Acura Legend is rotten

You rarely see any Japanese cars get raced in the scrambles, primarily I think because people seem to think that their Japanese junk is worth more money than it is and you therefore rarely find them for sale in the $200 range. Well I can now attest that Japanese junk is just that junk.

I ran an Acura Legend at Ionia last weekend and when we prepped it we knew that the car was fast and weak. Apparently Acura's rust in all sorts of strange places. For example I have never seen the inside sheet of metal on a door rusted through but due to poor drainage design on the windows they were rotten. More critically so was some of the frame.

Now the car was fast and after navigating the mess of the first corner I found myself in second but I also found myself with the brakes failing badly. That meant I had to corner on other cars and I was beating a weak car hard. I kept plugging until - nothing - totally dead. Tried to restart and it felt like I had no power. As I was cursing I caught sight of the battery box strapped to the floor next to me. The ratchet strap and come off, the top of the box was off and so were the cables off the battery. How the heck do battery cables pop off.

The answer revealed it self at the end of the race. The complete engine cradle and floor of the front of the car had dropped. In fact the oil pan was now a fingers width above the ground. Now thats bad tin worm when an entire engine cradle collapses. It was so bad I couldn't even get it back on my trailer. Thanks to the guys from TAK Motorsports for getting it out of there.

And the moral of the story - stick to driving GM junk its the only junk tough enough.