Challenge Budget Question

If this has been covered, Sorry Dudes....

The soft brake lines on Aarons Ghia were not dry rotted or collapsed. Other than being in a barn for 30 years there was nothing wrong with them. They were replaced with new lines only because the car was going to be driven on the street (lots of miles) and we just didnt want to risk a problem. If the car was a strictly challenge car we would have had no problem keeping the lines and chancing it.

Do we hit the budget with the cost of the lines or not? If we had relpaced them with braided we would not question because it was not a like part swap.

Thanks!

Sean

The completely Challenge legal approach would be to re-install the old lines for the Challenge only. We did that with our suspension in '04 (removed the expensive setup, and installed an identical, but cheaper setup to meet the budget).

I think, technically, you should include them.

However, I'd be inclined to give you a pass on it, being a safety item that doesn't offer a performance advantage.

I think, however, the performance advantage could be debated- 30 year old rubber is more flexible than new rubber.

You might need to wait for the official word on this one.

BTW, those old hoses will perform just like stainless steel if you wrap them with zip ties every 1/4".

As the current rules sit, they do count in the budget.

they may have been new when you bought them, but they're used now....

AngryCorvair wrote: they may have been new when you bought them, but they're used now....

-and because its been sitting so long I could justify depreciating every part on my Ro-Spit to $0 using IRS formulas, but no matter how tempting, that aint quite in the spirit of the contest.

Yea, I'd say you need to budget them in.

Per

That's disappointing. A purely precautionary brake hose replacement for the sake of safety should not be a budget item. The car would not have cost more if he purchased it with new hoses. It is a descretionary desicision to install a direct replacement brake hose that adds no performance advantage or adapts a better caliper or master cylinder into the system. I, as a competitor, would prefer to compete against a guy who made a decision to replace a hose on his car without the concern for a budget hit. A spectator (me or my family) may be near a car being driven to an extreme, and the car builder may have made the decision to assume more risk by running older hoses because there is a budget penalty.

OTOH, it's a pretty slippery slope.

I'm not sure if we want to open the ruleset to make it more like LeMons, especially just 30ish days to the event. The rules have been like that for years.....

Are you really that close on the budget that this matters? This is on the VW right? those are stoopid cheap, typically.

Ok: stock replacement brake hoses are free in the budget, like harnesses, fire extinguishers. If you hadn't mentioned it and just replaced them, no one would have known....or cared probably.

Do you really think anyone is going to care? It only counts if your name is Guido.

I agree with Andy, makes sense in the line of safety......none of us are going to care that a Ghia has new rubber brake hoses, and sure beats having it hit something or hurt someone just to save $20 and meet the spirit of the rules.

Good rule change Per, really has no affect on anything other than a little safety..... except, I guess I can go back to itemized list from two years ago and see if I replaced the hoses on the spit, can't remember....... might have $20 back in the budget again

hrm, would you all agree that rusty hardlines fall under the same? i'm going to replace them for safety either way and it's no where near putting me over the top on the budget, but it's going to make it closer for the $1004 class.

See...slippery slope. Next you're going to start asking about that rusty chassis that you just have to fix for it to be safe. Where's that smiley face with the rolling eyes....

Sorry, no, have to count that.

Per, I love you, but you might not want to let your insurance agent hear your "slippery slope" comment. It sounds like you are suggesting racing with bad brakes.

Personally, I'd rather go the opposite way. REQUIRE that all cars have good working brake systems, and encourage ALL components be up to AT LEAST the OEM specs, with a complete pass on the budget for all OEM replacement parts. Of course, upgraded components would be charged to the budget.

Initial purchase price of the cars would almost never be affected if they had decent brakes.

I said the same thing about roll bars and proper racing seats. All it will take to end the Challenge is a catastrophic event.

I was alternatively called a p****y and Ralph Nadar.

dyintorace wrote: I said the same thing about roll bars and proper racing seats. All it will take to end the Challenge is a catastrophic event. I was alternatively called a p****y and Ralph Nadar.

You big py!

Initial purchase price of the cars would almost never be affected if they had decent brakes.

You obviously aren't buying your car(s) for the Challenge cheap enough is the way I see it...

Ok...we'll work on this rule for 2009 and beyond for things like brakes...but again, where do you draw the line? balljoints? tie rod ends? fixing rust?

Since we're not racing wheel to wheel and we've got the back-up of NHRA rules for the drag stuff, we let the rollcage/bar issue be dictated by how fast the car goes.

Per Schroeder wrote: See...slippery slope. Next you're going to start asking about that rusty chassis that you just have to fix for it to be safe. Where's that smiley face with the rolling eyes.... Sorry, no, have to count that.

roger that. like i said, they're getting done either way, just curious because i agree that it's a hard line to distinguish. maybe for next year just include stock replacement brake lines hard or soft? not necessarily the whole brake system just, the lines. seems like that'd be pretty easy to quantify as just a safety thing. could also say that if someone upgrades to something like disk brakes on a rear drum car that the new lines would have to count as it's not just a change to stock. has there ever actually been anyone who has blown a line at an event?

Yuck... I agree that this is a potential slippery slope... but if a blown line takes time to clean the track, it affects everyone. If it happened on the autocross, I don't think there's a cleanup crew on standby either.

I'd submit that tech inspection should cover brakes being up to at least stock specs (and I'm pretty sure that it already does).

As far as budget, if you have stock lines and hoses intact on the car you purchase, swap to new stock lines for safety reasons should be budget free; upgrades should not. Installing stock lines if the rusty hulk you purchased didn't have them on when you bought it should count against the budget.

Ultimately, this is a "who would even know" question; as mentioned above, if it wasn't included in the build list, I doubt it would be questioned. Spelling it out just makes things even clearer to the audience of people who question the legitimacy of Challenge projects actually being built for the stated cost.

For 2009, I think "off budget" items should be listed and included in the car descriptions. It would be interesting to see what those dollars are buying or if they're even being used that much.... Maybe you already have this info from past Challenges?

LeMons rules (yeah I know this is not LeMons) say safety items have no budget limit. This includes: roll cages, anything to do with brakes, fuel cells, wheels and tires. The only restriction is the tires cannot be below 190 treadwear rating. I think that's a bit extreme for the Challenge, particularly the tire part.

The roll bar thing has been covered nicely by the existing rules.

Tires and wheels have a big performance impact, so I'd say they should count.

I would not want to make brake systems 'free', but repair of a stock system might be a good thing to leave out of the budget. The only question I can think of: if you buy a complete car which has a set of Wilwood calipers and one of them is seized making replacement neccessary, would this be considered an upgrade?

Also, on the disc brake upgrade question, take the 1st gen RX7: a disc rear is a direct bolt in and was a stock option. It does require a different body to axle hose and in the case of the early cars, a hybrid hose (different thread pitches on each end). Talk about splitting hairs, here.

Jensenman wrote: I would not want to make brake systems 'free', but repair of a stock system might be a good thing to leave out of the budget. The only question I can think of: if you buy a complete car which has a set of Wilwood calipers and one of them is seized making replacement neccessary, would this be considered an upgrade? Also, on the disc brake upgrade question, take the 1st gen RX7: a disc rear is a direct bolt in and was a stock option. It does require a different body to axle hose and in the case of the early cars, a hybrid hose (different thread pitches on each end). Talk about splitting hairs, here.

oy vey. maybe we're thinking about this too much? i'd say both situations above would count for the budget since not counting them would seem to go against the spirit of the challenge. imho it comes down to what your goal is by replacing a part. are you doing it for an increase in performance or for safety reasons only? I think if you ask yourself that then you know whether it should count in the budget or not.

I tossed those out as food for thought. Honestly, most brake systems can be repaired pretty cheaply, particularly if you reuse good parts with some wear. For instance I had pads with probably 1/4 remaining which I used for the Challenge, since they came with the suspension setup I bought.

The rules should remain as they are.

The reason Challenge cars are so cheap is that they need brake lines, pads and all sorts of little things. If they didn't, they wouldn't be challenge cars.

Also, the "challenge way" is to use used wear items if you need to.

I had to put a clutch master cyl rebuild kit and and brake caliper rebuild kit on my challenge car, and I included both (cheap) items in the budget.

All this talk of 'no one will know' and 'who cares' gives ammo to the naysayers, as will rules that allow all sorts of loopholes in the name of safety.

The Car and Driver article on the Lemons race kind of turned me off...they had a cage, wheels and tires worth over $3k, IIRC.

I took pride that I build a car under the budget and to the rules, even though I had to do extra work for marginal benefit that wouldn't have made sense otherwise.

Finally, $200X Challengers in particular should hold themselves to a higher standard... don't show up with a 100 hp shot of Nitrous and dangerous brakes. At least come with marginal, non-leaking brakes that work when the competition starts

-James

Hear Hear....don't compromise the existing rules, the slope is slippery and steep

WOW, lots of talk on this. Never did we expect all of this.

We just asked what we thought was a simple yes or no question. Could a functional but old brake line be replaced with a new replacement part without being charged to the budget.

If the brake lines were dry rotted, cracked, or collapsed we would have replaced them an not asked. Broken part, charge the budget. We already have two steel lines we broke, new mastrer cyl, wheel cylinder rebuild kits, and shoes all around in the budget. These parts were all non fuctional as they came on the car.

We made the decision to replace the lines long ago and planned on putting the cost in.

As far as replacing parts and not saying anything, that is not in the spirit of the event and we would not have done that. We also would not bring a car to the Challenge that we felt was unsafe just to keep the budget down.

We were not looking for a rules change, just a clarification. Per’s answer Saturday night of

Yea, I'd say you need to budget them in.

Sean