24 Hours of Lemons Contender

[KenC]

We're coming down to crunch time for our car. End of March at Sears Point/Infineon is our race.

Our car is getting the cage put in right now. Through some connections, we were able to buy the DOM at cost, and our welder/fab-guy is doing it for $500 labor. We bought 100ft of DOM, so we're having it way over-built 8).

[camaroz1985]

There is pretty much no such thing as overbuilt when it comes to cages. Once we get everything race ready, we will be going back to look at any areas we think could use more structure.

[camaroz1985]

We are officially accepted for the Summit Point race. Engine is in the car for now (will need to come back out), and the cage is finished except for needing to add some more area to two of the mounting plates.

Full speed ahead! I will post some pictures and updates shortly.

[KenC]

You guys ended up finding somebody to fix the welds on your cage?

We're running again at ORP in June.

This is addicting.

[camaroz1985]

We are on welder #4 and cage #2. Dropped the car off this morning. Hope to have it back by the weekend, and possibly get the engine running.

[CorvallisBMW]

Best of luck! Sorry to hear your cage efforts keep falling through.

[camaroz1985]

April 30, 2011

A few months have passed, as have a few work days. The engine has been in and out of the car more than we care to count, but finally it looks like it has been dropped in for the final time before the race.

Over the last few work days the brake hydraulics have been completed, and tested. Fuel lines have been checked, and reinstalled, as has the gas tank.

This day started by picking up the car from the welder, with a new roll cage installed. The roll cage really has been the "why is this such a pain?" part of the whole build (so far), but finally it should be complete, not only to Lemons rules but also Chump Car rules should we choose to run there as well.

When we got the car home, the engine was yanked to install the pieces we forgot last time, and the car was rolled back outside to paint the cage. With some paint it is starting to look more like a race car.

The forgotten pieces were installed, fuel lines secured to the chassis, and the engine was reinstalled. We measured for the driveshaft and moved on to going through the wiring mess from the Mustang.

We also began mounting our harness, and buttoning up things on the inside of the car. We installed the fire extinguisher, and called it a day. The next work day will need to be soon in order to keep us on schedule for the race, and hopefully a pre-race test day.

Here is what the car looks like now.







Note: The seat was not sitting in position when these pictures were taken.

Looks like a comfortable place to spend a few hours in the burning heat of a West Virginia summer day.





The engine in it's final resting place. New water pump was a necessity, as the old one was filled with crud. Hopefully that isn't a sign of things to come.

[KenC]

Bring LOTS of bribes.

[camaroz1985]

I figure that, but it's frustrating because it is 100% legit.

[priapism]

Bring LOTS of bribes.

I bet they'll love it. Do some German-mullet-hotrod theme.

[camaroz1985]

I bet they'll love it. Do some German-mullet-hotrod theme.

Thats an idea for next time. Maybe make it a pickup too. German redneck mullet hot rod.

To read our theme for this year check our website

[Mlarsen]

Oh man, thats so awesome! Good luck!

[KenC]

I figure that, but it's frustrating because it is 100% legit.

Ours was a legit eta with $325 into the car. They still grilled the shit out of us.

If you can keep this car on the track, it could win the race... from a pure mechanical standpoint.

[camaroz1985]

We just want to finish, and not have too many problems along the way. Made some more progress this weekend. I will post that up shortly.

[camaroz1985]

May 7, 2011

We picked the driveshaft up from being shortened on Thursday. It is 2" shorter than the stock Mustang shaft. It uses a standard u-joint in the front, and a conversion u-joint in the rear to go from the Mustang driveshaft (1330 u-joint) to the Jags That Run flange (1310 u-joint).



The work day started with a trip to the local Ford tuning shop to get some information and dig through their scrap pile. We got the info we needed, as well as a set of exhaust manifolds from we think a truck engine (more on them later), and an intake of indeterminate origin.

Back in the shop, we got the driveshaft in the car, which required lifting the engine and moving it forward again. When we turned the driveshaft to tighten the bolts it would only turn about 90 degrees and stop. We found the flange to be hitting the differential crossmember. Easy solution was to add a few washers under the differential mounting bolts to space it down.



Next we moved back to the front of the car. The radiator support needed to be remounted. It was removed to facilitate engine installation. After some straightening of previous damage and some trimming it slid in and out pretty easy. Flanges were added to the front and ends, and tabs welded to the frame. It now attaches with 8 bolts and could be quickly removed if need be. Some scraps of roll cage tubing lend their services as lower radiator mounts.

Attachment points to the sides, front, and frame respectively. Shown before the mounting holes were drilled. The holes that are there are from removing the spot welds.







Now you see it.



Now you don't



You can see the headers in those pictures. They are the pieces that came with the Mustang. They look pretty good, at least by Lemons standards, so we want to use them, but it appeared they wouldn't fit without some more (major) modifications to either the car, or the headers. Here is a better picture of the headers themselves.



On all previous attempts they would not fit on the passenger side of the BMW, hence the need for the truck manifolds we got earlier, but on this day the stars aligned and they dropped into place. We can only think that they were actually hitting a fuel line before and not the frame rail as we assumed. Once this fuel line was moved to a better (i.e. cooler) location, they dropped in.

There are still some close clearances so the pinch seam at the top of the frame was trimmed and rewelded in that particular area (done after the pictures).





You can also see the pieces of intake we got. We will cut it down and make it work.

Looks good/mean from the front.



We have devised an appropriately Lemons solution to the rest of the exhaust system which will be implemented shortly (hopefully).

After the pictures were taken the clutch cable, and throttle cables were installed. The clutch fork hits the transmission tunnel. If you have been following along you know what that means, the engine comes out again, and the hammer comes in.

The goal is a running/driving/testing car in 2 weeks, so there is a lot to be done.

For more pictures, check out our album for this work day.