DMS Racing: Lemons ECR 2016

Automotive
#1

The next 24 Hours of Lemons race at Eagles Canyon Raceway (near Decatur north of Fort Worth) is coming up on April 9-10, with the entry deadline being next Saturday the 13th.

We will be running the Auto Committee’s 240sx race car that we have entered in past Lemons races. Our team can have up to 6 drivers, drivers must have past road course experience.

Drivers will fund all entrance and consumables costs, you must be willing to risk spending up to $1,000 and potentially getting nothing in return. If the car explodes or crashes the first lap, we all go home with a sad story, there are no refunds. At our last event we did awesome and the car ran the whole time, but there are no guarantees that will happen again.

Watch this video to see an example of the risks in racing why it is important to keep control of the car at all times.

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Board Agenda Item: Future of DMS Racing Group Project
#2

There will be a kickoff meeting Thursday Feb 11th at 7:30pm for anyone interested in participating (don’t have to be a driver to participate, we also need help testing and working on the car). We will discuss what we want to do on the car, potentially looking at the exhaust leak from header to downpipe, the fact that it burns 2+ quarts of oil per 8 hours of racing, maybe replacing the original shocks or swaybars, other cost neutral performance upgrades.

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#3

Ah, Lemons accounting shenanigans…

#4

I’ll be there, looks like the we have at least 4 of the last team interested.

Now then, my suggestions for 'em cost neutral upgrades:

  1. Some air management scoops and ducting would be high on my list, it got pretty hot and steamy last time.
  2. Stickier rubber - the high mileage el cheapos we used last time had thread, but no grip towards the end.
  3. After seeing Jay sit out the last race due to warped head resulting from a blown radiator hose, it would be good to ensure that we have working CTS and oil pressure sensor, and wired to a buzzer. I dunno about the rest of the crew, but I was only looking at the gauges once every 2-3 laps.
  4. I seem to recall there was something erratic about the fuel gauge, it bounced about or showed empty or something. Thanks to some spiffy pit crew, they told me when it was time for fuel.
  5. There was some driveshaft banging on the transmission tunnel that fixed itself if I recall - or was that the exhaust banging/leak?
  6. I’m game for shocks/sways, handling on that puppy would be the best bang for the buck.
  7. As for the burning oil, I’m no expert, but worn valve guides or piston rings would be likely contributors, perhaps? That could mean an engine rebuild. I’d opt for doing a compression and leakdown test before tearing into the engine again.
#5

I’ll be there on Thursday.

#6

I should be there. There is a members meeting that night too. Having not driven the car, I’ll still offer the opinion that tires will be the best improvement and as I remember don’t go against the ‘cost’ for penalty laps.

#7

We can put together some aero as well

#8

Yeek. Done a compression check or the ol’ tablespoon of oil to see if it is rings or valves?

#9

No racing experience and unlikely to acquire any in time, but I might could help out with the car and other prep.

#10

Here is the catalog. http://www.240sxmotoring.com

Let’s make a wish list and pair it down per the budget and “rules”.

Tires and handling items top my list.
New rings if we’re feeling ambitious.
I think the current tires could go another 6 hours after being rotated, but they lack pace.

#11

Will be meeting this Thursday at 7:30 to move the car and start looking for any worn / needs replacing / damaged parts.

#12

We got the car back to DMS, it started up first crank from it’s home at offsite storage.

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The compression check got 187, 170, 163, 183 on the cylinders, which sounds pretty good, so we will only be replacing the valve stem seals (without pulling head) to see if that solves the oil burning problem.

Out base model 240sx didn’t come with a rear swaybar, (the SE model came with a 15mm rear, both have 27mm front bar), so we will start looking around junkyards for a 240sx SE so we can get its swaybar for cheap or potentially just order aftermarket swaybars (questionable quality items can be found for cheap on ebay)

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#13

I assume this was all dry?
Variation should be less than 10%, so that 163 at 12% is out of spec and skating on the edge of problematic.
A wet test would help determine if rings/cylinder work are in order.

#14

Yeah that was all dry after the engine was warm. We can measure again next time both dry and wet. (adding Tbsp of oil into cylinder before cranking).

#15

Will be meeting saturday 1pm to work on replacing the valve stem seals (parts wont be here until friday), I ordered the tools to use the method shown here to replace the valve stem seals. (Except to use compressed air and not a rope stuffed into cylinder to hold valves up…)

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#16

I forgot to mention in last post that anyone is welcome to come help with the car or check it out, we unfortunately have a very limited number of driver spots for this race, but there are lots of things to work on and learn from.

#17

We successfully replaced the valve stem seals without pulling the head, and it looks like we fixed the oil leak.

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We were careful to be sure to mark the distributor and upper timing chain and sprockets to be certain we could reassemble everything correctly.

I did mess up by forgetting to put the car back in gear before applying the air pressure to the cylinder to hold the valves up. Since we didn’t have a regulator we were putting ~110psi into the cylinder, which is >500 pounds of force, which spun the crankshaft some. This cost us extra time when reassembling the upper timing chain to be sure we got everything lined up with cylinder 1 back at TDC.

The old seals were rock hard and clearly not good:

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A couple videos showing how well the valve spring tool worked, prior to doing this reving after idle would produce a visible cloud of white smoke.

2 new photos by Brandon “AGr”

Will be meeting next on thursday at ~7:30pm to look over the ‘roughly oe equivalent to replace the worn out 200k mile shocks’ suspension upgrades we ordered. We also need to fix an exhaust leak and rattle and help insulate the drivers floorpan from the exhaust using some wrap reflective tape.

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#18

Putting the timing at TDC will also ensure no rotation during such an operation on an engine like this one (4cyl, flatplane crank, where all cylinders are at TDC or BDC at the same time).
Good work!

#19

We got in lots of parts and started installing the exhaust wrap and heat shielding to prevent the driver floor from getting so hot (there is also an exhaust leak between the exhaust manifold and downpipe that we will fix). Also started fabricating a ram air intake (I forgot to take any pictures)

Will be starting the swaybar and shock install this saturday around 1pm if anyone would like to help.

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#20

Got the shocks / swaybars installed

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Front bar, OE was 27mm hollow, to a 28mm solid

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Will be meeting again thursday at ~7:15pm to finish putting the exhaust back together and completing the intake and cooling for the driver