family drive. When we got back I was drooling at the reflection off the door.
Does that stuff stay on the tire or get flung all over the car like 95% of tire shine products out there? I'm looking for something that sticks.
Car looks great!
It seems to stay where you put it. You spray it on, let it soak for a while, and then wipe off with a sponge. If you do it right there isn't anything left to fling around.
Another base Cayman owner and I were talking and he referred to it as a fast Miata.
I agree. I previously owned an NA and sold an ND to get the Cayman. It's similar but adds all the Porsche cool-ness of the looks, sound, build quality, and mid-engine layout. I have no desire to go back to a Miata, though I still think they're great.
Re: tire dressing - Ive been using CarPro Perl for a while and like it. The Griot's stuff sounds very similar.
I agree. I previously owned an NA and sold an ND to get the Cayman. It's similar but adds all the Porsche cool-ness of the looks, sound, build quality, and mid-engine layout. I have no desire to go back to a Miata, though I still think they're great.
Soooo true. I have an NC Miata and I do find lots of similarities between the two cars.
The one thing I love the Miata for is summer errand running. As long as I'm not buying sheets of plywood, it's perfect. Park it anywhere, gets happy looks everywhere, top-down fun.
Only problem now is that the Cayman took its place in the garage, so I need to store the Miata somewhere else.
Yesterday I removed the front bumper cover and cleaned out the radiators. I had put this off for a while because I needed to order a replacement for the broken LH grill. I haven't had any overheating issues and the maximum temperature I've seen on the track was ~216F but I thought it would be a good idea. Turns out I was right. No idea when the last time they were cleaned but a good sized pile fell out of both cooling ducts and there was still a bunch stuck to the radiators.
Today I took the car to a professional car audio installer (as opposed to the asshat who installed the previous stereo) and had a Sony XAV-AX4000 head unit installed. The installer said it took about an hour to remove the rats nest of wires and connectors before he could even start on installing the new unit. He soldered all of the connections to the factory harness, got the Bose amp connected through the MOST adapter, replaced the non-functional microphone and got the reverse camera working.
Since my car doesn't have steering wheel controls I really wanted physical buttons for the volume, mute, and switching channels. It also has wireless Apple Carplay.
01-31-2023, 09:07 PM
