For the second year in a row, I won the ITA championship for SOPAC region. This year I destroyed everyone. I won 9 races and finished 2nd in only one. It was an amazing year. I could not believe how dominant my SE-R was.

It could have been the suspension rebuild that I did in the off season. Pro-parts, the Mazda 6 Touring car builders, rebuilds my suspension. It was shot after two years of racing. They re-valved the dampers to work with 600 front springs and 800 rear springs. The camber/caster plates from GC were also shot, so I had them rebuilt. Then I took the car for corner weighting and alignment at West End.

The highlights/lowlights of the season:

1. In the first race weekend there was a Mazda Miata running in ITA and Spec Miata. He was posting very strong times at Cal Speedway, two minutes or less in a Spec Miata!!!! On Saturday he won by a mile and I finished second. I show up on Sunday and he is nowhere to be found. In the Sat Spec Miata race he won as well, but when his car was inspected a high compression engine was revealed, so he was DQed. Lesson: Do not cheat, if you get caught it will be very embarassing.

2. In the last lap of qualifying on Sunday in Feb at Big Willow I had the wierdest cylinder head failure ever. The throttle blade screw worked itself loose and was swallowed by the engine. It made definite damage to the valvetrain. My very low mileage junkyard engine was ruined I went home, searched my favorite Junkyard website and got an engine from Fontana with 60K miles on it. Did the swap ON MY OWN and was back racing by mid March. Did not miss any races. I did not even test the engine. Just changed oil and plugs and took it racing. It ran and won both races.

3. Best race of the year came on 5/16/2009 at BW CCW 1A. This was an amazing race. A Miata and I raced almost from the start of the race to the very end. He passed me once and then on the same lap I passed him back coming into turn 1A, a decreasing radius turn. I passed the Spec Miata for the simple reason that he was following a racing line going into the decreasing radius turn. So he left the door wide open for me to come on the inside and take the position from him. He even mentioned that the move took him by surprise. He thought that I am going to follow his racing line. I did not. After that pass I kept him behind me and made my car wide enough for him not be able to pass w/o blocking him.

I finished ahead of him by 0.829second , but he had the faster lap. Check out the times here http://www.calclub.com/html/html2/2009/group5r_05_16_09.pdf

Just like last year, I won WITHOUT a pit crew, WITHOUT any sponsors, WITHOUT any shops supporting me, and I DROVE my own car. I did it the HARD way.

Next year there will be a regional ITA championship with drivers coming from around the Southern Pacific region to compete. It should be very very interesting.

Here are some pictures from this year's racing:

http://www.sr20deracing.com/race_miata.jpg
http://www.sr20deracing.com/race_t2.jpg
http://www.sr20deracing.com/race_win.jpg

Naji, congratulations on the championship, especially since you did it the hard way.

Badass,dude ,love to see someone reppin the sr FWD on the track on that level!!
Big congrats to you.

nice a nissan has taken the flag!!!!

congrats! you have the same sunroof as me -- wal-mart drip pan? :lol:

What mods do you have if you don't mind? I'm not familiar with SCCA rules, but I'm shooting for PTE or PTF in SCCA and wasn't sure what route I should take with the car. TIA

Here's the IT rules:
http://www.scca.com/documents/Club%20Rules/09%20GCR/ITCS.pdf

And here's the whole SCCA rulebook:
http://cms.scca.com/documents/Club%20Forms/2010%20Tech%20Forms/2010%20GCR-January.pdf

nice, beating miatas on a track with a fwd rear beam suspension is crazy

Congratualtions!

That's a very impressive performance!

Ditto on Miatas.

It takes talent in a B14 to beat one with a good driver. It sounds like you had your hands full all season long. So this performance speaks highly of your driving-racing skills.

Same for your ability to figure out the car and get it working.

If Grassroots Magazine gave out an award, you'd get my vote for the grassroots performance of the year. You did the whole deal yourself and got the results we would all like to get. That's mighty impressive for one of SCCA's tougher classes.

Ok, you started to tell us about the car. How about the full rundown on your setup for the rest of the B14 racers reading this thread?

You know what ya got for tires, wheels and sizes. Shocks and bars, intake and exhaust, pads and any of the setup stuff you found that made your B14 work so well for you.

Don't worry, if you spill the beans, you'll not have to worry about running against me unless global cooling sets in. (wink!)

Again congratulations on a job well done!

Phil

Ok...Here is the rundown on the car...I might edit it as I remember...So forgive me if I forget something

1. Junkyard engine with 60K miles on it. No internal work done.

2. Short ram intake. No CAI allowed. This is an improvement over previous years when only a filter at the end of the rubber hose was allowed.

2. Full UR pulley set. The most important ones are the crank and the water pump. The water pump is very important to cut down on overheating.

3. Header. OBX primary mated to HotShot secondary. They mate perfectly together. The OBX secondary has a lip where it seals to the primary (not good).

4. 2.25 inch exhaust that dumps behind the driver seat to the ground coupled to a 15 inch 2.25 inch diameter resonator to comply with sound rules. The car has never been flaged for being too loud.

5. Infiniti G20 5-speed 96 ECU. It removes the 109 mph speed limiter, and removes the 7100 rpm rev limiter for a mere $50-80. You can pay for the JWT ECU (I have one), but I prefer the G20's. The AFR curve on the G20 ECU is more consistent than that of the JWT ECU. The only thing I would like to do is lean out the AFR above 6800 rpm by about 0.5 of a point. I tested both back to back on a dyno and did not find much of a power gian from the JWT ECU. So now I have the JWT ECU as a spare ECU. You would think it would be the other way around. I am a huge fan of the G20 ECU. Buy one, you will not be disappointed.

6. Koni double adjustable suspension with 600 front and 800 rear spring rates. The first ever custom designed suspension for the B14. It is Kojima's design for his B14. He had True Choice (Koni suspension builder) make him the first one and I followed his lead with the 2nd one. I get it rebuilt every two years. Pro/Parts builds mine in CA. It is now an old design, but it still gets the job done. This re-build has been the best re-build by far. I experimented with a whole crap load of spring rates (you should see the collection of springs I have) throughout the racing seasons and finally settled on this one.

7. B13 front sway bar. The B14 is hollow and smaller in diameter. The B13 is much better. Contrary to popular belief, you need a front bar on McPherson strut cars to reduce the camber changes under cornering. This is NOT a Honda. Older FWD Hondas can run w/o a front bar due to their whisbone design.

8. Progress rear sway bar set on full stiff ALL the time. I do not know if Progress makes this or not, but that was the thickest solid bar I could find. Stillen had a thicker one but it was hollow.

9. Weight reduction. I cannot go under 2490 lbs after qualifying or a race. Ususally the car weighs 2500-2530 lbs with me in it and about 1/2 a gas tank.

wow, thanks. that helps a ton. good news is it looks like I'm headed in the right direction.

Congrats Naji, great year for you.

congrats!!!

Be careful you don't pass a national director Naji. Sentras are teh ov3rp0w3r! :D

Hey Naji, can you give me a line on where to source your ft struts? I have been looking every where with no luck.

Talk to Jeff @ Pro Parts, (818) 888-8904. He's the one who hooked up our G20: Koni 3011 fronts and they adapted 8611 stuff into our stock strut housings (and cut them down) for the rear.

I want to get involved in this world somehow. I dunno but its as if I have a natural talent when it comes to driving and I wanna see if its true or its just my head. How can I get started with this? SCCA? Help me send me some links please :(

Good job! Thanks for the pictures of your racing action.

Oh and congratulations where are my manners?!

I LOVE how much our cars look alike!!!

http://www.sr20deracing.com/race_win.jpg









http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r133/baub-e/IMG_7633-9.jpg

I want to get involved in this world somehow. I dunno but its as if I have a natural talent when it comes to driving and I wanna see if its true or its just my head. How can I get started with this? SCCA? Help me send me some links please :(
I would check out http://nasa-se.com/ or http://www.nasaracing.net/ Start with your street car in their HPDE program. That will give you a feel for just how good you really are. I bet though that you come away from your first event saying to yourself "I suck". They have events at VIR about 2 hours from you and others within a few hours drive.