Building our Lemons/Chumpcar (Page 11/29) DonP JAN 27, 02:38 PM Robert had real problems with the clutch during our race. And if you watched the video, you saw where I missed a shift as was left floundering in turn 2. The clutch disc was new, though just a stock street grade unit. We were sure (hopeful?) that the actual clutch was okay. So we tackled a couple of related issues. First of all, we installed Rodney Dickmans shifter rebuild kit. http://rodneydickman.com/ca...h=41&products_id=170 And then we followed Bloozberry's instructions found here http://www.fiero.nl/forum/A...120111-2-108049.html to adjust the actual shifter arm mechanism. At the other end of the cable, we used his select arm rebuild kit. http://rodneydickman.com/ca...th=28&products_id=60 So all the mechanical components seemed to be working well. So for final piece of mind, we replaced the hydraulic slave cylinder. http://rodneydickman.com/ca...th=61&products_id=66 Fresh fluid was flushed through the system and we were confident that we would no longer have problems. At the track we had problems with the Synchromesh leaving the case. It actually took awhile to figure this one out. We saw liquid, but could not figure out where it came from. Our first suspicion was that the distributor o-ring seal was bad and allowing oil to flow out across the transmission case. Or maybe a leaky valve cover. Ultimately we determined that the synchromesh was being pushed out the case vent. The Getrag has a small vent located close by the shifter arms. Once we figured out the source of the leak (but maybe not the reason?) we looked for a solution. What you see in the picture is a small sheet metal cap kind of crimped over a small metal tube. The tube is pressed into an opening into the case. None of this description was known by us as we fought to figure it all out. We wedged the sheet metal cap off, exposing the tube. After some effort we removed the tube in hopes that it was threaded in. No luck, it is pressed in. So we replaced the tube and fit a hose over the end. We routed the hose up and around, terminating in an in-line fuel filter. We now had a filtered vent and really no way for fluid to be pushed high enough to be expelled. Every circle-tracker with a Ford 9" rear end does the same thing to properly vent the third member. Pesky leak, gone. Not too high-tech here. Just functional. We were getting close to finishing off our tasks to do checklist. We made the choice to use some KYB shocks up front. And they fit well with our new mounts. Rich and I decided to try our hands at running our own race series. Once the Lemons boys ran their early 2011 race at the Reno-Fernley road course, they left the state. We attempted to pick up where they left off with a similar type event back at Reno-Fernley. http://www.renofernleyracetrack.com/ Naturally we tried to promote our upcoming series at the NASA event. Time to add some decals to the car. Do not bother going to our gwraceseries.com site as shown on the decals. It's off-line since the venture was dropped. Even if the name is no longer meaningful, I think the graphics made the car look better. But then I'm prejudiced as we paid for them. Notice the full cage now sports padding. And both seats are now completely installed, including harnesses and padding . NASA has a local guy who is a certified tech inspector located here in Reno. So, though we were going to a HPDE event in California, we could have the car inspected and passed before the long haul over the hill. We loaded up on the flatbed and hauled off to get the car looked over. It's always been a little gratifying to take our car through inspection. The inspector runs a BMW-centric performance shop. As in this case, the inspector first asked what class the car was for, assuming that we had built it to some particular NASA class spec. We told him that we had a LeMons car and were just going to participate at Infineon as a learning experience. His comment was "this is a LeMons car?" Rich told him "sure. It doesn't have to be ugly to be a LeMons car." We passed the inspection allowing us to by-pass the inspection process at the track. Cool. It was getting very close to our NASA track day. DonP JAN 28, 04:02 PM A couple days prior to leaving for Infineon, I got an e-mail from a guy named Evan M. Evan was my assigned driving instructor. Rich got a similar introductory e-mail from his instructor, Mario. Neither seemed toooo concerned that they had drawn a LeMons car/driver. Actually, we were not the only Lemons team taking advantage of the training opportunity. All told, it was a good learning experience and I would suggest that, given the chance everyone should participate in one of these on-track driving experiences, whether offered by NASA or SCCA. The group offers different run groups based upon experience. We chose to start at the novice level and requested ride-along instruction. For us, the day started in a class-room with a track map and a discussion the proper way around the track. The classroom instructor was good and had the memorable line that we stole. "There's nothing you can do on the track today that will make it more valuable." So take it easy. I was the student on Saturday with Evan in the passenger seat. Rich drove on Sunday. The remnants of our run-in with the LeMons judges. It gives the tech inspectors pause as the wonder what our mindset is if we put this on the car........... Rich getting ready I asked Rich to give his perspective of the day: On Sunday I had the opportunity to drive so my day started out with the same class-room track map discussion Don attended on Saturday. Infineon is a very technical track. The configuration with elevation changes that create blind corners and one corner followed immediately by another corner makes it imperative that the driver stay “ON LINE” at all times. The class-room instructor emphasized this by commenting that most road course tracks are turns connected by straight a ways. Infineon is turns connected by curves. At the end of the class-room session I was paired up with my instructor Mario and we left the class-room and walked to the far end of the pit area where we were parked. Mario started our discussion by telling me he owned the Time Trial Record for Infineon. He was the 2009 and 2010 Time Trial Champion and had over 120 track days at Infineon. Mario also mentioned “all I need is a good ride and I could beat anyone at Infineon”. I heard this whole statement again at lunch, and again at the end of the day. Having been around circle track racing since 1974, I have heard many drives make these same statements. It has been my experience that the more a driver toots his horn, the fewer driving skills he actually possesses. At the end of Sunday, I will have to agree, I believe Mario is a very talented driver and would do well in a good ride. His outgoing personality probably came partly from his nationality. As we strapped in for our first on track session, Mario asked me what my goals were for the day. I said the only thing I wanted to concentrate on was learning the line. You can’t be fast if you are off line. Mario responded by telling me “that is good because I am a fanatic about staying on line.” An early, off-line run. We pulled out on track where we would do the first 3 laps under Yellow. Mario had his belts extremely loose and immediately reached over with his left hand and turned the steering wheel to get us on line. He explained that even under Yellow, I was to have the car on line. After the first 3 laps we picked up the pace and Mario continued to correct the car using his left hand on the steering wheel. The corrections we large at first and got smaller as I learned. Between my first and second sessions Mario gave me a ride in his street car, a Honda S2000 with racing slicks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_S2000 Mario was extremely smooth with his heel/toe shifting, braking, accelerating, and steering. The ride was very educational and gave me something to aspire to. During the second session I had gotten smoother, was spending more time “on line”, and we had picked up more and more speed. Two laps from the end I crested the hill at 3a and the back end slid out. When I counter steered I got my hands tangled up with Mario’s. He had reached high up on the steering wheel to “help me correct”. With both of us steering we got too much steering input and started the Darrel Waltrip “Hospital Wobble.” I knocked Mario’s hand off the wheel and continued to fight for control. We got two wheels off before easing up and getting back on line. When we did our debrief Mario asked how I thought the session went. My reply “great until we had 3 hands on the steering wheel”. Mario explained he didn’t know if I could save it and he was trying to help. We agreed he could continue to make minor adjustments with his left hand below my right hand, but I would do all the counter steering. Racing dirt, I get a lot of practice at that. I continued to learn more and more during the 3rd and 4th sessions and was really glad we decided to do the NASA track day. Mario was very good as an instructor. He busted my chops all day about staying on line. Gave great tips about driving a mid engine car with a high rear weight percentage. “Trail brake entering the corner to get more weight on the front end, and never get totally off the throttle when turning.” Thanks Mario. You made my day very educational and the improvements I made were from your exceptional coaching. I hope you get that “good ride”. I wasn't very happy when we decided that it was necessary to cut the front fenders for greater clearance. We had dropped the car a fair amount and it became necessary. But it didn't look as bad as I had feared. This is the photo that really brings home how small the Fiero really is. Those are not large cars surrounding Rich on the track! But we were dwarfed by them. Our biggest concern at the start of the weekend was the exhaust system on the car. These NASA boys (and as we later learned, the SCCA boys) seem to have this phobia about loud cars. We were legal by all measures, but we were noticeable. Let me back up. The tech guys had concerns. We got plenty of comments from other participants that they loved the sound of a big V-6. Huh? It's the stock 2.8. But we were very distinctive, particularly when backing off the throttle at 6500+ rpm. Part of the reason of course was our choice of exhaust systems. We believe in a non-restrictive exhaust system. In the IMCA that Rich regularly races, he just clamp on a set of super-trap diffuser plates. So when we built our exhaust we kept it simple and minimal. It was effective enough to keep us legal. But we sounded so different than anything else that we got a lot more scrutiny. I will say, that when I was up the hill at the top of turns 2-3, I could hear Rich entering and powering out of turn 11. That's quite a ways away if you consult the track map several posts back. They gave him a bit of flack on Sunday, but we survived it all. Mario had a go at driving our car. He's crazy enthusiastic. Look at these photos, he's too short to reach the pedals, so the harness is loose and he's sitting forward in the seat. The main feed-back we got was that the car was controllable, but very soft. Those 400# WCF springs should have made a difference had they arrived. Oh well. I hate passenger seat. On Saturday, I took the passenger seat while Evan, my instructor drove the track in his street car. Very smooth. Very fast. I hated passenger seat. On Sunday, Mario wanted Rich to follow him around the track, while Mario drove his little open-topped S2000. I didn't get away fast enough to miss the invitation to ride shotgun. Ugh. No roll bar or cage and Mario was crazy. Seriously. Did I mention that I had just watched a spec-BMW car roll at the end of the front straight? Up-hill. A long ways up-hill. Okay he was crazy, but you could definitely learn from the smoothness. Never even felt anything when he shifted. He had a non-stock replacement engine and a lot more power than we did. And he left Rich behind when he wanted to. Remember, we had that set of hard (300 rating) tires with a weekend of racing on them. Mario had some sticky tires far softer than we are even allowed. Yeah, I'm making excuses, he killed us. I hate passenger seat. Probably the most fun of the weekend was playing mind games with the instructors. At the end of the day on Sunday, Mario was filling out Rich's log book, recording the experience. While Mario was filling out the logbook I mentioned that I had been passenger with my instructor, Evan as well as him. Mario asked for impressions. I mentioned that Evan was a bit more aggressive on turn in and under braking. "But who was quicker?" asked Mario. I told him he was very smooth on shifting. "BUT WHO WAS QUICKER?" You can see where this was going. What was amusing was that every time Mario asked for a comparison, he squeezed Rich's logbook a bit tighter. Rich was frantically signaling that I stop talking until after he got the logbook back. It took awhile before he got the book back. Both Rich and I "passed" and were kicked up a run group. Rich even has a "slightly" crumpled logbook documenting the fact. DonP JAN 29, 07:01 PM We knew that with most of the mechanical bugs worked out of the car, it was time to step up our tire selection. We wanted to upgrade to the popular Star Spec tires for our next LeMons race scheduled for March 25th. We would be returning to Infineon. In addition, we had signed up for the September 15-16 weekend at Thunderhill Raceway in Willows CA. http://www.thunderhill.com/ Shortly after our return from the NASA day, I ran across an E-bay list for some wheels. At $79 each, Summit had two Focal F-16 in 16x7 with a 42mm offset. Summit Racing was selling off the remaining stock of these wheels in a gunmetal finish. I figured that we could pick-up another pair and make an affordable set. Apparently, Focal was moving from gunmetal to matte black, so once again we have a mismatched set. But at least they are the same design. We elected to upsize our wheels to 16" based upon tire availability and sizing. The Dunlop Direzza Z1 Star Spec is limited to 195/50R in the 15" wheel size we were running. By going with the 16" wheels we could go to 225/50R16. That's the size we selected for front and back. The Star Spec is one of the most popular tires (along with the Falken Azenis RT-615K) in part because of the hardness rating of 200, our legal minimum. As of this time, the Star spec is being replaced with the Direzza II, so we will see where that goes in the future. The Dunlops have an aggressive tread pattern - changed in the update. The Falken tires are equally aggressive for street legal tires. Remember, we are not allowed to run "racin' " tires. These are the two most popular tires without breaking the bank. These are the Direzza 101 tires we had been running to this point. We were runnig them in 205/55r15. These have a wear or hardness of 300 versus the 200 of the others. The Mustang boys had made the same switch from the 101 to the Star Specs and said it really transformed the car. DonP JAN 31, 02:13 PM Way back on the first page of this thread, we talked about bending up the cage. But I really did not have any photos demonstrating the actual bending process. As I type this, Rich is building a new IMCA dirt modified for the upcoming season. He started with a jig built of I-beams, a stock front clip from a Chevelle, and a Ford 9" rear end based rear axle. He has to build everything in between. He's definitely bending tubes, so I took a few illustrative photos. Rich has a Mitler Brothers air over hydraulic operated bender. What that means is that compressed air is used to control the hydraulics operating a ram. The roll cage tubing is then locked to the shoe with this simple clamp. A follower is then sandwiched between the tube and the frame below the tube. Once everything is locked in place, additional hydraulic pressure will start the bending process. Looking at a drawing of the shoe, you can see that the hydraulic ram is connected to the shoe to one side of the centerline of the shoes arc. It's the fact that its off-center that causes the shoe to rotate, In this image the rotation is to the left. The fact that the tube and shoe are in direct contact with the follow bar, and the tube is locked by the clamp causes the tube to be drawn along with the rotation. As the shoe rotates, the U clamp pulls up on the tube, causing it to bend. The real magic is that the combination of the shoe and follow bar keep the tubing from deforming and flattening on the outside of the radius. The shoe/follow bar sets come in different sizes to accommodate different tubing as well as different radius bends. The more commonly used sets from Mittler Brothers to fit Rich's machine are over $400 per set. So you don't buy a lot of extra sets. There are a few additional tools that help. First of all, Rich built the frame which allows him to work upright. Most small shops just use a clear spot on the shop floor. Rich comments that the floor is getting further away every year and built the frame. He uses a simple spirit level to make sure the tube extending out the back of the bender is level to give a known reference point. This simple but invaluable tool helps when it's necessary to make more than one bend in a single length of tubing. For example, the simplest main hoop requires at least two bends. In order to keep all bends on the same plane, this little level keeps things oriented correctly. Years ago Rich saw the value of one of these digital levels. A bubble level is hard to use when you are trying to bend a tube at say 32 degrees. In this instance, the bending process is showing a 45.6 degree bend. There's a lot of math involved in some of this. And you have additional considerations such as spring-back. But that's the basics of how Rich built the cage. Another trick was to build a "layout" table. Essentially that was a sheet of plywood with some angle iron pieces mounted at 90 degrees to each other. This allowed him to do layout and check the accuracy of 90 degree bends, offsets, and kicks. thesameguy JAN 31, 02:46 PM We ran Star Specs on our Lemons Saab in '09, and not only did they survive the weekend we brought them back in '10. We holed a piston halfway through the second day (oops), and I have since put another ~1500 miles on them on the street. Great tire... really interested to see how the ZII compares. One thing we caught onto real quick is how much pit time we saved by running good tires. We talked to teams that were going through two or three sets of lesser tires, having to pit in to swap and such. One good set of tires that you don't have to change over the course of the weekend saves a lot of time & effort. Especially since we were facing the same problem you were... lug nuts that were a PITA to get out of the wheels! DonP JAN 31, 06:19 PM quote Originally posted by thesameguy: We ran Star Specs on our Lemons Saab in '09, ) Any pictures? I tried a search on lemons, Saab, 2009......... Rick's guys who drove the Mustang swore that the star specs totally transformed their car. When we drove the much harder DZ101 tires on Reno-Fernley, they lasted through the whole 24 hour race. But the track is so abrasive that at 8-9 hours in we did a full tire rotation and were very concerned about making the end. I know several teams with the softer Star Spec and RT-615Ks destroyed their tires that weekend. At the Track Formerly Known As Sears Point, the tires lasted much longer. I Believe the Mustang boys ran their set at Infineon in both LeMons and Chumpcar last year. thesameguy JAN 31, 07:30 PM I actually don't have any pictures, but a quick search for "boxwrench garage saab lemons" turned up a number of hits, including our proud finishes - fourth at the Goin' For Broken Reno '09 and fifth at the Altamont '08 race. '10 at Infineon was our last race.... a holed motor & DNF made us sad, and then lives got in the way. We took every ounce out the car we could and got down to about 2200lbs without the driver, so with 215-40-17s we were probably over-tired. We also put a lot of time into an aggressive alignment that I think really cut back on wear on the corners. My gut, though, is that the tire longevity was mostly a result of cutting weight... because we also did four races on one set of brake pads & rotors. :lol: Our car was pretty darned fast - on the front straight at Reno we'd crest 120mph pretty reliably. 16psi, some goofy cams, and an environment-be-damned approach to fueling (I mentioned our crap fuel economy earlier) does wonders... of course, you can now see through one of the pistons, but whatever. The 167,000 mile old engine did four races! Prior to the Star Specs we were on BFG gforces and... something I don't remember... in 205/50-16 and 205/55-15. Count us in the "totally transformed" camp. I'm sure moving to 17s and wider tires helped, but the difference was stunning nonetheless. I will say that at no point have we ever changed tires mid-race, but only the Star Specs emerged out of Day 2 ready for more. The BFGs were done for hours before the race was over. thesameguy JAN 31, 07:32 PM Also, I just want to say this thread is totally inspiring. I really want to do another Lemons race. DonP FEB 01, 11:25 AM Holy cow! Look at all that room inside the Saab! Building a cage would have been a dream. I did the search you recommended. I found a youtube video. That must have been a very early LeMons race. The car count looked as small as the track (by today's standards) Fernley is a track where I can see you hitting 120 on that long front straight. You can enter the straight pretty darn fast once you learn how to take the last corner with the wide run-off. But getting the car down to 2200 lbs, everything works better when adding lightness. Changing the wheels to 17" is allowing us to up-size our tires as well. I'm confident that the size change and compound change will work very well. So, the guys are selling that yellow '78 Mustang......... They have built a later, turbo 4 cylinder Mustang. thesameguy FEB 01, 12:45 PM Re the cage: The second year we ran Lemons ('07) our car was pretty well destroyed. They didn't have rules back then like they do now. We got another car, and sawed the roof off of both of them and swapped the cage over. I was pretty impressed with our team mechanic / amateur welder guy. Really good with a wrench, but new to welding. He did a really great job! I really enjoyed the Fernley race. Aside from being a pretty long haul from Sacramento it was by far and away the most interesting drive. It was cool to "race" at Infineon, just say to "Yeah, been there." but Fernley was downright fun. I am not sure if I'll ever be able to get back in, but I hope so. You just can't beat the seat time:$$$ ratio. Not sure what car it would be, but I have my eyes on a friend's XR4Ti... I have lots of stock parts leftover from mine, so it could be a cheap build. If he doesn't do something with it soon (other than let it collect dust), I may just disappear it.