We're in!!!

So the news we all wanted to hear finally came yesterday. Apparently enough other better qualified teams have failed to pony up the dough to race in April. Their loss, our gain! Our number came up in the random waitlist lottery and now we're headed for CMP. For your browsing pleasure, here is Jay's invite:

"Hi, Team Captain:

Good news--I think. Your team has officially been ACCEPTED for LeMons South Spring, on 4-5 April 2009, at Carolina Motorsports Park in Kershaw SC. We got tons of crappy entries for this race; yours was just enough crappier to be selected. Nice work.

Okay: What do you need to do now?

A: Read this email completely.

B: Forward it to the rest of your team, one of whom is certainly smarter than you are. (You agreed to be captain, so clearly you're not the genius.)

C: Acknowledge this email with a reply that says "Team (Whatever the Hell it Is) Received the Acceptance." If you don't confirm, we'll assume you've wised up and will give away your slot. And yes, I am getting tired of receiving "Team (Whatever) etc" replies. Har har. Very clever. Never saw that one coming, nosireeebob.

Got all that? Good."

So now what? We're actually in good shape with the car. All we need to do is finish a few details and get her painted. In other news, we've had a team member change. We dropped that chump Jerad (actually with the economy and all, he respectfully backed out; can't say I blame him), and replaced him with Chris' father. Don't remember his name so Chris will have to remind me later. This gives up four drivers and one pit member. We are actually in negotiations for a fifth driver right now, but we'll have to see if they're serious or not (cash talks).

That's it for now. If your reading this and you're not following the blog, why the heck not?! Click the link to the right and join the crowd! There may be a free prize for following......

Armored Personnel Carrier

Another week has gone by and two positive things have happened. One, we all still have our jobs. Two, our cage kit arrived! That means it's time to bust out the welder (and a few Doritos). We manged to get the whole crew together Friday night despite any complaints from the wives and it being Valentines Day weekend. I'd say we made some good progress. I always have lofty aspirations (like get it all done in an hour), but realistically we got a lot closer to complete. There was, of course, much "down" time.

While waiting for the others to arrive I started things off by finishing the electrical system. The engine fan is wired to come on with the ignition switch and we now have spark back. The addition of a brake light rounds out our simple electrical system. I wish my Cadillac's electrical system was this easy.

Now throughout the week I have been rebuilding the carburetor at my house. I stripped it all the way down so that I could inspect and clean it. What a piece of crap. Have any idea what 5 year old gas looks and smells like? It looks and feels like that old Tootsie roll you find under the couch cushion. And smell? Let's just say my wife wasn't so happy about my "project" this week. The new gasket set is on the way and hopefully I'll be able to clean all the jets out this weekend. Hey, all I need is fuel to flow. I don't really care how well it flows. Those are squirrel nuts in the secondary.

Back to the garage. With all of us present, as well as our new cage kit, we got to work on installing the only thing protecting us from rogue Crown Vic's. The cage looked small on the shop floor, but it turned out to be an almost perfect fit for our car. Tight against the sides and roof, just how you'd like it. In fact, all of the notches and tube lengths were perfect. Hats off to Day Motorsports of Texas for such a great kit at a great price. Before we welded the main hoop in, we strengthened the floor by welding in the hoop support plates. Before Russ got too sleepy he layed a few beads to prove to us his welding prowess.

With the seat position decided and our main hoop located, the rest of the cage went together rather quickly. Granted, it was all just tacked at that point, but seeing it in was a big boost. So much so that Jeff and I decided to stay until in was secured in the car which wound up being midnight. One of the things we noticed after the door bars were in was that the doors would not close anymore. Our original plan was to weld the doors closed anyway, but now it looked like we were going to have to remove the inner door panels and just run with an outer skin over the car. Charge up the sawzall, I'm going in!

For the last hour Jeff (our certified welder) began his finish welding and I continued to cut the doors apart. We still have to add a pair of rear down bars from the main hoop to the floor, but that will be easy. Also we have to make a seat box for our seat and get that mounted. Seatbelts and, budget allowing, quick disconnect steering wheel should finish off the inside of the car.

We also got a preview of the finished car's ride height. Slammed! Once the new tires are on, it will actually sit almost 2 inches lower yet. Of course this will require us to make so minor fender modifications. We may also be zeroing in on a paint scheme. I'm afraid I can't leak any info on that just yet, but with any luck we may be laying paint by next weekend. Did I mention that we were still on the waitlist and may not even be able to race this thing?

Big (?) Work Day

Alrighty then! It's Saturday night and we've got the whole team together for some work and beers! We still have not purchased any parts (what are we waiting for, a donation?!) so we continue with what I call Stage II weight reductions. If it's not required to make the car go around the track, it's gone. Stage III weight reductions are coming in the form of yours truly going on a diet. We also get into the suspension, carb and electrical system. We start things off by thinking of actually working.

So what else is slowing this car down? Exhaust, heater core and washer fluid tank are all obvious. 10 miles of vacuum lines and a charcoal canister (don't tell the EPA) don't need to be there. A few select cuts on the body to trim fat. How about all that wire? Don't need it, wiring harness gone. So now our non-running car is more non-running. We are sooooo smart. But hey we stripped another 100-200 pounds off the car!

The engine bay now looks clean, uncluttered and ready to propel this go-kart to the checkered flag! Other underhood modifications include thermostat surgical alterations (read: sawzall), drain coolant and flush, new electrical system wiring (more on that later) and an intercooled 23psi twin turbo system. Oh wait, scratch that last one. I'm not allowed to add horsepower to this engine.

Not quite sure what to do with this piece of crap. The '80's were a bad time for engines. We've got enough room under our $500 limit that we might pay to have somebody rebuild it. They'll probably laugh at us though so we'll be back to plan B (yes, the beer next to it).

So anyway, back to that wiring thing. Are you concerned that we completely removed the vehicle wiring harness from a quasi-computer controlled vehicle? Bah! No worries mate! We decided that we only need 5 electrical circuits: start, charge, ignition, fan and brake. The car runs an old school cap and rotor distributor with separate coil, so we're golden! Start and charge is auto shop 101, so if we couldn't get that working Russ should fire us from our real jobs anyway. Fan and brake? My dog could figure that out. And yes, to answer your question we did get the starting and charging system working by the end of the night (could've been sooner if Russ would have given me a solenoid that wasn't broken!). We'll route the wires and mount the switches to the rollcage when it's in.

By the end of the night we had got quite a few things done. That list is getting shorter (and yes, it's written on the roof)!


This week we swear we're going to order the roll cage. Plus, if we're feeling really ambitious, we might order the fuel pump as well. Somebody (Russ) said they were going to take care of spray bombing the interior flat black, and Jeff is going to finish the work on the coils. Which reminds me, we need shocks. Or do we......
Well kids, that concludes another action packed update! Tune in next time to see if we get more work done than beer drank, and remember DON"T DRINK AND DRIVE!

Gut that pig

Our first day of work on the beast. Chris drug her home on a rollback earlier in the week. We were warned about the vermin that have setup shop in the interior, so he set off an insect bomb in the cab last night. Believe it or not it also got washed before we started.


So I get over to the Rat's Nest (what we are affectionately calling project headquarters) around noon and join Chris in dismantling anything that is not absolutely required to make this thing go. Seats? Gone. Carpet, headliner, trim? Toast. Dash, glass, A/C? Deep sixed. Engine? No, we'll keep that puny piece of crap for now. Three hours fly by and it's a far cry from it's showroom self. Now you can pick the rear end up by yourself and the whole car is raised up because it doesn't have enough weight to compress the springs. We're gettin' there but she needs a little bit more of that Weight Watcher's magic. What do you think all of this weighed?

Now there's plenty of room for us to weld the cage in and install the racing seat. We'll mount a few key gauges as well as the control panel switches to the firewall where the dash used to be. We need to drop the car down quite a bit to get the CG closer to the track so those springs have a date with the torch. Passenger door is getting welded closed. Believe it or not that parking brake actually works!

Wait a minute, does it even run??? Good question. Maybe we should have checked that before we gutted her. Did we mention that she hasn't run for over 5 years? Well let's find out. Turns over? Check. Oil pressure? Check. Spark? Check. FIRE IN THE HOLE!!! Flip the key and she fired right up! I kid you not. To be honest, she won't run on her own, you got to feed her gas from the top (fuel pump is shot), but that's still impressive. We're probably going to get rid of the stock fuel tank anyway in favor of a five gallon fuel cell and we may even replace the carb with a Holley unit too (Jeff's got one laying around his garage somewhere...). This dog's got a whole lotta fight in her. Checkered flag here we come!

It looks like we're going to drag her over to Russ's place this week (he's got a bigger garage for us to destroy). We'll complete the final weight reductions and then get started on the roll cage. We also have to see what we can do about getting the engine to run on it's own (small detail for a racecar).

Perhaps our biggest challenge though is to figure out the theme/paint scheme. Maybe we can get d-con to sponsor the car.....

The Beginning

Alright, so here's the deal: this blog is about our team's attempt to race the 24 hours of LeMons. Want info? See link. Lab Rats Motorsports (from here on called LRM) is comprised of a bunch of us broke Jacobsen employees (except the boss, he's loaded). Mike, Chris, Jeff, Jared and Russ, last names omitted to protect the not so innocent.

At this point our hopes of racing are on a waiting list. The application deadline for the April 4-5 race was January 24th. The 24th came and went only to have us not make the cut. Why you ask? Because the dipstick team captain (Mike) chose a an SUV for a racecar. Well it was free. You know how hard it is to convince the wife to let you drop $500 on a car that you're going to destroy? Free fit the budget perfect, just not the judges so well.

So we dropped the Cherokee and managed to find a clean, one owner '88 Dodge Colt. Actually not really, it's a POS (as if you were fooled by the photo). But we figure after we drag it out of the woods it will make a great starting point for our racecar! Strip that bad boy down to it's underpinnings, weld a full cage in her and put a nice big hood scoop to feed the beastly 68hp 4 banger engine. Ladies and gentlemen, we've got a contender!

Our biggest problem is our concept. How do make this crapbox stand out in a crowd? We're thinking maybe some interactive panels to display to the spectators just how fast their favorite car is going at that time. Of course there's always the paintjob. I think the ideas will start to ooze as the torches and welder's burn through the night. Or at least after a few beers....

We plan on building this car whether we make the April race or not. We're keeping our fingers crossed that enough people bail and we can slip into the race as a late entry. We're going to be ready. But hey, if all else fails there's always September.