Topic: New Team for PNW looking for input

Hello everyone! I have been wanting to do the Lemons dance for years ever since I heard of it. This year I pulled the trigger and bought a (wait for it......)(keep waiting!)... PT CRUISER ! Ha! Has a broken timing belt, but its a noninterference engine, so worst case scenario I need a new cylinder head ($30 @ pick and pull). Picked it up for $400, so I have a spare $100 to spend on the rig. Also, I figured the extra room inside will make it easier for my welder to do the cage. I've welded, but not a cage, so am bringing in a guy who builds rock crawler trucks to weld for me.

Anyhow, I know that there is at least one team that runs a PTC called the "Picnic Table" Cruiser. Was hoping maybe someone knew how to get in touch with them so I could find out the weak points and stuff I should watch out for when getting this bad boy ready for the race. Or even any advice at all from those who know! Do you stick with stock gauges or use something else?

I'll be following the rules very closely, and even though suppression system isn't required this year, will be installing one so I can (hopefully!) keep racing the car. I'm financing the build, which is why I keep saying "I" instead of "we." I have a team of drivers put together, but am betting some of them will drop out eventually. Its basically me and one guy doing the build, but we enjoy wrenching on cars, so its not a burden. I'm hoping we can make both of the races at the Ridge, as its just a few hours away, and am REALLY hoping we can make the July race since I already took the time off work!

At any rate, I'm not super creative, so need help with picking a theme. I'd be pretty sad spending all the time and effort to get the car ready only to not make it in because I don't have a theme. Any suggestions?

Thanks to all in advance for giving a newbie team a hand! Looking forward to seeing y'all on the track!

Re: New Team for PNW looking for input

Good car and pretty good plan. I'd recommend since it's just two of you working and inside of 100 days, to stick with stock as much as possible for the first race. Focus is best served on reliability and passing Tech, there's always time later to upgrade gauges and what not as you learn how you and the team use the car. The only exception to that being brakes. Put as much as you can manage into brakes because I'm sure Chrysler didn't.

As for a theme, well the PT is a great canvas for themes because it thinks it's cool, but still has plenty of surface to work with. Off the top of my head:

PT Boat - All Olive Drab with some WWII or Vietnam look.

"Why You Ruin Classic!?!!?" Sarcastic theme working off the Winga-Dinga forever set and the Faux "classic" styling of the PT.

Any kind of beetle or other insect. (it's very bug like)

Mistake By The Lake Racing (MBTL)
88 Thunderbird "THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!", Ex Astris, Rubigo / Semper Fracti
A&D: 2014 Sebrings at Sebring (NSF), 2014 NJMP2 Jurassic Park (SpeedyCop), 2012 Summit Point J30 (PiNuts)
2018 Route Sucky-Suck Rally Miata, 2019 World Tour Of Texas 64 Newport

Re: New Team for PNW looking for input

When you sign up your Mopar Cruiser for the PNW races, be assured you will be accepted.
Get it running, get it caged and race legal(see and follow "How to not Fail Lemons Tech").
See you there.

M45 Racing,
#45 '08 Subaru WRX,
#4  '63 Studebaker Avanti, IOE, The Ridge 2016
#19 '90 Thunderbird Super Coupe(retired) Organizers Choice Award, Sears 2015

Re: New Team for PNW looking for input

The PT Cruiser is a Neon underneath, so just about everything that works for the Neon will work for you. Junkyard parts availability is spectacular.

Re: New Team for PNW looking for input

Thanks everyone! I appreciate all the help I can get!

Re: New Team for PNW looking for input

BoseMensch wrote:

I've welded, but not a cage, so am bringing in a guy who builds rock crawler trucks to weld for me.

The standard words of wisdom in this situation is to make it abundantly clear to your welder that Lemons has its own very specific requirements for cage design and construction. A welder whose experience is in other forms of motorsport may be tempted to say that their own way of doing things is "just as good" or "even better" than the Lemons way. This will not go well with the Lemons tech inspectors, which is to say you will need to redo things the Lemons way before passing tech if the cage doesn't comply with how Lemons wants things. This has happened to new teams on several occasions, leading either to a frantic all-night bending and welding session at the track or a disappointed departure from the facility, or both.

If you're in the Seattle area let me know if you want any more free (and worth every penny!) advice.

See you at The Ridge!

1982 MG Metro 1300: IOE 2015 Pacific Northworst GP, Longest Distance 2010 Cd'L Box Wine Country Classic
1980 KV Mini 1: Worst of Show and Fright Pig Supremo 2009 Concours d'Lemons
1978 H Special: Second-Round Elimination 2010 Lemons Pinewood Derby at Sears Pointless
1967 SAAB 96: IOE 2012 Pacific Northworst GP, Organizer's Choice 2022 Hell on Wheels California Rally

Re: New Team for PNW looking for input

Welcome to the misery of racing under the pentastar banner. May dog have mercy on your soul!

I'll try to keep my advice as simple and mono-syllabic as possible:

1. Brakes - buy a new set of rotor and quality brake pads. Hawk Blues or EBC Yellows will last at least one day at pace.  "One day?" Yes, one day. Be prepared to to replace a set of brake pads after just one day at A-class pace. Some cars / tracks are harder on brakes than others, but don't be surprised if / when they need to be replaced on Saturday night. Also, add ducting if you can. Every bit helps. Even shitty dryer vent ducting will help reduce brake fade. Think of brakes as your number one priority.

2. Car prep - try to keep as much of the interior and OEM wiring in place as possible. Building a car is a huge undertaking and I've seen many new teams bight off more than they can chew by ripping out all the wiring. Unless you've got a guy (gal) who's a master vehicle integrator / electrical architect, you're opening a can of worms by ripping out factory wiring. Anything that's unused after taking out headliners / door panels / cut holders / etc. should simply be taped off the the side and left alone. All this wiring can EVENTUALLY be removed once everything else is sorted out. That time is not now.

3. Defroster / Wipers - LEAVE THEM IN THE CAR!! Another reason to not F' with the factory wiring. The 15 lbs. you'll save by ripping out the HVAC case is not worth it. You're a lot slower sitting in the paddock with a fogged up windshield than the slowest guy cranking out laps in the rain.

4. Tires - Get a set of 200TW tires. Dunlop Direzza Start Specs or Falkan Azenis. Debating which is better is like splitting hairs. There are a couple other 200TW tires, but these two are the most popular. If you stay on track all weekend at a "good" pace, four of these tires will be completely worn out.

5. Alignment - An alignment that isn't spot-on will greatly accelerate tire wear. Setting up proper camber is now a major factor with alignments.  A factory recommended alignment for camber will NOT be enough for track use. Assume that you'll need at least 1° more additional negative camber.

6. Fueling - Get yourself a proper 5 gallon Jerry can from either the 24HoursOfLemons store (because, you know, eat your own dog food) or Summit racing. Get your adapters and gas fillers sorted out before showing up at the track. You're also going to need at least four of these gas cans. Do not assume the track has gas pumps, and even if they do, be prepared for sticker shock. Your best bet is to leave the track and fill up your gas cans at the local gas station. Assume AT LEAST 5 gallons per hour of fuel at race pace. This means you'll be burning AT LEAST 75 gallons of gas over a weekend. It adds up quickly.

7. Wheel Bearings - The front wheel bearings on wrong wheel drive cars do not last very long at an endurance race. Your vehicle needs to show up with brand new wheel bearings for its first race. Additionally, this becomes a race expense and should at least be inspected before each race. Don't be surprised if your bearings only last one or two races.

8. Suspension - leave it alone.

9. Engine - leave it alone.

Seriously, leave the engine and suspension alone for the first race. You can acquire all sorts of cheaty bullshit after your first race, but a stock suspension and engine will almost guarantee C-class in a PT Cruiser. Remember, first place in C-class is a cool six hundred smack-a-roos!

Also, do no under estimate the value of a residual value. After each race, ask Phil or Eric what they feel the value of your car is. The lower they value it, the more you will be allowed to "legally" increase its performance. 

Good luck, we're here for you.

The Pentastar whisperer

8 (edited by mgavro 2018-04-23 11:23 AM)

Re: New Team for PNW looking for input

Bayley provides exceptional advice.  The ONE thing I would add, assuming you have time after getting the cage, seat, harness, and brakes sorted, is to take a very close look at your cooling system and a very close look at the pulleys and tensioners that keep the new serpentine belt you're going to buy in place.  Make sure coolant hoses and clamps are in good condition.  Inspect and consider replacing the subtle but important things like the water pump, belt tensioners, vacuum lines, and idler pulleys.  If all that falls within budget, great, but don't sweat it too much if not because to be honest the judges are either not going to notice or, being that you're running a PT Cruiser, not going to care.

Electric Mayhem Racing

Re: New Team for PNW looking for input

mgavro wrote:

Inspect and consider replacing the subtle but important things like the water pump, belt tensioners, vacuum lines, and idler pulleys.  If all that falls within budget, great, but don't sweat it too much if not because to be honest the judges are either not going to notice or, being that you're running a PT Cruiser, not going to care.

I can attest to those being worth changing.  We pre-emptively change all hoses, most belts, most idler and tensioner pulleys and start with new wheel bearings/hubs (keep good old ones as your spares) if unitized on every car now.  We also tend to pull the oil pan if the engine is out of the car ESPECIALLY on economy cars to check the oil pump screen for coke deposits (thanks Saturn) and the corners of the pan for sparkles indicating something is or has eaten itself.

Re: New Team for PNW looking for input

A few items here:

Bayley, this is basically a neon, so it's correct wheel drive. That said, you do need to be careful with FWD (correct) vehicles as they do eat front wheel bearings.

I would go with Azenis until you figure out tire wear as they are cheaper to replace if you chew one up before you figure out tire wear.

On the note of basic engine reliability, replace your oil pressure sending unit. These are a common failure on this motor and are very difficult to reach on the PT. They should be fairly cheap at your local auto parts store, or you can add an oil pressure gage while you're in there as I wouldn't trust a brand new sender to last all that long under race conditions.

If you get into fancy engine stuff, check out this link: https://forums.neons.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=389048
The neon forums have a lot of good stuff for the PT motors.

Owner of the Knights Templar Neon
A&D of middling proportions

Re: New Team for PNW looking for input

Wow! Thank you all for the really detailed advice! My basic plan was "make sure it runs and toss an RCC cage in it" but now I have a lot of really good advice to follow up with. This community has shown itself to be as helpful and awesome as I was hoping. I've lurked on the forums dreaming of a Lemons race for years, and you all have confirmed my suspicion (and hope!) that its more about fun and community than "screw you, I'm gonna win!"

I really appreciate all the advice and help, and look forward to becoming a part of this awesome group of people! Maybe I'll even learn some stuff along the way, which is always nice. smile

Thanks again everyone, and keep the shiny side up!

Re: New Team for PNW looking for input

After having run my PT for the first time at Autobahn I can say first hand Bayley's advice is good.   Mine's a turbo lite version (180hp) and I got it for $200 because it had a broken timing belt.  If your is N/A it might be an interference engine, the interwebs have conflicting reports.

1)  +1000 on the front wheel bearing advice.  Our 170K mile ones lasted 4 hours, resulting in us replacing them at the track.  Which included running to harbor freight and buying a 12 ton press to do the repair.
2)   add an aftermarket oil cooler.  Especially if you have the factory oil to water cooler, get rid of that piece of junk.  They break inside and leak, causing failed head gasket symptoms.  Very hard to diagnose, and many have done a head gasket only to find out that didn't fix the problem.
3)  After removing the dash to add the cage, my car would not start, not even crank.  The cluster is the body computer and talks to the "occupant restraint computer"  I don't know if it was removing the factory seat belts or airbags or something else but the car was not happy.  The fix was easy, UNPLUG the cluster and it started right up.  Took me 5 day to figure that out.  Down side is no factory gauges so I added a bluetooth ODBII connector and an old tablet running torque.  Still need an aftermarket oil pressure gauge because the ecu doesn't have that.
4) If you have time, stiffen up the rear suspension.  Springs, shocks, swaybar or what ever you can do.  A gutted PT has what feels like 97% of its  weight on the front and under-steers like crazy.

Good luck and feel free to forum email if you have any PT specific questions.
Tim ~ Team Anarchy

If it doesn't have 2 doors, 3 pedals, and 5 lug nuts per wheel - It isn't a real race car

Re: New Team for PNW looking for input

Still need a driver. Im game.

Re: New Team for PNW looking for input

Thanks for the interest Cam, but I had to withdraw our entry for the July race at the Ridge. I broke my collarbone on Friday, so neither myself nor the car will be ready in time for the July race. I am still hoping to make the October race, and will let you know..

Re: New Team for PNW looking for input

Judge Phil wrote:

The PT Cruiser is a Neon underneath, so just about everything that works for the Neon will work for you. Junkyard parts availability is spectacular.

that... should be able to get the weight down too...

"get up and get your grandma outta here"

Re: New Team for PNW looking for input

Where are you based out of? We have a new team as well in Marysville/Everett, WA. We bought a used car with a bad motor/trans, I'm just not sure we will have it done by July.

17 (edited by xirxious 2018-06-12 03:57 PM)

Re: New Team for PNW looking for input

zz

Re: New Team for PNW looking for input

Ditto on your location. I'm looking for a team. Ideally I'll find one based in/around Spokane, so i can actually help with race prep.

Re: New Team for PNW looking for input

I am located in Spokane, and am looking at the October race at this point. If you are still interested, shoot me a message and lets meet up at some point.