Paranoid about something...please help

[d0n_3d]

I was talking with a friend of mine today and since I am young and just new to the racing scene...I have now alot of doubts about continuing on. First of all I am afraid of a U-joint letting go with my slicks. The car has 85k miles on it and runs great and never had any problems with it. I was told that depending on which one would let go...it could be very disaterous risking major car damage. I figured that since I am stock and I am not really pushing that much horsepower that everything was fine. I do have a steel driveshaft loop.

I also heard that alot of the guys don't like the transmissions in these cars. My trans has never had problems and I have had a cooler on it its entire life. It shifts firm and is very reliable. Am I gonna risk ruining the trans with my power? I really have no other worries besides those two. The knock I already know about but I can control that. It's just I have never broke anything in a car before and I am afraid to do it to mine because I wouldn't have alot of money to fix something right away if it broke. Do I really have to worry about this stuff with my mods and power or should I just race and be done with it with no worries?

 

[salvageV6]

140K on mine and I added a driveshaft loop.

Don't scare me.

 

[BLACK6PACK]

You need to have a "rainy day" fund for these cars. Once you start racing, things brake. A tranny rebuild will be around $1500. If you twist a driveshaft, about all you will do is mess up the exhaust, and put a couple of dents in the floorboards.

The guys that are knocking your tranny probably don't know anything about them. It is different then what is in the MCSS, Olds and pontiac. The tranny in these cars are VERY GOOD, that is why everybody still runs them. The only people not running the stock tranny are the ones running 9s.

 

[strikeeagle]

"Cowards die a thousand deaths, the valiant die but once."

But seriously, I don't think a lot of stockers lunch driveshafts. However, when a car does lunch a driveshaft it's ugly. For $500 you can get a killer Denny's shaft with killer yokes and killer joints and killer fasteners and killer whatever and rest assured for all time on that account.

Tranny-wise, don't kid yourself. The OEM tranny, untouched, is crap. It'll give it up eventually. And when it does, hopefully, there'll be no collateral damage, as is usually the case unless you're unlucky. And then you'll go and spend your money and get it fixed by one of the few guys on the planet who can make a 2004R far better than GM ever conceived.

Now, go take an Ambien and go to bed...

 

[qwknuf6 jr]

TOUGH U-JOINTS

I Replaced My torque convertor one weekend , I had a friend who helped me,and he always did the straps for the u-joints when we swaped transmissions.
It just so happened that I went out of town to race that weekend (120 miles away) and noticed a stange vibration on the trip to the track .My friend thought that the drivshaft was out of b
alance even though it was ok before we swaped the trans.
Well I made several passes at the track 11.1 @120.00 was the best pass of the day (1.53 60 ft ) ! Drove my Buick home with the vibration still there .
Now here is the wild part ,one of the straps on the rear u-joint was NOT COVERING THE U-JOINT . My friend had tightened the strap up but sticking out 90 degrees from the u-joint .in other words I had driven 250 miles and made several low 11 second passes with only one side of the rear u-joint bolted in .
Well I fixed that and it has still held up to this day!

 

[Steve Wood]

The stock tranny will go many miles and run 12s without any problem while doing so. If you try to do 15# launches, the entire drive train will have its life shortened.

If it has been taken care of, it should last with no problem.

The U=joints, if never replaced, are probably due and it woujld be a good idea to do that anyway.