The 2020 Trafikjournalen 24h clunker run (Final results at last.)

In 2018 I ran this. It was a very fun challenge indeed, both for me and the participants, and I want to do a rerun of it.

What was working well last time was the rule set for the race itself (you can read it -all in the old thread), and I see no reason for changing that. What I think went very wrong was the rules for the cars though.

The two trim idea was good in theory but completely pointless and just a lot of extra work for me in the end, because nothing said that the stock trim wasn’t optimized for the race after all. Also, with only a price regulation the starting field contained too many sports cars and pocket rockets. No, I don’t complain about that people did build what the rules allowed for, it was just that in the end it didn’t really look like what it was supposed to be, an endurance race for cheap used cars on their last leg, the starting field would have been much too expensive IRL compared to what it was supposed to be.

So, here is the somewhat changed rules for the cars:
MAXIMUM BUDGET: $18 000

Model/Trim year:2010 or earlier/2010 or earlier.
Body type:
At least one of the bodystyles available of the same type must allow 2 rows of seats. So it’s for example OK to use an ute variant of a sedan, but not a type where all variants are 1 row.
Mods allowed as long as it is a car or light truck body.

Body/Chassis:
All types of metal panels allowed. Fiberglass allowed but will have a crash resistance penalty. Carbon fiber not allowed.
Only ladder chassis, monocoque or light truck monocoque allowed. Space frames not allowed.
All types of steel chassis allowed. Glued alu or carbon fiber not allowed.

Engine:
Engine trim year should not be newer than car trim year.
No engines with more than 8 cylinders will be allowed. Magnesium blocks not allowed.
No billet or titanium internals
Cam or VVL profile should not exceed 75.
Turbochargers allowed. Maximum boost 1 bar.
Racing intakes not allowed.
Maximum octane rating 98. Cars produced 1989 or later has to be able to run on unleaded.
Racing tubular headers not allowed.
Cars produced 1989 or later has to be equipped with a catalytic converter.
At least one muffler is required.

Transmission:
Sequential gearboxes not allowed.
More than 6 gears not allowed.

Wheels:
Only hard long life tyres allowed.
Maximum tyre width 255 mm
Maximum rim size 17 inch
Magnesium rims not allowed.

Brakes:
Ceramic discs not allowed

Aero:
Downforce undertray not allowed.
Active aero not allowed.

Interior:
Since we are going for more stock spec cars this time, a minimum of 2 seats is required. Unrealistic seating choices will be penalized, like large sedans with only 2 seats.
Safety have to be at least at the most basic level for the era, “none” safety not allowed.

Suspension:
Active springs not allowed.
Adaptive or semi active dampers not allowed.
Active or semi active sway bars not allowed.

Other:
Car has to have a viability rating of 60 or more in at least one segment in at least one market.
Quality sliders between -3 and +3 are allowed. The exception are for wheels/tyres where the maximum quality is 0.
Cars with 0.1-0.12 kW per kg will get a lighter reliability penalty, cars above 0.12 kW per kg will get a heavier one.
Cars that is unrealistic for its era and type or have strange engineering decisions will automatically get the highest possible reliability penalty. This is going to be judged from case to case. Contestant will in this case be warned and get ONE chance to fix the car, with no discussion about it. If that is not done at the time the race starts, it will enter with the highest penalty.

RACE RULES:
Basically the idea is that the one that has made the most laps in 24 hours is the winner. We will be using the “Automation” track with flying laps. (see link below)
http://d3hrnetf5izp16.cloudfront.net/original/4X/f/1/7/f17866783bc89199d815d0f7f4bef4fe96f1a1da.zip
The track times your car makes on this one will be the base, and from that it can only get worse… Here is some factors that you may consider.

Fuel economy - Every car will have a 50 litre fuel tank. Judging from the cars average fuel consumtion and the length of the track, the car has to make a pitstop before the lap when it will be running out of fuel. Refueling will take 5 minutes of your time.

Driveability - For every 30 minutes there will be some random rolls done. Considering the driveability, first we will take pure luck into consideration by picking a random number between 0 and 10. 0 or 1 means that nothing will happen, 10 means that there is a risk for the worst to happen, a crash that will render the car unrepairable. But that’s only the risk. After that, a number between 0 and 100 will be chosen. If the number is lower than the cars driveability index, nothing will happen. If the number is higher, a number will be chosen again, up to as many times as stated in the first roll. Here’s the different grades:
0-1 - nothing happens
2-3 - minor skid, 10 seconds of your time
4-5 - losing control but no damage, 30 seconds of your time
6-7 - minor crash, pitstop needed, 5 minutes of your time
8-9 - major crash, pitstop needed, 15 minutes of your time
10 - extreme crash, car unrepairable

So, as an example, if the first roll says “10” it can be anything between a 0 and a 10. If the first number between 0-100 chosen is higher than the cars driveability index, and the second one lower, you will have a minor skid. If all ten numbers are higher than the driveability index, however, you will have a crash big enough to make the car undriveable (and is out of the race). If the first roll says “4” however, you can’t get into anything worse than just loss of control. Also, a random roll will be done in the case of 6-10, to check if you will crash into something stationary or another driver (which will be randomized too in that case). That driver will also go through a random process, he might suffer anything from no damage at all to the same damage as you (but never more damage than you), so yeah, another driver may run into your car by accident and completely wreck it even if you are leading and driving very careful, tough luck! In case of 8, 9 or 10, yellow flag will be out and 1 minute will be taken off the time for all drivers.
PENALTY: For cars with fiberglass bodies, the first roll will be done twice and the worst result will be used.

Reliability - Will work in a similar way to the driveability roll. Cars will, however, get a random reliability modifier, to simulate that this is the used car market and you really don’t know what you bought. Reliability index will be reduced between 0 and 15.

In this case:
0-1 - Nothing happens
2-3 - Minor fault (like a slight misfire) that doesn’t require repair, 10 seconds off your time
4-5 - A somewhat bigger fault but still no pitstop needed, 30 seconds of your time
6-7 - Minor repair in the pits, 5 minutes of your time
8-9 - Major repair in the pits, 15 minutes o your time
10 - Breakdown beyond repair.

Also, for every time in the pits for minor repairs after a crash or breakdown, reliability and driveability will be reduced by one point each, for major repairs by two points, keep in mind that this is duct tape and chicken wire repairs.

There will be 3 drivers driving for 8 hours each, so 5 minutes will be taken of everyones time when swapping drivers.

The order the rolls will be done for the cars will be randomized too, every time so no place in the starting grid is better than another.

People might hate me for this and I might regret it myself too, but I have decided to start this one up right now (May the 31st) and to run it in OB since I think it will work out anyway. And since this thread have been running for a long time now, I think many people have noticed it now and are eager to build something. So, I put the deadline for sending in a car at the 12th of June, 5 PM CET, I feel that it would be enough. Should the incredible thing happen and the stable release be dropped tomorrow or something, maybe we have to reconsider things, but…

Also I want a presentation of the car and the drivers (3 is the recommended amount, if you want to solve it in another way I guess it’s fine but you won’t get out of the two driver changes anyway) in the thread. It won’t change the results but it might make for better stories… RPing is what this is all about, more or less. You are free to pick a starting number that’s not already in the grid if you want to, if not, you will be assigned one.

Name the car model “24hour-yourname” and the variant the full name of the car, and the engine family “24hour-yourname” and the variant the full name of the engine.

Am I missing something? Probably, so tell me if anything is not clear.
Random.org will be used to pick the random numbers, and keep in mind, just like the real race this is mostly for fun.

STARTING GRID
#3 - Team Project Overdrive / 1980 Ursula F7 300i ( @BannedByAndroid )
#7 - Team Korsika / 1998 Renwoo Mingle ( @Mikonp7 )
#8 - Team Knightwick Owners Club / 1959 Harris Riviera Four ( @mart1n2005 )
#13 - Team Cierzo Dynamics / 1987 Bardot Foudre 150T ( @Petakabras )
#17 - Team Collapsing Sun / 1990 Tycoon Offroader ( @Ryan93 / @mat1476 )
#23 - Team Trafikjournalen / 1970 Revolve Manaoz ( @Knugcab )
#27 - Team Bakusho Racing / 1973 Mikadzuki Yuro 150 ( @KactusPantah )
#30 - Team Midlife Crisis / 1984 Sanfrecce Supo 1.4T ( @piglet916 )
#35 - Team Bakewell Boxer / 1975 J.E.S.A Bianchi Nuova 300 Series ( @Mythrin )
#36 - Team The Enforcers / 1986 National Vanguard 1000 ( @DukeOFhazards )
#37 - Team “But…stickers, Bro!” / 1982 Puttzalong GC2500 ( @stm316 )
#41 - Team Platshållare / 1998 Legion CrAVe Espresso ( @donutsnail )
#42 - Team Bavarian Racing Crew / 1976 BAM Bavaria SB620SB ( @Der_Bayer )
#48 - Team Boost Foxes Customs / 1985 Kurokama SC AeroR ( @ST1Letho )
#51 - Team RK Series Racing / 1985 Anhultz Dione C ( @Elizipeazie )
#65 - Team Clapper Snapper / 1975 GMI 221 ( @LinkLuke)
#67 - Team Japanese Shame / 1992 Kiran Jidosha Wagon TRS ( @Hilbert )
#69 - Team Testikelpung / 1996 Bonhomme Redfin 2.3 SX ( @variationofvariables )
#72 - Team Alba Racing / 1972 Alba Saline DL-40 ( @TheLapTopX20 )
#75 - Team Kyung-Yeong Nostalgic / 1969 Ssanvan GT ( @Aruna )
#76 - Team Harcourt-Entwhistle / 2005 FM Hi-Way Outrider ( @Jaimz )
#77 - Team Slow Car Goog Car / 1991 Hitomoji Alteron Sport ( @GetWrekt01 )
#86 - Team “The Wild bunch” / 1975 Bogliq Bazooka ( @HighOctaneLove )
#88 - Team Blue Team / 1988 Kuma GP-E ( @Xepy )
#94 - Team Buccaneer XA / 1980 Cheval Buccaneer ( @nicholasrams774)
#96 - Team Broke Racers / 1989 Jinsu Charade ( @Edballistic )
#98 - Team Seikatsu (?) / 1985 Seikatsu 10K FX ( @Tzuyu_main)

17 Likes

If you wanted, you might be able to enforce some type of horsepower-to-weight restriction to further keep sports cars out and even out the playing field somewhat. Even if Automation doesn’t calculate it on it’s own (does it?)

what if my entry is older than the currently oldest category?
(1983)

Any year 2010 or older will do. This is nothing that has to do with the competition in itself, it’s just a little test run I will do to see what it costs to build realistic cars. There will be no categories in the final race itself.

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Volvo_240_-_GL_Wagon_euro_spec.car (37.4 KB)

Here’s a somewhat realistic copy of a real car that is also very common. It is under 15K. I haven’t even fiddled with the quality sliders and I originally built it as a DL with 4 speed and no PS, but since I still was way under budget, I did a GL with 5 speed and power steering instead. I am somewhat surprised that you have such a hard time to build “even an 80s shitbox” within the budget. When someone says 80s shitbox I think Yugo or Lada Samara. Not a Volvo 240 that was even a somewhat expensive car that had a 2,3 litre engine and most of the standard equipment that you could expect for a family car this age.

Mine is basically an '80’s Mustang GT. Yes, it’s min-maxed. But it has a full interior (crap quality), 16 inch wheels with sport tires, ABS, and torque for days.
Armor_Motors_-_Tempas_GT.car (33.7 KB)

All for $15,800 (I was revising it some).

1 Like

minus 15 on brakes so irl you dont have any brakes at all, also in general your minus quali. doesent make sense in my eyes. In my eyes a 100% insta bin car :smiley: but yeah i am not the host :smiley:

The brakes are super cheap, but they still work. Balanced very well and very low brake fade. Cheap stuff still works. I almost always have loads of negative quality on my brakes simply as a means to help balance them.

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And while we’re here, maybe the rules should include how negative or positive you can put the sliders, so as not to guess what is considered “too min-maxed”. I think this is why he wants to see example cars.

Yeah, I won’t allow minmaxing too much with the sliders, that’s something I can say right now at least.

But people will minmax in any case, sure I can raise it a little bit but I don’t really see the minmaxing as an argument, because in one way or another, we will get it regardless of the budget…

City_Cruiser_-_997SUX.car (34.4 KB)

I also tried making a 2010 car that is quite relevant for what you could find at the bottom of the automobile food chain in 2010. Still under budget with ESC (which some manufacturers still cheapened out on in the early 2010s on the budget models) and stereo. Notice that the quality sliders are still at 0. I wasn’t working hard here either to keep costs down…

As I have said earlier, the budget might be raised but it’s certainly not impossible to build realistic 16K cars TBH, that’s all I am objecting against…

Penaltybox_2000_-_GTI_Turbo.car (29.0 KB)

One last example, a fairly typical early 90s hot hatch with what would have been considered good performance back in the days, no negative quality and only technology that would have been considered relevant in 1992, no more and no less. Still barely squeezes into the budget. So yeah, I agree on 18K then but not a cent over that, that is my final say.

1994 Camicasi Caspian - Clunker Concept

Demographic Design Challenge #1

So I was bored one day so, after reading this;

I looked at my entrant in that competition and this was the feedback I had for my entry…

2008 Bogliq Kitten Gi

It was a spiritual replica of a Toyota Yaris 1.3 (?) w/ a 6 speed manual gearbox. I’m not disputing the results BTW, I just want to point out that my NA Yarliq was hosed by all the power builds and was way off the pace; despite it being new, light and reliable! (Knugcab may be able to remember more about my car, lol)

So I decided to modify a car I made for another competition, since it would easily qualify as a clunker race donor in 2020…


The Camicasi Caspian has never looked so good, lol

I tried my best to modify it like I was a backyard enthusiast.

The engine is unchanged except for the adding of a turbo, pod filter, 3" exhaust and cannon muffler. The fuel mixture and timing were optimised to eke out every erg of energy and it has around 7psi of boost.

The gearbox is a 5 speed manual, whereas the competition car was submitted with an automatic, but the car would have been sold as a manual (if it were IRL) so this is still stock. The front rotors were changed from solid to vented discs, easily achieved via the aftermarket, and the brake pad compound was increased from 40 to 70. The rear drums are still present. The wheels were increased from 13" to 15" and are now alloys. The tyre has been widened to 185mm but is still a hard, long-life compound. The springs and dampeners were re-tuned for sportiness and the car was lowered.

No weight was removed via sliders and no settings were changed that, IMO, weren’t viable so the car still has hydraulic steering, five seats and a basic stereo fitted! (Factory fitted, NOT a modded part, lmao)

The results:

  • Power increases from 55Kw to 78Kw
  • Zero to 100Km/h drops from 15.7 sec to 10.4 sec
  • Top speed is unchanged at 190Km/h
  • Automation lap time drops from 3:01.88 to 2:43.8

Conclusion

Look everyone! Check out the awesome car I made! I'm especially proud of how much quicker and cooler it is compared to the original car, lol.

I have no really useful input into making the second edition of the clunker run anything other than a min-max festival of speed. My 2c would be to vet each entrant individually, weigh up whether their car qualifies within the structure of the rules, then do a second check assessing whether it clashes with the spirit of the competition. The IRL clunker races usually penalise dodgy entrants with fines (that then get donated to charity) to encourage fairness, but clearly this won’t work for a forum competition, lol.

But I had lots of fun making this modded Caspian and I wanted to share it with everyone since I’m really happy with how it turned out and I want to inspire others to share their creations while we wait for the rules to be finalised, lol

1 Like

https://youtu.be/h307rZ0K7f8 hope we will have something like this in the end. So, no min max 200 Hp plus cars. Up to 200 is more than enuff.

OK, I have more or less decided on what I think is a fair compromise now.
As usual, I’m sure people is going to complain about this, but TBH, I ran the previous competition and I know what happened to the different kind of entrants there, and how to make it more “fair” to more realistic entries.

Now, try to read this multiple times until you are sure that you completely understand it, instead of making this thread a mess of totally unrelated questions and complaints:

The last time for every 30 minutes of the race, I did a reliability roll and a crash roll.

They worked like this. First I did a roll from 0 to 10. That was made to decide on the maximum amount of damage that the car could get, where 0 was no damage, and 10 breakdown beyond repair. If we take the reliability rolls for example then, we can say that a car had a reliability index of 70 and that the first roll said 10. That meant that it certainly could completely break down. But then the next step was to do multiple rolls between 0 and 100. The maximum amount of rolls that could be done then was 10, because the first roll said so, if the first roll had said “4”, four rolls could have been done. Because the reliability index of the car was 70, any roll that said between 71 and 100 meant that I should do another roll, but any roll that said 70 or below said that I should stop. So if the first roll said a number that was 70 or below, no damage would be recieved. If roll 1-6 was 71 or above, and roll 7 was 70 or below, the car would recieve a class 6 damage (which was a repair that required a short pitstop and slightly lowered the reliability index). If all ten rolls was 71 or above, the car would have a complete breakdown that could not be fixed.

What I will do, is simply that I will do the 0-10 roll twice on cars with more than 4 cylinders (maximum number of cylinders will be 8) or a turbo, and choose the worst case. So if both 0-10 rolls says “0”, then there will be no 0-100 rolls. But if the first 0-10 roll says “0” and the second one “10”, there will be 10 if the 0-100 rolls. If the car has more than 4 cylinders AND a turbo, I will do 3 of the 0-100 rolls.

With fiberglass bodied cars I will do the same with the crash roll (which was based on driveability) and do the 0-10 roll twice. Not that it is any worse driveability on fiberglass bodied cars, but they certainly have a risk to take more damage in a crash. If you think that it is “so unfair to cars with X, X and X”, well, don’t build a car with X, X and X then.

The budget will be set at 18K, end of story, if you can’t build an 18K car, you’re doing something wrong.

Sliders has to be set at an amount between -3 and +3, except for the tyre slider, that can be set between -3 and 0. “But they won’t affect anything”, I am going to hear now. Well, if they won’t affect anything why would you even touch them in the first place?

This is the penalty system that I am more or less finished with, if it won’t work this time I have to change it the next time, but we will try it this time. I will come back to the rules for the car itself later.

5 Likes

Yeah, right, I see that stuff is happening here, and I am utterly sorry for having a life in the way for arguing in this thread every day.

The point is, that if EVERYBODY could just use some common sense and build realistic cars, there would be no problem at all. I mean, as it was pointed out earlier, the SPIRIT of the competition means everything. I could as well do this with no limitations for the cars, make it just another race for supercars. What would it change? Absolutely nothing, the cars would do more laps in 24 hours, which is just a number, someone would finish first, someone would finish last.

But when coming to the fun part of this, the RP part, it all would be SO much more fun IMO if everyone could visualize a race where cheap used cars are pitted against each other, not a “build the best sports car you can for 18K”-challenge. If a “best sports car for 18K” challenge had been what I had wanted, I would have started one!

And, as you might understand, the spirit is a bit ruined if this:
1993-Toyota-Corolla-Le-front-right-53054628

Is going to be completely crushed by an unrealistic cheap chinese copy of this:
60LOGEA1

And that was what we came dangerously close to the last time. I really didn’t want to make a thick rulebook for this, but I realize that it is probably what I will have to do to make this work.

We can take another example about the difference between IRL and Automationverse. There is a sports car with spaceframe construction, lightweight plastic body panels, mid mounted V6, double wishbone, four wheel disc brakes etc. that maybe due to rarity would not appear in a race like this in Sweden, but absolutely possible that it would in the states. I am of course talking about the Pontiac Fiero. I don’t know if prices are rising now, but for a long time they were cheap. Why? Because they were laughable with performance that really didn’t live up to the rest of what the car promised.

In Automationverse, however, nobody would build a slow ass Fiero for a competition like this, they would build a 300 hp Fiero and sweep the floor with every other car. If Fieros had looked like that IRL however, they would have been utterly expensive today. So the result is that I have to make rules that makes a Fiero replica totally out of question, unfortunately.

We can take another example.

Trafikjournalen is loosely based on the Swedish automobile magazine “Teknikens Värld”. This competition is based on a similar race they ran yearly in the late 80s/early 90s. And, it really was about pitting clunkers that were on their last leg against each other. So, I am going to present the winner from one of the years. Was it a Porsche? Lotus? At least a Golf GTI or Saab Turbo, right?


Believe it or not, it was one like this. A 70s Opel Kadett. They had a 1,2 litre pushrod 4-cylinder that made 58 horsepowers, did 0-100 km/h at around 20 seconds and had a top speed of around 140. Why it won? Because they could run like that for miles after miles without breaking, and still only be sipping fuel. It was dead reliable and it was far between the refuelling stops. Now, I tried make a replica some years ago and it didn’t turn out well, it got horrible gas mileage like most cars with carbs, but…still, I think you get the point?

What I REALLY would like to do, if it wasn’t for the fact that I would get so many complaints for it being “unfair” and “biased” and “impossible to know what is being judged or not” is to simply put HEAVY reliability penalties on:
A: Unrealistically fast cars for the budget
B: Cars that is appearantly minmaxed
and
C: Cars with strange engineering decisions. NO, there was no small hatchback in 1998 that had a ladder frame, solid axles all around with front wheel drive, a transversely mounted 2 litre V12,drum brakes up front and disc brakes in the rear, a front bench seat and no rear seat.

But knowing that I would drown in complaints then, I wont, and I allow for some engineering freedom. Already for the budget, you can build cars that is too extreme for this.

@Chickenbiscuit asked me if he should clean up the thread and I told him to do so later. But first, I really want you to read and maybe also understand my opinions as the host for this challenge.

12 Likes

Small suggestion, maybe to encourage the kinds of cars you want, a power to weight ratio limit could be added (not as a goal for all cars to reach just under, but to weed out the outliers and guide people who still don’t know what to build.)

6 Likes

You could also simply ban V8s. This challenge is to take place is Sweden… I’m not sure how many V8s are roaming around there for cheap.

I built 2 cars that are much more in line with what you’re looking for (one for a different challenge). Even with positive quality points added in strategic places I didn’t crack $16,000. The other one is under $12,500.

I think if you put an emphasis on fuel economy and reliability, cars built for speed will simply not be favored. But, yes, I’m in agreement with Chickenbiscuit about using a power to weight ratio to weed out the race cars (most of the desired cars should fall well below what ever you decide the ratio to be).

A minimum weight would be handy too as lightness is a great way to get good fuel economy and is typically more reliable.

Perhaps mandate sports/standard seats to stop basic seats being used as budget bucket seats (with free reliability)

Could ban 0 comfort cars or mandate a minimum score for the best market to simulate the car being popular enough to not be rare/exotic in 2020.

I’m currently running a hot hatch with 185hp and questionable fuel economy at 70.4 reliability (as of writing).