Never started a decent thread here, and I doubt this will be one but it's an attempt. My dad and I got into 24 hours of lemons / chump racing about 6 years ago in a strange set of events involving a crazy alcoholic friend of mine and another buddy who worked a scrap yard and a 90s 7 series BMW automatic. We showed up thinking it was going to be people racing actual $500 cars, to the extent that instead of replacing tie rod ends we poured melted lead into them to tighten them up. We broke an engine mount in that first race and jacked the engine up and stuck a 2x4 across the frame to hold it in place. This threw off the angle of the drive shaft, ultimately catapulting it into the drivers leg (no real injury just a bruise). That car got scrapped and we bought a first generation MR2, which was fun but has a 10 gallon fuel tank. In 2012 we bought our probe, which has been a lot of fun.
https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...1a&oe=56EA8FBF
We are probably the worst group of mechanics ever to attempt an automobile race, so the endeavor has been without any form of victory beyond the time we only brought one set of tires and we raced so long they burned up and we had to put the car on jack stands and drive into town with the rims to get a new set of tires put on. On a Sunday in Texas, which means someone had to leave church to come help us.
All that said, we're finally maybe getting closer to an actually decent car. We took the probe to Barber in February of 2015 and after about 2 hours of racing we had a huge billow of black smoke come out of the exhaust and found a ton of oil in the intake in the pit. We cried a little and decided to trailer it home with pretty poor compression. I finally got around to pulling the engine apart.
Gonna figure out how to imbed pictures and then i'll keep it goin.
Ok still can't figure out how to embed photos but i'll get that squared away. Have lots of pictures of an engine in pieces and a burnt up piston. You'll see them later.
So to list the failures we have had with the probe thus far: 1) We raced at Texas Motor Speedway, which is a NASCAR track. I can't believe they let us on there, but the layout was a full oval and the into the infield. Needless to say this annihilated our brakes. So bad that at one point while i was driving the pedal just hit the floor and I was lucky to only smash through cones instead of a wall. We upgraded the brakes and vented them pretty well and haven't had a problem since.
We had a wheel bearing give way and the entire front right spindle sheer off, the wheel was hanging on by brake lines. That was fun. I'll add more failures as I think of them, we've had plenty.
Plans going forward: We found a set of JIC Magic (maybe the right name) coilovers for a protege? here on probetalk. They aren't installed yet but they look sick and I'm sure the spring rate on the front is super wrong. The are massively cheating but they were a great deal and ultimately less than buying new shocks so whatever. We ordered a big 2 core Howe Racing radiator and a low temp thermostat and we're in the process of rebuilding our "ZE", who knows if its actually a ZE.
Alright so the engine is in pieces. http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/p...pskoaefjmu.jpg
Appears that the numero 1 piston burnt: http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/p...psdtzkpxjb.jpg which is why we had so much blow by / bad compression. The piston scored the cylinder wall decently: http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/p...psrk4jalnj.jpg
[To be continued]
https://scontent-dfw1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...1a&oe=56EA8FBF
We are probably the worst group of mechanics ever to attempt an automobile race, so the endeavor has been without any form of victory beyond the time we only brought one set of tires and we raced so long they burned up and we had to put the car on jack stands and drive into town with the rims to get a new set of tires put on. On a Sunday in Texas, which means someone had to leave church to come help us.
All that said, we're finally maybe getting closer to an actually decent car. We took the probe to Barber in February of 2015 and after about 2 hours of racing we had a huge billow of black smoke come out of the exhaust and found a ton of oil in the intake in the pit. We cried a little and decided to trailer it home with pretty poor compression. I finally got around to pulling the engine apart.
Gonna figure out how to imbed pictures and then i'll keep it goin.
Ok still can't figure out how to embed photos but i'll get that squared away. Have lots of pictures of an engine in pieces and a burnt up piston. You'll see them later.
So to list the failures we have had with the probe thus far: 1) We raced at Texas Motor Speedway, which is a NASCAR track. I can't believe they let us on there, but the layout was a full oval and the into the infield. Needless to say this annihilated our brakes. So bad that at one point while i was driving the pedal just hit the floor and I was lucky to only smash through cones instead of a wall. We upgraded the brakes and vented them pretty well and haven't had a problem since.
We had a wheel bearing give way and the entire front right spindle sheer off, the wheel was hanging on by brake lines. That was fun. I'll add more failures as I think of them, we've had plenty.
Plans going forward: We found a set of JIC Magic (maybe the right name) coilovers for a protege? here on probetalk. They aren't installed yet but they look sick and I'm sure the spring rate on the front is super wrong. The are massively cheating but they were a great deal and ultimately less than buying new shocks so whatever. We ordered a big 2 core Howe Racing radiator and a low temp thermostat and we're in the process of rebuilding our "ZE", who knows if its actually a ZE.
Alright so the engine is in pieces. http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/p...pskoaefjmu.jpg
Appears that the numero 1 piston burnt: http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/p...psdtzkpxjb.jpg which is why we had so much blow by / bad compression. The piston scored the cylinder wall decently: http://i411.photobucket.com/albums/p...psrk4jalnj.jpg
[To be continued]
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