24 Hours of Lemons Build

[jstricker]

You've all seen the coverage in different online and print publications and thought to yourselves "that would be pretty cool to do with a Supra". Well, I did the same thing except I've been doing it for abotu 3 years.

First a bit of history. A few years ago a friend in CA contacted me and said he wanted me to help with getting a Supra ready for the 24 Hours of Lemons at Thunderhill. I knew little to nothing about Supras but I've been building race engines for over 30 years so I figured what the heck. We already had a closed course/open road race car of our own so this was going to be something for fun. They pulled the engine out of the N/A '87 car and shipped it to me to rebuild. We were moderately successful at the first outing finishing somewhere in the mid-20's position after having a rod bolt break with less than 15 minutes left in a 4 hour race.

I found another engine here in KS and bought it, went through it as well, leaving it bone stock except for the addition of ARP rod bolts and adding 20 ft/lbs when torquing the head bolts. (We've found for these long endurance races that you don't have to be the fastest car out there, just keep going and going and going and stay OUT of the penalty box.

Our next effort was at Houston where we finished in the top ten. This was followed by a 4th, a 6th, and most recently a 2nd overall and first in class at Omaha. The team grew to two cars and that caused some problems among the team members as to who was actually calling the shots and running the team. I'm not to proud to admit that many of the problems were on my side as I felt I needed more input after having a huge investment in time and money in this endeavor with two cars and feeling I didn't have a fair amount of input on several issues.

Realizing this was the kind of thing that can drive a dagger in the hearts of friends, I decided that I'd just wish the old team a fond farewell (I'm still more than happy to help them if I can) and start my own team. I've been very impressed with the 7MGE engine and the Supra in general. The current car has over nearly 4,000 race miles on the same engine without it even being touched and it wouldn't surprise me for it to go another couple thousand miles.

That brings us to today and the prep of a new car for a new team. I'll post some pictures of what we're starting with and what we're doing in the next post.

John Stricker
Russell, KS
DOGMA Racing

 

[jstricker]

So, now that I decided to build a third car with a new team, the search was on for a suitable donor car. A quick look on Craigslist came up with an ad for an "89" that had a blown head gasket and the engine was out of it, but all the parts were there and complete (supposedly). After a few emails to the owner we agreed that I would take the complete car (he advertised it for parts) for $250. Why so cheap you ask? Well, take a look:

Yeah, pretty rough, but that's OK because most of the stuff is going to get taken out and re-done anyway. There were some pluses to this car. First off, the PO had put a roll bar in it. I didn't know what kind of quality it was when I agreed to buy it, but after I got there I was pleasantly surprised that the workmanship was good and it will work as a foundation for the rest of the cage.

This is also a turbo car. In the past, we were NEVER the fastest car on the track but our organization, pit work, and reliability gave us consistent top ten finishes. I'm going to utilize the same philosophy with this car but with the turbo I'll have about 40 more horsepower to play with even keeping the engine bone stock. This is known as a "good thing"

When I was looking for a car another ad popped up on Craigslist for a bunch of Supra parts down in Wichita. One of my drivers lives down there and needed to pay me for setting his helmet up with a microphone for the race radios. I called him and asked him to contact the seller, see what was there, and if he thought it was worth get the parts and we'd trade them out for the helmet kits. He ran over to take a look and ended up buying a complete pickup full of Supra parts for $170. These weren't just odds and ends. There are two turbos, an intercooler, a 7MGTE Block, two heads, 3 rear diffs, a transmission or two, etc., etc. Pretty much all the spares we'll ever need, and I already had a bunch to begin with.

So now that you know what we're starting with, I'll follow up in the next post with the plans for the car and where we're at right now on the conversion to a Lemons car. We have until the weekend of November 20-21 to get this thing done because we're heading for New Orleans with it for it's maiden outing.

Oh, any suggestions on common turbo engine parts that I need to take extra care on (I know about the HG issues), particularly with things like accessories and such (coil packs, igniter, etc.) that might give problems I'm all ears. I don't mind taking spares, but I haven't really followed the turbo engine issues since in the past we ran strictly N/A engines.

John Stricker
Russell, KS
DOGMA Racing

 

[iMike_G.]

sweet good luck with the build..

 

[eraezer]

Sounds like a good project.
For someone who doesn't know, what is 24h Lemons? Just a 24h race or is it a series?

If you haven't read about it yet, it's a good idea to convert the oil system to a full flow t-stat controlled system.

 

[RazoE]

nice! There actually a few MKIII's in the Lemons series, most notably Project Shit-Box here in so cal with a 2JZ-GE...

 

[bhmsupra]

Nice Work. Way to represent the 7M and may it be all it can be with you and your team.
Nice Save on that red 89 damsel in distress.

 

[jstricker]

A quick note on what the Lemons races are about..................

Put simply, the cars (in theory) can't cost more than $500 not counting safety equipment. Safety equipment includes the cage, seat, steering, instruments, lighting (in some cases), wheels, tires, brakes and all brake components, fuel system downstream from the pump, and a few other things. The cars do need a muffler of some type, but an inexpensive race muffler is generally sufficient especially with a turbo car. The seat will have a Kirkey road race seat. I'm considering having some steel road race wheels made by Diamond racing wheels. They're inexpensive and light for steel, but there are also some aluminum available for about the same money at the online discount places.

The turbo, engine, and intercooler will stay stock both for rule compliance and also so that it doesn't raise any red flags with the judges. I'd like to upgrade a few components and will be using ARP rod bolts at least, but that's going to have to remain minimal or it will completely blow the budget beyond reason. As I've said, this isn't my first rodeo with the Supra in this series and I know pretty well what will fly and what won't with the judges and other competitors.

When I have enough posts that I can post in the classifieds I will be offering a lot of the excess parts. Any parts we sell off the car can be used to offset other non-safety equipment so that's important. In the meantime, if anyone needs anything I'm open to trades especially where no money changes hands. I'd like some heavier sway bars, new struts. Not worried about the springs, I cut them two coils and add a spring rubber. Stiffens them about 40# and drops the car. I've toyed with welding tubing over the sway bars but have concerns about it making them brittle and breaking.

Those are examples of what you can and can't do. Cam changes are obviously out due to the budget. Forged pistons and rods are out. With that in mind, the boost will be kept stock to keep horsepower levels in check and the number one thing to remember is you can't win if you don't finish.

I will get some pictures up of where we're at later today. Thanks for the encouragement.

John Stricker
Russell, KS
DOGMA Racing

 

[jstricker]

Here are some pictures of where the car is at right now. It's been gutted.., seriously gutted.

The stock instrument cluster will be mounted to an aluminum fabbed bracket. I have the aluminum and it only costs a few dollars and the work I'll do myself. You can see the rollbar is there and we're going to attach the rest of the cage to that. I prefer a "halo" design. That is, a one piece tube bent over the head of the driver and supported by legs to the floor. The rules call for a one piece front upright but I contacted Jay who is the "big dog" in the Lemons races and he says a well built halo is fine and will be added to the rules next year.

On both ends we pull the backing plates off for more air to the brakes. This is especially important when running the stock wheels. We've had some wear issues on the brakes unless we go with a race pad and slotted rotors. I've had good luck with EBC pads and Powerstop rotors, they will last for 15 hours or more of race abuse. I may try another brand that's a few dollars more but is supposed to have a bit more bite. The key is get everything out of the way that might keep air from getting in there. The parking brake has also been eliminated completely. All the cables and hardware was good if anyone needs them. I did split the backing plates to get them off as the bearings seem fine and I didn't want to have to pull them to get the backing plates off.

Piles and piles of parts that mostly won't go back on. The intercooler will, of course, but non of the A/C stuff or heater will. The seats are power and it seems all the motors work but they're pretty trashed. The headliner was really good yet, surprisingly. Power window motors worked. Door glass has plastic tint on it that's bubbled but otherwise seems OK. The wing is decent, but needs paint. Keep this stuff in mind when I post it up in the classifieds. The parts you buy from me for this will go right back into the race car.

I won't take any offers of "dibs" on anything now, wait till I post it to the classifieds, please. I want to abide by the rules and it won't be that long.

These are shots of one of the existing cars aptly named "the blue car". It developed a rod knock after about 9 hours and I need to tear it down and fix it. As you can tell, the new car will be even more gutted than this one is to make it even lighter. I'm not sure what they weigh but when I get that far I am going to throw the new car on my scales and get it cross and total weighted. There are a few things I can move around (battery, for instance) if needed.

The last picture is a shot of the team at Omaha in front of the sister car also aptly named "the red car". It has been the workhorse for us and been refined over a total of about 20 races and autocrosses over the last few years. You can see our class win trophy on the roof if you look real close. I'm the Yahoo in the back row, third from your left, in the red, white, and blue shirt.

Are we having fun yet? We're working on race cars, OF COURSE WE ARE!!! :biglaugh:

John Stricker
Russell, KS
DOGMA Racing

---------- Post added at 01:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:56 PM ----------

Thanks for the tip, I've read that, but keep in mind mods like that count against the $500 budget and they are easy for the judges to spot when they do the BS inspection so it has to be little or no cost mod before it's going to work. Being constrained on one's budget this tightly makes one extremely inventive and believe me, after doing this for several years, the judges can smell BS a mile away when it comes to spending money that you claim you didn't.

John Stricker
Russell, KS
DOGMA Racing

Sounds like a good project.
For someone who doesn't know, what is 24h Lemons? Just a 24h race or is it a series?

If you haven't read about it yet, it's a good idea to convert the oil system to a full flow t-stat controlled system.

---------- Post added at 01:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:00 PM ----------

I forgot one last thing before I wrap this posting session up for a bit.

We are looking for a "theme" for the new car. It can (and SHOULD) be outrageous, but that doesn't mean it should be crude or vulgar. It helps if we can carry the theme over to clothing so when we show up at tech we carry the theme on. If you don't know what I'm talking about, Google up the Lemons races and look at some of the cars. Jalopnik usually has some good stuff there. One of our drivers owns a body shop and he's going to be doing the painting so the only thing counting against the $500 limit will be the cost of paint (and they usually look the other way at things that don't add to the performance and are just decorations).

Another thing, is there a source for decals for the "SupraMania" forum? The old girl could proudly wear its colors while racing if there are some available. I know some of the other forums I'm on have a place to get decals and stickers to acknowledge them.

I'm considering offering a prize for the most original theme suggestion, if we use it. No, I don't know what that prize will be, but I'm sure I can come up with SOMETHING.

John Stricker
Russell, KS
DOGMA Racing

 

[Zach]

Glad to see we've got company

 

[jstricker]

Glad to see we've got company

That looks like Houston, was that this spring? We didn't make it down to that one because we were concentrating on getting ready for Denver. Are you going to make it over to New Orleans in November? Curious that your car and our "the blue car" have the same number.

We got in the 60' of DOM for the cage yesterday so we're going to be bending and notching tubing this week and weekend, hopefully getting welded up before the middle of the week so we can take the car in for paint. I'm planning to pull the motor down the rest of the way and check the crank, rods, pistons, and block sometime the next day or two so I can get parts ordered. Hopefully it doesn't need much other than what I have on hand.

John Stricker
Russell, KS
DOGMA Racing

 

[Zach]

Ha, that's way funny that we have the same number, we had a different number in April but for whatever reason they assigned us another one for the race a couple of weekends ago. That picture is from two weekends ago in Houston at the YeeHaw It's Texas event. We won't have the car back together for November, as I'm in school and don't have a ton of time to fix what needs to be gone through. Hoping to hit 5 or 6 races next year, though.

 

[jstricker]

I looked up your results and you had a best lap time of 2:05 and change. Our best was 2:09 and change so you were running fast, well up in the top 5% of the group or so. Is there a thread detailing your exploits and/or the car? I'd like to know what you guys were running. You can PM me if you want to keep it more private as well.

John Stricker
Russell, KS
DOGMA Racing

 

[honeydew]

I heard about this last year, it looks like so much fun. I'll take a stab at some themes;

-How about a black Labrador Retriever, begging/praying looking up with a golden halo. Dogma Racing.
-"Canon Law"(related to Dogma, and sounds kinda bad-ass.), A black canon, firing a (?)( Piston?) With wings or something stylized.
-"Primordial Supra" The Supra stylized like a neanderthal, with tiger teeth and orange with black stripes, or whatever.
-"Immaculate Conception" (Dogma, again.) I fear to think what the logo might look like.
-"Supra Mark3t Dogma" (E into a 3, referring to the MK3) Absolute faith in the MK3, Sistine Chapel ceiling with a MK3 instead of God touching man. Borderline blasphemy? I dunno.
-...

Thoughts?

 

[Hachigo87]

I always thought these would make awesome Lemons cars. A few friends and I are still scanning out something cheap to dump some money into modding and throwing out on the track just to have fun and see what happens someday soon here.

How are the MK3s out on the track, even with cheap/free mods like cut springs and stripped interiors, etc?

 

[jstricker]

I heard about this last year, it looks like so much fun. I'll take a stab at some themes;

-How about a black Labrador Retriever, begging/praying looking up with a golden halo. Dogma Racing.
-"Canon Law"(related to Dogma, and sounds kinda bad-ass.), A black canon, firing a (?)( Piston?) With wings or something stylized.
-"Primordial Supra" The Supra stylized like a neanderthal, with tiger teeth and orange with black stripes, or whatever.
-"Immaculate Conception" (Dogma, again.) I fear to think what the logo might look like.
-"Supra Mark3t Dogma" (E into a 3, referring to the MK3) Absolute faith in the MK3, Sistine Chapel ceiling with a MK3 instead of God touching man. Borderline blasphemy? I dunno.
-...

Thoughts?

Getting back to this thread (finally) sorry for the delay. Interesting ideas and I'll give you some guidance. Talked to the painter today and his thoughts on color are (I hope you're sitting down) Bosom (since this is a family forum, I think you know what he really called it) Pink with Lime Green racing stripes.

Let's test the creativity here and come up with something to fit those colors.

Limeaide? Anything "Bosomy"? I promised him he could pick the colors and this is what he came up with. To be honest, those colors aren't my favorite and for Lemons cars, they're not even all that outrageous.

John Stricker
Russell, KS
DOGMA Racing

---------- Post added at 09:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:08 PM ----------

I always thought these would make awesome Lemons cars. A few friends and I are still scanning out something cheap to dump some money into modding and throwing out on the track just to have fun and see what happens someday soon here.

How are the MK3s out on the track, even with cheap/free mods like cut springs and stripped interiors, etc?

They are surprisingly stable and decent track cars. They have a built in delay, you have to act about 1/2 second before you want the car to. Our cars have been stock suspensions, springs cut two coils, one spring rubber all around, stock sway bars. We get too much body lean and that's why I'm looking for upgraded swaybars. I've built cars both ways, soft springs/stiff bars and stiff springs/soft bars and I prefer the soft spring version especially on rougher tracks. Our "red car" has been stone cold reliable. We generally run in the top ten on fastest time and if we don't break, routinely finish top 10 and feel like we've been underachievers if we're not top six.

There is a LOT of weight that can be taken out of the Supra. It was, after all, a "luxury" sports car and that has a heavy weight penalty. On the previous cars, we've lost a little more weight every time we go out. On this car we are losing the weight from day one and it will be the lightest car we've put on the track. How light? I don't know, but I will when we're done because it will be weighed and some things moved around. I'll post the weight when we get that far.

If you try to run enough negative camber to really help it hold in the corners you get a lot of tire wear on the inside in the endurance races so we're holding that to about -1°. It handles better with more neg camber, but not enough to justify cording tires every 6 hours. We're running the rubber bushings and for the $120 or so I'm considering putting poly in. On my other road race cars I turn my own aluminum bushings and press in oilite for the bolts to run on, but I don't want to take the time it will require to develop that for the Supra (I won't have that much time). I built one set with aluminum and needle bearings for a Fiero, but that was an Open Road Race car with speeds routinely around 150+.

You have to get really aggressive with the weight loss. If it doesn't make it run/handle and you can lose it, it's gone. The pounds are easy to lose, it's the ounces that get hard. We're now into the 1/2 ounce region.

On the whole, it's a good Lemons/occasional track car. Reliable, solid, and fairly easy to work on. I prefer a mid-engine and looked seriously at an MR2 but I had too many parts and too much experience to start over with another type of car so I stuck with a Supra because all in all, it ain't that bad.

John Stricker
Russell, KS
DOGMA Racing

 

[closetnerd]

That's going to be rough on the eyes, haha.

I love this series and I think no matter what theme comes out of this, I'm sure there's going to be a group of us still excited to see another mkiii out and about.

 

[Zach]

I would post up a build thread for ours, but it's already built, just refining it now. Mk3's really aren't bad track cars, we're gunning to outrun the spec Miatas that two of our team members own and drive with this next round of rehab and repair, I've still got more weight to pull out of our car, too. Time to get out the hole saw

Just an update, we're looking to get some 17x9 Mustang wheels so we can run 275/40/17's all around, I just can't help but wonder what this car would be capable of with some serious bite up front, as it wasn't tail happy at all this last event.

 

[Keros]

John, I recall reading about the oil cooler mod that the FD RX-7 had a thermostat controlled oil cooler in it. Perhaps you could nab one off a wreck that's old and dirty and make that work?

 

[87mk111]

SInce it's a LEmons Race Car, why not go with a lemon or maybe a Sprite theme, especially since ur painter wants to use bright green.

 

[jstricker]

Life and other such obligations got in the way of progresss for quite a while but we're back at it for the coming season and making decent progress.

The cage is in and done, the aluminum bent for the dash, the seat base made and the seat fitted for the drivers. I'm working on the motor now. The car as I bought it was a basket case as it had a blown head gasket and the previous owner had pulled the head on the car. I finished pulling the short block down today and the block and crank look very good. Standard size cylinder bores and the rod journals turned .25 with the mains .5. Both sets of journals look nearly perfect so a light polish is all that's in order there.

Pictures of the cage:

These were, of course, pre-weld and things are just held into place with tack welds and clamps and such at this point.

Here are some post weld pictures:

Front down tube floor mount-

We tried to weld the windshield bar to the firewall but the metal there was doubled, with a gap, and very thin. instead we drilled and through bolted it with a plate on the engine side. It took a crappy picture though-

Another crappy picture, but gives you an idea of the dash we're running.

Steering wheel will be a modification to allow a quick release setup at a reasonable cost.

We're runningn a Kirkey race seat on a custom floor mount that is fixed. We debated putting it on sliders but opted instead to set the seat up for the driver with the longest legs and use resin/beads to take up the space for the shorter drivers.

The engine will be basically stock. The only thing I'll probably do is put a manual boost control on so that if we need it at the end of the race we can bump up the boost a few pounds. I think I'll mount that out of the reach of the drivers though so they don't get HP happy and blow it up.

The car chassis is currently in getting paint squirted on it. The interior is going to be done in white, the exterior in whatever my team mate/body shop owner decides to do. We'll find out when he's done.
John Stricker
Russell, KS