Jacks Transmissions Forums

This was awhile ago, but never had time to post about it. We thought we would do something different this year and try racing in the Chump Car World Series. Matthew, Jason, Kevin and I built the car together, all raced it as drivers and pit crew, and got 3rd place at the PMI road course in Pueblo Colorado.



The Chump Car World Series is very similar to Lemons. You take a junk $500 or less car, do a few things to it including adding a bunch of safety, and race it for 2 days. We took a wrecked Laser FWD turbo DSM and pulled the front end back into shape, replaced 60k stuff in the engine, modified the trans with a home made oil pump system I designed, and put in a huge amount of safety stuff which was the worst part.

It was a tough build. A lot of time and money. In the end though after it made it through this endurance race without a single issue we now have a real love for the car! Kevin hated the car and the whole Chump Car idea before he raced in it. After his first hour out there in the drivers seat going door-to-door with the other cars he was a changed man and loved it! Building and racing what you created in an endurance race is a life changing experience! If you have the time to try a Lemons or Chump Car event, do it!

Here is the build:

The car when we got it. What a mess!


Cut the back end off to make it as light as possible. We wanted to keep the car stock so we figured we'd be fast by being smart about weight. The rear hatch and all related stuff weigh a lot more than you would think. Jason spent a huge amount of time doing the work of making the car lighter.



Our POS free roll cage.


With all maintenance and reliability issues resolved.


In order to make the trans reliable in a race where the car will be at WOT for hours at a time, I had to design and build an internal oil pump for the trans so oil could be moved to a cooler to keep temps down and to add more oil to more sensitive places. We couldn't run an electric pump as that would make the car worth more than the rules would allow, so we had to make our own internal unit. I took an old 3S oil pump and cut it up to fit the center diff cap so the pump would turn when the car was in motion. To keep pressure down, but oil flowing, I made the inlet of the pump the same diameter as the outlet. The pump worked flawlessly the first time around and did it's job all the way though the entire race without an issue. Ran a fitting from the pump to the case to go out to the oil cooler. The return came in right at the 3-4 gear assembly to splash more oil in that sensitive area known to have issues. This was an AWD trans I converted to use in a FWD car.









I then sprayed the car with industrial gloss white paint which came out really good much to our surprise!






Fart can sticking out in a way to keep the car goofy looking. This exhaust was stock other than adding the tip and some resonators for a muffler. The car was quiet, but very fast! We loved the SBD style of the car!



Finished cheap scrap sheet metal rear in place of the hatch thanks to Matthew.



Interior still had heat, vents and defrost for the windshield just in case.


We decided to use a factory seat. It did a lot better than we thought.


You get bonus laps at the start for coming up with a theme. Ours was 'getting skooled'. Could mean several things, but we had a bunch of school kids write on the gloss white paint to decorate it and it worked out really well! You can stare at one panel for a long time and catch a bunch of weird stuff the kids put on it. It's pretty funny! We also got a couple of laps for engineering when I told them about the oil pump I made in the trans! Woot! We got more bonus laps than anyone else!












Car in action!












Video of the start of the 2nd day. Right out of the box the car started breaking everyone off!
http://s98.photobucket.com/albums/l251/ ... I_0286.flv

The trophy for 3rd place!


The car was so perfect! Well balanced, fast, and absolutely NO issues at all! While everyone else would tear into their car at just about every pit stop and have problems, we would just fill up and change drivers. The car was a dream! Thanks to all involved for making it so good! Not a surprise it ran without a single hiccup! The Jacks Trans team is a pretty talented bunch and I was proud to be with them in this race! Sitting knowing your car is perfect without worry in an endurance race is a nice problem to have! Who says DSMs are unreliable? When built right, they can be a real joy in any form of racing. Can't wait to try it again! Now that we know what we are doing, we expect to go even faster! Our pits is what prevented us from taking 2nd, but we have that all figured out now

I was rebuilding my PS pump and thought about when you posed the question on link, then started tp wonder how that turned out. Good job guys!


--Steve

It was crazy how well that thing worked, lol!

Bad ass Jack. I love the look of the laser. Looks like it was a blast.

That is too awesome.