24 hours of lemons build and VW VR6 swap.

First drive around the neighborhood just now. Huge amount of power. Need to sort out a fuel starvation issue due to the new fuel cell and a shifting issue.

But hot damn the car moves. And it definitely sounds like a vr6.
Cool car! And lemons looks really fun. But how does the lemons budget work? I thought the whole investment had to be 500 or less?
 
Love that sound! The VR has great character and I always liked the juxtaposition of its deep growl in the small, unassuming Golf it came in. Now it’s even better in the little Fiat.

Sounds like your X has been taking T…
It's such a unique sound, I love it. Once I tune the map a bit more I'll post a pass at higher RPM. There's still a lot of tuning to do before I really get after it.

Cool car! And lemons looks really fun. But how does the lemons budget work? I thought the whole investment had to be 500 or less?
The lemons budget rules are squishy. And $500 doesn't buy much in 2024, and safety which is the bulk of it (tires, brakes, cage, fire suppression, driver gear) is all exempt. The classing is done primarily on vibes. If you show up with something made in Britain or Italy, you're already doing it the hard way, and the judges love to see it. Everything in the series is meant to increase the diversity of the cars. As Steve said in a previous post...
Once upon a time, a series would go to various tracks during a season and some car/drivers would be good on some tracks and others on other tracks and there would be technical innovation and cars were actually different from each other.
The more tightly you control the rules to improve racing the duller it gets.
The $500 rules apply more strongly if you show up in miata or bmw, because they want to encourage all sorts of different stuff on the track. And it does create fun racing. Even with the stock engine, there were parts of the tracks where our car was faster than others by a big margin, and that was pretty entertaining because you'd be passing and getting passed multiple times in a single lap.

The engine/transmission in the car now was $350, which is less than junkyard core price. The guy wanted it out of his shop. But yea at his point we're way over budget. Oil cooler, radiator, ECU were all new, AN fittings aren't cheap, and this stuff adds up quick.

So all this is to say you get a lot of leeway in a unique car because you're on your own. And on top of that, nobody to my knowledge has put a vr6 in an X, so it's also a unique build which means we have to solve all the problems ourselves and the chances of it being competitive are pretty small.

I imagine we'll still be in class C and the expectation will be that something will fail early on, but that's part of the learning process
 
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That "$500" rule is hooey... By the time most any proper LeMons racer is done, figure about $5,000 and much more... Jay Lamm & folks are extremely aware of this.

Ponder the cost of building a dry sump peripheral port full race 12A rotary with a Porsche 901/later Hewland gear box and much more..
This exxe is way, way, way over the "$500" budget, yet the LeMons folks are very fond of this specific exxe... We all know this exxe can never win the overall at LeMons.. and that was never the goal of the rotary powered exxe.. As one team member/driver put this..
~SAFE.
~FUN.
~win.. big-big maybe..


What that $500 rule is much about is to discourage folks from showing up with their latest/greatest wonder moto with their belief they will dominate the race to win. Most common are folks that believe they bring their latest & greatest racer be it a Miata/BMW/Porsche/Honda/ etc.. absolute Fab street or track day racer for the overall win.. This has absolutely happened over the history of LeMons.. with the team and folks involved discovering just how HARD endurance racing is on all the oily bits to drivers to team/event logistics.. Their multi thousand U$D effort becomes a hard lesson in the reality of fantasy brand marketing -vs- the harsh realities of endurance racing..

There is a collection of well exploded Porsche, BMW, Miata, Toyota, Honda and many, many more oily & mech bits pictures from all those years of LeMons racing.. essentially they ALL grenade under the stress of LeMons racing.. regardless of brand/model unless meticulous endurance race prep is properly done.. This coupled with meticulous race logistics is a must if ya wanna do ok at LeMons..

This TDI powered Porsche 911...
911 TDI.jpg


911 TDI in line.jpg


How did it do at LeMons?

As previously verbiage... those that believe LeMons racing is a crap heap event... need to DO a LeMons race to properly understand what LeMons racing is much about.. specially the west coast events at Sears Point, Thunder Hill and ....


Again, what is "real racing"...
Bernice
 
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So all this is to say you get a lot of leeway in a unique car because you're on your own. And on top of that, nobody to my knowledge has put a vr6 in an X, so it's also a unique build which means we have to solve all the problems ourselves and the chances of it being competitive are pretty small.

I imagine we'll still be in class C and the expectation will be that something will fail early on, but that's part of the learning process
Yep, likely be a class C car...

Do as much track testing as possible before any LeMons event (don't allow that straight line speed deceive you), during the event be well prepared to grenade the VR6, gear box, VW drive line bits and more..


Bernice
 
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There is a bit of devious wishing to see a Ferrari F40, McLaren F1, Porsche Carrera GT and similar get properly "beat" at a LeMons race...

Jay & company would likely welcome this..
Bernice
 
Yep, likely be a class C car...

To as much track testing as possible before any LeMons event (don't allow that straight line speed deceive you), during the event be well prepared to grenade the VR6, gear box, VW drive line bits and more..


Bernice
I'm building a spare vr6 and have a spare transaxle. Uncontrolled explosions are planned. 🫠

It looks like a bomb went off in the shop right now. 3 engines in various states.

P_20240322_165737.jpg
 
I'm building a spare vr6 and have a spare transaxle. Uncontrolled explosions are planned. 🫠

It looks like a bomb went off in the shop right now. 3 engines in various states.
Excellent :)
Plenty -O- work, must be did.. make absolute sure the spare oily bits are good as possible.

We would burp/grenade a rotary or Porsche gear box per LeMons event. Got real good at race prep and rebuilding PP rotary motos.. and Porsche 901 gear boxes.. There remains a significant inventory of Mazda rotary & Porsche 901 oily bits to this day.

BTW, the design of the VR6 was "lifted" from the Fulvia engine.. jewel of an engine..

VW then "up-sized" this design for the "Bugatti"
E Buggatti-V16.jpg



Bernice
 
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