Dang it! I'm selling this POS!!! Ryan and Karl were right!!!!! 17 year old Hondas suck!!!!!!!!
Ok, I'm kidding.
I am having some tranny troubles but considering the abuse I've put on the poor thing this year, I certainly can't complain. I have been adjusting my clutch all season and was running out of travel which I assumed to be a worn clutch. After having somebody change the clutch last Monday, it turned out the release fork inside the transmission was worn out and bending. As a result, my clutch pedal is a bit stiff from the decreased leverage and it is engaging right on the floor. With 250K miles on the drivetrain, I'd say its done pretty well.
I hoped it would make it through nationals but it only got worse after practice starts on Friday. On my morning runs on Saturday, I was having a hard time shifting into 2nd gear but a little bit of force did the job. By the afternoon, I couldn't even force it into 2nd gear shifting at redline and wound up having to coast until the rpms dropped into the 5.5K range before it would slip in. No grinding or anything, the thing just wouldn't shift.
After talking with a few people Saturday night, I decided to try and bend the bracket outside the tranny which seemed to get me about 2mm of extra travel. Being paranoid about it still not working, I wound up short-shifting (5K rpms) into 2nd on my Sunday runs which worked great. Needless to say, averaging 2.5s 60' times with a couple of high 2.4's thrown in for good measure wasn't getting it done with my competition running low 2.2's and high 2.1's. With the run to the first corner being ~140' with no braking, I don't even want to know how much time I was giving up by the 2nd corner.
The only other problem I had with the car was I couldn't loosen it up enough. The grip out here is everything everybody said it would be and I still didn't leave myself enough adjustment to get the car to rotate-- rookie mistake. I may try to play with the rear toe before Tuesday but it is hard to keep it square without going to extremes. Or an alignment shop…
I felt like I drove well on Sunday once I got used to the grip so I was very happy about that. I had fun which was the most important part and learned (well, reinforced really) a few valuable lessons.
1. Don't show up with a half-ass car and expect to win. Trophy? Sure. Win? Not a chance.
2. Don't take 15 runs on slippery asphalt with old tires the weekend before you run on uber-grippy concrete with new tires. *This will be somewhat irrelevant by next year...
3. If there is something busted on your car, fix it *before* you show up at a big event. Don't just hope for the best 'cause your too tired (or lazy) to do something about it. See point 1.
4. Don’t get frustrated with things you can’t control. I did pretty well with this one and wasn’t even upset when I couldn’t shift. I think most of it was the fact that I felt like I got nearly all I could out of the car in its current state. My last 2 runs on Sunday were a little sloppy but I was trying as hard as I could and just pushed the envelope a bit too far. I usually get upset with myself when I don’t feel like I’ve driven well but that wasn’t the case here. Or maybe it’s just the new medication I’m on!
Anyway, I’m looking forward to nationals and would be very happy with a top 5 finish. Even if I can’t pull that off, I’ll still be happy if I can flog the car within an inch of its life and feel good about my driving.
Eric and Donnie had some shock issues over the weekend which included the rears missing half of their normal travel! They recently had them rebuilt and the place did a very poor job reassembling them. I hated to see those guys dealing with a busted car after all the effort they put in getting things ready. They can fill in the rest of the details if they are so inclined.
I didn’t see much of Donna and Chuck other than in passing and I’m not sure where they wound up. It was at least nice to see some other familiar faces in the sea of new people and confusion of the big event.
Jim
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