Basura Blanco Racing - an evolving fleet

Watched the video he could have made the outside line work.  You have to give a cars width to the track edges which you did.  Leaving 3/4 of a car in the inside so they have to go even wider outside is fine.  There were a couple jogs to the right just before turn in that were questionable but nothing egregious. 

When he was next to you those 3 laps or so he should have forced you to ride the inside and not let you come out.   If he had given you only one car width to the inside through an entire lap he would have been able to get by.  But since that is slow he didnt do it he was trained to race the track and not the other drivers.

Pops was in town for business, so we made a Friday evening of it and pulled out the M52. Already have a buyer lined up for tomorrow morning. 

So much good stuff in this thread.  Circle track racing looks fun.  

In reply to Petrolburner :

The fun per dollar is exceptional!  On nights that I win or place well, it’s actually a net positive. 

Last weekend, our SCCA region hosted a 2 day national rallyx. I had high hopes for an awesome event, as last time we rallied at Sebring, the course was very fast. We had a large turnout with 10 or so national competitors from out of state.  There were some very nicely prepped cars!  However, it did not move very efficiently. Extra time was spent in the morning to scrutinize everyone’s car.  For some reason, we were only running 1 car on course at a time and we had about a 45 minute delay for lightning.  All of these added up to (3) 1 minute runs per driver for the day. That’s just not enough seat time for me to spend the whole day in the sun. So I skipped Sunday and picked up a set of M3 front brakes, spindles, and $$ floating rotors for $300 that had showed up on CL. The weekend was still very fun but I wish our group could worry less about “growing rallyx” and figure out how to be more efficient with our time. :/

Last pic is the super fast VW truck losing its clutch or flywheel or something. Tom Suddard was there co driving with him.  

Also I made a pretty significant decision regarding the engine swap portion of the project. Keeping the ABS requires relocating the bulky abs pump to the front of the engine bay, extending the hefty abs wiring harness, bending up 4 new brake lines, keeping a portion of the factory engine harness and hiding a part of the factory traction control (ACS throttle body) in the engine bay to keep the abs computer happy.  Some people even leave the factory ecu in place to be able to pull abs codes. I decided this car is going to be as simple and bare bones as possible. I’m deleting all of the abs stuff and going with a Chase Bays boosterless setup. This system simplifies things greatly, cleans up the engine bay, adds a bias controller to the system, and frees up lots of space. The reviews are all very positive and several track guys say the slightly heavier pedal allows for easier brake modulation. I guess we’ll see. It sure looks nice (photo is not my car)

In reply to Lof8 :

I like the look of that a lot! I may end up looking into getting one from my e28. I'm all for simplicity. ABS is for wimps right?

Lol!  I’ve played with several cars without abs and never considered it a problem, so hopefully that trend continues. 

Im slowly chipping away at engine bay prep. I plan to make an effort at a “shave and tuck” but without any bondo or body work. I just cut off all of the unnecessary bracketry and am thinning out the wiring harness to the necessities. I plan to run the headlight wiring harness behind the fender.  Also bought some color matched spray paint on eBay to touch up the shaved bracket areas. I’m hoping to pull the car out into the yard to pressure wash the bay this weekend. The Condor steering shaft is much more compact than the stock unit to make room for header clearance. It’s about half the price of the similar Vorshlag piece. 

I need to start focusing my efforts on the Trans Am soon.  The Challenge is starting to get close!

I got the engine bay cleared out enough that it’s ready for a good pressure wash and scrub. Then I realized the 15” bottle caps won’t clear the M3 brakes.  So I had to buy tires sooner than I really wanted. Hankook RS4 in 245 flavor. Took the DS2s and new tires down to get mounted at my favorite ‘hood shop. They do a lot of big blades so they’re used to being careful. $50 to mount and balance 4.  So I should be good to come down off the jackstands now. 

Hoping there’s daylight to scrub down the bay tomorrow after work.  Some wheel spacers will be needed before this thing is done.

Engine bay is scrubbed down!  That bright orange rusty water stain is finally no more!  Look at that rear wheel gap.  Those are Tein lowering springs on the car.  I took so much weight out of this thing.

with the sudden twist at the $2k Challenge, the Trans Am will be going under the knife sooner than expected. Having only driven it a little bit, I can certainly tell that it is no autocross weapon. Now, shall I go with the miata, or tweak the alignment on the neon and bring that?  Hmmm

The Trans Am had developed a horrible running issue. Sputtering, coughing, and spitting loads of fuel out the tail pipe. It threw a code for a MAF sensor and a “refurbished” one fixed the problem completely!  

My dad donated a pair of 17x9 Style 32s from his 5 series to my project and I plan to pick up another pair in Orlando next week. 

Not my car, but these wheels

...and finally fired up my mig welder to give it a try!  Not horrible. I’m thinking I’ll be going after the e36 subframe reinforcements myself after some more practice. 

Did some shuffling to prepare the T/A for surgery. Also been trying to research the swap kits as much as possible. I’d love to use Vorshlag for everything but their prices just suck. I think I’m going to mix in some CX Racing components to keep the cost more reasonable. I’ll probably go to CX for the trans crossmember and possibly headers and Y pipe. Those alone equal a savings of almost $1500. 

You gotta burn to learn.  Push the puddle overlapping by half.  That's about all I have.

I sold the DS2s for a lil more than what I paid for them. Now the e36 has 17x9s all around and will buy another (wider) set of stickies near the end of the build. 

And making some progress extracting the heart of the T/A. 

After much laying on my back in the footwell and sweating and cursing, the bmw has 3 pedals for the first time ever. 

Slingin mud and dropping subframes!  Trans am shell is ready for the scrapper and my wife has a parking spot again.

Awesome progress on the BMW! That thing will be mean!

Things are happening. Trans Am shell is gone and large orders were made to Summit, Vorshlag, and Wiring Specialties. T-56 is in the shop for a rebuild. 

I’m considering these headers from an Ebay seller in Bulgaria who builds them. He has Left hand drive sets available but doesn’t have many photos available. I really want to see their fitment from an underneath-the-car perspective. He hasn’t supplied any. They’re about 1/2 the price of the very pricey Vorshlag pieces. The shorter length tube design has potential to make things more spacious in some very tight areas. 

Got the baffle bolted in and found that someone had previously overtightened the 2 rear oil pan bolts that go into the rear cover and stripped the holes. :/  new rear cover from Jegs is another $50 gone. Grrrr. 

So my Champcar teammate spent 7 months getting the “new” junkyard engine into the car and has given it back with about a week before the Sebring race. That should be plenty of time to get it aligned, re-tuned and have everything ready to race right?  (I’m not very happy about the situation).  Zero testing before a 14 hour $1400 race  

And this Saturday I’m giving my little brother the wheel of the neon to give the world of short circle tracks a try. :)

T56 has been rebuilt. 

I’m debating pulling the intake manifold off the LS to clean things up and maybe paint or powder coat the valve covers. I’m just afraid I’ll find more “while I’m in there” things that cost more money. 

Did anyone want to hear more circle track drama?  Well here it is regardless. Lol. This Saturday I gave my brother a shot in the seat of the neon. We got to the track early to let him get some practice sessions in before the races. I gave him some pointers and he was amped!  The first practice session had a healthy group of 5 or 6 cars. 2 of them were the “you have to give me a lane” father and son. I blame myself a little for not telling my brother that the practice sessions are very casual. Steer clear of each other and just turn some 85-90% laps. 

He was out there diving to the inside for passes and generally pushing quite hard!  Oops!

after the session I felt the need to go explain the situation to “give me a lane” crew (FnF Racing). There are about 5 mini stocks in this crew. I found the dad and said, “I’m not the one racing tonight. My little brother is giving it a shot for the first time. I’m going to tell him to be less aggressive in the practice sessions”. I shook his hand and his response was, “He drives like you. Don’t worry we’ve got numbers on you tonight.”  

I thought to myself, what a berkeleying cock and left it at that.  Now I’m worried they’re going to gang up on him in the race. 

My bro really got the feel for things quickly and he was pulling nice consistent laps.  The FnF team has 5 cars, 4 of which are very fast (a couple of those cars were not there the other weekend when I won). 

Brother is in heat one with 5 cars. He started 4th and battled up to 2nd where he was dicing a bit with an FnF car. No dirty play and he takes 2nd in the heat but the FnF car definitely has a power advantage over us. 

Come to the feature race and my brother is given the inside of row 4 out of 9 cars. He’s got his work cut out for him but making the passes is really the most fun part. He makes a few nice moves and is up to about 6th after 3 laps. The FnF guys are all grouped up front battling with the Herbie beetle.  Herbie gave one of the FnF cavaliers a tap in the back.  Cavalier goes sliding and collects 2 more of the fast FnF douches!  My brother swerved and misses the pile by inches!  My ass was puckered and I was picturing many nights of repair work but he made it by!    3 of them are banged up pretty good and pulled off with a tow truck  

Here you see papa douche, arms up, yelling at the approaching Herbie.  

15 minutes of cleanup and we’re ready to go green.  6 cars left, 2 of them are fast FnF cars.  My brother battles up to 2nd but the 1st place guy is fast.  He gets up on his bumper a couple of times but can’t make it stick to get around.  Once he gets a nose underneath on a straight but FnF rides him way to the infield and he has to brake.  I see my brother pushing as hard as he can but that right front tire is getting hot and pushes bad a few times toward the outside wall on exit, causing a couple more pucker moments for me.  

Lil Bro takes home 2nd place! sandwiched between 2 of the FnF Guys, 1st and 3rd.  He gives a lil winners circle speech thanking his brother for letting him drive :)

this being his first race, he pulls off the track and straight onto the trailer, not knowing he’s supposed to go to the tech inspection.  Papa douche is red faced and screaming at the track official to DQ my brother.  This guy is a real clown.  We plead the case to the official that it’s his first race and the guy cuts us a break.  We unload the car and inspection goes fine.  Officially 2nd place and a great night of fun!  He took home $175 and tried pretty hard to give me the money.  I wasn’t having that!  He texted me this morning and said it was one of the most fun nights of his life!!  It really is wild and crazy, adrenaline pumping fun out there!

More pics scavenged

Im not super in to roundy racing, but I love stories like this! Also your my kid of circle track guy! 

Professor_Brap said:

Im not super in to roundy racing, but I love stories like this! Also your my kid of circle track guy! 

Lol. Thanks. I’m not super into roundy-round myself!  I pretty much can’t stand watching it on tv. I don’t follow NASCAR at all and I ignore any Indy race that’s not on a road course. But I must say I’m glad I gave these local races a try. It’s very convenient and cheap in comparison to other forms of seat time. The excitement behind the wheel is unbeatable!  If we’re using a scale of 1-10 for excitement, I’ll give autocross a 4, rallycross a 7, chump racing an 8 and local circle tracks an 11. It’s fun!