A tale of three lemons

In reply to maroon92:

There are some monitary issues on that one, plus getting the car down there... do we run it with the cage? In which case i dunno if i want to be riding around the south with a helmet on in june.

2 in a row has some vacation issues with those of us on the team with wives and day jobs ... and sleeping a vacation day away at an exotic location just so we can drive home safely isn't fun!

jwc38 wrote: In reply to maroon92: There are some monitary issues on that one, plus getting the car down there... do we run it with the cage? In which case i dunno if i want to be riding around the south with a helmet on in june.

Sissy.

Seriously, we probably wouldn't have survived without the Cool Shirt.

do you guys think we will be okay without one, as we are running a caged convertible? (sorry to hijack, but I don't want to drive down there and burn my balls off in an endurance race)

maroon92 wrote: do you guys think we will be okay without one, as we are running a caged convertible? (sorry to hijack, but I don't want to drive down there and burn my balls off in an endurance race)

Louisiana....in June....its gonna be hot...very hot.

Firebird, the car just looklike it want to die.

I'm biased toward the ZX. If it's a coupe, that thing has a 21 gallon fuel tank! Our '83 280ZX with 260k on the odometer made it through the entire first day at Thunderhill with only a single fuel stop. The car made great power (117 rwhp, 138 rwtq) and was dead nuts reliable. We would have finished much higher if the erratic flagging hadn't pulled us into the pits a number of times for questionable "passing under yellow" penalties and forcing unscheduled driver changes. We used a spare set of stock 280ZX turbo 15" wheels with 225/45/15 Hankook Ventus RS2's that worked pretty well. I think a set of Azenis 615's would have been a better choice. The car was totally predictable and was faster than all but the fastest cars on the track. But, as has been mentioned before, speed and power don't usually win at these events. Reliability, avoiding contact and staying out of trouble (in that order) are often the deciding factors at a LeMons event.

No matter what you choose, good luck and have a great time!

Trannies are a weak point - we killed the 5 speed in a Saab at CMP - ran all day Sunday with 3rd gear only and no clutch...many cars dropped for trannies - more then any other problem...

(looks furtively around, doesn't see Per anywhere) Yeah, but that was a Saab.

The ZX would be a good choice if it could be fixed cheap. Or if you just lied about it.

Jensenman wrote: (looks furtively around, doesn't see Per anywhere) Yeah, but that was a Saab. The ZX would be a good choice if it could be fixed cheap. Or if you just lied about it.

and it will be back in April....Team Saab Story rides again....

maroon92 wrote: do you guys think we will be okay without one, as we are running a caged convertible? (sorry to hijack, but I don't want to drive down there and burn my balls off in an endurance race)

I got news for you...a Cool shirt ain't gonna do so much for the nads. It sounds like there's a market for a new "cool" garment, though. Game on, eh!

Ok...more on-topic. As much as I hate FWD, I don't think I'd trust an unknown auto in a heavy f-body. I WOULD however, instruct those Brits to go out and flog the ever-loving-snot out of it on the babe rally and see how it does. If it seems solid, it would be a LOT of fun in the LeMons event.

I don't like the purchase price being so close to the limit though...the Toyota has the advantage, it seems, overall.

Clem

If you throw some tire on that Celica, cut the springs, and rig up some strut bracing on the front ONLY, it will probably outhandle damn near anything else in the race.

Coming from Hondas, where the rule of thumb was always "understeer!!" the Celica was the FWD car that opened my eyes up to the fact that YES, you can have neutral handling, and even OVERSTEER fairly easily in a FWD car.

You could easily get that sucker down to 2000lbs, and it WILL be peppy then. The brakes are way more than the car will ever need, and the motor/tranny are bulletproof.

Jay will attest to the fact that it really is one of the great handling FWD cars, and his was a floppy GTS hatchback in comparison to the lithe, light, and more rigid ST coupe.

There was actually a magazine that ran an ST 5th gen in one of the first Lemons and i think they came in 3rd? It was blue and yellow. They had only good things to say about the car.

I vote for the 280z. Use the engine from the Camaro, sell the rest to fund a T5 tranny. Most aftermarket 4-lug wheels are dual bolt pattern for 4x100/4x114.3. Most 240sx's also came on 4x114.3 so you should have a good source for wheels.

I like the fact that the Fire-turd is hitting on me with that wink and all, but remember : to win one must finish. Yoda gets the vote.

Dang, been awhile since updated.

The team met earlier this month and weighed the pros and cons and the toyota wins.

The 280 is available for sale (last time I checked) and the firebird still doesnt run but it will make it to the BABE rally one way or another.

In the mean time Ive got to finish (start) putting my own BABE car together. 69 Olds 88 convertible. would love to cage that and run it in Lemons...it would be terrible but amusing.

Misfit Racing? Right?

Misfit Toys Racing...that's us

Are you planning on being out at any autocrosses anytime soon? I know that you were playing with South Jersey for a while. We were going to bring the MR2 out on 3/8.

I've pretty much retired from autox for the time being, car prep for BABE and classic car club events have taken over my spare time.

STAY away from an Auto car. The race is not All about speed and power. You need to finish the race to win.

Unless you have a guy on the team that can rebuild an Auto trans for low $$.

Auto isn't a good idea unless you can rebuild it and have money for a big honkin tranny cooler and can manually shift it.

As far as heat - we ran with fireproof undies and 3 or 5 layers outers with no fancy cool shirts or whatever. Only one of us almost passed out - it was fine.

Yeah, the CMP race killed a bunch of slushboxes including ours, we even had a huge tranny cooler from an F250 4x4 added to the original cooler in the radiator. The fluid looked like ink when we were done.

We ran Cool Shirts, awesome! Of course this was mid July, 95 degrees outside. April should be a lot cooler.

Jensenman wrote: Yeah, the CMP race killed a bunch of slushboxes including ours, we even had a huge tranny cooler from an F250 4x4 added to the original cooler in the radiator. The fluid looked like ink when we were done. We ran Cool Shirts, awesome! Of course this was mid July, 95 degrees outside. April should be a lot cooler.

I sure hope so - we also ran a homemade coolshirt system - needed for July at CMP...

The newsed and improved Thunder Terd roared today. Motor sounds MEAN.