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24 Hours of Lemons cars

Car Preparation – Day 1

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.

Lifting the head

Once we pulled the head off we made a surprising discovery – all the pistons had valve marks on them.… Read the rest

Categories
24 Hours of Lemons cars

Car Pickup

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.… Read the rest

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motorsport videos

RIP Colin McRae

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]… Read the rest

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personal

Jasmine

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

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motorsport

F1 Heritage

Lotus F1 Championships

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 60s and 70s 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.… Read the rest