Mazdeuce does One Lap

In reply to Keith Tanner:

That corner was awesome and I wish I had a whole day here. What a cool track.

scott here (my friend and i said hello while you were lined up for the skid pad) - just wanted to wish you good luck, safe travels, and fast times there!

i'll be looking forward to hearing what you think of those new tires!

In reply to s_t_robertson:

It was very cool to meet you. The tires are doing great so far and grip like mad.

This might be the dirtiest Carrera GT in the world.

mazdeuce wrote:

Man, look at all that wasted space! I have to get in touch with them...

Going back to the axle issue... the heat over time on powerful cars causes the grease/boot to expand and push the axle out of the splines if the metal or plastic retaining rings are air tight. In my race cars ... I put WD-40 straws under the boots zip tied to the axle to allow the pressure to dissipate without spitting the grease out.

I stole this trick from 911 endurance racers who apparently have had this problem forever and immediately diagnosed what happened to the E30 of Doom during it's debut at the Glen with double the factory HP/TQ and the same 3.64 LSD. I did not believe them at first... but I've never had the problem since I put the straws in.

In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker:

I thought that might be happening the first time this happened but I dismissed it when the axle continued to creep out after the seal was clearly leaking. I can see it starting to push it out with heat (the diff isn't vented) but not to keep pushing it out after the seal is breached.
On top of that there is the issue of the axle not sliding back in. I think there must be something wrong with the splines at the least.

I'll be at MSR Wednesday. Let me know if you need anything.

btp76 wrote: I'll be at MSR Wednesday. Let me know if you need anything.

Will do.

We're pretty happy with how everything stayed together today. We'll check it again in the morning and keep having fun. Epic rain on the way out of Denver. The freeways don't seems to drain well and there was lots of standing water. We watched a Corolla spin and hit the center divider backwards, and saw a teal CSR (Chevy Baretta maybe?) That had gone end over and landed on it's wheels. More rain is predicted for tomorrow and Pueblo Motorsports park has the whole front straight between two concrete walls. It looks like it has a pretty high risk potential on paper so we'll have to see how much speed we want to play with. Almost 700 mile transit tomorrow so I'm going to try and rest.

The secret to speed at PMP (from what I remember) is being able to haul serious ass around the last corner. You're aimed at a concrete wall, transitioning from asphalt to concrete to steel plates to concrete to asphalt, so you have to just ride it out. But it's a long straight so your bravery is rewarded. You can take a naturally aspirated Miata through it without a lift iirc. It's possible it's been reworked since I was there last.

Also, turn 5(?) can be taken really quick due to the compression as you enter it, then 6a and 6b are one big single radius turn. Turn 1 has a surprisingly fast entry speed, and I never did figure out 2...

Hope the weather holds!

Btw, there is a vent on the older cts-v diffs. I have to think there's one on yours.

Nothing to add but good luck! Thank you for letting us live through your fun... Bucket list item for sure!

A few extra pictures because I'm on WiFi at the hotel.
I may or may not have run through the gravel at HPR.
Super excellent co-driver pit crew.
Suited up and ready to drive faster than me.
This NSX is so cool.
The white one died. A $7 part caused it to lose the motor. Bummer. Hover Porsche.
Viper.
Mrs. Deuce wants an R8. I'm ok with that, but have never been super excited about them. Except this one has the V8 and a proper exhaust and is probably the best sounding car here. I think she should get one.

Nice shiny toys there. So sad to see the dead vdub...

Get that woman an R8!!

I want to see more of that Ultima if at all possible. And I dont see a probelm with anyone getting an R8.

Hi Seth Can you text me at eight one zero-5 two three-2344? I want to connect you with some GM phone support for your axle issue.

Todd

Woody wrote: Get that woman an R8!!

You haven't been paying attention. It should be 'Encourage the woman to get an R8!!'

In reply to wawazat:

Sent you a message, I'm intrigued.....

Replied. Good luck

Today was Pueblo Motorsports Park in Pueblo Colorado. It's an interesting track. Really neat flowy road course that connects to a drag strip for the main straight. This is where we ran into trouble, because it was raining. A lot. Running down a VHT treated drag strip in the rain is a monumentally bad idea. This cancelled the first part of the day and the ET drag event. At first we were going to run the road course as it sat. Then we decided to run the road course but substitute the pit road for the drag strip thus avoiding the VHT. The problem with this was it was a 1/4 mile, two lanes wide ending with a one lane pit out onto the rest of the drag strip. This looked good on paper but monumentally stupid once we walked it. In the end they decided to start us at pit out and do a timed lap to just before the course entered the drag strip. Oh, and no sighting lap, so my very first time around the track (other than a miserable walk this morning) was at speed in the rain. Fun times.
I was 33rd in the morning run and 33rd in the second run. Nothing quite like consistent mediocrity to get me where I am today. We did move up in the overall ranking to 38 and we're off to MSR Cresson after a 664 mile transit. At least we managed to get away from the track by noon, which should make our day shorter and allow us to sleep before we drive the only track of the year that I've actually been on.

So they ended the timed lap in the straight between turn 9 and 10? Then you did a cool down down the front straight?

It was nice to meet and talk with you yesterday, have fun the rest of the event!

We ended the lap between 9 and 10 right where the tech shack for drag racing is. We just rolled back into paddock rather than do a proper cool down, I'm not sure anyone really needed one.

It was good meeting you too. For everyone following along, docwyte brought tools to help me work on the V. I didn't end up needing them, but he was awesome to bring them even though his Porsche had a major foot related injury on the way there that morning.

Thanks to wawazat I just got off the phone with Tony Roma who is the chief engineer for the V series cars. We talked about the axle and he explained how the differential goes together and why hammering is actually the correct procedure, so I'm feeling pretty good about my parking lot fix. He wanted to know if I needed any help right now making it through One Lap and to call him when I'm done so I could get it fixed and they could use the data point to make the V cars even more robust.
Huge thanks to Tony and Cadillac and this forum for making the communication possible.

In reply to mazdeuce:

that's awesome!!!

If you think you need any tools/help heading into NCM, let me know. I can bring extra tools, jack, jack stands, whatever, or just be a helping hand if need be.