Weekend at Craig's Shop

The Magic Rabbit is now in Sacramento, at Craig Smith's shop. Here is a pic of Craig Smith and myself discussing, well, probably everything under the sun! From circle track racing to Craig's latest finds at last week's garage sale. Craig generously is helping us out with the mounting of the drivers seat and the use of his marvelous shop.

Here are The Boys (brothers Hugo and Edgar) starting to apply our number 83 decal to the hood of the car. Looks fantastic!

Next up was putting the decal on the door. They had loads of work getting the decal over the body trim piece and the creases in the door.

Then my favorite decal, our Dirty Duck Racing decal. The Boys made it in two pieces and overlaid them on top of each other. See the red and white "register monuments" (printing lingo I picked up around The Press), that was used to get the second layer on perfectly.

Here is the second layer going on.

And voila, the finished product, Dirty Duck Racing in lights! or make that in decal. What a great decal, thanks Tom for the Dirty Duck logo, thanks Tedders for finding and adding the Racing script and checkered flag, and thanks to The Boys for putting it into vinyl and onto the Magic Rabbit. So Cool!

After The Boys finished their decal work, Craig got busy with the racing seat support system. In this picture Craig is welding in the rear support plate. You can see his work to reinforce the front cross member to something capable of support some significant beef in the drivers seat!

Craig is a true craftsman, beautiful work and just what the Magic Rabbit needed. We have a fully adjustable seat mounting system.

I was working on a "cold" air intake system. Cold is very relative for Willows in August. Goal was to bring relatively cool air from the front of the car directly into the air filter box and into the intake/fuel injection system with a little positive pressure. We didn't want the engine to be sucking super hot air that was coming off the 200 degree radiator. So I had some fun fabricating an air intake system coming from the drivers side headlight bucket.

Using that same FULL RACE dryer duct materials as we will use for the brake cooling system, I was able to bring fresh air direct from the front of the car to the air intake box. First pic is me checking the layout, had to make a couple of hard bends to get to the intake box opening.

Here is the completed system, very custom and should do the job. Combination of headlight bucket, 4 inch to 3 inch dryer duct reducer, 3 inch dryer duct and a 3 inch aluminum elbow with generous application of Gorilla tape and some red zip ties for flare!

While Craig was making the seat mounting system, we worked on the Kirkey "Big Boy" seat. Well, it turns out that this seat should be call Kirkey "Humongous Boy", as it was even too wide for this Big Boy! Here is Darrell and myself working on the seat to add cutouts for the harness to come through the back of the seat and be close to our hips to hold us in tight. No sliding around while we put the Magic Rabbit into a four wheel drift!

Smoothing out the edges of the openings for the seat harness.

The Darrell got busy fabricating the hoses for the oil cooler. We have decided to add an oil cooler to help our poor little engine contend with 16 hours of full throttle racing in 100 degree temps at Thunderhill Raceway. Oil cool cam off the Mexico Porsche and fits at an angle next to the radiator. You can see it in the pic, the black thing with the yellow plug on top, that's the oil cooler, a mini radiator for the oil. Darrell, well just Darrell's hands, can be seen working on the two hoses that bring the oil to and from the oil cooler from the engine. We are now ready for the heat! Oh yes, and not the black plastic shield on the right side of the pic, that will direct more fresh air through the oil cooler to make everything work as designed! Should keep our oil temp right at 180 degrees all day long!

Paul worked on our graphics, to make the Magic Rabbit look like a true race car. Suppliers decals. First is a closeup of the new Dunlop tires and those great looking wheels that Paul blasted and repainted, next to the decal for "Horse Power by Gerolamy" If Gerolamy really knew how little horsepower we have, maybe around 90 hp, he would ask that his sticker not make a showing on the Magic Rabbit!

OK, the crew having a cold one after two days on the Magic Rabbit. A race car has magically appeared!

Some glamor shots.

We might not be the fastest, but we will be looking good!

And it not only looks good sitting still, it looks great in motion. A quick sprint through the parking lot at Craigs!

Magic Rabbit escapes to Sacramento!

The Magic Rabbit escaped on Saturday, it ran up the road and jumped on the waiting trailer and off it went!

Parked the truck and trailer up by Rye's house, his Honda Element is in the background. Needed a nice level surface to make the loading uneventful. Here is Paul just starting up the ramps of the trailer.

The Magic Rabbit up on the trailer, fits nicely onto Paul's new trailer.

From the front, the black box at the front of the trailer will carry spare parts, tools and supplies. The fancy decals on the side of the box are from Paul, Nancy and Darrell's participation in the Mexican La Carrera Panamericana race for two years, races 20 and 22. The race is a re-creation of the famous Mexican road race held from 1950 to 1954, run on the open roads of Mexico for about 2,000 miles up to Texas.

The bullet holes in the box are from a run in with the Mexican Army! Well, kinda. The service truck and trailer did have an adventure with the Mexican Army with guns drawn when they went down a wrong road. However, no shots were fired and the bullet holes are just decals. But makes for a great story!

All loaded up and strapped in tight, ready to head to Sacto.

Hard to see, but Nancy and I next to the Magic Rabbit, but the photographer (Paul) wanted to make sure to get a shot of the service truck. You can just make out the decal on the side of the truck signifying it's part of the Panamericana race.

Time to head to Sacramento to get the roll cage updated and fabricated, get the safety harness installed, get the tires mounted and the suspension all aligned, get the car numbers made and put on, lots of things still to do and just 19 days before Thunderhill!!

Here is a video of Paul, Nancy and the Magic Rabbit heading out.

Seemed so very strange to get back to my house and find the garage empty. No Magic Rabbit that has filled my garage for the last few months. What am I going to do, my project is gone?Can't run down and work on it every night. But I have some fabricating to do until next weekend when I will drive to Sacramento, my turn to do the commuting.

OK, more fun stuff. We have tires! Delivered last week to Paul, the proud owner sitting on the stack of Dunlop Star Spec high performance tires!

The Star Spec tires are not a pure racing tire, can be used on the street. Rules of 24 Hours of Lemons limits how soft and sticky a tire you can use. The tires must have of a wear rating of at least 190. Most car tires on our daily drivers have wear ratings up above 400 so they will last 40 to 50 thousand miles. Our Dunlop Star Specs have a rating of 200, just above the rule limit! They look great and fast!

Next to the tires are the set of "snowflake" rims I bought from a guy posted on Craigslist living in Napa. He too is a Lemon's driver, done it a number of times. So our snowflake rims come from a racing home! The rims needed cleaning up, so Paul has done a marvelous job. See the next pic.

The snowflake rims before and after Paul's restoration work. Bead blasted, masked off the spokes and re-painted black. They look fabulous, just like they came off the factory assembly line. The Magic rabbit will have the best looking tires at Thunderhill, maybe it will take the "Best Looking Tires" award, if they had such a thing!

Can hardly wait to see the new tires and refurbished rims on the car!

OK, my fabrication project for Sunday, make a cold air intake to bring fresh, relatively cool air from the front of the car into the air filter and air intake box. So the pics below show the cool air intake that used the headlight carrier (the GTI had square headlights) as the cool air intake.

The headlight bucket is on the left side of the pic, the 4 inch to 3 inch home ventilation reducer was fit into the end of the headlight bucket. Turned out perfect, big air scoop to start with reduced down to 3 inch duct.

Shot from the front side of the headlight bucket with the fabricated opening for the ventilation reducer.

The cool air will then be routed using more 3 inch aluminum cloths dryer duct to the air filter and air intake. Same duct as we are using for the brake cooling ducts.

That is my next fabrication, to make an intake bucket for each of the brake cooling ducts. That will keep me busy this week.

A busy weekend, threw in my 45 year high school reunion Saturday night, just for kicks. And it was a kick. See many of these people only once every 5 years. Some look just the same as in high school, many I would never recognize until I see their name tags. And that is getting harder, well actually impossible unless I whip out my reading glasses. But when I do that, I lose all my young, youthful appearance and coolness....yeah right!

That's it for tonight. More next week.

Track Day and Work Day

Track day at Thunderhill Raceway, Willows, same racecourse as the Lemon's race will be held. Six 20 minutes sessions with an instructor in the passenger seat teaching you the course. This first pic is our first session in the morning, just learning the course. I am in the blue FX at the front of this line, Rye is in the Porsche 911 just at the top of the hill. Great corner, blind as you enter this hard left turn and then drop into the right hand turn.

Here is another shot of Turn 5 and 5a, also call the Cyclone, I am at the back of this line. Waiting my turn to pass the slower cars. During the sessions you are only allowed to pass on certain straight aways and only if the car in front of you signals for you to pass them. Safety for us novice drivers. But what a blast to be on the race course!!!

OK, here I am at the last sessions of the day, no instructor with me. So much fun to be out there by yourself working on the correct line, the braking and turn in, how much speed can I carry out of the corners! Gotta do more of this! I had a BMW 635 in front of me and we were evenly paced, I chased him for the entire 20 minutes, nose to tail, what a blast! Now, can you image 149 other cars I can chase at the same time!! The mind boggles!

End of the last session, Rye is signaling that he will enter the pit lane, hand out with a fist. The end of the day, so sad!

Here is the newly trained high speed driver, boy it was warm in there. Just image what it will be in the racing suit! The FX35 ran like a top, and the brakes were so hot and smelly at the end of each session. Pretty hard on a street vehicle.

Rye after his last run, looking good.

The two race drivers at the end of the day, what a day!

Went to Nancy's Airport Cafe, "The only place to stop on the way in or out of Thunderhill", the perfect old style cafe, the waitresses have the required aprons, note pad and everyone is "honey"! Picture of Paul and I outside the cafe after dinner, notice the Lemons sticker on Pauls car. Paul was our assistant the entire day, took all our pictures and for two rides was my instructor. More seat time for Paul too. He got some hot laps in my instructors Lexus sport coupe, it was SO fast! Surprised everyone.

OK, now Wednesday, July 14th. Paul at my place to work on the Magic Rabbit. Here is a pic with the selected color scheme for the door numbers.

First thing was to find and fix the exhaust leaks, make this car sound like a car and not a rattle trap. We found it, all four exhaust gaskets were leaking, nuts were loose, things didn't fit right. Installed a different exhaust header gasket, perfect fit after some special carving.

Got it all installed, tightened up with new lock washers, nice fit. Now the moment of truth. Start it up....and listen...you tell me:

What a perfect sound, it works, itlives, the Magic Rabbit is now right! Horray. OK, next we worked on the transmission linkage to the shifter to try to find 5th gear. Victory number 2, we found 5th gear, all right!

Next on our list was rigging up cooling duct for the brakes, bring lots of fresh air from the front of the car and dump it right on the brakes. Now don't tell me it looks like run of the mill laundry dryer hose, that is FULL RACE aluminum racing ductwork! Well, maybe it was found at the hardware store near the dryer vent stuff. But we are set up now to cool off those scorching brakes!

Also ordered tires from Tirerack, Dunlop Star Specs and racing brakes from Carbotect in North Carolina, home of the NASCAR team garages.

Also put in the passenger seat and started thinking of a new Magic Rabbit gimmick, maybe a full human sized rabbit sitting in the passenger seat for the entire race! Now with two seats was able to take Paul for a ride, and he got to drive too. Then picked up Rye, buzzed around Redwood Estates and guess who we saw. For the first time since I moved here, 5 years, as we rounded the corner in the Magic Rabbit there sits the Santa Clara County Sheriff!! Rye and I both held our breath as we passed the sheriff. Looking in the Wink Mirror to see if he was going to turn around and follow me, I shifted into neutral and coasted quickly down the hill, no noise, in hope of not getting stopped. Apparently our stealth maneuvers worked, no sheriff on your rabbit tail! Phew!!

Worked on locating the oil cooler up on the passenger side of the car, got it located, now it's up to Paul and Darrell to mount and pump it. As you can see below, we got the fenders on, looking like a real car again, dropped the hood and the the grill just for this photo op! Looks great.

Well, that's it, a two big days. Lots accomplished, car is getting very close. Next is up to Sacto for roll cage mods and oil cooler, tires mounted and new brake pads. Only three weeks before the race day. Time is ticking away. The Magic Rabbit is soon to race!

Track Time at Thunderhill

Amazing fun. I've never driven the 911 to the edge, but by the 2-3 session, let alone the last ones, I was hitting 100+ down the main straight, brake hard as I downshift to 3rd, and then drift it sideways at 70 or so. Really really fun and we learned so much. Paul came along and he rode with the instructor for one session and with your dad for two sessions, which he said also taught him a lot. Check out photos HERE

-Pumpernickel

The rear wheels touch down! For the first time since we started, the Magic Rabbit has all four wheels back on. The front drive axles are back in, it's almost ready for the first trip away from home! Also, I am liking the black numbers better. Going to try a red drop shadow behind the black numbers next week, that might be the ticket, staying with red accents.

Front wheels back on, new axles installed ready to lower it down and try it out.

Bolted the seat back in, no padding, just sitting on a towel, everything is just about ready for the first ride. I think we need to raise the seat a couple of inches, seems too low to me.

And there it is, back on all fours. The rear is still sitting very low, will have to adjust those upward a little. But it started up, warmed up and then backed up my steep driveway no problems.
Getting ready for the first spin around the block. Very nervous, lots of noises I am listening for. But the engine sounds good, got reverse gear and first gear so far. So now check out the video's.

First video is me leaving on the first spin around Redwood Estates. Still sounds very funky at low rpms. But it runs and I was able to shift into second gear! Roads too narrow to get out of second gear, plus I was being very careful on the first adventure away from the garage.

Second video is me coming back down from the first trip. Looks pretty good! Check out the brakes lights, everything lit up!

OK, the third video is later in the day, I had to change the spark plugs in my Infiniti FX to be ready for track day at Thunderhill this coming Friday! Get some instruction and learn the course. Took 2 hours to change six plugs, each plug has it's own coil sitting on top of each spark plug, the access is terrible, big wiring bundles on top of all the plugs. Anyway, got that job done and wanted to take the Magic Rabbit out for test drive 2.

Nancy is the cinematographer for all these videos and did a great job. I didn't know the camera was running at first. Finally found reverse gear and got the car turned around. Then punched it up the road!

The end of the second trip, much better, more confident in the car. It stops on a dime!! Took it out onto Summit Road. Was able to grab third and fourth gears, so we know 4 out of 5 forward gears work. Still need to figure out where 5th gear is located. And the little thing screams! I was amazed at the speed, but Summit Road is narrow and lined with trees so you get a very strong sense of speed quickly. Have no idea how fast I was going when I hit 4th gear. I glanced at the tach, was shifting at 5,000 rpms, sounded great. Then stomped on the brakes, amazing braking and straight as an arrow! Notice how fast I stop next to Nancy, as I was coming down the hill at Nancy she was worried I couldn't stop. No problem. Then zoomed off back to the garage! Looking good!

So sports fans, looks like we have a car that will make the starting grid! Now, let's see if it will last for two days of torture at Thunderhill. The Magic Rabbit lives!