Newbie '70 Spider owner

[Five40iguy]

Greetings everyone and all I can say is I purchased my vintage 1970 124 Spider with intentions of running it at the 24 hours of Lemons at the High Plains Raceway but after sitting in it, (at 6'4" and 300# I have to admit fitting quite nicely), closing the roof and rolling up the window, getting out and looking at how really straight the body is, I think this will be a summer cruiser in the hills close to Evergreen and the Garden of the Gods in Co. Spgs. I promised the former owner to send him e-mails of the restoration so if of interest I can post here and when questions arise hopefully some of you can help me out.

[2ndwind]

Welcome,
Very cool. 1970 Spiders are becoming rare. Any pics?

Pic tutorial is here:
http://www.fiatspider.com/f08/viewtopic ... res#p37831

[Exit98]

Hey,

Glad you joined. Please try to save the 70 if you can. They are real nice and there's not too many left.

You can still do the LeMons in a spider. There are certainly plenty around that aren't worth restoring.

Search the forum for LeMons if you haven't done so yet. One of this board's most active posters and a true Fiat nut, Denise Burchette and her team fielded a Spider in a Lemons race not too long ago. You can read all about it.

Heck, she still has the car. Maybe you can buy it.

[pooldoctorstl]

I also had a 1970 Spider that I was going to build into a vintage race car recently but it was in too good of condition and I couldn't bring myself to sacrificing it for a race car, so I sold it and bought a race ready 1975 Spider. If you want a LeMons car, I would pick up a late 70's car that isn't as desirable as a 1970. And like Exit98 said, you should contact Denise and get the low down on LeMons racing a Spider. There are also a few guys here that race it with her that will undoubtedly chime in. Stay tuned...

Jeff

[mdrburchette]

Welcome to the forum! Like the guys say, there are plenty of later model Spiders that would work better for a Lemons racer. Not only is the 70 getting exceedingly rare, but the later ones with the heavy bumpers could work in your favor. We welded the bumper shocks to keep them from collapsing in case we had to put a little nudge on someone. with the 70, you don't have that option. Also, a bigger motor, like the 1800 or 2L would fair better. The Spider may not be the best endurance racer, but it's certainly not the worst. If you get the chassis set up to handle well, with good tires, you can out manuever most of the cars on the track. The only problem we had once we got a reliable engine, was we stuck with the 13" steel wheels, making it hard to find a good gripping tire, and we had a torrential downpour of rain that was not suited for a topless, windshieldless bathtub on wheels. Other than that, the racing brake pads, the elimination of the booster, the big carb and aluminum radiator from a 240 volvo worked in our favor. I think we would have snagged more than just the Most Heroic Fix award if we could have run both days. here's a pic of the #124 Dixie Chickens LeMons racer in all it's glory:

[azruss]

Denise, i like the lightening work you did on the bottom of the front fender and the rear flairs.

[mdrburchette]

Haha, I achieved quite a bit of weight reduction by eliminating the floorboard and shock towers.