89 Cutlass Ciera Race Car Build

[turbokinetic]

the goal with the paint job is for it to look good at 50 feet while its going 50mph, so 20 foot is ok.

Course now we have a new list of things to do, including figuring out what took us out at the end.

Uh-oh! How exactly do you mean "took out?" Almost afraid to ask!

David

[lemons bob]

the car would lose power at first at 70 unless you were really light on the pedal and then sometimes at 40. eventually it did it and it wouldn't get power back so it got towed in. after we got it in it wouldn't start. pushed it on the trailer drove it home and it started right up.

thought is it might be the fuel pump because we thought we didn't here it cycle like we were during the race. might have cooled down or got bumped around enough on to get it to work on the way home. Shame cause we probably could have been in the 20's for a finish, and may have walked a way with the index which is the more of an honor than actually a win by laps.

I'll get the other guys thoughts together and look for ideas later. Next race not till July. We will also look big time for suggestions on helping the handling. We need a bit more than the eurosport sway.

[SilentWing]

Rear sway bar will definately help the handling, also Luke can weld the brackets on for you guys instead of bolting them in. Also, if you're interested and wanted to buy the pipe and sheet metal for it (pretty cheap) we could make you a front strut tower brace like on mine. Won't help the turning radius but definately stiffens it up. Also a rear shock tower brace might help too since you're pushing its limits, we haven't done that yet for mine but they should be way easy to do.

[lemons bob]

the cage already connects the rear struts, but the front one would be pretty nice. We aren't worried about radius just trying to stop the understeer. we also need new front shocks pretty bad. FIrst thing the judges told us when the car barely got off the trailer. After photoshooting it, making sure to get all the emblems, didn't believe the ones past the back door are stock. Of course first we need to find out the residual. Fuel pump will probalby be the first thing out of it. Might see how much it would be to replace the whole tank. get something new and not rusty. kind of surprised how the lines back there look it isnt' leaking, but the moment we touch it I'm sure there will be alot more replacing parts.


Oh and of course like anytime you have to work on the gas tank, it is pretty much full.

[SilentWing]

Well the tank will run you around $120 from Autozone, as for the lines and the sending unit that's yet to be seen once you try to take it apart... lets put it this way, my 94 the lines rotted off the sending unit and we ended up adapting rubber hoses on it because the quick connects from the nylon lines on the body wouldn't come off the sending unit lines. Luke used the Dorman kit at his work to insert barbed fittings into the nylon lines that you can clamp a rubber hose on and we used fuel injection hose to connect it to the sending unit after flaring the lines on the top of the sending unit where they weren't rusted to ensure they wouldn't pop off. Almost 2 years later and we haven't had a problem yet (knock on wood). So basically you've got half the puzzle with your handling, you'd probably want to get the rear sway bar to compliment the roll cage and the front strut tower brace to compliment the eurosport sway bar. These will definately help but you'll always have some understeer due to the tall tires, without going low profile there's no way to avoid it. Go ahead and when you're ready to put a front strut tower brace on it (after the potential fuel issue is solved) and send me a PM.

[lemons bob]

we aren't running stock size so we did drop the height down some. we ran 195/60 r14. It worked pretty well on the straights we could get some decent speed going when everything was working right. On the front straight I had gotten close 90 a few times, hard to tell exactly since the speedo was off with the new tires. Just trying to get off some of the corners the front end would start sliding out and that slowed us down some. Also the back would get pretty light and squirrely under braking. you could barely touch the brakes and turn. The first time I got on the track dry I went pretty far around, but I saved it somehow. Also luckily didn't get a black flag.

[CamoDeafie]

one tactic ive read about from Japanese drivers of FWD cars, is to use handbrake for rears and stomp on gas right at the apex or before the apex, then release the rear wheels, supposedly it helps in cutting time for the turns, but these were with light cars and short wheelbases...im not sure since the a-cars never had a handbrake, only the foot operated parking brake...that it would be beneficial to use that for turns..but get some laps in with that tactic and see how it performs...the idea of staying on brakes all through the turn isnt quite good for race timing, if you can power out into the apex's exit and snap the rear back in, you could reduce time...?

[lemons bob]

with how light the rear feels I was getting rotation without the e-brake, problem was it tended to either quickly go far to much or when you tried to hit the power would quickly go into understeer.

[CamoDeafie]

maybe you need limited slip differential, it sounds more like a case of torque steer causing the understeering? hmmmm. maybe weld a clamp system in trunk for barbell/bench press weights to keep rear weighted down?

[LordDurock]

the cage already connects the rear struts, but the front one would be pretty nice. We aren't worried about radius just trying to stop the understeer. we also need new front shocks pretty bad. FIrst thing the judges told us when the car barely got off the trailer. After photoshooting it, making sure to get all the emblems, didn't believe the ones past the back door are stock. Of course first we need to find out the residual. Fuel pump will probalby be the first thing out of it. Might see how much it would be to replace the whole tank. get something new and not rusty. kind of surprised how the lines back there look it isnt' leaking, but the moment we touch it I'm sure there will be alot more replacing parts.


Oh and of course like anytime you have to work on the gas tank, it is pretty much full.

get a sifen pump......you can pump but then it will start to sifen when you stop pumping.

[jlattyak]

I'd just like to say thanks for all the help we got from everyone here, you have all been a great resource for us to get this car on the track.

Not sure if Bob mentioned this already, but we finished 42nd over all , with 361 laps

[lemons bob]

Yesterday I was taking some pictures so the Lemons people can get us the residual value of the car so I can find out how much money we have to spend to fix the car for the next race. When I was taking pics I noticed that the practically new glasspack has pretty much completely changed colors..

Here is what it looked like after installation.


Here is what it looks like now.



Sturcturally it still looks sound, but I guess having it so close to the engine(its in the tunnel where the Cat normally is) and the continous heat from and endurance race it seems the paint took the worse of it. It might also have something to do with us getting the flowtech which is half the price of a cherry bomb.

[SilentWing]

Now that's funny... how long will it take them to get you the residual value?

[lemons bob]

Not sure, first time and all. wrote and documented alot but I'm guessing that they will look at the car see its average time, and give us somewhere between $300-$400, maybe if we are lucky we will get the full $500 to spend but we'll see. The Buick Lesabre which actually can be fairly quick seems gets $300 each race, well they were now that they are sneaking into the top 10 they might not be much longer.

[SilentWing]

Well that's a decent amount, enough to get some good stuff done before the next race. Do they deduct for "parts" that are donated? If you do decide to put on the strut tower brace we've got some extra sheet metal in the garage for the ends, so all you'd need to buy would be the metal pipe which is fairly inexpensive at Menards (I'm thinking around $8)