LocostUSA.com

Ask the factory guys what they think. The great advantage of having a kit, and it seems a nice one too, is that they have gone thru all this. So they have the knowledge from actual experience. It seems stock they expect the balance to be at least reasonable with one size master cylinder.

I would avoid an adjuster until your sure, from actual testing, that you need it ( the "bias lever" thingie).

This stuff can also change depending on your tire size choices, like if you opt for a slightly bigger rear tire etc.



I would expect the pressure to balance between the circuits so I don't think you would notice something like that.

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Marcus Barrow - Car9 an open design community supported sports car for home builders!
SketchUp collection for LocostUSA: "Dream it, Build it, Drive it!"
Car9 Roadster information - models, drawings, resources etc.

Steve - Congrats on the kit arriving...and WOW - you've already test fitted the engine/tranny!!!!

I've also been looking into the brakes...mine also just came w/ a single master cylinder. One thought was to stick w/ the single cylinder and run something like this:



I need to bug the other MNR guys and see what they're running...but so far most of them have dual cylinders, so I wonder if MNR was just being cheaper, or possible there's not as much room in the engine bay w/ a car engine (most MNR's are BEC)

-Peter

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Building a MNR Vortx w/ '99 Miata donor: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=9631

The crate






The unpacking begins




On axle stands and suspension held together so I can see whats missing




Showing how the diff is mounted. Two tabs bolted to the chassis and into lugs on the diff and a plate welded to the chassis for the node





Chassis and suspension



Crate cut up and in my truck 2 hours after the delivery



Front suspension





Rear suspension



Motor without transmission slapped in



The part of the Miata motor mount that isn't needed and I'm not using. My motor mount rubbers are split so I'll have to replace them



Motor mounts




My garage is a mess! I just moved into this house and I'm getting organized. No more progress for a couple weeks while I'm away on vacation in England.

-Steve

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Mk Indy 7: http://locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=9000

thanks for the pics - really interesting to see some of the differences between our 2 chassis (MNR vs MK).

Looks like the front Coolant neck is kinda close to the chassis...if you have issues w/ clearance, think about doing a coolant re-route; the coolant gets routed out the back of the head, and it looks like you've got a lot more room back there...plus, it's better for cooling.

What size tubing is the frame?

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Building a MNR Vortx w/ '99 Miata donor: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=9631

That looks really nice. Doesn't appear that the rear toe is adjustable or is there something I'm not seeing? A single master will work fine, but don't bother with adjustable prop valve, you'll need all of the available braking and more just for the rears.

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He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

Is that b/c the rear brakes are smaller than the front...so even though they'll see the same line pressure, the actual braking forces will be reduced in the rear?

would you put the adjustable proportioning valve on the front brakes?

*In all of the miata's I've autoX'd, the fronts always locked up first...but that was with the OEM distribution, which has some sort of bias set into it, right? (We would mess with using different brake pads to shift the brake bias...but that's b/c we were running in STS and a proportioning valve wasn't legal)

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Building a MNR Vortx w/ '99 Miata donor: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=9631

I think Chet is saying this because these cars have more weight bias to the rear and they are lower so less weight moves to the front. Maybe that means you should put the bias adjustment on the front circuit. Honestly, I don't know and for some reason (ignorance) I'm suspicious of those things.

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Marcus Barrow - Car9 an open design community supported sports car for home builders!
SketchUp collection for LocostUSA: "Dream it, Build it, Drive it!"
Car9 Roadster information - models, drawings, resources etc.

Mazdaspeed motor mounts are a nice upgrade to the stockers.
They are made of 40% stiffer rubber compared to stock, so you get more accurate shifter action without much tradeoff on NVH.

Best of all, they're only $80 for the pair.

Moti

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Moti

My R1 powered Locost build log

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Quite right, there are a couple options including rerouting the cooling. The neck is just bolted to the head so making another neck is not too difficult also.



1" square for most of it, the round stuff appears to be 3/4".



That's true, rear toe is not adjustable with those control arms. Even if the lowers were able to do it, the uppers would also constrict it. It's on my list of 'improvements' after the car is running. Also, the inboard suspension pushrods all use right handed rod ends, so adjustment requires removal of one of the rod ends ... another 'improvement'.



Awesome!

Thanks everyone ...

-Steve

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Mk Indy 7: http://locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=9000

Marcus is right on the money. With equal line pressure front and rear, my Miata based locost would lock up the front tires long before I was able to get the rears to full grip. I considered running the valve to the front circuit but was convinced it wouldn't be a productive endeavor. Those valves only work for a short moment until pressures equalize in the lines since all they do is place a restriction in the line. IIRC other miata based 7 clones (K.Tanner and the FM Westfields) they have gone to the larger "sport" discs in the rear (you just need a different caliper bracket, it uses the same caliper) and reported it helped balance things out a bit.

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He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

Nice looking kit. Its great to see a couple kit builds going on as well.

Any idea how those diff mounts hold up over time?

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-Andrew
Build Log
Youtube

Sven,

Thanks a million for the pics. You have answered all of my major questions. The kit looks much more complete than I thought. Looking on their website it looked as if it came with less. Would you mind uploading your order list. I know you ended up around 13k. Just curious as to what extra parts you added after the basic kit.

I plan on ordering in November and working through the winter to get it up and running, but I will be using a bike engine.


Thanks again, really good photos.

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Ali ---

-- Push the pedal on the right, the one in the middle is for wussies ---
- Link to build blog- http://BluLi7ard.blogspot.com/

Sure, aside from the kit specified on the website I also ordered the following options:

Full Cage
2 x Seats and runners
Gas tank
Aeroscreen
Wiring Loom
Radiator
Radiator fan
modified headers and rear silencer
Modified drive shaft

Looking forward to your build too ... it'll help me a lot to have a few people building various Miata based kits. I may go bike engine later, once I get this one running ...

-Steve

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Mk Indy 7: http://locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=9000

to continue this discussion...I've been reading in a lot of the miata forums, and it looks like they're not saying the same thing.

Fly'n Miata shows a graph of OEM Front vs Rear line pressures...all of the OEM miata's lock up the front prior to the rear, so if you removed the OEM brake proportioning valve, the rears would see more brake pressure compared to OEM.
http://www.flyinmiata.com/tech/stock_bpv.php

For more info on how proportioning valves work, StopTech has a good article: http://www.stoptech.com/tech_info/wp_pr ... lves.shtml

*when going to a locost, the brake balance will change...a lower, shorter wheel base, and more firmly sprung car will transfer less weight to the front tires - thus you'd want to shift the braking force towards the rear. The real question is how much do all of these factors change the braking balance...removing the OEM proportioning valve will shift more braking force to the rear - is that enough to counter act a lower, stiffer car? Sounds like no - I'll either go w/ the larger rear brakes or just install an adjustable proportioning valve on the front brakes.

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Building a MNR Vortx w/ '99 Miata donor: viewtopic.php?f=35&t=9631

My plan is to use the tilton 3 pedal assemby. Based on the master cylinder sizes and the adjustment rod you can then fine tune the bias to the front or rear. I had this in a previous GT3 SCCA car and it worked well.

So for the front you use the larger master cylinder and for the rear you use the smaller, then based on the adjustment rod on the brake pedal you can fine tune the pressure ratio between the 2. I think tilton even has instructions on how to initially set it up based on the lbs per square inch needed.

If you want something to adjust on the fly (Which I think is overkill) then you can connect the cable adjustment.

Here is the one I plan on buying

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Ali ---

-- Push the pedal on the right, the one in the middle is for wussies ---
- Link to build blog- http://BluLi7ard.blogspot.com/