Thanks for the feedback, I've got all winter to make a decision so I'll see what pricing looks like in the spring. I like the non-directional pattern so I can rotate as I need.
Adam
Thanks for the feedback, I've got all winter to make a decision so I'll see what pricing looks like in the spring. I like the non-directional pattern so I can rotate as I need.
Adam
Huge thank you to Pattyo for sending me a new stub axle! I really appreciate it because I know these are a pain to remove.
Maybe I can get the new one installed and make the car mobile again before it starts snowing.
Also lemons added Pittrace to next year's schedule in April. We had more failures then normal but 2019 has to be better right? Why not try to do 4 races. Also since this race is in April we'll have one less month to procrastinate.
Schedule looks like this so far:
Pittrace Wampun, PA 4/13-4/14
NJMP Millville NJ 6/13-6-14
Thompson, CT 8/10-8/11
NHMS Loudon, NH 10/19-10/20
Happy to help! I thoroughly enjoy watching your automotive adventures.
You may be wondering about my wacky boxing job.... I first thought "hey, I can just fit this in a USPS priority box for $14.00 bucks no sweat!" So I did but then noticed it had a bunch of extra room and then as per usual I over-thought the process. "If it's $14.00 for this big box and priority then I should be able to get it down to $8 or $9 with regular old shipping." So then I wasted a few extra days looking for a smaller box. Got it all boxed up and am feeling pretty smug about how perfect it fit and how cheap it was gonna be when the lady hits me with "that'll be $27.50" " uh no ma'am I just want the slowest/cheapest option you have. No tracking, no signature, nothing fancy." "Yup, that's the price I just gave you." "But the priority box is only $14 right? Do you guys still do the thing where if it fits it ships?" "Yes, that is true."
So I stuffed my perfect box into the bigger box and called it good. Moral of the story : if something is heavy just use the flat rate box.
In reply to Pattyo :
Ha, I saw the box job and figured that's is exactly what happened. I've been thought that before shipping heavy parts. It either needs to fit in a flat rate box or I ship it fedex.
First race of the season is next weekend in Pennsylvania so we've been busy prepping the car. First necessary repair was replacing the stub axle. Thanks again Pattyo!
After that we started picking away at the long list of boring stuff.
Most annoying thing so far was finding a new FIA harness. Most are on back order this time of year. The first one we ordered kept changing ship dates till we ended up canceling. Next we ordered one with pull up lap belts hoping it would be easier to adjust. Problem with that one was the adjustment point was outside the seat so it didnt work for us. The adjustment was a fixed distance from where it mounts to the floor.
Then we ordered a GForce Euro harness with pull down belts. Difference in this one compared to our old one is the adjustment point is right at the buckle. It's easier to pull the lap belts tight but some teammates feel we can't get them as tight as we would before. I think it fits fine plus we are running short on time so that's what we are going to go with.
Harkins also built us a front bumper. Finally we have some kind of protection from light hits up front. He took a stock 240z bumper and reinforced it with leftover roll bar tubing then boxed it in.
With the bumper done Harkins moved onto fixing another rotted out section of the car. I cant find the finished picture but it's much better now.
Hopefully this weekend we can finish up the rest of the items on the list then get it loaded on the trailer.
Nice to see this pop up- I really enjoy following along so I hope you continue to update!
Don't forget to add some track vijeo as well- good luck with the season!
damen
It was great to meet you guys this weekend. Thanks for the Rain-X!
Finally getting around to the race recap. Pittrace is an awesome track and I can’t wait to go back! We had our best finish yet with 10th overall and 3rd in class B out of around 85 cars. That said we had our usual drama.
Loaded the Datsun on the trailer a couple days early so that everything was ready and packed to make the 14 hour drive to PA. We had just replaced the radiator and hoses due to a small leak. On the way up the engine moved just enough so that the alternator hit and sliced open the lower hose. Apparently we didn’t trim the lower hose enough to fit. Ordered a new one which came in right as we were leaving so we had to wait till we got to PA to fix it. Also brought the original as a spare. Once we got to PA we unpacked and swapped out the hose easy enough and made sure it was trimmed to clear the alternator. As I was backing it down the trailer I could hear a high pitch squeak squeak squeak coming from the engine at light load around idle. Hmm, well that’s new. Quick rev made it go away so we drove it around the parking lot. Every now and then it would come back. Determined the noise was coming from under the valve cover around cylinder 4. We pulled the cover off and found there were some pieces of metal stuck in the oil spray bar for the camshaft. One lobe on cylinder 4 was getting the least amount of oil. I’m guessing with a quick rev that maybe it got some. #1 cylinder also had this problem and one of the lobes had some groves forming from lack of oil. What I think happened was I cleaned out the engine after we spun bearings last year but I never cleaned the oil spray bar. Apparently some material made its way into the bar and clogged the ports. We flushed out the bar, reinstalled it and confirmed all lobes were now getting oil. Also dumped in ½ a quart of Lucas and hoped for the best.
While we worked on the engine Dave noticed that the shifter felt sloppy. The door pin bushing I installed a few years back had worn out so we decided to replace them too. At this point our 4th teammate was getting ready to fly in on Saturday. We sent him pictures of everything apart and told him not to worry and laughed at all his follow up questions. Didn’t tell him what was wrong will he showed up mid race, lol
Saturday morning we were ready to go. One goal we had for this race was to not dick around and grid early. Usually we are one of the last cars on track right before the green flag and spend most of the day working our way up. Even though we thought we went up early there were still 40 other cars already lined up. Still an improvement for us.
Rest of the day went smoothly other then the usual rotors getting warped and crunchy 4-3 shift. By the end of the day we were 2nd in class B and 14th overall! We also managed to stay ahead of Greg Biffle’s team who was running 3rd in class B. Rest of that night we were feeling pretty good and didn’t do much to the car. We did noticed that we never checked camber and found one side was over 3.7 degrees. We had changed ball joints before we left and never checked after that. Since the adjustable control arm bolts were still tack welded we decided to be lazy and not correct it. Besides the car felt fine. Instead we walked around the pit to check on other cars and noticed the truck that was first in class B and had been racing all day was still up on jack stands near the end of the night.
Sunday we were expecting some rain but man it really poured most of the day. First driver out reported the car felt terrible. Braking was especially sketchy and the car was very loose. Normally we are pretty good in the rain but pittrace is really hard on tires so they were very worn and the added camber didn’t help with braking in the rain. Still we noticed that the 1st place B truck was still in the pit and we shortly moved up into first. Now it was a matter of trying to hold the position which was something new for us and a new level of stress. Our lap times sucked in the rain and other cars were slowly catching up. Then the rain really started coming down and 25 laps in our first driver hydroplaned and spun into a wall smashing the front end. Rest of us were parked up on a hill and watched the whole thing. Quick check on the driver and he was fine but pissed. Hood was buckled up and the car looked done for the day. We rushed to our pit and I waited at pit out. Datsun came around the corner and while it looked rough both wheels were pointing straight and nothing was leaking. As the car was driving by I stopped it and quickly jumped on the hood smashing it back down and yelled “GO” much to the delight of Biffle’s team who was right next to us. Jeff drove up to the penalty box where they were not amused by our driving but eventually sent us on our way. “Y U RUNE KLASSIK” was yelled a few times. We got back out on track and the car felt just as E36 M3ty as before which I guess was good and we were now one lap behind the 2nd place car. I do take part of the blame since I did radio Jeff and tell him that the 2nd place car was catching up.
Dave went next and it was still pouring. At one point he did put 2 wheels off to avoid another car and was blacked flagged too. Fortunately we were still in second but noticed the Biffle’s team who was running 3rd was starting to turn some fast laps in the rain. I went out next that the track conditions were indeed sloppy. Biffle’s crown Vic blew past me a few times in the turns and I was dumfounded. After a few laps I found a groove and towards the end of my stint the rain lightened up to the point where I had some traction again. We then put Dave back in the car since he is our fastest driver and hoped that the other 2 cars would make a mistake. We gained some ground but it was not enough and we ended up 3rd in B. As for Biffle’s team it turns out they sent someone out to a local tire store to buy mud and snow rated all seasons and mounted them up on their spare wheels. They came in for fuel and pitted at the track pump, pushed the car forward after, swapped on the all seasons, then went right back out lol. They picked up 20 seconds per lap in the rain!
Over all a great weekend but we have some work to do before our next race in June. I would be nice to be able to open the hood again.
Would have been a lot worse without the new front bumper.
In reply to AxeHealey :
No problem, it was nice to race with another forum member.
Looks like you've had a fun run getting this car going over the last 8 years!
My buddy owns a 280ZX that I would love to get moving. The motor is apparently hydrolocked or seized up in some manner, so it continues to sit. Other projects around the shop take precedence as they are customer cars, but I'm hoping we get a chance to get it going again.
Perhaps I need to share this thread with him to get some motivation!
There have been 2 races since my last update. First was NJ back in June. I wasn't able to attend that race so I don't have many details. I do know we got a few black flags, rear ended another car that locked up its brakes for a yellow flag, and ran out of gas and had to be towed in. Think we still ended up mid pack.
Next up was Thompson CT. Things were running smoothly for the most part and we were 9th over all at one point mid day saturday. We did get one black flag which knocked us back slightly and I made light contact with another car but didnt get flagged. Jeff said the car felt a little down on power but we didnt think much of it.
That light contact came back to bite us sunday morning. About an hour into the first stint I felt a vibration from the back of the car. I was able to get the car off track and back to out pit where we found we had broken another stub axle. This time it was the driver side. The same wheel that got bumped the day before. Last time we broke an axle we also made contact with another car. Guess the rear wheels cant take any shock load. Fortunately I had bought 2 more axle and we were able to swap in another in about an hour. Rest of the race went ok except we noticed we were burning a lot of oil. Dave still turned his fastest lap sunday and our fastest at this track. We finished the race 22nd over all which is not bad. If we can ever get a clean race we have a shot at winning class B.
We after the race I decided to pull the plugs and found this. Not a good sign.
All the other cylinder were about 165 psi except #4. Must have cracked the rings or a piston. Looks like I have some work ahead of me before NH in Oct.
Well that's not good. #4
Not sure what changed but detionation killed this engine. It's been running great this season and we havent messed with timing or anything else. All cylinders show some signs of detionation but #2 and #5 are really bad. #4 was one of the better looking pistons from the top but the piston distorted and shattered the rings and ringlands.
Pic of #2. Somehow these rings were fine.
Only pulled those 2 for now. I've had enough bad news for one day, lol.
Quick update. Bought new rings, rod bearings, oil pan gasket, and a tube of RTV for $91.05 and went to work. I had a set of 5 pistons left over from the last mishap so I swapped in 3 new ones to replace the most damaged ones. Went back to chrome rings because they were cheap and available. Honed the cylinders with 270 grit and checked the gaps. All came out .017 which is what I ran last time so i didn't have to file fit any. That was a nice surprise. I didn't even remove the crank since I didn't want to mess up the alignment of the crank scraper or see that the main bearings were beaten up. Since there are no cheap thicker headgaskets I reused the MLS one for the 3rd time. I ended up pulling apart the layers to clean it then sprayed any surface that use to have silicone with some copper headgasket spray. Besides the the oil pan all other gaskets are now RTV. Teardown and rebuild was also done outside in my driveway with leaves falling and a bunch of stink bugs flying around. As you can tell this has been a Zero F's refresh, lol.
In a rush I broke the breather tube on the valve cover and had to grab another from my stash. Ended up using a turbo one just to mess with people. Might add some duct tape later to make it say Non Turbo.
Dropping it back in the car went smoothly and the only thing that fought us was getting the oil pump to prime. On a few pump I'll usually fill it with some Lucas oil but i figured the used one still had some oil left in it. Well I guess it wasn't enough because after cranking a few times it never built pressure and the filter was dry. Long story short we took a brake bleeding container, filled it with oil, then used a tool to inflate pool toys to push oil into the pressure port. That did the trick and we were able to fire the engine up. We let it run for 15 min and come up to temp then shut it down. Idle was kinda high but we think its due to too much timing. Something we can mess with later this week.
oh right, forget it's been a while since I updated this post. I'm scrolling through my phone to see what pictures I took to try and remember.
Before the Oct 2019 race we did do a little bodywork to try and make the Datsun a little more presentable. I forget what our logic was but we started with hammers then moved on to clamping 2 brake rotors together to try and press the metal flat. From there we used a piece of I beam that was nailed to a log as a dolly. Now before you ask, I have no idea why there is an I beam nailed to a log. Its a tool we acquired from someone else and it's been useful.
As for the race we started off strong like usual, then something random broke....like usual. I was in the car for the first stint and about an hour in the car just shut off in the middle of traffic. It would crank and catch for about a second then shut off again. I was a few turns away from the pit and was able to coast for a while. In the last turn, I started using the starter to keep the car moving. I kept bumping the starter then coasting all the way back to the pit. Not the best idea but it worked. I was hoping it would be something obvious like the MAF came unplugged and we would be right back out on track but that wasn't the case. We spend 2 hours troubleshooting trying to figure out why it fire up then shut right off. We tested every sensor, hotwired the fuel pump to always be on, and pined out all the wires going to the computer. Turned out that a wire on the back of the kill switch came off that when to the EFI relay. There was something where the EFI should power the to the main relay after the car starts up but it was no longer doing that. We fixed that wire and were back on track but we were already pretty far behind. Car was fine the rest of saturday.
Sunday things were going ok till Jeff came in saying he heard something dragging on the ground. We looked under the car and didn't see anything so we sent him back out. He still heard the noise so I went to the banked turn where he heard it the most to see if I could spot anything. After a while of watching the car go by I spotted what looked like a cable dangling. You can barely see it in this pic.
When Jeff came back in we looked under and saw that the speedometer cable had fallen out of the transmission and would only hang down in turns. New problem we noticed was the transmission was losing fluid. We topped it off and put a rubber glove and a ziptie over the speedometer hole and sent Pat out next. He completed his 1:50 stint and I got in for the last one. Right away I noticed that the transmission was making a loud bearing noise but I had all 5 gears so I kept going. Transmission kept getting louder but it held together and we were able to finish the race. On the way back in I saw Pat in a crowd of people and yelled, "Hey, the transmission is really loud" which he replied "Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that haha" which amused everyone around him.
No idea where we placed but the engine that was slapped back together was fine and only burned a 1/2 quart of oil all weekend which is pretty good. Other than the transmission there nothing major we needed to fix for the next race.
So 2020 hasn't gone a plan as everyone might have noticed. The PA race was canceled along with NJ one. This should have given us plenty of time to work on the car but no. We left it parked on the trailer till 2 weeks before the Aug CT race. Grass and vines had started to overtake the car so I broke out the weed wacker and reclaimed the car from nature then dropped it off at Pat's garage. We finally drained what was left of the transmission fluid just to see how bad it looked and only a 1/2 quart of very sparkly oil came out along with a few bigger specs. I saw holding out hope that we could rebuild this transmission but after dropping it down and opening it up we found that 3rd gear was worn paper thin and sent metal through everything. Alright, guess it was time to pick another random transmission out of the pile I got from that storage unit a few years ago. There were 2 5 speeds left and neither looked like a good choice. We opened them both up and found one had chipped teeth and looked like it had been apart a dozen times before but looked clean and the other was kinda nasty and the bearings felt questionable.
After staring at that pile of disappointment for a while, we decided out next race transmission was the one with questionable bearings. Figured the gears looked ok so it should shift. We tossed some redline fluid in it and hoped for the best. For some reason, we had swapped the old case onto the newish trans after we had already written "bad trans mess you up" on it. Pat then added "a little" after in an attempt to avoid any future confusion. We also have the original 4-speed transmission which I painted an X because the 4th gear synchro was crunchy. that was almost plan "C". Think the lesson we learned from this is to stop labeling lemons parts as no good. If a part still functions at all its probably going back in the car at some point.
Made it to the CT race and decided to finally install the new headlight bucket and google eyes. My teammates might think its a waste of effort since we keep hitting things but it looks so much better! Now we are ready to dominate!
Fast forward to an hour into the first stint and the car wants to shut off after slowing down for a yellow flag. The car will idle but it won't take throttle and cuts out. Kinda feels like a fuel problem so I limp it back to the pits. We stare at the car, hit a bunch of things with hammers, and send it back out. Car feels fine for the first 2 turns but in the 3rd one it cuts out again and we had to be towed in. Back in the pit we noticed the fuel pump is loud so we spend 2 hours running around trying to find one. Swapped in the new pump and sent Pat out. After 30 min he radios in saying he's getting fuel cut again. We checked fuel pressure at idle and driving around the pit and everything is fine.
At this point, we give up on trying to turn laps and drop the fuel tank down. Our thinking was that maybe there was rust or gunk stuck in the pickup. When we looked inside everything seems perfectly clean. We blew the lines out with air then backflushed them with some Berrymans b12. After that, we let the B12 sit in the tank overnight with a gallon of fuel. The next day we reinstalled the tank and hoped for the best. Not exactly sure what we fixed but Sunday went smoothly.
Well out next race is coming up in 3 weeks and the car currently works but I don't trust it. In the past, we have been against doing test days but this time we are going to try and work all the bugs out on Friday.
Wow, it's been a really long time since I've made a post. Life has been a little complicated the past couple of years and my teammates have had about a dozen kids but this exercise in stupidity which is Lemons racing has continued. After the last post, we did end up going racing in Oct 2020 but I don't remember all the details. The fuel cut issues continued and we could only race for 45 min before having to pit for fuel. We raced the whole weekend but were not very competitive. Also, Dave might have had a run-in with a Camaro. Every time a teammate hits the Datsun, I die a little more inside. After 5 seasons of racing, I swear they are trying to kill me, lol
It was after that race we decided to finally pull the stock tank and commit to installing a fuel cell. To ensure the tank never went back in the car, our teammate Harkins cut out the hatch floor so we had nothing left to even bolt the tank to. The problem now was how do we install a lemons legal fuel cell? The easy option would be to spend a bunch of money on a nice cell that could be bolted in without a metal bulkhead then spend more money on all the certified hoses and fittings to go with it. That would have made for a quick and easy install. Now that's not exactly my style. Instead, we went with a cheap cell and a scratch/dent sale hydramat from Holley. Cheap cells need to have a bulkhead encasing the whole cell and hoses per lemons rules since they are not certified. We also liked the idea of having a bulkhead since if there ever was a fuel leak, there is something separating the driver from the cell.
Fast forward to Sept 2021. The October race is coming up and we haven't done much other than cut a huge hole in the car. We pushed to try and get the cell installed but had to back out at the deadline since it was not ready. At least we could test-fit it in the car.
With the cell being so close to ready you would think we would continue to work on the car and finish it up so it would be ready for next year, right? Nope. We continued to procrastinate and didn't work on it again until right before the Aug race. Same thing as last time. The car was closer to being done and was running off the cell but we didn't have the bulkhead installed. That proved to be a complicated piece to make since it has to enclose everything including the hose to the side of the car to the remote fill. Most teams don't run a remote fill for this reason and have a door on the bulkhead so they can dump fuel directly in the cell. Again we don't trust ourselves not to spill fuel all over the inside of the car or ourselves.
Sept 2022, I dropped the car off in NH so Dave could work on it after hours at the shop. It took a bunch of trial and error but he came up with this.
The lower white part is from a washing machine that was left on the side of the road. We did play around with the idea in 2021 to try and use the top of the washer as a trap door but the gaps in the door were too large.
Anyway, we did make it to the NH race in 2022. Since this was the first race with the cell there were some bugs to work out. When the cell is full, it would dump fuel out of the vent hose for the first couple laps at the start of the race and we were black-flagged for this. We ended up adding another 8 feet of smaller diameter hose to the vent line. This fixed the dumping fuel problem for now but the smaller vent made our pit stops longer since it took longer to fill. The other issue we had was we could only drive for 1.25 hours before getting fuel cut again. This is with a full cell size hydramat. Besides that stuff, the rest of the race went ok. At one point we were 19th overall mid-race but finished 39th.
Now lets jump ahead to Aug 2023. Over the winter we fixed the vent line and installed a discriminator valve in the cell. The other big upgrade was installing new aftermarket rear stub axles. Clearly, we should dominate now, right?
We started out strong on Saturday and climbed up to 11th overall. We were running 1.5 hour stints and only one driver said they hit fuel cut on their last lap. We didn't try running any longer since an extra 15-30 min would have messed up our driving schedule and not allowed us to skip a pitstop. The transmission was also making noise sometimes in first and second gear but we don't really use those so that was ignored. At one point we were black flagged for passing under yellow. This was confusing since I guess it happened as we were making a pitstop. The new driver went out and was flagged on his first lap which led to an awkward conversation. He had no idea what happened and we were not running radios this race so he couldn't call the team down to the penalty box. After a long conversation, he was allowed back on track but we were now down a few positions. The rest of the day we spent trying to climb our way back up. With about 30 minutes left on Saturday, we were battling for second place in class B and were right behind the first-place car. Other than watching the first couple of laps we usually hang out in the RV until it's time to pit or the race is over. Since things were so close we went down and watched our car. Every lap was close with Dave trying to make a pass. With 2 laps left, he got around the other car only to be passed right back and ended up finishing the day in second place. Meanwhile, Dave has no idea what's going on or what place he is in since we still don't have radios. We went over to congratulate the other team and it turns out their car didn't have radios either. So both drivers were out there battling with no idea what they were racing for. Not that it matters anyway since it was only Saturday but I still find it funny.
Saturday night we did our usual brake flush, tire rotation, and checked toe. It was also noted by all our drivers that the car had a slight vibration to it mid turn. We looked things over and everything checked out. Figured maybe it was tire wear or the transmission being unhappy so we called it a night and started walking the pits. Sunday started off ok. Pat went out and I noticed his lap times were down a little but he finished his stint. He mentioned the vibration in passing as I got into the car. As soon as I got on track I noticed it right away and it was getting worse with every lap. I was thinking about coming into the pit but figured I'd stay out a couple more laps to see if I could narrow down what made the vibration better or worse. On my 8th lap, I made a pass and as I was going through the next turn I heard a loud "bang". The car then spun and slid backward toward the wall. I was able to turn the wheel slightly to keep it off the wall and not turn too much to have it come back around on track into traffic.
I sat in the car and waited for a tow truck and emergency crew to come over not knowing what really happened. Maybe I had been hit in the wheel or had a flat tire. Once everyone showed up they asked me if I was ok and to get out of the car. Guess it was really broken since they were not going to tow the car back. The first thing I noticed when I got out was that the rear passenger wheel was twisted sideways in the wheel well. Hmm, that's not good. Meanwhile my team has no idea whats going on.
They ended up bringing over the ramp truck and loading the car up. I rode back with the ramp truck driver and directed him back to our RV. We pulled up and gave them a beep as I waved to my now-confused teammates. Once the car was unloaded we got a better look at what broke.
New rear axle snapped. Guess this is what was causing the vibration in turns. It's odd since the new shaft is one piece compared to the stock Datsun one which is two pieced fusion welded together and normally breaks at the weld. At this point, our day was done since the caliper bracket was taken out. Fortunately, no one was hurt and it's all fixable. I've already started working on the car and will make another post once more progress is made.
Damn that's a crazy failure. Glad everyone was ok.
Heading to Thompson CT this weekend for another race so like usual I've put off working on the car till the last minute. Rear axle has been replaced but we also noticed the transmission was making terrible noises so we dropped that to check it out. Turns out no oil was getting to the back half of the transmission since it was missing a little metal baffle so a couple bearings got wiped out. I happened to pick up a free transmission that a guy on Craigslist was scrapping. It's spent its life in a barn and cow pasture since 2005. Shifter was locked up but it spun. Opened it up to look inside and it was surprisingly clean so we freed up the shifter and installed it in the car. I'll add some pictures later.
I also had some free time at work so I looked up how many races we have done and the results. This weekend will be our 20th race and the car has 11,221 race miles one it.
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