VRA Dwarf Car Racing Association Bulletin Board

Cook · Joined: 04 Dec 2007 Posts: 13 Location: Santa Paula

I wanted to start this topic to get an idea from the rest of you dwarf car racers what your thoughts are about having the option to run a quick change rearend. My main concern with the toyota rearend is that the gear sets are getting very hard to find and the price of them keep gettting higher and higher and toyota doesnt make a 6.3" or 6.7" ring and pinion that will work correctly for my motor. I searched two different salvage yards last weekend and only found two vehicles with useable gears. Both were 8 bolt 3.58 gears. Could not find one vehicle with a 10 bolt.

Now lets talk about price differences between just the rearends themselves. Asking around I found out you could have a floater built for about $1,300-$1,600. I talked with Peter D a few weeks ago and he said that he could build a quick change for about $1,500-$1,600 (and I think that was with axles but I'm not sure) So just comparing the two rearends the money is about the same.

Now about the gear sets. First the toyota. If you can find a set of useable gears at a salvage yard they will run you about $60 plus a $10 core charge. So say $70-$100 depending where you go. So after you weld them up you will have about $125 into a set (again remembering if you can find a set that will work for you) Next if you want to spool the gears instead of welding them the spool will run you $150 and another $40 or so in bearings. So now you have about $300 minimum in a set of spooled gears. Multiply that by how many different tracks you want to run and you could be up in the $900 to $1000 dollar range just for gears.

Quick change gears will run you $40-$60 bucks and you will have two different ratios you can run them. and you can find any ratio you want. So that means now you can run the motor in the CORRECT tranny gear and may result in less tranny damage/wear.

And now for the real question that I believe is the major concern out there. How does the quick change rearend affect a TRUE DWARF CAR. Well thats a tough one. Some say its turning the dwarf car into a modlite and getting away from the true spirit of a dwarf car. Others say it has no affect. Well I happen to sway in between those lines. I agree that it is getting away from the true spirit of what a dwarf car should be but then again a true dwarf car was suppose to be low budget. By running a quick change it would actually make dwarf car racing cheaper.

I highly doubt Western States would ever change the rules in favor of the quick change but we may get VRA to make an acception. Maybe we could make a weight rule change. If you want to run a quick change then your car must weight a minimum of 1100 lbs instead of 1000 lbs.

I dont know what the answer is here but I am curious to what everyone else thinks. Please respond and let us all know your thoughts.

Thanks

Curt Cook
#16 Pro Dwarf
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Curt Cook
#16 VRA Pro

Kevin · Joined: 25 Sep 2007 Posts: 92

I agree I think if we could run quickchange it would lower the cost by providing Toy gears and floaters to the used parts pool for a lot of people that only run one track.And some of those might upgrade to floaters as more became available as some transitioned to quickchanges.

SBRacing · Joined: 02 Jun 2009 Posts: 5

I think quick change rears will be the staple in dwarf cars in the not so distant future as gears become even more scarce than they are today.

We would like to take our car to selected Western States events, but we only received one gear when we bought the car, so if that gear doesn't work at the track we are going to, we are not going. I asked Frank Munroe about this earlier this year (he said this subject is brought up frequently at Western States rules meetings), and he stated the problem with quick change rears are the fact that many of the Western States competitors have thousands of dollars invested in gear sets, which they would lose out on when the change is made. and that the quick change rears rob 10-15% of the horsepower from the engine due to their configuration. Also, many of the current car makes would require major alterations to their design to allow for the installation of a quick change rear.
If they do rob horsepower, then I don't think a weight penalty would be appropriate if Ventura allowed the use of Quick change rears, however for teams with very little money invested in extra gears, this would be a nice way to go.