Crab Spirits
Member
I'm copy/pasting from other forums, so I apologize in advance for telling you things you probly already know and referencing mysterious people.
Yeah, I'm gonna do Lemons. Why?
1.It's gonna be at a sick track that's nearby. (I have no clue how they managed to get Autobahn C.C.)
2.As long as we don't get ***** with penalties like the DA guys, it should be a lot of nice track time.
3.I've always wanted an excuse to build this car.
So I searched CL for a couple weeks for the donor car, a Taurus SHO. If you're wondering why, search for what the powerband looks like for the Yamaha V6. A used Taurus must be the most worthless car on the planet. You can find a pretty nice one for $600. Anyway, we drove out to BFE Wisconsin and found this thing for $300. It's a 93' 5spd with 160k miles. Ran really good on 2 year old gas. Had the highly desirable black leather interior, but no brakes and the clutch wouldn't disengage.
Ford won the "deconstructor's championship" last year for all the SHO carnage. Honestly, I think it's just a matter of how much these things weigh that causes the engines and transaxles to explode with alarming frequency. I figured taking all the SHO powertrain, brakes, suspension out and shoving them into the lightest thing I could find= Fake race car. Do you know how hard it is to find a sub-$500 Geo Metro in Chicagoland? Got lucky and saw this 94' 5spd for $200. When we told the kid what we planned to do with it, he only wanted $150 for it. I couldn't stop laughing when we picked it up.
The mods done by the previous owner are extensive.
-Neon
-Rad wing
-Lowered by way of spring clamps
-Motorbike muffler
-Functional ramair (with neon inside)
-Tach
-Random 1ga cables everywhere
-Roof reinforced (for the sub of course)
So to recap, I'm going to put this...
....in here.
Started taking apart the goods to see how badly our $500 budget is going to get shot to ****. Found out what happened to the "800 mile old" clutch.
For some reason, Ford designed the throwout fork pivot with these plastic bushings. The lower one is supported by a small ribbed section of the trans case (you can see it in the shadow). It causes the bushing to wear all stupid like this.
That makes the throwout bearing ride all ***, and this results.
Then this happens.
My free solution was to swap the upper and lower bushings since the upper one is fully supported in the case. As for the clutch, I managed to find a slightly used one in exchange for a door. Picking a Lemons car with cult status and the resultant community helps out a ton!
While I had the transaxle pulled, I took the opportunity to resolve a major problem with the diff during track use. Apparently, the roll pins securing the spider gear pins fail, then your pins fly out, and make the trans explode like a bomb. The solution is this...
For those interested in following our budget status, I made a Google docs spreadsheet. It is located here...
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AjSnV70VW6K8dHd4aGZXRTlMbVhOVjkwQUlfdzFQUlE&hl=en
So we've only spent $203 of the budget without selling any geo stuff. We should have plenty for the ADDITIONAL taurus K-member and suspension/steering that I want to put in the front of the car, as well as all the tune-up stuff I need.
I'm now realizing how much slower a build goes with no budget. But moving right along...
Our free clutch came in. Looked like new. Came with a new throwout bearing. It seemed to go on a little loose so I assumed it was the "revision B" setup that comes with a steel sleeve that goes over the quill on the trans. So hunt ******* everywhere for this sleeve and turn up nothing. Went to carquest to get a very scarce TOB kit with the sleeve. The whole time thinking about how I could take the sleeve out and return it (you gotta do what you gotta do). When I got there it became apparent that I wasn't the only one with that frame of mind, because the box that showed up at the counter contained no bearing and 2 sleeves. After giving the clerk my tale of woe, he just hands me one of the sleeves. Score. So it's day5 on the superbudget clutch job and I realize that my TOB fits nothing I have. In fact, it's for a mustang. Hmmm, the inside of the bearing is plastic...
I look at press.
I look at the steel sleeve that just barely doesn't fit inside.
I look at blowtorch.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "revision C".
I've since taken the time to strip the drivetrain down to the bare essentials. Replace a LCA that only cost me a trade for parts +$16 shipping. Rerouted/deleted some cooling system. Removed the power steering and threw it away. This left me with only the problematic alternator, supposedly the only reason this engine doesn't have a 8500rpm redline from the factory. The bearings in it sounded rough to begin with, so I dissassembled it, pulled the shields off the bearings, cleaned, and put new grease. Then what I did was swap the alt over to the left side of the motor to the ps pump position and use it's belt combined with a crude belt tension adjuster. This accomplished a few things.
-Down to only 1 accessory belt.
-Removed both belt tensioners.
-Alt is now underdriven @2000rpm at redline.
With all the time it took to install the clutch, we started on the important stuff. Making it look cool. It begins with skinning a junk industrial refer unit, complete with rotten cheese smells. Must harvest that precious sheetmetal.
Found this old fencepost in the front yard. Should work well as fender reinforcement for the impending contact during the race.
A local Scion guy game me a broken aero bumper for my bB last spring. I fiberglassed it back together, put it on my box, then promptly smashed it to pieces on my driveway. For some reason, I kept the damn thing and now here it is sectioned and respliced for everyone to enjoy.
Time to get serious.
Eric has trouble following the blueprints.
Team photo.
Almost there.
Don't worry. Dat wing is still on there. Moved it to the hatch where it belongs.
We needed our cage to come in before we begin to hack this car apart and install the SHO stuff. So the busy work continues. I realized I had this sitting around in my garage for a few years. It's the original GG purple custom mix, before Simba changed his mind and went HOK violet purple.
It's a little darker than a GG car, but damn close. Yes, it's purple. For some reason it looks blue here. Just had a gallon of basecoat, so no gloss. Probly better that way.
Yeah, I'm gonna do Lemons. Why?
1.It's gonna be at a sick track that's nearby. (I have no clue how they managed to get Autobahn C.C.)
2.As long as we don't get ***** with penalties like the DA guys, it should be a lot of nice track time.
3.I've always wanted an excuse to build this car.
So I searched CL for a couple weeks for the donor car, a Taurus SHO. If you're wondering why, search for what the powerband looks like for the Yamaha V6. A used Taurus must be the most worthless car on the planet. You can find a pretty nice one for $600. Anyway, we drove out to BFE Wisconsin and found this thing for $300. It's a 93' 5spd with 160k miles. Ran really good on 2 year old gas. Had the highly desirable black leather interior, but no brakes and the clutch wouldn't disengage.
Ford won the "deconstructor's championship" last year for all the SHO carnage. Honestly, I think it's just a matter of how much these things weigh that causes the engines and transaxles to explode with alarming frequency. I figured taking all the SHO powertrain, brakes, suspension out and shoving them into the lightest thing I could find= Fake race car. Do you know how hard it is to find a sub-$500 Geo Metro in Chicagoland? Got lucky and saw this 94' 5spd for $200. When we told the kid what we planned to do with it, he only wanted $150 for it. I couldn't stop laughing when we picked it up.
The mods done by the previous owner are extensive.
-Neon
-Rad wing
-Lowered by way of spring clamps
-Motorbike muffler
-Functional ramair (with neon inside)
-Tach
-Random 1ga cables everywhere
-Roof reinforced (for the sub of course)
So to recap, I'm going to put this...
....in here.
Started taking apart the goods to see how badly our $500 budget is going to get shot to ****. Found out what happened to the "800 mile old" clutch.
For some reason, Ford designed the throwout fork pivot with these plastic bushings. The lower one is supported by a small ribbed section of the trans case (you can see it in the shadow). It causes the bushing to wear all stupid like this.
That makes the throwout bearing ride all ***, and this results.
Then this happens.
My free solution was to swap the upper and lower bushings since the upper one is fully supported in the case. As for the clutch, I managed to find a slightly used one in exchange for a door. Picking a Lemons car with cult status and the resultant community helps out a ton!
While I had the transaxle pulled, I took the opportunity to resolve a major problem with the diff during track use. Apparently, the roll pins securing the spider gear pins fail, then your pins fly out, and make the trans explode like a bomb. The solution is this...
For those interested in following our budget status, I made a Google docs spreadsheet. It is located here...
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AjSnV70VW6K8dHd4aGZXRTlMbVhOVjkwQUlfdzFQUlE&hl=en
So we've only spent $203 of the budget without selling any geo stuff. We should have plenty for the ADDITIONAL taurus K-member and suspension/steering that I want to put in the front of the car, as well as all the tune-up stuff I need.
I'm now realizing how much slower a build goes with no budget. But moving right along...
Our free clutch came in. Looked like new. Came with a new throwout bearing. It seemed to go on a little loose so I assumed it was the "revision B" setup that comes with a steel sleeve that goes over the quill on the trans. So hunt ******* everywhere for this sleeve and turn up nothing. Went to carquest to get a very scarce TOB kit with the sleeve. The whole time thinking about how I could take the sleeve out and return it (you gotta do what you gotta do). When I got there it became apparent that I wasn't the only one with that frame of mind, because the box that showed up at the counter contained no bearing and 2 sleeves. After giving the clerk my tale of woe, he just hands me one of the sleeves. Score. So it's day5 on the superbudget clutch job and I realize that my TOB fits nothing I have. In fact, it's for a mustang. Hmmm, the inside of the bearing is plastic...
I look at press.
I look at the steel sleeve that just barely doesn't fit inside.
I look at blowtorch.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you "revision C".
I've since taken the time to strip the drivetrain down to the bare essentials. Replace a LCA that only cost me a trade for parts +$16 shipping. Rerouted/deleted some cooling system. Removed the power steering and threw it away. This left me with only the problematic alternator, supposedly the only reason this engine doesn't have a 8500rpm redline from the factory. The bearings in it sounded rough to begin with, so I dissassembled it, pulled the shields off the bearings, cleaned, and put new grease. Then what I did was swap the alt over to the left side of the motor to the ps pump position and use it's belt combined with a crude belt tension adjuster. This accomplished a few things.
-Down to only 1 accessory belt.
-Removed both belt tensioners.
-Alt is now underdriven @2000rpm at redline.
With all the time it took to install the clutch, we started on the important stuff. Making it look cool. It begins with skinning a junk industrial refer unit, complete with rotten cheese smells. Must harvest that precious sheetmetal.
Found this old fencepost in the front yard. Should work well as fender reinforcement for the impending contact during the race.
A local Scion guy game me a broken aero bumper for my bB last spring. I fiberglassed it back together, put it on my box, then promptly smashed it to pieces on my driveway. For some reason, I kept the damn thing and now here it is sectioned and respliced for everyone to enjoy.
Time to get serious.
Eric has trouble following the blueprints.
Team photo.
Almost there.
Don't worry. Dat wing is still on there. Moved it to the hatch where it belongs.
We needed our cage to come in before we begin to hack this car apart and install the SHO stuff. So the busy work continues. I realized I had this sitting around in my garage for a few years. It's the original GG purple custom mix, before Simba changed his mind and went HOK violet purple.
It's a little darker than a GG car, but damn close. Yes, it's purple. For some reason it looks blue here. Just had a gallon of basecoat, so no gloss. Probly better that way.
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So I "Helped" Earl throw it all in the dumpster, and in return I sifted out some things while asking him "Why is this in here?". An hour later, I had a Cressida trunk loaded with broken Stance. They told me I shouldn't bother putting any of it on my car and instead weld it together to make a spider. I pieced together a kinda-sorta MX83 setup out of it, and threw away most of the stuff that was complete junk. What I have here are the leftovers and a bunch of springs that are too stiff (10k) to use on this car.
). Believe me, the SHO is not down on power, especially in a lightweight platform such as yours, and the SHOs that enter typically occupy the top ten fastest lap cars on every race. It is thrown rod bearings, thrown differentials, thrown head gaskets, etc. that **** the SHOs, and putting more power through the motor puts more stress on those bearings and differentials.
