Project Lemons - Toyota Celica

When we returned, we found he only had time for a basic MIG welded four-point roll bar that anchored into the floor by the B-pillars and the rear wheel wells, which for an overnight job is still pretty good. With the impending time constraints and having no idea that the race was more demolition than endurance, we thanked him and ran to McKay's.

McKay EngineeringOur final weekend was spent trying to install a bucket seat and rails, safety harness, fire extinguisher, suspension, wheels and tires. We just didn't have a shop and a welder to press-gang. So we headed off to fellow magazine tech editor Ryan McKay's house, or McKay Engineering, as we fondly referred to it. It's a hole in the wall driveway, with an awning for cover and junk parts strewn everywhere for black widows to nest in. But it had what we needed, a household welder, chop saw and a leaky compressor for a cut-off wheel and grinder.

In our budget-oriented wisdom, we considered drilling a hole in the stock dampers and changing the original damping fluid with motor oil, which might have increased overall damping resistance. But spending the previous week in the car told us the fronts were completely blown, meaning the seals were probably done. So we 'found' a set of Koni Sport shock inserts, which, depending on how you interpreted Lemon rules, didn't add to the $500 tab as we scammed them for free from Koni.

Installation wasn't as easy as just bolting new hardware onto the chassis mounts. Since these were inserts, each spring and shock had to be disassembled, then gutted with a saw-zaw to remove the old internals. In the case of the rear shocks, the original housing had to be further modified to hold and secure the insert. Whatever yellow was left peeking out of the strut housing was spritzed with a shot of black rattle can to hide it from the judges. Just in case.

Even though we couldn't find springs in time, the twin-tube rebound-adjustable-only shocks were enough to transform the car from stripped-out crack-dealermobile to some semblance of a handling machine. The Koni's low-speed compression damping added hugely to controlling roll and pitch, and the rebound adjustment allowed us to tune ride and feedback feel. The rear damping was set higher to help the car rotate (which it did beautifully, intentionally or not) on track.

After digging in the bowels of McKay's backyard for an hour, we finally found the two sets of first-gen Miata wheels for which we had ordered our 205/55R14 Nitto NT-01s. All our online research seemed to show the two cars using the same offset and bolt pattern. But when the wheels were mounted, they didn't clear the calipers. Without longer studs, we weren't willing to fit spacers, so we resorted to grinding away at the cast iron caliper-something we don't recommend. Hoping it was only a reference surface for machining the caliper when it was made, we hastily ground off over 2mm of material from the face and bolted the wheels on. There was still minor contact, but the wheels spun and the calipers would cut the remaining grooves they needed into the softer aluminum wheels. We just had to remember to re-torque the wheels later.

In the meantime, others got to work on covering the hole where the sunroof used to be and fabricating a seat bracket for the Buddy Club Racing bucket confiscated from team member Joey Leh's private collection. With no time to get the right parts, we resorted to riveting hardware-store plexiglass to the outside of the roof and spraying the inside with gray primer to avoid greenhouse temperatures. We were also lucky enough to find and re-install the rear-view mirror and driver-side sun visor from the pile of parts we had torn out earlier.

The final hurdle was the driver seat bracket and it was dark by this time. The hour spent trying to break the OE spot welds on the indestructible stock seat's rails came up fruitless. Plan B was to tack weld the aftermarket seat rails to the floor, but the leftover tar underneath kept catching fire. In the end, we built mounting supports and gussets out of thick-gauge scrap metal, which meant the rails would support the driver's weight, not a steel bracket. We knew this would be an issue, but our hope was that the Takata five-point race harness (which retails for more than the car) would do the life-saving, not the seat.

If we had to do it againThirteen hours of non-stop racing is a good way to establish how good a car you've built. To my surprise, Project Lemons not only survived the ordeal, it thrived-performing more reliably than I would have ever imagined. In retrospect, there was little we could have done to better prepare the car for its wide assortment of drivers. The tires and shocks made the difference and we ended up using the brakes only to change lines or avoid crashes. The car was great. All I could have asked for was a proper seat bracket, which wouldn't bend when you go into the tirewall, and a water bottle with a straw.

By Jay Chen

Enjoyed this Post? Subscribe to our RSS Feed, or use your favorite social media to recommend us to friends and colleagues!