And the it was crashed again...

Sad day, the end of this chassis most likely.  Might live again as a track day car, but it's time to find a new chassis to build. 

Good thing we picked up this clapped out parts car over the winter!  Thanks Glen!

Back at it, with lots of work, as usual

Well we were back at it, did a bunch of work over the winter, to change weight reduction to make space for aero and improved cooling.  

Finally finished a race again!

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!

Time to rebuild - Step 1: remove engine

2012 wasn't our greatest year racing, and we managed to blow a head gasket at Brainerd. We couldn't quite get our backup car ready for the Road America race in the fall, so we didn't get a lot of miles on the car. We're taking our time in fixing the car and my not race again until this fall, but we're working to resurrect the Lexus. The first step is to pull the engine, which we accomplished today.

Back to racing in 2012, starting at Road America

For 2012, our season start April 21st in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, at the historic race track, Road America.  Its over 4 miles of pure awesomeness.  After placing 2nd last year, and also crashing, we were hungry for more.  But this year the entry list roughly doubled, to 50 cars.  With some improvements to the car, long hours working over the winter, and finally some decent weather, we were ready to get racing!

Last year with the colder weather, we ran on 320 treadwear tires, when everyone else stuck with their 200 treadwear Dunlop Star Specs.  So we were excited to see how the car handled on the 200TW Falken Azenis RT-615K, along with less weight, and a taller rear gear set out of an SC300.  

It turns out the gears really hurt our fuel consumption.  We actually had to shift in overdrive down the 3 longest straights, but we did gain a little low end acceleration.  We also gained a little extra rear end wiggle, probably now that the rear suspension bushings weren't all seized.  But once we got the hang of it, it wasn't too bad, but it definitely was different under braking.

Unfortunately our fuel consumption was even worse then last year.  We were barely able to make it an hour and twenty-five minutes, which meant we had to run an extra driver stint.  Ideally we'd pit at an hour and forty minutes for the seven hours, and have equal driver time, and the minimum number of pit stops possible. So with an extra 5+ minute pit stop we were at a big disadvantage.  

Otherwise the car ran well, we put down some competitive lap times, but just missed the podium on both days.  We finished 5th on Saturday and 4th on Sunday.  The BMW's in the field were just too fast for us.  So its back to work on the car to shed some weight, and on to Brainerd on June 30th.  (Yes I know that's soon).  

If you look closely, our wheel is actually off the ground here.  Nice work Jeremy.

Thanks to Alex Bellus for these photos.  Check back in a few days and hopefully I'll have some video up.