Scotty Con Queso said:You should make a trip to southern West Virginia and ride the Hatfield McCoy Trails. Unbelievable country and open space.
It is definitely on my to-do list! I hope to time it with one of the sweet rallyx events up that way at Panthera (sp?)
The fuel level sender in the Jeep quit working. I went a little while with just guesstimating at the level and filling up frequently. But that's not a great strategy when planning for an extended offroad adventure, so I decided to drop the tank and replace the pump/filter/sender/fill hoses. While I was in there I replaced the rear shocks and wire-wheeled some surface rust and sprayed a few coats of rustoleum. Not a real fun job, but fairly satisfying when all of the gauges work again.
Almost 3 years to the day and the upper hose on my lift started weeping fluid :/ noticed some fluid on the floor first, then some drippage down the upper beam, then the fluid container a little dark. That's pretty disappointing. Got some new USA made hoses from the local hydraulic shop and changed the fluid. Hopefully good and safe for a long time.
Trailer/tent ready to party! About $1200 all in. not terrible
My practice times are near the back of the pack and I probably won't make the Crown Vic feature, but I'm gonna give it hell in the B-main! (This is the first race at the Freedom Factory open to local racers)
In reply to Lof8 - Andy :
Get after it!
In reply to AxeHealey :
I qualified 36th out of 40. The top 20 qualifiers went to the feature race, which meant I started 16th in the B-main. I made a couple of passes and avoided the crashes and finished in 10th. I was happy to keep the car intact and get to race at my local track that looked like it would be gone forever just a couple of years ago! Eventually a racer buddy told me basically everyone is running an ecu tune good for about 20hp, even though it's not legal. 20hp is about what I was lacking, it felt like. The place was packed and the energy was electric! The classes were stacked with cars and the racing was awesome! What a fun night. So happy this local track is alive and thriving!
minimal carnage from the race:
ECU tune for 20hp? Tell me more... My BIL has a Lincoln Town Car that I'm sure would love more power.
Congrats on surviving without major damage!
In reply to AWSX1686 (Forum Supporter) :
"Marty Tune" martin_ochs@hotmail.com Is the guy's contact. He's very quick to respond and helpful.
Lof8 - Andy said:In reply to AWSX1686 (Forum Supporter) :
"Marty Tune"
martin_ochs@hotmail.com Is the guy's contact.
I love how you've conveniently gotten the guy's contact info.
Looks like a good result to me, nice work.
In reply to AxeHealey :
Lol! Sunday morning I was already doing the research to get myself "up to speed". by Sunday afternoon, I had the tune ordered, snow tires on the rear and alignment adjusted for rally. Should be here in time to upload and give it a test for next weekend's rallyx in the Vic! Its a very versatile tool, this car. :)
I like your spyder! I am building something similar. Did the door bars noticeably affect chassis stiffness and feel? Would you do them differently if doing it again?
thanks, justin
Jah29 said:I like your spyder! I am building something similar. Did the door bars noticeably affect chassis stiffness and feel? Would you do them differently if doing it again?
thanks, justin
Hi Justin,
With the door bars, it feels quite a bit more rigid than in stock form. I never drove it with the doors off and without door bars, but I probably should have to see how floppy it would be. If I were to do anything differently, I'd consider making them lower, as it can be a bit of a bitch climbing in and out. But then I'd lose some rigidity and safety, so maybe not. They're just about right I think. Post some pics of what you've got going on! I've yet to see another spyder "kart" and I'd like to check yours out.
In reply to Lof8 - Andy :
Thanks for the reply. Currently I'm fixing all the mechanical issues and haven't started removing body panels. My favorite car is the Lotus 340R, so I'm going for something like that with a little bit of bodywork.
In reply to Jah29 :
I had never seen a 340r before I just googled it. Those are sweet! And pretty similar proportions to the Spyder. Should be a cool project!
Shelby Raptor getting wild at the last rallyx! The Vic had noticeable extra juice after the 93 tune!
And a buddy's f150 prerunner
My desire for a Porsche Cayman has been completely replaced by that for a Tesla model 3 performance. E36 M3 is bonkers! My buddy has one and took me for a ride. I've never felt acceleration like that.
Has me considering the sale of a couple current fleet members.
Lof8 - Andy said:My desire for a Porsche Cayman has been completely replaced by that for a Tesla model 3 performance. E36 M3 is bonkers! My buddy has one and took me for a ride. I've never felt acceleration like that.
Has me considering the sale of a couple current fleet members.
With the price cut Tesla just enacted on their new cars, I would think prices on the used models will drop fairly quickly. I read somewhere that Carmax has a ton of model 3s in the inventory right now.
In reply to dyintorace :
Nice! I'm hearing lots of stories how the battery life is miserable when tracked. But, hard to resist that crazy torque!
There's an autocross about 20 mins away this weekend so I'm gonna drive her there on the Avons. Hopefully the local police continue to be friendly :)
Woohoo!
Gearing change needed.
C.G. too
TurnerX19 said:C.G. too
1.5" lower! and the 13"s are significantly lighter than the big Bassett's as well. I haven't weighed the difference yet. downside is the tires are 1" narrower.
Every time I've heard people talk about Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, AL, they rave about how beautiful the place is. So, when my Lemons team asked if I wanted to race there, I said Sure! And the people were not wrong. I've never seen such a beautifully manicured track. The sculptures all over the place are really cool. The lady in the lake was my favorite!
In our previous races, we've run a Honda Civic SI and run in A class. The team captain wanted to build/run a C class car, so he caged up a '97 Toyota Corolla with a 1.6 and automatic. The car is slooow, but through the weekend, we got quicker as we began pushing around the automatic shifter to maximize the shift points and really learning how much lateral grip the little car could maintain. We could corner faster than most, but the straight line acceleration was our weakness. The only issue was a CV joint and wheel bearing going bad at the end of Saturday. We swapped them out and had a trouble-free Sunday. We had a blast! the team is a great group of dudes. I can't think of a much more fun weekend. We ended up 8/25 in class and about 60th of 120 total entries. The Lemons staff gave our team an award called "So Easy Even Floridians Can Do It" and explained how they loved that we down-graded platforms to go slower and be in C class.
*I almost forgot - if anyone recalls the Corolla from the $2k Challenge a few years back that was using only washers for a completely rigid suspension, this is that exact car! (now with $300 chinese coilovers) 
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