that thing is awesome!
that thing is awesome!
More warm weather on the North Shore of Mass - so more paint time.
Gun metal all the things!
SWMBO left the house for a few hours so I did this
While it was soaking I popped the head off the engine. Looks decent. No ridges or scratches in the bore.
More gun metal and a go faster sticker. HP doubled at this point.
Reassembly begins
Not pictured - I dipped the portion of the pedals where the foot contacts in original plastidip to add so grip. Subtle and feels durable after 3 dips.
The green and the gun metal go well together IMO.
Mounting the seat was a real PITA. Took a beer to get it right.
Almost ready to rock. Forgot to clean the seat.... Carbon fiber belly pain incoming.
Took a week workcation in Miami Beach and now we're back in action.
Shots fired. I know what I'm doing while drinking my coffee tomorrow morning.
Oh yes
Ready for action
This is awesome!!
DaveEstey said:Oh yes
This is my new favorite picture.
My experience with 5hp Briggs engines has been pretty positive. The only word of caution is, as I learned online, the stock cast connecting rod and stock cast flywheel can disintegrate at high RPM. When I built my drift kart I opted to leave the stock valve springs so valve float acted as a rev limiter. Much fun was had.
OK weather is warming up - time to get serious.
The LeMons RX7 will be making another appearance at NJMP in May, and since we had a little heat issue we decided a quick rebuild would be a great idea.
Glad we did it.
NFG.
I pulled a plate from my collection, we hand lapped it, gave it a port and threw the engine back together.
Sounds exceedingly good turning it over by hand. We'll throw it in the car later this month. We'll also be adding some higher flow injectors and resorting to some trickery to coax more power out of it. Test day is scheduled for April 29th.
The Lemons RX7 got some attention this weekend.
Drivetrain is back in it and we're waiting on a couple small bits and bobs to button it up.
Meanwhile, we decided to see how a spare set of 17 wheels and 235mm tires would fit.
Plenty of clearance. We're ordering up some 235mm legal tires now.
OK LeMons car has a fresh engine and apparently an o ring issue, so we have to pull it out and bring it back to the builder.
To make myself feel better I shut myself in the basement to work on hillclimb RX7 stuff.
It's carbon time!
We start with a 4 layer lamination
And then we do some cutting
Just have to make one for the other radiator now.
Pro tip: HSS jigsaw blades with fine teeth are the way to go for this kind of thing. Other blades go dull fast.
it doesnt look like that fan shroud doesnt have any depth to it? does it just sit flat on the back of the radiator? seems like that would keep any airflow at all from going through any of the radiator besides the opening where the fan is
In reply to edizzle89 :
There's a gap, it just isn't evident in photos
DaveEstey said:The Lemons RX7 got some attention this weekend.
Drivetrain is back in it and we're waiting on a couple small bits and bobs to button it up.
Meanwhile, we decided to see how a spare set of 17 wheels and 235mm tires would fit.
Plenty of clearance. We're ordering up some 235mm legal tires now.
17s are too big in my opinion. You are raising the car at least an inch for no reason.
They make good, long lasting, 225 and 245 in 15s....
In our experience with gearing and handling, the 17s are 2 seconds slower at pitt race. Same width. Same tire compound.
In reply to wvumtnbkr :
But we have 17s that will comfortably carry a 235 width tire and we do not have 15s that will.
The car is lowered also.
DaveEstey said:In reply to wvumtnbkr :
But we have 17s that will comfortably carry a 235 width tire and we do not have 15s that will.
The car is lowered also.
I get the lowered part., but that is suspension based. You get an extra 1 inch of CG downward movement with the 15s. Jeep wheels are 15 x 8 fairly light and cheap... That's what we run.
Keep an eye out for them and you can scoop them up for next to nothing.
Completely finished one fan shroud last night. The other one is curing where I attached the side rails.
Should be pretty efficient.
Lemons engine did not have a seal issue. It had a hole. this is the bottom of the center iron. Looks like it cracked and then opened up. Never seen this failure before. New center iron sourced and engine is buttoned up again for reinstallation. NJMP is this weekend!
Meanwhile the hillclimb RX7 got a little action. Radiators and shrouds went back in.
Everything needs to be washed. My firewall got seriously rusted by fire extinguishers after the roll. I think I might replace the whole thing.
Ascutney Hillclimb was damp to say the least. That made things dicey for those of us who run slicks. A lot of people packed up, but I snuck in another run with things partially dry and nabbed first in class.
How traction limited was it? This was the launch of my final run. I left at 4k rpm - not in the power band.
OK full report of the first hillclimb of 2018.
I have not been back to Ascutney since I rolled my car there fall of 2016, so there was a little bit of nerves and a lotta bit of "Get back on the damn horse and flog the thing" going on.
Bonus action - I was co-chair of the event. Double trouble!
Friday weather for setup was great. Saturday morning? Also great!
The car was running well, but I knew I was nursing a battery that wasn't 100%. I charged it every chance I could, but deep down I knew it would bite me in the bum. My first run of the weekend was a 3:17, which is a solid 10 seconds slower than my PR, but not an unreasonable pace for my return. Mid-day the skies opened up and watered the course down. I took one run, couldn't see above the bridge despite applying RainX to my lexan windshield, and pulled the plug. Better to run another day than risk a wreck.
Sunday morning the rain continued, so times were significantly slower than usual. The rally cars were doing quite well since they run treaded tires, but those on slicks were tiptoeing up the hill. Many people threw their cars back on trailers and packed up. Mid-day again came with a weather change, and we got some clearing and sun. This caused some parts of the course to dry, while others stayed quite wet and slippery. This made for some interesting driving. I took two more runs and it before my battery finally cried uncle and I got the car back to the trailer on a booster pack.
All in all the car ran quite well. The new radiator shrouds are definitely helping as I only touched 200 degrees at the end of the run, which is 3 minutes of 8k-10k rpm fun. Oil temps were rock solid at 190. Hard to be mad at that. Some more tweaks coming for the car, but big changes aren't on my mind right now.
And the exhaust stayed on this time. :-)
In reply to KevinGale :
Well, I did remove the STFU pipe, but that was a choice!
How hot does the exhaust on a race 13b get? This hot.
Cooks the stainless right out of steel.
You'll need to log in to post.
