89 Cutlass Ciera Race Car Build

[Burdizzo]

So its possible but if you can find a manual trans that is setup to run with the 5x115 wheels you will be way better off.

At the risk of highjacking your thread, do you have any specific models you recommend looking for? This forum, and specifically this thread, have been very helpful so far. I have traditionally been a blue oval guy with some limited experience with 70s GM cars. This FWD stuff is still black magic to me, however.

Then again, we are not at all sure we are going to keep this car. If it comes up for sale, I will be sure to.post it to the classifieds.

[Duke George V]

Problem is making the computer happy. It will be expecting to see an automatic transmission, and when it doesn't, it will rev limit the engine to something dumb like 2500 rpm to prevent catastrophic damage from occurring. You'll have to reprogram it to remove the transmission settings, or run some sort of standalone engine management, like Megasquirt.

You should get a cooler. You can probably get one for cheap from a yard. Cadillac used an external oil cooler on the 4.x engines in the early 90s. Use one of those, bypass the stock cooler, and run an extra quart of fluid.

[Burdizzo]

A popular trick with the lemons racers is to use the A/C condenser coil as a transmission cooler. It's free and there is a lot of cooling capacity.

[lemons bob]

We are actually using one of the ones out of a caddy. It doesn't seem large but it holds a lot of fluid. If you try to empty it, it seems to hold infinite fluid.

The condensor should do ok too as long as it is in good shape. At the time we hadn't gutted the airconditioning, and when we finally did when we had to replace the radiator (the in radiator transcooler was leaking) the insides was pretty beat up. It looked like a bird or something got stuck in there cause there was damage inbetween the condensor and radiator but looked fine from the sides you could see.

[Burdizzo]

I saw the shock tower brace in the pictures. I was thinking of doing the same to our car. How well did it hold up and work? Would it help to brace it to the firewall?

[lemons bob]

It could help if you go to the firewall, make sure your firwall is in good shape first and if you want to make it removeable you have to find somewhere sturdy to mount it, although you have to be careful to not make the front to stiff or you'll just make the understeer worse, of course you make rear too stiff than you get snap oversteer any time you let off the gas. I know there are a bunch of people in lemons (normally civic drivers) who will swear this is how you need to drive it, but there is just too much traffic in lemons to know you'll always be able to accelerate when you need to to be able to catch the back end.

Honestly best thing for handling is still a decent set of tires. Looks like you guys are running stock sized tires which unfortunately means your tires won't be good. When we finally broke down and got good tires it was night and day about how much better the car handled. I have to really try to get the car to get the least bit twitchy.

[Burdizzo]

Yeah, our tires leave a lot to be desired. They are stock and hard. I was planning to look for some GM wheels of the same pattern and vintage to see we could get some tires wider and lower profile. Probably see about going to a 15 to improve the selection and going lower profile. We put new struts on it for the last race, and it made a huge difference.

[jlattyak]

You should look at adding a larger front swaybar if you have not already done that, If you still have the spare tire cover the build codes are on it so you can see what suspension package you have. It will be an FE1 FE2 or FE3 code. FE3 is the stiffer springs and larger swaybar

We have test fitted 15" Alero rims on our car and determined that those will work. Though we have yet to make that upgrade.

There is a thread sticky in one of the other areas of the forum that has a list of rims that should fit these cars

[thesam1984]

Any 15" h body rims will work nicely... im running 2000 Lesabre alloys at the moment, and I have Ja2 brakes

[lemons bob]

Any 15" h body rims will work nicely... im running 2000 Lesabre alloys at the moment, and I have Ja2 brakes

I have a set I've been looking at on ebay for a while. It is perfect for LeMons in that horrible goofy logic sense, and it will seem idiotic to get upgraded parts from that car. I really should just buy them plus another set from the same guy. I want to say he would give a discount on shipping for mulitple sets.

[thesam1984]

I would think craigslist would be the best place to find wheels

[lemons bob]

We just got 2 sets of 15" wheels
First are Silhouette wheels

Second are Alero Wheels


Also the preffered cheap tires are on sale, so we'll be getting some Primewell PZ900. They aren't the best tires in the world but for racing they are pretty good. From what other racers have said is they are just a bit less performance but about the same durablity of the top tires, but with the sale we can get 4 tires for a little more than the cost of 1 tire of the best ones.

The things they seem to get compaints about won't matter like noise and that they aren't all that great in the snow for an all season tire. Oddly enough since the better tires are summer they still might be the best in the snow.

[Burdizzo]

Are those wheel the same dimensions?

[lemons bob]

Are those wheel the same dimensions?

yes 15" by 6"

The Silhouette 2 wheels boxed and packaged shipped weighed 45lbs

The Alero 2 wheels boxed and packaged shipped weighed 33lbs

We'll probably get the Primewell Z900 tires in 205/50 r15. They are shorter than stock but the top speed of these cars mechanically is pretty insane so lowering it won't matter and the short side well should help everywhere else in theory atleast.

[lemons bob]

Got tires mounted on the new wheels and did a quick test fit.

First the Silhouette Wheels



Then the Alero wheels