Garage Woolery

For the longest time, Garage Woolery has had a problem with the stock Miata seats that were in the Pitcrew Roadster.  They were relatively heavy and didn’t offer the right kind of support.  Although we had performed the well known stock seat modification known as “the foamectomy” to lower the driver position in the car, we knew there was room for improvement (literally).

Although there are lots of other aftermarket seats available on the market, all of them suffered from one or more problems:  They were either too narrow (we couldn’t fit in them because we’re too fat), or they raised the driver position too high (and we were too tall), or the seat itself was too wide to fit into the Pitcrew Roadster.

The answer was found in the form of the Lotus Elise seat.  It is very lightweight, allows for lowered seating position, and is narrow enough to fit into the Pitcrew Roadster!

Although the Elise seat is great, it wasn’t quite perfect for our needs as the side thigh supports would cut into the back of our thighs a little bit.  This was corrected by cutting the supports down to about half their normal height.

After that, the only issue left was to fabricate brackets to mount the seat.  Garage Woolery got in touch with Rob (aka Ryokurob) from Clubroadster.net to solve this problem.  Rob fabricated a custom bracket that would fit perfectly into the Pitcrew Roadster:

Note that the bracket is asymetrical.  This allows it to take full advantage of the space that is available in the Pitcrew Roadster for mounting the seat.

For simplicity’s sake, we planned the seat to be nonadjustable.  Note that there are no adjustment holes in the bracket.

The bracket just about falls into place in the Pitcrew Roadster’s cockpit.  All the mounting holes lined right up!  And here’s the result after mounting the seat:

Notice how low and how far back the seat sits in the car.  After the seat was installed, our 6’1″, 250lb. driver was able to sit in the Pitcrew Roadster and fully extend his legs!  He also gained ~3″ of headroom, which allows for helmeted driving without worries of the helmet banging against the inside roof of the car or rollbar.

Today at Garage Woolery we finally put the Pitcrew roadster on the scales and weighed it.  We’ve been wondering for years just how much the car weighed after all the modifications that have been done to it.  So, how much does it weigh in street trim (full tank, street wheels/tires, both seats installed, hardtop on)?

A mere 1933lbs!

The car hasn’t been corner weighted yet, so the front/rear and cross weight figures will be adjusted to bring them closer together soon.  We’ll update the corner weighing info as soon as it’s done!

TRAP lip that is…Garage Woolery recently received a TRAP lip for the Pitcrew Roadster.  This is a limited run item made specifically to work with the Pitcrew nose.  We were amazed that we received the TRAP lip so quickly from Tetsuya Garage when it was ordered.  It literally took only a few days from ordering the lip to it’s arrival at the our doorstep from Japan!  Great work Tetsuya Garage (we highly recommend them)!

 Here are some pics with the TRAP lip scotch taped to the car to check for fitment:

It’s a great fit!    The TRAP lip will be configured to be removeable, and we plan to use it as part of a  front aero package for trackdays.  The lip will be painted to match the green/yellow stripes on the car (it will go to paint along with the fastback hardtop).  We are also planning to make an underpan/splitter that will mate up to the TRAP lip in increase front downforce, too!  Stay tuned for further developments.

So what does the cryptic title mean?  It means that the Garage Woolery Pitcrew Roadster needed track wheels, so we decided to equip it with 949 Racing’s 6UL 15×9 wheels!  We decided that the wheels would look best in bronze–and to add extra pizzaz, we also placed ”949RACING” stickers to the lips.  The result looked so nice that Emilio at 949 Racing thinks he’ll follow our lead and start doing it, too!

The contrasting white lettering on the lip is reminiscent of the white lettering which used to be found on racecar tire rubber.

Looks fast!  We look forward to mounting a set of Nitto NT-01′s on these wheels.

Garage Woolery modifies everything.  Even modifications get modified!  We’d like to offer you a sneak peak into the latest project for the Pitcrew Roadster:  fitting automotive glass to its Autokonnexion fastback top.  Here’s a pic of the Autokonnexion top equipped with the standard Lexan rear window:

Original Lexan rear window used by the Autokonnexion fastback top.

Notice how the Lexan is laid in place with very little to no curve to it.  Because it is laid relatively flat, the Lexan doesn’t have any structural rigidity to it and sags as a result.  Autokonnexion has addressed this by placing a support in the center of the window, but it’s an imperfect solution.

Garage Woolery had custom, compound curved auto glass made that will replace the Lexan window.  Notice the curve of the glass rises up and over the rear of the hardtop where the Lexan would’ve sat straight and level.  This will make the hardtop look more rounded, balancing the fastback’s lines with the lines of the car in a better way.

Custom auto glass rear window is now curved

This glass rear window cleans up the rearward lines of the Autokonnexion fastback significantly by being larger than the original Lexan window, utilizing compound curves,  eliminating the “Spoon hardtop” lines molded into the top, eliminating the center support beam for the Lexan window, and incorporating body seams into the window edge.  The resulting fastback top should have an OEM look to it when completed.  Here’s a preview shot:

Preview of glass rear window

For the track junkies/weight conscious folks out there– what’s the weight penalty for for using glass instead of Lexan here?  9.5 pounds difference.  Not bad for such a dramatic change.

Garage Woolery is now working on making custom rear quarter glass for the top as well.  We’ll post pics of the quarter windows when progress is made there!