Chump Car/24 Hours of Lemons race car sorta build thread....
02-22-2010, 05:27 PM
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Chump Car/24 Hours of Lemons race car sorta build thread....
So,my boss and a few of the employees,myself included,built a car for the 24 Hours of Lemons race series.For those who aren't familiar,it's a 24 hour endurance race for cars that cost $500 or less.Our car is an '84(or '85 maybe?)Monte Carlo that had been a Pure Stock dirt car.It came with a worn out engine and really shoddy roll cage,so we're already most of the way there!
The first two races were horrible,with the car overheating the engine,running out of brakes,handling terribly.....Pretty much everything that could go wrong.
During the off season,we upgraded the brakes,went to bigger/wider wheels and tires,actually performed some maintenance and for the first time ever,checked the alignment and set it up properly(as much as bushings with slop measured in inches will allow,anyway).Basically,the whole thing was a joke up until this point,but now it was time to actually try to win!
With the new setup,the car finished 3rd overall at the fall Lemons race(as well as finishing first in the Yank Tank class),even with many laps lost due to various issues,including the throttle pedal falling off and the transmission shift cable breaking(as well as the downshift cable that was never there to begin with,which we'd never noticed).Some self tapping screws and complete ******-rigged shifter later,and the car was only a few laps from winning.
Pics from that race:
Fast forward to now.The Chump Car Series 24 hour race at VIR.The whole Molde Carlo theme has gotten old,so now it's Cow Patty(get it,like Kyle Petty?I know..)Racing.Basically,make it look,uh,kind of like a 70's era Richard Petty Super Bird car.Remember,I said kind of.
Hopefully it doesn't rain,or the latex interior house paint may fall off.
Here's what we've got so far.Hand-painted graphics and other goodies to come:
Yes,this car is so slow,you can use an oven timer for a lap timer:
Padding covers up the welds that would otherwise scare anybody in their right mind out of getting in this bucket:
I don't know how you measure cubic inches,but it's a lot of liters:
Chump series 24 hour race at VIR:
14 hours in.........we were in 3rd around 6 o'clock.i went in,made up a lap on the leaders,raced with and passed Stewart.......and then the carb took a shit.we've been in twice now with issues,lost 50 laps.we'"re in 11th, a couple laps behind Stewart...no chance of winning now
SO,things continued to get worse.
From the eight hour mark to the eighteen hour mark,we replaced the fuel pump,carb,fuel filter,took the fuel cell apart(to check it for debris and re-clock the pickup),came in three times with the car boiling over(which we finally diagnosed as a loose water pump bolt and fixed),and refilled the rear-end grease twice.............After all that,we were in 14th place and had worked our way back to 11th,four laps out of 8th.
Then,the diff exploded in a most catastrophic way.The guy next to us with the Camaro would have given us his whole rear-end,but at that point everybody was just too tired and out of it to swap it in.
I think we ended up 22nd.
Some observations:
-Driving at night it awesome!At some point,while working in the engine bay though,somebody had layed on the lights and ruined the aim on them all.
-It was cool racing the NASCAR guys.I spent my first stint racing pretty hard for a while with Stewart.His car didn't stop or handle quite as good as ours,but he more than made up for it.On a couple occasions,we traded spots three or four times in one lap.He made some rediculous passes on slower cars when we'd come up on traffic.I knew I was running the car way harder than we'd planned(our intention was to run a pace that'd allow us to make it on two sets of tires and brakes),so after I passed him one lat time,I pointed him by on the straight,he gave me the thumbs up,and I slowed my pace back a little.He came over after that stint and said he was very impressed with our car.
-Having problems sucks.But,I was very proud of how well we worked on all the issues we had.
The final paint scheme,from the Trackdaze event:
Stewart's hauler and spares collection(engines,trannys,etc...)
Racing Smoke
Update
The Molde Carlo has been turned into the Mello Fellos car driven by Kow Patty(replica of the old Kyle Petty Mello Yello Winston Cup car)
Haha,kind of a weak theme,but at the Lemons race at CMP last weekend,the car finished 3rd overall and 1st in class!
.......I had to attend a wedding,so I couldn't go
There are pics of Cars In Depth,but I can't figure out how to hyperlink to specific pis in the Flash gallery...Eh,it's ugly anyway.
The first two races were horrible,with the car overheating the engine,running out of brakes,handling terribly.....Pretty much everything that could go wrong.
During the off season,we upgraded the brakes,went to bigger/wider wheels and tires,actually performed some maintenance and for the first time ever,checked the alignment and set it up properly(as much as bushings with slop measured in inches will allow,anyway).Basically,the whole thing was a joke up until this point,but now it was time to actually try to win!
With the new setup,the car finished 3rd overall at the fall Lemons race(as well as finishing first in the Yank Tank class),even with many laps lost due to various issues,including the throttle pedal falling off and the transmission shift cable breaking(as well as the downshift cable that was never there to begin with,which we'd never noticed).Some self tapping screws and complete ******-rigged shifter later,and the car was only a few laps from winning.
Pics from that race:
Fast forward to now.The Chump Car Series 24 hour race at VIR.The whole Molde Carlo theme has gotten old,so now it's Cow Patty(get it,like Kyle Petty?I know..)Racing.Basically,make it look,uh,kind of like a 70's era Richard Petty Super Bird car.Remember,I said kind of.
Hopefully it doesn't rain,or the latex interior house paint may fall off.
Here's what we've got so far.Hand-painted graphics and other goodies to come:
Yes,this car is so slow,you can use an oven timer for a lap timer:
Padding covers up the welds that would otherwise scare anybody in their right mind out of getting in this bucket:
I don't know how you measure cubic inches,but it's a lot of liters:
Chump series 24 hour race at VIR:
14 hours in.........we were in 3rd around 6 o'clock.i went in,made up a lap on the leaders,raced with and passed Stewart.......and then the carb took a shit.we've been in twice now with issues,lost 50 laps.we'"re in 11th, a couple laps behind Stewart...no chance of winning now
SO,things continued to get worse.
From the eight hour mark to the eighteen hour mark,we replaced the fuel pump,carb,fuel filter,took the fuel cell apart(to check it for debris and re-clock the pickup),came in three times with the car boiling over(which we finally diagnosed as a loose water pump bolt and fixed),and refilled the rear-end grease twice.............After all that,we were in 14th place and had worked our way back to 11th,four laps out of 8th.
Then,the diff exploded in a most catastrophic way.The guy next to us with the Camaro would have given us his whole rear-end,but at that point everybody was just too tired and out of it to swap it in.
I think we ended up 22nd.
Some observations:
-Driving at night it awesome!At some point,while working in the engine bay though,somebody had layed on the lights and ruined the aim on them all.
-It was cool racing the NASCAR guys.I spent my first stint racing pretty hard for a while with Stewart.His car didn't stop or handle quite as good as ours,but he more than made up for it.On a couple occasions,we traded spots three or four times in one lap.He made some rediculous passes on slower cars when we'd come up on traffic.I knew I was running the car way harder than we'd planned(our intention was to run a pace that'd allow us to make it on two sets of tires and brakes),so after I passed him one lat time,I pointed him by on the straight,he gave me the thumbs up,and I slowed my pace back a little.He came over after that stint and said he was very impressed with our car.
-Having problems sucks.But,I was very proud of how well we worked on all the issues we had.
The final paint scheme,from the Trackdaze event:
Stewart's hauler and spares collection(engines,trannys,etc...)
Racing Smoke
Update
The Molde Carlo has been turned into the Mello Fellos car driven by Kow Patty(replica of the old Kyle Petty Mello Yello Winston Cup car)
Haha,kind of a weak theme,but at the Lemons race at CMP last weekend,the car finished 3rd overall and 1st in class!
.......I had to attend a wedding,so I couldn't go
There are pics of Cars In Depth,but I can't figure out how to hyperlink to specific pis in the Flash gallery...Eh,it's ugly anyway.
Last edited by TNGChris; 06-01-2011 at 05:44 PM.
02-22-2010, 05:55 PM
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02-22-2010, 06:46 PM
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02-23-2010, 02:59 AM
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02-23-2010, 08:40 AM
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Re: Chump Car/24 Hours of Lemons race car sorta build thread....
What race are yall doing? We just finished 4th at Southern Discomfort.
Our next race is goign to by at Summit Point during Hyperfest, we will miss Aprils CMP race this year though
Awesome build guys, cant wait to be on the track with yall
Heres our car ...
Our next race is goign to by at Summit Point during Hyperfest, we will miss Aprils CMP race this year though
Awesome build guys, cant wait to be on the track with yall
Heres our car ...