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Did you think that the Ghettocharged FrankenMiata , Faster Farms Chickenmobile , pair of X1/9s , and other awesomeness meant that the upcoming 24 Hours Of LeMons Arse-Freeze-A-Palooza couldn't possibly get any better? Wrong! We've just received a few photos of the Team Metro-Gnome Geo Metro, which is powered by- hallelujah!- a Hayabusa CBR900RR engine! It's a front-wheel-drive setup, chain-driving the original Suzuki transaxle differential… and, yes, that is a toilet plunger being used as a grease seal. Make the jump to get the story from team member Alex. galleryPost('LTH08MetroGnome', 3, 'Team Metro Gnome Geo Metro LeMons Racer Has CBR900RR Power'); OK, I'll bite. What nerdy-car-geek-blog wants to feature a $500 Franken-crapper like our car? Here is are picture of the car in action during a recent test day at Willow Springs. Trust me, the car looks a lot worse in person. Driver is Geo Metro-Gnome team member Colin Drobnis. He looks a lot better in person...
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24 Hours of LeMons race weekend is just about here, and we're heading out to Altamont for the early check-in and tech inspection today. Señor Loverman has applied the all-important V8 emblem to the trunk lid, we've got our checklist all checked, and we're going to be throwing some elbows as we vie for the best pit location. Stay tuned for some live race coverage on Saturday!
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Team Black Metal V8olvo was fortunate enough to get some track time at a Volvo club event at Thunderhill last week, and so we got the car all put together and trailered it on up to Willows. It worked pretty well, with our modified Thunderbird springs and swaybars and 242 Turbo brakes giving the car decent handling and stopping, and while the Ford 302 couldn't keep up with the wild-ass super-boosted turbo four-bangers on the other cars, it was able to get out of its own way. But then the car started running hot... You see, we'd been inspired by Team Two Wheels Too Many and the rear-radiator setup they'd put in their '85 Cavalier, and we figured we'd do the same in our Volvo. Well, actually, I was the one who thought it would be a good idea, if we're going to be placing blame for ensuing badness. Just get the biggest truck radiator we could find at the junkyard, put it in the back seat, and add some big electric radiator fans. Run some muffler piping forward to the...
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When we started out to build a V8-powered Volvo 244 for the May 10-11 24 Hours of LeMons race, most of the team members assumed we'd be using the good ol' C4 automatic transmission. You know, automatics are way easier to swap, with no troublesome clutch linkage to futz with. But Crew Chief Hellhammer (formerly known as Dave) pointed out that he's built plenty of manual-equipped rods, and then he directed our attention to several Ford V8-compatible T-5 5-speeds (and no C4s) sitting in the weeds behind his shop (he's been working on a '57 Ford project, so his stash-o-parts is heavy on Ford running gear). With our minds filled with images of slushboxes overheating and dying at last year's Altamont race, we decided to go with three pedals instead of two... then held our collective breath when it came time to make it happen for real. As it turned out, this is a ridiculously easy swap (well, by the standards of weird engine swaps, that is). The 5-speed shifter even lined...
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While the Black Metal V8olvo crew was working on the rear of the car, we took care of the Number One Priority immediately by installing a Fiero wing . Now, you'd think that such a wing would radiate such an impenetrable aura of cool that no other driver would dare hit our car, but we figured it wouldn't hurt to get some cheap insurance by dealing with one of the most vulnerable points on the Volvo 240 race car: the fuel filler. By all accounts, LeMons Volvos tend to get hit in the right rear, which knocks the fuel filler pipe loose and causes a fuel leak, which makes the guys with the black flags get all upset (and they've got a two-strikes-yer-out policy on fuel leaks). It's an easy fix, though! Look at that fuel door, just begging for a '75 Buick to bash it in about a foot during the race. Can't have that! So, all you need to do is cut the original filler, reattach it to the fuel tank at a different angle, lengthen it with about a foot of fuel-proof flex hose added...
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Now that the 24 Hours of LeMons shit-talking has begun , I find it necessary to present some more evidence to show that the V8-ified Volvo 240 is Your Best Race Car Value, even though it means giving away some tricks to our real competition (i.e., the other teams driving Swedish steel). You see, some teams are coming up with this crazy talk about how they've got the best bang-for-buck with their Cavaliers or MR2s and such, but are there countless MR2s sitting in back yards, just waiting for some kind, trailer-equipped soul to come haul them away for free? As we've seen, perception of the poor brick-shaped Göteborg machine has gone from beloved daily driver to gas-swilling outcast recently, with local junkyards bursting at the seams with 242s, 244s, and 245s. That means that a Craigslist ad with the headline "DEAD VOLVO WANTED, WILL TOW" gets an immediate response. We had observed that many teams gave themselves a big advantage in the pits (both for parts to use on their...
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It seemed like such a great idea a few months ago: Over here , we had a $100 Volvo 244. Over there , a free Ford 302 engine. A little welding, a bit of cutting, some duct tape, and voila ! Easy V8 Volvo for the 24 Hours of LeMons , you betcha! Actually, we all knew we were taking on a ridiculously ambitious somewhat challenging project, especially since sweat and ingenuity would have to substitute for dollars in order to get under the $500 budget, but we've got the junkyard scroungers and fabricatin' maniacs to get the job done. Here's one example of the many critical details that must be dealt with when putting together a Frankensteined beast like ours: the throttle linkage. Our '84 Volvo DL's original Red Block engine had an elegant cam-and-linkage throttle-control setup that involved a 90° shift in rotation axis before getting to the throttle body, as shown in the photo above. However, we're stuffing a V8 with an ancient Holley 600 into the engine compartment...
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The 429 Mustang II put up a good fight in yesterday's Choose Your Eternity poll , but only a French or Italian car really stands a chance against a Triumph GT6 when it comes to true Project Car Hell. Still, every so often you need to let a PCH underdog take on one of the superpowers. We're going to try it again today, with a British machine squaring off against a German-American mashup, only this time the theme is much different. One thing I've noticed with the cheaper PCH cars is the Super LeMons Potential many commenters observe in the entrants, and so today we're going to look at a couple of cars that would immediately bestow Legend In Their Own Time status upon any team entering either one in a 24 Hours of LeMons race. Each is priced below the $500 mark, each could (in theory) be a credible race car, and each would leave onlookers stunned with a potent mixture of awe, fear, and pity. When you're showing up at the track with your $500 race car, four cylinders under...
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Not long after I joined a 24 Hours of LeMons team , I attended a barbecue at a friend's house. Friend's husband, Darren, is a motorcycle mechanic, so naturally all the gearheady guys gravitated to the garage to look at grimy machinery and listen to Atomic Bitchwax on the garage boombox... and then I saw it . Just lying there on top of a box of Honda pistons was an old battered Mr. Gasket Street Scoop. Yes! Turns out it came installed on a '65 Chevy pickup Darren bought for bike-hauling purposes, and the first thing he did upon taking delivery of the truck was to remove the scoop and fill in the crudely hacked hole in the hood. "I must have that scoop for the race car," I told him. "How much you want for it?" I didn't quite grab him by the lapels and shake, but there was no mistaking my air of urgency. Darren's price was very reasonable, as in free ("What the hell do I want with this redneck thing? Take it!"), and now we've gone ahead...
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I felt certain that Team Black Metal V8olvo would have the only car at the Altamont with a ridiculous engine swap... but I thought wrong! Scratchy Bottom Racing has outdone the Lunacy Factor of our Ford 302-powered Volvo 244 by grabbing a $149 1976 Triumph TR7 and stuffing the 231-cube Buick V6 out of a '77 Pontiac Ventura into its engine compartment. The important question here (other than "can a Triumph survive being one of 90 cars on a one-mile road course?") is whether the influence of the Prince of Darkness can ever be completely expunged from a Malaise Era British Leyland machine. [Scratchy Bottom Racing]
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So the official list of teams accepted for the 24 Hours of LeMons race at Altamont is out, and my team made the cut! So we'll be out there on the track with the Porcubimmer and some other Jalopnik-related teams you'll be hearing about over the coming weeks (including the Carpet Pissers , who were also accepted for Altamont). And, you know, I actually feel sorry for those other teams. By God, I do! You see, we've got a new guy on the team, and he knows a thing or two about racing... galleryPost('EvilGeniusCageTop', 6, 'Evil Genius Racing Makes Volvo Even Safer'); Just about every racer in NorCal knows about Evil Genius Racing , particularly racers with a fondness for Spec Miata action. We called up John Pagel, the Evil Genius himself, to ask about a rollcage kit... and next thing you know, he's joined Team Black Metal V8olvo! The EG may be a Mazda specialist, but he knows something about Volvo 240s as well. Even as you read this, he's mixing up beakers...
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It fits just fine! When you last saw it , our quest to build a car for the 24 Hours of LeMons race was at the "tear stuff out of the car" phase . Now we're at the point at which we can think about getting our 200,000-mile 302 into the Volvo's engine compartment. The Chevy or Ford V8 in a Volvo 200 series is a fairly common swap , so we figured it wouldn't be too tough... but we all breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing how much room we had to work with. Now it's just a matter of fabricating engine mounts and, oh, about a thousand other things.
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