Just got home. The weekend was quite a bit of fun! While it's fresh in my mind, i'll go ahead and post an update.
on saturday i was off to a stunning start, did about 4 laps before she started stuttering. it felt like a severe timing issue. i could not replicate it in the pits, went back out for 2 laps and came in on the strap with the same issue. still could not replicate it in the pits, but decided to take 10degrees of timing out across the board and remove a bit of fuel (10% or so) in case it was a rich miss since i was fairly certain it was rich.
also, i tried messing with the linkage, for some reason i could not get in 4th to save my life. this was a pretty significant problem since 3rd was too short and 5th was too long.
went back out for 2 laps, and the motor started sputtering really badly and one of the hard pulses broke the 3000GT shaft.
i called Adam (adamjabaay on here) up on his offer he made last last week. he dropped what he was doing right away and we drove about 45minutes away to his shop and i was able to use his TIG welder to repair the shaft.
while i was doing this, i sent two other team-mates to search for a replacement seal that was damaged in the incident. i unfortunately thought the number written on the seal would have been enough to cross it but it wasn't. so when i got back to the track about 2.5 hours later with the repaired shaft, there was no seal waiting for me. so i looked it up in the timken aftermarket catalog and found the part number 222830. we then proceeded to go to every parts store in a 20mile radius. the best we could do was order one for 8:00am sunday morning. so we do that, otherwise we would have been back on the track by about 3:30 or 4:00 on saturday.
sunday morning, the seal has arrived, I install it in the car and the car makes it out within a few minutes of the green flag dropping. at first the car is running strong and thankfully there's a full course yellow. still with no 4th gear i spend the next 4 laps balls out "racing" without exceeding the RPM limit in 3rd. this results in the entire field bunched behind me on a full course yellow. top of 3rd gear was about 65-70mph. I'm not entirely sure what caused that full course yellow. there was a truck out doing a rescue but it wasn't in an odd spot and only one truck. either way, 4 calm laps was appreciated.
track then goes green again and the problem comes right back. at this point, i have an epiphany and remember that my coolant temp is actually connected to my oil temperature. it seems that the car was finally going out of cold enrichment mode and probably doing lean misfires. it's not obvious on a 5.5:1 compression ratio. i go ahead and correct that and correct the timing adjustment caused by the same issue.
i go back out for a few laps and then it happens again. apparently i had messed up the fuel curves a bit while hunting for it so i correct them back and it runs great and i go back out again. a few more laps and then it starts missing bad, but now the tach is dropping in and out. that instantly points to a loss of sync issue. so i adjust the hall sensors in a bit and go back out.
at this point, i'm 18 laps in i believe and it's running great. so i decide to go back out thinking everything will be fantastic. sure enough, at that point the shaft breaks again. so i had now made it to 20 laps and no way to move under it's own power again.
i then packed the trailer and wait for the awards ceremony and i end up getting "most heroic fix" which i'm not entirely sure i deserved, but i was happy to accept it. especially since my goal is to win all of the trophies possible.
i now have gotten two with this car:
-i got screwed
-heroic fix
if someone else wants to pick up the flame, i can probably sell the car whole but I think I've done what i can with this motor and it's time for me to move on. i really do want to do a turboshaft in the same chassis but i have to clear it by Jay and such first.