• Hello Guest, welcome to the initial stages of our new platform!
    You can find some additional information about where we are in the process of migrating the board and setting up our new software here

    Thank you for being a part of our community!

24H of Lemons - what next?

You can take a 93 850 lower airdam [it separates from the rest of the bumper - looks like one piece though] and it mounts perfectly under a stock 240 bumper and use that to chop up and extend it with cove base or whatever you want to use

I used a 242GT airdam on my car but they are harder and harder to find and $
 
badvlvo said:
Are you still running the welded rear?
Click to expand...
I think they are.

Price is one factor, but durability is another, and it's hard to beat the welded rear. I hate to say that, but it's true. We use one too. Before the welded, we used a modified G80. I thought it was pretty good, but then I drove the welded and liked it better because the inside tire NEVER spins, ever. The G80 was not nearly as good in that department. The inherent understeer given by the welded rear was far outweighed by the improved traction at corner exit.

A shimmed clutch diff with higher-than-stock breakaway torque would be the best I think. I'm tempted to try it. I just hate that it might break at any time. We know a welded axle will suffer a failure eventually. In fact, we should probably change the half shafts for this season just because. But the dana powerlok might crumble if I take a bit of curbing on-throttle and spin up the inside wheel when it's light on traction. I'm not sure how much breakaway torque is needed to keep that from happening.

The clutch diff in my autox car has a stock rebuild kit in it. I never measured breakaway torque, but I can just barely torque my rear wheels to 75lb-ft before the wheel wants to turn, with one rear wheel off the ground and the parking brake off. So it's around there. JohnV has quoted some numbers for rally use, so there's a starting point. But I haven't seen anyone around here who has played with clutch diff setup and posted results.

The other concern I have over the clutch diff is the heat buildup. Some lemons teams run diff coolers. I don't really want to introduce another failure point.

It's a lot of compromises on a lemons car, a setup to suit 4+ drivers, to make it last 14.5hr, to make it fast but also reliable and durable and easy to drive. I'm still not convinced that the welded diff isn't the best option for lemons.
 
msweeney said:
Driver coaching. Why chase tenths in the chassis if there's seconds in the driver?
Click to expand...
Our next car will have a passengers seat. I think that could help a lot to show another driver what is possible in the car, and also sit in as a passenger and see and feel how he drives.
 
msweeney said:
Driver coaching. Why chase tenths in the chassis if there's seconds in the driver?
Click to expand...

Our Lemons team has felt that we could all use some help behind the wheel. I would love a track day with a really experienced driver telling me what to do. Also, having a really experienced driver turn some laps in our car to tell us what the car needs. Having only raced in Lemons, I have no idea what a real race car is like!
 
The welded can be durable, but anything but totally straight and it's fighting itself. There are so many things it upsets in the handling of the car that it's worthwhile to invest in a proper LSD.
I understand the costs, and the wear concerns, but the improved range and handling is worth it.
 
alfavs.volvo said:
Our Lemons team has felt that we could all use some help behind the wheel. I would love a track day with a really experienced driver telling me what to do. Also, having a really experienced driver turn some laps in our car to tell us what the car needs. Having only raced in Lemons, I have no idea what a real race car is like!
Click to expand...

I may know a guy... Testing at BW can be surprisingly cheap, PM inbound!
 
mikep said:
Reading the original thread, there's more than a few tenths.
Click to expand...

Yeah, we really have neglected chassis development once the team split up geographically.

In terms of next steps, I'm hoping my team will agree to:
-more camber up front with lower control arm extensions
-cheap chassis bracing between the front shock towers and firewall
-Koni yellows in the rear with 300# springs and play with less/no rear bar to see what we like in terms of balance
-home brew coil overs up front, likely with Koni yellows again
-switching to a better spray pattern injectors to see if we can get better MPG (I'll be asking Towery for some specific advice here - he uses orange tops, I just picked up a set, and we don't need more fuel flow. We only run 14psi max.)
-wiring harness clean up and cutting more non-structural metal out of the car to pull another 10-20 lbs. out of it
-fuel cell pick up mods to get more fuel out of the existing cell
-some cheap air dam and under body set up to help with aero
-16x8s or 17x8s with 245 section width tires - right now we run 16x7 with 225 width

Before we drop serious coin on a race-ready LSD, we'll like search for more grip out of the chassis and the welded diff set up. Really the welded diff is pretty awesome for everything but rain (where it is terrible) and the tight corners where it pushes a bit. Even the push is manageable because the you trail brake rotate on entry and throttle-on oversteer as needed mid-corner to exit. We re-weld our diff about once a season, or every 5-6 races. Going longer than that you're asking it to fail mid-race.

I'm sure we could all improve our lap times a bit with some driver coaching, but honestly, a weekend or even a day of coaching costs >$500 per person. One of our four drivers is a honestly a robot, and wrings just about everything he can out of the car and can do so with any car he gets in. His track day car is a Factory Five Cobra and he wrings everything out of it, too. The other three of us are usually a second slower than him for fastest lap, and average lap times we're within a second. I know we aren't hotshoes, but with all of us have 25+ Lemons races and umpteen track days and autoxs and hill climbs under our belts. We know our way around a track fairly well. Also, the racing line is rarely available in a Lemons race. There is always traffic. It's all about the risk/reward equation when it comes to consistent fast lap times working through traffic. One black flag costs a minimum of 5 minutes and 2-3 laps. It would take a massive improvement in average lap time to erase just one black flag where you chose the wrong side of the risk/reward equation in a given racing situation. Always room to improve our skills, though.

Appreciate the continued advice, folks.
 
Everything you just mentioned applies to our lemons car also, we have not had much time to actually improve the car the past two seasons because of one major crash and just trying to keep the team together. We (slowswedes 244) will be at njmp and thompson this year with one-two new drivers. I have been wanting to change to a coilover setup and ditch our current ipd springs and bilstein tourings since our first race but have not had the extra time and funds to blow. We are in need of more negative camber also and was going to go with the control arm extensions also but i don think that will happen until after the njmp race.
 
Skivittlerjimb,
You might try the el cheapo coil-over conversion for the struts. We did that on the Angela Lansbury Volvo (now 42 hours of melons). It didn't cost much (spring hat from coleman racing, coil over springs from summit racing, and some pvc pipe.) You might also install some re-valved Bilsteins (don't worry I wont tell Judge Phil!). With some cutting and grinding we were able to get some decent camber and with any spring rate you want.
 
Rfoltz53 said:
Everything you just mentioned applies to our lemons car also, we have not had much time to actually improve the car the past two seasons because of one major crash and just trying to keep the team together. We (slowswedes 244) will be at njmp and thompson this year with one-two new drivers. I have been wanting to change to a coilover setup and ditch our current ipd springs and bilstein tourings since our first race but have not had the extra time and funds to blow. We are in need of more negative camber also and was going to go with the control arm extensions also but i don think that will happen until after the njmp race.
Click to expand...
You can check out the cheetah at the NJ race and take pictures and ask questions all you want. We have ball joint spacers on the bottom.

alfavs.volvo said:
Skivittlerjimb,
You might try the el cheapo coil-over conversion for the struts. We did that on the Angela Lansbury Volvo (now 42 hours of melons). It didn't cost much (spring hat from coleman racing, coil over springs from summit racing, and some pvc pipe.) You might also install some re-valved Bilsteins (don't worry I wont tell Judge Phil!). With some cutting and grinding we were able to get some decent camber and with any spring rate you want.
Click to expand...
this is my preferred way. we're running hardware on the bottom just because I already had it. and our revalved bilstein struts were in my autocross car for ~50k miles (and wrecked once) before we put them on the cheetah, but they do the job and the price was right.
 
towerymt said:
You can check out the cheetah at the NJ race and take pictures and ask questions all you want. We have ball joint spacers on the bottom.

Sounds good Towery, were looking forward to seeing all the other volvo teams at njmp. Unfortunately we are coming down with two local to us bmw teams and im pulling for every volvo to run more laps then them ;-)
Click to expand...
 
check out ecomodder.com for some guidance on aero work. They are a budget minded group as well, I have seen packing tape fender skirts, packing tape over body gaps, one wiper blade (or none and rain-x)...mmmm lemony. Little trunk lip will help to break up the low pressure zone behind the car. Possibly some triangles that will fill just behind the side mirrors but still leave 75%+ of front windows open.

Conduit has been used for more than one strut tower brace...be sure to leave the sticker on it and face it up for that lemons cred. Not as as strong as thicker walled steel but will be an improvement over nothing
 
Ju1cE said:
...one wiper blade (or none and rain-x)...mmmm lemony.
Click to expand...
I can only comment on this one. I will always demand carrying two wiper blades after I drove a 240 with no wipers in the rain at sears point, and then briefly hopped in another 240 with only a driver side wiper. I didn't drive the one-wiper car in the rain, but they did mention how they couldn't really see that well out the right side of the windshield, and that's rather important when negotiating traffic and corners. :lol: Driving with no wipers and only rain-x was AWFUL when it was raining.
 
Lebowski driver here.....oooo boy.
Ok, yes we run dual rear sway. And I can't imagine NOT having that pointability. Sure, there is some snap lift off oversteer midcorner...if you lift off mid corver, which you don't do. An f1 car would spin if you lifted mid corner too.
The welded diff keeps you even more out of oversteer trouble; since they want to spin the same speed the inner is always pulling the outer wheel back in.
We drive a basically stock NA setup. around 110hp at best if everything is perfect. That's it. And still manage to be in the top 5 of A class almost every race. I have raced miatas, bmws, mr2s, and extensively a civic (team anonymous) in Lemons. And I can tell you these truths:
The 240 is the slowest accelerating car I've raced.
The 240 generally gets the fastest lap times of every car I've raced.
the 240 passes literally everything in lemons on the inside mid-turn because of how much more speed it can carry in to corners, and how hard it can accelerate in them.
So speculate as you wish about the dual rear sways, but I'm a believer.
The springs are not stiff by any means either; this is the leaniest, sloppiest feeling car I've ever tracked.
I'm convinced that if we added a turbo so we stop getting passed in every straightaway, we'd be unstoppable, until it blew up.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top