"Decay buys too many beaters" (decay)
02/14/2018 at 01:31 • Filed to: because racecar, Decay's Beaters, Mustang
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"Decay buys too many beaters" (decay)
02/14/2018 at 01:31 • Filed to: because racecar, Decay's Beaters, Mustang | 11
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Around this time last year one of my coworkers approached me and asked if I’d be interested in starting up a Lemons team. Within a few weeks we’d rounded up about three more and set about trying to find a car. We all had different requirements, some wanted reliability, easy to find spares, robust aftermarket support. Others wanted to do something different and obscure. Myself, I told them I’d quit if we ended up with a FWD racecar. Due to one of our team mates having ethical issues with simply lying about the value of the car, the only thing we could find that met most of our criteria was this SN95 Mustang
Truly a pile, but it ran and drove, so we proceeded to strip it, cage it and get it ready for it’s first race. Sticking to the $500 rule to a T, we did not have anything left for upgrades, and due to time constraints we showed up to our first race with an entirely untested Delorean themed sn95
It was during check in where my teammates realized just how loose the “spending cap” was (one of the other cars was a pristine C3 Corvette). We got about an hour in to the race before the car came back in, knocking loudly with the temp gauge pegged. Turns out, the headgaskets in our 25 year old motor just couldn’t hold themselves together racing. We ended up blowing out the coolant passage holes in 5/6 cylinders. Not having the tools or parts needed to do a headgasket job on site, and expecting that the heat from that first session had warped a few things, we decided to keep on sending it out until it died.
The above video was taken on a hot day with a hot engine. I have honestly never seen a head gasket go so badly, but it still ran so we decided to keep racing. We found that we could get about 5 hot laps in before the coolant gauge sat wholly buried in the red, on the 6th lap the bottom end would start knocking pretty bad and we’d bring it in. After about 25 minutes we could pour in more water and repeat the whole thing. At the end of the day we decided to leave it out and see how long it could go. Turns out about 8 laps before it started to lose noticeable power. The engine finally seized in the pits after that session and we decided to call it for the race and build something better for the next one.
Missing from the above video, the sizzling sound of oil boiling inside the block.
We had a talk over dinner and decided to double down on the platform, A couple weeks later we’d bought this
Well, this post is already a little longer than I intended for it to be. Tune in next time to read about how we swapped in a 302 that we didn’t know had low oil pressure until a week before the next race.
AestheticsInMotion
> Decay buys too many beaters
02/14/2018 at 02:39 |
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Where does one find friends like this
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Decay buys too many beaters
> AestheticsInMotion
02/14/2018 at 02:53 |
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Oregon!
But in all seriousness, I was surprised we found enough people at my company willing to take the leap, both from a time and monetary commitment.
E92M3
> AestheticsInMotion
02/14/2018 at 06:11 |
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Tell me about it! Most of my friends are car guys. Some I’ve been friends with for 2 decades now. I’ve tried to talk them into starting a Lemons team multiple times, but they are all too cheap.
Urambo Tauro
> Decay buys too many beaters
02/14/2018 at 08:56 |
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Oh man, as soon as I saw that Craigslist pic, I just knew it was gonna be headgaskets.
Dat Cobra, tho!
CobraJoe
> E92M3
02/14/2018 at 09:18 |
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The Gambler 500 is far cheaper than a Lemons race. I got my friend to go along with me (he is cheap, but a huge car guy like me), and my brother, my dad, and my brother’s friends to come along too.
It’s not racing, but my local Nebraska Gambler was still a damn fun time.
Future next gen S2000 owner
> Decay buys too many beaters
02/14/2018 at 09:22 |
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Can’t you buy a car above the 500 limit, strip parts, sell them, and deduct the price from the cost of the car? Or did I not read the rules correctly?
I’ve had several similar conversations with some people around the office. We never seem to get enough steam to make a serious effort.
I’ve read that with all the safety gear, a person on a team of 4 is still into it about $2500, is that an accurate number?
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Decay buys too many beaters
> Future next gen S2000 owner
02/14/2018 at 09:39 |
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You can sell all parts, yes. This is where people usually hide the majority of the extra money spent. We tried to sell some stuff, but never really got any bites.
I think $2000 - $2500 is pretty accurate for a team of 4. But keep in mind, a lot of that is non recurring.
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Decay buys too many beaters
> Urambo Tauro
02/14/2018 at 09:42 |
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I was insistent that we do a track day for a shake down, but we didn’t have the car ready in time.
And yep :) ended up doing the full cobra swap into our chassis.
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Urambo Tauro
> Decay buys too many beaters
02/14/2018 at 09:55 |
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Does a “full Cobra swap” include swapping out the axle for an 8.8? I hope so...
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Decay buys too many beaters
> Urambo Tauro
02/14/2018 at 10:44 |
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Sort of? It’s a 94 Cobra, so has an 8.8 LSD diff on a live axle. It’s not a Terminator, so no fancy independent rear suspension.
BTW racing a live axle car is a gigglefest.
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Urambo Tauro
> Decay buys too many beaters
02/14/2018 at 10:51 |
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Oh, I’m not worried about IRS. I’m just concerned about a 7.5 diff having to stand up to the power of a V8 like that.
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Decay buys too many beaters
> Urambo Tauro
02/14/2018 at 10:55 |
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It’s stronger than you think... We ran the second race with just a motor swap and everything else V6. That cute little 7.5 took 4 hours of me clutch kicking 3 corners every lap to get the car pointed in the direction I wanted. :P