[ma-serca] SE-R's at Summit :-) + tranny trouble

[Ivan Chou]

Jon,

Thanks for flagging so the rest of us could drive!  And a good thing Jon
was up there; he or his workers spotted my hood in the unlatched position
all the way from the platform.  Fortunately my hood latch and brakes
worked great, but that was not the case for my transmission/clutch, which
paid the price of admission for this:

My instructor, Russ Kaplan, offered to demonstrate his line during the
advanced session in his 240Z race car (stock 280 motor if I remember
correctly).  That in itself was exciting, but wait -- within a few laps of
the session, a red and a yellow Ferrari 348 Challenge made it through
traffic in the mirrors within a few minutes and passed us.  Russ stepped
up the pace and kept up with them for the entire session!  They pulled
away a few car lengths on the straights, but Russ would eventually catch
up to them after the straights.  The yellow one even gave him the point-by
because Russ was glued to his tail.  Granted these guys were probably not
instructors, nor willing to risk their limits.  Whatever the reason, I
feel fortunate for the experience. :)

SE-R woes: I had been experiencing a high pitched whine only in 4th gear
prior to the DE.  It started happening after I jacked my car up.  I had it
up on one side for some time so maybe the transmission shifted position a
bit, or I thought my 4th gear synchros were going.  Driving to the track
in 5th was uneventful, Lined up before the first session and found my
shifter was being difficult, and would not come out of first gear.  I made
some effort, depressed the pedal again and things seemed to be alright.
However within a few laps I had 3rd gear popout :(  It happened when I let
up on the gas for braking or when lifting to let someone pass.  My
instructor was not worried, and neither was I since it stayed put when I
was tracking out.  I couldn't quite concentrate as well as I would've
liked, and was not willing to push it.  I thought it was simply a motor
mount gone bad.  By the third session I had begun skip shifting from 2nd
to 4th.  Three sessions were too much as the damage was done: there was a
metallic clattering sound which at first I thought was a heat shield or
flex pipe becoming undone.  However on the way home I found it extremely
difficult to engage gears; *something* was getting in the way.
Depressing the clutch pedal would make the sound go away, and only being
able to engage gears sometimes makes me think that I have popped out a
disc spring or broken a finger on the pressure plate (JWT plate, stock
disc), and the sound is coming from this piece striking the flywheel.
I've read variations on this in the archives and am curious to see what
broke.  Now would be a good time to overhaul everything, possibly even
including a used transmission and flywheel.  :-o $$$

Ivan - '93 SE-R 110k miles
http://ichou.freeshell.org/se-r.html

On Sun, 23 Jun 2002, Jon Felton wrote:

> I just got home from the NASA weekend at Summit Point.  There was a good
> showing of SE-R's (my gray B13, Ivan Chou's gray B13, Andy Turnbull's
> black B13, Eric Rosen's red turbo B13, and Wade Jackson's vivid teal
> B14).  It was a great weekend despite the heat...