Building our Lemons/Chumpcar (Page 8/29)
DonP JAN 09, 07:24 PM
Yeah, changing the seat position is a real pain. The thing is, you cannot take chances and do it half-way. It has to be secure. We have found some high density pads and may attempt to just trow some in the seat when changing drivers. But that's second best and we will have to wait for feedback from Robert.

We started with an '88 Formula. This year had the larger fuel tank. The races that we have participated in to date have not had a proper hot pit. So we always have to drift back to our pit for any service. We found out quickly that the fuel intake was restrictive and have removed some of the obstructions found in the filler. We have run 1-1/2+ hours at a time and just fill the tank each time. If memory serves I think it has rarely taken more than 5-gallons. That may change in the future. as we are changing power plant. But we've never had a lot of confidence in the stock fuel gauge which we left intact. Cannot say definitively why, but we don't feel good about it.

Don
Capt Fiero JAN 09, 08:25 PM
LOL, you could always make the short legged drivers wear platform shoes......

Have a set of quick release blocks for pedals.

Actually in a more serious rather than joking note, when I wear my "office shoes" vs. my Worksite steel toe boots, I do notice a huge difference in legroom, it does not sound like much, but it really is. It does not take much thicker of a sole on a shoe to make up that 1 inch of seat travel.

Unless you are strictly dealing with seat height...... Uhm a pillow under his butt to get him into the right position for the belts.


I love this thread, you guys are amazing and I so wish I was out there. I have spoke to the Clackamas guys a fair bit and I am going to at least try to come and watch them when I am in the area at some point.

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857GT Part 85GT Part 87GT Part Caddy, 93 Eldorado 4.9, 5spd Dual O2 Custom Chip, Custom Exhaust. MSD Everything Now with Nitrous. Capt Fiero --- My Over View Cadero Pics Yellow 88GT 5spd Full Poly Suspension, Lowered 1/2" in front, Corner Carver.

SCCAFiero JAN 10, 12:09 PM

quote
Originally posted by DonP:

We have found some high density pads and may attempt to just trow some in the seat when changing drivers. But that's second best and we will have to wait for feedback from Robert.



Don



That's what I always did and it worked great. Biggest thing is to make sure the sub belt is still usable with both/all drivers. I had foam pads that I stuck under the vinyl cover for me so that when I pitted, I would take them with me since my co driver didn't need them. Depends how big a difference you are talking about.
DonP JAN 10, 05:07 PM
Robert is at full extension to have full throttle. That's with the seat back for Rich and me. We are both left with bend in our knees. Our adjustment is set for about 3 1/2 inches. I think the padding we have found will move him up and forward almost as much as moving the seat. There's just no way to drive the car for any length of time if you are fully extended like that. Comfort is huge. Also, his arms are extended without the adjustment or padding.
DonP JAN 10, 05:13 PM

quote
Originally posted by Capt Fiero:

LOL, you could always make the short legged drivers wear platform shoes......
Worksite steel toe boots, I do notice a huge difference in legroom, it does not sound like much, but it really is. It does not take much thicker of a sole on a shoe to make up that 1 inch of seat travel.



Shoes aren't a real option. Driving shoes, meaning fire resistant are required safety equipment. And most are thin soles like sneakers. But trust me, we thought of platforms. The Fiero pedals aren't really designed to add blocks in a manner that would inspire confidence.

I would love to drive Portland with the other guys. But rain is always a threat. It's hard to take a chance with that much travel involved.

Don
DonP JAN 10, 05:15 PM
One of the last jobs that HAD to be accomplished before we could think of leaving was to do an alignment on the car. We had changed out ball joints and one hub but nothing had really been changed. But still, it's too important to simply ignore the job. Rich has a Longacre caster camber gauge to adjust the alignment. It has a magnetic base that snaps onto the wheel hub. From there you calibrate the gauge using the bubble levels incorporated into the gauge. Turn the wheels left and right 20 degrees both directions, and read the changes in caster. And of course you can find the camber setting. We opted to dial in as much static camber as possible. We also took care of the toe-in at this point.



Less than 20 hours from the point we needed to load up and head to the track, We managed to do a test drive. Once again we praised the fact that the car was being built out of town and we had understanding neighbors.





The LED Brake lights worked well.



The obvious problem is that we had a plain car with none of the required stuff such as numbers. On the Mustang, the earlier team had purchased "Meatballs" and stripes as a tribute to the much earlier (and more race-worthy) mustangs of the trans-am era. We bought the graphics off of E-bay from user "lindarembowski72" It's amazing what you can find on e-bay.



The Chumpcar rules require that you use "meatball" backgrounds that must be purchased from them. The Lemons rules just require a contrasting color. Both series require something in the neighborhood of 12" tall number.

The meatballs didn't really fit the look of the Fiero, so we went a little different. Rich had used Harris Decals http://www.harrisdecals.com/ on his last IMCA and they had reasonable pricing. So that's where we went for decals. Our car number was 87 but we had decals made up reading 87 with a smaller superscript N in case there was a conflict at a later race. With everyone a bit bleary-eyed, we took a short break and tackled the job. You can see we failed to fully execute our paint scheme that had been agreed upon.




You can see how the side mirrors were placed on the cage upright. This moved them up and in such that they are less likely to be damaged. You never have enough in the way of mirrors, but they do give you some hint of what's happening around you. Inside we used a Wink mirror that we picked up from the local parts store.






We placed the numbers on both doors and roof as required. But with no sleep and our departure deadline only a few hours off we chose to go as is and deal with extra decals as we had time at the track. I still needed to install all the roll bar padding for the last time, adding to the number of tie wraps we had used on the project.

Finally we had to load the trailer and get ready.
SCCAFiero JAN 10, 07:58 PM
Funny story about mirrors. (Abbreviated version)

My first 1.5 hour enduro I ran with my Fiero. Car was not running 100% as I later learned I had a bad fuel injector. First turn of the first lap there is a multi car wreck about 4 rows in front of me, I get slowed down, guy behind me tries to pass on my left and side swipes me pretty good, both of us are still probably going 70 slowing for the turn, but we both keep going. My mind is on high alert now wondering if I have a cut tire or anything. I get about 2-3 turns away and start hearing something rolling around on the floor in front of me. I immediately start thinking I left a water bottle in the car and start wondering what else I forgot to remove or check. I made about 1 more lap when the shifter goes limp in my hand and I coast to a stop on the back stretch and wait for a tow. As I am sitting there, mentally steaming, I figure, well, at least I can have a drink. I reach for what I thought was the water bottle only to grab the other guys outside mirror. As he passed me, my mirror sheared it off his car and it made it through the gap at the forward edge of the window net.

Once I got towed back to the pits, I got out of the car, told my co driver, "If you can fix it, you can finish it (the race), because I am done", and walked away for a while. He fixed the shifter in about 2 laps and ran the rest of the enduro.

Racing is as much a mental challenge as a physical one.
DonP JAN 10, 08:33 PM

quote
Originally posted by SCCAFiero:


Racing is as much a mental challenge as a physical one.



Absolutely no doubt about that. And until you've done it, you cannot understand how exhausting it can be. And that's probably 80% because of the mental strain and getting keyed up. Once you get mentally rattled (say by contact with another car and acquiring a mirror) it's probably best to just take a break. These enduro races are killers. Having said that, I'm still trying to talk my current team into a 24 hour race.

Don
DonP JAN 11, 01:19 PM
I believe it was 8:30 am before we actually hit the road headed to our first race as a LeMons team. Our trip originated in Reno, NV and ended at what was then the Infineon Raceway in Sonoma CA. 199 miles away. I don't think we've ever left for a race so tired. Returned, yes. Headed out, no.

That first race was officially titled " THE SKANKAWAY ANTI-TOE-FUNGAL 500, SPONSORED BY CRUSKIN-SKANKAWAY INC., THE OFFICIAL FUNGICIDAL TOE CREME OF LEMONS" and was held October 22-23, 2011. The Lemons schedule is pretty tight. All tech inspection had to be completed on Friday the 21st between 10:00 am and 5:00 pm. No exceptions. Without passing tech, you didn't race.

Sorry, I failed to get photos of that first tech session. But we were happy when the tech inspector declared that we "had one of the 5 best prepared cars" he had ever seen when teching cars. It was clean, prepared and looked ready to go. His comment was only slightly tempered when he said under his breath "good luck finishing in a Fiero."

There were 164 cars that started the race on Saturday the 22nd. I say started because I heard that at least one car actually broke down pulling off the trailer. If you want to see what a LeMons race looks like, the official photo gallery for that race can be found at http://www.facebook.com/med...1.36766739494&type=1 There's a lot of pictures.

But before we could race, we had some work to finish up. Luckily, our old team mates held a spot for us.



We still had some work to do. Can't go on track without the stickers. Rich is applying "Made in America" stickers to the nose. On the top of the rear spoiler, we had stickers saying "American Iron." Remember, our intended paint scheme was a US Flag. BTW, the name of our race team is NAFM Racing. Not Another Freaking Miata Racing.



After the tech session was closed we had the option of paying for a chalkboard discussion of the Infineon Track. Hooked on Driving http://www.hookedondriving....ut-hooked-on-driving held a discussion/class in a meeting room at the track. It was a terrific opportunity to see what "the line" was at Infineon. I had been on the track in the early to mid '80s with the Shelby Club. Rich had seen the track on Speed. It was worth spending a couple bucks for some instruction.

Rich is checking on our transponder mount here. And you can see the decals in place. I left the "tow" stickers at home, but you can see what a little red marker can do when necessary. We left for the hotel shortly after this picture. So we didn't participate in the pre-race partying that goes on in the pits. Can't say I felt too bad about that.



Sure wish those louver dies had worked out for the hood. But I'm sure this relieved a lot of under-hood pressure.

The next day was a beautiful. The mandatory drivers meeting went well at 9:30 as scheduled. We were fueled up and ready to start our first race. Obviously Rich would be our first driver, so he lined up with 163 other cars and got ready to start our first race. He claims that he was "forced" to be the first driver. But since he was the only experienced driver, having driven around the block at home, he was the man.











With so many cars, the LeMons crew has figured out a way to make the start work All the cars are put out onto the track about 10 minutes prior to the start of this seven hour race with just the briefest of pauses between cars. So if everyone is smart, they hold a reasonable speed and warm up the vehicles. Right. Anyway, when everyone is spread out on the track and looking good, they throw the green flag.

Our Fiero competition for this event. Peter's guys were working hard to get their car finished for the race. And yes, that "car" next to him was serious competition.



The race didn't actually start as planned. Robert, Paula and I were standing in the pits waiting for the start of the race. the 10:30 start time had passed and we were not racing. We could hear the PA system but Rich could not. As it turned out, the track had a call come in from the Novato police department. It seems that the police department was picking up some radio traffic, and that the conversation was between a race team. And it was on a reserved emergency only police channel. The conversation between the police station and the track officials started out with some tension and went down-hill from there. The track PA was busy with the LeMons folks trying to identify the team using a police band radio. Nobody 'fessed up and the officials had to make the hard decision of pulling everyone off the track and check car by car for the offending team. The police were on the way and would be here in about ten minutes. The offending team was identified, the radio magically disappeared, the Novato police turned around and we started the races a little late. The offending team had a couple members who borrowed the radios from the police department.


The offending team bought beer for all 164 teams that evening.


Rich cruising before the race.




Rich on the second lap after the start of the race. I do not believe that he reported this on the radio.



Rich at 1-3/4 of the second lap can be found at these two links.
http://www.youtube.com/watc...bedded&v=AvLbeVvD5e8
http://www.youtube.com/watc...p2U&feature=youtu.be

Those damn Go-Pros are everywhere. So I was up at turn 11 watching for Rich to come around. And I see a car leaving the track and entering the pit lane. Something looked odd and it took a moment until I realized that a car had the nose of our Fiero sticking straight out of his rear wheel well. That's a bit unusual. Rich drove in a few minutes later.








Thankfully this car was on fire while in it's pits, so we didn't get the full attention we deserved.



His race started as well as ours..
DonP JAN 12, 02:33 PM
Not to worry. It's just a flesh wound. Nothing to be worried about. After checking out that Rich was okay, we got to work evaluating where we were. Obviously our theme had changed as we now looked a lot like a DeLorean. I was most concerned that my air box feeding into the radiator had been damaged. Forget the rest, that's what I had worked on! We jacked up the car, checked the suspension, checked the radiator and checked that the car was basically sound and could continue. After all, when Rich pulled in, it was at the end of his third lap.

Rich's report was that as the second lap was starting and he was charging up the hill through turn 1 and towards turn 2 he moved from the outside, left to the inside in preparation for the entry into turn 2. As the car started to transition from turning left to turning right he was massively and suddenly loose and spun into the grass. That led to the picture above where he's parked in the grass.




On the same lap, after navigating through the rest of the track through turn 7 and entering the "S"es at turn 8-8A the car again had sudden and dramatic change to being loose. You can see in the video that the cars' rear stepped out and Rich was on a ride trying to catch it.


Everything looked good, or at least okay, so it was time to get to work. The first step was to trim the panels forming our radiator air box. As it was, it made a great ankle slicing machine. Once trimmed to safer lengths, we pulled it back up and riveted to the structure as well as possible. The box would still take a huge pressure load and we needed it to stay intact.


We obviously spent some time trying to decipher what was causing our problem. The first thought was that the suspension was binding somewhere causing the sudden shift to being loose. Nothing really jumped out at us. The original shocks had not been swapped out, but that didn't seem to adequately explain the severity of the change. Rich drives a dirt car and is used to dealing with having the rear end work around. But this was extremely sudden.


But if you cannot find any safety or mechanical problems, and the car looks safe, you go back out. So Rich gave it another try. That '31 model T at the back of the next photo is blindingly fast with a 5.0 mustang engine.





Rich ran off another couple laps and finally spun off the crest at turn 3A . He was a bit frustrated and came in. Rather than trying to explain what was happening, he handed the car off to me, saying "it's very unpredictable." And I took a shot at it. My mantra was "don't spin, don't spin, don't spin."







I think that I did maybe 5-6 laps. And I clearly remember thinking that perhaps we had made a mistake in trying to race a Fiero. This was no fun. Maybe they would let me back in that '77 Mustang. Was I really too old for this stuff? I pulled in. My comment on getting out of the car was that "this car is EVIL." Rich recalls it as "this car is f*****g EVIL" and I don't cuss as a rule. We discussed what was happening with the car. I had read all the stuff about snap over-steer, but this was ridiculous. Finally we thought considered the effects of running a rear sway bar. Could this be making the car too loose in the rear? So we disconnected the links and I headed back out. There was a noticeable improvement. But to put it in perspective, removing the bar gave us 1" of improvement where we needed a full yard of improvement.

I want to be clear on this. I did not officially spin. Yes, I was at what felt like more than 90 degrees to the track in turn two, but never stopped. And yes, technically speaking I was off the track, in the grass, facing backwards and stopped after cresting the hill on turn 3a. But the LeMons organization had instituted a new program just prior to that race. The rules state that if you have a third spin in a given day, you're out for a specified penalty time. If you noted, Rich had already been off three times ( more on that later.) Had I been found guilty of being off, our day would have been effectively over. But, if you pay $100 fine to the Speedway Children's Charities, the offense could be made to disappear from the records. I do not know how much the Speedway Children's Charities made that weekend, but they got my $100 and were welcome to it.

We continued to brainstorm solutions. Finally, Rich asked from underneath the car, "do you suppose that this rear suspension is adjustable? It looks as though you have actual alignment stuff back here." We had never run anything with an independent rear suspension. Robert dragged out the toe plates and we started by checking what we might actually be able to adjust, the toe-in of the rear wheels.



What we found was that the rear wheels were toed out 3/4 of an inch. What that means is that the front of the wheels were pointing away from each other by 3/4" over the diameter of the tire. EVIL, EVIL I say. Now the problem became how to fix this? We were in the field and nothing would be easy. Or obvious.

The toe in on the '88 can be adjusted with what are essentially two turnbuckles incorporated in one of the rear arms. I borrowed this photo from a posting by Fieroguru here http://www.fiero.nl/forum/Forum2/HTML/095283.html. I hope that's okay. But it illustrates where the toe adjustment can be made.



But knowing how the adjustment will be accomplished is a far step from knowing how it should be done. Was the whole 3/4" all on one side, split evenly between the two or randomly split between the two. The solution, as we saw it was to not only adjust the overall toe setting but make sure each rear tire was adjusted in relation to the center-line of the car. When we build a race car from a pile of tubes, on a jig, we place lots of convenient marks on the chassis for future repairs and alignments. I have no idea if Pontiac has a line or dimple or point designated as the center-line of the car. What we determined, in the lack of better information, was to use the rear cradle mounting pick up points. We assumed that the cradle was symmetrical with regards to the attachment points. So our goal was to make the rear tires parallel (actually our goal was for 1/32" of toe in) as well as making them the same in relation to the center-line of the car.

Concentrating our efforts on the front end of this horse, we had never touched the rear suspension. It looked to have run well on the street. Our first task was to loosen the adjusters., clean the components and reassemble everything with a dose of anti-seize. That's what we did at the front. That was a chore. We didn't even look at the camber, toe was a big enough job. It was close to 4:00 when we got the rear adjusted as well as possible. Robert, made what was probably the smartest move of the day when he declined to take a turn behind the wheel. A nap seemed far more desirable. So Robert passed up his chance to experience the evil car.


Rich had the opportunity to drive the car next and it was a totally different beast. I finished out the last hour of the day and crawled out of the car. We had not given up and the car was totally different. Over-steer was still there, but only if you got a bit exuberant and didn't pay attention.. Though we were tired, we were still happy with our progress.

We were not the only ones having problems at the track. Check out this video taken from that '77 Mustang II. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcCCBG0iOjs Check out the action up ahead.


Back in the pits, Paula had dragged out Robert to set up a stove and start with our contribution to the community party that a Lemons race usually degenerates into. Team Caffeine had three or four industrial coffee makers and supplied coffee to all comers all weekend. The police-radio offenders supplied beer for all. Many other teams supplied different items for the asking. Because of our "American Iron" theme, we brought 12 dozen tamales and handed them out to anybody walking by. I would like to say that we were pretty popular that night.

And Sunday promised to be better.