The Money Pit!

[xd_01]

So we had fun this past weekend at NJMP, my parents and sister made the 3hr drive down to hang with the kids and for some BBQ. I was happy to be on a new track but not so happy when I found out the passing rules are different for group 3 in this region. We were only allowed to pass in the straights with a point-by which sucked. In my region group 3 is allowed to pass ANYWHERE with a point-by so I was disappointed because I was looking forward to some mid corner point-bys.

Anyway aside from Thunderbolt being an awesome track to run on and have having fun with the family the track time lacked in several areas. They don't hot pulls which means if some one goes off track for a minor incident or mechanical failure they send the EV's out to recover them and only wave a local yellow flag in that area. The North East region waves the black flag and brings everyone in to pit road until the EV's tow them in then releases the group again if there is time remaining. This happens several times a day and everybodys tracktime gets cut short as a result.

1st session went good, learned the track so nothing exciting.

2nd session I get stuck In a long train of cars cause the front car for some reason isnt letting anybody by. I pull into pit road to get spaced out and its actually closed. The signs directs me into the paddock as if my session is over, so now I gotta weave through all the paddock rows to get back on track. After I got in another lap the session was over.

My 3rd session we got blacked flagged in the first lap and had to wait in the pits for like 5 minutes while they towed in a racer from the prior group that stalled or something in pit out. After they released us again I did a warm up lap behind some moron in a STI that was slamming on his brakes on purpose, why? I dunno but then he decide to break grip on purpose by sawing the wheel in a long decreasing radius turn. Im like fvck this and pointed by like 4 cars so they could deal with this idiot. After another warm up lap I start to build up speed then coming into my 4th lap Im ready to lay the hammer down as I come through turn 12 I shift from 3rd to 4th and boom I hear what sounds like my intermediate shaft flopping around. I get off line and eventually get off track after turn 1 cause I knew I wasn't gonna make it all the way around to pit out with out making things worst. So now Im the cause of the black flag less the 5 minutes after we were release from the last one,,,, uugggh I felt soo bad man.

So I get towed in, get the the front of the car on jackstands and everthing looks fine which means the damage has to be inside the tranny. I put it gear and accelerated a little while my pops watched inside the engine bay and he said it was rocking back and forth while a gave it throttle.

On the bright side I only had one session left so most of my day was done anyway, we packed it up went back to the hotel to jump in the pool!!

and its all on video lol !!!!



how she sits now




not many but there was some nice sized metal shaving that came out with the oil


off to Atlantic Motorsports along with the spare tranny to make one good one, Im so scared its the LSD.


I have less then 3 weeks to get this thing ready for Summit Point

[6G72gearhead]

I doubt its the diff from what you described. Don't get down about causing a pause in the day, it happens, especially with mechanical failures. Everyone gets their day, just be glad it isn't because you stuffed the car (vigorously knocks on wood lol). I had a pretty bad off this past event, just gotta learn from it. Good to see others getting some real track time in!

[xd_01]

Oh yea what happen? Everything ok?

[6G72gearhead]

Just got sunk in the soft ground and held the event up for awhile to get the car out. Nothing damaged other than the ego.

[keith6110]

What brand LSD did you go with when you installed it originally?

[xd_01]

Wavetrac

[4g63lover]

aw man. This is the things I am afraid of with the new set-up. these transmission really just cant handle any type of power or torque.

[xd_01]

I feel you jigz but fortunately I gotta keep it movin, no time worry just gotta fix it and have solution ready for when it happens again. Most likely go to an evo trans setup.

[IVORY_G]

I feel you jigz but fortunately I gotta keep it movin, no time worry just gotta fix it and have solution ready for when it happens again. Most likely go to an evo trans setup.

Any plans on AWD down the line?

[Galantman03]

Probably not, mostly because of racing rules, it would put him in a totally different class. But i could be wrong

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

[6G72gearhead]

Depending on what you are planning you could do a ppg gearset, however that may limit your top end too much.

[xd_01]

I checked, PPG doesn't have anything available for the 3G trans

Jared is right though, an awd swap would most likely put me in the Unlimited class which is filled with some amazing machines, these are all cars that surpass the PWRs to weight ratio classes . Being competive there would be extremely fustrating.

I gotta check the rules but I'm almost certain once you change the drivetrain configuration your in the Unlimited class. With that said if I ever do something that crazy it would be a RWD swap. I've got about 85% designed in my head, just gotta figure out the steering rack and front suspension.

[kylecanthurdle]

i have seen once before someone took one piece out of an evo transmission and made it rwd. i can try to find it of you want but it was a longgg time ago.

[kylecanthurdle]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtZbZ8poMO0

found it!

[Silvertune]

All you'd have to do is lock the coupling in the tcase and pull out the front axles but really, if you're going to do RWD the engine needs remounting longitudinally and a real RWD setup. Not some jank ass stock AWD rear suspension crap like that 2jz thing on here that burns the tires to infinite and beyond. Something that can actually make use of the power when the front wheels aren't also powered is the only way to make it worth it.

There were a couple guys on club3g way back in the day who used Evo trannies with a heavily modified Tcase that basically acted as the intermediate shaft. It's expensive to mock up unless you're real good with a tig simply because the evo parts make for expensive mistakes but it works and you can run any power output you could imagine as well as plot your own gear ratios if you have the wallet to match the desire. The only drawback is it's easily 100 pounds more than the 4 banger trans if not more.

I'm very curious to hear if it's your wavetrac though. I just purchased a quaife in spite of huge success with wavetracs but it goes without saying you put it through a harder beat down than anything of these platforms that I've laid my hands on.

[xd_01]

I've heard of people doing that sort of conversion but if we're to do it I would turn the engine 90 degrees like you said and cut the firewall to recess the engine a little for better COG. I would also use the 2g GSX rear subframe everyone is using for the awd swaps along with upgraded evo diff, DSS axles, and anything available that would help hold the power. I've also considered a fuel cell instead of the stock 2g tank too cause at that point, we'll why not right lol. The only thing left to figure out would be the steering rack and front suspension. I've heard of the DSM guys that do this swap use a 240sx steering rack but I would leave that task up to fab shop that did my cage. The only work I would do myself would be installing rear subframe and drivetrain, everything else I would have the fab shop that did my cage do the rest since all that chassis work is beyond my capability. This would put me in the Unlimited class for sure but who cares, I do this sh!t for fun! I'm not really planning on running TT all the time anyway.

I'm familiar with the evo trans fwd conversion your talking about, Stewi did this a while ago also and it was expensive so that is what I'm considering at the moment if my trans fails again. But really at almost 3k invested in that swap I would rather invest the money in what I really want to do which is the RWD swap. The only other major obstacle would be the downtime in the off season and of course my wife lol.

Thanks for the video Kyle

[xd_01]

And yea just for the record no matter what class im in im always gonna try my hardest to get the best lap time i can!!

[xd_01]

And one more thing, i dont want to make it sound like its actually gonna happen. Its just an idea i had and since i brought it up
i just explained how i WOULD do it lol. I don t wanna get anyone riled up

[6G72gearhead]

There is a guy in my town who is very much a "LS swap all of the things!" type. After he finishes his crazy RX-7 with an 88mm turbo and a 6.0L he's planning on finishing a 2g talon that has a 5.3L a 76mm turbo and a T56.

Having been helping him from time to time with random projects I can tell you that much of the floor will need cut for a T56 to fit, and also to keep the car low the floor has to be cut additionally to clear the driveshaft. Once this happens there is a lot of reinforcement that needs to happen in order to restore the cars structure so it doesn't fold up under its own weight even.

I had though it would be cool to RWD swap my car, but after looking at how much cutting would have to occur, and how little of the car would remain I've very much decided against it. This was my first car, and I wish to improve it in many ways, but I still want it to have some of the character it had when I fell in love with it.

I understand that its all speculation right now, and that sort of swap is far off, but I just wanted to put that piece in.

For now, how similar are the internals to the F5M42 to some of the other Mitsu transaxles? Has anyone really compared?

[Silvertune]

The f5m51 and f5m42 have the same shift linkage/housing. That's all I'm aware of.