Topic: Ideas for safely/legally shaking down a new build?
What's up Lemons? Fred here! First time caller, long time listener!
Newbie team here of myself and 3 buddies and we are fielding a 2023 team from New Hampshire (Concord area).
I've done some searching, but haven't found a direct answer to a question I have.
"Where/how do you recommend doing INITIAL shakedowns of a new build?"
Context:
None of us have ever done this kind of thing before, and I'm thinking about when we first get the car back together, and in race ready configuration, how best to shake it down? The obvious answers are go do an autocross, which is cheap and plenty of options, but I'm actually talking more about just establishing the car can drive for a few miles, has no major leaks, and isn't going to die in the first 10 minutes of driving. Ideally I'd like to establish that before we take it anywhere like an actual event. Also, I don't really want to be "that guy" that has a car spill its guts on a track/auto-x course and cause delay/inconvenience for everyone else.
We've done some initial idle tests to check for leaks (found/fixed a few), and the car runs well enough up to temp while stationary. But, when we're ready (and we're not yet), I'd love to be able to drive it a bit as sort of a first test before we actually start pushing on it.
Some ideas:
- Find a big industrial complex with a parking lot, trailer there, and just drive around the lot. (Seems kinda sketchy though and I'm a rule follower)
- Register the car, then go get a failed inspection, which gives us something like a 30 day window where we can drive it until it would need to pass. (team came up with that one, and I am wary about what happens if we got pulled over with a stripped out "race car" that has no intention of ever actually passing inspection)
- Hoping to find someone with an empty stretch of pavement on private property we could trailer to and drive up and down for a bit
- Look to find someone with an old airfield runway we could get permission to poke around on
I could be way off in left field, and if doing an autocross is the best option then we can do that, I just don't think that initially I want to be hammering on the car until we're sure that it actually isn't going to explode (and by explode I mean burst coolant lines, gaskets failing, etc..., not *actually* explode ). Again, my intention here is just slower paced driving, test out the gears, play with the brakes, etc... Nothing fast, probably not above 30 mph. Just want to catch anything obvious before we actually go somewhere (like auto-x) where we'd start actually driving quickly. We don't currently own a trailer (so rented uhauls are our current option), so we have to do a little bit of planning for any option.
We're super pumped to be doing this, after 3+ years of us talking about doing Lemons. We bought a car that's been sitting in my neighbors driveway since 2009, which I've been looking at longingly every afternoon when I walk my dog around the neighborhood. We're learning a ton from the process, and having a blast!
Thanks for any/all help or suggestions,
-Freddyo