TARP Blog

This weekend saw the completion of two critical projects: the installation of replacement shift cables and the fabrication of a new radiator saver bar. Both efforts seem to have been met with success.

Shift cables: At the ECR race, we lost second and fourth gears (along with reverse) somewhere along the way. Because it was never an issue of the gears grinding, attention to solving the problem was focused on the shift mechanism. I located a pair of used shift cables on teh intarwebs for very cheap ($25 versus $400 for a set new from Toyota!) and received them a couple of weeks ago. They were in good condition, although the shift ends that connect to the shift forks on the transmission were somewhat corroded, but nothing that a little work with the Dremel didn’t clear up right away. After that the ABEC rollerblade bearings slipped right in and over the post on the shift forks. (more after the jump)

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Race Prep Author: Pat

At the behest of Herr Doktor Stevenson, I did some further radio testing with the new GP68 radios, just to make certain that they are fully cross-compatible with the HP10’s and SP50’s, as well as with our used Nextel Cup headsets. Fortunately for us, the GP68 uses the same plug style as the headsets and I’ve programmed them to be fully compatible with our legacy radios. Thus we can’t blame our failures at the next race on the radios! Although I do want to clean up the connection for the helmet jack on the radio harness as it was kind of flaky sometimes at the last race. Nothing a little scotch brite pad and some paint thinner can’t cure I think.

Tomorrow I plan to finish repairs to the radiator saver bar that got knocked off in the trailer by a wayward tire, finish connecting the new shift cables to the transmission, and take the car out for a test to make sure that the shift problem is limited to the cables and isn’t a problem with the tranny internals. Keep your fingers crossed.

After that (depending on time) I’m going to move the water temp and water pressure sensors to a better spot, right where the water exits the head. That way we’ll have more accurate water temp readings in the car.

I can’t wait for the race to get here…

Race Prep Author: Pat

I don’t want to give all the secrets of our over-the-top out-clowning away on teh intarwebs, but tonight I rediscovered the value of having legacy machines hanging around. As some of you know, we will be able to amplify and play music from the car while on the track. I had a very old Rio Cali MP3 player to use for this (solid state and most importantly I don’t give a crap if it gets destroyed), but the problem is that there is no support for the 7-year old MP3 player in Windows 7.

But I have this ancient WinXP laptop sitting around and voila! Transfer the calliope music to that machine, load the software over there, and now we have circus favorites ready for playback from the car.

And for the trivia buffs amongst us, the classic “circus song” that you think of is called “Entrance of the Gladiators” and it was composed by Julius Fu?ík in 1904, based on his interest in the Roman Empire. Go figure.

Race Prep Author: Pat

I got our acceptance email late last night from the illustrious Jay Lamm, so we’re in for the race at MSR-Houston in early September. We’ll once again be very, very glad that we have the cool suit system running, as the high temps will likely be in the mid- to upper-80’s and the humidity high enough to put the heat index well into the 90’s. It probably won’t be nearly as hot as it was at the North Dallas Hooptie race (air temps in the low 100’s and heat index into the one-teens), but still not cool by any stretch of the imagination.

I can’t wait! The to-do list is shorter than for last time (thank heavens) but there is still some important stuff to do like re-locating the water temp gauge sensor, re-building the radiator bumper bar (that got knocked off on the trailer drive home from NDH), and a bunch of clown-y theme additions.

Race Prep Author: Pat

Bill got his heavily-modified Renault Dauphine to the race on Saturday; unfortunately, it never left the trailer. Seems he blew out his right-side custom half-shaft earlier in the week on its maiden voyage and couldn’t get it back together for the race. The car was incredible in every way. One example: it’s painted in 5 gallons of donated runway paint. Nearly all that’s left of the original car is the body shell, as the rest of it was rusted away. Apparently the floorpans dissolved into a pile of rust when they tried to start cleaning the car out in prep for caging it. Bill is resolved to getting it on the track for the Yee-Haw It’s Texas race at MSR-Houston in September and I hope that he makes it.

The car is carrying a Mercury Sable motor and transaxle. In the back seat. The periscope (shown below) is the cold air intake — thus the Yellow Submarine title of the car. The fender flares are from Tractor Supply — one each for the rear and one split down the middle and shared on the front. These photos really don’t do the car justice, as it’s totally, completely awesome.  I think it’s safe to say that everyone who saw this car (including Jay and Nick, who have to be about as jaded as any two guys on the planet at this point to the novelty of crazy swaps) found the Dauphine to be completely and totally over the top. It makes me want to buy a total crapbucket and build a project from it. However, as I’d also like to remain married, I’m sticking with the MR2 for the time being. Ok, now on with the photos (click on each photo for a larger version):

Dauphine on the trailer. It’s low enough that the rock guard on the front is completely necessary:

(jump for more photos of this spectacular ride)

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Misty Watercolored Memories of the Way We Were Author: Pat

Yours truly was driving the TARP Clown Car for the start of the race on Day 1 of North Dallas Hooptie. When the race went green flag, we were on the back part of the course. Coming into Turn 11 — the last turn on the course, also a double-apex hairpin) I was gaining ground on the pack in front of me when a black car in front of me lunched its engine. Full boom! Bottom end exploded, huge holes in the block. I saw the accessory belt depart the car and an oil mist go up and immediately thought to myself, “self, this does not end well.” And it didn’t, as you can see from the video below. Keep an eye on the rear-view camera, that’s me spinning off into the infield Spy Hunter-style thanks to the oil slick laid down by the car that has the video:

Unfortunately, our onboard camera got knocked to full-zoom for my first run, so we don’t have video from our camera for this incident. After I discovered that error, our camera went great for the rest of the race. I need to compile a highlights video at some point…

Misty Watercolored Memories of the Way We Were, Videos Author: Pat

It’s late, we’re home, and I’m beat, so I’m going to bed. We’ll have photos and more details up later, but the results from today were fantastic. The alignment that we did really, really worked well. We were able to run all day on Sunday and got zero black flags! I don’t think that we even had an off or spin that they missed. My big goal for the weekend was to get through without blowing up a motor or a major mechanical failure and we not only achieved that goal, but to get through a whole day of racing with no black flags is far better than I ever imagined. We were not fast, and we’re terribly inexperienced, but at least we kept it on the track!

As Herm Edwards would say, we can build on this!

More tomorrow.

Race Analysis Author: Pat

The TARP team continues to rack up not-quite-unfavorable press clippings; today a large and not-the-worst-ever photo of the TARP Special and yours truly graces the front page of the Metro section of the Dallas Morning News. Here’s the link to the article; fortunately, the photo isn’t as big online Although I guess you probably can blow it up.

Hopefully, that’s what the car won’t do next weekend. It’s almost ready to roll out of the garage. I need to complete putting roof flashing on the nose of the car (because as you know, aero makes such a huge difference in this race) and finish the radiator fan mount. After that, it’s mostly driveable without stuff falling off. I’ll put on the good set of tires and then drive it a bit to make sure that everything’s not not-working, then roll it back into the garage for a ghetto-alignment using a couple of kite strings and a tin can.

There’s still a ton to do to get ready for the race — figure out the food that I need to buy, the daily schedule, continue to pray to the weather gods that they will deliver about a 10 or 15-degree drop in ambient temps for next weekend — but I’m just going to keep whittling away at the list. Cheers.

Race Prep Author: Pat

First off, I apologize to you, dear reader, for the paucity of posts for the last 10 days or so. There I was, posting on a daily (or almost daily) frequency for awhile, and then boom, I drop off the face of the map. The last week and a half have been very busy work-wise for me (2 out of town trips) plus I picked up a nasty cold/flu on this past Monday night that’s just finally working its way out of my system just in time for me to make yet another trip to Houston tomorrow morning for work. So, when confronted by the choice between (a) getting un-sick so I can work on the car, (b) working on the car, and (c) blogging, I usually choose either (a) or (b).

Stevo asked me if I’m excited about the race at this point, but I had to confess that I’m more anxious than anything else. I guess it’s just knowing what I have to do to get ready and what’s left to do. Until I’m done with the list of to-do’s, I doubt that I’ll be relaxed. Until we load up the trailer and roll out to the track. Then I’ll be relaxed. Mostly.

In the interim since the last post, I’ve gotten a lot done on the car to get it ready to race. Besides getting it running, I was able to re-build the exhaust system so that it wasn’t hanging perilously close to the ground — really, so close that it was bound to either clang against the ground during the race or collect something that fell off another vehicle. This required a fair amount of cutting, grinding, welding, and even one small burn on the palm of the right hand of yours truly when I stupidly decided not to put on a welding glove for a quick tack weld, which proceeded (of course) to throw a scrap of hot welding wire right onto my hand. Ouch. Yes, I’ll survive, thanks for the tears.

There’s really been so much done on the car that at this point it’s almost easier to list the stuff that still needs to be done:

• Replace the left rear wheel bearing and then check all the bolts on the suspension to make sure they’re all tight;
• Figure out what I’m doing with the nose/air dam/brake ducting issue. Might just narrow the nose and run the wheels wide-open to permit the maximum amount of cool air getting to the brakes, since that’s reported to be an issue at this track. That would sacrifice top-end speed due to the aero disadvantage and probably increase lift on the front wheels, so maybe not. I need to spend some time on this issue over the weekend and get it finished;
• Finish replacing the passenger-side inner CV boot and get that half-shaft installed so I can finish the exhaust installation and start test-driving the car;
• Install new brake pads and rotors for the race (will probably do this the day before the race so I don’t glaze the new pads while test driving the car) and bleed the brakes with new fluid;
• Decorate & theme the car.

Race Prep Author: Pat

It was a nerve-wracking day yesterday, but as the headline reads, the rebuilt motor is alive! After rotating the crankshaft by hand to get the no. 1 cylinder to TDC (or close), I installed the distributor (with new cap and rotor) and wired up all the spark plugs and the coil. Rolled the car out into the driveway because if you burn down the car, you can always rebuild it, unless you burn down the garage, too. Sage advice, Stevo.

On the first try, I flipped the ignition switch and the red light didn’t even light up. WTF! Turns out that I forgot to re-plug in the main power harness to the switch when I was finished working on the switchgear. Problem easily fixed.

Second try, flipped the ignition switch and the red light comes on. Success! Short lived, though. Press the starter button and nothing. Bupkis. Double WTF! Rolled the car back into the garage. Clearly something is not right with my wiring work, right?

Ha! Wrong! Turns out that one of the two main connections between the body harness and the engine had gotten knocked loose sometime during my work on the engine. That connection contains the lead that goes from the starter relay to the starter that tells the starter to go-go-go.

So, plugged that in, rolled the car back outside, sat down, flipped all the flippy switches, pressed the starter button and - whir, whir, whir. Turning over but no start.

In my head, I knew that this is normal. After all, there’s been no fuel in this fuel rail since at least November. But in my heart, I was freaking out a little bit. What if all this work is done and I can’t get the engine to start? Epic fail.

Second try, whir, whir, whir — vroom! Yippee! Even though I hadn’t set the timing on the distributor to anything than basically dead center of its range, it started and purred like a kitten. Oil pressure came right up (yea!) and hung steady at about 75 psi, which isn’t surprising given the thick break-in oil that’s in the car right now. I let the car run at somewhere just above idle for a few minutes, then noticed some wispy smoke from around the exhaust manifold. It’s probably just the new seals on everything getting hot for the first time, but I shut it down anyway. I’ll roll under the car tonight to see if we’re melting anything important

Yesterday was a big hooray day. Looks like we’ll have a car with a running engine for the race!

MR2, Race Prep Author: Pat