Solo II - How much wear?

[pokey1]

I came home yesterday and someone (my wife) expressed her concerns about how much wear the car will experience during these races...

I counted on replacing the brakes and tires after a couple of events - something that would have to be done anyways, just a few months sooner....

How does an automatic tranny take the races? (I know, I know, Wes goes through them pretty quick ;) )

Anything else wear out quick?

[Marsh]

That depends greatly on the car. With Chrysler products you could have wheels falling off, cracked frames and such. With Honda-Toyotat-Nissan, there is little effect at all.

With any car if you run street tires then wear will be minimal beyond tires and brakes. Once you put on R-compound tires you increase to loads to the point where you decrease life of some components. Things like tie-rod ends and ball joints on some cars. Bearings will wear a little fast as well. That said, I started doing solo-2 in 1998. Since then I've added 120,000km to my car with 3 lapping days a year (or more) and nearly 90 Solo-2s. I've replace the rear bearings, the front tie-rod ends and all the CV boots. The CV boots were just recently. The only weird one was an engine mount, but that appears to be a fluke. So with a solid car wear is pretty minimal.

[Keith-02Accord]

Marsh,

I just started Solo-2 last year with a 2002 Accord Sedan and I just ran with my regular street tires (Pirelli P6000) and I did quite a number on them. I was thinking of getting r-compounds for the upcoming season to be more competitive PLUS I don't want to be replacing my street tires every 3-6 months :eek:

But you're saying with r-compounds, I would actually put more wear on the car? Maybe I should just look at the Azena Falcons then for Solo-2 events?

Anybody else have any thoughts or ideas?

Thnx, Keith

[Brent]

Keith, go for the R compounds. Even with R compounds Solo2 won't put enough stress on your car to have any noticable effect.

Marsh, no wheels falling off yet. I did break an axle once but that was probably one of those torque things.

[Marsh]

Brent, I hear that Neons had problems with this when some of the very first model year were showing up in showroom stock. It was fixed in the next model year.

Keith, I only mean wear on the "wear and tear" suspension parts. It's just a fact of racing, and frankly the difference isn't huge, but it is there, and Pokey asked. The benefits of R-compound far out weigh the negatives, not to mention that fact that it's so much more fun to drive a car that can do things your friends and family thought were impossible.

[ctheo]

Your car should be fine. I had a 94 Integra and short of more frequent service intervals nothing needed replacement. It really just depends on the driver.

If you can find a slightly used set of R compounds and used rims pick them up. Replacing R's is less expensive than replacing good street tires stret and it's the best, first "modification" you can make to your car.

[ADAM]

4 years of solo 1.....2 front wheel bearings...

[Bubblecar]

For Solo II - the wear on any car is quite minimal. If you have a failure or breakdown - it probably would have happened on the street anyway. Even though the moves may look quite dramatic - cars are engineered to handle this level of use.

Solo I or lapping/driving schools is really not that much more worse for wear - but anytime a car goes onto the track there is the risk (however small) that the car can go off course and on rare occassions cause substantial damage.