how long, on average, do these puppies last
That depends. If you start the car with your foot on the clutch
pedal, or sit at stoplights with your foot on the clutch pedal, they
will wear out a lot faster than if you don't do these things. Assuming
that the thrust surfaces of the block and crank have not yet been damaged,
they should last for quite some time, perhaps on the order of 75,000 to
100,000 miles. Assuming everything else in the motor lasts that long!
Back at the, uh, '93 VTR convention in Everett, Washington, the '77 Spitfire
I ran in the autocross had a motor from a $100 parts car in it. Brand new,
in spec thrust washers would last approximately three to four autocross
runs. For a month or two, saturday's task was to drop the pan and pop in
a new set before Sunday's events. If you attended that particular meet, you
might have noticed I didn't drive that maroon Spit very much during the
convention. Of course, the thrust washers rapid demise is easy to use as
a scapegoat for once again missing out on FTD at the autocross by *that*
much. On my third and fastest run, the remains of the washer fell out about
halfway through the run, which messes up one's clutch release, and I spent
about 1 second trying to get the car into first gear for the pin turn a bit
before the finish. And that run was only about 0.15 seconds off FTD. Drat!
The motor in Killer doesn't have this sort of thrust washer problem, though
we did have clutch problems at the Hudson VTR meet. Maybe I need an autocross
car with an automatic trans!
mjb.
|