| MIATA BUILD |
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 | | March 26, 2010 - I drove the car home from the shop tonight and took the interstate to see how the car felt at higher speeds.
The answer: sketchy. This may have had something to do with some fairly extreme winds, of course. I pulled off at the first exit and tweaked the shocks a bit, and that might have solved it although I wasn't able to test at over 40 mph after that. I want to do more testing - the car feels a bit darty. I'm not there on the shocks yet, I know that. I'll take the car up the Targa Simulation Road tomorrow if the weather is good and see how it behaves.
Ah, the weather. I drove home in spitting, then light rain. Then the rain drops got a little viscous and started building up on the wipers. Just the sort of weather I'd feared during the race. The good news is that the defogger system works and the car felt pretty sure-footed.
Speaking of the race, the airing of the 2009 TV show is on Speed tomorrow at 6 pm Eastern. It'll be shown again once or twice. Plan your day accordingly!
entry 733 - tags: TV, shocks, springs | | |  | February 24, 2012 - Change in plans.
The 550 lb springs I had on hand were 8" long. Well, that meant a very high minimum rear ride height. Too high for my current purposes. So I swapped them out for some slightly more compliant and shorter 450 lb springs that were in the garage. I'll see how the rate feels and possibly order in some 550s if I prefer those. One nice thing about the softer rear is it means I have a bit more latitude for tuning the balance via sway bar. I don't have secondaries on the rears, although I might add some later.
With all the spring tomfoolery done, the car's back on the ground. It's low compared to the Targa stance! Right about 2" lower. Definitely not ready for Newfoundland.
entry 1017 - tags: suspension, springs | | |  | October 28, 2013 - Curious.
The new valve springs look exactly like the old ones. I checked further, and the 12625033 is the standard spring on an LS3. So I was swapping these out for nothing.
The older 12586484 part number was an LS6 spring, and they were typically yellow. Interestingly, they also have the exact same spring rates as the current LS3 spring, with the only difference being a max lift of 0.570" instead of 0.550".
Just for fun, I peeked under the valve covers of a true LS367/525 engine and what did I see? Blue springs.
Busted! GM doesn't actually change the springs on these engines anymore. Even if they did, the rates aren't any different. The max lift isn't an issue, as the 0.525" max lift is the same as that found on the 480 hp "hot cam".
So I wasted some time and money, but I learned something. Isn't that how it always goes?
entry 1104 - tags: engine, 6.2, cam, valve springs | | |
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