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yea 13.99 and quicker needs a helmet at an nhra track. if you dont have a helmet and run under 14.0 they will warn you, 2nd time they boot you out, unless the first time was way under. my track has never had loaner/rental helmets, and i dont like the idea of sharing helmets with random people, id much rather have my own.
im sure it will run faster than 13.99. im planning on rolling it off the line and getting into it, the 944 transaxle doesnt like being launched and i dont really want to leave pieces on the starting line.
id love nothing more than to load it up on the 2 step and dump the clutch, i really would. with the old trans i did one dump the clutch at about 4000 rpm (not on the 2 step, so no boost) and it hooked and pulled dam hard, but i know if you do that a few times itll hurt the trans. and one good launch on the 2 step in boost, itll leave the diff in a pile on the ground.
id love to do it, and maybe in the future i will, its just a ton of work and money. i gotta delete the torsion bars and run coilovers, cut a chunk out of the torsion bar tube so the trans can fit past it, cut the floor under the back seat out and redo it, new torque tube to bellhousing adapter, new clutch, custom axles, etc. and on top of that i need to buy a new final drive gear set as the 3.42 final drive in the vette with the tall first gear wouldnt work well at all. i think the tallest gears i can get for those is 4.10, and with the trans ratios id be better with 4.56. id be at least $5k if i can find a good deal on a good working transaxle and torque tube.
id love to do it, and maybe in the future i will, its just a ton of work and money. i gotta delete the torsion bars and run coilovers, cut a chunk out of the torsion bar tube so the trans can fit past it, cut the floor under the back seat out and redo it, new torque tube to bellhousing adapter, new clutch, custom axles, etc. and on top of that i need to buy a new final drive gear set as the 3.42 final drive in the vette with the tall first gear wouldnt work well at all. i think the tallest gears i can get for those is 4.10, and with the trans ratios id be better with 4.56. id be at least $5k if i can find a good deal on a good working transaxle and torque tube.
Had a buddy who built his vette and the rear was the first thing to go. Snapped axels at the drag strip when it hooked and he knows how to drive. Did the work himself and went with dss axels to the tune of $1800.
Another friend of mine has the last yr c5 gen car that's built and they couldn't get all they wanted out of the motor on the chassis dyno for fear the transaxle would blow. Maybe it will handle a 4cyl well but I can say on a v8 it's pricey to fix if it blows.
the corvette transaxle is based on a t56 and has a diff bolted right onto the back of it. the biggest problem with them breaking is the case breaks because of how they are mounted, if you install a case brace they will hold a ton more power. the diff itself is quite strong, and the transmission can be built with t56 magnum guts.
but in stock form with nothing dont to it i dont think i could break the weakest version of the corvette transaxle.
our cruise in last weekend went pretty well, there was somewhere around 800 cars in attendance despite rain in the morning. the car got quite a bit of attention, i somehow didnt think it would but there was a lot of interest. only 2 or 3 people actually knew what type of engine it was, the majority didnt even realise it wasnt the factory engine. even better still, a friend had his saturn sky redline parked next to me, so we started joking that his saturn had a porsche engine swapped into it. even more amazing, i only had one porsche purist ask me why i would downgrade the car from a porsche engine, i just told him that the ecotec doesnt spin #2 rod bearing every time i sneeze, and he sneered at me and walked away.
i wish i had taken some pics at the show, by the time i got the car parked and dried off there was already too many people around to take pics. a couple friends took some pics, im waiting for them to send them to me. i did snap a couple pics when i met up with friends in the morning, here is a pic of the car with my friends 58 bel-air
as im typing this i should have been at the track for the friday street legal drags. weather looked hit or miss this morning, but i got the car prepped this morning to go, and about an hour later the track canceled racing for the night duel to rain in the forecast. ill also add that it stopped raining at 4:30 (the time the track opens normally) and its currently cool and dry outside. oh well, i guess ill try again in 2 weeks.
so some updates on the transmission things, long story short is they dont seem to be as fragile as ive been lead to believe. the general consensus seems to be that the non turbo transaxle will break with stock power levels and hard driving, and that the turbo transaxles, while better, will break the diff if you dump the clutch with any sort of power. this thought seems to have been all ive read since i started building the car, and i never really saw any deviation from that view, so i kinda treated it as the truth and acted accordingly. a short time back i joined up on a new facebook group called 944 outlaws, its a page of people dedicated to doing things that make porsche purists cringe. there are lots of different builds there, the common ls swaps, some audi 2.5l 5 cylinders, a couple vw 1.8l turbo swaps, along with some really aggressive wide body cars, and even a few stanced cars. i decided to ask what their opinions were of transaxle strength, and while the view of the non turbo transaxle was pretty much the same, i was met with a video of an ls swapped car doing 4000 rpm clutch drops at the drag strip with no carnage, and he claims it wasnt the first, nor the last time he has done that. their general view was that the turbo transaxle is quite strong, and the misleading info thats floating around about the strength concerns stems from the purists thinking a porsche should never go to a drag strip. so while i still dont plan to launch it off the 2 step, i do feel a lot more at ease.
so moving along ive decided to pull the trigger on changing the ring and pinion. it took a while to find, but i found the elusive 944 s2 ring and pinion. i havent been the biggest fan of the 3.38 final drive in the turbo transaxle i installed last winter. the car is quite fun once it gets going, once the turbo spools it just plants you in the seat and wont break a tire loose, the problem being with a high rpm engine combo like the ecotec, along with a big turbo, it takes a long time till it spools. it also made in town driving less fun, with the stiff grabby clutch i gotta use a fair amount of rpm to get the car moving, and it causes a fair bit of clutch chatter. the s2 gear set is a 3.875 ratio, very close to the 3.888 ratio in my old non turbo transaxle, except for the fact the s2 gearset is far stronger. this gear swap isnt anything out of the box, its been common in 944 turbo race cars since way back, and its been tested to the point where its known that this gear swap does the same thing in 0-60 times as adding 50hp (in a 350hp car) with the 3.38 ratio. so long story short im looking forward to having what feels like another 50hp.
gearset showed up today, so once the car is off the road thats the first thing thats gonna happen.
ive also secured indoor storage for the winter where i can work on the car without having to move it, so im real happy about that.
I can't believe there weren't more purists that got pissed, they were probably jealous. Nice find on the gearset, that will make a huge impact. Hopefully with the bigger tires you are running you will still be able to hook with them. Love that 944 body style.
the weather was nice so i went out to the track tonight. the first couple passes i was taking it easy, but it was just terrible off the line (2.7 60'), but ran a couple 13.8 passes at 116mph. on the 3rd pass i decided to try to launch it a little harder, slipping the clutch out. as i was sliding out the clutch it built boost instantly, planted the back end, and at at the top of first gear it broke the passenger side axle. so i guess the porsche guys were right saying you dont drag race a 944.
gotta grab a trailer tomorrow and go pick it up, i left it at the track for the night and got a ride home.
Man that sucks. Sad that the axels are so weak. You would think with the German engineering they would have built it more rugged than that.
2.7 60ft? That's Prius territory
yea, with the tall gearing if it bogs off the line it takes forever for it to get into boost. the axles, well, designed for 160 hp and its an original with 250k km on it, i dont really blame it for breaking.
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08-29-2018, 02:05 PM
