Saying good by to some parts

Yesterday I gave some old trim pieces away to one of the A-Body.net members. Luckily the pieces she needed were parts that escaped the teams sawsall wielding maniac (he knows who he is).



So in addition to knowing these unused parts will live on in another Cutlass Ciera although they will soon be painted a different color. We will also got a little help in diagnosing our engine problem, get a strut bar made over the winter for us, and some assistance in some other work.

Got to love the web.

Our car is worth....

I sent in this to Jay to get the Residual Value for the Cutlass Ciera

I’m writing to get the residual value for the Racing 4 Nickels 1989 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera from the Chicago Race.







First off the car didn’t finish the race. During the race the car started bog down under acceleration you would lose all power on the straights if you tried to accelerate down the entire straight. It got to the point with about an hour left we had to be towed in because the car just wouldn’t get any power to the wheels at all. We got it back to the pits and the car wouldn’t start back up. Not exactly sure what the issue is yet, could be something with the ignition, or fuel system, possibly the car became self aware and knew as an Oldsmobile it shouldn’t be on the track, or the car was sabotaged as part of the automotive industry conspiracy to ruin the legacy of Ransom E Olds, or something else all together.

Besides that the suspension is pretty nonexistent. Minutes after unloading the car Nick and the Judges stopped by where Judge Sam urged us to immediately go to the parts store and buy new shocks since they weren’t sure the car actually had any. I’m guessing that the softest suspension that GM could put on the car didn’t help, although it did allow us to have a nice smooth ride. When we braked the back tires felt like they were going to come off the road, and when we turned it looked like we were going to go up on 2 wheels. Here are some pics from Judge Phils gallery showing the lack of suspension. Here is one of braking, and the driver isn’t even braking that hard since he is a ways away from the corner and no one by him. http://www.murileemartin.com/LC10/UG/LeMons-Chicago10-452.html And here is a series showing our car taking a turn.
http://www.murileemartin.com/LC10/UG/LeMons-Chicago10-226.html
http://www.murileemartin.com/LC10/UG/LeMons-Chicago10-227.html
http://www.murileemartin.com/LC10/UG/LeMons-Chicago10-228.html
http://www.murileemartin.com/LC10/UG/LeMons-Chicago10-229.html
http://www.murileemartin.com/LC10/UG/LeMons-Chicago10-230.html



We also have the normal issues of a 21 year old Midwest car. Hoses that appear to have never been changed and the car rusting away to nothing. I’ve already found a nice size of metal that should have been still part of the car but had rusted off, and its only time until other parts follow including various things in the engine bay.





Finally and worst of all, somehow one of the drivers broke both the cigarette lighter and the horn.

And this is what I heard back from Jay

Oh man--I really don't think that car has any residual value at all. Let's say $0.00. I only regret that I can't give you a negative number, which would more accurately represent the horror, anger, and shame currently felt your neighbors.


So yeah the car is completely worthless.

Before and After, Glasspack

I was getting the stuff together today to get a residual value on the car. while taking some pics I looked at the glasspack. Here is the pic from when we installed it.



And here is the picture from today



Pretty much all of the red on the outside is now a yellow. It really hasn't had all that much running time but I guess the combination of being much closer to the engine than it normally would be and that racing the car is pushed harder longer than a street car. Other than the paint getting toasted it looks fine so we shouldn't have to worry about a replacement hopefully.

Judge Phil's writeup

Here is the write up on us before the race. It actually sounds like Judge Phil liked the cars that showed up.

http://murileemartin.com/wordpress/?p=388

Race Results

So we finished 42nd overall, no black flags and were able to keep the car on the track for almost the whole race. We also got an honorable mention for IOE during the awards ceremony. Will post pictures when we get them off the cameras.

Not much time left

Been wondering where the rest of the pictures are of the finished paint job? Well lets just say that the paint is done. We have been a little busy finishing up all the other little things, so the car will be ready to go down to the Race Friday morning. If we find time we will post pictures, if not you will have to come to the race and see the car or wait until sometime next week to see how it came out.

Paint Part 1 Picture pages addition

So since the car needs to go back to the cage builder for a few modifications, we decided it was best to start working on the outside.  Enjoy!

Official Racing 4 Nickels Shirts Now Avalible!!!

The wait is over!  Now you can have your very own Racing 4 Nickels Shirt.  The very same shirt worn by the Racing 4 Nickels Team.  Featuring art work by Matt Toler.

The front of the shirt features our candy ass monkey suit faux tux

 

While the back features the 2010 Racing 4 Nickels Nickle

Supplies are unlimited so order now at 

http://racing4nickels.spreadshirt.com/

coolers and some extra parts

Got the oil cooler sorted. Took the sandwich plate off, took it apart put some grey rtv on the leaking fittings let it set and put everything back together and no more leaking.


Also added another transcooler. the one we got off a caddy in the junkyard had a slightly larger size fitting (3/8th opposed to 5/16th that the car currently has) fortenantly it is close enough that we were able to force the 5/16th line on the 3/8th fitting so that all worked out. also meant we got around to changing the trans fluid which I left up to Pete.



Also while we were waiting for the rtv to set we started taking the lights off since we aren't going to want them on the car for the race since we won't need them and they can only get broken. We also took off the grill to make it easier to put on the coolers. Have to say with all that off the car does look meaner.


On the other hand that back of the car with the bumper off and all the rest doesn't look quiet as good. We will put rest back on after we figure out where to drill for the tow hook.


we also took off the side molding since it will give us more room to put on the number

cage and coolers

We got the car back now caged.








We also worked on the coolers got all the fittings we needed, we connected the coolers to the radiator and worked on the oil cooler, unfortenatly one of the fittings is leaking so we will need to work on that more tomorrow

Lemons on the net

They are streaming the race at Camden again. Or they were earlier the signal went down, but they are working to get it up again.

You can find the stream here http://www.ustream.tv/channel/24-hour-lemons-south

quick update

The car is a the cage builder, but while it is away I bought it a gift.



So when it gets back it will have its tow hooks waiting for it.

Shopping spree, filters, switch and seat

Now that we are officially in we figured we can start taking care of some of those things that we've been putting off.

So first we did a bit of a shopping spree.





Basically got the oil and oil filter since it was on sale. Got the wink mirror so we have it, some hardware for fastening all it, some wire and switch that I'll talk about later, air and fuel filter, and car cover.

We swapped out the air filter which is a good thing since it looks like the old one had mold, and I'm guessing the engine doesn't like moldy air.



Changed the fuel filter which we'll just say didn't go as easily as we had hoped.

We also wired in a switch that allows us to manually turn on the fan if we want, or if we don't use the switch it will work like normal. If anyone is interested in how it works we can write it up in more detail later.



Actually we spent a lot of time picking out the switch. The more interesting ones were either too expensive and or no good way to mount.

We also worked a bit more on the seat. We have a basic layout for it.



We have the seat sitting in there now unfortunately I didn't take of the seat in the car and I'm now to lazy to take it now because we used this.

Racing Seat part 2

So it looks like there is a 4 to 6 week lead time on the seat sliders for the Ciera, and they want us to confirm the measurements for the stock mounting bolts.  Later today we will pull the stock seat mounts and see what we need to do to make them work with the new racing seat. Hopefully at the most we will need to get some sheet metal and make an adapter plate, it could juts bolt right in, but that may be unlikely.

 

Racing Seat and other things

Saturday we went up to Northstar Motorsports to look at seats. When we went up there there wasn't much left. The person running the store told us they had a run last week on seats. She didn't say it was because of Lemons, but since she knew what it was, and I can't think of to many other things that would cause a run of race seats in the middle of August, I'm going to guess that was what caused the increase in their sales. Luckily they had one left of the seat we would have bought anyway the Corbeau FX1 Pro, since it was the one that fit us best.



Some of us couldn't wait to try it out though



So while we were able to leave with the seat they had to order the brackets. Strangely they don't brackets to mount race seats to Cutlass Cieras

Other things that didn't quite make it up here since my last post.

Changed the oil, not sure why since once it was out it was so clean I could see myself in it.



well maybe it wasn't so clean I could see myself in it, maybe it was so dirty...



Also the Cutlass decided that it would take it on itself to start shedding weight by dropping some sheet metal from the wheel wells.





Finally Today When I was trying to figure out what was around the bottom of the trunk I saw a little box duct taped to the fuel fill. After becoming mostly certain that it wasn't important to car, or even look like it belonged to it, I removed it to find that it was a magnet key holder(not sure how good the magnets are since it had to be held on by duct tape). Inside I found a 3rd door key and 4th ignition key.