Just acquired my LeMon's Candidate....

1) Don't bother registering for an event at all until the car starts, moves, and has a killswitch and cage. Building up that first car will take WAY more time than you think it will, and the last thing you need before your first event is to be paid up and unprepared. If you blow the registration deadline, you blow the registration deadline. It may also happen that you have everything in order long before the August event - it'll give you the flexibility to pick up an earlier race.

2) You're correct. Go-faster bits are discouraged. Spend the money on safety. The most important thing you can do with that urge to put shiny new parts on is the brakes, which count as safety equipment. Brake pads, bigger rotors, bigger and better calipers, anything that will make the car stop faster.

3) The font size here sucks because you're using IE. Firefox is unaffected.

Welcome aboard.

Go-faster bits are encouraged if they come in a form that is likely to severely compromise engine reliability.  Ghetto forced-induction is a perennial crowd-pleaser.

Or maybe your T-bird is already a Super Coupe?

Essential.

KT

Money you find in the car offsets the purchase price in the same way as selling off parts. Make sure to document it.

1) 2 sets is usually plenty. You probably won't change tires (especially with a RWD configuration) - but spares are kind of necessary. Even a set of aggressive dry tires and a set of all-seasons is a good idea. Our 2010 tire strategy involved 8 performance tires and 4 all-seasons. Burned 2 performance tires at the first race (we ran all-seasons on the rear for that race, and they looked brand new at the end), 5 more at the second, along with all 4 all-seasons.

2) It's totally viable. A lot of teams do it. There have even been a few cars with full interiors (an S-Class and a Quattroporte no less)

3) The weak link is generally the transmission, yes. There are plenty of transmission coolers out there for peanuts ($50 for 26,000lb GVW) - and if you can't make room in the budget for that, you can always use the car's factory A/C condensor with a little creative plumbing. I don't know whether a sensor would count against the budget, or whether it would fall under the driver information exemption.

...That probably wasn't salt.

KT

Like stated previously, get the car running and the cage and seats in. See where that puts you in relation to the race dates in Nor Cal/Nevada. The march Infineon race is doable, but you'll have to get that car running before the Jan 15th date to have some confidence you'd make the race.

Think about the theme constantly. Look at all that stuff happening around you on a daily basis, the movie you just saw, the people commuting on 880 next to you. Plenty of inspiration.

Then get the car running, seat and belts and other required stuff in place and working. Check the kill switch.

Then take the car to a autocross and push is hard to see if it runs under hard load.

Then take your car and drivers to a track day or two. If you are all rookies, talk to the promoter and see if you can pay for the novice and mid groups and then rotate two drivers in each group, then you'll all get about 2 sessions each. This will give you confidence in the reliability of the car, and get you some track time.

Think about spare parts you'll need.

No, go fast bits that are bought raise your exposure to scrutiny from the judges. Junkyard (JY) engineering and fabrication is encouraged. Cutting edge - whack job concepts are encouraged. But have receipts for the less than $500 total cost. A good example of this is to find the same size coil springs from a heavier vehicle in the JY and then cut them down a little to make them even stiffer. This will cost you about $40 total or less if you go on a half price day, or even less if you can find some ford shop that has old springs that they'll sell you for $1 each.

With an underpowered heavy pig of a car (no offense intended)  you mus get as much weight out of it as possible.  Read the new rules that require door SKINS and full hood.  Lose the trunklid, you could even cut the whole roof off, since it will be caged anyway.

It will accelerated, turn and stop better.  You can turn the scrap in for $ to offset your new shocks or whatever stuff you may need.

Best of luck.

"Those T birds" have exactly the same powertrain as a Crown Vic. And we all know how well those do in Lemons.

Thanks for the encouragement guys.
After seeing some pics, I was thinking that we will lose the trunk come race time -- esp if I can figure out how to build an array of transmission coolers back there (I saw a awesome array of transmission cools w/ some kind of secondary pressurization system in a pic here that I need to PM for more details; I'm hoping they will give up details). It's good to know that such a mod (trunk removal) is legal.

As for brakes, I just learned that the TBird has a devout following of enthusiasts at TCCoA. I guess this proves there are car nuts for EVERY car out there.
I now have a fairly serious checklist of projects to tackle including:
a) They discuss some tranny mods called "JMOD" (which will be a somewhat intensive project for my skill set)

b) Apparently, there's a well debugged mod to use Mustang calipers and brackets to upgrade the Tbird's front brakes. You get 50% larger pads and 2-pot calipers (vs. the original 1piston ones) for a decent price -- even cheaper if I find a 99-04 mustang owner who just upgraded and wants to sell his old bits. I have a plan and all I need to do is select some pads & rotors (Thunderbird Rotors, Mustang Pads).

I haven't even thought about suspension yet.

In other ghetto engineering thoughts....
Q: Is there any reason why I couldn't run the heater FULL blast and then vent all the ducting outside the cabin? This would essentially give me a second coolant radiator for the price of a little duct-work, right?

@rdoherty: Thanks for the offer -- the car will likely split its time between SF and WIllow Glen (San Jose) as my friend and first co-team member tear into this car.

It's nice to see that everyone is friendly and welcoming here.

Regards,
-g

PS. It looked like salt and the substance had rusted one of the bolts holding the rear seat on good. This car was originally from NJ so that kinda makes sense. If I had found 5Lbs of crystal meth in the backseat, this car would have been "free" (although getting enough buyers willing to sign bills of sale might have been tough).

Yes, you can use the heater system as an auxillary radiator.  My team did this on our neon.  You can find the parts to do this in the heat & A/C aisle at the Home Depot...