Update - Short Work Day 4/21/2012

Well we spent a few hours prepping the car for the motor swap planned for next weekend. I removed the transmission tunnel cover, packed up all the lighting install stuff I left laying all over the car, and my pops installed the new GM Delco 63amp one wire alternator. He did nice clean quick job with minimal modifications so that the stock alternator can easily be put back in if needed.

He used a generic curved alternator bracket we picked up at O'reilly's, cut shorter and bent to fit. Then used a Y connector to connect the two main lines to a single wire to the alternator. The belt is also a bit longer than stock to accommodate the large diameter of the alternator. It works great, the volt meter is showing a steady 14 volts and will provide plenty of juice for the off road lights.



Also, our application for the Arse-Sweat-Apalooza has been set accepted, so it is official. We are going to try and do a real 24 hour strait race in the Spitfire. If we can finish the race it will be our greatest accomplishment so far as a team. I can not wait for June 30th..

Score! Short Work Day 4-14-2012

We totally scored! The 3rd complete 1500 motor we have, that came from one of the rat infested parts cars, is basically a complete fresh rebuild! I am not even sure if it is broken in yet. So stoked!! but anyways...

So it started out a normal Saturday morning, but with expected AM showers, I was not in much of a hurry to get up to my Dad's to work on the car. I had a little bit of me time and just played some Dirt 3 for a few hours.



I got my lazy ass up and got to my pops and he was just pulling the third motor out of the shed. The plan was to tear this motor down and replace bearings, gaskets, and put on the rebuilt head we ran at the last race. We got the motor onto the stand and turned it upside down...



Black water came pouring out of the water pump... If looked nasty and at first we thought it was dirty oil mixed in the water, but after close inspection we realized it was dirty and not oily, so no biggie. At this point I realized, in contrast to the rest of the motor that the fuel pump looked quite new.



My pops then removed the oil sump and started unbolting the connecting rods so he could inspect the bearings. While taking these pictures, I was noticing how new everything looked inside the motor as well.. When he got the first bearing off he said that they were new and are not stock. It appears the motor is bored out .020, which is what the bearing marking indicates. He inspected the rest of them and said, this is all new and he will just put a new gasket on and close it back up. I snapped a few more shots of the inside of the motor. Even the Pistons look new, and you can see only a minor discoloration on the inside of it.





We then flipped the motor over to take the valve cover off and inspect the top of the head, and what we saw were a lot of new parts..





This motor appears to be completely rebuilt from the bottom up. We knew it had a cam, but we had no idea how fresh it was. So we scored this gem for free with just some time, labor, and parting things out of those rat infested cars. This will save us some money and time spent rebuilding. We also do not have to include the cost of bearings in our car value for the next race. This motor will be great for the upcoming full 24 hour race, and if we are good to it, we should have no motor issues the entire race.

My pops then closed it back up, we put it back on the wooden cart, put the clutch & pressure plate back on, and bolted up the transmission.



I then looked through everything I had bought to prep for the race and piled it on the Spitfire. We have plenty of lights, wiring, fuses, relays, new fuel cans, reflectors, etc..

The plan forward is to just spend a little bit of time this next week prepping the car to have the motor and transmission pulled and then the weekend after make the swap. We will have the new alternator by then and the wheels should arrive around that time as well. By mid May we will be testing everything out and have a hole month to relax before the 24 hour race on June 30th. We can use the extra time to do some work on the RX7.

This could not be going better! Who could of thought this ugly thing is a gem...

Sears Pointless Photos, Videos, and a Team Update

So my pops gave me the photos from the track photographer at the Sears Pointless race and they look really good. Though racing in the rain in our car was quite frightening, it sure made for some great photos.



There are also some good dry weather ones he took. You can see the photo album HERE

There is some video from the race, I have a good amount of video of me driving in the rain just putting around trying to survive. I have yet to edit any of it or upload it, I will get to it some day. What I was given is a link to Cem's video which is very good and shows off the Spitfire on the dry track. Check it out... (if you are on a mobile device and can not see the videos go to the bottom of the page and click "View Web Version")



My pops also put together some video of him in the car in the rain. He added some commentary and it shows some of the frustrations of racing Lemons in the rain, like all the yellow flags.



The biggest news is we have found ourselves a new teammate for the full 24 hour race at Buttonwillow coming up June 30th. He has more automotive knowledge then we know what to do with and is a nice guy. We met up with him Saturday while going over some minor things on the car and I can tell already he will fit in just fine. Now if I can just get the other two drivers singed up we will be ready for the registration deadline of April 21st.

We tooled around a bit, made the planned adjustments to the carburetor, checked out the Hella 500 head lights, cleaned up some rust caused by the rain, and looked things over. The oil is no longer milky, which means our issue from the December race of leaking radiator water into the oil was fixed. Pretty much everything seemed good. Will just need to get under the car and tighten everything down, but besides that we have no repairs to make, just upgrades to do. Our oil cooler adapter kit arrived so now we need to pick up a cooler. Any small cooler will do, even a transmission cooler. I would like to go down to the Junk Yard to look for one to save us some money. Also I have made a list of things we could look for while there that could be useful to us.

oil coolers - crown vics, volvos, trans cooler from large ford trucks or vans
gm alternator lates 70’s (lower amp is better don’t go too high)
78-80 ford Fiesta bosch alternator
lucas alterntors - (mgbs, austins, mini-coopers, triumphs etc)
tachs, or other gauges ..
tail lights - anything that would fit
fuse holders
starter solenoid - Ford solenoid from Mustang or F100
GT6- Diff - 3.63:1 more top speed(spitfire 1500 is 3.89:1)
light bar to mount off road lights
front lighting - fog lights, off road lights
any GT6 or Spitfire parts

The major work we plan to get done within the next two months is getting the motor swapped to the one with a Schneider cam. We plan to replace the bottom end bearings in this motor as well so we will be getting started on this soon. We also have ordered some custom built 14" wheels for the Spitfire so we have a wider option on tires. They should arrive in about a month and then we need to make sure they fit and modify the car so they do not rub.

A highlight over the weekend was getting my girlfriend in the Spitfire and having her drive it around the block. She has never driven a stick shift before but impressed me with how well she did. Now we need to find a cheap little car for her to drive around so driving stick becomes second nature to her. I hope to have her race ready by December for the LeMons race at Chuckwalla. With my pops now building the RX7 we are going to need all the drivers we can get. She is really excited by the idea and it would be cool to have her join in this madness.

There is work to be done...