Been using my 03 for only track days for a couple of years now. Bought it with 39k miles on the odometer and she is just about to roll over 50k miles. Probably close to 9k of those miles are all track days. Kept the mods minimal other than brakes, suspension and safety equipment. Always thought if I could afford it I would like to take a crack at some time attack etc... I'm local to Socal but me and the wife love a road trip up to Sonoma or Laguna as much as possible. We both agree it would be nice to travel even farther and try some other tracks.

Anyways, for the last 18 months I've been hearing a whine sound similar to if I had a twin screw or straight cut gears. Found out it was a combination of a bad PS pump and more than likely the T case. Clutch is starting to feel end of life after 2 years of track days with my not so good driving skills. I recently installed a TRE rear diff and bought an OEM RS front diff to install but now I'm thinking with this T case sounding like it's going to grenade if I try to run it one more time at the track maybe it's time to get more serious about building the drive train.

With that said any recommendations on what to do or what I can do with a budget of just over $6k and doing all the removal and installation labor myself?

One thing that has seemed to bug me is that a lot of the time at local tracks like buttonwillow I find myself staying in 3rd gear at redline rather than up shift to 4th. It even feels when I go from 3rd to 4th that the car is down quite a bit on power going through some of the turns. This is where I feel I lack the most because I really don't know how to interpret or explain what exactly I'm feeling.

 

50K miles on the trans with decent maintenance shouldn't require a rebuild. That said, your T-case shouldn't have failed at 50K either. Are you at near-stock power levels, or is this a high horsepower car?

Personally, if I was on a budget and the synchros were fine I wouldn't bother rebuilding the transmission yet.

 

Engine is pretty much close to stock and makes 300/300 on RRE's dyno.
Thank you for the input, maybe I'll just leave the trans alone and just do the clutch.

 

It's a "while you're in there" thing for me so I'd do both if time/budget allows. You're doing 75% of the labor already no matter which of the options you choose, so may as well break it all in together.

 

I'd leave the trans unless it feels crunchy or you're really that torn about the gearing.

Getting the tcase refreshed won't cost a whole ton and adding any LSD up front is always a good idea.

As for a clutch, seeing as it's mostly a track car I'd go for a sprung 6 puck from ACT. Depending on your redline you could get away with a full face clutch too but the puck stuff has less issues with high RPM lockout.

Be sure you're not under filling the tcase either.

 

That's kind of where I am at. Seems the right time to just get it done since I have the funds right now and I usually end up regretting not taking care of it the first time.

I believe the T Case went bad because of my lack of maintenance due to my over confidence in the shop that does most of the work on the car. I was told the fluid was changed or checked but I have a feeling it wasn't and really that shouldn't be an excuse given I have my own full size shop with 2 lifts.

I wouldn't mind a puck clutch given I really don't like driving it on the street at all.