This doesn't belong in motorsports....dammit.
We went pretty fast the first 3 stages on day 1. Top 5 times, against the 500 hp volvo, the 70-80k Evo, and freaking *boatloads* of fancy new STI's. Then we came in for service and took off the 3 year old crap dead tires and put fresh ones on and we went out and were going really really really fast when BANG the rear diff ****ing exploded. The factory Mazda Gp A rally spec LSD. That NOBODY blows up. That damn car dyno'd at 180 or so, with 218ftlb... Now after going on the rollers, I sawzalled the cat out and replaced it with the one from my GTX, since I could see lots more daylight through it that I could the one that was on the car and that helped, and I pulled the restrictor out and polished and knife edged the trailing edge closest to the turbine, since it was fairly thick there and was prolly causing turbulence, and those 2 items added some ponies, but how in hell do you blow up the diff and not the gearbox?
So my awesome support crew drove back to their house and grabbed an open diff from their pile of spares and brought it back and I did an allnighter installing it out there on the street in front of the hotel in the damn snow.
next morning we transited 30 miles to the start of stage 1, no hint of any problems, looking forward to doing some serious open diff one wheel drive redemption in the snow, and less than a qtr mile into the stage I feel a vibration. Then hear a noise. Then a bad noise. Then smoke, then power loss, then no oilpressure, then park the car with #1 rod through the block.
This car is telling me that it can't handle being driven at top 5 stage time speeds. I could put my spare block in it and put Wisecos (prolly the ones that are in the car now, #1 doesn't have a hole in it), put some Hbeam rods in there, re-do the rear diff, and try again, but I can feel it in my bones that the next time it goes out, the gearbox is gonna frag. I don't have the cash to make it competitive and reliable as an awd car but parts are out there to make it reliable as a gp5 RWD car. Next time it goes out, I don't know exactly how it will be powered, but I do know that it will be reliable. And nothing is ruled out. Maybe stay awd and try an evo3 gearbox. But that still leaves a now questionable rear end, and a 20psi hand grenade under the hood. Supra rear ends are cheap and bomb proof. T5 or many other transmissions will fit in the tunnel. The rules say the engine has to be of the same corporate family as the car, but Ford owned enough of Mazda that they are corporate family. So. strong BPT? Or 2.3 Duratec?
...or 4.6 modular alloy V8?
All I know is that the car is worth the work. We out-turn and out-brake most of the field. We just need to sort out the damn drivetrain. Watch this space, there's a Protege that's gonna go places Mazda never ever thought of....
We went pretty fast the first 3 stages on day 1. Top 5 times, against the 500 hp volvo, the 70-80k Evo, and freaking *boatloads* of fancy new STI's. Then we came in for service and took off the 3 year old crap dead tires and put fresh ones on and we went out and were going really really really fast when BANG the rear diff ****ing exploded. The factory Mazda Gp A rally spec LSD. That NOBODY blows up. That damn car dyno'd at 180 or so, with 218ftlb... Now after going on the rollers, I sawzalled the cat out and replaced it with the one from my GTX, since I could see lots more daylight through it that I could the one that was on the car and that helped, and I pulled the restrictor out and polished and knife edged the trailing edge closest to the turbine, since it was fairly thick there and was prolly causing turbulence, and those 2 items added some ponies, but how in hell do you blow up the diff and not the gearbox?
So my awesome support crew drove back to their house and grabbed an open diff from their pile of spares and brought it back and I did an allnighter installing it out there on the street in front of the hotel in the damn snow.
next morning we transited 30 miles to the start of stage 1, no hint of any problems, looking forward to doing some serious open diff one wheel drive redemption in the snow, and less than a qtr mile into the stage I feel a vibration. Then hear a noise. Then a bad noise. Then smoke, then power loss, then no oilpressure, then park the car with #1 rod through the block.
This car is telling me that it can't handle being driven at top 5 stage time speeds. I could put my spare block in it and put Wisecos (prolly the ones that are in the car now, #1 doesn't have a hole in it), put some Hbeam rods in there, re-do the rear diff, and try again, but I can feel it in my bones that the next time it goes out, the gearbox is gonna frag. I don't have the cash to make it competitive and reliable as an awd car but parts are out there to make it reliable as a gp5 RWD car. Next time it goes out, I don't know exactly how it will be powered, but I do know that it will be reliable. And nothing is ruled out. Maybe stay awd and try an evo3 gearbox. But that still leaves a now questionable rear end, and a 20psi hand grenade under the hood. Supra rear ends are cheap and bomb proof. T5 or many other transmissions will fit in the tunnel. The rules say the engine has to be of the same corporate family as the car, but Ford owned enough of Mazda that they are corporate family. So. strong BPT? Or 2.3 Duratec?
...or 4.6 modular alloy V8?
All I know is that the car is worth the work. We out-turn and out-brake most of the field. We just need to sort out the damn drivetrain. Watch this space, there's a Protege that's gonna go places Mazda never ever thought of....
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