89 Cutlass Ciera Race Car Build

[lemons bob]

the backend is pretty light, so anything we can do to balance it out a bit more the better. Now I'm not expecting a huge increase in downforce but every little bit helps. The shape suggests that it should in theory do something, especially since the next race we should hit triple digits, just not sure what the airflow really is for these cars to see how effective the spoiler will actually be, but worst case sticking it at the back of the trunk will help weight distribution since it weighs something and is on the much lighter end of the car.

[mechanizeddeath]

Well in that case it probably wouldn't hurt. At least it sounds like it has some shape to it, I was mostly speaking of the ones you see slapped on base model econocars that are little more than a flat piece of plastic, like one of my friends had on his Honda.

[lemons bob]

The last of the olds were actually all pretty well engineered cars. Even though GM seemed to be pinching their budgets they seemed to do just about anything they could to make there cars as good as possible. They are filled with the little things that are cheap to do but most of the times they just don't bother. Like the on the aurora even though GM made them use an underbored northstar which made it heavier and less powerful than the caddy's. They lightened it with as much alluminium as the could, glassed the air intake to improve flow and baffled the oil pan so if you drive it aggressively the enging will still get oil.

Rear spoiler is the same sort of thing. How much more is it to make a spoiler that works as opposed to one that doesn't.

[Duke George V]

Now that I think about it, that spoiler just might do something. The later A cars had pretty decent aerodynamics. Your car has the rounded rear glass, yes? I recall driving my '92 Century in the rain, and as long as I was moving, rain could not get onto the rear window.

[lemons bob]

Yes 89 was the first year of the body update. So i have the rounded glass and the different rectangle tail lights that were only there for 89 and 90.

[lemons bob]

Since the race is coming up quickly we figured we get some of the last things done on our checklist.

We redid the brakes since we ended the last race with the outside pads all gone and metal to metal on the outsides. So new actual race pads this time. We swapped out the calibers since they are only $13 and that way we'd have spares plus we just put a set of old pads in there so if we do have to change them we can just remove the whole caliber and swap on the new ones. We also replaced the rotors since metal on metal does chew them up some. I'll still see if we can get the turned for spares.

Of course it didn't go as easily as we'd like. when putting the brake line on the driverside the bolt the the fluid goes through and holds the line on broke. Luckily it broke with enough sticking out that I could unscrew it out of the caliber. Also the line for the hood release popped out of the handle when we were getting ready to bleed the breaks. The line didn't break so some vice grips were able to pull the wire and pop the hood, but now got to figure out how to fix that easily.

A few other things got done, like repainted it since we are retheming. The car is no longer bright purple which now when I saw it I kept on not being sure whose care it was. Most of it is Hunter Green, which actually looks pretty good on the car. I haven't unwrapped all the crome bits yet so won't know for sure how it looks until after that. I actually noticed with the purple, just taping over the chrome bits around the windows and whatnot actually took away a bit from the car. It seemed to be missing something. Anyway, since the race is in august we thought it would be bet to fab up a cool suit system so we don't die out there. The system is basically a cooler with a bilge pump in it to pump water from the cooler through hoses that attach to hoses the run along a shirt the drivers were. The best place to fit the cooler seemed to be the spare tire well, but for that to work had to cut out the place you attach the spare to.

Not much left to do really. I have 2 sets of tires I have to get mounted (dunlop star specs which look pretty nice. The tread is much thicker than what we were running before which means it should have more contact with the road and not deflect as much in the turns which is why we've been chewing the heck out of our tires.) Getting some Vinyls cut for the numbers and some other theme stuff. Properly bleed the brakes since we ran out of brake fluid before we could do it right. (we got the fronts so its not all air bubbles but didn't do the rears and the fronts will be redone after that just to make sure everything is good). We have to still install the spoiler once I finish painting it. Plus I'm sure some other stuff, but for the most part I guess we are ready.

[jlattyak]

We mounted a spoiler we got off of an Oldsmobile Intrigue on the trunk lid.

The abody trunk is not as curved as the Intrigue so the center mounting point is about 1/2 inch off the trunk.

The only real problem we ran into was where the mounting holes ended up were at the stiffing support structure on the underside of the trunk.

Here is what it looks like, and a little peak at the new paint scheme.


2012-08-04_17-40-57_550 by j.lattyak, on Flickr

P1000058 by j.lattyak, on Flickr

[lemons bob]

You forgot to tell the best part of that day. How for a good hour or so we kept seeing this ratty old Celebrity that has been pushed from one house to another in my neighborhood for years, slowly drove past us under its own power filled with teenagers. Sure there was a square hole in the door, its shot and maybe springs look shot, it had 2 donuts on one of which was almost flat, but sounds like it had a subwoofer in it and it went back and forth, which is probably as far as they can drive it now since it doesn't have plates, and I'm not sure the kid driving it has a license.

It was nice to see the old celeb running after all these years.

[occupant]

I really like that Intrigue spoiler. But I hate spoilers on four door sedans. Damn my brain hurts now.

[lemons bob]

Well the car is all packed and on the trailer for the race at Road America on Monday Tuesday. I'm just finishing up packing myself now while watching the American Lemans race taking place there now. Figured I would post a pic of the car with its new paint scheme. Keeping it a secret from the Lemons crowd, but don't think any of them come here so it should be safe.

[Century7667]

Sharp! Impressive even! ;-)

[lemons bob]

The impressive part is we won our class and even snuck into the top 20 at 19 overall.

[Century7667]

The impressive part is we won our class and even snuck into the top 20 at 19 overall.

It's good to back up the impressive looks. ;-)

Any more appearance upgrades in the works?

[lemons bob]

We'll keep this theme for a while.

Have to find time give the car a once over and find out if we have any money to spend. Kind of curious about the brakes since we wore pretty heavily the front driver side of full on racing brakes on Monday so we had to switch over to our worn brakes from the first race for the second day. Took it easier then though since we ended day 1 with a 5 lap lead (which is actually pretty significant on a 4.1 mile course) although I did get a bit racy for a while with the Lotus Elite. The Lotus had me in the corners since I had some vibrations from us swapping the rear tires to the fronts, and not trusting the brakes fully. Each straight though I'd pull away. He finally got me when I got pinned in behind a Volkswagon Type 3 square back in front of me and them and a pack of fast cars behind them on the outside. The Lotus had serious engine problems shortly after so looks like they ended up worse for the fun. Although it sounded like those laps were the highlight for both of us for the weekend.

After the residual we'll figure out where to go.

[Century7667]

Very cool. What other cars do you race against. Any of them you take special pleasure in beating?

Ken T.