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What a pathetic situation. Turns out Enthusiast Apparel has completely copied our “Tracks” design t-shirt.

Look familiar?

The first World Time Attack event has come to a close and I’m psyched to say that the Cusco/Tomei Impreza pulled off a 3rd place finish against the stiffest TA competition in the world this year (with only 0.019 seconds separating it from 2nd place).

Pos Driver             Competitor/Team     Vehicle           Lap Time

 1  Tarzan Yamada       CyberEVO          Mitsubishi EVO     1:30.5870
 2  David Empringham    Sierra Sierra     Mitsubishi EVO     1:31.8840
 3  Tarzan Yamada       Tomei/Cusco       Subaru WRX         1:31.9010

GT1 coverage from Abu Dhabi.

Intro

53 days after order, my ACPT carbon driveshaft arrived (well packaged).

Saturday morning I jacked up the car, removed the stock driveshaft, and found that the ACPT driveshaft’s differential flange was the wrong specification.

Today is Wednesday, and I received the proper flange and a spare u-joint via overnight UPS.

After a late afternoon 19 dollar visit to Pyramid Auto Parts and Machine to have the flange swapped, I went ahead with the install. As has been mentioned several times before in previous owners’ write-ups, the driveshaft is a good inch or more shorter than the stock driveshaft for some reason. I’ve never heard if there is a reason for that, and although it seems odd, I’ve also never heard of anyone having any trouble down the road.

By my scale, the stock driveshaft was roughly 22lbs and the ACPT piece was 13.5lbs.

Impressions

Obviously it’s factually a better performing part with regards to reduced rotating mass (albeit with an extremely small diameter as far as those gains go) and getting power to the ground. And obviously it dropped ~9 pounds of static weight from the car. And it’s a better material for dampening drivetrain harmonics and handling torque. Those things are great and the car does seem to push through the RPMs a bit more eagerly, but I was expecting more based on some (now known to be) overzealous reviewers.

In my opinion, for the $1200 it cost, I consider an ACPT carbon driveshaft to be a nice finishing touch for the well-funded and well-sorted ride. This is not something for the budget-minded with expectations of being blown away.

Newly released — Got deep pockets?