Topic: B-Team Kill Phil/Just Plain Stupid Arse-Sweat-Apalooza pics/issues

There will almost assuredly be no pictures of anyone else in here, but you can see photographic evidence of our trials and tribulations here (well, when we weren't wrenching on one or the other sh*tbox):

The whole set on flickr (about 50 pics):
http://flic.kr/s/aHsjAo2kE7

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7135/7492139850_e9f5253d47_c.jpg
IMG_3993 by ChurchOfBK, on Flickr

At least the Lotus left with the same engine it had when it arrived.  It also survived a thrown water pump belt & water temp readings above 300 degrees (iron heads have their advantages).  No, there was no more water in the system at that point.

Problems at this race:

  • Gretta (our E30) decided to mix water & oil during practice.  This happened on a newly-flattened head that we bent during the last race.  New (junkyard) motor plopped in the back of a truck & shipped up from San Diego.  (Thanks to Autobahn - who we share a pit area with - http://www.autobahnparts.com/).  Arrived at 9pm +/-, was sorted, installed and ready to run at 4am.  Sorting took a while.  Some pains during initial start prevented us from starting the race on time.

  • Gretta's shifter got a ham-fisting & broke on Saturday.  Welded up & back in the car in about 20 minutes.

  • The Chotus ingested quite a lot of sealant in the fuel tank which blocked the pickup, fuel line, and filter.  30' of new fuel hose and 3 filters were used throughout the race.  A tank-cleaning is in order.

  • The Chotus's harmonic balancer became unbalanced & caused enough shake to start throwing belts.  A zip-tie loop between the block and radiator hose (in the middle of the belt loop) acted as a catch & kept us from donating lots of belts to the track.  Thanks for the tip, Caswell.  New harmonic balancer helped the issue a bit, but something's still amiss.

  • The Chotus's radiator clogged mid-way through Saturday & needed to be replaced (it was in pretty sorry shape from a hammer-hit at a previous race).  Oddly, it's difficult to find a 1974 Lotus Elite/Ecalt radiator in Bakersfield, CA.  We ended up using left-over headlight mounting metal to fab up a new radiator mount for the much-too-large-for-Lotus radiator.  This was finally finished at around 1am on Saturday & worked surprisingly well.

  • The Chotus's coolsuit motor started popping fuses.  Luckily, this happened during the night & by the morning session, we figured out that if you just turned it on for the back straight, it would continue running - preventing death-by-heat in the newly-black car.

There were loads of other, little issues not worth mentioning.

The [not so?] funny thing is that we put *tons* of work in sorting both cars prior to the race... and I mean *tons* of work.  Sadly, we didn't budget enough time to actually run the cars in anger prior to practice, so our motor issues didn't pop up until Friday.  C'est la vie.

Despite all the issues, we had a great time, met some new faces, and were happy to see some familiar ones.  Thanks to all who came by during our various issues in the pits. 

Btw, it was *really* cool to hear all the random shouts of "CHOTUS!!!"  smile

BTeam Racing
#72 "Pussy Wagën" E30
#74 "Llama" Lotus Elite, aka Chotus
http://www.facebook.com/bteamracing | http://chotus.org

Re: B-Team Kill Phil/Just Plain Stupid Arse-Sweat-Apalooza pics/issues

Almost everyone writes down what they spent in $$$, but hardly anyone budgets time properly.  The focus is usually on the next event, and they're busy tie-wrapping things while towing the car to said event to get it to pass tech.  Almost every opportunity we've had to make some shakedown laps before the event has discovered something that needs attention on our cars. 

That Chotus is LemOny-sweet.  We used the JPS theme at one of our Texas races.

You can learn a lot from a dummy,
Gene Beaird,
Pearland, Texas
ApexVinyl Race Team - 2011 Yee-Haw It's Lemons Texas IOE, 2012 Gater-O-Rama I Got Screwed

Re: B-Team Kill Phil/Just Plain Stupid Arse-Sweat-Apalooza pics/issues

Brian,
I just wanted to check to make sure you were aware, Sunday morning, probably around 7am, I was following the Chotus for a couple of laps and the car was spewing gas like crazy out of the filler. Also, I watched your driver pass up about 4 black flags with your car number posted. After that I got around the gas fumes so I don't know what happened after that. Please make sure you fix that before Thunderhill. And don't ask me or Jay about missing gas caps!

Dirty Duck Racing, #83 VW Rabbit GTI
'10,'11,12,'13 -Thunderhill, '10,'11,'12,'13,'14 - Buttonwillow, '11,'12,'13,'14 Sears Pointless, '11-Fernley, '13 Sears Even More Pointless-Class B Winner,  '11,'13 Arse-Freeze Sears Point, Return of the LeMonites Miller Motorsports-Class B Winner, '13 A&D Northworst GT-Overall Winner in MT-GT

Re: B-Team Kill Phil/Just Plain Stupid Arse-Sweat-Apalooza pics/issues

Sorry about the gas problem, we've gone to some pretty extreme lengths to stop it spewing gas (which is want it did at infineon) Now it's almost impossible to get gas into the tank, but apparently it still manages to get back out past two seals.

It's one of those things that's very difficult to figure out what's going on. There's no gas return on that car, so we're not pressurizing the tank, i there are check valves in the fillers, and there's a rubber seal on the filler neck, it's not coming out of the breathers.

I guess best solution going forward is to remove the filler necks (there are two) completely and replace with more modern caps, though I am going to be sorry to lose the flip top fillers.

Chotus! Chotus! Chotus! Chotus!

Re: B-Team Kill Phil/Just Plain Stupid Arse-Sweat-Apalooza pics/issues

Mr. Unruly wrote:

Brian,
I just wanted to check to make sure you were aware, Sunday morning, probably around 7am, I was following the Chotus for a couple of laps and the car was spewing gas like crazy out of the filler. Also, I watched your driver pass up about 4 black flags with your car number posted. After that I got around the gas fumes so I don't know what happened after that. Please make sure you fix that before Thunderhill. And don't ask me or Jay about missing gas caps!

I saw the same thing at about the same time. Accelerating outof Right hand corners, especially leading into the Esses,there was a large stream of gas exiting the left rear corner.  Large stream!!!

Mike
Hong Norrth
#39 TRON Gray/Orange MX-3, aka "Sumbich"

Re: B-Team Kill Phil/Just Plain Stupid Arse-Sweat-Apalooza pics/issues

I think, design-wise, that those wide wheels, color-keyed, were just what the Elite needed. Seriously. We were pulling into the paddock right behind you guys, and couldn't help but notice the footprint. How wide are they, anyway?

Tradewinds Tribesmen Racing (The road goes on forever…)
#289 1984 Corvette Z51 #124 1984 944 #110 2002 Passat
Gone but not forgotten, #427-Hong Kong Cavaliers Benz S500
IOE (Humber!) Hell on Wheels (Jaguar)

7 (edited by SharkBait 2012-07-10 01:27 AM)

Re: B-Team Kill Phil/Just Plain Stupid Arse-Sweat-Apalooza pics/issues

So I didn't see the Chotus or any other vehicle leaking fuel thankfully. And I am especially thankful that the Shark had no fuel issues and fuel only went were it was supposed to go (not always the case). It appears the Chotus wasn't alone in struggling to contain its fuel on the track:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27RY9YXK63s.

Now that's an impressive fuel leak!!! Scary! What car is it? Hard to tell.

The Sharks
Home of the E28 Turbo Tuner Fish and the Hammered Head 944 Turbo

Re: B-Team Kill Phil/Just Plain Stupid Arse-Sweat-Apalooza pics/issues

From the video it looks like number 75, which was the Scuderia Limoni Alfa Romeo Milano. But not exactly sure.

Dirty Duck Racing, #83 VW Rabbit GTI
'10,'11,12,'13 -Thunderhill, '10,'11,'12,'13,'14 - Buttonwillow, '11,'12,'13,'14 Sears Pointless, '11-Fernley, '13 Sears Even More Pointless-Class B Winner,  '11,'13 Arse-Freeze Sears Point, Return of the LeMonites Miller Motorsports-Class B Winner, '13 A&D Northworst GT-Overall Winner in MT-GT

Re: B-Team Kill Phil/Just Plain Stupid Arse-Sweat-Apalooza pics/issues

Type44 wrote:

I think, design-wise, that those wide wheels, color-keyed, were just what the Elite needed. Seriously. We were pulling into the paddock right behind you guys, and couldn't help but notice the footprint. How wide are they, anyway?

235/40 R17s.

Gearing on that car is a disaster so we want the tallest tires we can fit (while still being 200 wear rating)

Almost all the laps I ran, I didn't bother changing gear, and did the whole thing in 4th. ~1500RPM in the buttonhook and ~5000 on the straights.

Chotus! Chotus! Chotus! Chotus!

Re: B-Team Kill Phil/Just Plain Stupid Arse-Sweat-Apalooza pics/issues

Mr. Unruly wrote:

From the video it looks like number 75, which was the Scuderia Limoni Alfa Romeo Milano. But not exactly sure.

For some reason I can't see the video.  If it was 4:30 ish in the morning, then yeah it was us, the Alfa.

I left the fuel cap on the trunk after refueling.  It fell off at pit out.  When our driver was black flagged, he called me on the radio which sent me off on a frantic search of the paddock, retracing his route with a flash light.  When he came back in, they handed it to him..

bs

Re: B-Team Kill Phil/Just Plain Stupid Arse-Sweat-Apalooza pics/issues

bshorey wrote:
Mr. Unruly wrote:

From the video it looks like number 75, which was the Scuderia Limoni Alfa Romeo Milano. But not exactly sure.

For some reason I can't see the video.  If it was 4:30 ish in the morning, then yeah it was us, the Alfa.

I left the fuel cap on the trunk after refueling.  It fell off at pit out.  When our driver was black flagged, he called me on the radio which sent me off on a frantic search of the paddock, retracing his route with a flash light.  When he came back in, they handed it to him..

bs

Finally was able to view the video.  Yeah, that was us.  Don't really appreciate the liberal use of the term 'idiot' by whomever posted it.  Sheesh, we had a gas cap problem, were out for a lap and came back in.  It's not like we were driving around all night long spewing gas.

bs