Team GRM’s Crapcan Lincoln Back in Action for Chumpcar

Update by Scott Lear to the Lincoln Mark VII project car
Apr 20, 2011

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We finished our first race with our crapcan Lincoln project, but all the team members were ready to get their hands dirty and go another round.

For the Chumpcar event in Charlotte, NC we addressed our earlier fuel delivery problems with a fresher two-barrel carb and new fuel feed and return lines. Early testing indicates that these changes have helped immensely.

We also spent time rewiring the car to make it more reliable and easier to troubleshoot.

We recycled a relay block from a Mitsubishi Eclipse for use on our Lincoln.

Wow, time flies. It’s been a few months since our last update, but here’s the skinny: Our low-buck Lincoln project had a successful debut at the 24 Hours of LeMons race. We’re saving the nitty-gritty details until the project makes its debut in the pages of GRM, but in brief, we took the green flag, everyone had a chance to drive the car multiple times, and it was still running under its own power 24 hours later when it took the checker.

Our next event is less than a week away, as we’re loading up the hotrod Lincoln and heading north for our first ChumpCar event. Our goal is to compare and contrast these two very popular brands of crapcan racing. The race is a 12-hour enduro on Charlotte Motor Speedway’s roval circuit on Saturday, April 23. High banking, here we come.

We came away from PBIR’s 24-hour marathon with a list of issues to address, and we’ve devoted as much spare time as possible to some fixes and new solutions.

First among these is the decision that we’d rather take penalty laps for a new carburetor than spend gobs of time in the pits dealing with a fickle old POS. Our trusty Ford 5-liter now has a brand-new Holley two-barrel in place. We also had some issues with boiling fuel, so we installed a solid metal conduit through the cabin and routed a proper return line from a matching Holley pressure regulator. This moves the fuel line away from the exhaust and gets some proper return flow to and from our ATL fuel cell.

The car’s wiring didn’t let us down, exactly, but there was plenty of room for optimization. An old Mitsubishi Eclipse donated its relay block, and now the battery’s electrons have a safer and more reliable way of getting to and from work. We even went nuts and used a few different colors so we can troubleshoot problems more quickly.

Last Saturday we changed the oil, replaced the front rotors, bled the brakes and discussed a more optimal fueling solution that should minimize any drips. We’ll have more details in the coming weeks, or you can swing by and cheer for us at CMP and see the car in action for yourself. Details: chumpcar.com.

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Comments

AlexLemond
5/19/11 10:14 a.m.

I registered just to post this.

Seriously?

SERIOUSLY?

Somebody tore up a first-gen Mark VII to race it?

Are you kidding me?

Bastards. They should be horsewhipped. If you're going to pull the air suspension, Mission Control dashboard, and Learjet seats out of a Mark VII, you basically end up with a V-8 Aero 'Bird. AKA a generic Fox-body whose only saving grace is that it looks better than the same year Mustang.

After the accursed Cash for Clunkers, there are practically no Mark VII's left. I'm keeping mine until the paint's peeled away to bare metal, the 302 is spewing oil, and the suspension bags are wheezing their last. Then I'm getting it restored with a 400 HP crate motor and laughing all the way to a revoked license. It's the best American car of the '80s---Detroit's answer to the BMW 635 with a sprinkling of Citroen XM, and an utterly awesome car.

David S. Wallens Editorial Director
6/2/11 5:29 p.m.

Thanks for the comment, and if it makes you feel any better a previous owner stripped and originally prepped the car for racing. If anything, we saved it from the crusher.

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