Re: Can we bring a spare car?
jmas wrote:Thanks!
I think we will definitely do this. Probably easier to bring a 2nd car than to bring the spare engine and all the tools to do a swap at the track.You need a more adventurous attitude. Engine swaps are not that hard. Go practice once. Half the point of this series is to see how long you can keep a car going. We want heroic fixes, not piles of money solving problems.
That said, yes. I've seen teams go fetch their second car once the first was damaged beyond repair.
You also learn what parts of your build make it harder to swap engines and if you are smart about it, you make changes to your setup to allow for faster swaps. Here's what I learned after my team's first (failed) engine swap
1) It would be faster if all the electrical connections between the engine and chassis came from the same side of the car in the same spot and they are long enough to easily get at them as you pull the engine up. This goes for both the engine's stock wiring as well as whatever sensors you have added to the engine. DONE.
2) For our tbird (longitudinal engine w/ trans and RWD), it is easier to swap the engine+transmission as one big unit than trying to stab the engine to mate to the trans. DONE.
3) Pay close attention to how the transmission is connected to the car. My transmission stock hydraulic line required a disconnect inside the bell housing. I had a customer clutch hose made with a compression fitting in the middle so I coudl disconnect the clutch slave from the clutch master easily.
4) make your exhaust system easily boltable/unboltable in SECTIONS so you aren't trying to wrangle a 10-15' long. pipe from underneath the car. Use antisieze and chase the threads of any old bolts.
5) Pack the load leveler and not just the crane. This will save you time begging for a load leveler/crane from another team when you really need it.
The clutch line was what foiled us in our first engine swap attempt. We were much more successful (and a ton faster) with our second attempt and I'm confident we could shave down our swap time from 6 hrs down to maybe 4. I'm pretty happy with that considering that none of us on our team are professional mechanics.
Of course, the really smart people make these considerations before they try the first time.
2017 Sears Pointless Organizer’s Choice
Frito Making Tbird from 2018 Sears Pointless Engine Heat BBQ - http://goo.gl/csaet4