Jake and Jeff,... I'm sorry to see that. You both are blessed to be alive. I am looking for the pics of what is left of the tranny when you get back home. Wasn't able to see much in the dark.
I've already started to work on the car. The damage could have been way worse. we'll be ordering parts in the morning. I'm taking the car down to English on monday so I can start taking it apart. Should be up and running soon Jeff
So what actually happened Jeff? I did not get a chance to make it this year and after seeing you run in yakima I was hoping you would do well in Seattle. Looks like Lucas will be very busy this fall.
Those pictures above are of Jeff's talon (got a couple of PM's asking if it was mine that caught fire), he blew the dip stick out and it blew oil all over the manifold and caught fire on the return road. One hell of a bad day for that guy. Sorry that happened to you Jeff, you will get it back together soon and get that 8sec slip in no time!!
Now on to my sob story.
What a crazy weekend for us, I don't even know where to start! The weekend started out so god damn perfect with my 1st pass right off the trailer pulling the 8.66 @165mph pass out of my ass. Our next pass I upped the boost in 1st gear just a tad to get that .03 hundreds to snag the DSM gasoline record witch is 8.63. Came out of the hole strong and right at the top of 1st gear the slut decided it wanted to wheel hop, before I could lift the transfer case exploded.
So the next day we got a driveshaft and t-case from a couple of buddies of mine Brian and Johny, thanks guys!!
We busted tail and got the car put back together. 1st round of eliminations I got a bye run, so I just rolled it out so I wouldn't break the damn thing then I laid into it half way through 1st gear, car felt great all the way down till I went to shift to 4th gear, then all hell broke loose.
Because of what happened on this pass I am parking the car till I figure something out for this damn thing, My girlfriend, my mother, and my sister were all in tears from what happened. At 150+mph the t-case seized up completely ripping half of the transmission completely off, the t-case then flew under the car, smacked the drive shaft and bent it like a mofo, then tumbled out and punched a huge hole through the gas tank and threw sparks everywhere, the impact was so severe it lifted the rear of the car a tad. The vibration it caused was so bad I couldn't see. I smelt the fuel coming out of the car, I shut all the switches down, pulled the chute and slammed on the breaks to get the car stopped.
Got out and fuel was poring everywhere out of the fuel tank. At this point I was panicking like a bitch. Not knowing if the damn thing was going to go up in flames or not. The damn techs over there seemed to not even care there was fuel everywhere.
Anyway, the recap of this carnage is half the trans is gone, the t-case is completely gone, the rear driveshaft piece is bent like you wouldn't believe, and the fuel tank looks like someone rear ended it. Complete destruction, in the end of all of this seeing my girl friend, my sister and my mother all in tears from the stress and fear of my life has me decided to park the car till further decisions.
AWD at this power level is too god damn risky and dangerous, well in my case it has been, maybe not others, but my luck is not so great this year.
Video of the destruction.
And video of my 8.66 @165mph pass.
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1992 AWD talon
NW fastest AWD
well guys, I wouldn't doubt at this point the car is almost a total loss. I just got done getting up underneath the car to inspect further damages and it's 10x's worse then I originally thought it was, I have 3 large holes in the floor from the front all the way to the back from when the t-case flew out, one of the holes is atleast a foot long and 6" wide, it just pealed the floor completely up. The other 2 holes in the floor are about 6" long/wide. Rear drive shaft looks like somebody put in over there knee and bent it. Gas tank is completely folded in the middle.
Basically picture running over a t-case at 150mph
The transmission is also destroyed. well the bell housing part of it anyway, you can literately see the entire flywheel/clutch assem. The whole piece where the t-case bolts to on the trans is gone, t-case bolt holes are ripped clean off. Surprisingly the damn output shaft on the trans survived I'm trying to find batteries for my camera to take pictures.
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1992 AWD talon
NW fastest AWD
Well Jake, time to finally go FWD. Racing is very dangerous, every form of it. Shepherd took a rest from his Talon for the same reasons you're worried, his family. I'm glad you and Jeff are OK.
Absolutely crazy. Glad you're ok. Hope you go back into it.
I've been a lurker for awhile and seen a lot about your car and it looks pretty safe. Still take some time off.
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/Dave
95 Eagle Talon ESi-T
I've been considering one of those under-hood halon systems for a while now, mmostly because of dipstick launching concerns (even with a crimp in it etc..) Just hard to fit even a small halon tank into a DSM motorbay.
Would be interested in seeing pics of a DSM under-hood fire suppresion setup, if anyone has one.
Did this fire die on it's own or did track techs put it out? It actually doesnt look too bad fire-damage wise...
That is why i don't have a dipstick period. Unless your car is going too see alot of street time. Plug the hole, and change your oil after every race. That is a nice car. I just had a 42r car built by the gas record holder Bill Lowe. You guys are freaking me out with all the high speed carnage! Sparks and gas don't mix! Neither does heat and oil! I'm glad everybody got out safely.
Jake are you parting out your car? I see a parting out ad on DSMLink and I thought it smelled funny.
1. You're a member of DSMTuners.com and a proven one to be exact. I'm surprised I haven't found anything on the classifieds yet.
2. The guy is only accepting cashier's check, check, and money order but no paypal.
3. He lives in Seattle while you live in Idaho. Under normal circumstances, distance shouldn't matter much but everything else I previously mentioned makes the whole deal sketchy.
Please confirm.
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Tim
My car's name is Grace.
Jake - so sorry to hear that about your car, man. Have a lot of respect for the racing and building that you do on your car, and you're dead right in putting family first. Hope you can get things figured out and get back on the horse when you're good & ready
Then had some INSANE issues which I'm sure he will touch on later.
