Another Lemons build; Team Sauregurkenzeit!

[Henrygabs]

Hi FAQers. Welcome to the project blog together for Team Sauregurkenzeit's 2002 Lemons Race Car. We have been working on this for the past few months and its finally coming together just in time for the "There goes the neighborhood" race in Monticello NY.

Here's what we are working with:

Basically, the beauty of a 73 2002 was Carter's in high-school and college and has been stored in the barn for the past 4-5 years headed for the boneyard when Carter, myself and his dad started talking about 24 hours of lemons. I had run a few races out in the SF bay area and before we knew it a plan was hatched to resurrect the 2002 which still ran using the mountain of spares in the barn.

We have been working on it for about two months on weekends and for now we are keeping the plan as simple as possible with basic safety and tune-up related projects as opposed to go-fast parts. For those who don't know about lemons, we have to keep this thing under the 500$ total budget (excepting safety mods and brakes).

We gut the thing and have been patching rust holes (well kinda, we are definitely not pro) in the floor boards and in the trunk. A real welder is fabricating a cage right, now and I hear he has already fixed some of my shoddy welding. He will also be helping with the frame rail/rocker repair. Safety is definitely paramount here.

Engine: The engine is pretty much stock with a 32/36 Weber. It has electronic ignition. No frills, we just want to make it through this first race. Aside from a tune-up, including new fluids, plugs, wires, timing, valve adjustment (can't think of anything else right now) we would like to give it a little more low end by installing a sync-link and re-jetting the carb accordingly. We also need to replace the radiator, so we are looking for a radiator upgrade and electric pusher fan.

Brakes: We are going with the volvo calipers, vented rotors up front, probably with hawk hps pads, and 320i drums in the back with generic shoes. Still trying to source a tii or 530 master cylinder and some braided brake lines.

Suspension: Its sitting on stock springs with bilstien's up front (HDs) and one blistien and one KYB in the back. We also have a 22mm front and 19mm rear sway bar. For now, since most of our budget is going to the cage, we are thinking of just cutting 1.5 coils all around to lower the car a bit and find two matching shocks for the rear. I don't think this small drop will necessitate bump steer spacers. I'm hoping it adds a little bit of negative camber up front and stiffens it up a bit too, probably minimal but it all helps. In my searching I came across another lemons build where the stock front shock mounting plate was relocated inwards by drilling additional holes in the shock tower for more negative camber, but I am not sure we want to start drilling holes in the shock towers yet.

Otherwise, we are going to have to go through all the steering/suspension components, bushings and all so this thing is not a squirrely trap.

As you can tell, we are half informed and half by the seat of our pants, but hey, that's lemons, hope everything goes to plan. Chime in if you have any suggestions and I will keep this thing updated as we go.

-Hank

[M3M3]

another 2002 heading for monticello!

look out Grice, Mark, Eric and Kevin....;-)

[bam2002]

Download the Chumpcar rules also, if you can build the car for both series you will be ahead of the game

We started doing Lemons 5 years ago with an E30 and have only done Chump the last 3 years. Mainly because we are in FL and Chump is the only one doing races in the south.

We ran a Lemons in Tx and there were 3 02s there. One did very well, mainly because they lightened it like crazy.

you will want more power and better brakes. So also you may want to do a M20 swap in the future.

Enjoy

[kaptanoglu]

Ditto on building for Chump as well. I was part of a team that ran a number of their races, and they are a bit more "racey" and less "circusy" than Lemons (both a ton of fun, but different strokes...).

Regarding your cage, unless all of your drivers are 4'6", I would be very concerned with how low the cage is mounted. You will be way ahead if you have it fit tight to the roofline and up against the A-pillars.

Good luck.

J

[williamggruff]

Jynweythek Engineering looks forward to seeing you at Monticello. We've entered our POS tii for our 6th (?) Lemons event. Our motor is currently non-op, but in our usual fashion, we're not going to worry about little details until closer to race time.

[M3M3]

Regarding your cage, unless all of your drivers are 4'6", I would be very concerned with how low the cage is mounted. You will be way ahead if you have it fit tight to the roofline and up against the A-pillars.

Good luck.

J

i trust you are joking...;-)

that is how to build a cage. tack it all together up against the roof, lower it through holes in floor to get the welds on top, raise it back up to roof and weld floor plates under the tubes.

y'all have the right approach. just get the thing safe and running solidly first. worry about making it go faster after you have successfully finished a race.

[dlmrun2002]

DANG !!! I got to get up to Monticello. It's almost in my backyard. Is Grice still wearing flip flops?

How long does the Lemons run?

dlm ny country

[williamggruff]

DANG !!! I got to get up to Monticello. It's almost in my backyard. Is Grice still wearing flip flops?

How long does the Lemons run?

dlm ny country

Might be a bit cold for flip flops, but as always, I'll be sporting inappropriate footwear.

Monticello Schedule:

Friday, 5 April

7am: Gates open

9am-5pm: Monticello sanctioned test day (One hour lunch break at noon)

Noon-5pm: Mandatory Tech Inspection.

Saturday, 6 April

7am: Gates open

9am: Mandatory drivers' meeting

10am-5pm: Race Session I

Sunday, 7 April

8:15am: Mandatory drivers' meeting

9:30am-5pm: Race Session II

5pm: Checkered Flag

5:30pm: Awards Ceremony

7pm Gates close

[Henrygabs]

Thanks all for the tips. Looks like we are ok for chumps too, except for maybe the kill switch. Honestly when I was writing the original post I submitted it and thought it didn't go through so I was surprised to stumble across a thread I started and thought I didn't submit... Hah.

Well as a quick update with more to follow after this weekend, the cage is in, and no it was not a midget cage! Haha. it was dropped through holes in the floor so main hoop could be welded more easily. Everything is coming along really well.

We Have gone through a lot of the car and swapping anything that needed replacing from a nice stash of spares. Wired the kill switch, a couple other manual switches for the fan and fuel pump. we also swaped the diff and tranny to more fresh feeling ones (ie ones that were laying around in marginally better condition). we also have a big break kit installed with Volvo calipers up front 320 drums and new hard lines and waiting on a 530 mc to round it all out. There are plenty more little clean ups and odds and ends too like new hard fuel lines...

Fired it up last weekend and it was a pretty sweet moment. Wasn't blowing smoke and ran quite well considering it was sitting for a while. So we decided to celebrate by shooting a few clay pigeons and then started tearing down a spare engine that was in the stash. Surprisingly the motor had piano tops and a 121ti head. They are the lower compression pianos but I thought that doesn't mix... and the head and pistons don't look modified so I am trying to figure out what the deal was with that set up.

Apparently the engine ran great and then slowly lost power. If there was piston head interference i would think the ish would have hit the fan a lot faster than a slow decline in power. What we did find were pretty fresh looking bores, no junk in the oil pan, pretty clean inside block, but a tiny little bolt looking thing in the water pump that chewed it up pretty good.

Damn, thats a close up... next time i will resize the images... Since it had a 121 ti head, We were hoping to use the bottom end for an emergency spare along with a recently rebuilt shaved 121 with a isky cam (around 300 degree) but from what I understood that won't work with the piano tops. Perhaps we can make it work or better yet swap the cam and components into one of a couple spare e12 heads on hand. Yeah, Easier said than done. Hard to build a solid head on a lemons budget. Ultimately might be better to rebuild a block using some bathtubs, which i think would net higher compression... possibly better than messing with a decent head. Eh, lots to think about.

Anyways, to conclude todays rablings, on the schedule for this weekend is the new rad install, electric fan, new guibo, sync link for the weber, plumb a pressure regulator, hopefully get the exhaust all sorted and do more general tune up type stuff. I will post pics and all after the weekend! It's all about the pics!

As for others heading to Monticello in April, I look forward to meeting. Lets hope we can take full advantage of the race days and not be messing around with mechanical failures... and then celebrate, team Das Boot will bring Das Boot...

-H

[Henrygabs]

Jynweythek Engineering looks forward to seeing you at Monticello. We've entered our POS tii for our 6th (?) Lemons event. Our motor is currently non-op, but in our usual fashion, we're not going to worry about little details until closer to race time.

Not sure if posters are notified of replies, but trying anyways... "williamggruff" did you get that motor operational yet!? Times a ticking!

Our build came together last week, and the first blast around town by my buddy sounded positive! I'm trying to look into figuring out how we can more thoroughly test this thing before Friday. It would be great if it could be temporarily registered and I could just flog it on the way to work and back which is like an hour+drive. Not sure how to do that...

For any FAQ'rs racing this weekend, I guess Monticello is limiting paddock space, so i wanted to float the idea of combining paddock space if interested.

I originally lined up an RV because that's what we did when racing on the west coast, but the space limits has kinda killed that idea... oh well. It would have been great to have a place to relax/change during the day and sleep at night. Anyways, our plan is to head up early Friday, set up and now camp out at night. Better bring warm clothes a good sleeping bag and hope the rain stays away.

-H

And now for some pics!

-H

on way to get rockers and frame rail fixed

Hope they dont think this is a nerf bar! Its just some tube bent and bolted to the frame to replace the bumper.

Hope nascar style roof number is ok...

[DriftDisciple]

I have a buddy that just told me about the whole lemons thing and i gotta say it sounds fun and your cars looking pretty good to. Good luck to ya

[Henrygabs]

Thanks for the support!

Update:

I took it for a hot lap around some twisty backroads and it was a blast. The 32/36 with the Sync link delivers some good power upgrade from progressive. The stiffer sway bars make it nice an flat around the corners. I could tell we are not running an LSD because I get some wheel spin around some tight corners. Hope that's not too much of a pain around the track... I really want some added camber but hey, cant have everything. Hopefully the new sticky tires that we just put on will improve grip.

The steering had a little play, and it looked like it was inside the box and not in the steering linkage so we tightened that up just a bit and I think its better.

Lots of fingers crossed for test day and race is this weekend!! This car went from sitting in the barn to solid shape with a TON of work to get it there, especially Carter. But, he happily worked on it and is psyched his beloved 02 lives on in a much more bad-ass world than the street.

I hope to god we pass tech without some bs. We read the rules over and over and I guess the one thing I hope they don't bitch about is our rocker/sub-frame rail repair. They were seriously rotten and we cut a lot of it out and did some major reinforcement (well our buddy who is a master welder) with thick steel and box beams. I am certain that it is very sturdy and stiff as hell, I just hope they don't have some reason to object to it.

You can see frame rail in center and rocker reinforcement beam welded in at the top of the picture.

Few last things to adjust, like timing, re-bleed the brakes, install the convex mirror and hopefully successfully shake this thing out on test day Friday.

Oh yeah we have some more graphics work to do. We are painting the Das Boot sawfish on the sides and hood. Time permitting we will piece together a pickle cannon (i.e. spud gun for shooting pickles) that we hope to mount to the trunk like a submarine deck gun (at least for tech inspection). In my first post I mentioned that team name is "Sauregurkenzeit" which is a not well known saying that translates to crazy time or silly time... so i think the pickle cannon would be sweet. Not so sure we are going to be firing the bad boy at uptight monticello but maybe an unsanctioned demonstration is in order.

And there will be a few more graphics here and there to complete the Das Boot theme. I am also looking for some officers caps to complete our submariner theme for tech inspection. This things coming together!

And now for some more pics...

Throws a little long and seat a little too far back for my liking, but the position works fine and is close enough to seatback bar to pass tech (the main hoop is pretty far back and we dont have a solid seatback brace).

Carter admiring his handy-work!

Finally warm and sunshine in CT!

Next post should be after the race, fingers crossed the car does not give us any surprises and we can take full advantage of our hard work and race all weekend long.

-H

[Kebby]

Hallo Sauregurkenzeit:

Vee are dee European dent crisis team from NY jah. Vee vould like to zee you in der paddock nein? http://europeandentcrisis.tumblr.com/

Das boot est gut, das loot too!

Jawohl?

Kebby

k_evino3 at y a h oo

[Henrygabs]

Sehr gut. See you this weekend! I noticed the bumper mounts on your car will punish anyone you hit... scary, death race style.

More das boot paint... Hell yeah!!

[williamggruff]

Jynweythek Engineering looks forward to seeing you at Monticello. We've entered our POS tii for our 6th (?) Lemons event. Our motor is currently non-op, but in our usual fashion, we're not going to worry about little details until closer to race time.

Not sure if posters are notified of replies, but trying anyways... "williamggruff" did you get that motor operational yet!? Times a ticking!

Your build looks great! Far better than our two-year effort with our tii. Well, maybe that's not so fair to our team. Our tii was driven 367k miles and over 300 rallies by the original owner, then spent 10 years rusting in a field. Our team's captain had to fabricate a new driver's side frame rail, as the original was completely gone due to rust and a head-on collision suffered by the original owner. We repaired the Swiss cheese rockers, replaced the entire floor, patched up what little metal remained in the rear shock towers, removed and completely replaced the trunk floor and support structures, and are still running the original Kfish, along with the replacement motor that the original owner installed about 200k miles ago.

We got the motor running last night. We consider this to be way ahead of schedule. We've been struggling with some electrical demons, and will hopefully have those sorted out by race time.

We look forward to meeting your team at Monticello.

Cheers,

Grice