1986 TA LeMons

I have a 1986 TA 305 Manual that we are going to run in the MN ChumpCar race and possibly some others if it lives.

I am looking for advise on suspension set up. We have already welded in a 10 point cage and plan to make a front tower brace. The car now now has stock suspension but and will never be used for anything other than as many road course races as it will last.

We would like any ideas that the 3rd Gen forum can throw out for a road race set up.

If you are not familiar with these two race series, we can not spend $ to modify the car. We need to limit modifications to what we can make. We can cut the rear springs but would like a good lowered ride height spec. Any advice on getting the front down and alignment specs would be great.

I have some strong technical help to accomplish the work but some experience based recommendations would be awesome.

89_RS

Fab up some SFC's yourself, put in poly bushings, new bolts. Read the stickies on DIY spring mods.

Thats about all you can do without spending more than $500 and getting yourself into a world of hurt building a one off suspension setup. Also, AFAIK, you can spend all you want on brakes, wheels, tires, and safety as long as the sum of the other mods is less than $500.

You do realize you can bride the judges right? FWIW, that TA will not be valued at under $500 by any of the judges. Sure, you may have bought it for less than $500, but it won't have that kind of "street" value.

Thirdgens were able to turn upto .92g on a skid pad in stock form, so you really shouldn't need a whole lot more in the suspension dept. The new 5thgen can turn about .95-.98g on a skid pad.

SDIF

I have run in 3 lemons races. Finished one 6th overall. None with a 3rd Gen.

I have two 3rd gens. One is a track day car the other is a full on NASA AIX Car road race car.

I think I am qualified to respond...

For this event you only need good brake fluid and pads and a good cooling system for anything with fluid.

Get a big *** Trans cooler and mount it in the trunk area remove the rear glass and put it in the air flow. Get a normal trans cooler summit jegs etc and use it to cool the power steering. Of course mount it on the low pressure side and put it in front of the radiator.

Go to the Ford Dealer and buy FORD brake fluid. They only sell one flavor. It is good and cheap. Better than anything other than the $20 / quart stuff.
Call porterfield and order brake pads for your car. Tell them what you are doing they will hook you up. You will only need front pads. Get two sets and a spare pair of rotors that you can take back if you do not need to use them. These pads are mean on rotors If the car has rear drums then even better.

Align the car with max camber and caster you can get and set toe the 1/4 to 3/8 out.

Cut 1/2 a turn off all the springs and check ride height. Adjust as necessary. More cutting may be required on the rear. Without the glass it will ride high.

Remove the hood the glass and anything else that does not make it go faster.

Buy some cheap shocks only if needed

Anything else done is a waste of time and money and not in the spirit of the rules. BS bushings and braces etc are not going to help at the speeds you will be running.

The toe out will cure any notion the car has to push.

Air up the tires 36 front 32 rear. This will make it loose also. You need a car that you can out brake competitors and stick it on the inside of a turn.

You do not need a fast car, you need a car that is not slow and is reliable. Biggest things to go out are auto transmissions and PS pumps due to heat. Flush and refill both before going.

racing geek

iTrader: (5)

I'm not sure where you go that number from for the thirdgens, but I doubt that is right. I have a 1987 Camaro dealership brochure next to me and it says the IROC-Z was capable of 0.87 lateral g's (I have the page scanned and posted somewhere on this site). Hell, the 1987 Ferrari Testarosa was only capable of 0.89 lateral g's.

Mike

89_RS

The 1LE's turned .92g on the skid pad. I've also heard that some of the special order suspension packages have also been able to get that high as well. I've also seen others on this board post that the 90's IROC was able to turn upto .9g on a skid pad.

And before you go all crazy on me, I said they were able to turn upto .92g, not that every car out there did turn upto .92g.

1986 TA LeMons

89_RS,

That is great advice. Our 260,000 mile rust heap has a manual so that should help. We wanted a carberated, 5-speed, that we could buy a pre-bent cage for. We will put a cooler on the power steering for sure. Do you have any advice on Tires? We are going to run Brainerd in MN which is a 2.5 mile track and will be two 7 hour races rather than a 24 hour. This track should be much quicker than many of the ChumpCar/Lemons events.

We got the car for $400 and will need to put a carb kit in it so we are going to be tight on spending. I'm sure we can find a cooler in a junk yard. The car had an electric fan kind of laying on the radiator which had been swapped with a junk yard part before we go the car. We have a little work to do there.

Any other tips would be appreciated. We have a lot of mechanical ability but no experience with this type of event. We are hoping the old TA can do well.

Thanks Again!

racing geek

iTrader: (5)

I know emotion is hard to convey over the internet, but I can assure you I'm not going "all crazy." I'm just saying I don't think you are correct. Well, maybe for turning one direction, but when an average is taken (this is the correct way), I don't think you are correct. I've also got printed proof from GM themselves, not just someone saying something on the internet with absolutely nothing to back them up.

Without the subframe connectors and strut tower brace on my car, and with old/hard street tires, I can average 0.96 lateral g's. I can also back that up.

I don't want to hi-jack 1986 TA LeMons thread by starting a debate here about the "facts" people post online, so unless he doesn't mind our little debate, you can send me a private message if you would like to discuss this further.

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Now to 1986 TA LeMons,

If you have purchased the car $400, you can sell whatever you may not use to "drop" your purchase price. For example, since you wont be using any of the glass, you can sell all of it for ~$100 (I don't know what it's worth, just throwing out a number) and then the TA essentially cost you $300. Get where I am going?

As far as what 89_RS has said... I agree that some cheap homemade subframe connectors would help, but I think the effort required to swap bushings and put in new bolts isn't worth it since this is supposed to be an uber cheap race adventure.

SDIF nailed it. Just focus more on maintenance modifications and build it to be reliable. 14 hours is a long time to be thrashing on any car, let alone a dirt cheap $400 beater that has probably seen better days. I would say heat and and the front brakes will be your biggest issues.

You also need to keep in mind that the racers get to pick a car to crush half way through the event. If people don't like that you start lapping them, you can say good bye to your car. If people don't like that you put a lot of time into the car, you can say good bye to it. See where I'm going?

Good luck with the racing. Throw some Thirdgen.org stickers or something on there to represent the forum. Have fun!

Mike

89_RS

No problem, I understand what you're saying.

The only reason I suggested bushing and bolts is the age of the car itself, espcially now that I know it has 260k on it. It'd suck to have incure serious injury due a suspension bolt break because of age or the suspension traveling too far due to worn bushings.

One thing that any LeMons driver will day is that you need brake pads galor. Another good way to baseline the car is to get a flush and fill on all fluids including the diff.

Personally, I wouldn't worry about engine or trans mods since this is an endurance race. Just make sure nothing life threatening breaks and go have fun.