Mike's 24 Hours of Lemon's Thread, Updated 4 April 2010 Options

[qatar11]

http://picasaweb.google.com/mjcoury/24Hour...feat=directlink

Here is one camera dump of the weekend, more to follow - I promise

This post has been edited by qatar11: Apr 4, 2010 - 9:36 PM

[Hanyo]

This has been one of the most interesting post I've seen on here in a long time.

A couple of things I recommend would be to:

1) removed all the headlights and sell them. They cost alot to replace and aftermarket cheap driving lights are not street legal but perfect for the track.

2) cut out the inside door seems and welding them shut. You have a roll cage already. Opening the doors to get in and out would not help much. Might as well do what NASCAR does and sit on the window sill everytime you get inside/out of the car.

3) Removed all the quart panels with thin plexi glass or lexan. This prevents shattered glass from entering the car during car on car contact.

4) Get some front strut tower bars or use the oem GT strut tower bar. The entire rear end of the car is stiffen from the roll cage but your front is not re-enforced? This will make the front flex more then usual and cause overseer. Not to mention numb the steering. Since this track is very large and is lemans style race you want to keep the tire planted. Any drifting from slide will just chew up your tires..

5) install a front splitter?





Last question i have is what tire pressure are you using? During track days your tires should more air then oem requirements. Somewhere along the lines of 40psi, depending on the weather and tire temperature.

This post has been edited by Hanyo: Oct 9, 2009 - 3:01 AM

[qatar11]

Hanyo, all good suggestions, responses:

1) removed all the headlights and sell them. They cost alot to replace and aftermarket cheap driving lights are not street legal but perfect for the track.

I know what your saying here - but I love the look of the car with all four lights - one my favorite things about celicas. And for night driving, these lights did very well during night driving

2) cut out the inside door seems and welding them shut. You have a roll cage already. Opening the doors to get in and out would not help much. Might as well do what NASCAR does and sit on the window sill everytime you get inside/out of the car.

Definately an option... if we do this - we need to re do the X bar on the drivers side to possibly push out into that space that you just described by cutting out the doors - Believe it or not - and I think this is because the X bar is not push out, it is very hard to get in and out of the car with the door closed.

3) Removed all the quart panels with thin plexi glass or lexan. This prevents shattered glass from entering the car during car on car contact.

Right - we removed the door glass and only have the front and rear + the small pieces of glass remaining... we are considering plexi or lexan

4) Get some front strut tower bars or use the oem GT strut tower bar. The entire rear end of the car is stiffen from the roll cage but your front is not re-enforced? This will make the front flex more then usual and cause overseer. Not to mention numb the steering. Since this track is very large and is lemans style race you want to keep the tire planted. Any drifting from slide will just chew up your tires..

A very good call - we were worried about getting dinged at the Bull**** Inspection rocking front and/or rear strut bars - however - the judges took pitty on us bringing a FWD celica and did not even pop the hood - ALSO teams were installing strut bars after BS inspection so that is always an option - I wonder if the OEM front strut brace is really enough?

5) install a front splitter?

Another good idea - we actually have very poor under car aerodynamics at the moment... with I mean is that all the underbody cladding is missing. I think you are on to somethimg but we really need to do is replace all the under body cladding - with stock or maybe something else.... When Top Gear did a 24 Hour race - they made a front spoiler out of a large piece of particle board to give the front underside a nice smooth flat path for air... This does come up to the rear hatch discussion... do we ever get up to speed where this matters? I agree it will help *drag* but maybe not downforce

Last question i have is what tire pressure are you using? During track days your tires should more air then oem requirements. Somewhere along the lines of 40psi, depending on the weather and tire temperature.

We don't know what tire pressure we were running - I feel it was OEM - 32/33 - we were supposed to pump it up..... so next time we'll try to take better care of the tire pressure - we were thinking 38/36 or so

This damn race car is going to totally derail my "real" car project LOL

This post has been edited by qatar11: Oct 9, 2009 - 6:38 AM