Here's a quick blurb about me and my car:
My first car was a 1973 TR6. I drove it in college, but was totalled
when a new Feiro rear ended my on Christmas Eve (on my way to work).
After college in 1987, I was faced with either buying a new practical
car (like all the new college grads) with a car note or buy an old
used car with an idea to save money for a sports car. I ending up
borrowing money from my dad to buy a $1600 1981 Toyota Collora with
97K miles. My plan was to save enough money (after paying my loan
from dad) to buy a Series One XJE Roadster. If you remember the late
80's, the price of an XKE skyrocketed faster than I could save.
By chance my old boss told me that his brother had an Austin Healey
3000 that he wanted to sell. I ended up buying the car for $3,000.
It was great but needed tons of work. Fast-forward 10 years and $30k
more dolllars and I had a restored car. The only problem is now I
didn't like to drive it hard. The Healey became a Hanger Queen.
I picked up a TR6 with my friend Pat for $600. She got the redline
tires for $300, and I got the car for $300. I thought that this
rust-free car would make a great autocross car. After My friend, Joe
Seward, and I replaced the inner and outer rockers on both sides and
both floorboards, the car was rust-free. At least I the frame didn't
have rust!
Joe and I figured that we put the car on the road for a few thousand.
After just restoring a show-winning TR6, Joe knew TR6s like the back
of his hand. However, since he just finished restored a show-wining
TR6, Joe didn't want to split the bills. We made a deal, I would pay
for all of the parts if Joe would help with the labor. Then when the
car got finished, we would both enjoy autocrossing it. We figured it
wouldn't be that bad. After all, I had just finished a groudn up
restoration on a Healey and also know how to turn a wrench.
After about 3 years and $12K, the TR6 was completed. We joined the
local Mercedes club that holds monthly autocrosses, and began
autocrossing.
The TR6 ran like crap. The triple webers weren't set right, the car
plowed in a turn, and was super slow off the line. To make matters
worse, Joe and I were terrible drivers. So, the first year was a
learning experience.
We got good (or I should say we can get by) at setting Webers. We
modified the lower a-arm brackets with longer studs and aluminum
spacers to increase the negative camber so that the pyrometer had a
decent tire temperature profile. We changed the 3.7 rear to a 4.55
with a Quaife limited slip. And we got better at driving the car.
All of the sudden we weren't doing that badly. More recently we made
a cold air box, and installed aluminum front hubs with bigger
bearings, XK6 ball-joints for increased castor, XJ6 master cylinder to
better match the 4 piston Toyota brake calipers and Healey wheel
cylinders, and the Modified Corvair hubs in the rear. We also changed
from the 15" X 6" wheels with 205/60-15 tires (which we could no
longer get in the r-compounds) to 16" X 7" with 225/50-16 r-compounds
(nearly the same rolling radius). The car is great!
We found that although the car was running well, the Mercedes Club
tended to set up NASCAR type courses with long straights and gates
that a truck could drive through (or should I say a big Mercedes). We
didn't think these courses were really fair to us little sports cars.
So, a couple of years ago we started our own autocross series. The
Joe Wozney, the local President of Mercedes Club helped us get the
event off the ground.
Since then, we have a good little club going. To runs well due to
support from a lot of different people with all sorts of different
cars and from many different car clubs. The experience has really
made me feel good about all the car people.
Ed
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