Have you met Andrew? I’m sure I’ve mentioned him before, but this will be your formal introduction. Andrew is my good friend and roomate for several years. He shares a similar enthusiasm that I have for driving, and thus he will co-drive at an autox event with me from time to time. Andrew was driving my car when it… “blew up” on Wednesday night. The good news is… it wasn’t his fault.
Because it’s been raining the past few days (maybe there is mercy afterall) I’ve had some time off work, and Andrew and I drove out on Friday to pull my beloved 86 apart. We should have started with a compression test, after one 17000+rpm moment, but I wasn’t thinking and we took 40 minutes to pull the tranny out. We found a bunch of clutch dust and bits in the bottom of the bellhousing. Fingers crossed that there is no tranny issue, and it’s just the clutch.
When I had things apart over the winter, I made the decision not to install the Illegal Garage clutch I had lying around, with the intention of holding that install for the turbo. Looks like that was a bad decision, as I’m now going to install that clutch along with my AE101 flywheel and cross my fingers that all else is fine. If it’s not… well… that’ll suck and I’ll hold it all for the turbo install which could take a month or two.
Other notes.
I picked up a set of Advan A3A. Mine are silver, in good shape with center caps even. These are classic wheels IMO, and maybe a little over used, but I’m excited. Size is 14×6 +6 which is nothing special at all but as I’ve said before, I’m a big advocate of relatively narrow shoes for lightness and tossability.
On the wheel front, I also picked up a set of Prime Hammers. These are 15×7 0 and of the monoblock style, if you aren’t familiar. It’s definitely an old school wheel, and probably more popular on machinery even older than the 86. These are silver with black behind. I might try and modernize them a little by giving them a single color. These I got because I have a few sets of 15″ tires laying around. They’re a unique wheel, and now I have a lot more options when looking for practice rubber.
My fourth SSR still hasn’t showed. 🙁
I made zero progress on the turbo work this week.
Power up really isn’t a big priority for me, and it’s hard for me to justify the work and expense. It’s mostly for drifting that I want the extra squirt… in auto-x there is so much that can make you faster besides power. However, when I look at the local FTD cars (a SC Miata and an RSX with a moderately tuned K20) I’m down over 100hp and not nearly enough lighter. Over the RSX I can see a few advantages, but over the Miata there is nothing, and I see no potential area where I might best that car.
Nevertheless, these cars are my target. I am not anywhere close right now (like I said… 2 seconds is an eternity), but I reckon that I will approach them both by the years end, as new rubber arrives and the cars tune changes.