AlanBDahl

About 3 minutes in to Tuesday night's Caprica a light metallic blue 505 is used as the getaway car for several minutes. This is far from the only time a French car has been used on the show but it's the first 505 I've seen, at least in several close-ups like that.

That song is also on the Car Talk CD I have. Laughed at it even before we got the 505 and I laugh even more at it now!

Nice to see that car restored so nicely! I had been looking at the for sale ad and was wishing there was some way to get it but I simply have too many cars. Glad that it went to a Peugeot enthusiast and I'm even happier to see how nicely it's been restored. I hope that you can find a way to hold onto it as it's such a pretty car. I can relate to the gear shift problem, we had ours come apart and stick our 505 24 Hours of Lemons car in 3rd gear at the Reno-Fernley race in May 2009 and had to drive the last 5 hours with nothing but 3rd gear (and on a track with a pretty steep uphill) so at least you did one better than we did! We've now done four 24 Hours of Lemons races with the car and with the exception of the turbo seal and a few bushings it keeps right on going!

Yes, the adaptors were made so that on the S model a 4x100 45mm offset wheel would match the original offset.

I think you meant LeMans, but that's a funny typo as it implies that our 24 Hours of Lemons team has factory backing which I assure you it does not :-)

We went back to Peugeot rotors for the last race because of som minor machining issues with the 944 rotors there just wasn't time to resolve. Because there was so little time between races we've put off testing the brake rotor solution because Sean's been working too hard recently (his shop makes parts for Boeing) but hope to get it on track after the next race in May. Sean did do a some figuring on the wheel adaptors and says that he would need to do 20 sets to make them for a price that people could afford.

While it's not an SSB car I thought this would be a good place to include a pic of our LeMons Peugeot at the recent Sears Pointless event at Infineon Raceway in California.

For those of you who are SCCA members I though you'd like to know that there's a good picture of a SSB (Showroom Stock B ) 505 Turbo on page 30 (and a smaller version on the table of contents page) in their article on the history of Showroom Stock road racing. I'm not sure who's car it is, I know it's not Victor's because the stickers are in the wrong place and it is number 70 if that helps jog anyone's memory.

I didn't do the actual work but it's my understanding that it was only the rotors and not the hubs that were machined for our race car. However we decided to stick with the Peugeot rotors for this weekend's race as we had other problems (trying to find someone who can properly rebuild a 505 alternator) that prevented us from getting track testing of the 944 setup. Once this race is over and we get some track testing in I believe we might look at selling complete kits (rotors, caliper spacers and new nuts) but that's all speculation at this point until we get the track testing in. Once that happens I'll be sure to let everyone know!

Latest pics are up at our blog: http://teamlemon.blogspot.com I'll see if we can't get a more detailed post up soon but we're all pretty busy getting the car ready for the next race in March (at Infineon/Sears Point).

My friend wanted the option to use the existing Peugeot rotors (which still have some life left in them) as backups for the race car and so didn't want to fiddle with machining the hub so I'm not sure he even looked closely at that option. For a street-driven car (and for someone who doesn't own a machine shop like my friend does) I agree that machining the hubs is probably better if it's possible to do so. Everything went together well today but we didn't get to drive the car because of an odd electrical glitch we didn't have time to diagnose. Should be pics on the blog soon.

We're putting it all together tomorrow but it's looking good. Needed to lightly machine the rotors, add 7 extra holes and make up thicker spacers but that's it. My friend who owns the car is thinking about selling complete kits with rotors, spacers and new wheel nuts (he made some of those too). Stand by for details but in the mean time check out http://teamlemon.blogspot.com for pics of the rotors off the car.

I don't know how much general knowledge this is but I thought that everyone would like to know that we managed to adapt a set of vented '83-'86 Porsche 944 brake rotors to fit our '88 Turbo S race car with just some small machining to the rotor and caliper. Wasn't that hard and at $57 a rotor at NAPA for Italian Brembo rotors it's a lot better deal than the $350 Peugeot rotors. All you need to do is drill new holes in the rotor to match the Peugeot pattern and then machine a little material off the caliper and you're done. I didn't do the actual work so I can't give more details than that right now but if folks are interested I can find out what the exact modifications were.

Has anyone ever brought in a whole car? Inspired by a 205 GTi I saw last weekend (a real '80s grey-market car with docs and everything) I've found a very nice low-km 1985 205 GTi in France that I'd love to bring home. As of January 1, 2010 it will be 25 years old and totally US-legal so the only problems are logistical. However I'd need to contact the seller, negotiate a price, pay him somehow and then arrange for shipping and the whole process seems daunting. Has anyone ever gone down this path?

The December issue of Grassroots Motorsports magazine has a small picture of our 24 Hours of LeMons Peugeot 505 Turbo highlighting their Dirt Cheap Racing: 24 Hours of LeMons article. There is also a story detailing the crash of our tow vehicle, trailer and race car on the way to the 2008 Thunderhill race in the January issue of Car and Driver magazine in the "10 Best Car Crashes I Walked Away From" section.

I wanted to follow this thread up with a quote from our team captain, who was originally reluctant when I suggested running a Peugeot at the 24 Hours of Lemons. He posted this on our blog and I think that the Peugeot community will really enjoy what he had to say:

Thanks for the good wishes! BTW anyone who's on Facebook can now become a Fan, just search for "Pujo!" (exclamation mark included) and click on "Become a fan".

Thanks! We'll be back for the Thunderhill race in November with the problems fixed and hope to do even better!

This last weekend my teammates Sean, Doug, Scott, Bret and I competed at the Reno 24 Hours of LeMons race at Reno-Fernley Raceway in Fernley Nevada. As you may recall we were originally entered in the Thunderhill race back in December but we were cut short by a roll-over crash that destroyed our tow vehicle and trailer but thankfully not the 505. This time we made it down there and were looking forward to the race. At the practice we managed only 5 laps before dumping oil on the track. Turns out that the lines for our RX-7 oil cooler were a little short and the fittings loosened up. Thankfully the local NAPA was able to quickly make us up a couple of extensions for the lines and we were back in business. Saturday things went well for a while but then the shifter jammed in third and we had to use bailing wire to get the shifter working again. Unfortunately the repair cost us 20 minutes but we were back on the track again. I was second-to-last in our 5-driver rotation and finally it was my turn to drive. I quickly learned that road racing is nothing like autocross or the one track day I'd done before. On the second or third lap I got trapped behind a much slower car, jogged to the right around him just at the same time a Mustang tried for the same spot and we came together with a loud bang. I was convinced that the car had been badly damaged but the only evidence of damage was a small bit of white paint on the bumper and one rear wheel. Normally when there is an on-track collision both cars are black flagged and called into the pits for one of LeMons unique judges penalties but neither I or the Mustang was flagged. The car was working great however, it had tons of power and handled incredible. I could floor it the entire length of the curvy front "straight" and just eat up the distance to the drivers ahead of me. The breaks were absolutely incredible. We'd disconnected the ABS on our '88 turbo, replaced the Pug's auto proportioning valve with a manual one, installed Hawk black race pads on the front and Porterfields on the back. I could brake as much as I wanted with no fade at all. We had decided to do short driver stints so we could all get some seat time up front in case the car broke so my session was over after only about 30-40 minutes but that was fine with me because I was exhausted from the traffic, the 85-degree heat and, well the exhaust of some of the junkers I got caught behind. When I came off the track I was called into the judges area and was given the "DMV" penalty for the on-track incident. The DMV penalty required filling out, in detail, a 4-page accident report which ended up giving us about a 30-minute penalty by the time we made it back to our pits. We finished Saturday in 49th place (of 102) and were very happy with how well the Peugeot was working! Sunday it was my turn to drive first off and I instantly felt comfortable behind the wheel and started pushing harder and harder passing pretty much whenever I felt like it. However on a steep uphill section I got checked by a slower car and had to downshift to second. When I shifted back to third the shift lever stopped moving and once again we were stuck in third. We spent over half an hour trying to unstick it before I went back out and just drove the whole course in third. Thankfully it was a fairly tight track so I could do it with the cost of only 10-15 mph on the front straight and a 5-10 mph on the rear straight. Not having to worry about shifting allowed me to concentrate on my driving and braking harder into the turns allowed me to pass all but the fastest cars. By the time I came in I'd done about an hour and a half but still felt fresh because the Peugeot was so easy to drive. My teammates Scott, Doug and Sean finished out the day moving us up to 37th overall and 11th in class. Given that we'd spent about two hours off the track between the repair sessions and the penalty I thought that was not too bad. I think if we had not had any problems and drove longer stints we could easily have finished in the top 10. We'll be back at the Thunderhill race in December and hope to do even better! I'd like to thank all the folks on this forum and here in the Northwest for all their advice, it was very helpful. And a special thanks to Victor Van Tress for sharing his Peugeot speed tips! You can check out more details on our blog.

The race is actually about 15 hours since we won't be racing at night but the same issues apply. We plan to make the car more reliable by making sure all the performance-related parts are in top shape (well at least as good as we can make them given our limited budget), by removing anything we don't need like a/c, changing all the fluids and lastly testing, testing, testing. The Peugeot is a pretty reliable car to begin with so as long as we make sure there are no vacuum leaks or funky electrics before the race and then we drive to preserve the car we should do very well by the end of the race.

The only way to do at an endurance race is to drive fast and clean. If we end up bending the car IMHO we've done a bad job. Don't get the idea we're a bunch of good-old-boys who are out to bang fenders, we're a bunch of serious racers (well mostly serious, the aim of LeMons after all is to have fun) and we have a plan not only to finish the race in one piece but to come in first! When you see the completed car you'll also notice that rather than some funny theme like so many of the entrants it will look as close as possible to Victor's SSB-winning car right down to the "Peugeot-Talbot Sport" stickers. Interestingly we've already had not one but two offers from people that want the car for rally racing once the LeMons race is over! We're not really sure what we will do with the car if it survives in one piece, but I suspect one way or the other it will be racing for as long as possible!

The car looks a lot better in pictures than it does in reality. For some reason the faded red paint which consists of at least three different shades looks good in flash pictures. If you go to the photos page link (here) and look at the outside shots you can see how faded it is. Also the car was in a tremendous rear-end collision at one point, there is 4" long tear in the sheet metal on the passenger side where the C pillar attaches to the trunk and another one of similar size on the driver's side in the wheel well. If you grab the the rear bumper you can actually wiggle the trunk up and down! Also the hit was so hard it buckled the floorpan in the cockpit and twisted the driver's seat mount like a pretzel. Thankfully the rules require us to replace the seat mounting and the cage will stiffen the bent chassis but trust me body-wise at least it was a candidate for the wrecking yard! Thankfully the engine is in good shape and we also have a parts car with a 100% straight body but a blown-up engine (go back to May and look at the black car we first found) so the post-race plan is either to swap the running gear from the race car into the other body or sell both to someone as a do-it-yourself Peugeot kit . So hopefully none of you will hold it against me too much for using a Peugeot for a race car! The race hasn't happened yet, we're preparing the car for the Thunderhill LeMons race on December 27-28, 2008. Keep checking our web page for details on the build and Jalopnik.com's LeMons page for all LeMons-related happening BTW if anyone wants to help we're allowed to increase our budget by the amount we can get for parts we sell off the car. We've sold the wheels and a few other parts but still have plenty of items (like a complete grey leather interior in decent shape, the window motors, sunroof parts, etc.) that we'd like to sell. Let me know what you're interested in and I'll see if we have it or not!

I'm looking to buy an '89+ limited-slip rear end, preferably from an '89 Turbo automatic (or maybe a V-6 automatic, if the ratio is right). I'm looking to upgrade the non-LSD rear end in my '88 Turbo S sedan and am also looking for a lower-geared rear end than the standard sedan rear end. Something in the Seattle/Portland/Vancouver BC area would be preferred but any place else would be ok if the price is right.

The '85 does not have an intercooler and the '86 does. I would want to retain the intercooler which of course would require either using an '86 hood or putting in a hood scoop.

Would there be any issues swapping the turbogas engine from a 1986 automatic wagon into a 1985 turbo sedan with a 5-speed? Is it a simple swap or are there other parts that would need to be swapped? Is the wagon's turbo engine the exact same as the sedan's or are there internal differences (cams for example). Apologies if this is addressed in the archives, I am new to the Peugeot world and am still learning about them.