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The Blackbird Fabworx Morpheus Miata!

  • Mike Kojima

,

Like most of the car, Morpheus has a pretty elegant front suspension. Miatas have pretty good suspension to begin with, and the folks at Blackbird Fabworx massaged it to work exceedingly well. Blackbird Fabworx worked with Penske to develop a set of 8300 double adjustable remote reservoir dampers. 

The control arm bushings have been replaced with hard Energy Suspension polyurethane bushings. The bushings have been modified with sleeve bearings inserts for less static friction, a really cool innovation. The arms have been modified to be fully adjustable in both camber and caster. 

Blackbird Fabworx also modified the wheel wells for more tire clearance of the greatly lowered chassis against the Hoosier slicks. 

 

The front lower control arms have extended shank ball joints to help correct the camber curve and roll center of the lowered suspension.

The swaybar end link mounts on the lower control arms have been converted over to double shear for more strength. Also, note the brake cooling ducts that properly ventilate the center of the rotor and cool the hub bearings. 

 

The front swaybar is a lightweight tubular two-way adjustable part from Racing Beat. The front springs are a pretty darned stiff 1000 in/lbs.

The front suspension is set up with 3.6 degrees of negative camber, 4 degrees of positive caster and zero toe. 

 

The rear suspension is very simple with extended travel two-way adjustable Penske 8300 rear shocks with 550 in/lb rear springs. The upper shock mounts are integrated into the roll cage, giving more room for a longer shock and having the strong cage take up the rear suspension loads. 

This solves the lack of rear wheel travel issue that NA and NB Miatas suffer from.  A stock rear anti sway bar is used. Moti believes that you don't want too much roll stiffness in the rear as it hurts corner exit traction. 

The control arms pivot on the same Energy Suspension bushings as the front, modified with low friction bearing sleeves. The car is set up with a static rake, keeping in mind that the rear squats a lot with aero loading.  Finding the right rake is critical for good high-speed handling and is an ongoing process. 

With this in mind, Moti is planning to develop a third spring setup using pushrods and rising rate rocker arms to help separate roll and bump stiffness. This will accommodate aero loading while not being too stiff otherwise. Third spring suspensions were popular in open wheel and prototypes in the early 2000's and never caught on in sports cars due to regulations. 

The rear alignment is currently set at 2.5 degrees of negative camber and zero toe.

 

The rear differential uses the OEM T1 Torsen LSD with a 4.778 ratio final drive from a Kia Sportage front differential!  Stock driveshaft and axles are used, and the differential is mounted in delrin bushings, getting rid of the stock soft rubber parts that potentially allow for wheel hop. 
 

The rear brakes are stock size with Centric slotted rotors and StopTech brake pads and steed braided brake lines. 

 

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The Nissan Figaro: Back to the Future

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2 comments
  1. Tom says:
    February 20, 2019 at 3:14 pm

    What did they do with the other 1% of the weight? 52.5+46.5 only equals 99%

    Reply
    1. Moti @ BlackbirdFabworx says:
      December 7, 2020 at 11:45 am

      We lightened the car so much that we managed to get it under 100% weight, this car only had 99%!

      Reply

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