“Knob of the Week” award
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The “Knob of the Week” award goes to a good friend of ours, Travis, who this week managed to destroy his second gearbox in his N14 Pulsar. And what a fine job he did too!
Not that he would have needed much help, the car runs a GTiR engine with a d
yno p
roven 187kw at the front wheels. Add to the mix a brass button clutch, super sticky Bridgestone Potenza tyres and a need? to dump the clutch at 4000rpm and suddenly the gearbox becomes stressed to the point of no return! Unfortunately for Travis the only gearboxes readily available for these cars are the standard duty box that slots in beside the non-turbo SR20 engines. Not an ideal combination to say the least! There is talk of a toughened, straight-cut gear equipped box being available for slightly less than a good house deposit, but hey after all we are talking about a Pulsar here, not a GTR or something as worthy of having crazy amounts of dollars thrown at it.
So in went another second-hand SR20 box and out went Travis and his Pulsar from our garage. The last thing I said to him was “Take it easy on this one and it should last a little while”. He 
had his buddy Brad drop him off to pick up the car (Brad drives an identical car!) and they both got to the red light at the end of the street at the same time. I’m sure I heard the poor gearbox screaming blue murder as the Bridgestones went up in a cloud of smoke once the light had turned green! As the car went out of ear-shot he had pulled second gear and the tyres were still scrambling to grab onto the bitumen and the turbo was making an oh-so-sweet sound. I think we should have placed an order for two gearboxes, sounds like we will need another before too long. The good thing - he’ll be paying for our holiday to North Qld the way he’s going! After that effort, step up son and accept your “Knob of the Week” award!
Take care and be safe on the roads.
Craig
