[alfa] my car doesn't suck, hooray!

[Mark Denovich <mark@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

It took a lot of work, but the new to me Verde is running pretty well... 
  It is now actually pleasant to drive.

I had an irratating driveline vibration.   Last weekend I loosened up 
the pinch bolt, ran the car, and re-tightened the pinch bolt. 
Unfortunately, it didn't fix anything...  in fact it was a bit worse.

That night I got a call from AndrewG (the guy racing a GTV6 in ITS) 
about my transaxle whine, and he also told me I should have gone futher 
in my efforts to elminate driveline vibration.   He suggested that I 
remove the pinch bolt entirely, loosen the center support bolts, and the 
three bolts connecting the rear guibo to the transaxle...  run the car, 
and then tighten everything up.

So this weekend I tried again.   The first positive step in reducing 
driveline vibration was to remove the 17mm socket that was still stuck 
on the pinch bolt.  I have no idea how it stayed on at 5,000rpm, but it 
was still there.  (note to self:  don't work on car after 11pm.)   I 
followed Andrew's advice and ran everything in... with the center and 
rear exhausts removed as I was upgrading that too.   The V6 sounds 
pretty butch with a straight exhaust.

The exhaust was as usual a giant pain.   But for once I got it sounding 
pretty good.   I used stainless steel band clamps from Racers Parts 
Wholesale.  These clamps are the way to go.  Nice big high quality 
hardware, that results in a much better seal than you'll ever get with 
the stock clamps, or those damn U-clamps.

The test drive revealed that the vibration was almost completely gone 
(just a little resonance at 2000rpm when engine braking...  perfectly 
smooth otherwise) and a quiet exhaust.   The car sounded and felt better 
than my Verde ever has.

Yeah!

--Mark
http://mark.denovich.org
--
to be removed from alfa, see /bin/digest-subs.cgi
or email "unsubscribe alfa" to majordomo@domain.elided