You'd think that the front-wheel-drive Celica, with its Toyota build quality and reliable A or S engine, would do pretty well in a punishing endurance race. You'd be wrong!
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For reasons we have a hard time understanding, FWD Celicas have had a troubled LeMons career, and we've seen plenty of them. When they're running OK they get around a road course pretty well… but blown head gaskets, electrical woes, and thrown rods have held them back.
Green = top third of standings
Yellow = middle third of standings
Red = bottom third of standings
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DISCUSSION
We ran a a 6th Gen Toyota Celica in Lemons - Nelson Ledges.
Our only upgrade was dropping 4th Gen Alltrack calipers on the front brakes and some Ebay Lowering Springs. The car was wicked light, balanced, and though we were easily out accelerated out of the carousel and star/finish straight, we could out break anything out there - it was a fantastic, fun, balanced car - perfect for the noobs behind the wheel.
I think we calculated a total loss of about 5 hours of driving time (not counting our pedestrian and frequent driver changes - it is a marathon after all):
Saturday
11:45 AM - Shattered Kill Switch Internals (1 Hr)
12:45 AM - Incorrectly configured Seat Harness (1 Hr)
6:00 PM - Rotted through brake line(s) (3 Hours)
Sunday
12:00 AM - at about 6.5K RPM We hit Engine Hesitation / Misfiring / Fuel Starved / Still don't know / but the symptoms continued lower and lower in the RPM band as the engine bay heat soaked until by 12:00 PM Sunday we were in 5th gear @ 3K RPM eating laps
Anyway we finished 67? out of 120 or so cars - "Not Terrible" as they say in the lemons world.