Team Stampie $50 Q45 Challenge build

First let me say that I brought in a ringer to do the paint. Years of training in all kinds of media. Renowned among his parents and grandparents as an artist ... I am proud to present ... Asa. Bad boys and hot rods wear satin black. This Q45 is both.

In reply to Indy-Guy:

Makes one wonder what I could do with $1353.22 next year.

Took this right before I had problems loading her up.

20th or so in the autocross and ran a 14.416 in the drags. Overall very happy with the car. Tired now will update more tomorrow.

In reply to Stampie:

Your drag run looked great!

In reply to petegossett: Thanks. It was exciting for first gear but once we got traction in 2nd it was smooth driving. Here's the back of our team t-shirts. Now we're relaxing waiting on the banquet.

congrats!!! nice job. :)

Thanks, we got in around 11 last night. Asa just went to the Ex's house for a decompression day but I'm off to work. Once I get time I'll give our report card.

Congratulations again good job.

In reply to pimpm3:

Thanks. Coming from you that means alot. Not only have you helped me a lot in learning the Challenge ropes but you are an amazing Challenge competitor.

I want to get my thoughts down on the car while they are still fresh.

The good:

She has power.
She's proven that the 3rd gen Q45 can't be overlooked.
She has plenty of potential and is no where near maxed out in any area.

The bad:

We couldn't get the power down in the drags.
She really needs a suspension make over for the autocross.
While I think bed liner was the way to go this year we really need to work on her cosmetics.

I think we got incredibly lucky in winning half budget this year. We left some low hanging fruit on the tree by not taking drag tires and not doing our coil overs.

I think we only got it because other teams had issues like Andy not being able to sell off enough to be in our class and singleslammer not being able to build boost. I know there were others that also had issues preventing them from doing as well as they could. We got lucky in that our only problem at the Challenge was two windshield bolts coming loose.

My last thought is all the hard work and being totally worn out was worth it when I asked Asa this morning how he thought we did. Before he said anything he gave me the smile that said I was the best Daddy in the world.

Not lucky - prepared. You did good work and reaped the benefits

Needs moar turbo... and wrinklewall tires

I think you should put the turbo in the drivers seat... need to one up the LS400 guys.

Or... twin turbos above the hood.

Congrats, I saw you running in the autocross and drags on live video, I don't remember the car being notably slow in autocross so it should be great with coilovers!

In reply to GameboyRMH:

Thanks. She did well in the autocross, actually better than I expected but it was brut force. The course set up also helped us.

So now that we're a few days out and I've done the report card I wanted to share some things about her that most of you don't know.

She was bought as an engine donor for the planned 2017 Challenge car. I figured I'd have a free 340hp drivetrain as $50 would be easy to recover. I started looking for a different car for this year when we decided to just take it easy this year and run her. Turned out not so easy but I think she's earned the right to stay together. I'm going to look into getting a rebuilt title for her so that I can win the carpool line at Asa's school on Fridays.

Secret Part A never got used. Right after I got her pimpm3 asked me wth I was going to do with an ugly car in the contours. I had already decided on bedliner to hide the body damage but I really thought she'd need a theme to score well in concours. I quickly formed an idea to do a Mad Max tribute car. Secret Part A was a GM 3.8 supercharger that we were going to gut, install an electric motor to spin it, and bolt to the hood. I even was planning on dressing in black leather and have Asa play the role of mullet kid. He wasn't too happy about that. As Ish came together I decided that she was good enough to stand on her own without a theme.

Around noon Thursday I almost decided to not bring her but to bring my DD Miata instead. I started to load her at 10:30am by myself. Mistake number one. As I got her up the ramps I should have gotten out to check everything but didn't because of how hard it is to get in and out. Mistake two. The exhaust caught on the angle iron that holds my ramps and ripped it off. That caused the ramps to drop and her to sit half off the trailer. It took me three hours to get her on by myself. I almost gave up and said berkeley it. Glad I didn't.

I didn't run in the autocross because I was putting the exhaust back on during the walk through. When I realized it was a new course I didn't feel comfortable driving it blind. Chris drove some and ribbed me that I didn't because he would have beat me. We quickly made a $5 bet on the fastest time in the drags. I turned in a 14.416. Chris's best run was 3/100ths slower. Amazing that both of us were that close in her.

Stampie said: Secret Part A was a GM 3.8 supercharger that we were going to gut, install an electric motor to spin it, and bolt to the hood.

Finally, I get an answer!

In reply to Acme Lab Rat:

I felt I owed that to ya.

That is nice of you to think that our problem was a lack of boost. We had tons of problems. If it made boost, we would have probably just spun the tires half way down the track. Next year (assuming I can make it) should be a little better showing. Glad you brought the Q instead of the Miata. It was quite the surprise.

And today was the official start to her $2017 build. Chris had to work so Carol and I jumped in the truck and headed off to the junkyard for the 50% off sale. Notice the bag of donuts in the middle of the seat. Our main targets were another differential to lower the budget, a long battery cable to relocate our battery to the trunk, and electric fans so that we can get rid of the hydraulic fan on the Q45. We found everything except the diff. After searching Cadillacs and BMWs we glaced into a 99 C class Mercedes and saw a nice protected 0 gauge battery cable in the trunk. Ended up being 15 feet long. If anyone goes for one of these here's what we learned. Trunk wasn't bad. It then runs behind the side bolster drivers side rear seat, up along the still until it cuts the corner of the front left drivers seat bolt. The seats have a security star pattern but I found that a 10mm fit them perfectly. Not much security there. We just removed the two front bolts and Carol sat on the seat back to hold it enough for me to weave through. From there you have to remove two nuts holding the bottom of the throttle pedal and remove the drivers carpet. A 17mm bolt at the bottom of the firewall holds it in place. We went ahead and removed the engine bay side all the way to the starter just in case. ******* Ninja Edit ******* We pulled another one a few months later. This time Chris discovered if you disconnect at the firewall you can pull it through from the back of the driver's seat so no worrying about weaving it around the seat bolt. ******* End of Ninja Edit ******* Here's the proud moment once it was out. A quick check of the yard's pricing showed no price for battery terminals so we interrupted that to mean they were included in the price of the battery cable. We got a little liberal and created a custom battery cable with a clamp on terminal and a LS block mounted battery terminal. Not bad for $2.99. We also grabbed a dual electric fan out of a 95 Mercedes S class for the Q45, 18 feet of easy to remove 4 gauge amp wire, a steering damper from the C class Mercedes, and a brake booster for the K30 but well I got lazy and didn't take a picture of all that. Not bad for a fun day in the junkyard.

I've been searching for several months for some cheap 10 inch wide wheels for the drags. At lunch today I see a set of wheels within our range. Not the prettiest ones but Team Stampie is all about proving you don't have to be pretty to be fast.

In reply to Stampie:

I may need to borrow those

For a very small fee ...

In reply to Stampie:

Not pretty? Dayum what are your standards like? I love those.

When compared to the original they are just a little off. Compare how the spoke attaches to the lip on the original compared to above. I'm also not a fan of polished lips.

But if you really like them I'm selling two 18x9s with center caps.