Go West Deathtrap Tour [FINISHED]

Team Spanish Fiesta!

“So what do you say, are you taking it?” - Said a man, dressed in suit, with a smile full of yellow teeth on his face. The wrinkles on his face revealed that he was entering a rather advance age.

In the driver’s seat, a young woman seated, her black hair resting on her back, her hands moving the steering wheel as her dark eyes processed the information from the signs at the sides of the road. “Well…I’m giving you 420 euros for this junker and you better be grateful I’m taking it from your dealership.” - She replied. Her voice sounded adult, yet somewhat juvenile.

“Yeah, you’re crazy if you believe you’re taking this from me for only 420 euros.” - Said the man, in a more serious voice tone. The smile had suddenly dissappeared from his face, his wrinkles now expressing anger. “I’m pretty sure someone else will be more than willing to pay the 800 euros I’m asking.”

The woman laughed. “C’mon, all you guys have been selling lately are crossovers and low mileage hatchbacks. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather make up space for another Baltazar Kilimanjaro that’ll sell like fresh bread? You don’t have any guarantee that you’ll be selling this thing anytime soon.”

An hour or so later, the Conte Ataque arrives at an used car dealership. Both occupants get out of the car.

“Alright, 450 euros and it’s yours”. - Said the salesman, desperate to sell the car.
“Make that 400.” - Replied the woman, once again.
“420 and it’s yours…” - Said the man, more than tired of this argument.
“Deal!”.

The woman took the keys and gave the man the money in eight nice 50€ tickets and a 20€ one. She drove it through the city until she arrived at a workshop, which she entered. A dark short haired young man, fixing his also dark eyes on the woman, came out from under a car, cleaning his hands on a towel.

“How much for the car?” - Said the man, with an adult yet also juvenile voice. “Did you get it for 450 euros as we agreed?”
“For only 420!” - She replied, with a smile on her face.
“Great. Remember, you do the driving, I do the fixing. You’re heaps faster than me, that’s for sure.” - He replied. “What should we tell mom?”
“We’re just on a holiday break from our workplaces. The more complicated the lie, the easier to detect.” - Said the woman.

Meet the team!

Ana Gutiérrez: 21, energetic and competitive, loves driving spiritedly and fast. The female twin sister, she works as a delivery driver for a post service company and she’ll do the driving, as long as she is not dangerously tired.
Alejandro Gutiérrez: 21, relaxed, a strategist. The male twin brother, works as a mechanic, so he’ll do the maintainment as long as he doesn’t have to drive. He also tuned the engine to squeeze 100hp out of it.

Aggresiveness Factor: 4

Meet the car!

A 1982 Contendiente Ataque 1.5 Sports Package. Including the standard 4 speed manual, semi independent torsion beam rear suspension, and the 1.5L I4, tuned to make around 100hp, which both thought would be the ideal balance between power and economy.

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A bit of a teaser for what I’ll use.

1988 Bon-chon Masterpiece. Also known in South Korea as the Bon-Chon Exempla. Very affectionately nicknamed by the consumer market as the Masterpiece of shit.

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4 x 5 = 200
200 + 20 = 220

:thinking:

SCAMMERS

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I JUST REALIZED

Let me fix it :sweat_smile:

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Team Rice Box

“You paid $400 to a 19 year old kid to buy his Chinese Shitbox?”
“Yes, and it’s name is Banana.”
“You named the car, too? Oh christ.”

Lyra was less than pleased with Charlotte’s purchase. A rather… “tastefully” moddified 1993 PRJ M45, in K trim.
“You couldn’t have found something more, I dunno, Cool?” Lyra was very, very annoyed at this point. The M45 was a barely known car in the States, despite over 300,000 being sold.
“Hey, I think Banana is cool. He should be easy to fix if parts fail, too.” Charlotte, having bought the car, has a rather fond attachment to the M45.
“What ever, at least this’ll make for interesting footage.”
“Fuck yeah!”

The Car, properly

A Modified 1993 PRJ M45, in the K trim spec. The base model. This one has the PRJ SC1.4 SE, a rather woeful 74hp N/A inline 4. This one has recived some… custom modifications, including “A BIG WANG” (Original Owner’s words, not ours), custom yellow paint, and a single black stripe that doesn’t connect on the roof with matching front lip. Charlotte has affectionately named the car Banana.


The Team, properly

Lyra Sunshard; A YouTube and Instagram Celebrity in the Gaming world as ShardGaming, Lyra is using this to promote herself, and make some nice content, too. She is currently 20, and will be driving mostly.

Charlotte Mathews; Lyra’s Childhood friend, and fellow Instagram Celebrity. She Runs a YouTube channel named Girl+Car, where she vlogs car builds, and fixes. She’s also 20, and will be mostly recording what happens, and fixing Banana.

The Three of them, Lyra, Charlotte, and Banana, are known as TEAM RICE BOX!

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Highway Hooligans

The Team:

Cody Acorne (34) - Brother of Marcus Acorne. Enjoys street racing, even though his brother tried to keep him out of the racing scene. He found out about the Deathtrap Tour from his best friend, Jake Storm, and intends to win by any means necessary. Which is precisely why he’s put his brother in the hot-seat.

Marcus Acorne (46) - Notorious Chicago street-racer. Has seen some things in his time, and helped acquire their new car. He favors Dynamite cars because they’re usually fairly cheap and have some performance potential.

Jake Storm (30) - Son of Amy Storm. Found out about the Deathtrap Tour because his mother pointed it out and mentioned it might be fun. Struggles to drive stick, but of the four, he’s the only one who understands DOHC at all. A self-taught computer genius, he’s responsible for reprogramming the car’s ECU.

Trevor Wright (45) - The Junk Man. Helped Marcus, Jake, and Cody find an engine for the car. He’s great at finding things that will work, or making things work that really shouldn’t function. He’s also the only decent cook of the four of them, and can hold his own with the other three and their pranks. As the team’s “Mad Scientist,” he’s the one responsible for coming up with ways to ruin everyone else’s day.

The Car:

Hailing all the way from the year 2000, this is a Dynamite E5 Family-Hatch.

This faithful little family car used to have a 3 liter V6 under the hood, powering the rear wheels through a 5 speed automatic. The previous owner removed the automatic, installed a 6 speed manual and the mother of all turbocharger kits to make a race-car out of it. In a street race against Marcus, the engine was damaged beyond repair. A few months later, Marcus offered to buy the car for $200, and the guy agreed, as it was better value than he’d get from the junkyard.

Marcus knew it wasn’t a total loss. Sure, he’d have to get Trevor to help him rip apart the block and try to make something useful out of the car, but otherwise, it had promise. He got a phone call from his brother, Cody, who mentioned a $500 ‘clunker race,’ and realized this was the destiny for this little 5 door midsize.

Cody rounded up a team, and they looked over the car. Midsize, sliding rear doors, a hatchback/liftback style trunk, five seats, and a CD player. Plus, the car only had somewhere around 114k miles on the clock, so it was a decent bargain. Sure, the engine doesn’t work, but… They had a plan.

A few days later, and Trevor brought in the perfect engine donor, a 2005 Dynamite T-1600 Double Crew pickup truck, junked because of a roll-over accident. What they wanted was the naturally-aspirated DOHC I4 out of it, all 5.4 liters of it. As the truck only had 74,254.3 miles on it, and construction company stickers on the doors, they figured the engine was good enough.

Jake got involved in ‘improving the performance threshold’ with a FleaBay Turbo and Intercooler package, and Trevor knocked together an exhaust manifold and turbo downpipe.

When questions got asked about whether a truck motor and passenger sedan were a good combination, Jake casually mentioned, “Mom said some team did that last time, some old cop car with the heart of a truck. We’ve got the same strategy going.”

A quick re-spray with lime green at Marcus’ request, and fitting of the neon underglow lights, bright green fog-lamps, xenon headlights, and a light-control-module finished up the lighting and visual effects package, and a mid-80’s turbo badge was glued onto the hatch to finalize the car’s distinctive design.

Total costs? $200 worth of blown-up, clapped-out family sedan turned street racer, plus $250 on a trashed truck for an engine. $450 all up.

Five seats, Four people. What could possibly go wrong?

Well, the list of current problems is a bit lengthy, but not entirely unexpected from a car resurrected from the junkyard.

  • Driveshaft has excessive play in it.
    Marcus’ note: The previous owner was a fuckin’ idiot, didn’t understand that the E5’s automatic and stick use different driveshafts. Not a huge difference, it will work, but it’s risky. And we can’t find an E5 in stick to swipe the driveshaft.
  • Gas struts in the hatch are blown.
    Cody’s note: We’ll just have to use a prop-stick when we need something out of the back. Or fold the seats and grab it from there.
  • Power sliding rear doors don’t power slide anymore.
    Jake’s note: There’s some sort of code in the Body Control Module about “Door Motor Overcurrent Safety” that comes up when the motors try to open the doors. For now, we’ll just unplug the door motors and open them the hard way. Probably needs some grease in the rails to lube things up.
    Marcus’ note: Yeah, some grease fixed it. Scratch this one off the list.
  • Air Conditioning Barely Works.
    Trevor’s note: It’s Russian, you morons. Of course the A/C doesn’t work that well. The heater works flawlessly, though. But, yeah, there could be something wrong with the A/C compressor.
  • Power Locking doesn’t function.
    Cody’s note: Not surprising. Thankfully, there’s a keyhole for every door, and everyone has a key. That’s how you solve a problem!
  • What the Hell is that Smell!?
    Marcus’ note: Smells like something died in here. Either that, or… God damn you, Trevor! Don’t test the Stinkers in the car!
    Trevor’s note: Yeah, my bad. At least we know that when we gift these ‘air fresheners’ to some of the other teams, they’ll “freshen” the air with the smell of “Hot Summer Porta-Potty.” We’ll just have to live with it for a few miles.
  • Hard to reach the Coil Packs
    Jake’s note: Yeah, that 5.4 liter engine’s big. And the coil packs are on the back of the block. Which means they’re up against the firewall, which makes them really difficult to work on. On the plus side, though, that big I4 sounds almost like a V8 when idling. Don’t want to know what Dynamite was thinking when they created it, though. Why does an engine need to be that big?
    Marcus’ note: Yeah, it’s a common thing with their cars. They seem to have no sense of direction. It’s why they put a 4.1 liter paint-shaker inline 3 in the XR-3 I used to race. Big engine, lots of torque for an I3, but a bloody gutless wonder without a turbo. And if you turbo the I3, it blows up.
    Trevor’s note: Yeah, well, they based this 5.4 on a diesel of some sort, just kept the block, gave it a new head, pistons, crank, conrods… It’s a tough little engine.
    Cody’s note: There’s nothing little about it! It’s bigger than some modern V8’s!
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Prologue
(Outside a retirement bungalow named Harcourt-Entwhistle Towers)

Gran (G) and Mopey (M) are watching Spanners (S) walk around tutting and occasionally kicking a tyre.

S: Well it’s seen better days.

G: Haven’t we all dear. What do you think George?

M: (looking up from his mobile phone) Huh?

G: What do you think of the van?
M: Erm….it’s brown….and it’s a van. (goes back to looking at his phone)

G: sigh David, will it do?

S: sharp intake of breath through clenched teeth Well it’s got a decent engine…bodywork needs a bit of a touch up and it needs a HUGE plate welding in the back to stop everything falling out….but it should do you. It’ll be £175 for the work. But if something goes wrong then you’ll need to find a mechanic because I doubt you 2 could find the bonnet release….let alone an EGR valve.

G: A what dear?

S: See, now that’s what I mean…….

G: But you’re coming with us dear….YOU are our mechanic!

M: sniggering

S: But….but….but….I can’t. I have commitments here.

G: Very well, can you ring your grandmother and tell her the news….she was so excited about you joining us.

S: lets out a resigned sigh and mumbles in that case I can do the work for £50.

The Team

Elizabeth Harcourt-Entwhistle (widowed) – “Gran”
Age – Never ask a lady her age dear
Likes – Family, classical music and old things
Driving experience – over 60 years

George Harcourt-Entwhistle IV – “Mopey”
Age - 17
Likes – Staring at his mobile phone, girls and moping
Driving experience – Pontins Go-kart champion 3 summers in a row (2012-2014), proper cars – 3 weeks

Dave something-or-other – “Spanners”
Age – 28
Driving experience – Anything the army put him into/on to as well as a lot of things he shouldn’t have been anywhere near!
Likes - Mechanical things, lots of hot tea, bodging stuff to make it work again.

The Vehicle
1990 FOA Vango Std – Price £400 (and a bag of Gran’s muffins)

In the back of the van
Inflatable mattress (single) for sleeping on. Old wardrobe, on its side, that acts as storage for food, tools and spare parts.

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MOTHER OF ALL I4S :open_mouth:

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Had to be done after Marcus’ XR-3 in the Great Automation Run left with the Mother of All I3’s. But this one has the big four, and a turbo.

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tents fingers and cackles evilly

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Hey, I’ve had two reasonably-trouble-free runs. So I got out the Russian-American shitbox company, went new-tech, mixed a newer engine with an older car, re-rolled the team, and I’m going for possibly having some problems.

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Interesting! Just wondering though, is there a price calculator being used to figure out if a car meets the $500 Requirement? something like this: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kC4t4OrTH08vtl5DOCQH-KAopzQrfvwFq89gMhQv81g/edit#gid=0

Nope. Just be realistic when you describe it in your intro. Lots of body damage? Stupid miles? Unpopular piece of crap? Bought from an auction shortly after a hurricane, and has a “funky” odor? Be creative. :slight_smile:

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OK, that’s a cool approach, thanks! I’m gonna have to look at Local Classifieds & try to replicate to the best of my ability something that costs less than $640 Canadian (Google currently shows 500 US Dollar equals 639.28 Canadian Dollar)

I’m wondering If I should actually enter the redneck express from the GAR, with Otis, and Jake… his son who was named after the dog, but the V12 in it might not go over well with the rules.

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Maybe the engine blew up, so it got rebuilt with an inline 6 sharing the bore/stroke of the V12? Essentially the V12 cut in half? Alternately, same strategy with a V6?

When he is taking such good care of it running red line for somewhere around 2000+ miles, followed by 20 years on a ranch, that couldn’t possibly ever happen. :grin: Could just drop a V-8 into it too, that’s pretty common.

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TEAM OUTRIDERS

The Crew:

THE OLD MAN
Name: Blake Worden
Age: 56
Occupation: Retired
Place of Birth: Tatum Heights, MI
Blake Worden is recently retired from the Tatum Heights Motorpool, where he worked since 1991. For the past eight years before his retirement he was the supervisor of the department. His assets include a Petoskey XGV scan tool. This enables him access to the vehicle computer systems of any Petoskey up to 2001. It is also capable of scanning generic OBDII codes of any make or model 1996 or newer.

THE MECHANIC
Name: Luigi Fillipelli
Age: 49
Occupation: Tatum Heights Motorpool
Place of Birth: La Spezia, Italy
Luigi Fillipelli immigrated to the United States in 1989 fearful of a potential Soviet invasion. This never came to pass, but regardless, Luigi came to love his new home. He has been a US Citizen since 2004. Luigi primarily specialized in working on police cars while working for the city. This has given him considerable insight into the workings of the Petoskey Enforcer. With the Enforcer discontinued, he has put effort into learning about the vehicles that replaced it. While he works well with the newer designs, he does have a nostalgic feeling towards the old Enforcers. He and Marc Levinstein often enjoy ripping on each other, sometimes the language gets pretty heated but is always in fun.

THE CHIEF
Name: Marc Levinstein
Age: 53
Occupation: Tatum Heights Chief of Police
Place of Birth: Detroit, MI
Marc Levinstein was recently promoted to Chief of Police. His dedication to a force he served since 1993 made him a strong choice for the job. Marc has a reputation for being the fastest driver in the department. His aggressive driving style is contrary to his often soft spoken manner… when he’s not talking to Luigi that is. He will frequently make fun of Luigi for being Italian while Luigi will make fun of him for being Jewish. An interesting thing to note is that they never say anything behind each others backs. He carries a Ruger Security Six at all times. While always prepared to use it, he always hopes he never has to.

THE NEW GUY
Name: Zach Worden
Age: 21
Occupation: Half-assed student
Place of Birth: Tatum Heights, MI
Zach is the oldest of Blake’s three children. After graduating from high school, he was largely clueless about what to do with his life. He is currently taking college classes, not because he has any specific goal, but because he figures that’s what you’re “supposed” to do. At his mothers insistence, he is going along on this road trip, something he is not looking forward to. Blake is hoping this will prove to be a bonding experience and to also hopefully help him shape up.

THE CAR

1997 Petoskey Enforcer "Missy"


If this car looks familiar, that’s because it went through the Roulette Runner challenge and the Kinda Grand Tour.

The Enforcer first rolled off the assembly line in 1992. The car was received with mixed reviews as it still used the same engine as the outgoing Gran Romero. It wasn’t until 1994 when the 301 TriForce made its debut that the Enforcer really took off.


Initial sales were strong in the civilian market, but the car really hit it’s stride when sold as a fleet vehicle. The Interceptor variant featured more aggressive gearing and a tougher suspension setup.

While sales tapered off over the years, the Enforcer remained a strong seller as a police car. Major design updates were done every five years to keep the car competitive. Unfortunately even these periodic updates couldn’t outrun time forever, and the archaic body-on-frame sedan was finally axed in 2012.

This particular Enforcer was purchased from a city auction and was claimed to be an administrative vehicle. After some problems that should never have occurred at the 150k miles, a check of the vehicle computer showed the car had over 400,000 miles on it, not the 150,000 that the odometer showed. As a result, during the first run, two fuel injectors went bad, and another two were unplugged to keep the engine firing at a balanced pattern. Despite the weakened state, the car soldiered on to the finish. Even a valve dropping out of the head and rattling around the cylinder didn’t keep this car from finishing the run.

During the Kinda Grand Tour, the car was again used, this time using an engine and transmission from a 1995 Petoskey Stag Big Chief. The car did not finish with any notable place, but it did go through the whole trip without mechanical incident.

Which brings us to present day:


Car: 1997 Petoskey Enforcer
Engine: 432 CID V8 SFI*
Transmission: 4RE7*
Modifications: Engine and transmission swapped from a 1995 Stag Big Chief*, Dana 60 rear axle with Detroit locker, Ventnor hood ornament, Used push bar from a retired police interceptor, Undertray was removed due to stripped bolts, 17" wheels from a Gen IV Interceptor*, Brakes from a Gen IV Interceptor*, Aftermarket audio system, First Gen Tail Light Assemblies.

*Modifications came from previous run

In the months before the GW Tour, the old girl was looked over. An inspection of the rear differential showed some severe damage due to the factory gears not being able to handle the extra torque from the 432. Thanks to the use of city discounts and junkyard searches, Luigi managed to come across a Dana 60 axle to be used in the back. With a new ring and pinion set installed, the axle was ready to handle anything the car could throw at it. While at the junkyard, Luigi acquired a Ventnor hood ornament which was affixed to the car. The city recently replaced old car 109, since that was the last Enforcer, a lot of the equipment used on the car could not be carried over to the replacement. This included the push bar which would’ve been scrapped had Luigi not picked it up. Problems arose when removing the undertray in the form of a couple stripped bolts. It was decided to leave the undertray off for good. Finally, after a purchase on E-Bay, Luigi and Blake installed a custom audio system. One of the tail lights was smashed so a pair was also purchased from the junkyard. These were from a Gen I Enforcer but still fit in the car. With the mileage on the powertrain, an oil change was done as well as a filter and fluid change on the transmission. The car was greased up, lubed up, gassed up, the pisser fluid tank was filled, and the Enforcer was ready to go.

P.S. The car is named Missy because Marc named it before anyone else could.

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Team Mountain Pass

Roulette Runner

Kinda Grand Tour

Despite having failed spectacularly both times they’ve attempted competitions like this before, Pierre Mountbatten and Andrew Morgan have returned for a third attempt at Junkyard Racing glory…

The Team

Pierre Mountbatten, 53, is an Australian journalist who founded Mountain Pass, a magazine dedicated to cars that loved hitting the twisty “B” roads over bloated V-max queens and hyper expensive exotics. Pierre loves to attend ameteur hillclimbs where his heavily tuned Peugeot 205 GTi gets regularly thrashed by Mk 6 Golf GTi’s and RS Focuses. Pierre wants to win REALLY bad and is hoping their wildcard entry will see team mountain pass be third time lucky and take home the trophy!!!

Andrew Morgan, 42, joined Mountain Pass just as Touge in Japan was gaining traction with Western audiences and became their patron saint in the Mountain Pass offices. Andrew is an avid track day enthusiast and hillclimber who competes in an old, beaten up, S12 Gazelle which has been given a Panda Trueno paintjob. Needless to say he doesn’t win much! Andrew also really wants to win so he can get a raise and afford to build a replica FJ24E w/ turbo so his S12 can finally kick some ass!!!

The Car

Andrew has a mate, who knows a guy, who is related to guy who is a collecter of obscure race cars. In return for printing a softball story on the high value of the cars in his collection (which he is conveniently selling) the gentleman sold the keys to his most outlying shed for $499, thinking it was full of old Znopresk parts. However, when the boys came over and opened it they found, buried under old Italian radiators and alternators, a genuine Leeroy Racing Le Mans spare car!

The car was coated in a thick coat of dust, the fibreglass body had some crazing but the car was surprisingly complete. The gentleman wasn’t too happy with this result but he knew he couldn’t back out of the deal; besides the car had no provenance since it never raced anyway. Pierre and Andrew pushed the car out of the shed and loaded it up onto the waiting tilt tray.

Upon getting the car back to Andrew’s workshop/garage, the pair set about servicing the old girl. The oils and fluids were drained, genuine oils and fluids replaced them and all the filters were replaced. All the brakes were pulled apart and inspected with the wheels taken off, new rubber installed and the bearings regreased. All the visible wiring was checked and a new battery installed. The fuel tank was drained, cleaned out and filled with fresh 91RON unleaded. The exhaust was checked for holes and the cabin was thoroughly vacuumed. The fan belts were replaced and all the bulbs were checked with blown bulbs and fuses replaced. Finally the car was washed and then the big moment arrived… Would it start?

It took a few goes but in a surprisingly short time the V12 fired up and the garage rang to the sound of 12 angry, carb fed cylinders. Andrew and Pierre took turns driving the car up and down the street. Since the car was in Le Mans trim the clutch wasn’t too heavy and the interior was surprisingly comfy given it’s racing specs.

The biggest problem? There was no way to legally get this car registered so Pierre visited a wrecking yard and sourced a V12 engine plate from an old Ambassador, then he bought a '79 Coyote off Gumtree and re-birthed the Le Mans racer as a limited edition V12 Coyote! The transport department were fooled and the car was now, theoretically at least, registered and ready for action!!!

So will Team Mountain Pass finally win? I certainly hope so!!! :star_struck::cowboy_hat_face::star_struck:

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Just under a week left for submissions.

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