A team with no name goes racing.

hunter47 said:

You guys looking for a beer/coffee jockey and/or booth babe(Male)? Love the build so far! 

Absolutely!

In reply to hunter47 :

More the merrier. Where are you located?

South Seattle region. I'm currently in Texas for work but will be back by Spring (hopefully), and also navigating a move for the fall :/ 

Also, you guys gonna be using the FX1 seat at all? I'd also be interested in nabbing it for my personal car. I really liked my FX1 Pro but had to leave it back in San Diego.

hunter47 said:

South Seattle region. I'm currently in Texas for work but will be back by Spring (hopefully), and also navigating a move for the fall :/ 

Also, you guys gonna be using the FX1 seat at all? I'd also be interested in nabbing it for my personal car. I really liked my FX1 Pro but had to leave it back in San Diego.

The Corbeau did not come home with us. We got the NRG seat, and I believe it may be spoken for. 

AClockworkGarage said:

The Zonda is Mid-engine!​​​.

 I know it's pedantic, but I feel like this needs to be reiterated.

Also, there was talk of an Xbrace between the strut towers. Initially to catch the engine mount at the engine's V but later as a structural improvement. (the thinking being, a single center engine mount would not be stable enough and eventually crack). Anyone reading have thoughts on a bolt in "strut tower brace/X brace down to the frame rails/factory engine mounts" ?

In reply to birdmayne :

Womp womp. Anyways, shoot me a PM or something! I'm interested in at least stopping by to take a look, at the very least.

Today is the day. The 2023 Lucky Dawg rules and schedule have been released. As the crew chief I'm the one that has to care about such things. I downloaded the rules and had a print shop make a couple of books. I'd much rather have a hard copy on hand than have to  pull up a PDF on my phone.

I hve a copy for myself and figured, as the guy who's actually doing the fab, Ian should have a copy on hand so I dropped one off at the world HQ.

While I was there I was surprised to see the car, since it is the beginning of the rainy season and the car has a cover on it.

Had a cover on it.

It was very windy this weekend. I'm sure our cover is like 3 miles away now. 

At least the beautiful Duck bill is still there... since everybody is out of town this weekend it was on me to make it right. I swung by an auto parts store and picked up a new cover and the strap kit for it. It's wrinkly but it's there.

that was a day's work my book. Everything for me now is logistics.

Seems like a lot but that's gonna go by quick. I've got to wrangle the cats, nail down a team name, get the team registered and start finding lodging and the like for all four events.

Four events? 

Yes... four.

April 22-23: Podium the Ridge. The Ridge Motorsports Park, Shelton Wa

June 3-4: Running with the Big Dawgs. Pacific Raceways, Kent Wa

June 24-25: Salute to the Dawgs. Portland Int'l Raceway, Portland OR

Sept 9-10 Dawgfest & PNWEC finals. The Ridge Motorsports Park, Shelton WA

I didnt see this thread before today!

I have battled with this car at Laguna Seca.  I believe this car finished 2nd on day 1 (we won) and then this car won day 2 (and possibly day 3 iirc).

It was a really cool build and was very fast and competitive!

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

What year? I've been trying to peice together this car's history.

Sweet car!  I'm in to follow.

AClockworkGarage said:

Four events? 

Yes... four.

April 22-23: Podium the Ridge. The Ridge Motorsports Park, Shelton Wa

June 3-4: Running with the Big Dawgs. Pacific Raceways, Kent Wa

June 24-25: Salute to the Dawgs. Portland Int'l Raceway, Portland OR

Sept 9-10 Dawgfest & PNWEC finals. The Ridge Motorsports Park, Shelton WA

 

Glad to see you guys are moving forward with this team. We are planning to attend the Ridge and PIR next year... wish we could swing the whole PNW Cup. We'll see you at the Ridge! Keep the updates coming!

In reply to MaxC :

I don't know If we're going to swing the whole cup either, but we're gonna try. We'd love to win but in reality are shooting for not-last.

AClockworkGarage said:

In reply to MaxC :

I don't know If we're going to swing the whole cup either, but we're gonna try. We'd love to win but in reality are shooting for not-last.

Goal #1: running car

Goal #2: Complete any event

Goal #3: World champions.

AClockworkGarage said:

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

What year? I've been trying to peice together this car's history.

2016 with dimsum racing. 

birdmayne said:

AClockworkGarage said:

In reply to MaxC :

I don't know If we're going to swing the whole cup either, but we're gonna try. We'd love to win but in reality are shooting for not-last.

Goal #1: running car

Goal #2: Complete any event

Goal #3: World champions.

 

I think you need to add "#4: Profit" in there!

Good luck guys. I'm sure you will be not-last... and if your car turns many laps it'll be far better than that. Show up with it running, and maybe with a bit of testing, and I'm sure it's going to seriously haul. 

The schedules have aligned and we were able to get the whole team™©® together to have a go at the car and really come up with a plan. We all needed to be floundering in the same direction. We gathered up and made a list of all the things that we would need before we get on track.

First and foremost the engine needs to be attached to the car with something more than a ratchet strap and a block of wood. then we could route the cooling lines to a radiator, route the exhaust, install and plumb a fuel system, wiring, window nets, seat, fire supression system... you know... the whole race car...

On my end I need a jack, jack stands, a fuel jug, a big honkin extinguisher,  overflow tray, and a transponder.

Gonna be busy.

One of the issues we'd had with the seat was it's rather extreme offset, that and our roomy XL seat. Ian modified our seat brackets to fit the new seat and centre it on the steering wheel. a 45 degree bevel on the inboard braket even allowed us to mount the seat without cutting into the tunnel.

After that we stuck all of our blunt little skulls together to try and  figure out where the motor mounts would go. The block only had a limited number of bosses, which would put the motor mounts in the d=same location as the steering arm.

We tried looking at it from the top.

Then we looked at it from the bottom.

They we stood in slightly different places and looked at it from underneath again.

Finally we went back to the first position and looked some more.

A lot of imaginary envelope calculations, pointing and grunting and we had a plan of sorts. Parts were on order and we wondered away to do our things. 

Three weeks have passed and we've all been busy on our own little quests. Ian has been working on mounts, and contacted me the other day because he was backed into a corner. The Honda's engine only has a few mounting bosses on the driver's side and they're being occupied by the AC compressor mount, which is also the alternator mount, which is also the belt tensioner mount. It also needs to be an engine mount. It's a very busy part. Ian needed me to clean up the cast bosses so that the spacers he had could be installed.

I did some measuring mounted it up in Jean, my 4 axis CNC mill.

after picking up the holelocations I cleaned up the bores so everything was perfectly round or square.

The spacers slid home perfectly. I wasn't super thrilled with the aluminum spacers so I had my lathe guy knock out some steel ones that can be welded to the plate for a more solid package,

So... options.

While cleaning up the bores I noticed some grinding on the back edge.

Not sure if that was Ian's doing or just the wear and tear of the compressor but I had it mounted in a mill already and decided to err on the side of caution and just mill a clearance notch.

With that the part was ready to return for fabrication.

Hopefully the others will chime in with updates on what they've been up to, otherwise another post will come after the 28th.

Today's update comes from Ian. The motor mounts are coming together.

Clutch selection is the topic of the moment as is the  debate between gas or foam  fire suppression system.

The foam style is cheaper but would really mess up the car if it was set off. The gas style is more expensive to buy and to refill but would add no additional damage to the car. The needle is swinging towards the gas.

I am continually proud of this team and the commitment we have taken to never cutting corners on safety.

Formula-E was reared is buzzy head in messing up our schedules. As of now:

1st event : April 22nd "Podium the ridge", Shelton WA

2nd: June 3rd, "Running with the big Dawgs" Kent WA

3rd: CANCELED June 24 "Salute to the dawgs" Portland OR

4th: Sept 9th "Dawgfest" Shelton WA

5th: CANCELED Oct "Dawg days of summer" ORP

6th: Oct 28, "Howl-o-ween" Portland OR

There is also talk of a non-LDR event in September in Spokane.

https://qlispeclassic.com

No idea how many of those events we'll be able to make but that's whats on the menu.

I think this thread is the most my face has ever shown itself on the internet. Well, some of my face anyway. I'm terrible at updates. Jay is much better. But, I finished up the motor mounts.

Yeah, don't think I have a picture of the actual mounts or anything. That's ludicrous. This kind of looks like every other picture of the engine...

Then I started work on the exhaust.

Here kids, is why you should know what you're doing before you do it. I'm probably using the wrong size pipe? It's 2.5" off the "manifold" and I should really be using 2 or 2.25" but whoops, already mocked up! Now some vbands, finish welding, a ypipe, a cat and we might have a completed exhaust system.

Slow as molasses over here.

In the process of digging through the cooling system we needed to bring the water from the back of the cylinder heads to the front. Normally there is a big manifold piece that contains the thermostat, upper and lower rad hose barbs as well as coolant temp sensor and heater core connections. No room for that with the firewall in the way so now some -16 fittings and pushlock hose comes up off each head to y together over the driver side header. I was trying to figure out a way to secure the y but couldn't come up with anything I liked. This was the least worst option I could come up with. Obviously it will be finish welded and I'll use a metal zip tie. 

It's been a while since we've had an updoot, so here's one.

It was the best of times, it was the blerst of times? Podium the Ridge came and went and alas, we where not there. Parts delays, scheduling conflicts and personal issues meant it just wasn't in the cards.

With just under 5 weeks until the June 4th event at our home track we vowwed to power through and get the car ready. Come hell or high water we would be at that race.

And  I am emensely proud to announce, we did it.

The car? Not even close to ready, but WE were there.

Justin, Henry, Jeremy, and myself were at the track. Ian unfortunately couldn't make it. 

It was an excellent day, the weather was great, the crowd was great, the hot dogs were $10. We walked around the warm pits watching driver changes and refueling stops, checking out their tow setups and stealing secrets. Teams ran the gambit from Toterhomes and livestreamed in car video and telemetry to 'we drove our car here'

A good time was had by all and we learned a lot. All the teams seemed happy to chat with us as long as they weren't currently working on something.

The two fastest cars on track were out before noon, one crashing into a backmarker, the other overcooking their brakes. An engine was swapped in the pits, lots of little battles were fought, and the Volvo I was cheering on managed a podium finish. Woo.

We have 13 weeks until the series returns to the Ridge. I'm declaring it now... we WILL be ready.

...unless we aren't.

Now that we're caught up with now now lets go back to then.

The biggest hurdle we were facing was the starter. Honda puts their starter next to the transmission, Ford puts theirs next to the engine. With a Honda engine and Ford transmission we had no place to mount  starter. The 'kit', for lack of a better term, we are using utilizes a bracket attached to the adapter plate to mount a $300 custom built special order VW unit. Obviously we would prefer to use a cheaper OEM unit. Much time was spent trying to engineer a solution that would allow, the use of the OEM Acura unit but we finally settled on just going with the custom VW part.

The motor and trans have been mounted and the driveshaft has been made.

The engine is back out so that we can install the clutch setup. once the starter arrives I'm pretty sure it's ready to go in for the final time. Then fuel and wiring are the roadblocks.

On the less exciting side of things i scored a $7 engine cover at a recent salvage yard run.

The one on our car had been painted red with like speckled paint. Looked like something a honda kid would do. Combined with the sideways letters which work great in a transverse engine it was just too annoying to not fix.

I took it to work, dialed it in...

...and shaved off the offending text.

The rest of the powdercoat was removed and High temp paint applied, with a full cure between colours.

And thanks to brenden over at Raven's Oddessy the Zonda has a logo.

This arrived today!

The means things can start going together.

Discounted registration for the next event ends on Aug 8th so that's our unoffical dealine to have a driving ish car.

That also means we need a team name. Suggestions I've seen so far are:

Broke-N-Racing

Team Wear and Tear

MT Wallet Racing