Tag: bmw

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24 Hours of Lemons cars personal

Pink Pig turnkey LeMons car for Sale!

UPDATE: The car is sold!!!

In a bittersweet move, the Formula BMW team is officially retiring from Lemons racing and we are putting our “Pink Pig” lemons car for sale. After 3 years of successful racing the team is splitting up and the members are moving onto other pursuits including Spec Racing. As a result we are selling the Pink Pig as a fully setup turnkey LeMons car for teams who want to get into the series without going through the hassle of building their own car.

Pink Pig at Reno

Car info:

  • 1986 BMW 325 E (E30)
  • Class winner at Reno-Fernley 2009
  • 2 Top 5s and 2 Top 10s in the last 4 races
  • Excellent handling and fast lap times
  • Ultra reliable – no major breakdowns in last 5 races
  • Full safety gear
  • 6 TR-Motorsports wheels with Hankook tires (enough rubber for 2 races)
  • Fully stripped for maximum weight reduction
    • Lexan windshield
    • Sunroof and rear parcel shelf replaced with sheet aluminium
    • Door skins only
    • lightweight sealed battery
    • dashboard, excess wiring and interior completely removed
  • Updated brakes (new master cylinder, stainless steel brake lines, new Hawk race pads, Super Blue racing fluid)
  • Wired for in-car radio (4 radios and helmet mics included)
  • 2 gallon drinks system in place (separate 1 gallon bottles)
  • Cool suit mounting system (cool suit not included)
  • Numerous other safety, reliability and speed modifications – contact for full list
  • Never had any BS Penalties or tech issues
  • “Lemons Legend” on Jalopnik
  • Click here to follow the history of the car and its racing efforts

    • Car package includes all safety gear, radios, wheels, tires, drinks systems, fuel filler hoses, etc… – just add gas and race!… Read the rest

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    24 Hours of Lemons photos

    Recap: Lemons SF 2008

    Its been almost a month and I’ve finally sat down to write a recap of Lemons SF 2008. We entered our trusty #56 Formula BMW E30 with the only changes being the addition of an LSD ($65 from the Pick-n-Pull) and putting in some stiffer springs ($200). We also put in a new (junkyard new that is) left rear hub ($150) to replace the one that led to our crashing out at Thunderhill. All in all we put in 2-3 days of work and we had the car back up and running for well under the $500 limit.

    We originally planned to have a Max Mosely mannequin bent over the trunk (pants down of course) but we ran out of time and as you can see the car looked pretty much exactly the way it did at the end of Thunderhill (apart from the aforementioned left rear hub).… Read the rest

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    24 Hours of Lemons cars videos

    Car Prep Day 3 – Its alive

    Day three of car prep was all about getting the engine running. At this point we had had the car with us for several months but we hadn’t yet heard the damn thing run.

    We started up by tightening up the head bolts and putting in a new timing belt. After that we adjusted the valve spacing (space between camshaft and valve stem) and began reconnecting that various fuel hoses and wires. We decided not to put the cooling system in until the engine was in running condition to give ourselves some work room in case we needed to replace any additional parts.… Read the rest

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    24 Hours of Lemons cars

    Car Preparation – Day 2

    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.

    A very bent valve
    Cleaning the underside of the head before putting it back on

    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.… Read the rest

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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