Stay tuned

[racerb]

Originally Posted by Jason@SportsCar

I guess the 18 years I have been at it are not enough to feel that way. The rules are black and white, and easy to follow. Everyone in my class on my prep line has the same mods, there is no guessing. The only challenge we face is that we are racing a Yaris, so parts are harder to find. That is not the Club/rules fault.

NASA, forget about it. It would triple my build cost. Screwing around with all the possible points options, no thanks. Worst of all, lack of competition and tiny fields. Which class was it that had a single car at the Nasa Nationals, PTF or something? *edit, the single car class was PTF in 2010, this year they had three cars. Sorry, but three cars at the biggest event of the year is just sad.

Well maybe after NASA has been around for 60 plus years, we'll have more cars at our Championship weekend. Here in NASA Southeast we don't car count issues, most of our events, Road Atlanta especially draws 375-450 cars. Yes the PT car counts aren't the greatest, but it's still a growing class only about 5 years old with new cars making the move from TT.

The local SCCA regions are loosing IT cars annually, with ITB-ITC almost completely depleated. I raced IT from 1986 to 2000 and was never allowed to relocated my battery, put in NASCAR door bars or install Lexan window. Hell the first few years I couldn't even remove the passenger seat. I like the NASA rule set better, cause I can choose the mods I want and be as stock or modified as I want.

With all the free mods availible, I will most likely only move up one class from base classing, so my '87 Celica GTS which is based as PTF will fit nicely in PTE and be extremely competitive. One thing our guys like about PT here, is they can run TT, PT, or SM and lots are running TT, PT, or Honda Challenge. The Corvette guys really like it cause they can run TT, PT, and ST2 all in the same weekend if they like.

racerb

PS: I used to be a NASA hater, till I made the switch, now every weekend is a joy not a struggle with politics!!

[Jason@SportsCar]

Originally Posted by racerb

Well maybe after NASA has been around for 60 plus years, we'll have more cars at our Championship weekend. Here in NASA Southeast we don't car count issues, most of our events, Road Atlanta especially draws 375-450 cars. Yes the PT car counts aren't the greatest, but it's still a growing class only about 5 years old with new cars making the move from TT.

The local SCCA regions are loosing IT cars annually, with ITB-ITC almost completely depleated. I raced IT from 1986 to 2000 and was never allowed to relocated my battery, put in NASCAR door bars or install Lexan window. Hell the first few years I couldn't even remove the passenger seat. I like the NASA rule set better, cause I can choose the mods I want and be as stock or modified as I want.

With all the free mods availible, I will most likely only move up one class from base classing, so my '87 Celica GTS which is based as PTF will fit nicely in PTE and be extremely competitive. One thing our guys like about PT here, is they can run TT, PT, or SM and lots are running TT, PT, or Honda Challenge. The Corvette guys really like it cause they can run TT, PT, and ST2 all in the same weekend if they like.

racerb

PS: I used to be a NASA hater, till I made the switch, now every weekend is a joy not a struggle with politics!!

Whatever floats your boat. It's good that we all have a choice that fits our wants and needs.

[Jason@SportsCar]

Now the fun can start.

[racerb]

Originally Posted by Jason@SportsCar

Now the fun can start.

Congrats man, hope it makes the kinda power your looking for!!

racerb

[Jason@SportsCar]

Just picked up the new tow rig from Toyota... Hopefully it fairs a bit better with the two car trailer than my old tired Expedition.

[racerb]

Originally Posted by Jason@SportsCar

Just picked up the new tow rig from Toyota... Hopefully it fairs a bit better with the two car trailer than my old tired Expedition.

That's going to be my next truck. My 2001 Tundra is pushing 200,000 miles and is still towing my 20'x8 1/2' Haulmark trailer with no trouble, 4.7 engine has been plenty strong!

racerb

[Jason@SportsCar]

Garm is an evil man... He captured a unicorn and sold it to us - he knew we could not resist. We now have a close-ratio gear set for the C50. Who would have thought such a thing even existed.

In the next week I will be taking our spare trans to be fitted with the new 3rd, 4th and 5th gears, and a fresh OS Giken Super Lock LSD, so we can do a complete swap into the car.

The new ratios are sick, so short in fact we are going to have to use the Yaris FD (3.7), the xB (4.3) is way to short.

The old setup was just not getting it done... The 4.3 FD with the 15" tires was a dog, the car just could not pull out of the tight stuff. The 4.3 FD with the 13" tires was an improvement on tight tracks. But we actually found when looking at our post Runoffs data, that even though the car got up to speed quicker, our top speed was no better - this setup required the use of 5th gear far to much, which is just to much OD for the car to pull.

With the new setup our 5th gear is almost equal to the stock 4th.

OE
1st 3.545
2nd 1.904
3rd 1.310
4th 0.969
5th 0.815

Close-ratio (1st and 2nd go unchanged)
3rd** 1.474
4th** 1.208
5th** 0.961

Our stock trans had a 2300rpm drop from 2nd to 3rd, and 1900rpm from 3rd to 4th. With the new setup we only drop 1500rpm from 2nd to 3rd (this will be huge), and 1300rpm from 3rd to 4th. This makes it much easier to stay on peak power. Additionally, where we typically would only use two to three gears per track in the stock box, we will now use three to four gears. The gear multiplication should make for much better acceleration, and 5th gear at 7300rpm is 122mph, perfect for Road America.

It all looks sweet on paper, now we just need to make it fit and try it.

The rules will hit us with a 50lb weight penalty for alternative trans ratios, but since the car is still overweight we wont have to actually add anything.

Talking to the Honda guys we race against, the Mugen close-ratio they run is worth an average of 2sec a lap at most tracks. If that holds true for this gear set, it will big a bigger improvement in lap times than the engine work was.

[CrankyOldMan]

Originally Posted by Jason@SportsCar

Garm is an evil man... He captured a unicorn and sold it to us - he knew we could not resist. We now have a close-ratio gear set for the C50. Who would have thought such a thing even existed.

Oh my, I think I'm nursing a semi...

In the next week I will be taking our spare trans to be fitted with the new 3rd, 4th and 5th gears, and a fresh OS Giken Super Lock LSD, so we can do a complete swap into the car.

Does that mean that your "spare" gearbox will not be available anymore? Or is this the swap you had alluded to before?

Close-ratio (1st and 2nd go unchanged)
3rd** 1.474
4th** 1.208
5th** 0.961

It's like mathematical pr0n!

Our stock trans had a 2300rpm drop from 2nd to 3rd, and 1900rpm from 3rd to 4th. With the new setup we only drop 1500rpm from 2nd to 3rd (this will be huge), and 1300rpm from 3rd to 4th. This makes it much easier to stay on peak power.

That's the biggest reason that I'm attempting my custom box: terrible acceleration from 15-20 mph because of the RPM drop from 1st to 2nd. I'm staying N/A for the time being, so I don't need these ratios, but it's great to know that there are now some real options other than buying whole used transmissions to scavenge parts. I'm assuming that the gears will come as a complete pair (roller bearings, synchros) sans hub?

[Jason@SportsCar]

Originally Posted by CrankyOldMan

Oh my, I think I'm nursing a semi...

Does that mean that your "spare" gearbox will not be available anymore? Or is this the swap you had alluded to before?

It's like mathematical pr0n!

That's the biggest reason that I'm attempting my custom box: terrible acceleration from 15-20 mph because of the RPM drop from 1st to 2nd. I'm staying N/A for the time being, so I don't need these ratios, but it's great to know that there are now some real options other than buying whole used transmissions to scavenge parts. I'm assuming that the gears will come as a complete pair (roller bearings, synchros) sans hub?

It is the one I had mentioned, this should eventually free up my original case for your project.

I don't find the 1-2 drop to be that bad, because the total ratio in 2nd still allows for good acceleration - assuming you have done the xB FD or run 13" tires.

We are N/A, I would be less incline to search for gearing advantage if we had big power, all of this effort is to make up for a lack of power.

My area of expertise when it comes to transmission is pulling it out of the car. The kit came with six gears, input and output side for 3rd, 4th and 5th. No bearings, at least not in the form I am use to seeing them in, but they do look like they have a synchro on the appropriate pieces. (note the gear on the right of the image)

[Jason@SportsCar]

Yummy... More Jongbloed wheels. 13x7, 8lbs 5oz. Now which set goes on which car??? I think these might need to go on the 99.

[Jason@SportsCar]

I think this may be a bit overkill for our build, but on the upside I think we have zero chance of ever using it up - and I know it wont end up looking like Garm's last clutch.

Looking forward to testing the new OS Giken Super Single race clutch.

[Jason@SportsCar]

Just picked up another trailer... 40' open, now we can haul three Yaris at one time.

The cool thing was 19mpg with it empty behind the Tundra, when we towed the enclosed the other day we only got 10.5mpg with it empty.