24 hours of lemons video

[oxbrain]

We ran two cars in the 24 hours of lemons in may. My teammates are being slowpokes with the good pictures and incar video, but I'm too impatient to wait to post this. I'll do a more in-depth writeup when I've got all the pictures.

Watch for the yellow and blue festivas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFStLVObsis

That engine lasted 150,000 miles or so of road use, 3-4 seasons of dirt track racing, and nearly 2 14-hour endurance races in desert heat. After that, it did nearly 3 miles of racing without oil and on three cylinders. If that's not tough, I don't know what is.



It threw a rod through the front of the block a couple hours before the end of the race. I disconnected the fuel injector and spark plug and ran it on three cylinders for 2.75 laps until it finally died. I could have coasted further, but what you can't see is that I got hit really hard on that final sweeper and blew the front left tire.

Right now the plan is to find another 323 engine and freshen it up some for next year.

The yellow car had two front struts and a tie rod broken during the race. It leaked a lot of oil and was overheating nearly the whole time, but it lasted. It's getting a bigger radiator and some new seals for next year. More if they'll give us the budget.

edit: I should point out that the engine in the blue car isn't actually seized. It heated up to where the bearings stopped, but once it cooled they let go and it'll run again for a couple minutes.

[jglutz]

Next time use a smaller hose clamp and maybe the block would have not given out!

Just kidding....great story.....classic pict

[oxbrain]

That larger radiator was literally a last minute job. I picked the radiator up from the shop the day before we left. I was running around parts stores near the track trying to find hose to fit and the store I was in only had 2 sizes of hose clamps. I got it all together about 5 minutes before the transponder check lap.

Video of it running today,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5ol6NhwFnM

[oxbrain]

I finally got the rest of the pictures and most of the video. Here goes a nice long trip report. I don't have much of the cars before the race. Nothing special though.

You might recognize the blue car from last year. It was supposed to get a B6T/G25MR swap, but I found out the tranny was toast literally two days before the race and didn't have time to make new mounts for the B6T on the festiva tranny. I threw a new headgasket on the old engine(b6) and put it back in, hoping it would fix the low compression. It did get a full aspire swap, FMS springs, stiffer bushings, and EBC redstuff brake pads. At the last minute I decided to modify the capri radiator to fit, I picked it up from the radiator shop the day before we left.

The yellow car is carbed, I think it's a holly clone, B6. It got an aspire swap and some cut down festiva springs. The body was a bit crushed around the fuel neck. We routed the filler tube inside the car and patched the hole with some sheet metal and an old license plate we found.

Both cars had the tops cut off to install the cages. 6-point cage with a hoop around the engine bay. The blue car has a slightly beefier cage. No windows, no hatch, doors welded shut, battery moved next to driver, all plastic trim removed, cheap racing seat(driver only), 5-point harness, and interior stripped. We were considering fuel cells, but decided it wasn't a safety risk.

Thursday we loaded the cars onto the trailer and set off. The trailer is a 27' camper hollowed out with 1" plywood decking. For the size it's pretty lightweight, and it's perfectly sized for holding two festivas. I backed the yellow car in with no problems, but hit the gas a bit too hard getting the blue car up the ramps and kicked one loose. Luckily the car is pretty front heavy, so it didn't fall. A couple minutes with a winch and it was loaded securely.



Friday morning we rolled into Altamont and started unloading. The photographer got warmed up and started taking more pictures of things. Good shot of the truck and trailer. We rented a 2008 dodge 1 ton with the turbo diesel. God I love that truck.



Tight fit, even for a festiva.


Misaligned? No problem, just give it a shove.


Another car lurks inside. We didn't even start it, I just pulled it out while my teammate drove and did his best to not run me over down on the ramps.


Wheeeeeee


Of course both cars needed last minute work. The battery mount in the blue car needed modifying to fit the new battery, the fancy new seat wasn't mounted, and the blue car was getting the capri radiator installed. The yellow car just was just missing decals and had a problem with the choke sticking, so we wired it closed.





My butt seems to feature prominently in these, huh? I'm going to have to speak with our photographer.


Some shots of the professional modifications done to the yellow car.

Can't have the hood flying up, can we?


Endurance race in the desert? Extra cooling.


Not a whole lot of people there on friday.


Back to the hotel. We made some neat shirts for the team. We liked the design so much we're ordering a bunch professionally screen printed.










Coming soon, Saturday, the beginning of the race, and a sad ending for the day.