I'm running lots of tire (285 super 200s) and some downforce on track and really struggling to keep my wheel bearings alive. They are maybe surviving 3 or 4 events on average before needing changed. I'm also finding that they like to fail VERY fast and take things with them. I think I just ruined a spindle from the preload washer spinning, and I destroyed a hub, brake caliper, rotor and spindle last year from another failure.

I reached out to the only guy I know of that's currently running an FC doing serious grip racing with a ton of tire, and he basically is in the same boat. He changes hubs frequently and often at the track. His advice was to use only timken or OEM bearings and said he does his preload by feel and ignores the mazda directions. When I tried to use the mazda directions, I ended up with way too much preload that caused a bunch of brake shaking. I have been following timken's generic directions which is 50 ft-lb to seat and back off completely, 10 ft-lb and then back the nut off about 60 degrees to preload. It helped the feeling in the car a lot but I suspect is a bit too loose.

FDF makes a drift kit that uses 350z wheel bearings but the geometry is a complete disaster for a grip application.

I also think I might experiment with some extended ball joints and crash bolts this winter to try to get the spindle a little farther inside the wheel. Right now I'm running spacers so that the effective offset of the wheel is something like a +6, I think if I could extend the ball joints like 15mm and use the crash bolts to angle the knuckle away from the strut, I could keep the ~4 degrees of camber I run now and shave maybe 10mm of offset.

I'm curious if anyone has some arcane knowledge on bearing setup or knows a guy that has managed to adapt some more robust spindles and bearings because this is a massive pain in my ass.

Looking for LS2/LS3 or aluminum truck equivalent blocks that can be rebuilt. I am in Louisville, KY, but go to Nashville/Indy/Columbus often and have two trips planned to Gingerman as well so South Bend/Southern MI areas are doable at some point as well. Would go farther for the right deal, or maybe talk shipping. I know someone has one sitting around and needs to make space!

A couple of months ago I picked up an 08 Silverado 2500 as a tow pig that had low miles and looked to be in awesome condition, especially for the year and type of truck.

As I've gotten to know the truck a little better, it's clearly been up to its doors (at least) in mud. Everything obvious was sprayed down, but there is mud caked inside the frame rails and even under the vinyl cab floor.

I'm really concerned this stuff will hold water and be a huge risk factor for rust not far down the road. I have tried to spray as much of it out with a hose as I can, because I can't really see a way to get at it with a pressure washer without a lift.

Am I overreacting? Or is this actually an issue I need to thoroughly deal with?

My car at this point really only sees track day/time trial use. I blew my clutch up over the weekend and installed a new one in time for the next day's session. I'd like to NOT go through that again. Will be behind an LS3 with an ASA cam. It's still only seeing a half dozen or fewer events per year, so we're not talking 2 hours at a time or months of abuse, so I'm not trying to get extra spendy like a quartermaster or anything. Looking to land somewhere up to 1k. Don't need a flywheel but if the recommendation is strongly made to go to an aluminum or billet flywheel I'll listen.

Right now I'm leaning toward a mcleod twin-disc rst for $752 from Texas Speed. Summit also has a twin-disc that comes with a billet flywheel for 800 that's tempting.

Looking for a little fabrication project to take on. Looking around, it looks like all matter of braces are available for the FC (ignoring front strut tower here, because I think that one is pretty well established) but most common seem to be front and rear subframe to frame rail braces and behind-the-fender wheel well braces. Are any of these actually worth anything?

I've also seen things like bolt-on frame rail stiffeners for miatas, frame rails cut open and thick steel tube dropped in, crap like that. It really seems like because the FC pre-dates the democratization of FEA and the like, there's not much data on where the chassis *actually* needs help, all we know is it's floppy as all hell.

What do you guys think?

I've been googling to little avail - I'm trying to find something appropriate for "racecar" carpet.

I pulled the factory carpet out of my FC quite a while ago - it doesn't get hardly any street driving anymore and it was constantly in the way when I needed to work on wiring/seats/trans mounts etc. The problem is that one of the time trials classes my car belongs in requires carpet unless you have a full cage.

I was looking at some options and some of the drag racing guys who also have carpet required rules use this super light stretchy carpet. The only problem with that in my mind is that it's 100% polypropylene, which from what I can tell is insanely flammable. I'm a huge fan of not being on fire so I'm really hesitant to go with something like that. I've come across some fire-proof coatings but they're mostly intended for indoors use as far as I can tell.

My guess is that someone has to have solved this problem before, hoping that one of the many experienced guys around here might know!

Hi all,

I'm currently working on a steering project in my FC and have the entire column disconnected and pulled, including the ignition. My battery is draining at a rapid rate, I initially measured 10A across both the retractor and head circuits in the under hood fusebox.

I pulled those fuses so it's not really a big deal to solve, but it seems extremely likely to me that for some reason having the ignition disconnected has caused both of these dash switches (which have a tie in with the ignition state) to cause a short to ground. For my own curiosity, could anyone explain to me why that is?

Took the FC in for an alignment today - on the passenger side as the tech turned the adjustment bolt in the LCA toward the front of the car to adjust toe, it would spin but the cam was not moving and toe wasn't changing. I went to check the parts catalog - it looks like the adjustment bolt is still available, but the cam plate that faces the center of the car is not. Will replacing just the bolt (part number FB0128470A) solve my issue, or am I stuck unless I can also find the cam plate?