I never eat a pig because a pig is a cop! And most are assholes.

Cops took my SE-R. Bastards. This is a season ending event, no LeMons for us.

Apparently someone called it in as an abandoned vehicle because we're on a dead end street and I've NEVER seen a cop in this subdivision in over a year. Stupid County law says no street parking for 72hrs, never heard of it until today!  My neighbors park their cars on the street for months at a time with no issue.  Thanks for calling it in bastard neighbor!  Hope your house value continues to drop...

I can get the vehicle release from the cops, but towing and storage is going to be $200 or more. I just got laid off last week so I need to save my money for food/rent.  Car's worth about $175 now, but I've still got the dashboard and some small parts I can sell to recoup more money.  

Going to sell the AD22VF big brakes, Hotshot Gen V headers, 15" BBS rims and all the spare parts we got from San Diego to recoup a few hundred more spent on "safety" items.  I'll probably keep the Recaro seat for my next project since it was so cheap.

On to bigger and better things!

Oh yeah, called Santa Clara PD three times and they're all assholes.  Thanks for taking my tax money and doing nothing for the community!

-Hong

AR Entry #4 - $75!

Today P dropped by to help work on the car a bit.  We both had limited time so we just wanted to change the oil and remove some of the interior.

Oil change took a while but we were just catching up and discussing our plans for domination at the LeMons event.  I was surprised the oil didn't come out like molasses.  It was dirt for sure, but still flowed well.  Put some cheap dino juice in there to clean her out, but we'll switch to the good stuff before we hit the track.

I suggested Plato take her (we need a name) off the ramps and take a spin around the block.  He was a bit hesitant, but came back with a smile on his face.  "Drives pretty well," was the initial judgement.

We were expecting some kids to come take a look at the seats because I had posted them for sale on SR20Forum.  They did finally arrive in a big truck so we knew they were serious.  We already had the PS seat out, but I was reluctant to sell the DS seat since we didn't have the mounting parts for the Recaro yet.  The guy complained about how much gas was to come get the seat, so we said what the heck, take it out!

Here's the funniest part, he wanted the carpet too!  It was super dirty and we were just going to cut it out of the car and dump it.  He said he could remove it in 5 minutes so I said, "Go for it!"  Plato and I stood back and watched incredulously as these guys went to work.  They did manage to get it out, but I'm still unclear on why anyone would want a 20yr old carpet.

He asked about the door panels, and I said I still had them.  He wanted the speaker covers, which were already sold off, but I still convinced him to buy the panels!

Total sale was $75 for all the seats (DS, PS, rear), the panels and the (free) carpet.  Cha-Ching!  That will certainly be put to good use on some suspension or cooling mods.

The small problem we created for ourselves was how would we get the car back to it's parking spot on the street with the lack of a seat?!  P suggested a "light weight chair" and I grabbed one from the kitchen.

The lack of headroom meant we had to go with Plan B.  Super light weight racing seat!  No mounting brackets of any kind really does save some weight! (insert liability statement here - kids don't try this at home - yadda, yadda, yadda...)  Someone with a moving blanket and some empty boxes for "support" I was able to drive the car out of the garage and parked it back outside.  Wow that was crazy!

-King of Partout

Rollin on BBSsss Esse!

So you might have read that we got a top-notch Recaro racing seat.  And those nice "new" big brake calipers.

Tonights find complements both of those items.  I saw a posting on The list that is Craig's for a set of BBS wheels, in our 4x100 bolt pattern for the unbelieveable price of $95obo.  In this case, it was or *better* offer because that's a really great price.  Being the cheap-ass that I am, uh... I mean, since we're on a strict build budget, I offered $100 and the incentive of getting these old rims out of his hair before the clock struck midnight.

Someone offered more money, but they never came to pick up the rims.  Thankfully I have a very understanding wife, so after dinner I jump in the SE-R and head down to San Jose.

The seller was very nice and said that he decided to sell to me/us because they were going on a "race car".  He was only *slighty* disappointed that it was a LeMons car.  Still, they'll be put to good use!  Thanks for the deal Alex!

I loaded them up inside the car because they're too nice to rattle around in the trunk.  Plus the extra seats provide a nice depression for the wheels to rest in.  I'm gonna miss these seats (more on this later).

    

So we're gonna have some more high-quality German engineered parts on our little racer.  The other reason I had my eye out for some 15's is because the calipers wouldn't fit under the stock 14's wheels without some grinding.  And they're too nice and new to take an angle grinder to.

Mr. J. Lamm himself said we could sell off the OEM wheels and apply the money towards the build budget.  This is a bit of a loophole since monies spent on "new" (or new!) wheels and tires wouldn't be counted as they are considered safety items.  As such, our fancy (to us) BBS rims are "free".  In real life it's all about ONE Benjamin baby...  That's how we roll!

-B. B. Esse

Recaro in the Hiz-House!

I've been a fan of Recaro seats since, well, I can't remember.  I just know all the "kewl" racers use them and I wanted to be just like them when I grow up.  One day.

Drove down to the local Greyhound and got my package.  It was HUGE!  I had to flip down the rear seats to fit.  Thank goodness we have a large station wagon.  For 15 minutes, I had two Recaro seats in there!

The package was pretty heavy, but it turned out to be the brakes.  That little box was 20lbs by itself!

 
Holy cast iron calipers Batman!

They are OEM Nissan brakes from the NX2000 sports coupe.  They look to be brand new, or at least freshly re-manufactured.  I thought I was getting used ones, so it was a nice surprise.  Some of the other guys on the team don't think we need big brakes, but we'll see.

Next comes the big prize. It was pretty well packaged and didn't look any worse for traveling 3000 miles in the belly of a bus.  I will probably use Greyhound to ship big bulky items again since they seem to only charge for weight.  UPS and FedEx quoted me 3 times the price to ship this seat.  It's rather light on it's own.  

Yeah, it's kinda dirty, but what do you expect for $27?!  This has gotta be the cheapest *useable* Recaro racing seat in human history.  Perfect for LeMons!

I sat in it and made race car noises.  It's pretty dang comfy and I really like the extended "wings" for side-impact protection. 

-Ricky Recaro

Hello? Greyhound?! So nice of you to call!

Our seat is in the building.  Well, at least in a neighboring zip code.  I just got a call from Greyhound and they're holding a package for me at the terminal.  Woot!

It's our eBay deal-o-da-month Recaro seat.  And the guy who was nice enough to drop it off for me at Greyhound in Florida also threw in a box of big brakes for us.

I'll probably try to sneak out of the house tonight to pick it up.  They're open until 11pm so I can go after W&M are asleep.  Another late night adventure with the SE-R.

-Hong

AR Entry #4 - $150!

That's right, $150!  Someone on the forum was parting out a car and another guy asked about the AC blower and evaporator.  Hey, I've got those parts and I don't really *need* them.  I PM'ed the guy and asked how much he wanted to pay.  I was shocked to hear him say $165!

Of course the first thing I thought was, "SOLD!"  That's a big chunk of change and will go a LONG way towards fixing up this car for the track.

I just got a PayPal for $180 because I told him shipping would probably be $15.  PayPal took their cut so I'll be left with around $160.  As Borat would say, "Dat's a NICEEEE!!"

EDIT: Shipping was actually almost $25!  It's getting expensive to send big items across the country. Total net revenue is $150.

-Part Out King

Ugh! Ghetto Window to stick around for a while.

I tried to buy a "new" PS window since it was the one big problem with the car.  I was quite excited to send along my $31 to some guy in Oregon for one.  That was 3 weeks ago!

He finally replied and said the window broke so UPS didn't pick it up.  I expect to get my money back, and he's also sending the window crank along for free.  Oh well.  Need to find another deal.

As it sits, the plastic covering is actually doing it's job (keep out the rain) and holds on well enough at 80mph.  The noise is a bit much, especially when you don't have a radio...

-GhettoRacer

San Diego treasure.

So P went to SD to visit his brother.  Luckily he was driving back so he rented a car and picked up a bunch of parts for the racecar!  We finally got our $20 header and I must admit it's quite the bargain.  Sure it's cracked, but it's easily fixed.  My buddy Norm is going to take a look at it and try to TIG weld it back to "new" for us.  If not, we can just run it with the crack, that's how small it is.

The better buy will probably be the Factory Service Manual (FSM).  These things are invaluable for wrenching on any car.  I remember my wife bought me an FSM for my MR2 and I thought it was a great birthday gift!

The BEST part of the haul, and why I use the word "treasure" is the box of FREEBIES.  Who doesn't love free stuff?

We got (from top left)

1) new clutch cable

2) spark plug wires

3) FSM (ok, this wasn't free)

4) camber adjustment bolts!

5) OEM fuel filter

6) Energy Suspension shifter bushing!!

7) Axxis metal master brake pads!!!

8) OEM brake pads

9) Fram oil filter

10) extra fuel cap

11) SARD injectors (ok, so this was just the box)

12) OEM radiator cap

13) OEM thermostat

14) OEM (?) injectors with new(?) gaskets

Simply awesome!  We'll have plenty of spares for the car.  Those extra brake pads make me consider sticking with the SE-R brake calipers.

-Hong

AR Entry #3 - $31

I had removed the fog lights a while back because a) we don't need them b) they weigh almost 5lbs and c) someone would buy them.  My wife thinks I'm crazy because a) they're almost two decades old and b) the glass lenses were both cracked.

It was a PITA to remove, but it gave me a good excuse to take apart most of the dash to get out the wires and fog light switch.  Someone on SR20Forum.com offered me $30 and I thought it was a fair price.  Since shipping and PayPal fees were only $9, I actually made out with $31.  Just enough to offset the new passenger side window we're getting.

Drove the car to Wal-mart for some Robitussin.  Got a 5qt jug of oil and some Turtle Wax polishing compound.  I got the cheapest oil ($10.17) but it still felt like extravagant expenditure for such a POS car.  Oh well, we've gotta pass smog right?  Driving to Reno is gonna be cheaper than trailering it up.

-Hong

AR Entry #2 - $20

Posted the car on CL to sell some of the larger items to local folks. Got a surprising amount of interest, but no serious buyers yet. This kid wanted to buy the stock 14" (by 5.5" wide!) wheels. I guess they're kinda cool? I dunno. We are probably going to 15" wheels with 205 tires anyways, which are safety items outside the budget. But in a strange little loophole, if we sell the stock wheels we can recoup more money under the $500 budget.

So the kid sees the wheels, and they're all curbed. I mean every single inch of the rim is curbed. Wow, that takes some special parking skills. All FOUR of the wheels are like this. He said he would pay $80 for good wheels, but offers only $50 for these. Seems fair, but they've still got two good tires.

But he also wanted the glovebox because his is all scratched up. I show it to him, and while it's not in excellent shape, it's still better than his. He pulls a $20 out of his wallet. SOLD!

-Hong

NYE update!

As we prepare to bid adieu to 2008 and say bonjour to 2009 (don't ask why I'm using French - Le Mans influence maybe?) I decided to take the SE-R to work today.  That's right, a bona-fide DAILY DRIVER.  Those two initials are a red badge of courage for a track car.  It means license and registration, smog testing and road worthiness.  It's easy to make an all out race car, but for endurance racing comfort is an important ingredient in the recipe for success.

I'm glad to report I made it to work in one piece!  Sure the plastic window was noisy at 80mph, but the car ran well, didn't overheat or anything catastrophic.  I think we'll have to do a basic tune-up, but overall this is a strong runner which won't require any miracles to run a 24hr race.

In other good news, our friend Chill from SR20-Forum.com dropped by FVD and picked up our Recaro race bucket for us.  He's dropped it off with Greyhound and it's on a bus (or two) across the country to it's rightful place as the throne of the Nissin GT-R!

Chill also added a little "bonus" package in the form of some AD22VF calipers he was selling.  We got a fair price on it and didn't have to pay any additional "shipping" since they'll also be going on the SE-R.  We just need some rotors, some track-capable pads and some stainless steel brake lines for good measure.  Going with all new hardware is nice, and since it's a safety item it doesn't count against our $500 budget.

Got some interest from a Craigslist post for our SE-R front seats.  Why would anyone want seats out of 15yr old car? The SE-R came with special sport seats that have additional bolsters on the sides which help keep the driver in place.  They actually are pretty nice, but we won't be needing them.  More funds for performance parts!  If I can sell the seats, wheels, trunk & hood, we might just make enough for some real suspension parts!

-Captain Ando 

1st Accounts Receivable (AR) entry - $50!

Packed up some parts today in odd-sized boxes.  Reminds me of the old Pelican Racing days.  Shipping and packaging was a particular talent of mine since I wanted to make sure my customers got their parts in excellent condition.  I know those monkeys in brown and purple are doing their best to destroy my packages, so I take extra special care in packing items up.

What may look like ordinary brown boxes to you actually took hours of time and effort to create and pad/cut/box/tape into their current form.  Doesn't seem worth the effort, but in the overall scheme of things, they're highly valuable.  $25 in profit per box (minus fees and shipping) means $50 cleared up under our $500 budget cap.  That will pay for the header and bank us $30 for future mods.  We're off to a great start!

-Hong 

Wrenching on Christmas evening.

What's car guy to do on this wonderful holiday evening?  Start stripping out the racecar of course!

I removed the door panels to get to some trim pieces that a SR20Forum.com member wanted to buy.  The speaker grilles ended up being part of the whole lower door trim (like 3' long) so I'll have to get creative shipping them out.  The guy's even buying the ashtray!

Another fellow wanted the foglights, even after I posted pictures showing that they were cracked.  He offered $30 which is NUTS because it took me over an hour to remove the dman things.  Still worth it because we cleared up some funds under the $500 spend cap and now can afford some performance parts.  Header and rear sway bar are on the top of my list.

Wrote a nice e-mail to Jay Lamm (guy who runs LeMons) and got a response on Christmas day!  I'm going to try and sell the stock 14" wheels/tires, but not sure who would actually want these!  They're all of 5.5" wide. Wow.  Thinking we should go to 15" x 6.5 or 7" width to run some 205 Azenis.  These appear to be the tire of choice for LeMons.  Time to draft a sponsorship proposal to Falken!

-Hong

The Racing Gods are looking down upon us.

Racing is about preparation, talent and a whole lotta luck.  Even the best drivers in the best cars can get beaten on a lucky SOB on race day.  That's just the way the cards fall.  I have a good feeling about our team's chances given some recent "car-ma" that came our way.

First I mentioned the $20 headers that one of the guys is going to pick up while on Christmas vacation in San Diego. It's a $3-400 item, with a small (repairable) crack.  There were others who wanted it, but the seller wasn't willing to ship.  I half-jokingly posted my status on Facebook as, "looking for someone to pick up a part in San Diego."  My friend Plato saw this and commented he was going down there!  What luck!  We get the header (later this week).

So we also won an auction for a $1500 Recaro racing seat for a mere $26.  Yes, two digits.  It was even used by Milka Duno at some point!  Again, the seller wasn't willing to ship, which helped keep the price low.  I figured we could find someone to pick it up, maybe on a car forum or I could hire a courier/mover off Craigslist.  Again I posted my dilemma on Facebook and AGAIN my teammate Plato came through.  Apparently his co-worker was in the right neighborhood in Florida and could pick up the seat for us!  What tremendous stroke of luck!

Now we've got a real FIA certified seat (albeit a bit expired), with some racing history (and luck?) in it's pads.  Doesn't hurt that our low-buck "race car" is really getting some nice low-buck parts for it.

-Hong

Wheelin and Dealin!

The unique constraints of trying to build up an enduro style race car on a pauper's budget forces you to reconsider what is necessary and what really constitutes a bargain.  The SE-R had a few small issues when we picked it up.  Given the $500 sale price, I didn't really have much to complain about.  The missing passenger window is the biggie, given that the car is supposed to be street-legal and also street parked.  I put a sheet of plastic in the interim to keep out the nasty "winter" we have here in NorCal (read: rain).

NB: We'll end up removing said window for the race, so it technically doesn't count towards our $500 cap, but I need it while the car is still on street duty.

A new window from the dealer would be more than 1/4th the price of the car.  That simply wouldn't do.  I called a few "recyclers" (aka junkyards) to see if they had any.  They did not and it would be around $45 if they did.  Though that's a much more reasonable asking price.  I went to the SR20forum.com and found a guy parting out his SE-R.  I asked him about the window and he said $30 shipped.  Wow!  I tried to bargain, but at $30 he would throw in the window crank as well since it was missing.  Done deal!  I should have the window in by next week.

Continuing on my search for bargains, I found a guy selling a cracked Hotshot header for $20!  Of course I had to have it, even though it would count against our budget ($520 now), but the extra HP will come in handy.  The seller didn't want to ship and he was all the way down in San Diego.  Fortunately for us, all the other interested parties where non-locals as well, so if we could pick it up, it was ours.  As luck would have it, one of the team members was heading down to SD for Christmas.  Score!  The seller was also giving away a bunch of parts which we are hoping to get as spares.  More details to follow on another post.

The biggest bargain to report thus far (and possibly for the rest of this project) is our racing seat.  While one is not specifically required, it is highly recommended and very important to our collective safety on track.  Having used Recaro seats in past cars, that was my top choice.  I even bought two Recaro carseats for my baby boy!  I found one on eBay at a silly $1 starting price.  Watching it all week, I was shocked to see it didn't garner any interest.  With 10 minutes to go it was still listed at $2.25!  The seat was worn and well used, but a new one retails at $1500!  To my delight we "won" the auction at $26. Holy Cow!!!  Shipping will be 2-3x that much, but it's worth it.  Again, as a safety item, this does not count towards our $500 build budget.

More bargain hunting to come I'm sure.  This is almost as fun as the actual racing. :)

-Captain Ando.

Drivers ready?

Back at work on Monday I sent out a few pictures and the link to the 24hrs of LeMons page to some co-workers.  These are some serious gearheads, but I was still surprised by the response.  A few guys want to participate and a few others are thinking about mounting their own $500 charge.

I've got 4 confirmed drivers already, but am now in the unenviable position of turning people down.  We can add two more drivers at most, or we can field two cars!

The Team name has been chosen (can you guess what it is?), but we've got to work on our whole theme to make sure our entry into the race is even accepted.  They limit the field to 90 teams and my guess is they have more entrants than grid spots.  More creative thinking needs to be done here.

-Captain Ando.

First mods

The best part about getting any "new" vehicle are the first mods you do to it to make it your own.  On my other cars I usually do some wheels/tires and other cosmetic upgrades.  In fact, I just added some bling to my family wagon tonight.

For the SE-R, the list of "mods" was a bit different.  Here's an example:

Yeah, that's some duct tape.  I didn't have any black gaffer's tape around, so I'll be sure to remedy the situation soon.  The previous owner had some nasty glue around the broken parts of the mirror, but duct tape is the obvious solution here.  And it works so well.

The power mirrors still work on this car!  

Not to mention the VLSD!  And the transmission does NOT have 5th gear pop-out.  We got really lucky because about 70% of the early cars had this problem.  I know my G20 did and it cost me more than $500 to get it fixed.  Clutch still feels good and holds well so I hope we don't need to do anything to it or the engine.  In an ideal world, this thing will drive for a year and last through the whole race it's destined for.

-Hong

You wanna race a Sentra?

Yeah, it sounds funny, but this isn't your ordinary econobox Sentra. It's a Sentra SE-R.  It was the pocket rocket of the 90's before Honda came along with their VTEC yo!

Some folks even consider it a Classic.

The motor revs like crazy and it's on black sludge oil.  I'll have to do a change soon and might even spring for the good stuff (Mobil 1).  She handles great even on two decent tires (two rears are crap).  Seats are comfy and have good bolstering, but they smell like crap and look like someone pissed on them.  Seating ergo is great and the shifter/clutch still feels good with over 200k on the clock.

Just your typical beater, but this one goes to 7500rpms!

-Hong

And so it starts.

All car guys want to race.  That's pretty much why we're "into cars".  But racing is usually expensive.  The old sayings, "speed costs", "cubic dollars" et al. capture this dilemma.  It only gets worse because racing is inherently dangerous and your car might get damaged on track.  That's why  I stopped doing HPDEs because I couldn't afford to wreck my daily driver.  Luckily, there's a race series where money *doesn't* win.  The cars are limited to just $500!  I bought a set of wheels that cost more than that.  And now I bought a "set of wheels" that cost just that.

Behold!  The Mighty Nissan GT... uh, I mean SE-R!

Shaun and I went down to Watsonville to pick her up.  The tow yard didn't care that it was a Gen-U-Wine SE-R, jut wanted the "sentra" out of their lot.  The car was straight and looked to be in decent running condition.  Some forum kid had written if off as a "smoking engine", but the lady told us the car was initially started with no dipstick so oil was everywhere, especially on the manifold.  We started her us and of course there was a little smoke.  But otherwise it was in good shape.  Took a little test drive and scared Shaun a bit.  I don't think he's used to rat-trap cars! ;)

Broke out the twenties and sealed the deal.  Went to the DMV to get a new title and then had some good Mexican food.

The drive back over 152 was actually FUN!  Sure we got held up by slower traffic in some parts, but having an Elise chase you down some twisties is always a good time.

Got the old girl home in one piece and started to clean her up.  It's gonna require a lot of work, but I can't complain for $500!

-Hong