themonsterisme

iTrader: (2)

We have been running a miata in chumpcar for most of the Florida races for the past year or so...has been a absolute blast...these endurance races are draining but so much fun...this weekend is Daytona....wish car #110 "the 4 Dumonts" luck my fellow Mazda lovers...Sunday is the 14hour race...check chumpcar website for timing

cheseroo

iTrader: (2)

Saw your post on the Chump forum. Exhaust behind the header/collector is budget exempt in both series so you can run anything you want. We've got a complete RB system just because that's what the car came with. We orignally ran it with the stock manifold but I swapped it out because you couldn't hear the engine and put the header in. Next upgrade is to weld up a straight pipe to replace the silencer in the middle and rely only on the mufflers ahead of the bumper. If it's too loud, I'll pop the silencer back in. Lemons allows a residual car value after each race so I included the header in on the first residual so it's now an allowed upgrade and can be shown as such in my paperwork. You could always have the header on at your first Lemons race and then get it accepted in as part of your residual for the 2nd race. They aren't going to remember you from race to race and there are no logbooks in Lemons (Chump uses a logbook to note what upgrades your car has) In Chump I declared the header and took the hit but I had the stock heat shield on and the inspector didn't see the header until I told him it was there. They had a deal where if you donated to charity you could buy your lap penalty down. It came as a huge surprise to find out that the minimum donation was the exact amount needed to buy us down to a zero lap penalty. In general, I think the whole AIV thing is just to scare the bejeezus out of the newbies. The guy riffled through my documents the first time and hasn't looked again. I've since got more comparables (which I can share) which takes my AIV lower so I'll be insisting on showing him the next time. The whole NA in a turbo body thing isn't worth sweating unless you guys are a rocketship out of the box (which you won't be). Chump techs the first 3 after each day to make sure they didn't miss anything or to make sure you didn't swap in any cheaty bits after tech. If you show up with a basically stock NA engine in a stock turbo body with cutdown springs and a header, you aren't going to get sweated unless you act like a d**khead to them. All this doom and gloom on the Chump forum about jumping through this hoop or another to make the car stock is just boogieman crap designed to scare the freshmen. If you show up with a car that has shiny new mazdatrix camber plates and strut bars, you will get sweated. If you show up with camber plates made out of an old waffle iron and a strut bar of welded galvanized water pipe, you will be rewarded.

My personal opinion? Drop the NA in the turbo body. Cut the stock springs down. I think I took 1.5 coils out of our S5 vert front and rear, I can look if you really want. Slot the strut towers or strut body (mo betta) so you get 2 degrees front camber. If you want to get real crazy, replace the shock oil with HD fork oil. Put any exhaust you want on it, just make sure it's quietish (btw, we haven't torched our RB header in 4 or 5 races. Since N/A's run rich stock, I suspect the people who are burning them out have an ECU upgrade or something to get the car leaner). A front/rear swaybar upgrade will also be worthwhile. You just need to get creative on doing it rather than buying off the shelf. Continue to be paranoid of the rules as you build this thing but don't get too focused on the micro rule issues, you'll be ok.

rotarygod

iTrader: (1)

We decided to just go with what we were going to do and roll with whatever comes our way. We liked the idea of the TII chassis for the strength of the drive train. The rear sway bar on the TII is actually a bit larger than the n/a's as well. I was going to get creative with the sway bars. They aren't all about thickness but rather leverage. I want to attach the sway bar to the struts which is as far out as you can go which will give them great leverage. The bar will have to be modified by cutting the ends off and welding on some angle iron which will also give some tunability. This was a 1st gen E-prod trick and definitely looks like someone got creative with a hacksaw and welder but it works quite well. We are probably going to swap an na engine in place of the 4 port and just run an na ecu with it.

We will gladly take any help we can get!

cheseroo

iTrader: (2)

Another thought is to double up/stack 2 stock bars. You could leave one in the stock location and move the other outboard. I wish I had started out with a TII driveline.

rotarygod

iTrader: (1)

The car is now in our possession. We are basically going to let it sit for a few months before working on it so we can all get on the same page and formulate a plan and budget within a set time line.

Eddie SoPure Brown III

This has got to be some of the funniest stuff i've seen

SiRMarlon

Here is my Le Mon Project car we are starting...

https://www.rx7club.com/build-threads-293/project-le-mon-racekor-1003030/

pintodave

iTrader: (2)

Hey guys! Just poking around reading some threads, thought I'd say "hi" in this one as we have been doing some Chumpcar races in the south east...

Thought I'd post up a pic of the '84 GSL-SE scca car we just picked up a little bit ago, not 100% sure on direction but looking like we will upset the rotary purists and do a motor swap, and no it won't be a V8

We are in the east central Florida area, Ormond specifically... If anyone is close by drop a note on here and say hi.

mschiap

iTrader: (20)

Wow, ITS class - that's a nice car for Chumpcar. I'd leave the 13b in there; it has enough power to be competitive.

What are your plans for the suspension?

cheseroo

iTrader: (2)

Both series are sorta "anti-establishment" so I'd make sure I try to remove as many stickers and such that indicate that it's spent part of it's life as a race car. Lemons will give penalty laps to race cars and Chump will probably look harder for "add-ons" to AIV. A first gen shouldn't have much problem getting a good Chump AIV so you probably have room.

7dust

iTrader: (14)

Anyone else doing Lemons at Road America next month?

American Lemans series is on Saturday 8-18 and 24 Hours of Lemons is Monday 8-20 through Tuesday 8-21.

RX7 is getting trailered up from Texas and I figure I can go up early and watch Lemans.



^^^ Here we are at last Month's 24 Hour Race at ECR! You will notice we put the car on a serious diet. Road America is over 4 miles long and the straights are loooooong. I seriously expect to get into 5th gear and stretch the turbo drivetrain to its limits!

cheseroo

iTrader: (2)

I am expecting to be there but not bringing my cars. I will be in Spank's diesel corvette and the other even more ridiculous car we're working on. I had thoughts of bringing the Jag to RA as it's 30mph faster at the end of the Buttonwillow straight than the RX7 but logistics and lack of teammates for RA make that difficult.

pintodave

iTrader: (2)

Yea, the 13B should make good power, but there is a problem with the motor, no power in the front chamber right now, apex seals if we had to guess. We do not know rotarys so we will tear it down and check it out... The previous owner was having a fuel inj. issue and from what I've read stock EFI vs carb, the carb makes more power on the older cars...

Our biggest deciding factor will be cost, we actually like rotary motors but I know some of the parts can be pricey (compared to a more readily available platform such as SBF & SBC for example...) so if we can do a cool conversion and have something reliable and cost effective that is the name of the game for us.

We haven't gotten into the suspension yet, we will probably keep it reasonable. I'm not too sure how far beyond "stock" it is at the moment.

AIV we should be ok (on the base car at least), we have been collecting ad's as we see them pop up. We are also going to paint it up to match our other team car

We were going to try and get something together with the RX7 for Sebring, but we got invited to the Eastern Chumpionship @ Atlanta Motor Speedway, so needless to say we were flattered by that and are choosing to focus our efforts for that. All parties involved with the racing effort have WAY too many hobbies lol...

We find ourselves liking the Chumpcar series a little better than LeMons. No beef w/ LeMons and if they had a race close by we would attend, but we feel that Chumpcar allows everyone to be a bit "racier" but still controls the excess issues well too.

cheseroo

iTrader: (2)

As an FYI, SBC's are probably the number 1 reason for oildowns in Lemons/Chump. I would guess that SBC's are cheaper in the long run though as they generally send their rods out the pan whereas SBF's send them out the block. Plan on bringing at least one spare motor or put a hard 4500 rev limiter on the thing if you go that route. They do look fun up until the boom part.

If you haven't done one of these motors before and you do want to go that route, you might want to invest in one of the rotary rebuild DVD's before you do so. I hadn't rebuilt a rotary in over 20 years so the refresher was nice plus it reminds you of the tricks so you don't need 12 hands to hold all the seals together when putting stuff back in. If you are have just a little paranoia about doing it, you'll probably be fine.

7dust

iTrader: (14)

We have raced 15 or so races. Ive kinda lost count.

We have rebuilt 6 or 7 times. Sometimes to try another configuration and sometimes because we blew up. I've kinda lost count.

One thing for sure, I feel MUCH better about my rebuilding skills than when we started racing Lemons.

Its not always engines. We have killed axles, differentials, alternators, starters, transmissions, and clutches. Come to think of it, I think only the shell of our RX7 goes back to our first race.

One think is for sure, you will become a good mechanic - or you just won't survive.

Brent Dalton

iTrader: (31)

If anyone is in need of a driver in September or October, shoot me a PM.

7dust

iTrader: (14)

^^^We are still sorting out Road America next month. However, when we get back we will sort out MSR. We might need someone for the RX2.

We plan to put guys in the RX2 and a chick team in the RX7.

The RX2 is the worst handling car I have EVER driven and it never ran right at TWS. We are going to fix the engine issues and run it for (hopefully) a Class C win. Think 200rwhp that handles like wet spaghetti.

cheseroo

iTrader: (2)

I might be interested in the RX2. So far I've Lemons raced one car I owned in high school (Austin America) Why not make it two. Here's a crappy old scanned pic of my high school ride. I'm a bit scared to admit what year that was but Racing Beat was a small shop and they would sell me their dyno cast-off irons stupid cheap. And let me make weekly payments on them.

pintodave

iTrader: (2)

That sounds right up my alley!! Decent power and ill-handling, that makes for a fun session!!


Cheseroo, I am with you on the SBC's (and SBF's for that matter) not making the cut on the endurance stuff - but... there is always a but right? But I wonder if it is not more self-inflicted pain that a true reliability problem......

Now I have been a Ford guy for most of my life, but I will race anything and I am not partial as long as I can get behind the wheel, but I do gravitate to Fords... We run a stock Vortec SBC in our current chumpcar - pulled from a mid 90's chevy 1500 with 228k miles - we knew the history of the truck and maintenance was superb, but that is still a lot of miles.... To date we have done (1) 24 hr LeMon's race, (1) 14 hr chumpcar race (only ran 7 hrs, broke tranny), (1) 14 hr chumpcar race, and about a 4 hour test session... That is about 48 hours of torture on that poor little SOB and to date the only 'hard' parts we have changed are the oil pump and the valve springs...

I wouldn't have believed it myself if I wasn't a part of it... I do have a new found respect for SBC's (as much as I used to kind of make fun of them).

My personal opinion, which may be worth squat, is that most people open up motors and disturb stuff or do "rebuilds" with zero understanding of how to check working tolerances. We used to run mini-stocks back in the day and the 2300 Ford motor was a hit-or-miss mystery to most, including us. Sometimes you could beat on it for 3 months of racing @ 7800 rpm no problem, other times you'd have a motor that would run for 3 minutes before spitting a rod... Once I started doing all of my own assembly and fitting work we never had another issue. I received "ready to install" rotating assemblies from a reputable supplier - crank was out of round .0015, side clearance on rods was way too tight even for a street motor... Shameful... Sorry, that is just my mini-rant on dealing with "experts"...

We are dragging our Chumpcar to Atlanta on the same motor... I'm not going to lie, it does make me nervous as hell!! We will just run good fluids as normal and let 'er eat...

Eat-Pez

iTrader: (1)

What car are you guys running?

pintodave

iTrader: (2)

A 1993 Lincoln Town Car

chicagozer

iTrader: (3)

Ah...this is where all the crapcans are hiding. I've been lurking on this board trying to learn something about the RX-7 my wife just bought.

Hello from the Pikachubaru!

coolcars44

iTrader: (5)

stay with the rotary if you dont know how to rebuild the motor pay someone who does.a rx7 setup correct is faster than the swapped over rx7s to v8 or whatever and lap times prove that.

cheseroo

iTrader: (2)

I don't think you can make a blanket statement that a rotary will always be faster than a swapped 7. At a place like Thunderhill last weekend, a rotary does fine because it's more of a momentum track. At a place like Reno or Road America where you have uphill sections after turns, the swapped 7's just walk away. At places like that you have to drive the sh*t out of the rotary just to be sorta close and any time you do that, you put yourself at big risk of penalty for passing under yellow and such. It's hard to drive with that intensity for 2-3 hours straight (Chump has a 2hr stint limit). Let's say the rotary is 3 secs a lap faster than the swapped 7. A single black flag due to overdriving could take you 50-100 laps to make back up over the swapped 7 that might not have to be driven as hard. We'll run Fontana in a couple months and the rotary should kill a swapped 7 there for a number of reasons. Personally, I'm sticking with the rotary but there are times when I sure wish I had a V8. It just varies track to track.

Also, it takes time to correctly set up an RX7 the Chump/Lemons way. You can't just show up with camber plates, coil overs, swaybars, poly bushings, etc and expect not to get dinged for it. You need to do stuff like figure out how much extra metal you can weld onto the stock swaybars to get the stiffness you need. Figure out which junkyard springs have the spring rates you need and modify your strut perch to get the ride height you want. Crap like that takes time to sort out.

I also encourage people to learn how to do your own motors for Chump/Lemons. 1, you know how to fix it if it goes wrong. Your motor builder isn't going to come to the track with you. 2. You can then build 2 so you have another one ready to throw in if you pop one. I've got a 2nd one complete down to the engine harness so it's a plug and play deal to swap it out. 3. a motor builder will build it all nice, clean, painted and prettied up. The Chump/Lemons tech guy is going to open the hood and you will immediately be on the defensive because it's now up to you to prove that you aren't cheating when a nice clean motor screams that you are cheating. I take pains to put mine together dirty and nasty on the outside and no one even looks twice at it. I also try to stay within the spirit of the rules and build them with used irons, housings and such. The purists will cringe but I've never started with new anything for the hard parts. That's crapcan racing. The rebuild kit alone is over the $500 but I try to keep the cheating down a bit. I leave the rats nest and air pump on even though it's not doing anything functional. Low pro is your friend. Sorry to disagree with your post but I just haven't seen it always work out the way you see it.

088

iTrader: (9)

I like your driving style.