Garage Heroes (In Training)

Learning as we go. Come along with us and Enjoy the Ride!

Mechanical

GHiT EP 0025: Roll Cage Party

and progress on the 1974 Capri race car

3PM Pipe Bending
Jeff and Jim Wakeman: About to bend our first pipe of the day

On this episode, we interrupted our Autocross month for a quick update on a recent roll cage installation weekend we attended that was hosted by the Three Pedal Mafia and focused on their new to them Nissan 300Z.  We also cover other work that was done during the Cage Party. 

Inside the race car
Jeff, Bruce, and Alan “massaging” the 300Z cage into place

We also reviewed our progress on resuscitating the 1974 Capri and getting it back onto the track this season with a new drive train and how our progress goes towards replacing/repairing/upgrading the entire drive train from stock 1974 2.8 liter Capri engine to a more modern Chevy/Buick 3.8 liter design. 

1974 Capri at NJMP May 2018
1974 Capri at NJMP May 2018

Finally, we also touch on preparation for an upcoming welding course that Bill is taking.  

GHiT EP 0025: Cage Party and Capri Update

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1984 Mustang GT Turbo Prep 2018 – Mechanical

1984 Mustang mechanical prep for the 2018 24-Hours of Lemons race at Thompson CT was relatively straight forward.  We had a to do list provided by the prior owners at Prompt Critical.  It consisted of:

  • Cleaning up the wiring in the engine bay
  • Finding and fixing a small fuel leak near the O-ring at the high-pressure fuel line
  • Mounting the racing seat properly, and
  • Changing the oil pressure gauge from a mechanical gauge to an electronic gauge. 

In addition, we did the usual inspections and fluid changes. 

  • Flushed the radiator and refilled with water (H2O)
  • Oil change to full synthetic (5w30 Shell Rotella)
  • New Brake fluid (Wilwood racing fluid 660)
  • And an overall inspection and tune up (Flashlight etc)

Highlights

Electrical­:  The wiring wasn’t too bad, but the difficulty we found related to the electrical system was that this is an early car for computer controls and getting any information from it was difficult for us.  It ended up taking us several weeks to try to get the car to a good idle.  It ran OK under power but anything below an indicated 2,500 rpm and it was likely going to stall.  This made loading it into the car trailer pretty exciting.  After working on it for several weeks, we ended up “good enough” until we got out to the race and investigated it with Alan.

Racing Seat:  We ended up needing to change out the racing seat.  The one we had in the car originally was bit too tight for our athletic and muscular builds, lol.  We switched from the original Recaro to a Momo racing seat.  Mounting it was straightforward with high strength bolts and nuts used to get a good height for adjustment and tilt.  One issue we had in the Mustang that we did not in the Capri was that the seat height was much lower relative to the dash and driver eye-line.  We found out at the track that this was a problem for any of our drivers under about 5’ 8” so we needed to borrow some padding until we could adjust it further after the race weekend.  (In the Capri we had headroom issues, but here we overcompensated)

Structural:  We did see a bit more rust and the structure will need to be reinforced after the next race in the rear of the car.  It looks fine now, but we don’t want it getting any further degraded.

Overall:  In the end, we ran out of time and never really got the car running as well as we would have liked before getting to the track.  After we unloaded at the track and took the car out, we found two additional issue we had not seen.  The inter-cooler was running very hot.  This was due to two primary issues.  It was very close to the hood and did not have good air flow.  Second, the inter-cooler was not mounted and was laying on a hose.  The hot inter-cooler would eventually perforate the hose, likely not too long into the weekend.  We eventually hobbled together a support structure and upgraded our hose from the plumbing aisle to a steel reinforced automotive hose and the car eventually ran well throughout the rest of the weekend.

Inter-cooler Support Bracket Fab, lol

The second issue we found at the track was that the idle issue we had was due to a broken/missing bolt on the idle air throttle control that allowed the air to vary as it rotated freely over the inlet.  We borrowed a spare bolt from another team and our three-week long effort to fix the idle issue was finally solved.  Our lack of skill and knowledge fully exemplified again on this one.

Summary:  In the end, we need to know more about how to troubleshoot mechanical issues and we must work harder to get the cars prepared before we get to the track.  Last race was pretty easy as the car was running well before we left home.  This time, we came with a car that was running but not well.  A big lesson learned the hard way on this one.  This will be our goal going forward from now on.  If we can’t have the car ready before we leave for the race, we shouldn’t have entered the race.

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Post NJMP Race – 2018 Lemons Race

Well, all in all the race went pretty well.  We prepped the car for the race, ran it in practice, ran the race both days.  The only things we needed to do was change the tires after Friday’s practice to a new set, check our brake pads, and implement the adjustments Chris suggested.  This Lemons thing is pretty simple.  Prepare car, race car, drive home.  No biggie.  What’s all the fuss.  (tongue firmly in cheek as we shall see shortly and even more so at our next race). Post 2018 NJMP race.

After sleeping consistently for the rest of the week or at least wishing we were sleeping……

By the way, the drivers weren’t the only ones who had a great time. 

  • Jennifer helped with keeping our camp in order and making sure everyone was fed, but boy was she hooked.  She did not know how to drive a manual transmission, but was intent on entering as driver for our next race.  She ended up taking my daily driver for a week and she was “ready” to go.
  • Casey was our primary pit crew person on the site taking care of the car radios and helping with gas runs (as long as there was a Slurpee (or 4) involved) and generally helped everyone out all weekend was also interested in learning to drive a stick and racing at the next race.  Casey also ended up learning on my car and was “ready” to go as well for our next race. 
  • The rest of Jennifer’s family, Jim, Jimmy, and Jacob. Also seemed to have a great time.  Jimmy especially liked having his face on the hood of another car.  Jacob and Mia took to the paddock area and were generally entertained.  How did we know for sure.  No whining all weekend by two 11-year-olds.  Jim, a long-time car guy, seemed to enjoy it, helped us in the pits, and was excited to come up and get involved in the next race. 
  • Jimmy and new Friend from the “Sorry for Party” team
  • Jimmy’s “Tribute” car or maybe it was Bob Ross afterall
  • Mia, our little driver in training now, was so excited she also wanted to race in the next race.  We were pretty sure the Lemons team wouldn’t be open to an 11-year-old entrant, but she could start training for the race when she was older.  She now had never ending interest in go carting and we ended up going 12 times between our race at NJMP at the end of May and the next race we entered in CT in mid-August.  That’s even more dedication since the go cart track was almost two hours away from home each way.  Sadly, I actually have to try to beat her now, but so far so good, still undefeated, lol.
Mia and Morgen at one of the many trips to K1 Speed in Poughkeepsie, NY

We also learned from a neighbor that our trailer could be made a lot more stable with an upgrade of our tow hitch to one that uses torsion bars.  There are a lot of designs and suppliers, but we ended up going with one from etrailer found here.  

We also learned from a neighbor that our trailer could be made a lot more stable with an upgrade of our tow hitch to one that uses torsion bars.  There are a lot of designs and suppliers, but we ended up going with one from etrailer found here.  

Did the hitch upgrade have the desired effect?  Yes it did.  We went from having 1) a bit of a wiggle when going down steep hills and 2) when driving next to 18-wheeler trucks to having no issues with either on our next trip.  It did cost a bit more than the standard hitch, but it was well worth it for stress reduction and less “pucker” moments on the road.

So now we have 6 drivers, a “working” 1974 Capri and a “TBD” 1984 Mustang GT Turbo.  This leads to two projects.  More drivers and more cars ready to race in the Lemons race at Thompson CT.  The driver issue was partially improved when Vicki posted about our race on Facebook and a friend from CT commented almost immediately.  This lead to Alan joining our team.  He is tremendous at car maintenance and modifications, helping to partially solve our lack of skill in these areas.

Our final driver to join the team came as a surprise to me.  Vicki and I went out to dinner one night after catching up with my old college roommate and meeting for dinner.  During dinner with Pete and his lovely wife we ended up talking about the lemons race (nope, not obsessed at all) and Pete said he was in.  It came as a surprise to me as it did not seem to fit his personality well, but we now had a full team of drivers.

On to the cars.  Remember the whole prep car, drive car, how hard can this be.  Well when we arrived home, the Capri would not start.  After being bullet proof all weekend and running up until we put it in the trailer, I was puzzled.  It turned out we had a bad fuel pump.  I’m not sure how or when it died, but it was done.  We ended up replacing the fuel pump, fuel cell foam, fuel cell feeder hose and hose filter in order to get it back up and running.  We also inspected the spark plugs and they were a bit dark, so we ended up changing the jets on the carburetor.  We can’t drive on the street, so we shall see what happens at the race.

Onto the Mustang Covered in more detail in a separate posts.  (Mechanical and Theme).  We had a suggested To Do list from the prior owners (team Prompt Critical) and also performed a general inspection and performed normal maintenance and fluid changes.   In total we ended up:

  • Changing the seat (since our drivers tended to be on the “muscular” side
  • Changed the steering wheel
  • Cleaned up the wiring in the engine bay
  • Tried to find a suspected fuel leak near the O-ring at the fuel supply line (no luck)
  • Changed the oil pressure gauge from mechanical to electric
  • Changed brake fluid to racing fluid (Wilwood 660)
  • Oil Change
  • Flush radiator and refill with water

The list doesn’t look like much, but somehow between the two races, we rapidly ran out of time, even with the help of our friends at D&A assisting with several of the items mechanically.  (This was all done before Alan joined our team).  It actually seems like no skill level makes things take longer, lol.

Now the car was “ready” and we were off to the races. 

Again a status review is probably needed.  We now have two cars racing and 8 drivers (4 brand new and 4 seasoned with 1 race, lol), we are towing two cars for about 6 hours to the race and meeting everyone else at the track.  Oh, I almost forgot, we decided to camp at the track in two rented RV’s.  How hard can it be?

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1974 Capri – Mechanical Preparation

  • Tranforming from here
  • to here

Mechanical Preparation for Lemons Racing of our 1974 Capri or “How to prep a Lemons race car without mechanical skill nor knowledge”

After our debacle with the dirt track car, we (I) made our first good decision and decided to look for a car that had lemons experience, since we had none.  After looking for several weeks, we found the two Prompt Critical team cars were available and we eventually drove down to investigate.  

We met with Vince in March 2018 and during our discussions, the Capri looked like a great option for us.  It had several successful’ish races and was solid mechanically.  In addition, it was relatively easy to drive and since it was from the 70’s should be easy to work on.  Down sides:  Transmission may be a weak spot and parts are probably getting harder to find as we go.  Our only show stopper was that team Prompt Critical had begun the process to change the Capri drive train over to match the Mustang.  Finally recognizing my limitations (perhaps for the first time, just ask Vicki), I asked for the car to be put back with the original motor and transmission.  We eventually met in the middle and they agreed to put the engine back in, but we had to finish up the rest.  Consider it our welcome to Lemons World and our first Lemons test.

We agreed and picked up the car the following week.  (actually picked up both cars, but that is a story saved for our Mustang Prep post still to come).  So now we have a car that needs, in our minds, considerable work to be ready for the NJMP Lemons race in May.

Please remember our status at this point is a team consisting of one 17-year-old son with two high school auto classes, an artistic mom with some mechanical ability gained through YouTube, and a father who can work with wood, but we were pretty sure we shouldn’t have much wood in the race prepped car.  We also had nearly zero tools beyond standard household and honey-do items like hammers, drills, and screwdrivers.  Oh, I also forgot, we have no garage in our current home so whatever we need to do is done outside in the elements and in northeast PA, winter can get cold and last well into what the calendar says is spring.  I knew enough to know that working on the ground on a car in the cold is not really enjoyable.  In summary, no mechanical skills, no tools, and no place to work.  Situation normal for our team. 

 We end up working on the car to get most of it put together and ready.  Thanks to a Hanes manual and high level Google-Fu.  Since this is our first effort, we located a local garage to do a quick safety review of the car (and our work).  This satisfies my fatherly concern over the safety of rest of the family driving.  The garage does find a few issues and agrees to help us fix most of them.  In my mind, money well spent.  All together we ended up with a car summarized below.

  • 1974 Ford Capri (I believe sold by Mercury in Europe)
  • Stock 2.8-liter V6
  • Stock 4 speed manual transmission

Upgrades and changes include the following items

  • Full welded halo roll bars (already installed by Prompt Critical)
  • Fuel cell – 12-gallon capacity (already installed by Prompt Critical)
  • Braided stainless steel tubing to and from fuel cell (already installed by Prompt Critical)
  • Mr. Gasket electric fuel pump (already installed by Prompt Critical)
  • Holley Carburetor 700 cc (already installed by Prompt Critical) (already installed by Prompt Critical)
  • 4-wheel disc brake conversion using Volvo 205 brake rotors and pads (already installed by Prompt Critical)
  • Brake pad upgrade to Raybestos SF-43 racing pads
  • All water coolant system
  • Added two cooling fans to the radiator (already installed by Prompt Critical)
  • Walled in radiator and fans with foam insulation and aluminum HVAC tape to improve air flow through the radiator
  • Brake fluid changed to 660 racing fluid from Wilwood
  • Fire Suppression system (already installed by Prompt Critical)
  • GoPro Hero 6 installed
  • 28” wide panoramic rear-view mirror mounted off center
  • AIM telemetry system
  • Race seat (already installed by Prompt Critical)
  • Adjustable seat back support bars (already installed by Prompt Critical)
  • Racing steering wheel with quick disconnect (already installed by Prompt Critical)
  • 5-point racing harness (already installed by Prompt Critical)

If anyone wants a more detailed description of any of the above, just let us know.  

Special thanks to our friends who built this car originally at team Prompt Critical, D&A Auto Service who helped inspect and/or fix most of the rest and our friends at Three Pedal Mafia / Everyone Racers podcast for advice and tips throughout.  We would be even further behind without your endless help and tolerance for our questions.  

Any questions are always welcome.

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