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DeDub
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I thought I'd start a thread on how and why we are now the proud and idiotic owners of a dedicated JH race car. For a quick story - a year ago this month, a friend totaled my red daily driver, #19377, which I"d done a complete bare metal restoration with a 2.2 motor. I loved that car. But when my friend (and yes, he still is one) hit both gas and brake and blew through a stop sign, there wasn't much salvageable on the car. #19377 is dead and gone to crusher heaven.

But we dumped the running gear, after some repair, into another fairly rusty body I had and voila, we have a race car. OK, OK, so it took 7 months of work to put it back together. We're on facebook at

https://www.facebook.com/oldcrowsracing

but here's one pix as a teaser. We have our debut at a track day this coming Sunday, November 23rd, then a 15 hour LeMons race on December 6 and 7. Let's hope it holds together.

We've installed an EDIS with a Megajolt, a 2 quart Accusump, and we'll see how it holds together. I know it will be fast enough, power to weight, but I don't know if it will last. Anyway, we'll let you know how it goes after the December race at Sears Point in California. If you want, like us on facebook.

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dbeliveau74
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How did the race work out?
cheers,
Dan

Tom Bradley
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According to his facebook page, he got first place in class C in May 2016. First time out.

DeDub
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Well, here's the update. We had stripped all of the original wiring harness out of the parts car that became the race car, partly because it had been butchered but partly because we didnt need lights except brake lights, we had a number of additional sensors and gauges, and we'd converted to a Megajolt EDIS. And that proved to be our number one issue for the first year. We were plagued by a sudden and total loss of spark for the first 3 races in 2015, where we were towed off the track a total of 5 times and limped in a couple of more. We checked all the wiring connections many times, with increasing frustration, before I gave up and built a complete new wiring harness which seemed to solve the issue. Great! Except now it started suffering from what seemed to be fuel starvation, a different issue. Spent the last race of 2015 searching for that, adding a second fuel pump in tandem, removing the fuel pressure regulator, and it wasnt til I replaced the fuel filter, which looked just fine and clean through the glass cover, did we solve it. Yes, I know, it should have been the first thing we replaced but the damn thing looked clean and it was only a year old. But that solved the issue and the March race in 2016 at Sonoma Raceway was the first race that we finished, although with a 45 minute pit stop to replace a radiator hose that blew during a full course black flag when it overheated because the electric fan had self destructed and frozen. We won Class C that day because we broke down less than the number 2 car.

And that, sports fans, is why we have a cheesy metal sculpture and had $500 towards our next race entry in June of 2016. Which, I suppose, makes us now legally professional race car drivers. Oh yeah, after spending about $60K over the last 5 years racing our Mustang, and about $18K building and racing the JH for one 2015, we made $500 in 2016. I'm so proud.

Since that race, though, we've lost a team member so no longer have enough drivers to run two race cars in the same race. But we'd like to race it in March this year - same race we won last year - if we can pick up another idiot, er, I mean driver, to share the fun with us. Wanna race? Drop em a line. It's more fun than I've had since I was first married; wait a minute, that didn't come out right.....

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roverman
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What ever happened to this ?

DeDub
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Joined: 04-10-2005
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Goldmember is gone, Baby, gone. For real. Both our LeMons cars were in a gravel pullout on the side of the driveway of one of our drivers and were both burned in the Tubbs fire last year. Pulled the motor and trans out of the JH Goldmember car because they the damage seemed to be confined to the rest of the car. Oil was OK, only the carbs melted due to fuel flow from the fuel cell. I wouldn't trust the whole motor again without a stripdown so decided to do that and save the internals. Seems like my LeMons days are over, at least as a car owner. Still may try an arrive and drive with some other team, though the urge for another car is still there; I'm hoping it doesn't rise to the point where I'll actually have to obey it.



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