Tom Suddard
Tom Suddard GRM+ Memberand Digital Experience Director
10/10/17 1:07 p.m.
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After repairing a busted differential (thank you for the last-minute parts, Treasure Coast Miata), we headed down to “The Sebring 14,” a race hosted by the ChumpCar World Series Presented by RVA Graphics & Wraps, with a simple goal: Finish the race, have fun, and don’t blow up the car.

One out of three is acceptable, right? A few …

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noddaz
noddaz GRM+ Memberand SuperDork
10/10/17 1:42 p.m.

Besides what you guys might think, (and I don't mean this in a bad way) it is good to hear that not everything works properly on race day for you.  You read some other magazines and everything seems to work perfectly all the time...

Miles Wilson
Miles Wilson Marketing Assistant
10/11/17 9:51 a.m.

@noddaz You would probably not be surprised to find out many of our readers feel similarly. It's good fun being part of a team that jumps into replacing a differential at 10:00pm the night before our race, improvises quickly enough to keep the car running after it quits on us, and lives to share these real experiences with other racers.

Win or loose, we come to have fun and keep it real!

alfadriver
alfadriver MegaDork
10/11/17 11:09 a.m.

May be a dumb question, but have you guys thought about going to just a basic 1.8l engine?  Just to finish races and all?

May end up being too easy of a solution, though.

Tom Suddard
Tom Suddard GRM+ Memberand Digital Experience Director
10/11/17 11:30 a.m.

Nah, where's the fun in that? We've thought about it extensively, but keep having that vision of a winning turbo car instead.

 

sergio
sergio Reader
10/12/17 1:09 p.m.

That's the way it goes. You can race a few times not have any problems and  finish. Then out of the blue something breaks an hour or two into the race and your done. But when it all goes good it's lots of fun. 

NickD
NickD SuperDork
10/12/17 2:06 p.m.

Ya'll need to pit this thing up against the Roadkill Rotsun in a race to see which has a catastrophic failure first

 

GUNDY
GUNDY Reader
11/4/17 12:29 a.m.

Quote "And don’t trust headgasket-fix-in-a-can. " I seem to remember at Daytona while pouring it in, Tim saying this is from one of our advertisers that I am meeting with this week, we'll see if it works. I guess the answer is yes and no, it did plug up holes just the wrong ones.

jabos7
jabos7 New Reader
12/30/17 12:46 p.m.

Tom-- I was reading up in the print about your 'braided stainless steel turbo oil feed line' and it reminded me (unfortunately) of a similar failure with brake lines.  Got 'em new off Flea-bay  for my '90 Civic hatch.  After 2 autocross meets I realized I was losing brake fluid from the master.  But, no drips, no puddles, no stains.  Topped it up and lost more --made me crazy until I pulled the front wheels off and noticed the brake lines were dis-colored.  -The fluid was leaking internally and starting to inflate the clear covering over the s.steel braiding!

I decided to go back to new OEM lines until I could trust a local hydraulic hose outfit to make up replacements, but found that the "feel" was so much better with fresh hoses I left them on.  -Cheaper to replace and keep fresh as needed.

Roll on!

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