Piston Slap: Hella Sweet Engineering at The 24 Hours of LeMons

Aside from the great friendships [s]forced via encouraged bribing[/s] that naturally occur when like-minded people congregate, the 24 Hours of LeMons is a fantastic opportunity for those wearing a Judge’s robe. Take last month’s race at Eagles Canyon Raceway: when stupid (yet purposeful) things like this Flavor Flav clock on the dash of this Mitsubishi Eclipse arrive, I can’t help feeling like I’m hosting “ Pimp My Ride LeMons” edition…

While Xzibit makes hilarious faces/comments as the kids talk about their hooptie’s general crappiness, I just snap a photo and begin judging them…so click the link to see more hilarity.

So what is a rotary tool doing on the firewall of this Honda product? That was my question…and the answer is astounding.

Apparently Honda’s EFI system uses a VSS (vehicle speed sensor) that is rather expensive to fix. And fix it you must! When the VSS fails to report vehicle speed, Honda’s computer freaks out: going into a reduced performance, limp-home mode. An inconvenience for most folks on the street, but a killer for a race car. So what’s the fix on a $500 budget? Attach a Dremel-style rotary tool to the firewall, turn it on and let it spin the VSS’s cable instead!

Wanna know what makes this even funnier? The re-engineered, V2.0 implementation of this VSS workaround includes an ON/OFF switch on the dash! Get in the car, put your helmet on, strap yourself in, fire up the motor…and wait for it…don’t forget to turn on the Dremel!

Re-engineering a brilliantly half-assed workaround is a fantastic notion. Such is the beauty of the $500 race car!

This is the alternator of a Fox Body Mustang with the “ twin spark” 2.3L four banger. Said motor emitted a horrible shriek on occasion. Upon closer inspection, the Mustang’s owners decided that zip ties were an adequate substitute for a proper nut and bolt. Which apparently was lost at some point in the car’s life.

Surprise, surprise: the shriek went away after installing the correct hardware. What would Xzibit say at this moment?

This V6 Mustang is designed-owned by a pair of unbelievably intelligent engineers. Very nice dudes who “get” the concept of a LeMons car, to boot. These engineers, in the spirit of a $500 car, avoided the easy route of buying fancy shocks, painting them black and hoping we didn’t notice their performance on the bounce test.

The engineers said they had two good street shocks, and two horrible ones. Combine the two (on a completely unnecessary Ford 9″ rear for what reason?) and you get adequate race dampers on the rear axle. Also note the adjustable panhard bar mounting points: very cool, but not very funny.

The shocks are completely in the spirit of LeMons, so I’m suitably impressed. Laughing, but still impressed.

Say you got a last-gen Mazda RX-7 turbo (FD bodystyle) for $500 after it caught on fire and became essentially worthless to any street going Rotary fan. Say you spent a ton of money making it into a legit race car. You probably don’t have much more left in the kitty for necessary body items to make an FD worthy of an endurance race. (And trust me, it wasn’t. Don’t fill the comments section with BS about how this car isn’t a worthy LeMons car)

This RX-7 was assembled in a matter of days, not months. I was blown away at the “quality” of work, including this awesome home HVAC intake grille being used at a cooling grate for the RX-7’s turbo mill. I mean, why not use one of these if you have it lying around?

Conversely, you need to block off the gaping hole where the FD used to sport its trademark pop up headlights. One can assume the lights were stripped to help make this into a credible $500 purchase. Vinyl flooring makes for a great headlight alternative…especially at only $1.50 a headlight!