Team Changes

I think there needs to be a post about some rather crucial information.  Lab Rats Motorsports has gone through some personnel changes.  As you know, the team for the last race was Mike (captain), Chris, Jeff, Phil and Quinn.  Phil and Quinn have decided to retire from crap-can racing.  As for the rest of us, I have left and started a new team; Ramrod Racing, with its own site to detail all of what you've come to expect here.  Chris and Jeff are continuing the Lab Rats with one more important change: THE COLT IS GONE!!  That's right, Phil bought her and will dirt tracking her next year!  That means that the Lab Rats will not only have new teammates, but also a new car.

I can't gurantee the consistency of updates here anymore, as that depends on Chris and Jeff giving me pictures and write-ups.  Not likely since I'm not part of the "inner-circle" anymore and they don't want to share with me all of their cheating ways!  We'll see about getting some pictures and info for you though.  Thanks for following us this year!

Finally the video has arrived!

Alright, alright, I know it's been awhile, but I've been busy!  Do you know how long it takes to compile all of the media from a race and make it into a video?  One hour per one minute of video.  Try and get that done with two kids and the rest of life's responsibilities.  Anyway, it's finally done.  I had a lot more to work with this time since we actually ran the whole race.  Enjoy!


Lab Rats Motorsports in Lemons South Fall 2009 from Michael Chisek on Vimeo.

In other news, the team is undergoing some changes.  For starters, the Colt E is for sale.  $1000 and she is yours.  Great way to get into this type of racing, although I hear you could dirt track her as well.  Email me if your interested.  Second, there has been some personell changes.  Phil and Quinn have decided not to return.  Chris and Jeff have aquired another car.  And as for myself, I have started a new team with a new car which you can follow over at Ramrod Racing.  A little friendly competition has begun, but we're all still going to show the LRM logo.  I guess you can say the Lab Rats are growing!  Apparently I will continue to update this site for Chris and Jeff as they work on their car.  We'll see if they actually take the time to write things for their fans.

Thanks to all for your interest and support and keep watching!  This is only going to get better!

The Colt takes the checkered flag!

What a great weekend!  While the Colt didn't win the race, she ran the entire race only off track for driver changes and fueling.  How far did 68HP get us?  13th place in our class (the "bad" class) and I believe 30th overall.  She completed 497 laps with a fastest time of 1:05.6, courtesy of Quinn.  That's only 3 seconds off the fastest lap time of the entire race!  The car suffered heavy body damage, but no mechanical problems.  She handles better than before and held her own out there.  All in all we had a blast!

Once I get back into the flow of regular life I'll get all the video uploaded and post some here.  I got some great video from the front and rear bumper cams!

Thanks to everybody on the team for all the hard work and a special thank you to Andrea for putting up with all of this madness.  Let's do it again!

End of day 1, and we rock!

What a day!!  The colt is nothing like her former self.  We've completed 274 laps and are running in 15th out of 107.  Campare that to last spring when we didn't hardly run at all on day 1.  She's not the fastest car out there by a long shot, but with no mechanical failures and no penalties we held our own.  But it's war out there.  There were quite a few cars that were out for blood and our car looks like it's been on the front lines.  We were sandwiched a few times, rear ended a few times and T-boned twice.  Just check out some of the carnage.

There were some driver issues as well.  Your's truly here managed to spin the car out in turn one late in the afternoon.  Black flag for me, but apparently the judges were in a good mood because they said I must have been tired and just had us change drivers and get back out on the track.  Perfect!  Each of us ran about 80 minutes per session.  That may not seem like a lot, but with that many cars rubbing you turn after turn, and the high heat and sun today, that's about all you can handle.

Right now while I kick back in the recliner and write this, the other guys are hammering out the fenders (they were rubbing on the rear tires) and changing the spark plugs.  Brakes are good and so is most of the rest of the car.  We're all well fed and hydrated.  I deep fried some chicken wings and the guys are putting back some beers.  There's a band playing right now and as soon as the car gets finished up I'm sure everyone's going to relax for the night.

We're shooting for the top ten tomorrow!

We're racing, and crashing!

The race is on and we're doing great!  After Chris's stint we're running 6 laps off the leader and the car is great.  Quinn just got in for his stint and almost immediately he got T-boned in turn one.  Major damage but it doesn't affect our driving.  Better yet, no penalty!

It's hot but things are going well.  Stay tuned for updates.  Also if you'd like to watch things live, there is a webcast located here.

We are through inspections, but not without a little work

Well now comes the part where we just sit and wait for race time.  We went through tech this morning, but had a little issue.  It seems they didn't like our exhaust.  No big deal.  Chris and Phil ran to NAPA and got some junk to make us "legal".  Now that our car was legal for racing, we moved on to BS inspections.  No trouble here.  As a matter of fact, they almost didn't even want to look at us.  I guess a Colt isn't that threatening of a race car?

Well I have all sorts of pictures to share of today's activities, but it seems that everybody is trying to use the same WiFi access point right now.  You'll have to wait.  But, suffice it to say, things are busy and fun.  We fried a turkey this morning and we are currently smoking some pork for tonight.  Chris managed to officially enter his prized moonshine into the contest with the judges and there are plenty of cars that are getting some serious heat in the BS area.  Cheaters.

More to come, stay tuned!

And here we are again

It's Thursday night, 8:30pm, and Chris, Phil and I are here at CMP with camp all set up and ready.  Go figure, we wound up in the exact same spot as we had last year.  And as a bonus, the Tunachunkers just got here and set up right next to us again.  So we're just hanging out snacking and listening to the radio.  Jeff is on his way and Quinn should be here tomorrow night.  For those of you who were here in the spring, you know how to find us.  For you new Lab Rats fans here's a map of how to find us.  Park where the blue "X's" are and we're at the red dot.  Just head for the Timing & Scoring tower.

 

Stay tuned for updates as we go through tech and BS inspections.  And if you're coming down, we'll save some BBQ for you!

CMP here we come!

It took a while, and there were times when things didn't look that good, but now we're ready!  Saturday we all got together and completed our final tasks.  The Colt got the finishing touches put on her including the camera mounts.  More importantly, she drove around quite a bit.  Everyone agrees, she feels great!  No more stumbling, hesitation and stalling.  Hit the gas and she goes.  The Colt E is ready.

Most of our work revolved around stripping the parts car down.  You see, it just so happens that we found an identical twin to the Colt E just a few minutes north of Charlotte.  That car, having long given up being a useful automobile, has decided to live on as an organ donor to our beloved Colt E.  It took us a couple of hours to remove all the critical parts that we might need in case of a major accident.  My hope is that we will never need any of it, but we're prepared for the worst.




So now what?  The car is ready.  Phil has this week off on vacation so he is going to load the car on the trailer and pack the truck with our supplies.  Chris, Jeff and I are going to try and make it through 3 days of work without going crazy with anticipation.  The plan is to head down to Kershaw Thursday afternoon so that we are there at 5pm when the gates open.  Remember, first come first served when it come to pit locations!  Just like last time, I'll post a map to our exact location in the pits on this blog.  We look forward to seeing all of you at the race, but if you can't make it just check in here to see how we're doing.  I'll be posting race updates often throughout the weekend.  See ya!

NEWSFLASH!!!

I have just received word that the Colt E is alive!  Chris and Phil worked furiously into the night and managed to get her up and running strong.  Due to the late hour however, they were unable to take her for a spin, but that will more than likely happen tonight.  This puts us on schedule for a full shakedown this weekend.  If you'll recall from last spring, this was the element of our plan that was missing.  Had we actually tested the car BEFORE the race, we might have discovered our fuel issues.  This time around the Colt E will have a solid 30 minutes or more of shakedown time underneath her, so we can be confident she'll be ready for the track.  Stay tuned for video of her first drive since April!  CMP in 10 days!

We worked, but the car doesn't

I got to Phil's house at 8:30am this morning. The rest of the crew got there shortly thereafter. We didn't leave until 5:30pm. In those many hours we all accomplished quite a bit. Not enough to get the car to run yet, but close I must say. How many weeks until the race you ask? Two more working weekends until showtime. Some of us may be taking some extra unplanned vacation time soon.

But on to the good news. The brakes are done! It took eight weeks, and phone calls all over the country, but have we got a set of great brakes. We have upgraded from the stock tiny solid rotor, to a beefy cross drilled and vented aftermarket rotor for a 1.6L turbo Colt. To go along with that we installed bigger calipers, and top of the line brake pads. I have the utmost confidence that our brakes will perform flawlessly on race day.


Another major accomplishment, and one of our prime off season modifications, was the installation of our new custom intake manifold for our SU carburetor. Jeff designed and built this thing from scratch and it looks awesome! This took Jeff and Quinn most of the day to install and set up the accessories, but it is worth it. The SU is going to be a great replacement for our old junk carb. There will still be some tuning once we get the car running, but the worst is over.


Other completed projects include the installation of the larger radiator, the final installation of the exhaust (again) and the main hoop diagonal bar is tacked in place. We attempted to start the car for the first time with the new intake, but we have a little electrical problem. Phil will be tracking that down at night this week and hopefully next weekend we can fire her up. With two working weekends to go and the Colt needing some test and tune time, we're cutting it close. We got it covered!

Do stickers count as work?

You read that right. Stickers. That's about all we got done on Saturday. Well, actually we did accomplish a little more than that. Our exhuast system that had broke off last race is now fixed. Chris and Jeff welded the whole thing up and used heavy bolts to hold it in the car. It sits a little low, but should work fine.

Myself, I started trying to fit the radiator in the car. It fits OK, but I have to modify the lower hose a little bit so that it doesn't interfere with the transmission. I'll get it......eventually. Phil got a little farther on his battery relocation project. That should be done during the week.

The really good news is that the front brakes are on their way! Chris finally found what he was looking for on Ebay. They should arrive this week. With those on the car, we can put the tires back on and set her on the ground. So I guess we're making progress, it just doesn't seem like as much as we did the first time. As long as we're ready for the race, right?

Where's the motivation?

So Chris and I worked on Friday night. Phil was at the dirt track races and Jeff was with his girl. So what did Chris and I do? Drank beer (well Coke for me). It appears that converting the front brakes to 1.6 turbo jobs may not happen. Chris has called two companies to order the calipers and both have been out of stock. Forever. We'll give it another shot, but 1.5 stuff may be our only choice for this race.

We did test fit our $30 Pull-A-Part special radiator, and installed the coolant catch can. Jeff needs to get the intake manifold done for our carburetor installation, but in the mean time we checked our valve lash and timing. About the only other thing we've accomplished in cutting out the fenders. It seems that during the last race our fenders were riding the top of the tires in the turns. A sort of anti-sway bar if you will, at least until you saw your tire in half. Problem fixed.

Maybe we work better under pressure....

Chump Car World Series

So is this a post about all the amazing work we're getting done? Not hardly. In fact we haven't done a thing. Chris hasn't even finished ordering our new brakes (in his defense though, the retailer was sold out). However we do have plans to work this Friday night. Can't promise that we'll accomplish anything, but at least we'll be in the same room as the car for a change!

Anyway, on to more important news. We here at Lab Rats HQ have discovered a new way to go bankrupt have fun racing. Enter Chump Car! What is this "Chump Car" you ask? Click on the link to find out, or if you're too lazy I'll give you the quick and dirty version. Chump Car is 95% identical to The 24 Hours of Lemons. The primary differences are in the penalties and the tracks used. Chump Car has already scheduled 16 events for the 2009-2010 season with the closest one to us being Rockingham. There's also a race in Georgia which we'll probably crash participate in as well. Many of the races are true 24 hour endurance events as well, so there will be much more opportunity for hoonage! Since the two series are so similar, we figure that many of the same cars and teams will be participating in both (like us!). Frankly, we're pumped about the opportunity to add Chump Car to our annual racing experiences!

Alright, back to thinking about working on the car. We'll let you know how we do.....

We're Back!

Just got the word from the head honcho today. We're accepted! Sweet. I tell you, it's a lot nicer getting in right from the start than having to sit on the waitlist and hope someone else drops out.

Of course as you know, there are ten weeks until the race. This is usually the time that everyone is scrambling frantically to build their car in time for the race. Not us. Our car is mostly done since it's the same car from the last race. We're currently cleaning the gas tank, and we need to put new pads on the front of the car, but that's it. Actually I think we need to add a brace to our cage per the new rules, but that will only take Jeff a few minutes.

I think the biggest project is going to be mounting the cameras on the car. I haven't decided whether to use DV camcorders or web cams with a PC yet. Ten weeks goes quick though, so I better get on it. We'll keep you posted!

And to Honorable Supreme Court Justices Lieberman and Martin (pen name), we'll see you in September!

Demotivational Posters

So I was surfing around and I came upon the site Despair Inc. You can upload your own photos and turn them into demotivational posters to commemorate your Lemons experience. The creative juices are flowing already....

Meet the Fiat Colt E

While perusing my favorite automotive news site, Jalopnik, I found out that we Lab rats will no longer be racing our Dodge Colt E. Instead we will now be sporting our Fiat Colt E. It appears that in light of the Chrysler bankruptcy, and the Fiat acquisition, the powers that be at Lemons HQ have decided to rebadge all Chrysler products as Fiats. Not only does this not bother us, but we in fact embrace the change! I mean our car already has an identity crisis. It's a Mitsubishi Mirage with a Dodge Colt emblem slapped on it. Add to that the array of strange parts that have found it's way on the car and the rebadging to Fiat seems to fit just fine! Does this mean we are now in the European/Italian class?

Spring Recap

So I finally got our video complete. We spent so much time trying to fix the Colt E or keep her running that I didn't get as much video as I'd have liked. We did get in car footage, but it was from when the car was running poorly, so I chose not to include that in the video. Here you go....


Lab Rats at Lemons South Spring 2009 from Michael Chisek on Vimeo.

So what did we learn from our 1st running of the 24 Hours of Lemons?
1. You can't be competitive if you're not on the track.
2. Pre race testing is mandatory.
3. Pulling a car out of the woods to be a race car is not a good idea.
4. Fuel filters prevent dirt from getting in your engine. Dirty fuel filters prevent fuel from getting to your engine.
5. 68 HP is fine for a tractor, not for a race car.
6. The Dodge Colt E is the perfect chassis for a race car.
7. Lemons racing is highly addictive.

Despite all the car trouble, we still had a blast. It wasn't the next day and we were all talking about the fall race! We definitely plan on entering the race this fall and we're entering the Colt E again. The only changes we plan on making to the car are:
1. New fuel tank or fuel cell (the current one has a never ending supply of junk in it).
2. Better brakes (the cheap ones we used were smoked in 2 hours).
3. See if we can locate a better carburetor.

How can we be keeping the 68 HP anti-engine you ask?! Our research and limited experience tells us that the 1.5L block is indestructible. Why change it? The car handles great and if we focus on keeping it running, I think we can be more competitive this time. Besides I'd love to beat a bunch of E30's with a 68 HP Colt!

So there you have it. I'll get back to this blog in the summer once we get the invite back to the fall race. Then you can follow us back to Kershaw in September! See ya!

A Comeback

Well day two went much better for us. We kept the car on the track most of the day and clicked off some fast lap times. While I didn't get to see the final time sheet, I believe we managed to complete around 150 laps with a best lap time of 1:09.3. Good enough for 79th or 80th place. Obviously we had hoped for much better but you can't compete if you're not on the track. We each got at least a solid 30 minutes of full speed racing though, which made all of the work worthwhile. I'll post a few more pictures and a video in a few days as well as what we learned from this experience. Bottom line though, it was fun and we're coming back in the fall! WITH A MUCH FASTER CAR!!!

End of Day One

So today is in the books. It wasn't the best of racing days for us, but we're actually still alive. I guess you can say we're kind of like Rudy. We managed to complete 26 laps and remain in 88th. Our engine troubles continue to plague us but when she runs right, she's fast! And she handles like she's on rails. We also managed to get a picture of our car on Jalopnik too. We're working on the car tonight and hope to get some more laps in tomorrow.

Not Good

So it's 5pm and I think we have completed 5 laps. That's right, FIVE. Our fuel tank keeps shedding junk and plugging the fuel filter. At this point we've got the tank out and are hoping to wash it out at a local car wash. With two hours of racing left for today our hope is to get it back together and test it. If it stays clean enough we might get to move up from 88th to like 80th or something. If you're considering coming out to watch us tomorrow, I would recommend staying home.

Bad Start

It seems that we are the first team to ever get a penalty BEFORE the race starts. Chris passed under caution and got the team a one hour penalty. We were close to getting tossed, so I'm happy to sit the hour instead.

We are legal to race!

We just passed tech and BS inspections. It seems out paperwork was impeccable and they believed that the Colt E was actually a piece of crap. Still the t-shirt "gifts" earned us the Bribed tattoo. Did I mention that this was fun?

Here we are!

Alright folks, the time has come. We are here, we have set up camp, and we are ready to go. I am online and will be all weekend to post updates of our status for all of you. Tonight I leave you with a simple map of our pit location. Spectator parking is marked by the blue X's and our pit is marked by the red dot. We're right in front of the main scoring tower and what I think to be Lemons HQ. See you at the race!

For your viewing pleasure....

Call us stupid or insane, but we took the Colt E with us to professional photo shoot. I'm serious. We wanted some really nice pictures of the car to keep as well as a team photo. The kind of thing you can pull out and show your kids when they're older, and then they make fun of you. Anyway, here are a few of the pictures. Is it time to race yet?????

A Pre-Party

So Russ wanted to have a "Christening" party for the Colt E. Kind of like smashing that cheap bottle of champagne against the hull of a new ship. It was a way for everybody at work to come see the car before we go crash, I mean race, it next weekend. Actually it was probably just a good excuse to party. Again. But we had a good turnout and a lot of positive comments about the car, so that means all of you who are reading this, and were there, just didn't tell us what you really thought. That's OK because the poll has spoken. Only half of you think the Colt E will finish the race! Good thing we don't care what you think. Ha! Seriously, thanks to all for coming out last night. I think everyone had a great time. Chris and Mike will be at the next monthly meeting too. I promise.



Well, we're packed and ready to go. The Colt E is about as ready as she'll ever be. We checked everything off our tech inspection sheet. Before Thursday I need to make sure the camera's and camcorder's have fresh batteries and plenty of tape. I also need to get some software on the laptop if I want to post videos to this blog from the track. We'll see about that one. You'll notice in the included photos that we have sold out and are now marketing all sorts of junk for the team. If you'd like a custom mug with our logo, just send me an email and I'll place you an order with Todd (great job on the mug Todd!) We have a few extra items that we will be selling from our pit at the track.


I leave you with a few specs on our beloved Colt E. Kind of puts into perspective (or not) what we are attempting to work with.

Make: Dodge (liars, it's a Mitsubishi)
Model: Colt E (again with the lying, try Mirage)
Year: 1988
Engine: 1.5L 4 cylinder fed by an 2 bbl "carburetor like device" (the '80's sucked)
HP: 68 @ 5600rpm (I kid you not folks - sixty eight)
Transmission: 4 speed manual with counterbalanced shift knob
Weight: approx 1500 lbs without driver
0-60mph: 4.3 tries
Unique features: manual steering (yes that does exist), optional high idle package, aftermarket piston return springs (yes, I'm kidding)
Cost: I'm not quite sure, but I'm pretty sure I could have sent my wife on a weekend shopping spree and it would have cost me less.

See you at the track!

We have a driver!

The polls have closed and while we had much less activity than our "Duck" poll, we have a winner. Chris will be leading off the team in the Colt E! Considering the poor sap who starts the race has to deal with 95 other amateur driven, junk cars all smashing for position, I say "Congratulations Chris!". If ever our roll cage is going to serve it's purpose and save our life, it will probably be in the first few laps. Of course, the flipside is that if Chris wrecks the car, then none of the rest of us get to drive the race car that we just spent 8 weeks building. Oh well, let's hope for the best.

For our next poll, I want to see what kind of confidence our supporters have in the car. Vote for how many laps the Colt E will complete. Keep in mind that last years winner completed a little over 500 laps. Also, taking the checkered flag doesn't mean that we win. It just would mean that we finished the race without chucking a rod out the side of the block. Personally I think it would look pretty cool to have fire pouring out from under the hood as I blow the engine to kingdom come. Whatever, just vote.

T-Shirts

So yesterday Jeff shows up with the t-shirts we ordered. Wow, these things look great! They were designed and printed by Steve Greb over at Omega Graphics in Kannapolis. It's Steve's design that graces the top of this web page. Steve got us a great price and even threw in a few can coolers as well. For all you who ordered a t-shirt, you're going to look good hanging out in the pits! If you're ever in the market for some graphic design work, give Steve a call or visit www.omegaart.net. Thanks Steve!

Be Warned

So I felt like making a post this weekend. We didn't work on the car or anything (it's done, remember?) but there is always relevant Lemons info to be had. We spend much of our time following the sites Jalopnik and Speed:Sport:Life because the Lemons judges write for these sites and offer up all sorts of great Lemons info and coverage. So it was today that I was scanning the recent stories on Jalopnik and found one of the new devious driver penalties to be unveiled at Lemons South Spring. It is called the TNA penalty for Taiwanese National Anthem. In short, this involves a car alarm perpetually playing in the car until the next pit stop. You can read about it in detail here. Oh the diabolical evilness!! While you're there be sure to follow the links to some of the other penalties.

There have also been few posts on some of the other teams. Judge Lieberman just did an interview with TAJracing, another entrant in Lemons South Spring. I love reading about the other teams! While you can't really gather any competitve intel from the team sites or website interviews (launch the UAV!!), it is still fun to see other guys working just as frantically as we are. Plus, in many cases, we are relieved to know that we will not be the only ones out there with a piece of crap!

Well that's all for now. Be sure to cast your vote in the poll to the right. Which reminds me, I never announced the results from our first poll. After much interest and rampant cheating (y'all know who you are!) the Duck will be welded on the roof. Specifically, between the brakelights. Stay tuned this week as I'm going to try to post a feature on "Get to Know Your Rats". Oh the excitement.....

Official Lab Rats Gear

The topic of Lab Rats Motorsports branded gear has come up quite a bit recently. We have ordered custom lab coats, T-shirts and decals for ourselves already. We have even talked about hats and coozi's (can insulator thing). So I'm going to put out an offer to those of you following us. If anyone is interested in purchasing a T-shirt, decal or any other items send me an email at mchisek@gmail.com. I'd like to have all orders in by next Friday, 3/27 so that I can bring all of the items to the race for delivery. I think it would be great if the pits were flooded with fans sporting Lab Rats gear!

Another Thank You

On the heels of today's earlier message, I wanted to extend a personal thank you to Rob Hall. Rob has been providing us with free racing gear from the beginning of this project. He has hooked us up with two full sets of tires and wheels, our Butler racing seat and a full set of radios for driver/pit communications. Seeing as how most of us are married with kids (read: broke), these expensive items have been a real boost to the team. And for all of this stuff what does Rob want in return? Nothing (well maybe our beer). Thanks Rob, see you at the race!

A Big Thank You

I just wanted to make a quick mid-week post to send out a thank you to Chris Rogers Motorsports of Concord, NC. Chris hooked us up with a full set of tires and wheels for the race. CRM deals in Legends and Bandolero cars and provides a wide range of services to the newbie racer all the way up to the veteran racer. If you're looking to get started in racing, give Chris a call!

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!

It has finally happened. The car is finished! Hard to believe, especially if you think back to what we started with. And all in 8 weeks no less. So even though it was cold and rainy again here in Charlotte, we were all pumped! We didn't have to work long or hard today. Chris installed the muffler, Phil mounted the rear shocks, Jeff welded up the grill,Russ and Russell applied stickers and numbers and I modified the wiring. Everyone kind of stood around and watched paint dry while we waited for the rain to let up. It never did (and still hasn't) so we eventually said screw it and decided to take her out for a drive anyway. So for this week's update I'll let the photos and video do the talking.

I'll probably add one or two more updates before the race and then for race weekend I'll try to post updates and picks a few times a day. We'll see about that one. In your face Dirk Ramrod!!

Finally!!

It is with much excitement that I present this mid-week update on the Colt E. It seems that the nice weather and perhaps some other forces have come together and convinced Russ that Wednesday night would be a good night to paint the race car! We were all highly skeptical, mind you, but eye witness accounts and spy photos that we’ve acquired confirm the unbelievable. Russ has finally painted the car! This is no joke as you can see from the photos. Russ labored intensely into the night laying multiple coats of high dollar Rustoleum white paint. Ladies and gentlemen I am speechless as I behold the beauty that is the COLT E!

Correction

Apparently I made a mistake in the telling of the injured finger story. Phil has since corrected me and , in his own words, retells the grizzly tale:

Just wanted to clear up the injured finger thing. While holding up the last state of the art decorative Bud Light taillight cover to drill and mark the body, with my left hand the 1/8” harbor freight high quality steel drill bit broke. The broke drill bit with the drill, my right hand, and all of my slim trim body weight struck my left pinky finger causing the injury. If anyone ask we now can truthfully say we have put our blood sweat and tears into this car.

That's all for today. Now I had better get back to work (the kind of work that pays the bills, not makes more of them).

A Race Car is Born

What a weekend! I mean, besides the awesome weather we saw great progress on the car. We got together on Thursday and knocked out one project each and then I installed the brake lights on Friday. Saturday morning we were at it early. Our story begins at Pull-A-Part.

What better a place to get parts for a $500 race car than a junk yard! Chris, Phil and I drove up first thing Saturday morning looking for a brake proportioning valve. They didn't have any Colts but they did have two Mirage's. We nabbed both valves just to make sure we got a good one. What a place! I saw many potential race cars in there, all they needed was a few parts!

The three of us got back to the shop and started working on some of the final issues. Chris used the new found brake valve to repair and bleed the brakes. Phil and I re-installed the gas tank and ran the return fuel line. Jeff finally arrived (he had to work in the morning) with our new dashboard. This has to be about the coolest part of the car! It uses our top secret starter button and is a real piece of art.

Meanwhile Russ was scouring the internet for our long awaited rear shocks. He was successful in finding a pair of shorter shocks that almost fit. Hey, nothing an adapter can't fix (read: washers). Chris and Phil then focused their attention on the tail lights, or more accurately the tail light covers. Remember our recycling program? Did you know that recycling can be hazardous to your health? Phil now understands the dangers of recycling. You see, Phil managed to splatter his blood all over Russ' garage. I didn't see it (thankfully), but I guess when you hook a cut open Bud Light can on the end of a drill and spin it through your finger, it tends to cut pretty deep. Ouch. We're thinking of leaving the blood as part of our paint job, what do you think?

Phil isn't the only one who learned some things this weekend. Yours truly got some lessons as well. Luckily mine didn't cost any blood though. Did you know that starter solenoid's are not rated for continuous duty? Bad idea for a remote ignition switch. Anyway, I proceeded to finish the car's electrical system while Chris gave us all a headache as he pounded out new fender flares in the rear. They look pretty good though and we later found out they work too.


We finished up Saturday by firing up the engine and setting the base timing. And yes, she runs great! Granted I wish we had a 600HP small block Chevy under the hood, but we're not rich so we'll run with what we've got.

Sunday comes along and Chris wakes me up early with phone call. Wants to know when I'm going over to work on the car. I'm thinking "It's morning already?". So we work again, and I'm glad we did. We picked up our muffler and attempted to mount that up but we're missing an adapter. But, we finally got out tires and wheels! After a quick coat of fresh paint we mount those bad boys up and dropped her on the ground. WOW!! She looks great! Chris and I stared at her for a couple of hours and dreampt of racing glory. I can't wait for the race!

So what's left? We need to mount our steering wheel, mount the rear shocks, install the muffler, paint the car and install the windshield. There are probably a few other things I'm forgetting but we'll get them knocked out as well. With three weeks to go we also need to start focusing on our supplies and tools for the weekend. So while we've got the car close the done, we still have a lot to do. But we're still focused on the goal!

Are we done yet???

This is not easy. Fun, yes (in a twisted sort of way), but definitely not easy. Everyone but Russ has to travel to work on the car, we have to budget our time and money so that we don't piss off our wives, the car keeps throwing us curve balls and the weather has just sucked lately. AND we only have one month left. I love this!

I'm happy with this weekend's progress. We had some issues that elbow grease or money can fix for us pretty quick, so we're not really that worried. We started off by finishing the roll cage, including welding both doors shut. This has taken quite a few weekends, but the end result was worth it. Everyone agrees that this car is a tank and we all feel very safe in it. Jeff did an outstanding job fabricating and welding it all together. Even the seat mount is great, simple yet tied securely to the cage structure itself. I'm not saying go ahead and hit me, but if you do I'll be alright!

With the cage complete I went ahead and put a quick basecoat of paint down on the inside of the car. We'll lay a finish coat when we spray the outside. It's just been too cold lately for painting outside. We also need it to roll so that we can take it outside. Chris then started fitting the roll cage padding into place. With so many tubes in the cage he came up a bit short, so we'll have to order a little bit more. And yes, the steering wheel is missing. We have a quick disconnect steering wheel setup on the car to make it easier and safer to get in and out of the car (how did Bo and Luke do it so easily?).

Chris also managed to get the front suspension put back together. The strut coils have been trimmed down like the backs and there is all new brake hardware and bearings. Ask Chris why one of the rotors is new and one is an old turned down one. We then proceeded to flush and bleed the brake system. The front brakes went quick but then we ran into problems. The back brakes wouldn't bleed. After doing some checks we found out the proportioning valve was seized and not letting fluid to rear brakes. Add that to the shopping list.

And what about that engine? What about it! Back off! Leave me alone! Seriously, it's weird. I screwed with it a few nights during the week, and all night Friday. It acts like it has a bad vacuum leak. I plugged all vacuum passages and ports and retorqued all the bolts and screws in and around the carb. It still wasn't running right. Saturday afternoon Jeff and I decide to screw with it some more and it fires up and runs perfectly. I kid you not. After about 5 minutes though it starts to run rough again. I play with for about a half hour and then can't stand the exhaust fumes anymore so I shut it off. I can't find the problem. Fast forward to about 9pm and Chris and Phil want to hear it run. So I give it a try. Perfect again. This time it runs for about 10 minutes without issue. It idles, it revs smoothly and shows no signs of trouble. I shut it down for the night and go home. At this point, who freakin' knows what the problem is. But if it fixes itself by just warming the engine up and then letting it cool down, great. I can't wait to replace this piece of crap with bigger FI engine.

What else? We ran the new fuel line along the frame rail, plugged all the holes in the body, hung the rear view mirror, finished the new top secret engine start switch and began to recycle the empty beer cans that are beginning to fill up the garage. Believe it or not beer cans make great filler panels for body work. Think about it, they're lightweight, readily available and come prepainted with your sponsor's logo on them (no, Budweiser is not sponsoring us). Russ was missing most of the weekend (buying a car or something) so we had to leave the supervisor duties up to my dog Chika. "Work faster you vile human infidels!! Woof!!"

Trouble

I had high hopes for this work weekend. We had everyone together for almost the entire day, but by looking at the car you wouldn't know it. So what's the problem you ask? Car doesn't run and the cage is not done.


First the carb, and yes the picture says it all. I finished rebuilding it, but after installing it on the engine it didn't work. The first problem was the gas tank was empty. We filled it up and tried again but it would only run on the accelerator pump, not the main venturi. We had the carb apart a few more times double checking passages but they were all clean. As a final check we tried to run the carb under pressure. 3psi of shop air to the bowl vent and the car ran great. So obviously the passages aren't plugged. We suspect a major vacuum leak, but whatever the problem is it's our #1 priority. How can we win a race if we can't start the race?

As for our roll cage, that's an easy problem. Jeff made great progress, that is until he ran out of gas. I guess technically the cage is done (although we may add a few more braces in a few places), but our seat mount is incomplete. After welding for more than 6 hours, Jeff was tired anyway.


How about the things we did accomplish? Ummmm..... Chris and Phil got the gas tank out. The tank needs to be cleaned and a new fuel sock needs to be installed. We may also end up replacing the fuel line because of it being so heavily varnished. This fuel system has become a real pain. The doors were also finished trimmed so that they're ready to be welded closed and the rear quarter panels started to get trimmed to clear our new wider tires.


I suppose these tires are one of the high points of the weekend and maybe even the car. We may not be fast but we should stick to the track!

Even though we didn't get as much done as we wanted, it was still a good weekend. I mean come on, the worst day of working on a race car is still better than the best day at work! There was plenty of beer (do you think this is hampering our progress?) and Russ grilled burgers and brats for everyone. Russ has also promised to paint the inside of the car today while I write this. We shall see....

We've got 5 weekends left before the race so I wouldn't say we're in trouble, but we'll all feel a lot better when the engine runs right. Most of our parts are already in the shop and there isn't much welding left. I think until the engine is running I may be working more than one day a week. I would much rather have the car done early and give us some time to pack some other weekend items than be scrambling around that last week still trying to finish the car. Well maybe next weekend we'll look a little bit better than this.