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Thought I would start a thread for 24 Hours of Lemons racers. Some friends of mine and I picked up 2005 MCS w/manual trans from a Copart auction for $425. (If you're buying from Copart, the fees are not cheap. I think we paid almost as much in fees as we did for the car. ~$375 or so.) Thought it would be fun to swap stories and tips. We're shooting for the Pittsburgh race in April and maybe the Chump car at VIR in August.
Here's a video of it getting loaded on our trailer.
The one on the left was gifted to one of my teamates which is how we ended up building a MINI. We were looking for a parts car, and ended up with the one on the right from Copart. Turns out the parts car was in better shape than the one we were going to build, so our parts car is now our race car.
So far, we've gutted the interior, we found 76 cents when we were pulling the interior apart, so we'll make sure to document that for our budget. (removing the heater core/blower/AC assembly was a real *****). Put in a new timing chain tensioner, oiled the supercharger, brakes & pads, new filters and fluids. She needs a front lower outer ball joint and a little exhaust work and other than that she's ready to get all the safety equipment installed.
We ordered the u-weld cage kit from Autopower, but I think if we had to do it again, we'd probably order from these guys https://rollcagecomponents.com/ ~ about half the price and the tubing is already notched and close enough we could have saved the $185 on shipping. We ordered the fire supression system from the Lemons website, didn't really see any cheaper ones.
We also ordered the 5pt harness from the Lemons website, but might send it back. It's SFI certified to the middle of next summer. Apparently SFI certs are only good for two years and I think they all end in Dec or Jun. FIA certs are good for 5 years so I think we will get one of those belts instead.
The electrical cutout switch we got from Pegasus racing. It's their master battery switch with alternator protection, but I think it's not needed due to the wiring in this car. If anyone has experience with wiring the electrical cutout, I'd like to hear about it. My plan is to just cut power to the fuse box, but there's two cables from the battery, one on the 100A fusible link goes to the fuse box, and another unfused goes to the starter and alternator. Not sure there is a good way to cut both with a single switch, or if it's even necessary. We're going to put a plexi-glass cover over the battery well since it's in the cabin with the driver, my understanding is that it needs to be a sealed box.
Last edited by jiggersplat; Mar 2, 2020 at 03:44 PM.
My buddies and I have casually knocked around the idea of doing a LeMons race for a few years but it never materializes. We are always too busy cutting up motorcycles and old cars. Looks like a riot though.
I've thought about this for a long time as I actually have a non sunroof R53 with a rod knock sitting here that would be an ideal car. I just don't have the time and even have offered the car for sale if anyone is thinking of doing this.
linked below is my video of us pickin up our mini from the copart in PHX. we already have half the interior sold along with the convertible top. but we are pumped to be building this little car for the lemons as well!
Still, we're about 6 or 7 races into the car so far and I feel like it's very well sorted these days, Some video and pictures below for your encouragement.
What have I done for reliability? Short answer: Yes. The longer answer is that it's choose your own adventure. How much do you want to spend replacing things which aren't broken as a preventative measure? So far for a few of us, not messing with the engine performance (pulleys, tunes, injectors etc) has worked quite well.
No oiling problems for me. I have an RMW oil pan baffle and an external temperature and pressure gauge monitoring things. I just recently installed an external oil cooler but that was mostly to decouple the oil from the coolant, it actually cools the oil too much on the street. Just make 100% sure you are not leaking or burning much oil, these engines like to spin bearings when they are starved of oil.
Still, we're about 6 or 7 races into the car so far and I feel like it's very well sorted these days, Some video and pictures below for your encouragement.
wow a lot of useful information in your build thread. i just subscribed to your youtube channel as well. we are just starting the process of building our mini but hopefully it will be as reliable as yours has been,
i've had my current mini for about 2 months now. done a ton already and honestly want another. just this past week i started the hunt for another through copart as well. can't wait to see what y'all do with her
if y'all don't want those side rockers/skirts....let me know. thats my current color and would love a set of those
We're on hiatus for the moment. I can however update you guys on our roll cage fiasco. We had ordered the weld-in kit from Autopower for right around $1100 shipped. Started fitting it and there was a YUGE gap at the b-pillar. Come to find out Autopower designs their cages to fit with the stock interior. We sent this photo to a few of the sanctioning bodies and they all pretty much said it would not pass. After a bunch of back and forth, Autopower agreed to take it back, but we have to pay for return shipping which is like $175. We have ordered another kit from rollcagecomponents.com for half the price, but have yet to fit it.
Update: the cage kit from roll cage components went in nicely. We ended up competing at our first race at NJMP over the summer and everything held up pretty well for the most part. We cracked the windshield, blew out a driver's side axle and the upper ball joint on the sway bar link came apart. Our rear brakes pads (DTC-60 against cryo treated rotors) wore down to the metal on the first day, because they were too tight in the caliper. We ground down the tabs on the replacement set and put anti seize on them before we put them in and they were fine. We left our one-ball muffler out on the track somewhere and melted our back bumper trim. We finished the race mid pack.
We were probably top 10% in terms of lap times but fueling, driver changes and repairs kept us from being competitive overall, which is totally fine by me because we had an awesome time.
We're getting prepped for road Atlanta in December. Adding big hollow rear sway bar, SS brake lines, a tablet and OBD2 reader, larger intercooler and 380cc injectors.
