I could go on and on about the 200-proof, clear-quill engineering geekery that went into the Angry Hamster Z600- which, by the way, has a smaller footprint than a 4x8 sheet of plywood and will thus fit in the back of an Econoline van- but the entire story is summed up by this photograph. That's the billet-machined gearbox that the Angry Hamsters whipped up from scratch, in order to reverse the direction of the engine's output shaft (which rotated the wrong way for the Mazda rear end they're using) and offset the driveshaft closer to the vehicle centerline. Just look at it! Now multiply that sort of lunacy by everything on the car and you can see why we're in awe of this machine. 110 horsepower in a 1,260-pound vehicle ought to make for some decent acceleration, eh?

When the Metro-Gnomes heard about the Hamsters, they knew they couldn't stand pat with their front-wheel-drive CBR900 setup, and they'd blown their engine to hell at the Buttonwillow race anyway. Somehow they found the budgetary room to get a CBR1000 engine… which they proceeded to move to the rear of the car! Not content to go all Cro-Magnon on the car and just drop a junkyard live axle in the back, they went with the independent rear suspension route and simply moved the entire front suspension and drivetrain to the rear of the car. A junkyard Metro suspension with a lot of cool low-budget mods went in the front. And while the Angry Hamsters got all mathematical and shit with their project, the Metro-Gnomes simply broke out the zip-ties and Sawzall and made everything fit! Some beautiful junkyard ingenuity went into this car, and Dave Coleman (of the Goin' For Broken LeMons-winning Eyesore Racing Ghettocharged Miata team) has done an excellent job documenting all of it over on MotoIQ. Yes, the Eyesores, Hamsters, and Gnomes all know each other, so we figure the rivalry this weekend ought to be fairly friendly.

Who's got the edge? Well, the Angry Hamsters probably have the best power-to-weight ratio and, but the drivers don't have much wheel-to-wheel road-race experience and they didn't get the car finished in time to do any testing before race weekend. The Metro-Gnomes have three LeMons races under their belts, plus numerous track-day practice sessions, but they didn't have the benefit of a huge CNC machine shop for their fabrication needs and there's no telling how all their engineering will hold together under fire. Check in later to find out how they do on Day One of the Arse Freeze-A-Palooza 2009!

Angry Hamster Racing Honda Magna V65-powered Honda Z600

Geo Metro-Gnome 2.0 Honda CBR1000-powered Geo Metro

I first heard from the machine-shop-owning, Mazda GTX-rallying, Human-Powered Land Speed Record-challenging engineer uber-freaks when they offered to take some of the useless-to-me extra parts that came with my 20R Sprite Hell Project. So, I headed on over to their East Bay shop with a Mazda RX-2 rear and some matching steel rims in the Civic.

The first thing I noticed was the aluminum five-man tandem bike on the wall, built while this team's head madman was studying engineering at a California university that will probably sue us if we mention its name in context with this "race car."

I must admit: for a completely stupid idea, this one is very, very nicely executed. The engine will go where the passenger once sat, with a machined-from-scratch gearbox to reverse the direction of rotation and send power to the driveshaft. Hell yes, it's going to be rear-wheel drive! This thing is going to be a total nightmare something of a handful on the track, what with all that power in such a short wheelbase, but there's no doubt that it will be quick... when it's not spinning out.

The Z600's front suspension was a little too fragile for racing duty (and let's not even get started on the stamped-steel brake calipers), so a Mazda RX-7 parts car donated its front subframe. Hey, what's a little narrowing and welding and endless fabrication? No problem!

With three weeks to, there's a terrifying amount of work left to do. The engine runs fine on a test bench, but the mounts, driveshaft, wiring, and a million other details need to be worked out. The good news is that the car is sitting in a fabulously equipped machine shop full of dudes who can just start whittling metal if they need a special part. 500 bucks worth of parts, 100 grand worth of labor: LeMons-approved! Meanwhile, the Metro Gnomes aren't standing still; they've switched to a bigger engine and rear-wheel-drive. They want you to know that they're totally legit, too! I tell you what, I'm counting the days until this matchup appears on the track. So when do we get to see a motorcycle-engined Subaru 360, eh?

The last time we caught up with Eric Burns the car was falling a little flat at the high end and not quite hitting the blistering 101.5 MPH top speed it's hit at Bonneville in the past, so he was working out the kinks still. "Evil Tweety," in case you weren't aware, is the worlds fastest stock class Honda 600, here we see Eric hard at work on the laptop tuning the fuel injection system and loading the engine with a water dyno, which puts this operation right in the top tier of technically advanced pit tuning. Check out the video and listen to that 700cc's of stock-block Honda fury wail. This is plated door slammer by the way, he actually drives this thing around Rohnert Park, California.

(EvilTweety has a commenter account here at Jalopnik by the way)

Evil Clint (of Evil Genius Racing and Black Metal V8olvo notoriety fame) finally unloaded parted with the Yugo, and rumor has it that a certain busted-for-budget-annihilating 24 Hours Of LeMons team has bought the Spider (hooray!). That means his garage was suffering from a distinct lack of sulfur fumes! We think he's solved that problem in truly dramatic fashion now, with the obtainment of these two fine machines. We can see from the "I'll fit I got gullwings" illustration that Clint made to show off his new tormenters friends that he's diving into the lava with a smile on his face.

When you see an East Coast DMC-12 that sat immobile for 15 years and has scary frame rust at the suspension mounting points… and the seller is asking $5000 for it, what do you do? If you're a Project Car Hell Poster Child, you buy it immediately! That gives Clint's 1972 Honda Z600 some company in the Lake Of Fire, and provides a nice way for Clint to self-flagellate relax when he's not working on the Black Ops LeMons Racer, which is definitely the most hellishly complicated racer in 24 Hours Of LeMons history. I'm not even going to put this one to a vote- Clint wins PCH Poster Child status!

Here's what Evil Clint has to say about the DeLorean (you can read the whole tale here):

5 speed
good:
early hood
ok interior, complete, some small tears in seat, drooping healdliner, i can do upholstery so this isnt a big deal
38K original engine and trans
newer clutch
has manuals and receipts for dmc H and Pj grady
good glass
new window motors
clean title but probably $300+ in fees

Bad:

east coast car now in the bay area
sat for 15 yrs before PO bought so it had new fuel system, no sat for 3 yrs w/ fuel
has about 3 minor dings and dents and 2 larger ones, not really noticeable but fixable.
frozen and empty A/C
rusty exhast
sticky lock mechanisms
mild rust up front on the horns car from massachussets
bad rot on the rear arm mounts, see the tow hook about to rip out ( im a professional metal fabricator so i could fix most of it in one weekend)
facias need paint, no eybrows though
needs all strut except for trunk
had hot start issue from dirty tank ( cleaned by dmc Houston) and new but leaky accumulator
no lockzilla
slop in steering
squeaky front end
some dash electrical was taken apart to find hot start issue but supposedly all there
dont know what electically works or doesnt
and probably more i done know about

We dove into the searing flames of Hayabusa Honda 600 Hell a few months back, but the problem with the Hayabusa is that it has pistons. What a Honda 600 really needs is an engine with no reciprocating mass and an even more deadly potential power-to-weight ratio than the Hayabusa (and besides, the Honda 600 came with a motorcycle engine from the factory). That's why we're pleased that EdNiedermeyer found us this 1971 Honda 600 with Mazda 12A rotary engine. The starting bid is $3,500, there are three days to go, and there are no bids yet! The seller, a stickler for the eBay Motors CAPS LOCK tradition, tells us "I GUESS I DON'T HAVE TO EXAGERATE WHEN I'M SAYING THAT THE CAR IS VERY FAST," and we tend to agree. In fact, we'd go a bit further and say that this setup wants to kill you, in one of those wrecks so grisly that the paramedics involved will be required to go on long-term psychological disability leave. It appears that the car has a shortened Mazda RX-2 chassis, plus evidence of quite the junkyard shopping spree, including a spoiler off a Blazer and an Alfa Romeo brake booster. It's been sitting for a long time, it's probably packed with all manner of scary hacks and workarounds, and the engine needs more power... but you'll solve all those problems. A little turbocharging here, a few months of puzzling out wiring and linkages there, and you'll be ready to wail down the highway at three times the top speed of a stock 600!

Converting a front-wheel-drive car to rear-wheel-drive, just so you can Wankel away? Why do that when there's a perfectly good rear-wheel-drive Japanese machine that's not a whole lot heavier than the Honda 600? Yes, the Toyota Starlet, the car with the best fuel economy in America. Once you ditch the pushrod four-banger for a powerplant with no pushrods (or valves, for that matter), you can make quite the impression at the dragstrip if you so choose. And if you've got $3,000 in your pocket ("only cash in person please," in one of those stating-the-obvious moments you often get in car ads), you can have your very own 12A-powered 1982 Toyota Starlet. The seller doesn't indicate whether it runs or not, but that won't matter much to you. You see, that's because you'll need to make this thing street-legal. Roll cage, nitrous, 4.62:1 rear and all! Sure, there will be plenty of work required, but imagine the glory of commuting to work in this howling-mad brute!

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We saw a Honda 600 in this series not long ago, and three of them before that. However, we have no choice but to return to our favorite motorcycle-engined Japanese car, because this here's a 1970 Honda 600 with truck bed. That's right, a 600amino with the hard part already done! We don't know how much it really costs, because the seller is "keeping the auction fair" by using a reserve price. But it'll probably be pretty cheap, because it's been sitting for at least three years (and perhaps 30 years before that) and, well, stuff goes wrong when a car sits for years. And how about the damning-with-faint-praise statement "ENGINE NOT SEIZED?" Sure, it might have an oil pan full of metal chunks, but you can still turn the crank! Not only that, it's "VERY UNIQUE," which is crucial for those of us who don't want somewhat unique cars. Just drop a Hayabusa in the front, a couple cases of Milwaukee's Best in the back, and you're ready to go!

Now you're probably saying to yourself, "There's nothing that can compete with a 600amino!" Normally you'd be right, but Bumblebee managed to find something that should send you staggering back in awed disbelief: this '74 Dodge van with truck bed. It's got the custom graphics, including an amazingly patriotic "TOY TRUCK" screamin' eagle on the hood. It's got the marker lights on the roof and the mis-aimed Malaise Style fog lights in the grille. It's got the deep-pile shag carpeting in the cab and even the CB radio. But most of all, it has stacks! Like the 600amino, this Vanpage has been sitting for a while- 10 years, in fact. But don't think of it as a nightmare of shrunken seals and cracked gaskets- think of it as a time capsule! The seller claims it starts and drives, and that the "AIR CONDITIONING works AWESOME." It comes from the seller's uncle in southern Kentucky, so it's authentic. We figure a quick trip to Tijuana for some interior upgrades and some 440 power and you'll be feeling mighty sharp in your new Vanpage.

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Now, even if you've got more hits than Sadaharu Oh, you'll still want to roll with a car that packs 868 home runs worth of Japanese cool. Yes, we're talking about the Mazda Cosmo, this '76 Cosmo to be exact. Just imagine: for only $2450 you could get fully Cosmo'd up, at which point you'd be the envy of your local Wankel scene with one of the rarest of sold-in-America Mazdas. The Cosmo (also known as the RX-5) didn't sell well in the US market, and those that did make it here have mostly succumbed to apex seal woes and/or rust by now. Did we mention that it doesn't run? Do we even need to mention that? Yes, you'll probably have to replace the engine and who-knows-what-else (get ready for some overseas shipping charges for most non-mechanical parts), but just imagine all the room under the hood for turbo plumbing on the insane rotary this car deserves!

It's hard to pry one's eyes away from that Cosmo, but it's equally hard to deny the goofy appeal of one of our all-time favorite Hondas: the motorcycle-engine-powered 600. And, since having a private junkyard is always a plus when you have a hard-to-find project car, these three '72 Honda 600s should have enough parts between them to make one- or even two- runners! I (briefly) had a 600 many years ago and the Fun Per Dollar Quotient is off the scale; they're quicker than you'd expect and actually fit four large adults in semi-comfort. This seller is quite honest, stating up front that all three cars will need complete restoration, but you'll be able to pluck parts off two of them to feed the third! $1500 and they're yours.

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