Since my car is still dented, I decided to rent the Rosen Autosport black Sentra SE-R (now partially owned by Stephen Harper, aka "Dented RX-7") for this weekend's MARRS race at Summit.

If you remember from the NASA PARRC event two weeks ago, the guy renting the car had his final race cut short because the rubber o-ring on the oil filter become unseated. Seal on oil filter broken = white smoke and Mobil 1 synthetic on race surface.

This is forshadowing, btw.

I qualified 17th out of 18 ITS cars (but still in front of all the ITC cars in our group) with a 1:33.1. The "rental" didn't handle the tWiZtAyZ as well as my car -- off-the-shelf KYB/AGX's, stock viscous LSD (AKA, the box of jello), no camber plates. But it felt like it had more power than my car.

Anyway, one row in front of me was Marshall Lytle's E30 BMW and Nigel Patterson's 2nd-gen RX-7 (I've known Nigel's brother for a few years because he's an "SE-R guy"). Both qualified about a second faster than me, so of course I wanted to get a good start so I didn't get lost in the dust.

It turned out that Ed York's E36 BMW (no. 2 qualifier) had engine problems Saturday. Then two other ITS cars didn't leave their grid spot for the pace lap, so I was in 14th by default and on the same row as Nigel's RX-7 on the pace lap.

We came around turn 10, and I couldn't see the starter stand. It seemed like there was a big surge forward, and then everybody was on the brakes. Then there was another surge forward, which I assumed meant the green was flying. I punched it and started to pull away from Nigel (SR20 torque ownZ). I hit the rev limiter briefly and went to 3rd gear but didn't seem to lose much momentum.

I was keeping pace with Marshall's yellow BMW going down to turn 1. I checked my mirrors and saw I was now fully past Nigel's red RX-7, and I moved to the right to try and sneak up the inside. Marshall hit his brakes wayyy early, and I went flying past. I followed a couple yellow RX-7's out of turn 1, and they went single-file into turn 3 with me in tow.

Up to 3 and down "the chute," I lifted just a bit for some breathing room "just in case." At the bottom of the hill, I still had momentum in my favor, and the RX-7 in front of me left just enough room on the inside for a Sentra. I made the pass cleanly, was now in 11th spot, and set my sights on the other yellow RX-7 and ITS cars.

But they pulled away from me. And the yellow RX-7 I passed got me back on the main straight. Then Marshall passed me back a lap later. Nigel's RX-7 was nowhere to be found, so I was just running by myself for awhile, shifting at 7,000-7,250 to try and keep the water temps down.

Then on lap 10, I was heading up the hill toward turn 10, and out of the corner of my eye saw a whisp of white smoke in the passenger compartment. I looked in my rearviewmirror, and there was white smoke everywhere!! So I let off, coasted through turn 10 as much offline as possible and pulled over in the grass to the left of the front straightaway. There was some smoke coming from the right side of the car, and I knew for sure it was the damn oil filter. I got out and saw oil everywhere on the front of the car, and climbed the hill to watch the rest of the race.

Of course I knew the car had the same type of oil filter, and of course I had a regular Nissan filter in my stash of stuff and of course I didn't replace the filter ... until after the EV crew had towed me back in and I had to put oil in the car to drive it on the trailer.

The EV crew at Summit is really top notch, but I'm getting tired of seeing them in action (MARRS I -- something possibly broken in front susp. in qualifying, towed in and then flat-bedded in when the axle really broke during race; MARRS IV -- hit after harmlessly spinning in qualifying, flat-bedded in; MARRS V -- oil filter causes massive oil leak in race, towed in).

Cliff notes: Good first lap, mediocre middle laps, premature end to race, Power Flow oil filters suck ***, EV crew hauls S ... ER's

 

I'm curious, what were the top ITA and ITS qualifying times?

 

Is this a common problem with race preped SE-Rs, or should Rosen re-evaluate their pre-rental checklist? The EV workers at Summit are going to start calling this one the "Nissan Valdez" pretty soon.

 

ITA was 1:29's; ITS 1:26's.

 

As for re-evaluting our pre-rental checklist....No. We did a thorough check of the car. We thought it was the oil filter. We replaced it. The same problem happened again. We ran the car for an hour or so before the weekend. Everything was fine. I guess we will need to hire a couple better mechanics to help us out with our problem since we don't know what we are doing. Sorry about your weekend Pat.

Eric - in search of a racecar that is fault free all of the time.

 

Race-prepped SE-R's aren't very common, so everything is a learning experience.

 

the #33 ITA crx qualified with a 1:28.7 . his name is james evans

 

hey i was sitting at turn 10 with the camcorder rolling, i got the smoking sentra on tape, i thought for sure you blew the motor. concerning that black crx that won ita, that thing was a beast, just glad the crx's finished 1st and 2nd, hate it when a 240sx wins.

 

Yeah and he ran in the Honda-Challenge the weekend before --- and if I remeber correctly the drifitng contest..........

 

Sorry if you took my comment as a knock. Having lived many years with Little British Cars, I've developed a strange sense of humor about this kind of thing. I realize, as Pat said, that it's a learning process. Now to figure out if it was just a bad coincidence, a bad lot of filters, or a general problem with the oil filters under extreme conditions. Good luck.

Jerry - Who almost tore down his MG engine to replace the timing chain, before figuring out that the wandering timing was due to a worn distributor shaft bearing.
"I can't clean that motor. It's got original Abingdon grease on it."

 

Cool! How did he do in the drifting contest? I've never seen a CRX drift on purpose before. Although I'm sure they make for great little twitchy drift cars.

 

he did run in the honda challange, won his class.