The Racing Geek

Last weekend Nithya and I took our GTI to the GGLC Autocross at the Marina airport. The performance far exceeded my expectations and at 61.7 seconds I was actually the 3rd fastest driver in very wet morning session (the fastest Elise did a 64.x). Much of this was due to the fact that it had proper wet weather tires on, but the handling was pretty amazing - very predictable with some understeer at the limit. It did of course feel quite a bit heavier than the Elise but the direction changes were quick and chassis was very forgiving. As the track dried out I lost my performance advantage over the elises but as you can see in the photo I did manage to get a wheel off the ground

Photo by norcalturbo

This was also the first Autcross for Nithya as a driver. She started out very slowly with a 130 second lap but by the end of the day she was down 66 seconds - by far the greatest improvement of any driver at the event ans just 6 seconds off my best lap. She had so much fun that she’d decided to attend all future events, we’ve already signed up for the November event. The following video is of her last run - notice the tire squeal in the turns and the cones she destroys near the end

Nithya @ the GGLC AutoX from rnair on Vimeo.

Day 2 of preparation was all about fixing up the head. As you can see below the valves were in really bad shape and all of them had to be replaced. We cleaned the head and the block before putting on a new head gasket kit.

The manifolds were bolted back onto the head and we put the head back onto the car. At this point we were feeling quite optimistic about getting the car done when we realized that we didn’t have the right tool to tighten the head bolts - seeing that it was already late we called it quits for day 2 with the head just sitting on the block.

More photos on Flickr.

Now that we had the car at Dietsch Werks, we had to figure out what was wrong with. Day 1 would be all about stripping the car under Robs guidance. We started out by jacking it up and draining the coolant.

The next step was to remove the cylinder head. This was needed because the 325 is an interference engine and the broken timing belt guarantees that we have belt some valves. We disconnected all the hoses + wiring and used a forklift to lift the head out of the engine bay.

Once we pulled the head off we made a surprising discovery - all the pistons had valve marks on them. This confused us for a bit until we looked at the timing belt and found that it was not only broken but was also missing several teeth. In a regular timing belt break you usually damage the valves in only one or two cylinders before the engine stops turning and prevents further damage. In this particular instance the engine had kept on running with bad timing (due to the missing belt teeth) and ALL the valves had made at least some contact with the pistons.

While all this work was being done on the engine we got to work stripping the interior of the car and by the end of the day it was looking much more like a racecar.

After this we called it quits for the day and felt quite pleased at having accomplished quite a lot on our first work day.

More photos in my Flickr set.

After a couple of weeks of frantic paper writing things have finally cooled down enough that I can go back to writing my blog. First on the list is a series of blog posts about our preparation for the 24 hours of Lemons. Sit back and enjoy the fun.

The first and most important thing we needed to run in the Lemons was a car, not just any car, but a car that we’d be able to buy AND prep for for under $500. Looking through the results of the first race we decided that an older japanese econobox would probably be the best car to run with. We were all set to rummage through the local junkyard when fate suddenly dropped a car in our lap. One of Robs friends had an old BMW with a broken timing belt that was blocking his driveway - he told us that as long as we get the car out of his way immediately we could keep the car for free. We quickly showed up at his door to take a look at the car.

We found that the car was a 4 door 1986 BMW 325 E with 245 thousand miles on the clock. The E denoted that it had the economy engine, this meant lower horsepower but higher torque which should be ideal for the tight Altamont circuit. The car itself was in better shape that I expected, the paint was peeling from 21 years of exposure and he interior was a mess but there was very little rust and the engine “looked” ok with the timing belt being the only obvious problem. Being an E30 meant that the parts were cheap and bolt-in rollcages were readily available. People who had entered the last race had warned us that non-running cars were a huge time sink, but the fact that the car was available and free meant that there was only one thing to do. We rolled the car into Robs trailer and made it our official entry into the Lemons race.

More photos of the car pickup in the Flickr set.

P.S.: We are not cheating by getting a “free” car, the KBB value for a 1986 325E in fair condition is $400 - a non-running car is worth almost nothing.
[tags]24 hours of lemons, e30, bmw, 325, preparation, racing[/tags]

Colin McRae was killed in a helicopter crash yesterday. I never had the pleasure of seeing him race in real life but I did follow it on TV. He truly embodied the never say die spirit and will be missed by million of fans.

Check out this clip from the 2006 X Games - he rolls his car(2:10) and still continues on to finish second.

[tags]Colin McRae, RIP, x games, roll, death, sad, rally, driver[/tags]

A 2 year old Shar-pei/labrador mix that we adopted from the Oakland Animal Shelter. More pics here.

I just got this great decal of the years in which Team Lotus won the F1 constructors championship. It may have been well before my time but there was a period in the 50s and 60s that Lotus was by far and away the best team in Formula 1. The genius of Colin Chapman combined with the talent of drivers like Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Emerson Fittipaldi and Mario Andretti resulted in Lotus not only having the fastest cars but also the best drivers - makes you feel sorry for their opposition

For more info on the racing history of Lotus check out their wikipedia page. Another good source of information is Classic Team Lotus an independent company formed by Clive Chapman to preserve and promote the cars raced by Team Lotus.

[tags]Lotus, formula 1, f1, constructors[/tags]

On Monday we finally got our Lemons car started for the first time - still need to put the cooling system on buts its a relief to finally get it running. I promise I’ll have a series of posts about the actual prep work.

It’s Alive from rnair and Vimeo.

P.S.: The smoke is just oil smoke and the unbolted exhaust - the video got cut off because my phone died on me

[tags]24 hours of lemons, car bmw, e30, preparation[/tags]

* The yellow car is a Lamborghini Gallardo (which is the only lambo with regular doors) while the silver car is a Honda with what are known as Lambo doors

Photo found floating around the interweb.

[tags]irony, photo, lambo, doors, lamborghini, honda, ricer, funny[/tags]