Thanks for sharing your journey!
Even though I have a completely different platform (e36 M3), a lot of your challenges parallel my experiences.
I'm local to Road Atlanta so maybe I'll see you on the track next year.
I know I already talked about the NCCAR track day in the last post but man was it such a great time.
Also, Paul Diaz came out and shot some great pictures and I wanted to share a couple.
Shortly after NCCAR, it was time to start tearing the car down for off-season upgrades and maintenance. The first thing I noticed was I was down to the last millimeter or two of pad up front. The rotors still looked totally fine, but since the 11" Mini rotors were only $12 on RockAuto closeout, I went ahead and changed those as well. Not bad for a year of track days.
I also finally received the good news that my transmission was finished! Apparently the 4.928 final drive ring gear requires a bit of clearancing of the case to fit, as it's a larger diameter than stock.
With the LSD and final drive installed, along with fresh synchros and bearings, the gearbox was ready to rock and roll.
I marked the case with the final parts combination: Chevy Nova Twin Cam gearbox, MFactory 4.928 Final Drive, MFactory clutch type LSD, and an MR2 5th gear conversion. That last part is less of an upgrade and more of a "the old one exploded on removal" update.
Along with the upgraded transmission, a new Exedy Stage 1 clutch was installed to give things a little extra bite.
Unfortunately within 15 minutes of light neighborhood driving, the gearbox jammed itself in 4th gear even when the shifter was in neutral position. Out the box came and back to Paul it went. On disassembly it was discovered that somehow the gear stack had shifted on the output shaft and caused the 4th gear synchro to get smooshed, holding the car halfway in 4th gear all the time. He re-clearanced the output shaft gear stack and sent it back. It's currently in the process of being re-installed and I'll update once I can verify operation.
While the transmission was getting looked at the second time I started installing the fire suppression system. The bottle was mounted to the floor just in front of the passenger seat on four rubber isolators.
Steel mounting tabs were fabricated and welded to the cage for the pull cables. One went on the driver's side A-pillar within reach of the driver's seat while belted in.
The accompanying decal was placed on the driver's door in case a corner worker ever needs to pull it.
On the passenger's side, the pull handle was mounted to the harness bar just inside the door, in easy reach from the outside.
Next I will be finishing the transmission re-install and taking it for a test drive, as well as actually plumbing the fire suppression system. The first event of 2025 for me will be VIR in mid-March which I'm very excited for. I haven't driven there in nearly two years so I'm anxious to get back there and see how much I can improve my time!
This is kind of wild, browsing some threads on GRM while some work is compiling and this caught my eye:
I designed and sent that AW11 print below the exhaust fan to whoever owned this garage. Was this your place?
Yep its still there!
When we last left off, the transmission was being re-rebuilt due to the gear stack moving on the aftermarket output shaft and squishing the 4th gear synchro, locking it into two gears simultaneously. Unfortunately, even after meticulously resetting everything to factory specifications, the transmission did the exact same thing once again after only a few seconds of driving. We decided to eliminate the biggest variable, which was the MFactory final drive kit, thinking that maybe the output shaft was not completely within tolerance. In went an OEM gear stack and 4.3 final drive from an AW11 MR2 C52 transmission, with the MFactory clutch-type LSD. However that gearbox was not finished in time to make it to VIR, so the old reliable 4.3 open diff AE92 transmission went back in.
However while the transmission was being re-re-re-built, I was able to complete the fire suppression system install with the three engine bay nozzles.
I also decided to round out the safety package with a proper kill switch. This is a 6-pole switch that kills main battery feed, kills power to the coil and injectors, and provides a path for the alternator to discharge to ground through a big resistor to prevent damage.
I also ran another pull cable over to the passenger side next to the fire cable so that both the fire system and the kill switch are operable from either side of the vehicle within easy reach through the window.
At VIR, I was finally able to take the Catalyst out for some good timing data, and broke my previous PB of 2:30.01 with a 2:29.01. Not bad!
The weekend after VIR, a bunch of folks came over and helped me make short work of swapping the open diff AE92 transmission for the LSD transmission. It only took about 3 hours start to finish thanks to their help. Fortunately the test drive did not end in disaster this time, and I was able to complete the diff break in procedure and beat on it a bit on the street to make sure it was ok.
As a last-minute addition before Dominion, Steve added a tinted banner on the windshield to help with those early morning or late evening sessions.
Back at Dominion, I was able to really put the new LSD transmission through its paces. I half expected it to go wrong again, but it held together just fine, unlike Steve's ND Miata transmission. After 98k miles and over 40 days on track, third gear finally went to join so many of it's brethren in the Great Beyond on Saturday. Fortunately, Steve was able to locate a good used transmission about 2 hours away, and we all gathered around to help knock out the swap overnight.
Additionally, at the end of the day my car was misfiring horribly. We determined that the fuel I had bought at Sheetz that morning was roughly 30% water, so we pumped the tank out and filled it with fresh 93 octane but then I had to run and help Steve with the transmission swap.
We started working around 8PM Saturday, and finished around 3AM Sunday morning. I drove straight back to the track, finished installing new spark plugs on my car (the bad fuel fouled the old plugs), and was able to sneak in 2 hours of sleep before the driver's meeting.
Sunday morning was the most intense pollen I have ever seen in all my years in VA. The parade laps were throwing up huge clouds of yellow dust, and off-line was extra slippery due to the pollen. However the little Corolla went out and ran a new personal best in back to back sessions! The LSD is such a great thing, I had no idea you could use it to increase rotation on corner entry to such a degree. It's definitely going to be fun to re-learn how to drive with this.
I set a new personal best at Dominion of 1:42.6 and was pretty happy with that.
Though it was a stressful weekend in some respects, it was extremely therapeutic in other ways. We had a huge group of friends at this event, including Jacob in his turbo Miata, Tom in his Porsche 944, Dwayne in his turbo Legacy, Isaac in his Mazda2, Clay in his FX16 GTS, and Jimmy in his JDM Carina. We couldn't pass up the opportunity to get a picture of three 4A-GE powered cars together.
Clay's "FX20" is a silvertop 20-valve swapped car he is now intending to build out a bit more for HPDE. It's actually running my old home made coilovers and OE shape brake pads. I can't wait to see how the car comes together over the coming months, when we will hopefully regroup for a Summit Point event in October. For me however, the next track is going to be my first time at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in May and I can't wait!
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