E30 Race Car wreck, time for major surgery

[Lance Racing]

Had a productive work party on Saturday at Auburn Foreign Car.

Here's the patient ready for pre-op


First order is to be peel off the sheet metal:


As the car comes apart, we find various things that will be saved for re-use, like the brake duct work. At something like $12 a foot, we don't want to junk this stuff:


The mangled bumper needs the BF crowbar:


The BF crowbar was popular:

[browntown]

when did you make that t-shirt in orange? or is that only for your pit-crew?

[Lance Racing]

The Orange Jagermeister shirts were made when the Jager shirts were made. Orange was an option that year. About a half dozen people ordered orange shirts. They are pretty rare. JR Nagy was wearing the orange shirt on Saturday.

[DarkWing6]

I just thought it was funny that almost everyone pictured had one of the picnic shirts on. :p

[Mr Deagle]

taken from the token r3v guy:

LOL diving boards always win. always.

[Lance Racing]

Wearing an M Team shirt always brings good karma to whatever you are doing...

[Dave]

Wearing an M Team shirt always brings good karma to whatever you are doing...

I was wearing one when my engine went kaput a few weeks ago . . .

But I was still in a good mood!

I shoulda known it was the shirt!

[ivo316]

Great driving, That was a lesson in control, I even showed it to my kid, I read in the thread somewhere that you were going around 100mph, wel, let me congratulate you once again on your driving, and glad that you can fix the car. ;)

[Teaguer]

Sorry to hear of your misfortune Lance .

But good to see that you are OK and that you are moving quickly at fixing her up again .


I found a couple of vids that show the collision at different times .
This one shows your slide and the impact : Click
While this shows just after impact : Click

[Lance Racing]

Nice find on those additional video clips. About half the cars run video cameras, so there are always plenty of recordings to go back and review.

More progress pics:

Co-driver Stephanie pulls clips off the valence:


Dropping the exhaust, we're loving having access to a lift:


The impact was strong enough to shear the tranny mount on the left in half:


Tom has fun with the saw:


We were happy to find that the wheels, shocks, springs, sway bar and control arms were all OK. Only one bent tie rod to replace. We were dreading having to send anything back to Ground Control.


Even the oil cooler radiator is OK. sweet.

[s0urce]

Time for a new driveshaft!

[Lance Racing]

We're now ready to lift the engine straight out, easy to do with the core support out:


The scrap heap kept growing:


Here's comes the engine:


And onto a dolly:


Pre-op is done, and the car is ready for transport to Jeff Butler at Haury's Collision.

[MikeE30325i]

great progress!

[JGood]

Spece30 and ground control coil-overs?

Am I missing something?

[Lance Racing]

Good eye!

This is not a SpecE30 car. We run up here in Seattle in an E30 spec class called PRO-3. PRO-3 is very similar to SpecE30 but the suspension package is open in the rule book (compared to SpecE30 which has a specific spring/shock combo, right?). We are not allowed to use remote reservoir shocks however. So the Ground Control ADs are legal.