What kind of car do you LeMons/Chump race and how would you rate your decision?

volvoclearinghouse wrote: Raced with Tuna55...on a scale of 0 (would never race it again) to 10 (best racing vehicle created yet by Man: The LTD Landau: 5. Reliable when you use stock Ford components, but then, slow. Handling can be improved greatly. Burns through gas like OPEC doesn't exist and tires are somewhat expensive if you let them be. Good at carrying 40 or 50 people around the paddock while blasting "Hot Rod Lincoln". The Volvo Amazon: 11. No, really. It's that good. I plan on running another one again, when I can. Super fun light car, more character than most cars that can drive this well, can fix it with a hammer, easy on gas and consumable parts, and the judges loved it.

FYIU, I'd be at about a 7/7. The LTD is tons easier to drive other than our most recent brake issues, but has had a lot of reliability problems. The Amazon was twitchy to me, and with manual steering, brakes and transmission, a lot more fun to drive yet much more difficult to go fast without Fing something up.

We run a fiero v6. Good power, handing leaves something to be desired, but it's fun.

1994 Honda Accord.

2/10.

It's only fast because Bill Goodale worked on it. It's only competitive because Bill, Tommy, Gary, and Steve can all drive.

Otherwise - the Honda F22 is a grenade with the pin pulled on track. 50/50 whether it blows itself to smithereens or not. We've snapped a crank, cracked a flywheel, blown a headgasket, and cooked oil till the bearings turned blue. The Accord's cornering speed is probably the highest in the series - it's light, stiff, rolling on big tires, and has great suspension geometry.

But that engine! 130 horsepower, lousy mileage, and a good chance that all four conrods will leave the crankcase by the end of the race.

When will RX-8s hit the LeMons price bracket?

There was an RX8 at Lemons. It did poorly. It also got hundreds of thousands of penalty laps.

Rob R.

We lucked into our '86 Civic Si, it was cheap and local. It ain't fast but the little bugger is reliable as the sun and easy on consumeables, plus every VatoZone on the planet carries cheap parts. It's entertaining to drive also. Its only drawback is it's hell to pass much faster cars in the turns only to watch them catch back up on the straights while I'm trimming my right big toenail in the fan blades.

Sorta on/off topic: if I was going to build a Frankencar for LeMons I'd stuff a VG30 and 5 speed in a 1st gen RX7, preferably a GSL-SE.

tuna55 wrote:

volvoclearinghouse wrote: Raced with Tuna55...on a scale of 0 (would never race it again) to 10 (best racing vehicle created yet by Man: The LTD Landau: 5. Reliable when you use stock Ford components, but then, slow. Handling can be improved greatly. Burns through gas like OPEC doesn't exist and tires are somewhat expensive if you let them be. Good at carrying 40 or 50 people around the paddock while blasting "Hot Rod Lincoln". The Volvo Amazon: 11. No, really. It's that good. I plan on running another one again, when I can. Super fun light car, more character than most cars that can drive this well, can fix it with a hammer, easy on gas and consumable parts, and the judges loved it.

FYIU, I'd be at about a 7/7. The LTD is tons easier to drive other than our most recent brake issues, but has had a lot of reliability problems. The Amazon was twitchy to me, and with manual steering, brakes and transmission, a lot more fun to drive yet much more difficult to go fast without Fing something up.

I will give you this, the LTD was STUPIDLY easy to drive. The wheelbase was something like 120", so if the rear end broke loose you had a good 5 count before things got interesting. Power steering and brakes and a C6 made it a one hand, one foot drive. And with a strong 460 it was hell of fast in the straight at CMP, which was always worth a grin.

The Amazon was a little twitchy, but I think I/we've learned a lot in car development over the years and I've been experimenting on my roadgoing Amazons ot the point where I think we could do a better job of setting one up. It's still got a 100" wheelbase, so it's going to be more stable rotationally than a Miata. That stupid inside rear wheel lift problem still needs development, though. Lincoln Locker? ;-)

In reply to volvoclearinghouse:

Swaybar?

wvumtnbkr wrote: In reply to volvoclearinghouse: Swaybar?

It had one - a big one. It probably could have used one on the back

Curmudgeon wrote: We lucked into our '86 Civic Si, it was cheap and local. It ain't fast but the little bugger is reliable as the sun and easy on consumeables, plus every VatoZone on the planet carries cheap parts. It's entertaining to drive also. Its only drawback is it's hell to pass much faster cars in the turns only to watch them catch back up on the straights while I'm trimming my right big toenail in the fan blades. Sorta on/off topic: if I was going to build a Frankencar for LeMons I'd stuff a VG30 and 5 speed in a 1st gen RX7, preferably a GSL-SE.

It's crazy how our experiences with these cars are completely opposite. I daily drove an 87 Civic at the same time you guys were racing yours. I'll be goddamned if any one of 6 parts stores in town ever had any part for that thing in stock. And you guys were waaaay slower than us at Lemons. Methinks the Hongs could get another couple hundred pounds outta that berkeleyer, and get you 10HP with $0 invested.

tuna55 wrote:

wvumtnbkr wrote: In reply to volvoclearinghouse: Swaybar?

It had one - a big one. It probably could have used one on the back

That was what I meant. One on the back.

A little counterintuitive, but I know it helped with the Malibu.

Rob R.

wvumtnbkr wrote:

tuna55 wrote:

wvumtnbkr wrote: In reply to volvoclearinghouse: Swaybar?

It had one - a big one. It probably could have used one on the back

That was what I meant. One on the back. A little counterintuitive, but I know it helped with the Malibu. Rob R.

We thought about it, tossed the idea around, and even had a rear swaybar. I kept thinking, a rear sway bar is supposed to increase OVERSTEER, and the car already oversteered a-plenty. In retrospect, we should have tried it. What the hey.

poopshovel wrote:

Curmudgeon wrote: We lucked into our '86 Civic Si, it was cheap and local. It ain't fast but the little bugger is reliable as the sun and easy on consumeables, plus every VatoZone on the planet carries cheap parts. It's entertaining to drive also. Its only drawback is it's hell to pass much faster cars in the turns only to watch them catch back up on the straights while I'm trimming my right big toenail in the fan blades. Sorta on/off topic: if I was going to build a Frankencar for LeMons I'd stuff a VG30 and 5 speed in a 1st gen RX7, preferably a GSL-SE.

It's crazy how our experiences with these cars are completely opposite. I daily drove an 87 Civic at the same time you guys were racing yours. I'll be goddamned if any one of 6 parts stores in town ever had any part for that thing in stock. And you guys were waaaay slower than us at Lemons. Methinks the Hongs could get another couple hundred pounds outta that berkeleyer, and get you 10HP with $0 invested.

If any fuel injected 3g civic people decide to swap motors, put me in line for buying the old top end. Otherwise i may do something stupid like put a d16 top end on my ew.

We are running a 1st gen RX-7 with a 302/T5 Combo. We went a little overboard with the brakes as it now has 2nd Gen Turbo Brakes on before trying the stockers with decent pads. Also stuck a Ford Rear in it for a matching bolt pattern.

Has a 24 hr (Lemons) and 3 14 hr (Chump) races on the motor/trans combo. The 5.0 has been rock solid and withstood some overheating. We shift around 5k rpm. Only mechanical failures were frying an alternator and toasting a clutch. (And our fan ate the radiator at the challenge this year) Trying to chase down a loose bushing or two has been an issue at times. The new car (79) is much more solid in this respect now that we realized the front control arm bushings are apparently one time use items.

We usually get 10-15 penalty laps for the motor/rear swap and for the big aluminum radiator. With ten penalty laps we are not competitive. We dont have radios or a pit schedule. The car is pretty quick especially on the straights (140+ at Daytona and 135ish at Sebring) and more recently has been decent in the turns with the handling sorted. I'd rather have a fast car that stays on track than worry about penalty laps or final position.

I've got an '88 Conquest TSi that we ran in one of the early Altamont Lemon's races. To those not familiar with early races, surviving hours on end of a demo derby was the challenge. Our race was the first and last that featured Mad Max style cars with cages on the OUTSIDE of the bodywork. We chose the Conquest because it was the right price, free. It was a salvaged car that sat for a decade, and came in boxes. The good news was that it was pretty much all there. After a lot of work, it turned out to be a heck of a race car. A major criticism of the cars as sports cars was weight. It turned out that beneath all of the luxo add-ons, it was a fairly light car. We got ours down to about stock Miata weight with more possible. The other criticism was the 2.6 liter truck motor with a turbo bolted on. Sports car motor it is not. However, with a mild turbo upgrade (ported DSM 14b), intake and exhaust work, and a small bump in boost, the car became a torque monster. Couple that with shedding 1000lbs, and the car would walk (or usually run) away from just about every other car on the track. Our divers were all newbies, and we were expecting ( rightfully so ) a lot of contact, so we didn't want a car where we had to fight for every corner. We could let everyone else dive for the apex, while we happily motored around everyone on the outside. This went perfectly as planned. What we hadn't planned on was how well the car handled. It was way better then any of us expected- we be built the shocks, cut the springs, and put 245 Hankook RS2's all around. The only problem area was the brakes. We fitted Poterfield R4 pads and removed the rear only ABS. We had an issue with slop in the master cylinder, which gave us video game like breaking- all or nothing. The other drawback was that it isn't easy to find parts for. Thankfully, it was very reliable. Only issues- lost a tire after running over a bumper. Lost an intercooler after a driver put it in the wall. An injector failed with 2 hours left that ended the race early. Another plus was that the car has a 20 gallon fuel tank. We ended up with a 2200lb RWD car with a clutch type rear LSD with a fat power band from a under stressed 2.6L turbo 4. I think this may be one of those cars that likes the track better then the street.

Vigo wrote: If any fuel injected 3g civic people decide to swap motors, put me in line for buying the old top end. Otherwise i may do something stupid like put a d16 top end on my ew.

I have a couple in the basement. Might need valves. Lmk if you need one.

Curmudgeon wrote:

poopshovel wrote:

Curmudgeon wrote: We lucked into our '86 Civic Si, it was cheap and local. It ain't fast but the little bugger is reliable as the sun and easy on consumeables, plus every VatoZone on the planet carries cheap parts. It's entertaining to drive also. Its only drawback is it's hell to pass much faster cars in the turns only to watch them catch back up on the straights while I'm trimming my right big toenail in the fan blades. Sorta on/off topic: if I was going to build a Frankencar for LeMons I'd stuff a VG30 and 5 speed in a 1st gen RX7, preferably a GSL-SE.

It's crazy how our experiences with these cars are completely opposite. I daily drove an 87 Civic at the same time you guys were racing yours. I'll be goddamned if any one of 6 parts stores in town ever had any part for that thing in stock. And you guys were waaaay slower than us at Lemons. Methinks the Hongs could get another couple hundred pounds outta that berkeleyer, and get you 10HP with $0 invested.

Go through your old emails from me, dumbass There's no reason you guys shoulda been so much slower than us on the straights (assuming you didn't blow every preceding turn) OR, just feed me beers next time I head to Edisto, and I'll make it better, lighter, faster, hong-ger.

...that said, obviously I can't guarantee reliability, so maybe you should just treat it like a sore dick!

AngryCorvair wrote: 1st-gen saturn SC2. two of the guys on the team were engineers at Saturn before the first car ever hit the streets, and have been racing them in SS and IT ever since. 124hp, reliable as gravity, we get killed on the straights but have been on the podium at Beaverun, MIS, and TWS.

Our 94 sc2 was stock and still pretty good on the straights. I'd say top 1/3 at least.

... with a blown headgasket.

Having done the Saturn, I would totally build one again, but approach it differently. My advice:

1) Test 2) Test 3) test 4) Don't skimp on tires, wheels, brakes etc. Anything you can spend legally, do - it makes the driving aspect much more fun. 5) Test

volvoclearinghouse wrote: I will give you this, the LTD was STUPIDLY easy to drive. The wheelbase was something like 120", so if the rear end broke loose you had a good 5 count before things got interesting.

Then how did you spin it in the straightaway?

tuna55 wrote:

volvoclearinghouse wrote: I will give you this, the LTD was STUPIDLY easy to drive. The wheelbase was something like 120", so if the rear end broke loose you had a good 5 count before things got interesting.

Then how did you spin it in the straightaway?