Fall 2017
When we left off our little story, car #240 had been the unfortunate recipient of quite a door ding.
We hauled her home, and set our sights on the 2017 ChumpCar National Championship race at Road America.
We had learned quite a lot at our previous 2 races, so we set about making the needed modifications to help us compete on a national stage.
The first order of business was increasing the cars mechanical grip. Until now, we'd been running stock width wheels, and 205 width tires. Time for an upgrade. Thanks to the 240s popularity among drifters, I was quickly able to track down a set of 17x9 wheels, and we picked up a set of Falcon Azenis in 255/40. They say bigger is better after all....
Initial test fitting showed that some minor "adjustments" would be required to fit the larger rolling stock.
Its a hard to judge how large the wheels are in pictures, so here's a small child for reference.
They only poke out "a little".
While the boys set about rolling the rear fenders, pulling the fronts, and trimming the air damn/splitter, I began to work on the next project. The IATs had gotten pretty high during the previous race, so I decided to build a ram/cold air box.
I also repainted the other headlight cover so it wasn't red.
With that done, I moved on to another issue. The factory hoses on our VP fuel jugs were just too small, and they limited how quickly we could fill the tank, which made our pit stops longer than they needed to be. I hogged out the hole in the cap, and retapped them to a larger size and fitted new 1.25 ID hoses, with 1" ID tips to match regulation. Then I opened up the vent and fitted a hose that would prevent fuel from spilling even if the jug is upended when totally full. These changes cut time from full to empty by more than half.
With the Fenders rolled, the door fixed, new wheels and tires fitted and all our other changes, it was time to head back to Road America.