PorcuBimmer Lemons Team

Rather than posting lots of little blog entries over the last three weeks documenting our slow progress that contained such precious nuggets of information like “Vince scratched his ass while we talked about getting a new throwout bearing,” I have decided to wait until our main project was finished and make one large, fun filled, power packed update.  So, without further ado…

A few weeks had gone by while we determined little logistical items like “who is going to drive this shitpile pedigreed racing machine at Thunderhill” and “how the hell are we going to pay for a clutch.”  With those solved, Scott found us a nice (almost) new clutch and single-mass flywheel for a screaming bargain.  Notice the difference between the stocker (left) and the new unit (right).

Should rev a little quicker now, don’tcha think?  So Vince and I got the new clutch, flywheel, and pressure plate installed (not neccesarily in that order) and found ourselves ready to put the tranny back in.  However, upon close mostly sober  inspection, the throwout bearing showed signs of, well.  Not being a bearing anymore.  It was a bit rough.  We decided at that point to call it a day and do two things.  One:

We gave the old clutch disc a Viking funeral.  Two:

We went to a Padres game.  Which has nothing to do with racing, except it lets me post a photo that indicates that we’re every bit as retarded out of the garage as we are in it.

Anyway, this brings us to last weekend.  With new throwout bearing in hand, I proceded over to Vince’s Best Damn Garage In Town to work on getting the transmission back in the car.  With some help from our friend Don who was obviously very bored, we managed to shove the transmission more or less back into the right place and reconnect it.  Upon verifying that the shifter was in fact sticking up through the correct hole (insert joke here) and tightened into place using the required 37″ of extensions and swivels on the ratchet, we crossed our fingers, hooked the flat battery to Don’s Taco Truck, and turned the key.

Lo and behold, she burst forth with the glorious dulcet tones of the unmuffled straight 6.  The broken crank position sensor pin on the flywheel had indeed been the source of the car not starting.  The three of us looked at the driveshaft sitting in the car, decided we had all had more than enough beer for the day, and called it quits.  Here, Vince celebrates his victory over the transmission and exhorts you to follow him, follow him to freedom:

So finally that brings us to today.  After taking care of some housekeeping issues in the garage and some minor details with the car, we figured it was high time to give the car the shaft.  The driveshaft, you god damned perverts.  After surprisingly little grunting and swearing, Scott, Vince, and I got the driveshaft into place and the assorted heatshielding bolted back where it belonged.  We made sure the rear jackstands were plenty sturdy, crossed our fingers, and Scott hopped in to turn the key and let the clutch out.

Beautiful, beautiful rotation.  For freshness.  Scott quickly rowed it through the gears to make sure they all worked, then took a quick moment to clean up.

After that, well.  We had to road test it, of course.  Vince hopped in, fired it up, backed it out, and took her for a spin around the block, much to the horror of concerned mothers throughout the neighborhood.

So concluded a productive month for Team Porcubimmer!  Having tackled our major issue, from here on out the only major work that needs to be done is upgrading to the new LeMons safety standards and some minor maintenance and theme upgrades.  Stay tuned, Porcufans, we’ve got a fun little twist planned for the return of the Porcubimmer.

-AJ

After taking a well deserved vacation from the Porcubimmer, we’ve rescued it from the no man’s land of Mexico Chula Vista and it’s now safely home in Vince’s garage.  We decided it was high time to figure out just what put us out of action in May.  First, we wanted to verify that the engine would still start and run as well as test our computer to see if it had been the source of our stalling issue.

Oddly, though the car started several times while in exile at Scott’s folks house, it wouldn’t start now, even after a jump courtesy of Vince’s Bitchin Camaro.  Highly scientific testing procedures revealed we had air (none of us were suffocating), we had fuel (god knows we could smell it), we had 12v to the coil (tested with the world’s finest afroengineered test light)… but there was no spark upon cranking.

After eliminating all other possible issues, we discovered a missing crank position sensor pin on the flywheel as well as highly reliable internet info that indicated that this can indeed cause an E30 to not start.  Looking at the pile of friction material released onto the floor when we removed the flywheel cover, we realized that A:  it was quite likely the pin broke off and B:  it was quite likely the clutch was now an ex clutch.  Full out assault began.

Scott was the lucky one to use a combination of braille and approximately 43ft worth of ratchet extensions to remove the bolts securing the transmission.  After a few minutes, a lot of filth, and some gentle persuasion…

…we had a rousing game of “Hide The Tranny.”  Not that kind of tranny, you goddamn perverts.   Upon pulling the clutch disc itself out, we noticed it appeared to be… not good.

I’m no ASE Certified mechanic, but that looks like a bad clutch to me.  Markings on it indicate that it is an OEM BMW clutch, giving it a good possibility of being original to the car.  We rolled the dice and lost on this one, lesson learned.  Once class was out, we took a brief Tecate break…

And then headed downtown where we located our backup plan in the event we cannot resurrect the Porcubimmer thanks to the Gumball 3000.

I’m sure Jay will believe we got it for $500, right Jay?  Jay?  Shit.

Stay tuned, loyal Porcubimmer fans as we’ve obviously got quite a bit of work ahead of us and only a few months to do it in, so I have no doubt we’ll be working hard.  As hard as a bunch of underpaid, burrito powered, mostly drunk men can, at any rate.

-AJ

Obviously our venture into the 24 Hours of Lemons didn’t go as well as planned. Things started great, with the car handling fantastically (watch the YouTube video linked below - I was having a ball behind the wheel), but it went downhill from there. If only this were a sprint race! Hearing, “Man, your car was so fast. You were passing everyone! What happened?” a bunch of times from other teams was both encouraging and disheartening. Oh well.

Although the car didn’t finish the race, we did accomplish our goal of getting a race car together from scratch. None of our team members are professional mechanics, race car builders, or racers. We’re just a bunch of car loving nerds from the internet. Yet we were able to pool our talents together and build a legitimate race car (in Vince’s garage with basic tools and no lift - oh, and lots Tecate). We did it! Not only that, but our car was one of the best looking cars out there. I was under the impression that the bar had been raised in this race as far as having interesting themes, but there were still plenty of cars out there with nothing but a spray-painted racing number on the side. In contrast, our car looked fantastic, and we got tons of compliments!

So to all the members of our team: Bravo! Everyone contributed different things and talents to the team, and we couldn’t have gotten it done without all of you. Vince and Kris, I’m really sorry that you guys never got a turn behind the wheel. But the Porcubimmer will be back, and you two will be first in line to drive if you can make it back on board.

Thank you to all our sponsors and contributors. None of us are ballers (well, ‘cept maybe Kris), so all the financial support is greatly appreciated.

And to our fans and everyone else: Prepare yourself for Porcubimmer 2: Porc Harder! Coming December 2008 to a cold and rainy Norcal track near you. We’ll be back!

Here’s a smattering of photos I took during the weekend.  Enjoy:

http://flickr.com/photos/26541144@N02/sets/72157605053959930/ 

-AJ

Youtube limits videos to 10 minutes, so here’s the first 10 minutes of the race… Scott Chamberlain kicking butt!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ag0QBsUwJ3g

Nicolas got some great pics of the PorcuBimmer in action here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ncoulet/sets/72157604986821428/

Thanks for the pictures Nicolas!

-Kris

During the award ceremonies, we also won an award - the “I Got Screwed” award for all of the problems we had.

Looking at the video, I think it’s safe to say it’s simply a clutch. Of course, we’ve also got an engine problem we need to chase down. I think it’ll be relatively easy to get the car prepared for the race at Thunderhill on Dec 27-28!

The pictures I took are here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/klinquist/sets/72157605011976325/

Alex took some great pics here:

http://rbp.f0e.net/forum.php?d=1316&t=051008

LeMons and Altamont have each given $5k to the family of the racer who passed away. Most other teams have put the racers number (37) or team colors on their cars. Very touching.

We got bumped on the side hard which seems to have done something to the clutch or tranny.. Car won’t move. On top of that, we’ve lost all engine power- sounds like its running with very retarded timing. Timing belt is ok, so this leads us to believe its a sensor or computer problem. We don’t have a spare DME ;(. Almost noon now and its not looking good.

We started off the day great - Scott went out there and kicked ass!  We were in first place until about 15 minutes into the race when we got a flat tire.  Came in and with a new tire, he was back out in no time.

Shortly after that, the car began to stall and was becoming increasingly difficult to restart.   We replaced the high pressure fuel pump with no results.  Andy continued to pass cars after driving back out onto the track with a cold car.   Of course, 20-30 minutes later, we have to limp the car into the pits once again.

Tomorrow we will get a low pressure fuel pump from a junkyard.  We’ve also swapped the air flow meter … hopefully the problem will be solved tomorrow.

While working on the car, someone pointed out that an ambulance was on the track.   A Gulf-colored Volvo went head on into a wall (witnesses say that the car did not brake/turn).

A lifeflight helicopter was dispatched but turned away before landing. Police arrived on the scene and began an investigation into the incident. The race has been called off for at least the rest of the day and race organizers have collected the transponder units from the teams.   It was a fatal crash.

As of 4:00-ish, the race was called off for the day and hopefully will resume tomorrow.

Last night was the last work night in San Diego for the team. All the labels and decals are applied, all the porcupiney pricks and face parts were installed. It is done.

It is my true honor to present to you: The Porcubimmer. Congratulations to everyone on the team, everyone brought a unique set of talents to table and together we put together something truly amazing.

Bask in it’s prickyness glory.

The crew from the final night: Left to Right - Kris, AJ, Scott, Andy, Ben, Jeff, Vince

After the photos were done, and Tecates were empty - we pulled off and numbered each prick and prepped the car for the big ride north. Next stop: Altamont.

-Sickboy out