Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

Does the offer to visit your pits still stand?!?!?! big_smile
See ya there!
Darren

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

Another hard core build day, 14 hours of my time, 27 hours of my teammates and crew's time and it's still not quite ready.

Why did I think this was a good idea in the first place???

And I still have work on the Lincoln to do

El Capitan de los Bastardos De Lemons
1993 Linco Mark Ate
1957 Renault Dauphine
Driver with LemonSpeed's V6 Mustang

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

TheHeckler wrote:

Why did I think this was a good idea in the first place???

In the town where I was born,
Lived a man who raced the seas,
And he told us of his life,
In the land of Renault Dauphines,

So we sailed on to the sun,
Till we found the flags of green,
And we raced, without penalties,
In our yellow Renault Dauphine,

As we live...  a life of (dis)ease
Every one of us, has all we need
Sky of blue, and flags of green
In our yellow... Renault Dauphine.

We just want-ed a yellow Renault Dauphine!   A yellow Renault Dauphine... (repeat)


-----
Sorry, it's a slow day at work.  Hopefully our Renaults will meet someday,  Good luck this weekend!

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

I saw this car on the trailer, looked wild. What prevented it from running the race?

Amateur Welder, Professional Grinder

No seriously, what could go wrong?

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

Blew out a half-shaft a couple days before the race on its inaugural trip out of the garage. The one side is stock Sable but the other side is a custom build and Bill got bad info on the first one. He said he'll be ready for September in Houston.

Pat Mulry, TARP Racing #67

Mandatory disclaimer: all opinions expressed are mine alone & not those of 24HOL, its mgmt, sponsors, etc.

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

Actually that was a couple of hours before he got to the track....
A sad state of affairs, there are thousands of hours in that car. If anybody other than bill wanted to se it run, it was the blue oval cult

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

What's your front to rear CV angle?

Get the steering fuggered out?

83 (edited by rockwood 2010-06-10 11:21 AM)

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

BTW:

http://cache-03.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/12/2010/05/bastardosdauphine-45-1280px.jpg

I'd tie those two uprights for the UCA together and then to something else, probably to its diagonal counterpart on the other side with two x-braces that meet in the middle like an asterisk, built out of 1"x0.090 wall tube or something similar.  The ends of the frame need to connect to each other as well.

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

The top of the uprights got boxed and plated after the exhaust was installed. They're tied into the cage also

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

Hey I just wanted to say, even though you missed the race, you're building something cool, high-five.

Also if you need an e-hug, I know how it feelz.

Seriously though, high-five.  This build is cool.

Mike Peters
Former rotary brat pioneer.
3.17.08 Jalopnik Hoon of the day.  #hasbeen
1984 Dodge Rampage, A few SHO engines, a Mustang 8.8, and a lot of hot glue going on now.

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

rockwood wrote:

What's your front to rear CV angle?

Get the steering fuggered out?

The CV angle is good, what killed it was the spiders were different internally from right to left and nearly bottoming out due to excessive length even using the shorter left shaft in the right side inner cup.

I think I am going to figure out how to jig it and weld it shorter unless I find a cheap way to get custom lengths made up.  I need a 0.75" shorter shaft than the left side but with the right side inner cup assembly.

The steering is a sand buggy rack.  Super tiny and suprisingly cheap.

El Capitan de los Bastardos De Lemons
1993 Linco Mark Ate
1957 Renault Dauphine
Driver with LemonSpeed's V6 Mustang

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

TheHeckler wrote:

I think I am going to figure out how to jig it and weld it shorter unless I find a cheap way to get custom lengths made up.  I need a 0.75" shorter shaft than the left side but with the right side inner cup assembly.

The steering is a sand buggy rack.  Super tiny and suprisingly cheap.

I've seen people section the shaft and weld it (read: do a good v-notch), then weld two halves of a tube around it to reinforce it. Find a buddy with a lathe and you'll be golden.

Amateur Welder, Professional Grinder

No seriously, what could go wrong?

88 (edited by jimeditorial 2010-06-24 11:53 PM)

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

I used to use a piece of four inch angle iron about three feet long...by notching the vee in the middle to make a window, then clamping the cut shaft ends with C clamps securely in the vee, you can weld on top then bottom through the notch. I'd let it cool to basically room temp then loosen, rotate 90 degrees and clamp up, then weld top and through the window again. After cooling, I'd just finish up the welding the usual way. Worked great with my Minis, but the lengths were pretty short. Cheap to try though. I found that the reinforcing sleeve worked best with plug welds....I was on AC stick and it was hard to avoid undercutting the shaft at the weld while getting good penetration where the sleeve met the shaft. Post pics if you can...

Jim "Endo" Anderton
30 years of racing and still not Brambilla.....

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

This thread is inspirational!

LemonAid - Changing kids lives one lap at a time.

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

TheHeckler wrote:

The steering is a sand buggy rack.  Super tiny and suprisingly cheap.

I'll be interested to hear how this works for you.  That was my first shot at steering on the Wartburg but the range of motion and speed of the rack was just all wrong (IMO) for the application.  Maybe on a smaller car such as yours it will work better or maybe you just have a different brand/model which is a bit better.

We ended up with a used 911/914 rack (also surprisingly cheap) which seems to work pretty well.

http://wartburg.misfittoysracing.com
OTTER: "I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part."
BLUTO: "We're just the guys to do it."

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

Wow, it has been a while since I last posted in this thread.

As many of you have seen, the car made it to Eagles Canyon in a broken state as was I after that epic wrench-fest.

We are entered in the Houston race in September along with the Linco and SHOstang so I am once again busy getting dirty.

The Dauphine will see the track soon!

El Capitan de los Bastardos De Lemons
1993 Linco Mark Ate
1957 Renault Dauphine
Driver with LemonSpeed's V6 Mustang

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

So.....what happened?!!

The Charnal House Geo MetSHO: Turning less laps than a regular Metro, the hard way!

1969 Subaru 360

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

Crab Spirits wrote:

So.....what happened?!!

It lived! Mostly. They were on and off the track battling a transmission fluid leak.

And the SHOstang had to park Saturday after picking up 3 black flags. 2 in one lap!

But they looked good out there, I was glad to see them.

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

Intents were to get to the track Thursday late or Friday by 7am.   

After going to the shop wednesday morning around 10am to finish the few remaining things I got 99% done by thursday 7pm. Yes, I worked pretty much 33 hours straight living on redbull, beef jerkey, gatoraide and protein shakes then drove to houston pulling the car trailer with the ambulance.   I don't think I ran anybody over.

We arrived Saturday at around midnight and had to pull the car out of the trailer and take a lap around the paddock ( first time the car had moved more than 30 feet under its own power ). 

We had 2 covered spaces but I thought the little quick things to finish would take 20 minutes.  3 hours later I am still working in the sun welding the bumpers on and sealing the gaps in the firewall.

Tech passed us with a pair of minor issues and I went out on the track for the first drive of the yet un-tested car.

First lap was a 2:37 and the car felt OK.   Some odd handling and the brakes were un-bedded, new tires etc.  Brought it in for a quick check, the tire pressures were all over the place but nothing looked wrong or loose fixed that and went back out.   Car worked well, good acceleration, turned well, predictable and easy to drive.  Transmission still acts like it is in a family sedan though so it got confused quite often and upshifted at poor times.

Came in when cool suit went warm, found trans leakage and paint burning off the mufflers and pipes and also the propeller and rear bodywork.  Damn this thing was putting out a lot of exhaust heat.  Tried to find the leak in the pits but it was all over the rear and didn't drip running on jackstands.  We had only gone down 1/2 a pint in 10 laps so we cleaned it off and went out again.

Occasional missing, odd shifting and sometimes stalling along with some improving lap times and a few tows completed Saturday.  No flags, no incidents but something is wrong with the car and I am having heat-stroke issues.

Saturday night we get good tips from another team with similar engine and transmission with leak issues and pour 2 quarts of lucas stop-leak into the transmission to bring it back to full.

I wake up Sunday morning and fall out of the ambulance fracturing my left index finger.

After the drivers meeting while inspecting the car I notice the exhaust is being directed by the bodywork back into the rear compartment.  We fix that and I notice that the heat has compacted the glass in the muffler insulation, or more likely just loosened the binders as glass fiber itself softens at 3600 degrees and iron at 2700 degrees.  This meant that the deck above the exhaust meant to shield the computer and direct airflow over the mufflers got hot enough to melt then liquify the PCM cooling fan housing (nylon melts around 400 degrees ). 

I went out and the car worked like magic.  Great handling, good brakes, quick although the trans still shifts poorly.  Then it stumbled and stalled a couple of times so I pull it in.

During that stop to diagnose the stalling issues I see trans fluid fluid on the inner CV boot.  Shouldn't get there with the airflow.  More poking around and I realize that upon first heating the hoses creep and all the trans fluid hoses were loose.  Fixed that and like magic, the leak stopped.

Bob went out and put in the best lap of the day, a 2:06 and then on the next lap slid into the gravel trap to collect some kitty litter.

Worked on the stalling and now non-starting issues some.  Had a few more brief sessions, all ending with a tow back to the pits.

Mara's one lap ended on a tow as did my final 'checkered flag' lap...

Due to heat recirculation into the rear compartment we overheated the PCM, starter, PCM fan, transmission hoses and probably more.  We also melted the rubber out of the propeller hub and burned the paint of the tail of the car.

All considered, it was a great weekend that will take me a long time to recover from.

We broke into the top 100 and we made 54 laps on a brand new no budget handmade car.  What more could we expect?

El Capitan de los Bastardos De Lemons
1993 Linco Mark Ate
1957 Renault Dauphine
Driver with LemonSpeed's V6 Mustang

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

Bill, it was awesome being paddock neighbors with you guys. Loved seeing the Dauphine all weekend. I hope that you can make that Benz cooler work to help out with the trans temps next time. Cheers.

Pat Mulry, TARP Racing #67

Mandatory disclaimer: all opinions expressed are mine alone & not those of 24HOL, its mgmt, sponsors, etc.

Re: Super secret car build for Dallas

TheHeckler wrote:

We broke into the top 100 and we made 54 laps on a brand new no budget handmade car.  What more could we expect?

As part of the "no budget, handmade car" crowd I give you a big thumbs up and mad props!  Glad you go her out there and stuck with it.

http://wartburg.misfittoysracing.com
OTTER: "I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part."
BLUTO: "We're just the guys to do it."