1st video of LeMons Arse-Freeze-Apalooza

Here is our 1st video, some highlights from LeMons Arse-Freeze-Apalooza at Buttonwillow raceway.

Enjoy!

-Sreddet.

Dirty Duck Racing, LeMons Arse-Freeze-Apalooza from Sreddet on Vimeo.

Murphy is my Copilot

As the smooth voice says on TV, "Previously, our fearless Dirty Duck Racing team purchased a new (used) 2.0 liter motor and delivered it to the workshop for implanting into the Magic Rabbit."

Now we start the transformation of the 1995 2.0 liter engine into a hybrid. Not the kind of electric/gas hybrid of those annoying Prius cars! No, this is a hybrid of two motors, the 2.0 liter 1995 engine and the 1.8 liter 1983 engine. That's right, combine two motors that are 12 years apart. Amazingly it can be done, and rather easily. Thanks to the internet all the info to marry to two engines is laid out for us. Just goes to show you, 12 years of development of the VW motor from 1983 to 1995 and it is still basically the same! And used by VW and Audi's, the name of the game in automotive industry, design it, use it for ever and put it in every vehicle you can think of for as long as you can! All equals profits, but I am going astray here!

Back to the garage, 1995 2.0 liter block to marry up with 1991 1.8 liter head. So what goes in between, a head gasket. So, it obvious, you use a head gasket from a 1991 16 valve (we have 8 valves) motor! Again thank you internet and the VW forums that told us all these kind of details and more to come. With the 1995 block on the engine stand, the 1991 head gasket and the 1983 head from Car #3, we have the basic engine together!

The next step is to put on the peripheral parts, first is the aluminum oil pan taken off of our original race engine. Here is Paul, Nash and myself finishing up the oil pan installation. And yes, the engine is upside down. Everyone looks happy, well not sure about me! I think Murphy is lurking behind me somewhere.

We also purchased some parts to improve the handling of our Magic Rabbit. First to be installed are rear wheel camber plates or shims. These plates are tapered so that when you install them with the thick side at the bottom it will make the rear wheels splay outwards a little bit. And I mean little, 1/2 of a degree. Here is a picture of one shim plate being held by a mysterious black hand, must be The Stig! Love those red brake drums!

And here is a picture with the plate installed, thicker side at the bottom. Now when we drive the Magic Rabbit into the corner, our rear tires will have more rubber in contact with the road as the forces push the outside tires to roll in and offset that 1/2 degree of negative camber. Got it? The expected result is more contact, more grip, fast corner speed, faster exit speed, and higher straight away speeds. Wow, who knew that 1/2 degree would make us so fast!!

OK, it that is so good for the rear, lets do it on the front too! Great, so we also got new front camber adjustment bolts. The stock bolt will allow 1 1/2 degree negative camber and the new bolt will allow 3 degrees of negative camber! 100% increase, just imagine the amount of new speed this will create! And being an good engineer, I know that the front and back camber increases must be multiplicative, right! Here is the picture of the old and new camber bolts, new on the right. If nothing else, they are shiny and clean! That alone should make us faster.

OK, suspension modifications done. In the meantime, our most helpful Lemons competitor from Chim Chim Racing team, Powered by Bacon race VW Rabbit, Jeff Moss (who also lives in the Santa Cruz mountains) stopped by to offer up a used exhaust header for us to use on the new hybrid 2.0/1.8 motor. While he was there he had too comments, first our car is too clean (we like it that way, but may cause the BS Judges to think we have too good of stuff in this car). Second comment was, take that vent tray out of there you will have loads more room to work. Brilliant! Loved that idea, so pull out the angle grinder, put on a cutting wheel and lets destroy some stuff!! I love this kind of work. Look at these picture, how good is this! Sparks flying, hot metal ripping off, new found workspace!

This picture I am making the first cut to remove the vent tray. This tray in the street car kept the nice clean fresh air on the back side away from hot, smelly air from the motor on the front side. We are RACERS, we want to smell that hot, burnt, oily exhaust right in our face!! Get rid of that tray! OK, not really, we faithfully plug up every hole between the engine bay and drivers area just so that engine fumes and heat don't get to us. But it sounded good!

Photo op supreme, sparks coming right at you!! Photog Rye put himself in harms way to get this shot.

Can't get enough of sparks, it's like fire! Close up picture of final touch up of the cut metal edges so we don't slice open our hands against the ragged edge. Safety third.

The new power plant is ready to be installed, here is the motor on the engine hoist just as its being lifted off the floor into the engine bay.

Here I am guiding the engine up and into place on four engine mounts. Up very slowly to get it into place.

Couldn't be done without a professional lift operator. Look at that concentration, glasses down to the end of his nose, eyes riveted to every move! A deft touch of his right hand on the control rod and his left hand over the hydraulic ram so he can feel every movement! A true professional, atta-boy Paul.

Engine in place, OK now lets put in the exhaust header. Here is Rye about to install our 4 into 1 header, same header as used on out old motor. With a smile on his face, full of confidence, he slides the header onto the motor.

Now, check the blog title, Murphy is my Copilot, here is his first appearance. I knew he was lurking, now he strikes. The exhaust header doesn't fit. Hits the steering system. A little more technical poop. In order to increase the engine size from 1.8 to 2.0 liters the pistons travel higher and therefore the 2.0 liter block is taller by about 3/4". That is enough to cause the exhaust header to not clear. Murphy, strike 1.

Now take out the 4 into 1 header and lets try the old 4-2-1 header that Jeff Moss and his Powered by Bacon team brought us. We put that header on and it just fits, by 1/16". That 1/16" clearance improves to 3/8" when we press the engine up against the limits of the motor mounts. But now we don't have a transition piece of the exhaust from the 4-2-1 header to our existing tail pipe. But we figure we can handle that problem later.

After the engine is in the car I hook up all the electrical wires, fill with water and oil, hook up the fuel system. Oh yeah, I take the throttle body off of car #2, 1985 GTI, it is bigger and will give us more air and fuel, bigger bang! Get everything ready so we can start this bad boy up, get the wheels on and do some test laps around the Redwood Estates Grand Prix circuit!!

Another piece of the 2.0/1.8 hybrid puzzle is blocking off an opening in the 2.0 block that is no longer need in a race engine, something to do about emissions control and crankcase blow-by. We all figure this issue is over rated, so just block it off. Well, we didn't figure, the experts on the internet told us again what to do. Buy a nice shiny new billet aluminum plate from Techtonics Tunning, OK, bought, delivered to my door and installed in three days. I love on-line shopping. Here is that beauty installed.

Now, that is the end of our pictures. Again, I refer you back to the title. Murphy strikes again and things get very dark. Therefore no pictures!!

But first, one last little ray of brightness, first thing Saturday morning I drive down the hill into San Jose to Classic Muffle Shop to meet Andy. Andy is a one man muffler shop who I found on the internet with all 5 star Yelp ratings. I take the two headers and the transition pipe to Andy and he tells me in his broken Asian english, "No Probrum". And he was right! Bing, bang, boom, he cuts, welds and flares the pipes and makes a perfect solution to our exhaust transition. How much? $25, I leave with a smile, the world is great, the sun is shining. I tell Andy I will be back with any muffle work I every need, thanks. Back up the him and the sun starts to dim, I think I see Murphy hiding behind the redwood tree as I drive up.

It is Saturday, Paul and Rye are with me, everything is ready. The moment is near, we have everything ready for the first start. We decide to run the motor over without any spark plugs to give the oil pump and chance to prime everything with oil and get oil pressure up. So while we are turning the motor over we decide to also do a compression check. All set, cylinder #1, hit it. The starter motor spins (well not at first as we had and issue with a ground cable, not an issue just not attached...Murphy getting closer). OK try again, hit the start button, motor spins, pistons up and down, watch the compression guage, wait, wait for it, wait....WHAT, 20 psi? HOW CAN THAT BE??? 20 psi, I can blow more than that! Murphy has struck again, strike 2!!

And test for cylinder #2 only reads 60 psi, what has happened? Cylinders #3 and #4 are 150, normal.

In shock we all sit back and start questioning, how can this be. Paul starts, we bought a Lemon of a 2.0 liter engine from Lou! Nice start! Rye and I both hear something funny as we recheck the compression of 1 and 2. I say it is either the head or the gasket. So we have everything questioned, block, gasket and head. In other words, everything we have!

Our first attempt at solving is to take the head off, assuming there must be a break in the head gasket between #1 and #2 cylinders, obvious. Head off, gasket is perfect! Murphy just chuckles.

OK, Paul keeps hammering that the Livingston boys bought a Lemon of a block (well that is the name of this whole affair, so what's the problem?). We both say no way, Lou (the seller) even gave us a written 30 day warranty on the receipt. We argue it must be the head. Paul counters, "How can that be, you tested the head and had 135 psi in every cylinder?" True statement. The arguments and theories continue. We send Rye upstairs to locate a new head gasket, he finds one in stock at Kragen's. That is Kragen's on Story Road, the east side of San Jose, open until midnight. Gasket put in the on-hold basket for us. Oh great, east side San Jose at night, in the middle of a storm. That worst part of town, will have to keep the motor running and heaven's sake, don't make eye contact with ANYONE!! Murphy's grin is getting larger.

Rye has to leave to go to a party with Kristin in San Francisco, leaving Paul and I to continue pondering our problems. We take a break and figure a large dose of Seagram's gin and Johnny Walker scotch will solve the problem. We even call in the experts, Ted Blake is called into conference. Ted tells us, three things make compression, cylinders, gasket and valves. Same logic; if cylinders-bad motor from Lou, if gasket-trip to the bad lands of East San Jose required, if head-some how the compression readings were wrong when checking Car #3. The discussion goes round and round. Finally we agree (enough booze and we can agree on anything) on another test.

Lets take the head off of our Car #1 engine, we know that is good, albeit a little tired. Put that head on the 2.0 liter block, with the same gasket (ie, no way did we want to go to East San Jose at night!!) and see if we have compression. That will confirm if there is a problem with the Car#3 head. We agree and head to bed. Is that Murphy in the darkness?

Sunday, pull off Car #3 head, unbolt Car #1 head from old block and install on 2.0 liter block. After lightly torquing the head down to the block we do a slow turning of the engine with a ratchet handle and the compression testing in cylinder #1. As it turns we hold our breath, I can hear Murphy in my ear, but then he goes poof, as I feel compression against the handle. We have compression!! Test cylinder #2, its good too. Turn with the starter we get 120 to 130 psi in all four cylinders. Success!

So it turns out that somehow, yet to be determined, the intake valves on the Car #3 head went bad while waiting to be installed. Many, many theories exist, but who cares now. We have a working engine and Murphy is now gone from sight!

Everything back together, lets fire it up for real. OK, everyone clear, contact. Engine turns and turns and turns, a little sputter (or was that Murphy sputtering again?). Hmmm, check spark-good, check fuel supply-good, must be timing. So with a number of turns and Paul twisting the distributor, the prime mover finally fires!!!! Rough at first, another turn of distributor and things are running fine. And then........screeeeeeech.....the most annoying high, high pitched sound starts up. What is it, crankshaft bearing, camshaft bearing, idler pulley bearing...our minds race and Murphy is laughing out loud!! We fiddle and test, maybe the belts are squealing? Nope. It is so loud and annoying, seems to be coming from the throttle body, but what could possibly squeal in there. Keep looking, a hour latter (Murphy is yawning) we decide to take the throttle body off. Sure enough, some old gasket matter on the throttle body created a space so the new gasket was acting like a reed in a clarinet, only an extremely high pitched one! You learn a new one every time you do an engine. Old gasket gone along with Murphy again!

Fired up again, squeal is gone, everything sounds good and normal. Can you believe it!? Let it run, engine comes up to temp, fans come on, things work as expected! Horray, that deserves a toast. More gin and scotch and Paul and I toast our final success. Things look good again, a few more items to complete and we are ready.

The Dirty Duck Racing team members are now heading off in different directions. Rye and Kristin are with the boys and Kristin's family in Oregon for Thanksgiving. Paul and Nancy down to Carmel with their family. Son Ted is staying in Ketchum, ID to face the cold on Thanksgiving. Forecast is for below zero temps. Stay warm Tedders, keep those racing muscles loose! Nancy and her mom will be joining me at DDR headquarters for a quiet and restful Thanksgiving. I look forward to that.

Also, the entire team and our entire fan base is thinking of Darrell today as his planned surgery took place this morning. Hoping all is well and maybe we will see you at Buttonwillow to cheer us on. Get well Darrell and take care of yourself.

That's all for now. Excuse me if I rambled on too long, but it has been another fun adventure with Murphy as my copilot as we prepare the Magic Rabbit.

Getting Ready for the Next Race

It is now November. The SF Giants have won the World Series (now that was about as amazing as the Magic Rabbit finishing the first race!). Rye and I have experienced and survived Burning Man! Paul and Nancy have lounged on the beaches of Hawaii. Tedders is knocking them dead at Scott USA in Ketcham, ID, and Darrell is busy camping with his new camping friend. That is all behind us and now the Dirty Duck Racing team is gathering back together again to prepare for Arse-Freeze at Buttonwillow.

So much to do and so little time. First on our list of tasks was to get two new tires so that we have two spare tires in case we get a flat during the race. I ordered two tires, exactly the same as our current 4 racing tires. And Paul sand blasted and painted two "snowflake" rims. Below is the pic of our "sticker" tires for race day! They look fantastic!!

Just love the red background. I think Paul will have to paint all our rims red! Oh, for our fans, "sticker" tires means that the tires are so new they still have the paper stickers on them, not that they are sticky. Just brand new tires for race day. We will mount these two "stickers" on the front on race day, since we are a front wheel drive car. Have our newest tires in the front.

Next thing being addressed is our "prime mover", our engine. The engine currently in the race car is tired. When we raced at Thunderhill we all felt the engine max out, it would only go so far before running out of steam. That was perfect for our first time out, nobody got into too much trouble (Paul, you get a bye on your first bump, this time). The tired engine also kept us from stressing other parts of the car, besides the driver! But everyone agreed we needed more power. We want to PASS people!!

So our plan was the take the engine out of car#3. Oh yes, forgot to tell you. Right after our first race we got two more GTI's One for free and one for very little money, designated Car#2 and Car#3. That is what you get when an engineer (me) picks the names. Anyway, Car#3 is an identical to the race car (Car#1 by default). So planned to transplant the engine from #3 into the race car. Got the car into the garage and pulled the engine. Rye cleaned it up, ready for the swap. And then it happened!

Too much time cruising Craigslist. On Monday found a posting for 1985 Golf engine, transmission and front suspension. A few emails and determined that the engine is the desirable 2.0L ABA engine. This was in our long term plans, but the price was right. Gotta jump on it now. Rye met me yesterday and we drove into the Hayward Hills, very near Cal State Hayward campus (now called California State University East Bay, I liked the old name!) to find Lou Correa at his home. Lou does custom hot rods, primarily doing "chop" jobs on 50's sedans. So another car guy.

Once we find Lou's home, here is what we find in the dirt of his backyard:

Here is Lou pointing out the finer points of the "prime mover" that used to be in his daughter's 1995 Golf.
The history of how this engine, transmission and front suspension ends up sitting in the backyard is interesting. The 1995 Golf that it used to belong to had a mishap. Lou and his wife have a cabin in the Sierras, little town of Miwok, out of Sonora. Seems that his daughter's car had a sudden failure of it's parking brake, or maybe someone knocked it out of gear, the actual cause is unknown. The fact is the little Golf started rolling free down a steep hill outside the cabin, then left and road and found it way into a number of trees! No one hurt but the car was totalled.

The Golf was towed back to Hayward and Lou has parted the car out. This is all that was left. Car had 98,000 miles on it and Lou would give a 30 day warranty that the engine is fine. After Rye and I checked it out, we agreed the engine looks good and the price was very good. Now, Rye and I had to dismantle the assembly enough to free the engine from everything else. We didn't need or want the transmission or front suspension. About an hour later, here we are, engine is free. Thanks to Lou, I had some overalls to put over my work clothes. They even fit me! Here is a pic of the engine ready to load out, Lou saying his last goodbye to the "prime mover"!

OK, now we need receipt and transfer the cash. Receipt in my hand, cash in Lou's hand, handshake to seal the deal! 2.0L power plant is now ours.

Loaded up in Rye's trailer, ready to head back to Los Gatos. Spent last night taking all the bits and pieces off of the engine. In real fact, all we need is the engine block, the bottom part. Will use the head off of the race engine and all the other pieces from the current motor too! Supposed to increase horsepower up to 115hp. Our tired race engine was probably producing no more than 75-80hp.

Besides the engine, we are doing some mods to the suspension to get more negative camber, should help us in the corners. Also have a new tachometer I got on ebay which has memory and a shift light. Boy now we are talking real racing stuff!

There are rumors out there that our fan base is ballooning. We didn't think that we would have any fans at the Buttonwillow race on December 4 and 5, but the enormous talent of the Dirty Duck Racing Team and the spectacle of the Magic Rabbit apparently is drawing crowds from places like Carmel, Huntington Beach and Davis!! The DDR team welcomes our growing fan base and look forward to entertaining the Lufts and the Boltons in Buttonwillow. As the race name implies, it might be freezing, so bring your coats!

But don't fear, the Drivers Lounge, aka Bounder RV, will be there and available to all to escape the elements if needed. Yes its true, the Bounder broke down on the way back from Burning Man (failed water pump) but after being towed to Reno, all is fixed and ready to go!

Oh, and for the multitudes of our fans, the 2011 schedule has been published. Great news, two races at Infineon (always known to the team as Sears Point!), back again to Thunderhill and Buttonwillow, but also a race at Fernley, Nevada (one of Paul's favorite places). Go to the 24 Hours of Lemons website www.24hoursoflemons.com to see the schedule and the dates.

OK, that's it for today. More posts as our preparations for Arse-Freeze continue.

We Did It!! Arse-Sweat at Thunderhill

The Dirty Duck Racing team brought their Magic Rabbit to Thunderhill Park in Willows for the 24 Hours of Lemon's Arse-Sweat event.

And we FINISHED! Our GTI ran strong and finished, we ALL had a blast of a time, the cars, the teams, the people and teamwork, our fan club, everything was fantastic!

This picture below is of us heading for safety inspection and the BS inspection. This picture is on the first row of the 24 Hours of Lemons website for this event. We are stars!

We finished 57th out of 121 cars that started, so we were above the mid-point and we are SO pleased with this being our first time ever! We can say, like Lake Wobegon children, that we are "above average"! We completed 205 laps, that is after being penalized 19 laps for a determination that we spent more than $500 on our car. The penalty started at 29 laps but a strategic offer of a bribe to the Judges, gained 10 laps back.

205 laps, 16 hours, top speed of 86 mph at the end of the straightaway, fastest lap from Ted 4 (our hot shoe) of 2:33 for a course almost 3 miles long, so well over 60 mph average! We had a few mechanical issues that hurt us, lost a total of about 3 hours in the pits chasing the mechanical gremlins, but nothing big broke and we continued on and took the checked flag on Sunday at 4pm.

The race started at 9am on Saturday, Paul at the wheel, he kept the Magic Rabbit out of the way of the fast boys, like the Death Cab VolvoV8, the Pussy Wagon BMW, the Eyesore turbo Miata and the ultimate winner, the Ice Cream is Good for Kid cuz It Makes Them Hard to Kidnap Nissan 280Z, these guys would fly by us. Near the end of Paul's stint he traded some paint with a Volvo station wagon putting the first battle scar on the Magic Rabbit. Tighten a rear wheel bearing and adjust the shift linkage kept us off the track some on Saturday. At 6pm the checked flag dropped as Darrell finished up his second stint. We had met our initial goal of finishing on Saturday and be able to take the green flag on Sunday, so we all sat around in the pits Saturday evening toasting each other and the sturdy little GTI! 9 hours of hard racing on Saturday and no heating problems what so ever.

Off again Sunday morning, green flag at 9am, but soon a "death rattle" appeared, Paul stuck on the course and had to be pulled in by a tow truck. No idea what is wrong, checked the car all over, nothing apparent. Mr. Unruly suits up and goes out, first three laps, no problems, zipping along. Maybe it fixed it's self....NOT...the "death rattle" appears again at high speed. Back in the pits, pulling off the drivers side axle, nothing wrong, check all the suspension, nothing wrong, finally just put everything back together and send our "hot shoe", Ted 4, out to test it out.

One lap, thumbs up, two laps, thumbs up, 3,4,5...all thumbs up. Well, just maybe we fixed something, but we don't know what! So off again, the funs continues, lots and laps and we move slowly up the standings as other cars have problems and drop out. By Sunday afternoon we know the car is hanging together with no further issues, so our times start dropping as we get braver with out little rabbit. And it responds, it is a very forgiving and also very stable car. Push it into the corners faster, don't touch the brakes, go into Turn 1 with just a lift, now that is exciting going into a 90 degree corner at close to 80 mph! But no problems. Throw the car into turn 10 and the inside rear wheel lifts way off the ground, like 6 to 8 inches, and throttle all the way down! The Magic Rabbit is just a blast to drive!

After 7 hours of racing Sunday, the checkered flag comes out for the end, 16 hours total and we are still running. Mr. Unruly is lucky enough to be the driver that took the checkered flag and got to drive the Magic Rabbit back to the pits with all the crews and fans lining the fences giving every car a standing ovation, now that made you feel really good inside. It is such a great group of people, we borrowed tools, asked questions from other GTI racers, shared our tools and our beer with our neighbors, and just had a wonderful time!

We have lots of amazing video thanks the Ted 4 and the video camera he borrowed from his new employer, ScottUSA. Unfortunately the files are huge, 3 to 4 gigabits, so I can't load them here.

Also, so many pics, we haven't downloaded them to disk yet, but you must go here. Rye has posted over 300 pics on shutterfly. So please go take a looks, it tells a great story from the sunrise on Friday to the team photo next to our marvelous Magic Rabbit on Sunday afternoon.

Here is the link:

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0QaNmjFs2aMWpF&emid=shar

Also a huge thank you to all friends that came:

Kristin, Victoria and Bill, Glenna and Arnie, (and now I am in big trouble because my feeble mind cannot remember Nancy's brother and sister-in-law names; ahh, with outside counsel help) Ken and Lorranine, also Darrell's friends, and Chris Wray. Thank you all for coming to see and supporting us.

And the biggest thank you, because the head perps of this adventure, Mr. Unruly and Paul, could never have done it without your help and support. Nancy Leatham and Nancy Frame!!

Thanks for putting up with these silly old men acting out their boyhood dream!

Mr. Unruly can now call himself a racer!

Look out Buttonwillow Raceway, December, Arse-Freeze, the Dirty Duck Racing team is already working on plans to give the Magic Rabbit some more thump in it's thumper!

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!