Dust Buster Race Car...help needed

[OnkelUdo]

The green van is running and driving and mostly ready for sale. The transmission harness has to be re-pinned (we re-pinned the spare J-box cord to test). It won't shift without being manually shifted and starts in third. It will not engage OD at all. We suspect a damaged solenoid or internal wiring fault but it is not worth pull the side cover to check.

Other than that, the brakes pulsate badly probably from rusting unevenly while sitting.

Number 666 race van is ready to go. We managed all the small punchlist items today. Theme is all that remains.

[OnkelUdo]

Long time since I posted because I honestly forgot which user name I had here.

Racevan is now a manual transmission. I completely changes the character on the the character on the track. So much so that we are actually pushing for a class C win at Joliet in two weeks.

[Duke George V]

Racevan is now a manual transmission. I completely changes the character on the the character on the track. So much so that we are actually pushing for a class C win at Joliet in two weeks.

We are definitely going to need a write-up for this.

[OnkelUdo]

We are definitely going to need a write-up for this.

Most of the research work is actually done for us by the Fiero folks but there was one very specific U-van difference:

Tranny out of an early 2000's Cavalier VIN code 4
Flywheel out of a 3800 Camaro cut .25" and rebalanced
Passenger axle moves to the drivers side
New Passenger axle is the inner CV and shaft from an 80's Fiero manual transmission with the outer CV from I think 2002 Bonneville with the 3800
Shift cable bracket has to be modified to clear the exhaust
Custom tranny and engine mount fabricated from scrap and generic hockey-puck tranny mounts
Put the shift selection in neutral and lock it there
Mount the Cavalier pedal and master cylinder to the firewall after shortening it about 4" and cutting of most of the left side of the brake pedal off

Up here, the hard part was finding a Cavalier in the right year range with the 2.2 and manual. The tranny we finally got had over 200K miles on it and suffers from a (not uncommon) crunchy 3-4 syncro. Honestly, it is not much of an issue at the two tracks we have run it so far because in 3'rd we have to contend with inside wheel spin so even the slower corners, we just leave it in fourth. Even the speedometer is almost perfectly accurate with our race tires (225/45-R17).

[lemons bob]

New Passenger axle is the inner CV and shaft from an 80's Fiero manual transmission with the outer CV from I think 2002 Bonneville with the 3800

I hope you have a spare of the custom cv built and ready. I remember hearing from the guys with the binford berretta that had half berretta half alero half shafts (so they didn't have to use the dreaded 5x100 hubs) that they would destroy atleast one a race weekened and have to drive around to multiple stores to get the 2 half shafts they needed to build what the half shaft they were using, atleast they did until they brought a spare and then everything was fine.

[OnkelUdo]

You have met me, right. We had a second set built before we had even street driven the conversion!

Te stock axle swapped to the other side is actually of slightly great concern as it is technically too short at full suspension droop but that only even happens when it is jacked up.

[OnkelUdo]

You have met me, right. We had a second set built before we had even street driven the conversion!

The stock axle swapped to the other side is actually of slightly great concern as it is technically too short at full suspension droop but that only even happens when it is jacked up.

And when the gloriously reliable getrag F23 munched a mainshaft bearing, back in went the spare subframe with the 4T60E...yeah, swapping a subframe, on grass in 95 f 90% humidity weather was lots of fun. We got the "Heroic Fix" for running a manual on Saturday and an auto on Sunday.

F-it...building out the 1948 Plytmouth and leaving the constantly confused 4T60E swapped U-van as our back-up car. What can honestly go wrong with an L-head 6 3-speed made 26 years before I was born.

[Duke George V]

This is probably a dumb question, but did you shift the auto manually? In all but the fastest sections of any track, you could probably leave the shifter in 2 and not worry about it. If you hit a straight that you need to go faster than, say, 75 on, bump it up to third. I think that's what the guys who are/were running the Cutlass Ciera did.

[OnkelUdo]

This is probably a dumb question, but did you shift the auto manually? In all but the fastest sections of any track, you could probably leave the shifter in 2 and not worry about it. If you hit a straight that you need to go faster than, say, 75 on, bump it up to third. I think that's what the guys who are/were running the Cutlass Ciera did.

They run a non-computer controlled tranny.

The problem is you can't, unless we change to a push button shift, run in 2nd and manually shift. There is so much going on when you need 3rd (twice per lap...lap takes 2 minutes) that the imprecise action of the column shifter is not an option. Even if we leave it in second, the tranny feels compelled to find a false neutral when we nail it thinking we want first.

We will build a another manual (internals are easy to find) but right now...just massively disillusioned.

[lemons bob]

This is probably a dumb question, but did you shift the auto manually? In all but the fastest sections of any track, you could probably leave the shifter in 2 and not worry about it. If you hit a straight that you need to go faster than, say, 75 on, bump it up to third. I think that's what the guys who are/were running the Cutlass Ciera did.

Actually we always left it in D and never manually shifted. even with the 3 speed we also needed 3rd atleast twice a lap, and I wouldn't want to chance someone screwing up and going into the wrong gear, plus being endurance racing I'm fine with not always being towards the upper rpm. I know we would run some sections in 3rd at autobahn in 3rd by just not flooring and go pretty much as fast if not faster while being easier on the engine.

[OnkelUdo]

Literally stumbled over another F23 manual tranny with the right bellhousing pattern Sunday at the PnP. Had not choice but to pull it. 4 of us in different parts of Midwest search all the self-service yards for months and did not find one last time...I had to make a 7 hours round trip to the middle of Michigan to grab one. This one was second Cavalier I passed when looking for parts for a totally different car.

Going to have our chief mechanic disassemble this one and check it out but likely will not have it in for the October race. Just too many things to do.

[lemons bob]

Saw someone selling an ste 3 speed. You can stick that in and make and AWD Racevan.

[OnkelUdo]

If we do that, we will just put the auto subframe up front and the manual one in back...what could possibly go wrong?