Re: K-It-Forward (v.ECR)
Nooooooooooo!
Did she do it in practice? I hope that spare engine is usable.
Owner of the Traveling Hat
The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → "K" It Forward → K-It-Forward (v.ECR)
Nooooooooooo!
Did she do it in practice? I hope that spare engine is usable.
She puked her guts again. Engine #4 on the way.
See, didn't need no stinkin O2 sensor or MAF.
Best of luck, make that car run all weekend and have a blast.
looks like, according to RaceMonitor ap, she finished the day in 45th place with 84 laps, 93 laps behind the current Class C leader the Jeep pickup of TFTW Offroad Racing B. Best lap time is a 2:46 so far. For reference, the MTGT turned a 2:09.
Had a great day. The engine used just 2 quarts of oil. Mostly the oil ended up leaking into the intake PCV. All good. The suspension tricks provided to by OK Speed are just the ticket.
Brandon is looking at a 2.5 engine - as soon as Super K gets some extra power I think we can expect greatness.
We're getting about s much out of Super K as is available. More engine is what we need.
Good luck Sunday - Tetanus.
What happened to engine #3? Rod?
I wanna know details. Outside temperature, running condition, how hard it was driven, what kind of oil, any prior signs...
Maybe the hammered-in oil pan kept it from blowing up. Maybe that's the ticket
Friday was mid 50s. It was pushing a quart an hour out of the valve cover and into the air intake system..to the point that it was running up the intake hose and oil was falling out of the box by the headlight.
I attempted to plug that hole trying to keep the oil in. That resulted in blowing the cap out of the end of the head.
Bob disassembled the motor and pulled a piston to find a ring crimped into its piston. That's likely the source of the case pressure.
Day 5:
Dark and early friday morning, my fiancee, my van and I headed off to Eagles Canyon. About 9:00, we rolled in. I got the car unloaded, met up with DC Doug (who had staked out some paddock spots with jack stands, luggage, and other assorted oddities for the myriad of teams who were comprising the K-Car & Friends festival) and started unloading the Paddock-In-A-Box (tm). My teammates from OK-Speed got the TapeR unloaded, and we set up our paddock spaces.
I finished off the abbreviated bribe for Judge Phil, tried to clean up the oil from the K, and got the numbers taped on in true TapeR fashion. It ran, it drove, I went thru tech, and I was just kinda waiting for Tetanus to arrive with the new pads and calipers for the front. Tetanus had an issue with their tow rig that put them several hours behind, so I decided to buy a test and tune day and shake the car down properly. I went out for four or five laps and felt a thunking noise in the right front (ECR is full of big left hand turns) that was probably a bearing. I came in to glance at the tires to make sure i wasn't rolling them over, and we noticed a lot of oil on the ground under the motor. i went back to the paddock and discovered the motor was absolutely flooding the air cleaner box with oil from the valve cover vent, to the point that it was actually pushing oil up the intake hose and flooding the air box behind the driver's headlight as well. I fashioned a plug for that vent and went back out for a test. I was black flagged one half lap in for oil loss. The pressure in the motor had blown out the cam cap on the end of the head. coating the entire engine compartment, underside, and track in oil.
Bob and Anton and Doug and I mulled it over and basically decided the current motor was unusable and that the spare motor couldn't be any worse. it turned over, it had compression, it wasn't blowing air out of the ports, and it was only blowing a little air out of the seal around the oil pan. we chalked that up to old dry rings and surmised that with a little ATF and some turning, the motor would be fine.
I disassembled the suspension with the help of OK-Speed captain LowFlyin (who had just installed the back up motor in the TapeR after losing oil pressure on the intended motor), and started yanking the motor. I live in a world of hondas, and most of the guys helping me at RWD american car guys. the motor swaps at CMP involved pulling the motor off the tranny, and then putting it back in. i felt it might be easier to yank the whole drivetrain, split it, and replace the motor. of course, when pulled that way, the motor comes out the bottom, which is easy when you a have a lift..it's less easy without one. a little head scratching later, and we picked the drivetrain up on jacks, pulled the mounts, lowered the drivetrain, then lifted the front of the car up, and slid the drivetrain out from under the car. anton yanked the manifolds (and assorted studs) for the new motor, I pulled the transmission and front bits off the motor, and a couple hours later, we had a complete motor and tranny sitting in front of the car to reinstall on race day.
I cannot thank DC Doug, Anton, LowFlyin, or Bob enough for the help they gave me friday night, the car likely would not have seen the track this weekend if not for their help, advice, and encouragement.
The entry form may have said Tetanus Racing but the K-car effort this weekend should have been renamed "Psychoboy and his Support Organization." Thanks for everything you did and for making the weekend work out. Sorry we didn't have time to get a few more drivers into the car!
After experiencing how much Justin improved the K's handling in just a week, I think I need to strand our other cars with him for a few days at a time.
Best of luck to Brandon and Steve with the K for the High Plains Raceway appearance!
So, I take it, the car survived Saturday and Sunday in a rather uneventful manner? WIN!
Are there any takes for the Northwest race yet?
The entry form may have said Tetanus Racing but the K-car effort this weekend should have been renamed "Psychoboy and his Support Organization." Thanks for everything you did and for making the weekend work out. Sorry we didn't have time to get a few more drivers into the car!
After experiencing how much Justin improved the K's handling in just a week, I think I need to strand our other cars with him for a few days at a time.
Best of luck to Brandon and Steve with the K for the High Plains Raceway appearance!
I'll make day 6 and 7 posts soon, but the short version is this:
the car missed both green flags, saw both checkers, and although it was probably the slowest car in the race, it didn't end up in last place. nobody was killed driving it, and it really only seemed to be lacking power. If Brandon and Steve can get as much done with the powertrain as it seems like i got done with the chassis, it'll be a contender as soon as next month.
that being said....
I might have caught the C-Class bug.
I cannot give enough props to Justin for his tireless work on the K.
Dodgy ball joint aside, it handled way better than something that crappy should.
"Ain't no party like a Class C party!" <-- when 4 of 5 Class C cars were in the garage together...
and once i welded the ball joint back into the control arm....all was right with the world.
that being said....
I might have caught the C-Class bug.
I'm here to satisfy all Class C urges and cravings here on the West Coast.
And I'll just leave this here:
that being said....
I might have caught the C-Class bug.
Judging by the cars you've driven at autox and done well in, C class does seem to be more your style.
The K-car was not the slowest car in the race. That honor belongs to the Ratsun B210ZX.
it was, however, the slowest car that saw the checkers both days.
not that that's something to brag about.
psychoboy wrote:that being said....
I might have caught the C-Class bug.
I'm here to satisfy all Class C urges and cravings here on the West Coast.
And I'll just leave this here:
as team tetanus and most of my local guys will attest, i'm not a fan of driving someone else's car...i dunno why, i just feel like i'm intruding and i'm always scared i'm gonna break it beyond my ability to fix it.
so...i have this to play with:
when i bought it in early 2003 for the price of a storage lien ($143)
after it sat in a field in Fairmont, OK until october of 2011
it's been waiting, patiently, for me to do something with it. i think its time has come.
PLEASE TELL ME THERE WILL BE A SEASON ENDER IN DALLAS AGAIN THIS YEAR!!
An early Prelude would be a fine Class C choice.
Those wheels are the tits mcgee.
As a former '83 Prelude owner, I am sure it will be class-C in speed and class Micro Machines in headroom with a cage in there.
Those wheels are the tits mcgee.
the wheels will not be on the final Lemons product. they were the only 4x100 wheels and tires i had on hand when i went up to rescue this fine gem from returning to the earth after i'd let it languish in a field for the better part of a decade. the stock 13s are so flat (what's left of them) that they won't ever be round again.
As a former '83 Prelude owner, I am sure it will be class-C in speed and class Micro Machines in headroom with a cage in there.
the 83s are a little low in the roof. the 79-82 model has some decent headroom once you fashion a reasonable seat in them. of course, i'll be putting the biggest cage i can in there.
wvumtnbkr wrote:Those wheels are the tits mcgee.
the wheels will not be on the final Lemons product. they were the only 4x100 wheels and tires i had on hand when i went up to rescue this fine gem from returning to the earth after i'd let it languish in a field for the better part of a decade. the stock 13s are so flat (what's left of them) that they won't ever be round again.
cpchampion wrote:As a former '83 Prelude owner, I am sure it will be class-C in speed and class Micro Machines in headroom with a cage in there.
the 83s are a little low in the roof. the 79-82 model has some decent headroom once you fashion a reasonable seat in them. of course, i'll be putting the biggest cage i can in there.
My bad memory... I had an 81. Still not much room. Maybe it'll go well to cut out the roof panel, install cage, reattach roof panel.
My bad memory... I had an 81. Still not much room. Maybe it'll go well to cut out the roof panel, install cage, reattach roof panel.
i'll probably drop the legs thru the floor like i did in the TapeR. That cage is butted up against the roof of the car. like the tapeR, the prelude has a sunroof mechanism that'll come out, and it takes up almost as much height as a cage will.
Day 6:
After a brief respite, team OK-Speed left the hotel and got to ECR around 8am. Everything K was where i'd left it, so we got to work sticking the drivertrain back into the car. Pushing here, shoving there, lifting that, and lowering this finally got everything in place to stab the mounts. We took a break to attend the driver's meeting, then got back into the slog. Bob, Anton, and I hooked up all the stuff we had disconnected the night before, and I reassembled the suspension. With the motor hung, I lined up the torque converter and flywheel all four ways until I found the one that let me install all four bolts. There was a moment that I was afraid the TC wasn't going to agree with the flywheel which would have meant starting all over. Once we thought we were done, we kicked it over. IT STARTS!!. (there is a certain quality of relief that i cannot explain when something that is totally unknown becomes known...unless you've been there, i don't think you can understand it).
Everything was reassembled by 11:00 and I took the K out for its test run (i'm not one to tempt fate and come home on the hook). I drove up the hill to visit Sensory Assault and hear from the horse's mouth about the FD troubles (the Lemons rumor mill is often inaccurate). After offering a possible cause and something to look for when they reassembled the beast, I headed to HQ to top off the radiator. I brought the K back to the paddock, started a small fire, made sure nothing had fallen off, and got dressed for racing, while Bob and LowFlyin re-installed the hood.
I hit the track around 11:30 and drove around for about an hour. Nothing terribly foolish, just looking for the limits of the chassis. I did find those limits on the track out of 5, carrying far too much speed thru 4. I almost had it reeled in, but it understeered to a stop into the gravel for a 1.5 off. I humbly accepted my black flag and visited Judge Phil for my penance. He accepted my apology for trying to find the most momentum this car had in it, and allowed me to return to the track. After I'd caught my limit of fun (and run the fuel tank to near empty), I came back to the paddock. We loaded Katie up in the car, and Chris Champion loaded the car up with gas. We sent her on her way, and I trudged up the hill to watch some of the race. Katie ran cleanly, and an hour later Anton installed himself into the car. Anton went out and ran the car's fastest lap, then got black flagged for dragging a tow chain. He brought the car in, we fixed the tow chain, and we put Chris Champion in the car. Chris did his time and I think tetanus's Brett (brent?) took a turn. The German journalist got a stint as well, tho i can't remember the exact order, most of the afternoon sorta runs together and is coated in a light film of 15w50.
In any event, the car ran all day. It would fuel starve at half a tank (or more if you really pushed it), the tranny hunted for gears, and it had developed a nice clunk in the front end whenever you loaded it side to side. I got in the car with a little over an hour to go and started trying to diagnose the clunk while maintaining a decent pace. Sub 3 minute laps were good enough for me, and I think I kept that pace fairly well.
The checkers flew at 7:00 and we managed to get OK-Speed, K-Car, and Tetanus to roll thru the pit lane together, mostly by luck, I think.
I decided the front end was either a loose rack, loose subframe, or something cracked and flexing. I also decided i could fix it in the morning. My fiancee and I ran to get some dinner and to make a walmart run for pit needs. After all the fun we had, the hotel beckoned.
The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → "K" It Forward → K-It-Forward (v.ECR)