#lemonsworld

A field-find C3 Corvette gets new life as a Lemons racer. How did they keep it under $500? And they used WHAT engine?
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[@jospi2]

My Corvette is best Corvette because it's the only one with a BMW engine.

[@LaterMeansBrick]

Don't lowball me son, I know what I've got.

[@bobroberts2371]

@@LaterMeansBrick But does anyone else know what 'ya gots?

[@sunnohh]

This

[@Fir3Chi3f]

Is this a RCR review?

[@Beanpapac15]

the only corvette thats actually "oNe oF A kINd"

[@liwoszarchaeologist]

Lemons is a place for builds that don't belong in any other racing series, and it's great the judges can be flexible for rides that improve the overall pageantry of the event even if it's not always necessary. The reality is that half the field at any race is more cheaty, less creative, and much less aesthetic than this C3.

[@omega1575]

Yeah, cause that is an extremely low bar. To reach that bar you would need to cheat at least some (no matter how small) not have an amazing paint job, and drive a common car

[@knarrlyboy7821]

I had a guy make me rebuild a engine without cleaning any outer covers. Then after reinstalling it he sprayed the engine down with oil and drove it down a gravel road to hide all the new gaskets. 1500$ rebuild on just the engine. Apparently it worked because he was allowed to race. Lemons seems like old nascar, if you ain't caught, it ain't cheating.

[@omega1575]

i think its less "dont get caught", and more that there arent many things to cheat on, aside from budget and saftey (which you probably dont want to do)

[@comethiburs2326]

that's creative rule bending, now if that engine was bored over, arp'd to the bone it would be scummy. a rebuild? that's fine... nobody wants to spill oil everywhere.

[@inmt42003]

“C Tree” brought to you by the wood council .

[@omega1575]

It’s a c tree cord-Vette

[@opl500]

They designed a race capable C3 for less than $500, GM couldn't do it for less than 1000000x that.

[@Bread996]

Sure, but can he build 50,000 of them for $500 each? :)

[@RENO_K]

@@Bread996 - - -) your existence is dissapointing

[@Bread996]

@@RENO_K Huh? You're stupidity as a human is dissapointing.

[@purpleneons]

@@Bread996 your*

[@omega1575]

i would be over the moon if i got a c3 corvette for less than $3k

[@offbeatrobotics]

I've certianly seen them go for right around that locally, though in YIKES condition.

[@Levibetz]

You'd have to pay me $3k to get a C3 corvette. Source: I've worked on them, everything said here is true.

[@thatonenigeriansformula]

my favorite corvette is the c5

[@terryshrk]

@@Levibetz You should try working on 70s Ferrari! Talk about overrated garbage!

[@Levibetz]

@@terryshrk I have heard they're pretty janky haha

[@gafrers]

Next we will have a "Why ruin 500$?"

[@bobroberts2371]

7:36 The hole just ahead of the Stingray name plate is for the factory burglar alarm key switch.

[@mzaite]

As the owner of the Thunderbird Wine T-bird from a few years back before a janky dork re-theme. (new one for 2021 I hope!) A modestly good paint job and cut vinyl brings out people's "$500 my ass" faster than a Camaro with a $25,000 race engine and a house paint paint job does.

[@TheAtb85]

"You get to keep the rusty chassis, if you give me the money from selling the new parts." Nice fair arrangement right there. Glad he turned it into an actual racing car.

[@comethiburs2326]

eh even a crappy c3 shell can be worth money!

[@aleksanderpopov5060]

Love the lemons atmosphere is freeing. When I see a lemons 🍋 race I think soft rock a hearless eagle 🦅 and a bit of lsd

[@geofframsey9193]

So what I’m getting is that this build, while awesome, isn’t anywhere close to actually qualifying under the rules without having connected friends. How very racing.

[@Gaphalor]

well if you have some racecar sitting around and swap all the parts for "free", doesnt it defeat the purpose of the 500 quid rule?

[@Doomsday_Report]

They said "donor cars" regarding making the cost back so I assume it sold as a shell and he kept the choice bits

[@christianbuczko1481]

@@Doomsday_Report he had to give alot of expensive parts to keep the shell. Thats cost him...

[@Andrew-hh3ol]

But if you spend $500 of your time doing elbow grease or don’t include tools then $500 car is out the window

[@maxsdad538]

No, you can't take an existing race car (unless it's an old Lemons car) and sneak it in.

[@MyassesDragon]

These cars are still not $500. The only real way to enforce $500 limit is to make them $500 claiming, so that anyone can go up and claim these cars for $500.

[@paulrd95]

its in the rules that they (lemons staff) can claim any car at the end of a race

[@fredygump5578]

There should be a special "Lemon-Cycling" challenge, where a group of teams mix and matches their chassis and engines, when one team pulls an engine out of a car, that chassis goes to another team, who swaps in some other engine....no car remains stock, and none of the usable parts from any cars goes to waste! It would be good for the environment too!

[@comethiburs2326]

they allready do that on the regular. small block swaps, SHO swaps, duratec swaps... some engines just dont do the job.

[@fredygump5578]

@@comethiburs2326 I think you missed it. I proposed a game where teams are randomly assigned whole cars or car parts that they have to use.

[@keeganwebber]

I love that he kept the e34 ellipsoids in the corvette housings

[@spraynpray]

I got a convertible e36 with an m50 recently. It had almost 100k miles on it. The head gasket is gone. The trans is bad. The AC, heater core, radiator are bad. The roof doesn't work. The windows don't work. The e-brake doesn't work. The electric seats didn't work. The shifter was bad, so I replaced it, the shift linkage is super sloppy. As far as I know, no part of that car made it to 100k miles. Edit: The shocks are gone at all four corners, too.

[@mikehagen3785]

I literally bolted C3 front disc brakes to my 66 Impala

[@GunFunZS]

@III Vance Then you will like subarus. So far they have the most direct bolt on factor of anything I have wrenched on.

[@DD-bv9jl]

@@GunFunZS I've hesrd the imprezas can directly use forester turbos and vice versa

[@GunFunZS]

@@DD-bv9jl yes. Most models can mix and match with brake and suspension hardware too.

[@richardcampbell7903]

by this logic, I can build a million dollar super car and "give" it to a friend and he can enter the race since he has less than $500 into it. Seems like a "liars loophole" to me.

[@omega1575]

They have a rule specifically to plug this, the purchase price is for the last “real” time the car changed hands

[@Aaron36983]

Great idea. Keep in mind lemons reserves the right to claim any car entered for $500, and it's been excersized twice. With that in the back of everyone's mind, makes them respect the budget rule

[@PUNCHARD800ftlb]

probably coulda sold the bmw engine and bought 3 ls

[@CasualGearheads]

If Lemons ran in Europe you'd prolly get a lot of BMW powered american iron. Be a lark.

[@MiGujack3]

Not sure about that, I would bet more towards VW engines, especially TDI's.

[@CasualGearheads]

@@MiGujack3 All the shitbox drifters here run BMWs :)

[@mjrchapin]

This one is hilarious--never saw Nick work so hard to suppress his laughter.

[@robertmattox9715]

Honestly I think lemons is made for ppl who have wild imagination and some brains to get it done . True shade tree mechanics.

[@renz1013]

Now this looks like a job for me

[@bigcedarranch]

lol my dad has 3 c3s that have been sitting for for AT least a decade. This is so tempting

[@aliassmithandjones9453]

with the declining value of the US dollar isn't it about time to adjust for inflation and bump the $500 cap up a bit? $500.00 in 2011 (first race?) is worth only $432.11 in 2020

[@zuranku]

And you can't find much for that much anyways.

[@plektosgaming]

@@zuranku Raising it to $600 seems appropriate. ( $578.44 adjusted for inflation, but close enough )

[@zuranku]

@@plektosgaming inflation but also taking into consideration how low our buying power is and the cost of wages dropping

[@plektosgaming]

@@zuranku I think for the sport to survive, they need to raise it to $1000 but hold hard limits on that price/not have someone sell 2 cars worth of parts to get $3K worth of car within budget.

[@rudymwaurah]

This story is the reason petrol runs through our veins. Absolute classic.

[@Vok250]

So you just have to "own" all the parts before deciding to build the lemons car? Yeah that's not a huge loophole.

[@discogodfather22]

Never understood why you guys adhere to the $500 thing. Why not just actually appraise the car as it is and allow it or not based on the appraisal. Someone would pay way more the $500 for that vette, obviously.

[@mikemcc1156]

He told me most of this story when we were in Shelton lady year. Great car

[@glhsracing9616]

$500 car my A$$ lol. I love all these builds

[@youknoweverything7643]

That c3 is actually a beautiful looking vta style racecar

[@ivanjimenez8868]

Anyone else notice his LS powered Caprice PPV?

[@clintdavis9511]

You lost me at a SBC is the worst choice.

[@maxsdad538]

When they say the SBC is a shit box, they're NOT talking about the SBC of the muscle car era (up through 1970).

[@XBullitt16X]

I mean this is awesome, they took two highly damaged cars and turned it into one awesome hybrid.

[@Ultrase7en767]

Even as a Corvette guy I thought this was awesome

[@matthewjohnston1400]

I thought the theme-related costs didn’t count toward the $500. This is incorrect? Also, if pull your own parts from a vehicle you have around, do you not have to assign a value to these parts?

[@ObsoleteGamercom]

Sweet ride!!!

[@jameson6930]

Aaron's expertise priceless

[@SilvesterHumaj]

Correction: C3 Vettes are awesome

[@donknetzger4266]

The engine and transmission were free after parting out the donor car? So the value of the donor car doesn’t count towards the $500? If something is given to me, or if I have it sitting in my back yard it doesn’t count towards the $500?

[@PlatinumNath]

It seem to be like that if you can prove you sold or parted away with the remains of the donor car for equivalent or more value than what you bought it, or difference is just enough to reach the limit of budget. Like the budget shaving for competing cars to get them down to "$500" value by selling off interior pieces and stuff and deduct results from vehicle buy price

[@rkirschner7175]

Love that car. ❤😈

[@thetreblerebel]

C3s are my favorite Corvettes right above the original 53 body

[@JL-dz8sj]

Good luck getting 95’ e34 with the 5 speed for cheap anymore

[@youknoweverything7643]

Umm the new inbox restoration parts I would have never sold and built me a nice c3 car for the road lmao not lemons but this is a cool lemons I'm thinking of using a Buick roadmaster they have a 90s Corvette engine

[@my4cars528]

Sick Build!!

[@tuba4573]

Have i ever mentioned how much i hate divorce court

[@truebetold65]

It a beautiful car

[@addicted2projects1]

So you telling me if I part out enough cars I can run what ever I want with no penalty. Is that really how we are going to do this?

[@Gaphalor]

This is the "I have a racecar junkyard, a repair shop and a retired raceteam and the total cost comes to 427Dollars" Method

[@user-ys9to2ie7k]

By running the BMW motor are you running in a different class than you would be if you ran the required GM motor!?

[@Generic_Title]

I’d love the same set of headlights for my ‘76 but cheapest I can find them for is around $800...I got an idea, I’ll buy the car for $500 he can keep the drivetrain and wheels/tires. Deal? No? Didn’t think so lol

[@comethiburs2326]

you can make your own headlights covers easily. either by vacuforming them or by heating carefully plexiglass over a shaped mold. what's expensive is making these covers without having lens distorsion... and i bet even the 800$ ones are not dot legal.

[@Generic_Title]

@@comethiburs2326 except I’m pretty positive they didn’t. My original comment was towards how Lemons “rules” are more suggestions to be read and forgot. per Lemons rule book - Vehicles must be acquired and prepared for a maximum of $500 (exclusive of safety gear) Lemons is a joke

[@christianbuczko1481]

The car was NOT free, he made a deal to give thousands in parts and he kept the car. The alternate is he kept the parts and got rid. So in effect he had a choice and he took the shell at high costs...

[@Merkafide]

I want answers on the FD RX7 with the LS

[@mzaite]

I believe that one started its racing life as a car that was very ON FIRE.

[@Merkafide]

@@mzaite that makes more sense. Still blow my damn doors off every time. I’m pretty sure they get tons of penalty laps too

[@kavinskysmith4094]

What year with the Impala control arms by the way?

[@perryman333]

Straight trade e36 m50 sump for e34 m50 sump? Ouch, he coulda made the whole build $0 by just selling that e34 oil pan.

[@nicholasgade2288]

Lmfao, great entertainment.

[@TwoAcresandaMule]

This shit is amazing

[@truebetold65]

If this car had was made by Ferrari then people would say oh this is by far the most beautiful car ever. So silly.

[@maxsdad538]

Well, the Corvette body WAS fuck ugly. So honest.

[@truebetold65]

@@maxsdad538 you must be a Hyundai type person. So sad.

[@simonbarbarasch7169]

what about the trasmission??

[@Mecharuva]

My Corvette is best Corbette because herburberburbleburberber.

[@petrsulc1168]

well the "free" engine is little bit against the rules. You could buy 5 cars, part them out, take one major component (body, engine, trans, and so on..) of each and ussually you would end up on 0, if you bought well. (4.1.2. in the rules) But yeah, it is roughly lemon and mostly it is in lemons spirit, so why the hell not.

[@papa_pt]

I was about to type this out as well..seems like a technicality that the transmission was "free" just because you have donor cars lying around.

[@automatteck3477]

@@papa_pt they noted in the video that he parted out both the engine donor and his track car that he pulled the transmission from, and apparently managed to more or less bring his net costs for both down to zero.

[@papa_pt]

@@automatteck3477 yes the above two comments consider that a big loophole of sorts

[@jfbeam]

The donor car was $300 to start with. People don't realize how cheap some things actually can be. (and the paint and graphics don't count either.)

[@mmmlinux]

aka "500$ my ass"

[@bigharrykochenbauls4567]

interesting

[@miyaaaaw]

sweet

[@glennoropeza3545]

The mid '70's C3 were utter garbage! No trunk! No horsepower -190hp! The front nose is bonded on so if you wreck it you're talking expensive! The only thing that was actually a Corvette in the Greenwood race car was the body and engine!

[@eevee5jdm483]

Corvette magazine

[@juanziegler1471]

posters that never worked on cars or are fabricators ,........priceless

[@HarryT9]

The divorce cost him more then $500...

[@maxsdad538]

Alimony... the f*cking you get for the f*cking you got.

[@st1220]

202

[@zacht9447]

That rear fender cost around $500 why didn't you count that. the car didn't come with a passenger rear, Also, it technically was bought by him from his wife for all of the aftermarket parts that he sold, So all those need to be added in.

[@kasuraga]

no. Technically she gave him the car, and he gave her all the money from the parts he sold for her. That's a net zero. She didn't get the value of the parts+the car. Just the value of the parts. From the sounds of it, she gave him the option of She keeps the car AND all the parts, or he gets the car for free, and he has to sell all her parts for her.

[@zacht9447]

@@kasuraga they both would have went to her if the divorce went through normally so no that's not a "net zero" She either keeps them all or he sells all the parts and pays her all that money for the car

[@kasuraga]

@@zacht9447 see, thats not how the wording of the deal works. cause in your scenario, he would then owe tax on the car for the price paid to her. The bill of sale he would receive from her would specifically state the sold price was zero.

[@zacht9447]

@@kasuraga the wording doesn't matter money changed hands for the acquisition of the vehicle

[@kasuraga]

@@zacht9447 actually the wording matters very very much due to it being part of a legal matter. legally speaking, he paid nothing for the car.

[@marcobrancorsini2479]

So... could I run a stolen 911 GT3 RS at the LeMons? It'd cost me zero dollars.

[@maxsdad538]

You don't understand. If you can't prove the $500 limit, you can STILL race... just with penalties.

[@marcobrancorsini2479]

@@maxsdad538 I was cracking a joke bro

[@NGC1433]

To enforce $500 or whatever limit - just make any participant sign a contractual obligation to sell his car to whoever offers him said $500 after the race. This is how all the "FolkRace" type stuff is done here in europe. The limit is usually set closer to $1000, but that's the rule - whoever gives you the money - walks away with your car. No bullshit, no nonsense like "I got it for free" (then put 100K in sponsor parts and labor, but uhm, whatevs) builds.

[@GunFunZS]

Lemons at least started with that rule. Also that there was a vote to destroy one car by the participants of each event. One of the early ones had a BMW crushed with a backhoe which drove stupidly and probably exceeded the price.

[@Gaphalor]

true, i got the shell for free and have all these racecar parts laying around in my yard builds.....

[@harryfritter8266]

Wonder if he'd sell it for $501 dollars?

[@russellzacharias3535]

IIRC, that was one of the original thoughts behind the cars, "if someone offered that amount, $500/$501 you were supposed to be willing to sell it." And that is about where I have issues with the rule, safety items aside, IF I have 99.999% of the build given to me, yea, sure $500 no problem. This one, they pull a trans out of a race BMW at no cost? Or is it just "no cost" if you go back in history far enough so that no one can remember precisely and you assign it a value?

[@nickthompson318]

@@russellzacharias3535 that trans is probably a ZF five speed so about $350 on the open market.

[@NGC1433]

@@russellzacharias3535 This is how FolkRace is ACTUALLY done in europe. There all the participants HAVE TO sell their cars if offered agreed amount, usually equivalent of $1k or whereabouts.

[@DookeyDuke]

C3s drive like Caca. Steering wheel doesn’t even feel connected to the front end. Im SURE a modified one handles much better. Stock though, absolute poop

[@TonyTheBassPlayer1]

I'm 6'3" tall and 235 pounds. I fit in my 76 C3 Vette just fine and as far as C3's being a terrible car, my C3 said to kiss it's ass if you can catch it.

[@maxsdad538]

That model had what... 165hp? Isn't that the year that a Ford station wagon beat the Vette in the 1/4 mile? (snicker, snicker)

[@TonyTheBassPlayer1]

@@maxsdad538 Never said it was stock. Piss off.

[@truebetold65]

I don't know where this Bashing of this beautiful car with the the same frame as the C2 is coming from. It is a funny but a "band wagon" affect and quite a silly following that shows the immaturity of "none car people" of today.

[@666cemetaryslut]

C2 is timeless, C3 is hideous. It looks like a kit meant for a VW beetle.

[@truebetold65]

@@666cemetaryslut Do a survey and ask the ages of 4 to 8 year old boys which one looks better. They haven't been touched by the band wagon affect. The creator of the Vette thought that the C2 was hideous, as well.

[@truebetold65]

@@666cemetaryslut The C2 looks actually like a turtle..or a some type of frog. Complete hideous. I say this all the time.

[@666cemetaryslut]

@@truebetold65 They are objectively ugly, underpowered and worthless. Worst Vettes ever.

[@truebetold65]

@@666cemetaryslut aaaww you want a cookie?

[@drakeroten8928]

So basically just buy a C8 corvette and slap it guts into a $500 car, gg ez

[@spraynpray]

So how many thousand was he over budget? Two grand for the engine, another for the trans, 8-10 for the vette? I'd guess he went over like $15k of things that are "free". Gotta sell $10k of parts and then give the money to your wife to buy a vette, that's "free". I'm glad there's a C3 with a BMW engine in Lemons, but the excuses for the $500 rule are amazingly pathetic. Just stop.

[@kylescaggs]

This video is complete cringe

[@mclovin583]

Why do you talk so slowly??

[@cmarz6564]

Most ruin BMW with pushrod trash... the only thing on that corvette that was designed by a real engineer is the BMW engine he put in it.

[@Margarinetaylorgrease]

Trump 2016

[@Margarinetaylorgrease]

They shall know me by the trail of my sh.. (poo poo)

[@larryhullinger4141]

$500 my ass They spent way more then that