Let me start from the beginning... I know, I know, the time line of this blog has been mixed up, sorry. It will start to be in order after this one, maybe....
The original car we started with was intended as a parts car for my dad's vintage Spitfire he was racing in VARA. He picked it up for either $100 or $180, he claims $100 I remember the later. Come to think of it, it was $100 after he sold the windshield maybe? Oh well it does not really matter, you get the idea, it was cheap.
After being in a Chump race together with Spank, my dad looked over this Spitfire again and asked me if I would be interested in building this thing as crap can racer with him. Obviously I said yes but at that point we had no idea what the team's theme would be about. I have a good friend I knew would be interested in this and invited him to join and that was how our team was born. We started ripping all the extra junk off the car, wiring, smog, interior, fuel tank and we stripped it bare. What we found was a car that had been some what restored and painted but we were unsure about the motor.
After we got it cleaned up added a battery, some fuel, and checked for oil, it started. The motor actually ran pretty smooth and sounded OK. So by default this was the motor we were going to start off with. We didn't even do any work on the motor as we now had to get the thing built to pass safety tech. This is were a majority of the cost came from. The metal for the roll cage, the racing seat, the new brake pads, brake rotors, fuel cell, fire extinguisher, tires, and countless nuts and bolts. I could not tell you what this ended up costing us (mostly my dad), but we did all we could to save money. We built the cage our selves following the rules then had a friend, who does metal fabrication and welding for a living, come clean it up and make sure it was solid. A good man who did it as a favor and for some beer.
Now these safety items do not count towards the $500 value of the car as per the rules. So technically we were still under $200 as we bought an air filter and some other misc things.
One night while my buddy and I were having some beers we came up with the name for the team. We knew we wanted to do something punk rock, and He has the Sex Pistols British flag hanging on his wall. I am not sure exactly how we came to the Sex Pistons, but the following week he made up our team logo.
We then bought four decent 13" Sumito HTR 200 tires to race on and two cheap hard highway tires for spares. Hooked everything up got it running and painted it black with primer spray paint. We drove it around a bit and were all ready to go. The rest was all fun painting on the car and making the rear brake lights using some skulls with red LED lights in the eye sockets.
We then took it to the first race, and that story is in the "Our Story and Some Pics" blog, but basically it ended before it started (DNS).
We knew we needed a new axle and hub so my dad found us a used one for $50 if I remember correctly. We are not sure if that counts as it is a direct replacement and does not change the value but lets say it does and that puts us at $250. Then my dad saw a craigslist ad for two complete Spitfires for $500 I mentioned in the last blog. What I did not mention was he gave us an extra standard 4 speed transmission as well. After we picked them up my friend decided he wanted to turn one into a street car so we sold it to him for $250, putting us at $500 car value if you count spares. We then stripped the other one down for spares and did the ChumpCar race at Buttonwillow Raceway in June 2011.
We then swapped out the motor and overdrive transmission from the original Spitfire for the standard 4 speed transmission and the motor in the spare car. We sold the over drive transmission from the original car for $250 on craigslist putting us back down to $250 again. My dad found a guy selling a motor, used webber, and damaged headers for a Spitfire 1500 for $150. He picked those up and I decided to buy us an electric fan for $45 so we could have better cooling and take some resistance off the motor. So we were now at $445.
We patched up the headers and bolted them on with the webber and electric fan for our second ChumpCar Race which was at AutoClub Speedway in Fontana on October 2011. After this race our motor still felt good and we fixed the transmission clutch arm pin problem for the cost of a bolt.
We ran this same set up at Arse Freeze Apalooza @ Buttonwillow in December 2011. We did buy new tires for $500 but they will last us two races, and we had the $350 of welding work done at the track. These are just expenses of the hobby and do not cont towards the car value, so we split the cost and had a great race.
Now my friend who bought the other Spitfire from us never got it on the road. So the plan is to start stripping it down and sell the over drive transmission, windshield, and anything else we can. We are estimating to get around $350 for this, and we are only paying him back the $250. So it wont technically effect our car value.
The rest is all work we do ourselves so that cost is up for speculation. The thing is we are computer people by trade. My dad is a Sr. Computer Scientist and I am a Q.A. Software Tester. It's not like we are mechanics. The next real cost for improvement is the head work, but it is only $50 in parts that really does not effect the cars value. It will still just be a low compression head for a Spitfire 1500 that has the smog holes we plugged with bolts. (Heads seen in last blog).
Should have pics of the 2 spare parts cars and we will try and find pics of the stripped axle and hub to add later.
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