To catch up on the FX, Scat and Chucky came over Thursday evening after work to help me out with the tranny reinstall. After spending the morning in Maui for work, my boss told me to take off work early, so I got home early and started on trying to get the tranny in.
Here’s pics of the stuff that was going in. The Exedy clutch came with bonus stickers that aren’t quite as weak as the Magnaflow ones.
And here’s the flywheels:
And the Exedy/Daikin clutch installed, kinda dig that old style logo:
So I am, wrestling with the transmission. It’s at this point from last night and is not going anywhere. Push & prod as I might, it’s not getting any closer. I finally decide something must be up, and pull the transmission off. I try to put the clutch plate alignment tool in and discover it doesn’t go in. Shoots. I unbolt the clutch and see that the friction plate splines have been messed up. Guess things weren’t lines up good and trying to push it on has made burs on the splines.
OOps. Looks fixable. I take a file to it and clean up the splines. Scat & Chucky show up and after some more maneuvering and convincing, the transmission finally goes on. Whew. I’m not sure how I did this before by myself! A minor issue with the throttle cable and we get everything back together, and it still works! We go for a test drive and grab dinner. I’m ready to race!
Sunday rolled around, almost didn’t wake up in time! I set alarm but forgot to turn it on! Still made it to Aloha Stadium in time to sign up for the auto-cross. This is the first race of the new season, first race with the new FX and setup. Unfortunately I missed out on a chance to buy a used set of race tires. It’s a clear day, getting hot already. Fortunately theres a breeze to help a little. It was good to be out and seeing familiar faces ready to play amidst the orange cones!
As for the ass whupping, yup, there was some of that going around, mine! My first run sounded like I was doing drift season or something. I think I had the wheels squealing almost constantly throughout the whole course, even where it was straight! I was so squirrelly I was spending the straights trying to recover and bring the car back around. Holy cow! Was my reaction to that first run. Running on street tires makes a huge difference, it was like learning how to drive all over again. Second run I mellowed it out big time, brought time down 2 seconds, which is a huge time on a 40 second course. Was still finding myself too hot in some corners. Managed to improve times each subsequent run to shave .5 more seconds. But I still got my ass whupped. 
Check it out Chucky, look what beat me. No excuse for you now! 80th out of 120. Even with the spanking (some people are into that…) I thoroughly enjoyed it. The whole learning a new experience was good. Interestingly the car was oversteering easier in some points, which caused the front to turn in more than I wanted, a little more control of that and it may be useful. I guess race rubber will be needed soon! Oh, and yet another starter. This one started acting up again, what a pain.
80th out of 120th ain’t bad. in fact it was badass