For a stock car, it all depends on amount of time on track (continous) and how hard you really drive it.

I run 1 gal of distilled, wetter, then the rest coolant (somewhere in the 70water/30coolant range).

I'd recommend replacing driveline fluids every dozen events or so, can't be too safe on that one. Was my procedure for my MR, and i never lost 4th.

I've got a car with 1400 miles, 6 track days, a full cage and a new suspension on it. I beat the crap out of the car. You're fairly safe, imho.

 

Of the tranny, t-case, and rear diff, I'd change the t-case fluid the most frequently. It seems to be the darkest of the three every time I change it. The t-case also holds the least amount of fluid.

Reducing body roll will help your tires last a lot longer. The stock suspension rolls a lot and has a tendency to overload the outside tires, whereas a properly set up suspension will better distribute weight over all four tires. I'd recommend getting coilovers whenever you feel your driving ability has caught up to the car.

 

How ofter are folks actually changing their T-Case and other driveline fluids?

I have done it after every event thus far (some two days) and the noises my car was making are actually getting better not worse.

If I could get by with doing it every 4 or maybe 5 days of track time I may be happier but as of now I love my car and consider the ounce of prevention to be worth a pound of rebuild.

 

Personally, I think you'll be ok. You have to realize that a lot of the advice here comes from guys that are way ahead of you and I! They really beat on the cars, and drive very aggressively given they have a lot of experience.

In stock form the Evo is tremendous. Put on a set of coilovers and upgrade your pads/fluid and you'll have a really solid setup. Not sure how many days you plan to do, but I'd think you'd be ok for several events with just upping your basic maintenance.

I always bleed the brakes and change oil after every event; there's no way around this. The other fluids I think depends on how hard you're driving, the length of the sessions and the related temps. If you're doing 20min sessions with cool-downs between, then it's not too bad. Just my .02

I haven't tracked too much yet, but my fluids are all stock. Of course my car is barely a year old as well...

 

thats far too often, imho.

i'd go 10-12. again, depends on how hard you beat the car.

 

Just to put things in perspective, my '03 has ~55K miles of mixed street and track use on it. I'm an instructor with a bunch of clubs, so I do quite a lot of events and drive the car very quickly (though I don't "beat" on my cars). There is no noticeable wear at all. The engine doesn't burn a drop of oil...even at the track. There is no noticeable wear in the drivetrain: smooth shifts, no noise, etc. There has never been any significant metal in the drained fluid, which is a good sign.

Personally, I stick with regular maintenance. I change the engine oil (Mobil 1) and filter (Bosch) every 3K miles; the T-case/front diff and rear diff fluids (OEM DiaQueen) every 6K miles; and the tranny fluid (OEM Mitsu) every 12K miles. Of course, this schedule started after a highly **** break-in period for the first 3K miles of use. I use OEM drivetrain lubes, but I do generally put some 10W-50 ester-based race lube (Motul 300V, Torco SR-5, or Elf Excellium) in the engine during the summer driving school season.

Basically, regular maintenance using the PROPER lubes is key. And proper drivetrain break-in is more important than you can imagine. If you follow some of the "advice" on this board regarding lubes and break-in, you'll generally do more harm than good. That's all I'll say about that...

Of course, the last piece in the puzzle is to drive the car with some mechanical sympathy. Driving hard on the track doesn't mean beating the living **** out of the car. Nor does being gentle on the car mean driving like your grandma. You can be very, very fast around a track while still being gentle on the car.

Emre

 

I change my drive line fluids every 15K miles (approximately once a year) ofcourse I daily drive it too. Basically I divide the manufacturer recommendation by half and follow that. During my last NASA event our class room instructor told us about his Corvette and how he used to change his fluids once a year. He put over 60K miles on his car before he sold it with multiple track days during a year and never had a problem. On top of that he was a real track hound! Oh yeah stick to stock fluids!!

 

I originally stuck with the maintenance schedule for the tranny fluids... until the rear diff started locking up before it's scheduled maintenance. Since then I'm pretty **** about changing transmission/tc/rear diff fluids after every other track day or ~4-5000 miles. I use stock fluids for all transmission and drivetrain components.

l8r)

 

Guys have been running Evos all around the world for around 15 years now. The consensus is that t-case/front diff and rear diff lubes need to be changed at 6K intervals. The guys that do this never seem to have drivetrain issues. That should tell you something!

You really can't compare an Evo drivetrain to a Corvette drivetrain.

Emre

 

If you track your car I would stay with the 6K recommendation or more frequent. I cannot imagine going 15K.

 

I change my transmission fluid every event if it was a hot event. Every other event if it wasn't so hot out. This is after melting a 6speed so I got a little **** about the oil changes after that.

T-case every 3 events, rear diff every 5.

 

Thaks guys. I changed all drivetrain lubes (at the stealership) about 2k miles and one DE ago.

No comments yet on the NOS MMT octane booster for knock protection. I thought that would prompt opinions for sure. (just btw we have good 93 oct here is TX, so it is in addition to that).

 

Good to know, I'll be changing them more often, rather be safe than sorry ... I think I'll change it more frequently in between summer track events. I don't really do as many track days as some of you. So far I have only done 9 track days on 3 different tracks. I'm more of a track tease than a track ***** :P But I do intend on doing a lot more this year. I auto-x a lot more than I track the car.

Razorlab how is your new 6 speed holding up to the added power?

 

So far so good, 4 events on it. Been too lazy/busy to install cooler too. So has been sans cooler.

I run a mix of Redline MT90 and Redline heavy shockproof in it. Seems to like it so far.

 

who built your transmission razor? im getting some grinding going into 1st and my tcase is starting to whine :/
where do you exaclty install a tranny cooler? does it help a whole lot? i have always wondered.