04/01/12
As many posts as I've done on LeMons racing, there's one type of picture that I love the best. What picture genre is that? Well, here's an example: That's right: it's the, "It's late at night, after the first day of racing, there's something wrong with the car and we're fixing it", picture. What's going on here? Who knows?! Look, there's a tire off! And there's something sparking/illuminated/burning underneath! Of course, the hood is up, and there's piles of tools and parts scattered about. Beer is undoubtedly near at hand. Yep, this is what racing's all about. Oh yeah, there was some driving on a paved circuit course with 80-odd other cars, too. So here's my detailed, nothing-left-out account of that part of the weekend: Saturday: It rained. The track was very slippery. Lots of cars spun out. Luckily, we did not.
The car did not run very well, which probably helped us not get into trouble. We were very slow. Our pit stops were very slow, with lots of hand-wringing and head-scratching over why the car was very slow. Sunday: The weather was cool, but at least it was mostly dry. Occassional spits of weather did little to hamper our performance. Bad driving and continued lacsidaisical pit stop attitude did more in that regard. The engine made decent power, we were very fast in the strightaways, but the smaller vehicles (everyone else) beat us around each and every one of the 14 corners. Luckily, we didn't hit any other cars, which they were all very thankful for. Anthony had invited some of his co-workers to come watch the race, and Lucie, shown above, decided to try out sitting in a real race car for the first time in her life. She's French, so I'm not really sure what she's saying all the time, but I'm pretty sure she liked it. We finished the race! Brian took the checkered flag, which was fitting considering he had never taken a checkered flag before. At this point, I believe everyone on the team (with the exception of Stephen, who's only on his second race with us) has taken at least one green flag and one checkered flag. It's little things like that that makes everyone feel like part of the team. We have to remember that, above everything else, we're in this to have fun. This was even more important to keep in mind this race. For the first time ever, even though we finished a race with a running car, we were completely shut out of the awards. (On race #4, when we cooked the Volvo's engine and never made it back on the track, and left before the awards ceremony, we didn't score a trophy either, but then, that was a weekend I think we'd rather all forget anyway. Phil later told us we might have qualified for the "I Got Screwed Award" had we stuck around, but an arguably more deserving team ended up with it.) Oh well. We finished mid-pack (48th place?), still have a running car, and are still all on speaking terms. Above, the ceremonial end-of-race team picture. Left to right: McCall, Brian, Mike, Stephen, Anthony, Rob. Interestingly, this was also the first race that Matt did not attend. He and his wife were in the process of picking up their lives and moving from western NY to warmer climes, closer to Tunachucker Racing International HQ. While his wife claims the move was to find gainful employment, I'm fairly certain it was more so Matt could become more involved in the team. The Future beckons... 03/18/12
Continuing the update of the race weekend, March 3-4, 2012, at Carolina Motorsports Park... Sunday morning started out much better than Saturday morning. The skies were clearing, the track was, for the most part, dry, and the car was running better, thanks to some late night carburetor fiddling tuning and a paddock cruise that set a new record of 51 people on the LTD.
You see, once you set a precedent, these things have a tendency of taking on a life of their own...
It being sometime around 11 o'clock at night, the photographic evidence is a little blurry and camera-phone esque. Of course, this justs adds to the authenticity of it. Here's my personal favorite picture, illustating the effects of piling 8,000 pounds worth of people onto a 1975 Ford:
Yes, these late night cruises wreak havok on the exhaust system. But a few pieces of spare pipe and a couple of new clamps and she was ready to go again on Sunday morning! Here's the only video I could find yet of Saturday night's record. It's not Youtube, so I couldn't quite figure out how to embed it; just click the link: http://s40.photobucket.com/albums/e247/jordidunn/?action=view¤t=VIDEO0026.mp4 For some reason, the LTD Landau always seems faster after the great human anthill events. Such was the case after the first GHA at Charlotte, and Sunday morning at CMP this March was much the same. I was the first driver out on Sunday morning, and I was doing a pretty fair job of mixing it up with the smaller, nimbler (and, in the straightways, slower) cars. I managed to hold my co-workers' Subaru wagon at bay for 5 or 6 laps, and was successfully pacing a Toyota Celica for several more laps. Then, about 40 minutes into my stint, I was coming off the carousel portion and got wedged to the outside. A BMW (powered by a Mopar Slant Six) got inside of me and I tried to give room. Unfortunately, the LTD is wide (understatement) and I didn't quite have enough room to give. The left two wheels of the Landau took an off-pavement route, causing the back end to begin fishtailing. At about 80 miles per hour, things start happening really quickly. Luckily I managed to avoid contact with any of the cars around me (and they managed to avoid hitting me) and with as much grace as possible I steered the land barge off the race track onto the shoulder. The engine had stalled, and would not restart (we'd had battery issues all weekend) so there was nothing to do but wait for the tow truck. 10 minutes on the side of the track waiting for a wrecker feels like an eternity. But, eventually the truck came around and got me and the car back to the pits safely. Unfortunately, I haven't yet been able to find any in-car footage from one of the drivers who would have been directly behind and witnessed the spin (which, let's be honest, must have been spectacular!), but about 2 minutes into this video, you can see the flatbed and the LTD on the right side of the track: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA8JxVY629A Here's a screenshot of that segment: It's hard to hurt a malaise-era Ford, and a little rally-cross action certainly didn't. Back at the pits, we swapped drivers, laughed at the mud and grass now attached to the car, and resumed our dominance of the course's straightways! 03/14/12
A lot of the more avid readers of this site out there are probably a lot like me. You grew up reading car mags of every size, shape, and kind. This was in the pre-internet age, when the printed word was King! There were your car-focused magazines, like Car Craft, Hot Rod, and others, as well as the more general technology magazines like Popular Mechanics and Science. But the one thing they all had in common were STATS. We lived for the STATS! Curb weight, horsepower, suspension type, braking distance, track, wheelbase, steering lock-to-lock...just about any way to qualify and quantify a car, they had figured out, and it made for interesting readings and comparisons- not to menion raising all sorts of questions and critical thinking. Is 110 HP at 4500 RPM better than 125 HP at 4900 RPM? Is a double wishbone suspension worth the extra cost over MacPherson struts? Do antilock brakes make for shorter stopping distances in real life? The point of all of this is, I got to thinking recently that maybe the astute reder would like a rundown of exactly what's going on inside our LTD Landau race car, how it differs from stock, etc. Where things have been modified over stock or left well enough alone, I'll note as such. So, here you go: One 1975 Ford LTD Landau 24 Hours of LeMons racing car, Tunachucker-style, in black and white. Chassis/ Suspension:
Engine:
Transmission and rear end:
Tires and brakes:
Racing/ Safety:
Now you, too, have the formula to build an awesome LeMons racer! 03/11/12
My original plan was to update the blog throughout the LeMons race weekend. That was before we were beset by mechanical issues, multiple apocalyptic weather events, and tempting fire and moonshine gatherings. So, here we are, nearly a week after the checkered flag flew. Let's take a quick glimpse back on the weekend... I need to start off with some photographical credit. Every picture taken in this post was NOT taken by your humble author. Anthony proved himself as capable behind the shutter as he is holding the business end of a wrench, so I'll be employing his snapshots in this update. Artcarchic and I arrived on the scene Thursday night arund 9PM. After successfully navigating the entrace procedure (an elderly Southern gentleman with a clipboard and a money box), we set up the Esterel camper and recruited some folks to help us get a fire going. In no time a cheerful blaze was lit, and we were sharing spirits and stories with the NSF'ers, Terminally Confused Bees, Hong Northers, and other early birds. After surviving the monsoon that engulfed CMP Thursday night, we awoke to begin setting up camp in earnest, preparing the car, and welcomig the steady stream of the team who trickled in throughout the day. For the first time ever, I think, we passed tech inspection without any hiccups. All our gear was in order, and we even had wireless gear ready to go for driver-to-pit communications. What coud go wrong? Since you've been following this blog religiously, you'll know that we had been wrenching furiously for the past month to get a 98,000 mile 1968 Lincoln 460 Big Block engine into the LTD Landau. But, save for a few short cruise around the neighborhood, the engine was largely untested. And after we'd taken care all of the logistical stuff need to race on Saturday, we had to turn our attention to the fact that this 460 was running like, well, crap. First, Anthony came up with the brilliant suggestion to check the timing as the engine revved up. Guess what? No advance! The mechanical advance was seized stuck, and the vacuum pot on the distributor was leaking. A can of PBlaster freed the mechanical whirling weight advance, and a call to a Camden auto parts jobber yielded a new vacuum advance mechanism, which was picked up Saturday morning and neatly installed before the green flag fell. The LTD Landau hit the track with 40 degrees of advance at full W.O.T. Horray! Stumbling and popping indicated that timing was not the 460's only issue. Turns out the crusty Edelbrock square bore sourced from my vast store of seldom-used car parts was (in technical terms) crudded up something fierce. Luckily, I had, in a fit of foresight, ordered a rebuild kit from Summit Racing. We cleaned out all the orifices with wire, compressed air, and nasty, cancer-causing chemicals. We incresed the primary jet size by 0.003", nd put it all back together with fresh gaskets. OK, _NOW_ we're ready to ht the track! On to race day...in a future post. What, you thought I was going to give you the whole story in one post? Nah, it's a nice day- I need to go outside and get some work done. More later! 03/01/12
Well, the car is ready...ish, the gear is packed, and The race starts Saturday morning. The excitement is _palpable_. Of course, so are the sleep deprivation, anxiety, and poverty. A few last minute items...the new carb and intake were a bit too tall for the stock hood. So McCall and Rob created a solution, drawing inspiration from those wooden cutout things you see at parks and Old Tyme Western Saloons and the like where you put your head through and it magically appears on some other body. Except, no one was brave enough to stick their head through the jagged metal cutout in the Landau hood. Perfect! Didn't even have to repaint the number! We loaded the 400M and spare C^ and engine hoise into Rob's comically tiny pickup truck. Now it's just a simple matter of winding away the next 6 hours at work until I can head off to the track. There's another LeMons team at my place of employment; we rolled into the parking lot at nearly the same time this morning. Real Estate agents across the Upstate were reportedly cringing and contemplating suicide as property values plummeted as our tow rigs drove past. Circling for the kill... |
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