classicJackets (FS) said:In reply to RichardSIA :
Plan was always to sell it post challenge. Getting last in the challenge and being as unprepared for the event as I was on the whole are driving me towards storing it for the winter and digging back into it in the spring for next year's challenge.
Ahh... the hook has been set. Now we reel him in.
What parts and stuff can we enable this plan with?
I checked results, you did not come in last place, that was a tie one level below you. 
You seem to have done enough to pass tech, so take your time but start ASAP to be ready for next year and kick it up several notches.
Not sure how the rules work for a returning car but I would hope they allow you to do some upgrades.
With good tires drag race should be your strong point, maybe some paint and detail work to get better in concourse.
PM'd you with my contact info.
I am world class enabler and happy to lend a hand.
Other than getting it reliably running, it definitely needs to get that rear end figured out. Something on the yoke or driveshaft contacts the floorpan as it rotates. Even pushing it around causes a horrible clunking noise, I can't imagine what would happen as it moves at speed.
Mr_Asa said:Other than getting it reliably running, it definitely needs to get that rear end figured out. Something on the yoke or driveshaft contacts the floorpan as it rotates. Even pushing it around causes a horrible clunking noise, I can't imagine what would happen as it moves at speed.
So, I think there were/are 2 things happening here. I got rid of one of them at the challenge, and would have done a dry engined run of the drags if I had thought of the other earlier enough.
Initial problem - I think, and felt by Stampie as well with car on jacks - is/was related to pinion angle and U-joints being tight. I was able to put a shim in the trans mount to lift the tailend up by ~1/2" which took care of the problem at "slow push" speeds. Awesome.
Next - getting towed around the AutoX, I could feel some more bumping/vibrating in turns, and once the speeds increased. I figured I hadn't done enough to take care of pinion angle or that U-joints were too frozen. BUT. but. When loading the car out of Concourse Saturday, I remembered how close the bump stops were to the body. With the car on the ground, the body was resting on the bump stops. E36 M3! It didn't do that when I had it up on cribbing, and I clean forgot about it once we started chasing the bigger hurdles to getting the car running.
So, I think that improving my shim setup (for my own peace of mind), and dropping bump stops by a few inches will get me safely driving, if handling poorly (who knows). Which just leaves checking compression and swapping water pumps/getting a timing light on it to see if I can eliminate the overheating. That's another part of the reason I think I want to keep it, I really think that with all the people helping this year, we got it insanely close to being ready to run. And with the huge number of people providing so much help this year, I think they deserve to see the car actually run, too.
I am about to part out two or three Spridgets (Maybe more) so may have some parts for you.
Not sure what would be needed/useful?
With that V8 up front I expect you need stiffer springs rather than altering bump stops.
Are you still using the original 1/4 elliptic springs in the rear?
If so I expect that will have to be modified too.
Unless you have tied the front and rear together with a good sub-frame that also incorporates the roll-bar I fear that a good launch will twist the tub. Full cage would be even better and safer.
This was a common issue with V8 Vega swaps unless they had a full cage, despite having the added stiffness of a roof.
Buddy did one and could not open one door, or keep the other closed, after only three runs.
In reply to RichardSIA :
I'm not sure either, but I will try to think through.
The bump-stop resting is on the rears only - and they are ugly scabbed on stops, not factory. The fronts still sit at the mid-point, although yes I'm sure stiffer front springs would be helpful.
It is still on quarter elliptics and lever shocks in the rear - I am thinking I'll add some kind of additional structure (might just be welding some square-tube across the lower edge of the wheel wells inside the car, and triangulating to somewhere higher in the body) to tie more traditional shocks into so I can improve that portion of the car.
I still have the other portion of another cage, and I may be able to try to use that to make some form of dash bar. I would also like to re-make the ugly crossmember under the torque converter, to lift it ~0.5" to make trailer loading easier, and I could reach that from the front frame horns, and tie back into the tube structure that the cabin is built around. Regardless, I think the drivetrain will need to come out for clean-up and improvements.
In reply to classicJackets (FS) :
If you want to see a car with quarter elliptic springs go to the paccracing.com site and browse through the Bugzilla build thread.
I did a thing and this is it's road trip.
Doug and I had talked off and on since right before the Challenge and finally made a deal a couple of weeks ago. That meant that I had to go get Riggamort.
Fiiday morning after Brad left I got on the road and went to my brother's house in upstate SC. No pictures because we spent our time enjoying thick pork chops and home brewed beer. The next morning I got on the road at 7am and headed towards Indianapolis.
Everything went great until it wasn't.
My first sign was about 45 minutes in I noticed snow on the vehicles heading the other way. I wasn't expecting anything like that until I got way further north. Little bit of snow started falling but things were ok. Just west of Asheville, NC I got in a line of several vehicles going slower. The thought was I should see if any of them had a problem to warn me.
We came up on a bridge and I suddenly saw the truck in front of me step out a bit. I had just enough time to say yep that's ice on the road before I hit it. Truck started sliding towards the center divider and I tried to counter steer. It started to correct and I was beginning to believe I was going to get lucky when the trailer said oh you want to go that way? and snapped around. That pushed me into the guard rail on the right.
First thought was a hit like that right on the corner had to damage the wheel/tire/suspension. I thought my trip was over. I pulled ahead about 100 yards hearing ugly sounds from that side pulled over to the emergency lane.
After putting on my boots I got out and did a quick inspection. Passenger side of the bumper pushed back into the tire. Dents all the way down that side but the trailer looked good. I got back into the truck to come up with a plan. Seeing trees about 40 feet off the road I decided to racket strap the bumper out. Jumped out, got two racket straps and a wheel strap. Went through the ditch and wheel strap around the tree and the other two straps pulled the bumper out pretty quick. Sorry no pictures as I spent ever spare second looking back down the road seeing other drivers hit the ice and slide around. Lucky I didn't see anyone else lose it but I also didn't want to be where I was in case they did.
Pulled off an exit a quarter mile down the road to look everything over and decide what to do. That's when I took pictures.
Other than cosmetics everything seemed to be in driveable condition. After calling the insurance company I decided to head back on the road.
Still snowing but not as bad and being even more aware of overpasses and bridges I didn't have any issues. Went up through Tennessee and then Kentucky before a little slice of Ohio then Indiana.
Indiana is beautiful country. I love the flat farmland and the neat older houses. If Indiana was in Florida I'd move there.
Finally I got to Indy-Guy's house just in time for dinner even though I'd already eaten. Seeing some homemade biscuits on the table helped convince me to join them. I loved seeing a large family and how they interacted. It was refreshing to me that every person I talked to was at a different age so I had to interact on so many different levels.
After a long discussion about almost everything I headed to bed so I could get on the road this morning at 7 again.
I would continue but I'm way tired and about to fall asleep. I'll continue the story later but I'll leave you with a picture of Indy-Guy's TR4.
Sorry to hear about your truck, at least considering what happened it seems like that was the best outcome possible. Have a safe trip home.
Be safe my friend. See you tomorrow if all goes according to plan
I'm glad you're unhurt! Have a safe trip home. I'll be thinking of you.
Stampie had another rough weather related day yesterday, no crashes but an hour and a half spent sitting off the highway waiting for it to warm up and icy roads to thaw. He along with Riggamort made it here about 7:30 last night for an impromptu sleepover and I sent him south a tick after 7am.
Is Stampie keeping this one or delivering it to a new mystery owner?
Drive safe, Stampie!
maschinenbau said:Is Stampie keeping this one or delivering it to a new mystery owner?
What I've seen is that he wants to play with it, but I may have missed something
Bummer about the guardrail smash-up. Good luck with the rest of the trip.
Here's hoping for a safe return.
Stampie is home safe
It's nice to be home and have a decompression drink.
So we left off leaving the Indy Clan. As I pulled out of their driveway I noticed that my gas light was on. That's when I recalled waiting until on the way out so I could grab some gas station poptarts for breakfast. I knew I would be leaving early and didn't want to put them out so I let them know it would be too early to do breakfast. Little did I realize my first 15 minutes was going down farm road after farm road but I finally saw a gas station and they had my favorite brown sugar poptarts.
Angry had warned me that there might be snow in Detroit mid to late morning so I wasn't too surprised to start seeing snow flakes in Toledo. I crossed the Michigan line and soon afterwards came upon a traffic jam on a bridge. As we're inching along I gently hit my brakes and slid about 2 feet. E36 M3 I'm on ice. Well good thing I'm in a traffic jam going 3mph. About 100 yards ahead I see the cause of the traffic jam is a truck with a 4x4 in the bed that obviously rolled landing right side up. Dude is out of the truck and looks ok so that's good. I start thinking about the morning before and decide that now is a good time to find a stop and wait point. I pull off right after the inside of a curve figuring if anyone went spinning they would miss me heading towards the outside. Here's what I looked like shortly after I stopped.
I checked my supplies and here you see that I have a pack of peanut M&Ms, an empty cup to pee in, my tablet to read the GRM forums and right under it my drink cup. Yep I think I could survive the Michigan winter with all that.
After waiting about an hour and a half this is what it looked like after clearing up.
About half a mile down the road I saw another SUV on it's side about 100 yards off the road. I felt good about stopping and waiting. After that it was pretty uneventful heading to Doug's. Google took me off the highway to avoid accidents and that made up a good amount of time. I finally get there and here's my first sight of RIggamort.
The street is crazy tight for parking so I parked a block down on a side street. Doug and I pushed Riggamort down the street and Angry showed up just in time to look pretty while the winch pulled it up on the trailer. Ok Angry was a little helpful when the trans cross member caught on the trailer. It was his idea to use 2 by wood under the rear tires to raise it up just enough. I had already told my Airbnb in Charleston, WV that I wouldn't make it and made arraignments with Patrick to borrow a futon so time to head out.
I was pretty low on gas so here's the project car on a trailer at a gas station in south Detroit picture.
Got to Patrick's, got schooled in all things horses and unicorns, toured the garage, loaded up GRM Express items, and went to bed to do last nights update.
As Patrick said he sent me down the road at 7am and things went smooth. I hate 77 in West Virginia because of how tight and steep the road is. Well I hate it with a truck and trailer. I've never been through there in a normal vehicle. Virginia is always cool because there's tunnels and it's short as hell so you feel like you did a whole state in no time. I get into NC and about 50 miles from SC when all of a sudden I start losing power on a hill. The engine shuts off and I throw it in neutral to get as much roll as I could towards the next exit. Ok I'll admit it. I berkeleying ran out of gas. Lil Stampie would probably snitch on me anyway. I have a habit of pushing E. Sometimes a little too much. Here's where I came to a stop.
You can see the end of the off ramp circled in yellow and the gas station circled in red. So damn close but this isn't hand grenades. I walked over and paid the stupid tax of buying a gas station gas jug and walked back pretty quickly. I was surprised that it started right up. My 99 would blow the fuel pump fuse when it got that low. Yes as I said I tend to push E a lot.
I knock out the rest of NC, SC, GA and rolled in about 9:15 this evening. It was pointed out to me today that on Friday the winner of last years Challenge left my driveway actually sitting on my trailer. Today the last place car according to the official magazine results took it's place. Riggamort told me that it wants a rematch and as I walked away I swear I heard it say something under it's breath about someone not having cojones in the drags.
Almost forgot. Here's the picture of Doug and Angry. Was great seeing you guys.
Glad you and Riggamort are home safe!
Mr_Asa said:Glad you and Riggamort are home safe!
Oh yeah! Too much excitement!
In reply to Stampie :
It was great to see you again. You're welcome to crash here anytime. The kids really enjoyed the treats you brought for them.
Oh, and thanks for the GRM express on the transmission and for the Bilsteins. 
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