Solo track day

I have the only Rush in Ontario, Canada. Track and race it alone. Body clamshells are a bit awkward but not particularly difficult to remove alone (I’m 65, 5’7, 172lbs). Electric winch and battery in the trailer makes loading and unloading easy.
At my track, can’t race it against sedans, so race in Formula Libre against open wheel cars of all kinds and Radicals. Won my class yesterday. EVERYONE (racers, stewards, marshals, spectators) asks me about the Rush, nothing but compliments on its looks performance and it’s engine wail. It is a blast to drive! Honestly, for the money you cannot get a better race car.

Remote oil filter

Part I'd agree with is the oil lines, if you can avoid adding more places where hot ignitable fluid can be sprayed out in an accident, that's a good thing. Especially since you'd likely be mounting it in the sidepod. The again, if the remote filter/lines where taken in an accident, you'd probably already have ruptured the fuel cell.

With the dual tanks it's basically a totally blind removal/installation and it's hard to get anything on the headers to cover the wrap. I would have done the remote but I had always planned to and have remove the header wrap now, makes it bearable enough not to be worth it.

Towing - single axle trailer?

Zenos E10R had tons of power (350 HP) & torque (400 Ft/lbs) but the brakes weren’t near as good as my 2-Eleven. It was rare — only one in the US with the larger engine (there’s rumored to be a second now) and it was fun on the track. That said, I never really felt great or confident in it — and it was scary as hell on the Texas highways! The CupR was phenomenal — but at the end of the day, I prefer an open cockpit. Plus I sold the CupR at a great price (more than 2X the Rush) and I can work on the Rush far easier! Consumables, while not a huge issue with the CupR, are also less expensive with the Rush. I drive half the year at Sebring/Homestead and the buyer of my CupR does as well so I get to see it from to time. I’ve been driving an Evora GT down here in Florida as I can drive it to and on the track — but it’s not as capable as the CupR. I sold the Evora GT last week and will be hauling my Rush between Florida & Texas for use in both 6 months/year.

Brake Pads

Re: the XR2 vs XR3, I was using the above Hawk chart as a reference, noting that Cobalt compares the XR2 to the DTC-60 and the XR3 to the DTC-30.

Have you found temperature charts for Cobalt by compound?

What do you think of, say, XR2/3 on front and XR4 on the rear?

They'll email you ranges if you ask for them. Xr4 probably overkill in the rear but don't let me stop you - I'd just use the stock ones til they're dead (and you now have two sets since you're replacing the fronts) The comparison is for friction coefficient, not temp range. Cobalts design philosophy is to use the pad with the friction you want, with all of them being more or less acceptable for track duty. In the case of oversized brakes and low weight of the rush, temp should be a non-issue

Has anyone had Keizer draw up wheel designs yet?

Agree on the tires, though at race speeds any savings from weight is lost from construction - belted radials are superior there (you can even see the gain on the dyno in an a-b test). I have a handful of things to test, including r25B bias slicks. I wish they made A7s an inch or two taller, will have to peruse the radial slick catalog. Also interested to see how much heat I can get into a tire (if I can make R7s work at all). We tune off of the tire pyrometer, after all.

Built it, and they will come - as they say.

Powder Coat Wheels

My standard answerer is don't do it. I am familiar with one team that destroyed 20 sets of wheels powder coating them. Our wheels are sprayed and cleared at the factory, not powder coated. Most powder coating is cured between 300-400F, but there are some that go as high as 600F which will anneal the wheel. Be ready for it to start ballooning when you try to bead them!

New member, SR on order!

Will you be running at sebring? What groups do you usually run with?
Hi John,
I have been with Mark and Chin there many times and have been with Track Guys there but it’s been years since they have had an event in FL.
I will be running Sebring, but won’t be able to commit to an event till Fall, November-December. A few friends are
Planning on meeting up there with Chin in November and that will be the earliest I will be able to attend.
Looks like the build will be up for us in July and then I am working in NY and will have to run down to pick up the car and of course going to do our first day of break in at HSR.
I am in group 3 in NASA as well and will hopefully advance to group 4 early next year and then the race license. I have done some time trials in the Shelby’s but as I stated this will be our first race car so all the input and knowledge is invaluable. Thank you!

half shafts

Anything is better then the OE stuff. The biggest issue with OE cvs is they're generally way too dry, as many have mentioned finding theirs.
Though from our DMs I know more what you were referring to, but this is a good opportunity to have a quality conversation about what causes dry joints since there are a lot of people with this car that don't have the knowledge. Also, importantly the different configurations of CVs and how lubrication differs (so generic knowledge is not misapplied). If you have anything to add please do.

In the context of our cars. Some people have found their joint to be dry when removing it after having been in service for a period that doesn't necessarily demonstrate an issue with the original quantity, though it's certainly possible. Given the type of CV and a common issue owners face, I think there's more likely explanations.

There's a few ways CVs dry out but most typically:

Simple loss of grease from the joint. This can be from poor sealing or a failure like having the flange bolts come loose, as is common with our cars. The grease flung out in this case is the precious grease that is actually in service lubricating the joints. (Note: following is in context of our CV joints not all.) A torn boot is also bad, but typically the grease lost here was useless and doing nothing to lubricate the joint. But a torn boot allows for water contamination as well as exacerbates the following.​

Next is separation and evaporation. Grease (rather the base oils) evaporate over time, and more quickly with higher temperatures. Grease also separates, again with time and temp as well as some other factors. Separated base oils are more susceptible to evaporation and leaking. Different greases are more or less susceptible and different running conditions impact the rate it occurs, but typically this is a long time scale. Grease that is outside the joint itself has no impact on the rate of this (again, our joints).​

There's two typical CV joint configurations and the characteristics of grease activity is differently between them.

Non plunging joints and tripods (ours are not) typically have a boot clamped around the outside of the race. Grease migrates back and forth between portions of the boot and the CV readily. These CVs have a higher useful capacity for grease. A tear in the wrong part of the boot can cause a total loss grease.​

Plunging joints typically use a flanged boot (like ours). In this configuration grease does not migrate back and forth between the boot and the CV joint. A portion of the grease initially used will immediately leave the CV joint and go into the boot, this grease is not able to return for the life of the joint and the amount in service only get reduced from there. There is comparatively a low service volume of grease. Any loss of that grease from a flange leak is a critical issue as it is a leak from the service area. Even "a little" might be 1/4 or more of the total useful volume. With a boot tear, the grease being lost is likely grease that was useless anyway. These joints even packing them to capacity is not functionally useful.​

It's important to be aware of these characteristics to drive your decision making process in regular maintenance and monitoring as well as how to respond to abnormal events.

CV's plus one

so the customers car is back in the shop for more service work. sense it was in the shop and did two track events I wanted to check the CV's after replacing one complete half shaft and rebuilding the other one.
as I thought from the start we will be repackage the CV's every 4 events.
the totally pointless debate on how much CV grease I used and how it didn't do anything but fill the CV boot with grease looks to be totally untrue!
yup a bit of fling out but that's not uncommon after all the reason for the boot it to keep grease in. it and dirt and crap out.
I pulled the end caps in the half shafts and they had no wear at all measuring to a new one.

because of the tool we use to pack CV's and we do them on many cars from the boot side the air and squeeze out pushes the grease out between the CV and stub axles until there is no more air and grease is pushing out from around the hole CV stub axles.
we are also getting waste from it filling the area where the half shaft goes thru the CV.
I'm guessing and it's a guess mind you we get about 10 to 15% waste. because it maybe dirty it's just waste we do not put it back in the tube.
is this where the extra grease is going and why we use more than one tube? maybe????

as for the plastic end caps . agree or disagree if your repacking the CV's I would tend to replace them at the same time it's not a high dollar item.
do the end caps make contact with the stub axles on the rush cars? yup they do! I made up a few for our personal cars out of Delrin we will see how they work out for us.
IMO I would not remove the caps and run it with out them. plastic on metal IMO is better than metal on metal plus after all Dave put them there for a reason.

for our shop we tend to buy in bulk we don't buy just one tube of CV grease at a time we buy it by the case the same with all fluids and filters.
if your package your CV's by hand you will no doubt also be using a bit more CV grease because of waste so you too could end up using more that the single tube or tub has in it.




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