Story and Photography by the Staff of the 24 Hours of Lemons
Rub your eyes a few times if you’d like, but you’re seeing this correctly. That is a Dodge Viper V10 (actually one from a Dodge Ram SRT-10, but same difference) dropped into a 1970s Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow (actually, it’s a long-wheelbase Silver Spur.) It raced in the 24 Hours …
Oh, he just went and got a second Viper engine. No big deal.
WTF.
Mr_Asa said:Oh, he just went and got a second Viper engine. No big deal.
WTF.
Things like "viper engine" and "rolls royce" sound cool when it comes to crapcan racing until rods end up in the troposphere and finding parts is both timely and expensive. Even with that being said....it is still pretty f'ing rad and probably sounded amazing too.
No pictures of said amazing fabrication? I am disappoint.
$500 hunnert doolar, my ass. As Jay would say. That car will never win the race, so why worry?
Appleseed said:$500 hunnert doolar, my ass. As Jay would say. That car will never win the race, so why worry?
Exactly this. The Lemons organizers want to see cool weird cars, and in cases like this, they aren't worried about it being fast or reliable, so they're happy to give some slack on the budget.
They just did a video about an Aston Martin that a guy got as a rolling shell, fabricated all the suspension mounting points etc. himself, and put a small block Ford in it. He even showed up and said "I know this is not a $500 car, please give me all the penalty laps you want, I just want to race an Aston Martin in Lemons"
So they did, and the car was terribly slow and didn't steer right, and it was awesome anyway because it's an Aston Martin in Lemons.
Yeah, and the creator Darko has spent FAR more than just a couple thousand on this monster.
Also, those V10 truck motors only share the bottom end. I think even the water pump is different from the truck to the Viper.
morello159 said:No pictures of said amazing fabrication? I am disappoint.
https://forums.24hoursoflemons.com/viewtopic.php?id=36831
This thing is amazing in the flesh. It was at RadWood Detroit last year. Here are some pics, sorry about the quality, the camera was dying on me, new phone since then. The only think I don't like is those stupid spike lug nuts. No one should be allowed to put them on anything, unless they are willing to have someone drive past them with them fitted at 5mph and take out their shins. This comes from a childhood incident where a friend ended up in hospital after some Douche bag shredded his legs with similar spike on their bike wheel.
I see a dealer plate, presumably that means it was driven on the street. If so, that’s awesome.
This is what Lemons is all about! We've raced against Darko at th Empire Hill Climb and Lemons. Anyone can buy a car but to fab something like this together on a shoestring budget and then actually race it is awesome, my hats off to him!
No, Lemons WAS about $500 cars. NOW it about being desperate to allow ANYTHING to race and pay the entry fees.
No thanks, someone pooped in the sandbox with their $10,000 E36 M3can build. Ain't playing anymore.
In reply to nimblemotorsports :
So how do you really feel?
I know what you mean, but it's the nature of competition. Forget that, its the nature of reality. Look at the $20xx challenge. It started as the $1,500 challenge, then became the $20xx challenge. Then safety items were allowed, than replacement brake parts, then tires, then roll cages etc. Now it's the $20xx challenge plus an additional $1-3K in 'free' stuff. That's part of why I think they should remove the budget cap and I bet the challenge would still be just as cool. Just replaced the year cost cap with a BS score. Same with LeMons and Chump. It's just not practical to have an artificial cap. A $500 Rolls is perfectly feasible if you're in the RR or scrap business, but not if you're a regular person. Hell even a $500 econobox buys something very different here in the rust belt compared to desert areas. To me this car is more in the spirit of the rules than a pro built $500 Miata with some wicked hidden E36 M3 underneath.
Adrian -- Chump went that route via Champ and it kind of bit them in the ass. They were allowing anything to race, placing those cars in EC, and giving them some penalty laps. People eventually complained when IMSA race cars started showing up to race people like me with $6000 race cars (that's car, parts, and misc fab included). I honestly didn't care; however, I see the validity in the complaints and having some restrictions.
I've never been to a Lemons race. I'd rather see some cobbled together heap like this even it is nowhere near a $500 car than upside down camaros or airplanes or boats or other such nonsense.
Seems to me that Lemons is whatever the nickel guy says it is with different rules for different folks. I'd still like to spectate or better yet participate in one of their events.
DirtyBird222 said:Adrian -- Chump went that route via Champ and it kind of bit them in the ass. They were allowing anything to race, placing those cars in EC, and giving them some penalty laps. People eventually complained when IMSA race cars started showing up to race people like me with $6000 race cars (that's car, parts, and misc fab included). I honestly didn't care; however, I see the validity in the complaints and having some restrictions.
I thought CHUMP/CHAMP kept the cheap stuff and formed AER for the high $$ stuff.
If I ever went racing again CHAMP interests me more than Lemons where utterly bizzae things like planes and boats or deliberatly lookng like E36 M3 is prized higher than anything else. Having said that I'm not infomed enough to really pass comment.
KillermgBee said:Anyone can buy a car but to fab something like this together on a shoestring budget and then actually race it is awesome, my hats off to him!
A neat car, but I'm not so sure about that 'shoestring budget'...
nimblemotorsports said:No, Lemons WAS about $500 cars. NOW it about being desperate to allow ANYTHING to race and pay the entry fees.
No thanks, someone pooped in the sandbox with their $10,000 E36 M3can build. Ain't playing anymore.
So how many Lemons races did you do before it "changed?" I'm guessing none. Some people get it, some don't. Sounds like you don't. That's fine, there are thousands of car guys that enjoy it and they've been doing well. I haven't been racing in a few years, Lemons or otherwise, thanks to two small kids at home. But when I do, I won't mind sharing a Lemons track with something like this. Why? Because as shown it's not going to DOMINATE like people seem to think. The judges know their stuff and they assign penalty laps to cars like this, despite 99.9% of the time them sucking on their first (and second, and fifth) outing. But it looks awesome, sounds amazing, and gets tons of positive attention from both car and non-car people.
Most of my time on track at Lemons has been in truly terrible cars, but I've been in and out of a ton of cars that people scoff at as "$500 car my ass" and the truth is you can build one heck of a true $500 machine within the Lemons rules. Even this is likely very truly a $500 machine if you consider the recoup possibilities. The builder has his own exotics salvage yard so he buys and sells high end junk all the time. Lemons don't have any restrictions on recoup that I know of. You could buy a $100,000 car, sell $99,500 in parts from it, and be legit $500 under their rules. The judges would probably still give you penalty laps, and if you complained about it they would give you more.
Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:I thought CHUMP/CHAMP kept the cheap stuff and formed AER for the high $$ stuff.If I ever went racing again CHAMP interests me more than Lemons where utterly bizzae things like planes and boats or deliberatly lookng like E36 M3 is prized higher than anything else. Having said that I'm not infomed enough to really pass comment.
Champ is a separate org from AER. Champ abandoned the monetary cap and went to a "points" system. Engine swaps and upgrades and such cost a certain number of points and you're allowed only a certain number of those points. I haven't done a Champ race but did one AER race and really enjoyed it.
What are those wheels? Anybody know? I fear they could be actual Roller rollers, but I've no idea what model/era, and I'm hoping they're aftermarket...
The difference between Lemons and other series, in my opinion, is that other series are about super-competitive people trying to win races, and Lemons is about having fun with cars, yet still being super-competitive to some extent.
Hence the wacky themes and nonsensical engine swaps. It's not about trying to replicate IMSA on a budget; it's about building something cool and seeing if you can keep it from blowing up.
And for sure, there's room for both of those types of series in motorsports.
dculberson (Forum Supporter) said:Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:I thought CHUMP/CHAMP kept the cheap stuff and formed AER for the high $$ stuff.If I ever went racing again CHAMP interests me more than Lemons where utterly bizzae things like planes and boats or deliberatly lookng like E36 M3 is prized higher than anything else. Having said that I'm not infomed enough to really pass comment.
Champ is a separate org from AER. Champ abandoned the monetary cap and went to a "points" system. Engine swaps and upgrades and such cost a certain number of points and you're allowed only a certain number of those points. I haven't done a Champ race but did one AER race and really enjoyed it.
Champcar has had a points system for quite some time now. Everything is based on the points system and certain modificaitons or cars go right into the "EC" class which is kind of the unlimited class. For a couple of years Champ seemed to emphasize that class vs. the smaller classes that mostly abided by the rule book. People grumbled and now they have shifted their focuse back to those core classes instead of the uber fast EC cars.
In reply to stuart in mn :
Watch that first video I posted. That badass Viper motor has a ton of blowby. She smokes like a diesel. I woouldn't trust it for 100 miles. Nope.
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