After buying a used race car, painting it, installing safety gear, swapping the engine and checking our work at a test day, we found ourselves unloading our $500 Volkswagen Fox from the trailer, just one day away from racing The 24 Hours of Lemons 'Shine Country Classic at Barber Motorsports Park.
The Theme
One …
For added effect, it helps to play The A-Team theme song when you read "The Team" section above.
Reminds me of this:
In reply to mblommel :
Pretty much the same exact thing except in white.
This might be easier to lug around than a shop press: https://www.harborfreight.com/Front-Wheel-Drive-Bearing-Remover-and-Installer-Kit-21-Pc-63728.html
I predict that you'll have to amp up the silliness for the next race. Which means: somehow give the car an F1 theme.
Oh, but beware that this doesn't happen:
Yup. Don't want to oilcan.
Every time I looked at the rear wing I kept thinking about the scene in "Cars" with all the tuner cars. But on track the Fox looked awesome! I would have to double take everyone once in a while because it was so weird seeing that big wing on the front of a car.
Is the "I gotta P" license plate in reference to the 2P transmission? IF so, good luck finding another one.
We've switched to a 012 from a B5 Passat/A4 as we couldn't find any 2P transmissions in the Pacific Northwest. It only required making custom axles, a lot of hammering on the trans tunnel, a custom trans mount made from a piece of angle iron and complete custom shifter and linkage.
Easy!
mblommel said:Reminds me of this:
Except those wings objectivly made the Lambo worse and slower adding massive drag for no apreciable downforce. SO you can say you out engineered Lamborghini!
Serious Q. Why did you, and it seems most other LeMons cars do the same, remove the side and rear windows? Is it in the rules? If not surely (don't call me shirley) you'd be better off with lower drag by keeping them? If it's weight replace with cheap plastic or alloy sheet?
I'm not an expert on recent lemons rules, but they want as little possible glass on track.
They didn't like it when we removed our windshield however.
Yeah, the rulebook says we have to run without windows. We didn't run the Fox through NLR's giant CFD number crunching server, but we're pretty sure it was screaming in agony just sharing floor space with this horrible car.
Adrian_Thompson said:Serious Q. Why did you, and it seems most other LeMons cars do the same, remove the side and rear windows? Is it in the rules? If not surely (don't call me shirley) you'd be better off with lower drag by keeping them? If it's weight replace with cheap plastic or alloy sheet?
Rules say driver and passenger windows must be down or removed. We actually got flagged once for forgetting to roll down our passenger window. Rear quarters and rear windows are up to you as long as they're made of safety glass. My Lemon still has all it's glass(and electric windows!) so it remains (somewhat) watertight.
In reply to David S. Wallens :
Pretty much the same thing except in white, chunky, tall, awkward, slow, but awe inspiring.
A Fox Wagon was my first car. Two wrecks, a teenage driver who thought he was Colin McCrae and finally a blown trans ended that car's stint. Ironically enough I too also replaced an axle on that car.
So yea, the transmissions are kinda known to be the weak link.
Next to the Quantum, the Fox is up there with one of the weirdest vehicles VW tried to sell in the states.
I keep hoping for someone to recreate the Hadjiminas/Maxwell Fox Wagon Rally Car
I wonder if you added deflectors at the front of the window openings if you could cut down the drag, similar to the front bumper is wider than the front wheel opening to push air away from the spinning wheel. Look at the Sunoco sticker down where the splitter meets the wheel opening.
Also, look at the rear of the window on Petty's Charger. See the silver area? That metal goes way into the cabin to get the dirty air out.
Maybe since so much air is going through the cabin, can you smooth out its path, by covering the B and C pillars? Make a sheet metal cover to raise up the back seat floor to meet the bottoms of the windows?
Adrian_Thompson said:mblommel said:Reminds me of this:
Except those wings objectivly made the Lambo worse and slower adding massive drag for no apreciable downforce. SO you can say you out engineered Lamborghini!
Right. Wasn't the front wing a silly response to meet U.S. bumper height regulations?
I'm not sure how difficult it would be to out engineer Lamborghini's aerodynamics from the 70's.... Even the original LP400 Countach without all the adornments was a mess aerodynamically, but it sure did look cool!
I love the front wing on the Fox, and isn't cocaine white an appropriate super car color?
Might there be any way to fit a more modern trans, like from a Golf?
Nice read, thanks
In reply to Appleseed :
Could even play into the wings on wings on wings theme with some work
Tom Suddard said:Yeah, the rulebook says we have to run without windows.
That's not true at all, we run full glass in both of our Lemons cars. Just need to have door panels on the front doors with the driver and passenger front windows rolled down. We get enough wind and exhaust fumes in the cabin as is with a wagon and a hatchback, I can only imagine how hateful it would be with no side and back glass.
Out of curiosity, how did the tech inspector at this race feel about the wing structure in front of the bumper? It seems like it's basically a push bar and seems to contradict the rules about OEM bumpers and crash structures.
Spare hubs and spare rotors are key to these beasties. Modern tires and suspension put enough strain on the flimsy hub design that they like to fail. They even pop the out braking surface off the rotors in autox loads.
Love this thing, I bet the competition was loving getting passed by 80 raging hp.
In reply to newrider3 :
I should have been more clear: The rules say the front side windows must be removed or rolled down with full door panels covering them. Our car came to us missing all the windows.
In reply to pheller :
It's the wrong color, but are we getting close? 
jstein77 said:Might there be any way to fit a more modern trans, like from a Golf?
I think from an older Audi might work better, but then the bellhousing might be different. there weren't many longitudinal based transaxles with that engine bellhousing pattern, most had the Audi engine setup (and as much fun a 5-cylinder engine would be, it would make many of their problems worse).
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