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Jason,
Concerning spares, you might want to get a few wheel hubs also (the part the axle slides into)and several axle nuts. I have sent several reports of these failing on high torque cars.
Your cars looks to be a great track vehicle. I would like to see it sometime. let me know if you are ever going to VIR, maybe I can come watch.
Mark
Good call Mark, those are good things to have for garage spares, not something I'll be repairing track side with my current setup - I mean the last time we replaced bearings Aaron pretty much did the entirety of the hard work in his well equipped shop. Although, I could build up the spare hubs with the bearings installed and then probably something I could do at the track if I had to - although don't have the stuff to get the alignment back after, I could get pretty close and this would give me an excuse to get a portable alignment rig...
But yeah, my shopping list for spares includes:
Wheel bearings
Hubs
More axles
Stub shafts
Trans bushing
Rear subframes
And it goes on, it's a slippery slope kind of thing.
And thanks for the kind words, VIR is on the list for next year and I would love an opportunity to show you the car in person and give you a ride a long if you like.
Almost all packed up for the track, I spent an uncomfortable amount of money on fuel today. Looking forward to seeing Aaron and the race track tomorrow.
35 Gal of 93 (some of it is Aaron's)
All my tack tools, fluids spares
Spare trailer wheel
2 Porsche front tire/wheels (Aaron's)
Canopy and chairs
Jack and stands
Air compressor (Mini Milwaukee)
Still to go:
Cooler with ton of gatorade, burgers and hot dogs
Coleman grill
Load car on trailer
Good luck tomorrow! I can't wait for when you are comfortable with the new acceleration. It should put those giant brakes to the test.
How much power can the transmission manage? Any concern about it's lifetime?
I can't wait either - I keep thinking back to the sensation the new found acceleration gave and it bears no resemblance to the previous iteration, completely different. Between getting familiar enough to extract real performance and confident enough in the entirety of the system to do what I want - it's all a little intimidating and I'm sure it will take longer to acclimate than I would have thought previously.
As far as the transmission, I really don't know how much power it will take and I don't know that there's anyone with the relevant experience to tell me. I do know that with the car making more power than I anticipated, the clutch is not spec'd as strong as I would like. I think its rated for 550 FT/LBS at the flywheel. If I need to replace it, I will be upgrading. I totally have concern about the gearbox and its longevity. Considering I just paid a whole boatload of money to get it fixed, it would be a bummer to have to deal with it again. Aaron and I were talking on the topic today and I told him, I need to get about 40-50 track days out of this box before I would feel good about the money I spent to rebuild it, I think both him and I feel that is not likely to happen.
I have wanted to pair the LS with a sequentially shifted box for a long time, first the thinking was a PDK but I am steering away due to poor (expensive) serviceability. My new great idea is to take what is effectively a G50 box, but not a Porsche one, a dog box version made for sand rails. There are adapters available for the LS to G50 pattern now so I would not be reinventing the wheel there but there is a lot of research to do to determine suitability. The main benefit here apart from the faster shift times is the serviceability is really good and does not take a trans specialist to refresh/repair.
I have heard that the G50 trans will hold up pretty well as long as you avoid the stupid hot dog things like launches and burnouts. If you are judicious with the throttle especially in first gear you should get some life out of it. Do you have a gearbox oil cooling system for the gearbox? That will help.
Next up, more generally. After feeling just how much harder the car accelerates (SIGNIFICANTLY harder) it got me thinking about, what's going to break. The first thing that popped into my head...axles. So, I picked up a spare off of eBay. It would be really cool to have a set of nice axles made, I am sure driveshaft shop could whip up something unbreakable but the reality is, this spare cost me a hundred bucks, I see a ton of them available and at that cost, I'm thinking I would need to break about 30 of them to equal a custom set. If it became something really prohibitive I would rethink but for now, I feel good having a stock backup. I am going to make an effort to get a pretty good spares package developed, especially for items that can be changed at the track. Nice to have that process off the ground.
Hi Jason,
Regarding axles, we've been running the 996.1Cup axles on my car. We buy them new and repack them with Krytox. It's a couple of hundred bucks worth of grease to do the axles but we've never had issues any issues whatsoever with axles over the years and that's running 600-750 ft.lbs of torque through them on literally every shift. I've blown up gearbox output flanges and a Guard billet LSD in the past, but never axles (knock on wood).
Stock 996TT/GT2 axles are also very durable and withstand 700+ ft.lbs to torque with ease. Many 996 Cup guys run these as they are relatively cheap. Repacking with Krytox on these is also recommended for endurance track application. For 400-500 ft.lbs to torque, these would last you many years even with the stock grease. If you can get some used OEM axles cheap, I'd buy them and repack them and call it good.
Another track day, another day that had some very disruptive issues. But, hung out with my boy, my Dad and Aaron - so it could have been so much worse.
I'll write some more later but for now - this kind of sums it up.
Yeah man - while it's nice to be back at the track, I have to admit, its feeling a little unfamiliar.
So as I mentioned above, I put a new battery in the car to try to rule it out as a contributor to my throttle issue. Before my first session I warmed the car up on the skidpad and it seemed really good - fired up way stronger than it had previously and no throttle issues. I went out on track and tried to reacquaint myself with the car, turned maybe 5 or 6 laps and the ABS warning went off. I felt it out and thought I could continue to drive taking it easy for the seat time. About half a lap later I scanned the gauges and saw that the battery voltage was reading 17 volts - not good (the ABS shuts down in over voltage). I got the car in to the pits and the battery was quite warm (HOT) and had leaked some of its battery juice out. Another first session let down. About this time my Dad arrived and was nice enough to drive to the nearest Oreilly with the alternator I needed, 1/2 hour away and pick it up. An hour later he was back with, the wrong alternator. I called the store and told them what I needed, they said come on back and bring the fried alternator and we'll match it. So back out my Dad went and another hour later he was back with the correct alternator. Aaron and I had it back in the car in under 15 minutes, enough time to get back on track for the last 2 sessions.
The next session was OK, the car really didn't want to start but it did and I ran about half the session, I could hear some noises that I wanted to check out but otherwise the car ran fine and the new alternator was definitely working better than the last. the last session the car was even more reluctant to start but did and I made it through about a lap and change before the throttle quit working. Although I had rigged up away to clear and re-fire the car on track, that only works if the ****ing battery has enough jam to start the car...which it didn't so, another tow off the track for me.
The good - the potential of this car is huge. The engine vitals all seem really good and I am highly confident the parts selection for oil and water cooling will work. The ABS is working which I still think of as an achievement considering the swap to the .1 system. The car sounds amazing and seems to be a smile maker. We managed to acquire and swap an alternator in the middle of the track day despite having to make 2 trips to get the part. The pull of this engine is stupid, the days of getting left behind by a new civic type R are gone and we have enough power to keep up with... pretty much anything ?
The bad - I don't know with great confidence why I am having this issue with the throttle. I am more confident now it has to do with a low voltage battery condition but don't know with certainty. I smoked the brand new battery, that thing is screwed, $160 down the drain. I realized I should have questioned the state of the alternator for 2 reasons - 1. The voltage at idle has been half a volt low and quite jumpy. I kind of thought maybe it was normal for this charging systems... but 2. I had completely forgot but when we were on the dyno the car was hooked up to a jump pack attached to the alternator. At one point early in something shorted and the alternator threw spares like the 4th of July - after a couple anxious moments, everything seemed to be working fine and I subsequently pretty much forgot it ever happened. In retrospect, it's pretty clear the alternator was hurt then and I should have called into question the lower than expected charging voltage.
More bad - I have no confidence in the car and my driving SUCKS and I would say, I have no confidence in it either, there were a lot of fast cars on track today and I was the guy I bitch about just not keeping the pace - I am spending a lot of mental horsepower when on track questioning and comparatively little driving. Mentally, things are really sped up and I'm feeling behind. At this rate, it's going to take a lot of seat time to get back to the comfort level I am accustomed to.
I could be over my ski's but hooking up the sense wire might be wise .The power steering pump is a big amp eater and the sense wire can be important .Other question is the L wire is there an idiot light or are using that for the run signal ?
The sense wire is hooked up, the new alternator put out a steady 13.8 Volts with the engine running and most electrical loads on. I'm confident that the failed alternator has a damaged voltage regulator and it finally failed shorted, shooting the voltage up to 17+ volts. The battery took the hit and sacrificed itself to protect the rest of the electronics.
I think the battery size is too small for the engine's cranking amps. Jason and I talked about a temporary installation of a flooded wet cell (ordinary) battery with higher capacity until this gets sorted out. I don't think the extra 30 pounds is going to make much difference for now.
09-30-2023, 10:40 PM
