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Autocross results, and Eric's new winter project
For those who are wondering what happened at last week's autocross, there's good news and bad news. The good news is that I kept the car on the track and put in a decent showing - 61st overall out of 127 entrants (results here for those with a MyAutoEvents account). That's not as well as I'd wanted to do, but it wasn't bad for street tires (not to mention I had the heaviest car at the event). All three runs were within one second of each other, which is by far the most consistent I've ever been. I also got a chance to meet Michael, a truly pleasant guy who used his RX-7 to demonstrate lawnmowing technique. The bad news? I tore up the transmission and had to limp the car home in 4th gear, since that's the only one that didn't sound like a can full of rocks in a paintmixer.
That points towards a countershaft failure (4th gear in most transmissions is 1:1, which doesnt direct power
through the countershaft). At least its not a broken mainshaft (pictured to the right), like my last tranmission
failure. I probably should have called it a day after my 2nd run, when the noises reached the something major is
broken point, but Id hit a cone on that run, and I wanted to end the day with a clean run. I may regret that decision
upon teardown.
I have to admit that Im a bit bummed about this most recent failure, since Id not expected to break the trans after
its last rebuild. But, as my friends pointed out, fixing one weak point (the mainshaft) was just going to lead to the
discovery of the next. Im at the end of the inexpensive upgrade path, my next step being something like the
G-Force T56 upgrades. Or, screw it - why not go
for the Quaife sequential box? Probably because
$16K pays for a lot of rebuilds on my current setup.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Chris K 10:25PM (12/18/2005)
Crap Eric, that sucks! :(
You're going to drop a whole new tranny in the car now? Probably not a bad idea if you're going to autocross the car; there's no way I'd take a weak car out on the track, especially if it's something that gets a workout, like the tranny or brakes.
I don't have an account at that site... how was it scored? With a car coefficient to equalize each car? (ie: 0.5 for a Z06, 89.23 for an Excursion?) If so, middle of the pack on your first time out (and without a full set of runs) is an EXCELLENT result.
Sorry to hear that your day ended badly... I know the feeling, as my Miata limped home from its last autocross due to shoddy dealer repairs on my coolant system after an accident this Feburary. It's really hard to pull yourself off the starting grid, I know!
Hope you had fun while it lasted!
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Mike 10:25PM (12/18/2005)
Why thanks for the mention Eric! I am glad I was so entertaining. I'm still picking grass out of where the tire bead is. I'm not kidding either. I call those battle scars on my tires though.
Nice job kicking my butt. As for being in SM2, it's like the wild wild west.
It's not a bad day if you can drive your car home. It's bad when you leave your car at the track.
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