*** MX-5 Miata Of the Month ***
January 2008Bubi Camus
Congratulations to Bubi Camus on the selection of his Miata as the MCP's Miata of the Month for January 2008. |
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January 2008Bubi Camus
Congratulations to Bubi Camus on the selection of his Miata as the MCP's Miata of the Month for January 2008. |
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Unlike most MCP members I found my car in really bad shape and I still ended up buying it. It was sitting under a makeshift roof, the front right of the car bearing the marks of a big accident the previous owner must have encountered. I wasn’t really interested in fixing the car, but I noticed some things about the car that made me decide to take on this project. The car bore a Eunos badge. It came with the 1.8l engine, Bilstein sport suspension, assorted chassis braces and a Torsen LSD. A bonus was the small items that improved the overall look of the car. It had chrome side view mirrors, stainless door sills and speaker panels, as well as a Nardi steering wheel with matching Nardi shift knob. So at that point my dad and I made a decision to repair the car and paint it in its original color, black. Little did I know that my dad had other plans. Not only did he want to repair the damaged car, but he also wanted to prepare the car to compete in the Miata Cup. I was a little skeptical. After all, the car would be considered a write-off in other countries. After all we weren’t going to repair it just for street use; it had to be good enough to race. So, we went ahead with the repair and soon after we started to prepare the car to compete in the open class of the Miata Cup.
With the experience we gained from by brother John’s Miata, I decided to design our own forced induction system for this car. I purchased the turbo from a Garrett dealer in Caloocan. I then went about designing all the plumbing to connect the turbo to the engine. With the turbo in place, and very little preparation, I took the car to Subic in the middle of 2002 to compete in its first race. Aside from the turbo setup, the car was bone stock. Stock suspension, stock brakes, and stock ECU. My main purpose for going to Subic was to shake down the car and see if it handled. I finished 5th in our first race, but more encouraging than that, the car felt good and it handled reasonably well with the stock suspension. At this point my dad and I decided to proceed with more extensive racing modifications. The engine was sent to Autoplus for headworks and internal modifications. I did improvements to the turbo plumbing, particularly the turbo manifold and downpipe. A programmable ECU was installed. The suspension was replaced with Bilstein coil-overs with higher spring rates, Jackson racing front and rear anti-sway bars were installed, and polyurethane bushings were installed. I improved the brakes by installing 4-pot KVR calipers on the front and putting Hawk performance brake pads on all four corners. I ran the car again at the end of 2002 and placed 2nd and 3rd. The car was starting to feel very competitive and it looked like we could continue the get good results in 2003. My expectations for 2003 were to finish in the top 3 in the first half of the season and then to notch our first win in the second half of the season. I knew that the competition was tough, Pocholo Ramirez was the defending champion, Joey Pery, and my brother John would all give me a run for my money. Luckily for me, the car turned out to be more competitive than I originally thought. In the second race of the season I finished 1st place, and we went on the notch six more wins and the 2003 Yokohama Miata Cup crown. The championship was totally unexpected, but it proved that hard work does pay off. However, the following year would prove to be a difficult one. Strong competition from Joey Pery and small problems here and there prevented me from defending my crown. Despite this, we still had three wins and ten second-place finishes that year. Further development on the car enabled us to bring up the horsepower from 220hp to 250hp with 220ft-lbs of torque. Despite the high horsepower the reliability of the car was pretty good. In two and a half years of running, the car only failed to finish once. My 2005 campaign began in December of 2004. I started testing the car in Subic to try and eliminate those nagging problems I experienced that year. My focus was on reliability and consistency, so that year I replaced all the water lines with silicon hoses and the oil lines with steel braided hoses. I discovered that the OEM fuel pump was better then the Jackson racing pump and I was able to sort out issues with the electricals of the car. The 2005 season proved to be a difficult one for Joey Pery as he encountered various problems with his car. For me, the testing paid off, and I ended up winning eleven of the twelve races I ran to reclaim the Miata Cup crown. In 2006, I took some time off from racing but I still was able to win three of the four races I joined, and it showed me that the car was still very competitive. In the time that I competed from 2002 until 2006, I notched twenty-four wins and fifteen second-place finishes in forty-five races with only three DNF’s (did not finish). My car took me to two Miata Cup championships, and the 2006 King of the Hill title. From a discarded piece of junk to a championship winning race car, it made me realize that you shouldn’t underestimate anything, especially a Miata. Bubi Camus |
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