Pictures, lots of em...

Here's a bunch of pictures that other people took of us during the day. This is actually a fairly accurate representation of how our car spent the day at lemons.

The Results are in...

... and they're not so great.

So, after months of prep and a frentic few final days of wrenching to get the car together we showed up for the race bright and early Saturday morning. We set up our pit, got the car through the tech and BS inspections, attended the driver's meeting and then, at noon, we pulled the car out on to the track to start racing with Adam H at the wheel.

Shortly there after it crapped out on us (about 5 laps in to the race). No big deal though, it was just a coolant hose that had split, we replaced the hose and got back out on the track. A few more laps, and it died again, another small problem, the throttle cable had come unattached. A quick fix and back on to the track.

Then things got worse (really??) - yup. Lots of smoke comming out of all sorts of places. We never did get that problem entirely solved, but we were able to let the car cool off in the pit, and get it back running enough so that Adam and Tristan could take it around the track for a few laps, but Ramana never got a chance to take a turn before it completely stopped running.

So, we ended up with a total of 49 laps, although we did attract a huge crowd of amature mechanics who all wanted to try their hands at diagnosising and/or fixing the engine's many maladies. While it was fun to see all these people, you know it's not good, it's like when you go to the hospital, and the Dr calls in all the interns to see your funny bumps because it's some rare tropical disease or something. That's what we had, something rare and horrible. It even shot off an epic backfire while we were trying to crank it to life that had people diving for cover.


Here's what the car looked like on the track:











And then comming off the track:











And this is how it spent most of it's time:




















On the bright side, we had lots of friends and family come out to enjoy the disaster with us, and they brought lots of yummy food, and always had an encouraging comment, like "did you try shooting it, or burning it?". So, all in all a pretty good time, we're looking forward to doing it again.

Progress!!

I should frigg'n hope so - we are racing next weekend for cryin' out loud.

We have made a ton of progress:

Brakes rebuilt and bled.


Seat properly mounted:



Stuff cut because sparks are fun:




Rollcage, painted.


Awesome "BFGoodrich" Hankook tires and two extra wheels, check.


Glass removed, and awesome paint job applied.


Here it is in its natural habitat (on a safari):


Notice the wicked bad ass speed .... drips.


And our official logo.


Our super hi tech cover will prevent weather and tigers from getting in.


All we have left to do is:
- Battery cut off switch
- Rear brake light
- Harness
- And one more thing that I don't remember.

Huge thanks to the guys at DSG for the use of their garage space and for their expertise.

Crate

What's more racecarey than a racing seat and a rollcage?

Nothing.

That's why our peugeot is totally like a race car now, instead of just a car that we're going to race.



It has no brakes though at the moment. We don't need that crap. What do brakes do other than slow you down? Nothing. This is a frigg'n race car after all.

Gutted

Today we were hugely productive. 3 of us drove the car "for real" for the first time, each of us having an opportunity to run it through some gears, toss it around some turns and stand on the brakes. After doing some silly baloney ( professional driver on a closed course):



we pulled the car into the garage and found that the motor was heating things up a bit.



No big deal though - for all we know the cooling system has been filled with earl grey while sitting for the past couple years. We'll figure that out, I'm sure. Driving the car we found that the brakes are terrible, the handling is soft but predictable, the steering wheel is made of 20 grit sand paper, and the car is frigg'n awesome.

We got ready to start pulling the gizzards out:



And then didn't stop till she was completely bare.









A lovely rust color. Things are coming along! Removing the sound deadening involved a very cool high-tech mothod involving smashing the shit out of it with a hammer until it cracked and "flaked" off. It was surprisingly effective!

Next up: rollcage.

EDIT:
Oh yeah; totally forgot to include a before photo:

We have a car! Officially and stuff!

We picked up the car today. We are the champions of the world.



It was like 14 degrees out, and we had a bit of difficulty getting the car starting:



That's right. There are 3 sets of jumper cables going onto that battery. One from the Nissan pickup, one from the 505, and one from a battery booster. We're lucky we didn't melt a hole to the center of the earth.



SIde note; Ramana is tall.



Anyway, we finally got the car on the trailer to bring it back to DSG for storage.



The car has some totally kick ass details. Check it out: