After a two year hiatus, Eric Gemme and I decided to attempt to get our 24 Hours of Lemons car back in to running order. 24 Hours Of Lemons (a play on the 24 hours of Le Mans, a famous endurance race) is a race where you are only allowed to spend $500 on your car...total. This excludes safety equipment (roll cage, harness), but everything else counts towards the value of the car. Our previous two attempts didn't go very well: 2010 it took us 30 minutes until we blew the engine, and 2011 we got ~5 hours run time due to problems and black flags. Even so, our 1986 Nissa 300zx made it to take the checkered in 2011, a significant milestone for us.
Two years later, Eric and I decided to make another attempt with two new team members, Rob and Rob Greig. Yes, they are cousins named Rob Greig. They quickly became "Senior" and "Junior".
The resurrection was potentially going to be a large undertaking, as our car didn't run incredibly well two years ago when we put it......in a field....and forgot to put antifreeze in it (instead of water). We knew that the water had frozen the first winter, but we didn't know how badly it had hurt the block (you can easily crack the engine block, ruining it, by letting water freeze in it). We towed the car to my garage, put it on the lift (so. awesome.) and started to check out the damage. Turns out that the aptly named "freeze plugs" had saved us! One had popped out, emptied the engine of water, and saved us! We replaced the plug, filled it up, and the car held coolant. We removed all of the emissions equipment at the same time, hoping it would help with the idle (it previously didn't).
When we buttoned everything back up it took some coaxing to start, but it started! As the engine warmed up (this was the middle of winter) it ran better and better, to the point that it seemed....normal! We rejoiced.
Wanting to make sure the car was more reliable, we replaced the rear axles, secured the gas tank, replaced the rear brake line, replaced the gas filler line, replaced the front struts, built a duct for the radiator, and generally cleaned the car up. Having tested compression and found it was low in three cylinders, we even bought a new engine as a replacement.
May 10th we headed out to the race! (Trailer thanks to Caroline's Grandpa John)
Our car had a "Bacon" theme to it (all cars are required to have a theme). If you squint, you can kind of see it.
At the race, the first day (practice) went....almost too well! Everyone got race time and we felt pretty good about the car.
Race day came and so did the rain. After lining up, Eric took the first stint. He drove very well and managed to get no black flags (our #1 goal)!
However, out black flag luck ended there. Rob Sr. got a black flag, I got a black flag, and Rob Jr. got a black flag, all for relatively minor infractions. Five black flags and we basically have to stop for the day. We "toned it down" and managed to only get two more black flags for the rest of the day, one of which we were able to "buy off" by donating to charity.
Just before the end of the first day our clutch disintegrated. We managed to find parts, get the car up, and replace all of it. We also replaced our rear differential with a limited slip one (we had lots of inside wheel spin). We managed to get a whopping 3 hours of sleep after finishing everything. All in all, we only missed and hour and 20 minutes of race time due to the problem! Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of this. I did find a decent picture of us in full race mode (including a bashed in door) from a race gallery:
You can see more pictures of the race here: http://www.murileemartin.com/UG/LNHS13/LNHS13.html
After two days of racing, we had completed the most number of laps ever for our team. We had the clutch problem, and a leaky radiator (another lost hour), but we ended up driving for most of the 14.5 hour long race, a huge win for us. Finishing 50th (out of 87) wasn't awesome, but it wasn't too shabby either. We'll be racing again in August and September, so look for more updates then!
Race footage from the car:
Data Analysis - Coming soon!
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| 2010 LeMons - the best the car ever looked |
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| The 2011 24 Hours of Lemons Team. From Left: David, Eric, Dan, Ryan, and Greg |
The resurrection was potentially going to be a large undertaking, as our car didn't run incredibly well two years ago when we put it......in a field....and forgot to put antifreeze in it (instead of water). We knew that the water had frozen the first winter, but we didn't know how badly it had hurt the block (you can easily crack the engine block, ruining it, by letting water freeze in it). We towed the car to my garage, put it on the lift (so. awesome.) and started to check out the damage. Turns out that the aptly named "freeze plugs" had saved us! One had popped out, emptied the engine of water, and saved us! We replaced the plug, filled it up, and the car held coolant. We removed all of the emissions equipment at the same time, hoping it would help with the idle (it previously didn't).
When we buttoned everything back up it took some coaxing to start, but it started! As the engine warmed up (this was the middle of winter) it ran better and better, to the point that it seemed....normal! We rejoiced.
Wanting to make sure the car was more reliable, we replaced the rear axles, secured the gas tank, replaced the rear brake line, replaced the gas filler line, replaced the front struts, built a duct for the radiator, and generally cleaned the car up. Having tested compression and found it was low in three cylinders, we even bought a new engine as a replacement.
May 10th we headed out to the race! (Trailer thanks to Caroline's Grandpa John)
Our car had a "Bacon" theme to it (all cars are required to have a theme). If you squint, you can kind of see it.
At the race, the first day (practice) went....almost too well! Everyone got race time and we felt pretty good about the car.
Race day came and so did the rain. After lining up, Eric took the first stint. He drove very well and managed to get no black flags (our #1 goal)!
However, out black flag luck ended there. Rob Sr. got a black flag, I got a black flag, and Rob Jr. got a black flag, all for relatively minor infractions. Five black flags and we basically have to stop for the day. We "toned it down" and managed to only get two more black flags for the rest of the day, one of which we were able to "buy off" by donating to charity.
Just before the end of the first day our clutch disintegrated. We managed to find parts, get the car up, and replace all of it. We also replaced our rear differential with a limited slip one (we had lots of inside wheel spin). We managed to get a whopping 3 hours of sleep after finishing everything. All in all, we only missed and hour and 20 minutes of race time due to the problem! Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of this. I did find a decent picture of us in full race mode (including a bashed in door) from a race gallery:
You can see more pictures of the race here: http://www.murileemartin.com/UG/LNHS13/LNHS13.html
After two days of racing, we had completed the most number of laps ever for our team. We had the clutch problem, and a leaky radiator (another lost hour), but we ended up driving for most of the 14.5 hour long race, a huge win for us. Finishing 50th (out of 87) wasn't awesome, but it wasn't too shabby either. We'll be racing again in August and September, so look for more updates then!
Race footage from the car:
Data Analysis - Coming soon!
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