So, yeah, I know its been awhile... Long story short, after a ton of work last year to rebuild the engine, add a manual transmission, and install a fuel cell and surge tank, we were all hugely disappointed to just blow up again at the Road America race in October 2013. After moving to a new house and garage, we got a late start on the work, but put in lots of time getting ready, just to load it on the trailer after 2 hours of racing.
Repeat the engine part of that this winter, and we were pretty disappointed to have an engine with not enough compression still after replacing head gaskets. Apparently there was a piston/ring issue, which wet compression pointed to, but we had failed to run this test before. This time we had a couple weeks still before our planned track day, so we retreated to a "new" junkyard engine with 198,000 miles. But at least it had tested, and good compression. Unfortunately, it was an LS400 engine, which meant swapping everything down to the oil pan and pan skirt from the block. But we got it done with a few extra work nights, just in time for a track day.
We decided to skip said track day, when there were huge thunderstorms on the way. Little did we know this would be foreshadowing for the race weekend. So we postponed our test session to the day before the race, with the stipulation that we register and insure the car, to get a little street time for some extra shakedown. We should probably re-install some blinkers now too, then I could drive it to work!
The Lexus built engine ran strong, and didn't burn as much oil as we expected, so that was good. This time around we had a good weekend! We ran for 12 hours, with only a couple little issues. Everybody got to drive, both in the rain and some dry. The car handled really well. Below are some pictures from our friend Alex Bellus, who takes some great photos. We didn't get the GoPros set up, so no video. Sorry. Thanks to the guys at Falken Tire, for our Azenis RT615K's. We were really happy this time with running 275's all around. The non-staggered setup will allow us to have to carry fewer spare tires. Thanks to Mark at Frozen Rotors for our brake rotors also.
Watch for another post soon, after we give the car a thorough inspection, and plan some work on upgrades and future events. Thanks to all our wonderful families, and understanding spouses as well!
