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My official LeMons car thread questions and answer??

dezebe1

dezebe1

New member
Team JB-Weld
here's a link to out web sight and a little info about our LeMons GP race car.
So far we have been fairly successful in road racing a GP....I know, I know, kinda an oxymoron since most people say these cars can't handle well. It has been a labor of love, or just pure insanity LOL!!! I am a GM tech at a Cadillac dealership in Dallas TX and also the captain and car owner of the team J-B Weld '97 Pontiac Grand Prix se with the 3.8L.

Modifications include a 2890lb race weight, fully welded 8 point roll cage, race seats w/5 point harnesses, hand ported stock heads, ported stock exhaust manifolds, LS6 valve springs, fully built 4T-65E trans with HD diff and TEP shift modifications in the channel plate, valve body and accumulator body. We currently run 12" F-body calipers and rotors in front and stock rears with Hawk HP Plus pads, GMPP tubular trailing arms and rear swaybar with a RAT front bar along with eurathane bushings, just installed GPX Bilstien struts & Eibach lowering springs.
For what we do, we swapped out to the GTP radiator, 180 t-stat, police package 9c1 Impala dual high speed fans along with mod's to increase air flow into the radiator like deleeting the condensor and a/c pulley and home made front air dam.
Our upcoming race in Houston is going to be a true test for the car since we found out it will be a true 24 hour endurance race, so have a few mod's in stall between then, 24 gallon fuel cell, front and rear GXP brakes, gen5 s/c and possibly try a coilover with the Bilstien's but that's on option depending on our budget.
If you have any questions or comments please feel free to post them here. Been getting asked questions on other threads and hate to clogg thoes up about the car instead of the topic at hand.
 


Sounds awesome.

But depending on how soon the next race is, doing a complete top swap (heads/lim/sc/etc etc) and trying to get it to run perfect might take more time than you have.
 
next race is in September, the gen5 is the least of my worries plus it be just a top swap without the heads, fuel cell and brakes are top of the list for nowbut we'll see how things progress.
 
z3r0 said:
is there going to be a build thread or is this going to be it this season?
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we only have 1 more race this season in Angleton TX which is down on the south west west side of Houston, that will be in September.
Yes I will be doing an thread on what is performed with pictures, to track it's progress.
 


nos4blood70 said:
Can we get some pics of the racekar? Sounds awesome!
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you can click the link above that says team J-B Weld at the beginning of my 1st post. Figured it be better than posting random pics in this thread + there all in one place. It talks about the build from start to finish
 
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nos4blood70 said:
Can we get some pics of the racekar? Sounds awesome!
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love this car. Hopefully wrenching will begin shortly.
 
Very awesome I've seen this car (or one like it a couple years back). I would forgo the top swap. Less things to go wrong without it. I like how you get around the $500 budget because this stuff is "Stock" on another car. Keep up the great work.
 


Nighthwk12 said:
Very awesome I've seen this car (or one like it a couple years back). I would forgo the top swap. Less things to go wrong without it. I like how you get around the $500 budget because this stuff is "Stock" on another car. Keep up the great work.
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It's all in the art of deception that gets us past tech inspection. One of the keys to the budget side of this and what most people don't realize is for a $500 car we have more in it than that, the vehicle gets re-budgeted after every race depending on how well you place, so for instance if a car finishes well then your residual amount may only be $100 towards the next one vs. if you blow up then your residual value may be $1 so you get $499 to get it ready for next time.
All depends on how well you document your build the first time you race, the inspectors/judges want it at or under budget. we bought ours for $300 as a non running car but totaly complete. we stripped it down and sold off close to $1700 in parts, add to that $200 so we had close to $1900 to begin with, that is how you get around the $500 rule.
We will be doumenting the remaining build on here till our September race come around, so for now it just amassing all the needed parts. Once I'm done with my personal vehicle brake upgrade to the new style CTS-V 14.3" front brakes and 14" rear's, my current GXP setup front and rear will be swapped ove to the race car. We will also be installing a 24 gallon fuel cell and some how keep it to where we can plumb into the fatory EVAP system and still keep it 100% functional in turn lowering our pit times ie. fueling and drivers change to coencide with a 3 hour stint per driver, with our current stock tank size we only get about 2 hour stints before we have to come in and refuel, the less time we spend fueling and giving equal time to the 4 drivers on the team means the more laps we put down. A race can be won by 2-3 laps so it's a big thing to be able to stay out longer between pits.
I just aquaired a full set of Bilstien struts and Eibach lowering springs less than 2 weeks ago with a gen5 and matching lower intake, Slp cat back and complete front and rear seats off a 04 GP that got totaled for $350 for everything. For this race we will only be using the suspension parts but don't like how high this new setup sits, I'm tempted to do the coilover conversion on them to get it a little stiffer and lower. We have quite a bit of work ahead of us but a good enough time frame to have it completed.
Bye the way I forgot to mention that first and formost I am trying to keep this race car 100% street legal and to be able to pass TX emissions and safety since it is a registered and street driven vehicle, hence the actual license plate of "LEMON" if you look close in the pictures. The car still retains its cat, EGR, EVAP and meets the bare minimum standard of safety related equipment by the letter of the law. Hope you enjoy our build as it comes along and like I mentioned before, it will all be documented on here as parts start to come in.
 
"Getting around" the $500 rule is pretty shady. If I were to do that I could make a -$65,000 LeeMons corvette that would blow the competition out of the water....
 


Explicit_Spade said:
"Getting around" the $500 rule is pretty shady. If I were to do that I could make a -$65,000 LeeMons corvette that would blow the competition out of the water....
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See though there is a rule. The organizer can tap you on the shoulder and give you $500. At that point you hand over the keys.
 
Explicit_Spade said:
"Getting around" the $500 rule is pretty shady. If I were to do that I could make a -$65,000 LeeMons corvette that would blow the competition out of the water....
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You should do that so ill know when I should become a judge. :)
So ready to start wrenching on this thing. Late June can't get here fast enough!
 
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