Heart transplant well underway...

Today we resumed work on the Escorts - we wanted to get them to a state where we wouldn't need to work on them outside in bad weather... And we definitely did!

A new team member, Tony, contacted us last week and said he would be available this weekend, so we decided to take advantage of his willingness to help! We pulled the escorts out of the back and started on the process of transferring the engine from the donor to the racer...

The racer rolled really well, and the engine had obviously been out of the car at least one time in the past. With the learning curve it took us about 2 1/2 hours to get the engine out of the car... No significant snags or difficulties. And we didn't have to cut... much.

The donor car had a seized front disk brake, so we had to pull that apart outside, before we could roll it into the garage. Once in, that engine came out pretty well as well. The experience of taking out the racer just before was a real asset to taking out this one. There were extra bits that we had to extract as well, but it went well. So well that we kept going and were able to pull off additional potential parts - Windshield washer resivore (more on that in the future), and fuel tank, which was in better shape than the one on the racer.

Now the next step is to disassemble the donor engine and make sure it is in good shape... Then put it back in the racer...

Overall, a very productive day, and we have a lot of time left to do other things!

The New York Times!

Apparently our outing at the 24 Hours of Lemons - Detroit-ish caught some attention...

When Life Hands You Lemons, Race Them

That's the New York Times - on page two they reference our sign!

From Team SuckerPunch 24 Hours of Lemons Detroit-Ish 2008

No longer an unstoppable force...

Today frankie started on the path of adding/modifying bits... We drove to where it's stored and spent a good 6-7 hours working on it today. It got some basics - windshield wipers, tires properly pressurized - as well as some just-passed basics. We did our initial rebuilding of the rear brakes and can now fairly confidently stop.

With the possibility of stopping, we've now officially declared the car "safe enough to drive", so we took it out for a little spin. It's going to be quite the fun car to drive! I'm rather looking forward to getting it out and autocrossing it.

I'm continuing to learn quite a bit from Matt - and I'm improving on my skills. I've now re-built 4 drum brakes, I think I have a fairly good idea of how they work now. He's also starting to show me around the engine compartment - I'm sure removing the A/C as well as other bits will be a good experience for me!

We're definitely exited about Frankie - we just need to make sure we don't lose focus of what needs to be done to 'Scort... Our current plan is to get the engines out sometime this week...

Till next time space cowboys...

Small Update

As winter approaches we're starting to look into winter activities for the team. Right now the plan is to pull the engine out of the 2nd escort and rebuild it over the winter.

Additionally, we've located a potential new lemons car. No official news yet, but look for an update in the future... If we pick it up, we'll still probably be racing the escort in 2009, and then the new one will be brought out for 2010.