Starting out

With Nationals now over, Mollie (the blue BSP car,) can now move from daily driver status to a BSP car.  With that being the case, let's start with where we currently are.

The car is a 2016 Mazda MX-5 Miata with the GT package.  This is the top of the line package with leather interior, Bose sound system, blind spot monitoring, lane departure warning, automatic headlights, rain sensing wipers, etc.

I had already done a number of modifications to move the car in the right direction.  It has Dynamic coilovers with Swift Springs in 728/448 F/R rates, a Mazda Motorsports front speedway style swaybar with 0.188 wall thickness set in the middle, Flyin Miata Little Big Brake kit, AVO short tube header, Goodwin Racing midpipe, Goodwin Racing Super Q for Header muffler, and a Ecutek tune.  So the car basically has a very similar build to my STR car, although some of the lightening such as seats, battery, etc. had not yet been done.

To start the build, I decided it would be good to document the starting weight.  Pics below, but the car is starting with 15,809 miles and a little over a 1/4 tank of gas.  The starting weight is 2278 with the stock BBS wheels and 205/45/17 Bridgestone tires from my STR car.

So, now the rest of the build can start.  First up will be some weight reductions, mostly in the way of stereo removal, seatbelt removal, race seat swap, and 15x11 949 Racing wheels with 275/35/15 Hoosier tires.

More to come.

List of things to do

This will be far from a conclusive list, but I wanted to start posting a to do list while reading through the rules.  Some of these items have already been done, but I will try to document them where I can.

• Remove stock seat belts
• Swap stock seats for race seats from STR car (25 pounds each, minus seat belt receivers)
• Swap stock steering wheel for race wheel with quick release
• Add front splitter
• Add rear spoiler
• Remove stock stereo, Bose components, CD player, XM components, and speakers (make plates for resulting holes)
• Remove "fog" lights and replace with brake ducts
• Remove rear view mirror
• Remove lane departure camera (per update/backdate)
• Remove rain sensing wiper assembly (per update/backdate)
• Remove visors?
• Add 15x11 wheels and 275/35/15 Hoosiers to start (update to 15x12 and 295/30/15 Hoosiers when available)
• Add flares to cover wheels/tires
• Replace wheel studs with ARP extended studs
• Replace stock lugnuts with 949 Racing aluminum lugnuts
• Replace stock shocks/springs with Dynamic coilovers and Swift springs.  Starting springs rates to be 728/448 F/R
• Replace stock brake calipers with Flyin Miata Little Big Brake Kit
• Add Pagid pads from Mazda Motorsports
• Replace stock front rotors with 2 piece rotors from Karcepts
• Add air ducts for brakes
• Replace stock front swaybar with Mazda Motorsports speedway style bar
• Replace stock rear swaybar with Mazda Motorsports rear bar
• Add offset bushings to front suspension to get 3+ degrees of negative camber
• Replace other suspension bushings with Delrin
• Replace rear differential mount with JBR mount (per reliability/durability rule)
• Replace stock battery with Battery Tender BTL35A480C Lithium Iron Phosphate battery
• Replace stock exhaust with AVO header, Goodwin midpipe (replace converter with a resonator?,) and Fujitsubo muffler
• Research replacing stock motor mounts
• Replace stock flywheel with Fidanza aluminum flywheel (research getting "race" clutch made)
• Replace stock differential with differential from automatic for better gearing
• Add Cusco LSD to automatic differential (supposedly the same as the Fiat unit)
• Remove A/C?  (Need to find alternate idler pulley or shorter belt)
• Research alternate pulleys for engine
• Remove plastic upper engine shield
• Install Mazda Motorsports oil cooler

ND for BSP

I'll get into more detail soon, but wanted to get this information out there.

For those unaware, I've been working with Mazda Motorsports for the past two years on developing parts for the ND Miata (2016+ Mazda MX-5.)  The development started with parts for CS and then quickly moved to parts for STR.  The past two seasons have been spent developing the STR car, and our results have been quite good, with a 4th place and 5th place at the National Championships.  While I would love to keep running in STR and going for the Championship, the plan from the start was to move from STR to BSP and then DP.  So, after competing at the National Championships this past week with my STR ND and finishing in 5th place out of 77, it's now time to move on to building the BSP car.

Because of my work with Mazda Motorsports, a good portion of the STR build was documented in articles on their website.  Here is a link to those articles:  https://www.mazdamotorsports.com/?s=ron+bauer .

At the National Championships, I spoke with a number of people that expressed that they had been watching the start of my BSP build through Facebook.  I even talked to a few people that weren't in Miatas that told me they had enjoyed my previous build information on the Jalapeno (my 2011 Mazda MX-5 for DP,) on this site.  This was humbling and cool at the same point.

So, I've decided to document the BSP and DP builds of the ND on here as well.  I'll still continue to write articles for Mazda Motorsports, but the nuts and bolts of the build will be further in depth here.  Please feel free to contact me with any questions, either through here, or through Facebook on either my personal page or my Bauerspeed Racing page.  I also am on Twitter at @Bauerspeed.

More to come.  First up, documenting what can be easily done under the Street Prepared ruleset.