All,

I was wondering if anyone else has had any problems with their Transmissions or differentials breaking? In addition, does anyone else experience a lot of wheel hop when taking off, or accellerating out of a corner?
Now, I do Autocross my car (2000 Protege ES). It is setup with Bilstein Shocks, and I use Hoosier Tires (Stock-class rules only let you do a few things).
I raced all last year with no problems. This year, my car broke at the ProSolo race in Ft Myers at the beginning of the year- spun the pinion gear in the differential, and trashed the tranny. Probably caused by wheel hop. It was resolved through insurance, as the dealer said there was exterior damage to the tranny (I'm thinking ..."from a cone?!??"...crazy). So that was really a shady deal as I later noticed, that none of the exterior parts were replaced on the work order. I figure as long as I got my tranny fixed and didn't have to pay more than $500 that was fine.
After the ProSolo in VA, two weeks ago, my car as gradually started to "make some wierd noises". I get this clicking noise at the left front wheel when I accelerate out of left hand turns, and if I take first gear up to 5 or 6K RPMS, I get a wierd clicking and rubbing noise that sounds like it's coming from the transmission or the left axle.
At first I thought maybe it was my shocks rubbing on something, or a bad bushing- but I put the stock shocks back on today and still does it. SO, I'm taking it to the Mazda Dealer tomorrow. If any one has had a similar experience, please share.
And just for your info- I don't launch the car hard- usually just rev to 2K, slip the clutch and gas it.
I'll let you guys know what happens at the dealer. Any help would be appreciated,

Thanks,

 

Sounds to me like its a CV axle. They make mucho clicking when they start to go bad. Especially when accelerating out of corners.

 

Jason, I bet the Quaife LSD from Mazda Motorsports would cure that wheel hop and improve your corner exit speeds dramatically! Of course, that wouldn't be very legal in the class your racing in though.
I also have a 2000 ES and have noticed the wheel hop. I think it's a fairly common problem on open differential, small FWD cars like ours. With everything I've read about our transaxles, I avoid it like the plague. I realize that's harder to do when racing for the best time possible, but I'd prefer not to deal with broken trans parts. Do you think the AWR poly motor mounts would help? Not sure if those would be legal or not, but it's the only thing other than the LSD that I can think of that might help.

 

Eric,

Yeah unfortunately, theres not much I can do in Stock Class. The car has been awesome this year (when it works) and untill the Mini's came into the class I though I had a championship caliber car.
I've thought about going to STX where I could use the LSD, Coilovers, Motormounts, swaybars, Intake, Header. BUT all that is like $2000-$3000. I'm not sure I'm ready for that investment. On the other hand, how many transmissions will I go through racing in H-Stock?
I'm not sure how competitive the car might be in STX- I'd have to go up against WRX's, BMW's, and Type R's
Who knows?!?! We'll see what the dealer finds out about the tranny first.

Later,

 

Well,

The dealer got under the car today and said the noise probably from the motor mounts- or lack there of. One was "completely disintegrated" and the others were worn out. Those should be fixed friday, then if it still makes the weird noises- something might be up with the tranny. So this came to me with a sigh of relief, and it is covered under warrenty!!
Hey maybe I just needed new motormounts to fix my wheel hop problem
I'll let you know how it turns out on friday

Later,