NoRotors.com - RX7 Engine Swap Forum
Off-Topic => The Lounge => Topic started by: sciff5 on July 02, 2017, 01:24:37 AM
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So I drove myself crazy for about a month jumping from car to car.
It started out after I saw how cheap the 996 porsches were. And I said wow a porsche would be kinda cool.. But I drove it and I was bored to death, and the Cabriolets look kinda round and soft.
And I then proceeded to drive everything from a miata to a Viper and some cars inbetween (s2000)
Actually liked the lightweight feeling of the miata the most, with the ride and comfort of the S2000. So thanks to suggestions from thus board (freeskier) I found out that it would be difficult but I might actually be able to make an Elise fit the budget.
Drove one again to make sure I still liked it and it was exactly as I remember from 10 years ago, although my ass doesn't fit in the seat anymore... nevermind I can fix that.
I had a bit of a fiasco on Lotus talk where I made other people aware of the car and its extensive modifications by way of asking them for help with information needed because I wasn't sure about fixing the damage to the car.
So I got bid up pretty good on the car, but what they don't know is the dealership that sold the car to the current owner, had reciepts for more than 25k of work done on the car, and the sales manager really went out of his way by scanning and sending them over to me.
What drew me to this car is the clear title and the fact that it only has 15k miles, but I'm going to need to become best friends with a fiberglass guy:
(http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/zm0AAOSwjRpZOwfU/s-l1600.jpg)
(http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/1RoAAOSwq~tZOwkn/s-l1600.jpg)
(http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/05gAAOSwCmZZOwki/s-l1600.jpg)
(http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/ziQAAOSw8GtZVBSW/s-l1600.jpg)
(http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/~ZsAAOSw~XpZVBWb/s-l1600.jpg)
(http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/wacAAOSw0j9ZVBdo/s-l1600.jpg)
And here's some of the reciepts/invoices the dealership sent me:
(http://i.imgur.com/cIQ13eS.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/Ihfx0rI.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/poslPeK.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/WR6HLez.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/EWPfbZD.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/IBRWdNk.jpg)
Car should make close to 300whp in its current config on stock motor/stock Compression. I could lower the compression with a thicker headgasket but the rods/pisttons are at their limits anyway. I'll put forged in if I want to crank up the TVS 1320. That blower on a k20 motor I believe made 500+whp. So it's capable.
Now I need to sell off the RX7 parts to pay for the repairs and PRAY that I find these parts used, because the front clam on this car is nearly viper level money if you're buying it brand new.
Already got a quote from Grundy too, only $300/yr to insure.
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Congrats man! Had to laugh at you asking questions on Lotus Talk attracting bidders. Are you planning on getting a Homda motor and putting that supercharger on?
Also misspole on my buddies car its a 2gr swap not a j35. See the build thread below
http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=345041
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Congrats man! Had to laugh at you asking questions on Lotus Talk attracting bidders. Are you planning on getting a Homda motor and putting that supercharger on?
Also misspole on my buddies car its a 2gr swap not a j35. See the build thread below
http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=345041 (http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=345041)
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I don't know if I'll swap it still. This setup may be fast enough. It's cheaper for me to put rods/pistons in this motor, lower the compression and make 350/400 which is way more than enough.
The K swap is expensive. It's worth it if you have a stock motor, but when you have a TVS blower already on your car, maybe not so worth it.
I don't know about about the stock motors in these so I have to do some research to see how fragile they are. If I can put a little more boost through it reliably I'll just do that.
The K20 would make a lot more power, but the RSX-S transmission is garbage, needs to be built for 3k and needs an LSD for another 1k. Plus the swap needs obviously custom half shafts which are almost a grand, so thats a 5k cost of entry (just in parts) to make the transmission/axles right, never mind the swap parts or the engine.
After you've upgraded that suff could you have a 6-700 whp elise, sure, but I don't need that, at least not now.
BTW which motor is the 2gr. I don't know toyota codes
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Cool, 400 whp sounds fun. 2gr is the standard v6 in camrys and avalons etc
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awesome congrats!
will be watching what you do with this for sure.
elise is definitely on my list of future cars to play with
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This little video got me kinda excited
Here's a quick vid of the Rev300 kit which only makes about 250-300whp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUThRcANrk8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUThRcANrk8)
I don't know if I'd go with that exhaust, but it's clearly pretty quick.
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Wow doing some research there are guys pushing 7-800whp with just rods/pistons in the 2zz.
And there's a kit to fit a MR2 Turbo transmission which is nearly bullet proof.
I don't think it makes sense to swap the K motor into this car, from what I'm reading, and based on what the car already has. These cars seem to run solid 11s with only about 300whp so I'll stay there for a while, maybe forever.
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Very cool. Looking forward to seeing it fixed up.
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Wow doing some research there are guys pushing 7-800whp with just rods/pistons in the 2zz.
And there's a kit to fit a MR2 Turbo transmission which is nearly bullet proof.
I don't think it makes sense to swap the K motor into this car, from what I'm reading, and based on what the car already has. These cars seem to run solid 11s with only about 300whp so I'll stay there for a while, maybe forever.
700 hp is crazy cant wait to see what you do
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I like it.
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Nice man. That red Elise launch video is rad.
Where can we follow your build?
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Nice man. That red Elise launch video is rad.
Where can we follow your build?
I'll do a build thread here. I'm a clinger, I'm not leaving Norotors.
This may be a swapped Rx7 forum, but I more see this place as the best of the best car guys from all of the other forums. Most of us started on other cars and on other forums.
I had a reminder when asking Lotustalk for help that most forums are not this place.
Don't worry I'll be begging for fiberglass and body work help soon enough. Asking for all the answers like a spoon fed noob in no time.
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Cool car man I'll be following.
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Found some inspiration.
The wraps and the plasti-dip options are all flat or satin, and I honestly think most of them look cheesy. So I was happy to find a good sating finish for some inspiration.
I think this is very similar to what I have in mind for the end product. I know the storm-trooper look is a bit played out these days, but I have 2 black cars already. I need some ying to my yang.
(http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/attachments/f94/664842d1455056523-fs-05-satin-pearl-white-elise-built-rolling-chassis-img_7017.jpg)
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Flat/satin white always looks good
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Truth
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Can't wait for build thread! The Lotus is definitely a cool car.
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Already finding parts to rebuild the car.
Found a mildly damaged front clam (one single fiberglass piece that wraps around the front of the car like the original dodge viper hood used to, and almost as expensive at 8k new)
The guy wants $500 for it, going to have him ship it out which might cost me nearly as much in shipping.
I also found the front crash structure in the UK, again shipping will cost nearly as much as the part, for about $1,100 shipped, they're $2,900 new. So, so far I'm getting lucky with finding the parts that I thought were impossible to find.
But some things I didn't expect are that all the parts other than the drivetrain, wiring, and appartanly locks are impossible to find outside of the dealership, and the dealers never keep stock. I say outside of those items, because those items are all Toyota parts.
Luckily the toyota locks allow me to get a locksmith to create a key for the car tomorrow.
But replacing the drivers side glass which one of the other guys looking at the car broke trying to get into it, has become a nightmare. No auto glass places carry it and dealerships don't seem to be very concerned about getting back to me.
Good to know dealerships are still a bunch of schmucks even when you're calling Aston Martin/Bentley dealers.
They group all the british car makes together, because none of them are big enough brands to have their own dealership.
Finally someone from the forums came through with a used peice of glass, otherwise it would have been $870 and 2-6 weeks lead time from the dealer.
Just need to get this thing fixed up and than I'm getting a really good insurance policy on it. God forbid if I tap something, as they don't have bumpers just those 8k panels I mentioned (front/rear clam)
Goal is to get this car on an auto transport next week.
BTW if anyone knows anything about fiberglass? Here's the cracked fiberglass front clam that I'm buying for $500. Any remote idea on how much this will cost to get 100%
(http://i.imgur.com/Ije06wa.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/Di5eZCz.jpg)
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You can probably fix that clam yourself if you want to give it a try. Mostly you ground out the damaged area, reinforce the rear and then fill the front close to level, then standard body work. Look up some Corvette repair videos, it's shitty work, but not all that difficult since you shouldn't need to "make" much of it.
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Get a quote from Fastenal forshipping. They rock! And they take care of your stuff too!
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You can probably fix that clam yourself if you want to give it a try. Mostly you ground out the damaged area, reinforce the rear and then fill the front close to level, then standard body work. Look up some Corvette repair videos, it's shitty work, but not all that difficult since you shouldn't need to "make" much of it.
This would be a good piece to learn on. it doesn't look like there are any chunks missing so its mostly reinforcing from the back and then filling the front so it looks nice.
I bet you are excited to actually get the car in your hands!
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Very cool, I will definitely be following this build!
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You can probably fix that clam yourself if you want to give it a try. Mostly you ground out the damaged area, reinforce the rear and then fill the front close to level, then standard body work. Look up some Corvette repair videos, it's shitty work, but not all that difficult since you shouldn't need to "make" much of it.
This would be a good piece to learn on. it doesn't look like there are any chunks missing so its mostly reinforcing from the back and then filling the front so it looks nice.
I bet you are excited to actually get the car in your hands!
Can you tell??
I'm responding to like every post.
Very excited
Buying a used drivers side window from a shop in CA for $100 (not bad!) and he's shipping it to texas to get the window fixed before the shipping company comes at the end of next week.
Locksmith is supposed to get there in a couple hours to make the key for it, so we can finally get the mileage off the vehicle.
Tomorrow my buddy is supposed to meet up with the guy to exchange money / title / bill of sale
Then it should be ready to ship out
I paid for the front clam, and that's getting shipped out next week (also from texas coincidentally)
And I'm still talking to the shop in the UK for the crash structure (crash box) a fiberglass structure basically that acts like a bumper support and an energy diffuser. This one was cracked and repaired.... so trying to figure out the extent of the crack, as this thing collapsing correctly is kinda integral to it's purpose.
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That's cool you got a friend to pick the car up for you. I am surprised there is not an aftermarket option for the crashbox
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That's cool you got a friend to pick the car up for you. I am surprised there is not an aftermarket option for the crashbox
There is, but there is significant engineering that went into that structure to make it crush appropriately. Thats probably one of the last things I would trust the aftermarket to reproduce.
Aftermarket can makes things that are stronger than stock, or lighter than stock, but deform predictably.. I'm not really sure I trust them there.
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There is, but there is significant engineering that went into that structure to make it crush appropriately. Thats probably one of the last things I would trust the aftermarket to reproduce.
Aftermarket can makes things that are stronger than stock, or lighter than stock, but deform predictably.. I'm not really sure I trust them there.
By aftermarket I meant whatever the racing guys use. Are they just stockpiling the stock ones?
Edit: Just googled it and that thing looks terribly complicated...
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Found a new (to me) crash structure that hasn't had any repairs done on it.
It did get a bit roughed up on removal but structurally it looks perfect. Found it in a junkyard in Ohio, after searching for every front part (on the front half of the vehicle) on car-part.com. This was the only Lotus part listed on car-part.com of any sort.
1,000 Shipped, So far I've already sourced the 2 most difficult to find parts of this build and paid for them before the car even got here. A body guy also quoted me about $1,500 to repair the blue front clam in the picture. So I'm still under my budget for the repairs so far. Need to find replacement front grills, and need to decide if I'm keeping or shaving the marker lights. As you can see in the photo I posted of the white car. It has shaved marker lights, which gives the front end a bit more of an Ultima GTR look.
(http://i.imgur.com/QUPeun0.jpg)
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You're making impressive time in getting it all fixed before you receive it, haha. Very cool.
I vote shaved lights, FWIW.
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You're making impressive time in getting it all fixed before you receive it, haha. Very cool.
I vote shaved lights, FWIW.
I know right???
These parts are super hard to find. Like super hard, but I honestly am getting lucky as hell. Finding T2 rear ends and S5 taillights among other niche 80's mazda parts prepared me well for this car.
I was going to pull the yellow reflectors off the fenders. Clear out the yellow, install some Led turn signals and extend the wires to that location. Or just hide some small led indicator lights in the grill.
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Looks 1000 times better without the marker lights.
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You can always make your own mesh grills they can look pretty nice
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This guy is like a human wrecking ball.. he doesn't have a license because he got a DUI. Which explains the real story on what happened to the car, and when signing over the title today he signs in the wrong spot :banghead:
So now he's getting a new title.
This time I'm going to have him sign the bill of sale and have it notarized so I can make sure he's actually who he says he is.And then use Escrow to make sure the car makes it on the trailer. I still haven't asked how he was able to manage buying the car in the first place
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Has your friend met the guy and seen the car/title? Shit like this would make me pretty nervous. Which it seems like you are covering your bases.
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Has your friend met the guy and seen the car/title? Shit like this would make me pretty nervous. Which it seems like you are covering your bases.
Yeah,certainly makes me nervous, so I'm going to have him sign the bill of sale and have it notarized. So the notary will see his ID. Plus I found his FB page, and the dealership was able to confirm his address as the same as what I found. So I feel pretty confident it's him.
Then what I'm going to do is put the money in Escrow instead, that way he doesn't get paid and I don't get the title till the car arrives. This seems to be the safest, wish I had thought of it all from the beginning.
My friend said he;s just that clumsy. the 2 people that have met him both said he seems totally harmless but a complete wreck
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This is a crazy story, but pretty believable as it is Texas. He may have worked at a drill site or something, made a stupid amount of money, blew it on the car and partying then got the DUI, lost his job etc.. Escrow is definitely a good idea, does the title not have to be notarized in Texas? Here in NC it is and while I thought it was a hassle at first, its quite helpful cause the titles don't get filled out wrong and the notary checks the IDs.
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This is a crazy story, but pretty believable as it is Texas. He may have worked at a drill site or something, made a stupid amount of money, blew it on the car and partying then got the DUI, lost his job etc.. Escrow is definitely a good idea, does the title not have to be notarized in Texas? Here in NC it is and while I thought it was a hassle at first, its quite helpful cause the titles don't get filled out wrong and the notary checks the IDs.
It doesn't need to be notarized in Texas or Mass.
He ended up signing over the title with my buddy today. So he was able to get a new title the next day.
He didn't even do what he needed to do on his end for Escrow. He said he felt really bad about screwing up the title, and that he trusted me.. I mean if I get the car and he holds up his end of the deal I almost feel bad for the kid.
I got the crash structure in today. Looks about as good as a used structure can be based on how hard they are to get off the car.
And the guy I'm buying the front clam from built a bumb proof wooden box that weighed over 250 lbs.... bringing my freight quuote from 250 to 1200 dollars.
I immediately had somewhat of a melt down but after talking to freightquotes.com for half an hour I found out that you can bubble wrap and use cardboard on it, and ship it at a higher freight class (higher freight class means its a more delicate item)
And I'm also asking him to drop it off at the fedex freight center and I'm picking it up at the freight center on my end which keeps me at about $260 to ship a 6ft fiberglass panel. Not terrible...
The crash bo/crash structure is super light weight, I'm assuming the front clam will be as well.
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It doesn't need to be notarized in Texas or Mass.
He ended up signing over the title with my buddy today. So he was able to get a new title the next day.
He didn't even do what he needed to do on his end for Escrow. He said he felt really bad about screwing up the title, and that he trusted me.. I mean if I get the car and he holds up his end of the deal I almost feel bad for the kid.
I got the crash structure in today. Looks about as good as a used structure can be based on how hard they are to get off the car.
And the guy I'm buying the front clam from built a bumb proof wooden box that weighed over 250 lbs.... bringing my freight quuote from 250 to 1200 dollars.
I immediately had somewhat of a melt down but after talking to freightquotes.com for half an hour I found out that you can bubble wrap and use cardboard on it, and ship it at a higher freight class (higher freight class means its a more delicate item)
And I'm also asking him to drop it off at the fedex freight center and I'm picking it up at the freight center on my end which keeps me at about $260 to ship a 6ft fiberglass panel. Not terrible...
The crash bo/crash structure is super light weight, I'm assuming the front clam will be as well.
How do you mess up getting an escrow set up? Did he just not go to the lawyers office or something? It sounds like pretty soon you won't have to deal with this nonsense and just work on the car.
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Took another step towards that white car.
Today I went to a local shop that specializes in what they call liquid wraps. Thats what they're calling plasti dip. And the new formula designed to go through a HVLP gun looks legit.
I worked in the auto industry for a while so I saw a lot of cars go to and from the body shop, and the plasti dip job on the 2 cars I saw had factory finish to the paint. It was much better than a Macco job, it was even a better job than those bumper places. It had some texture to the paint, but no worse than OEM.
I was pleasantly surprised, so I've made up my mind that I'm going to have someone fix the front bumper and I'm going to fix the rear bumper and then I'm going to hang some plastic in the garage, rent an air compressor, and buy a decent HVLP gun and spray the car Baloon white with gloss (satin and matte look like shit in reality with real road grime)
Vid of an Evo done in balloon white - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irAcAU_dFW4 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irAcAU_dFW4)
I also took another step towards that white car I used as an example and I just bought a Difflow difuser. It may be useless, but I've always wanted one, and these actually seem to be effective and not too obnoxious looking
http://difflow.com/product/5-element-diffuser-rounded-corners/ (http://difflow.com/product/5-element-diffuser-rounded-corners/)
It came up for sale used.
The goal is to replace the parts that need to be fixed, and upgrade at the same time if possible. And pick up some key parts on the used market as they become available.
Here's the stock diffuser. As you can see it's all bent out of shape so I needed to get a new factory one which would be about 250, so for 400 for a real diffuser... It made sense, or more accurately. I could justify it.
(http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/wacAAOSw0j9ZVBdo/s-l1600.jpg)
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My friend ran a car prep company for movies and commercials. They have done that coating for at least 15 years, pretty neet, and it peels off easily and pretty quickly if needed.
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Cool! I have been debating plastidip for my car as well
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When is the car getting delivered? Can't wait to see the progress!
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posted in the wrong thread lol
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If my paint job that I'm doing on my Mustang turns out shitty, I'm totally doing the high end Plasti-dip over top of it. :D
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If my paint job that I'm doing on my Mustang turns out shitty, I'm totally doing the high end Plasti-dip over top of it. :D
Just try the good plasti dip yourself first, it's cheap enough. Their pro line for HVLPs is called Autoflex. There's another company called Halo EFX as well out there.
Mind you I don't want to come across as too biased so I want to remind everyone that I wouldn't have given plasti-dip the time of day, if I hadn't approached a friend (who wraps cars for a living) to wrap the Elise and he said I should look at the new plasti dip. And he's been the biggest plasti dip hater I know forever.
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Just try the good plasti dip yourself first, it's cheap enough. Their pro line for HVLPs is called Autoflex. There's another company called Halo EFX as well out there.
Mind you I don't want to come across as too biased so I want to remind everyone that I wouldn't have given plasti-dip the time of day, if I hadn't approached a friend (who wraps cars for a living) to wrap the Elise and he said I should look at the new plasti dip. And he's been the biggest plasti dip hater I know forever.
Why are all the demo cars in that horrible color changing paint? The last time I thought that was cool I was 12 yrs old painting my RC cars
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Just try the good plasti dip yourself first, it's cheap enough. Their pro line for HVLPs is called Autoflex. There's another company called Halo EFX as well out there.
I need something more elementally stable than primer before Plastidip goes on as it's somewhat breathable. So I'd need paint underneath to really protect things anyway.
Plus I want a gloss paint that's durable and plasti-dip (and it's children) while neat, are not nearly as durable as "real" paint. :)
But for making things match when you don't need to do a full respray for protection reasons, it's pretty awesome.
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Got the new (or less broken) front clam today. Looks like it got a bit more cracked in transit but still better than what is on the car now
It came in more bubble wrap,cardboard, blankets and plastic wrap than any item I've ever seen. When I unwrapped it there was a small hill of cardboard created in it's wake.
Between parts for the Elise and parts coming off the Rx7, the garage has gone straight to holy fucking disaster zone batman. Is this how hoarders start?
(http://i.imgur.com/VcGmqTW.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/PrU9knX.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/9AUJhCZ.jpg)
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Nice! at least the seller did everything he could to protect it! need to get that FC out of there lol
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It begins!
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Has anyone shipped a car before. It's been nearly 2 weeks and they still haven't assigned a truck. I'm writing emails to the CEO of Montway now. They're literally giving me the run around every day
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I wish you'd asked beforehand. I've had two cars shipped to me in the past two years.
Used BATS Motorsports both times. http://www.batsmotorsports.com/ (http://www.batsmotorsports.com/)
Very reasonable prices for enclosed transport, and even though the second time their driver scratched the lexan windscreen, I sent pictures to them and their only question was for me to get a price on a replacement.
I sent them the estimate, and they Paypaled the money to me the same day.
Accidents can happen with anyone, but they proved to me that they stand behind their work.
If I ever have to ship another vehicle, they'll be the first ones I call.
Their number is (541) 980-5885. Karen runs the office, and is very easy to work with. 8)
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I wish you'd asked beforehand. I've had two cars shipped to me in the past two years.
Used BATS Motorsports both times. http://www.batsmotorsports.com/ (http://www.batsmotorsports.com/)
Very reasonable prices for enclosed transport, and even though the second time their driver scratched the lexan windscreen, I sent pictures to them and their only question was for me to get a price on a replacement.
I sent them the estimate, and they Paypaled the money to me the same day.
Accidents can happen with anyone, but they proved to me that they stand behind their work.
If I ever have to ship another vehicle, they'll be the first ones I call.
Their number is (541) 980-5885. Karen runs the office, and is very easy to work with. 8)
Thank you Cobranut, of course they picked it up friday, after I paid them another $200. The good news is that the driver is from NH and recognized my NH number right away, and the guys speaks English/seems to communicate well.
Along with the lines of the story of this car, the auto transport couldn't fit in the storage facility. So I had to call AAA to come pick the car up and I had to call 3 times and refine my story because they won't pick cars up at storage facilities.
The tow truck drivers for the most part don't care so they're usually not a problem when they get there but getting AAA to pick you up at the race track or grab a project car like this can be difficult if you run into a boy scout on the phone.
After the tow truck met up with the auto transport the car was loaded trailer to trailer very easily.
The kid didn't even have a way to get home and he was about 3-4 miles away so I ended up getting him an Uber and a Pizza to get through the weekend before the check comes. Sent out the bank check today after I got photos of the car loaded on the auto transport. If the car comes and everything is as it seems I'll really honestly feel bad for this kid.
Finally asked him the key question, how he got the money for the car in the first place and it was inheritance :(
Anyway on to better news. I took a night shot of new race car parts:
(http://i.imgur.com/D7qNQ2A.jpg)
And here's the photos the kid took when the car was getting loaded on the trailer, car looks really really nice. Basically just want to lower it slightly, get a small front splitter and maybe the exige side scoops and the car would be literally perfect. But it's looking better from these photos:
(http://i.imgur.com/hdP6Kcq.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/hDIRGMP.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/vtfEJnv.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/wj1CdwR.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/Iq3UT42.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/pLruhMx.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/vhks5YY.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/UEFJY2k.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/IZ7gi1O.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/U76snzg.jpg)
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I hope the build goes smoother than getting the car in your hands!
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I hope the build goes smoother than getting the car in your hands!
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I really hope so man... but I think due to the fact that most of the issues seem to be body work related I'm just going to hand it over to a shop. Just need to find a shop whom I can trust that does reasonable work, and hope that mechanically the car is fine.
BTW better picture of the racecar parts:
(http://i.imgur.com/rfxByNn.jpg)
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Diffuser looks sweet. Hopefully you can find a good shop that does the work in a reasonable amount of time.
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How my day Started:
(http://i.imgur.com/O67eC0V.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/wSF1DMa.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/i3fZxCM.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/zIHdTJY.jpg)
And then Todays trip to the post office to deliver goodies for other's projects:
(http://i.imgur.com/Ts8HpTk.jpg)
And how my day ended:
Finally pictures of the interior. Never saw it in pictures, but it is really nice, or was really nice but it seems like everything inside or outside this car has been dinged, scuffed or somewhat damaged to some degree.. this kid really was a human wrecking ball
(http://i.imgur.com/37C1zbf.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/8DlXXdI.jpg)
Never got shots of the interior so I never realized this thing had Exige seats in it. Such an awesome surprise:
(http://i.imgur.com/BB6TniX.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/qO1zHc0.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/WiefRMO.jpg)
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exige seats are sweet! I think that interior will look super nice with some TLC. The wood garage floor is pretty cool too
Side Note: Do you work for Hayward, saw the box?
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exige seats are sweet! I think that interior will look super nice with some TLC. The wood garage floor is pretty cool too
Side Note: Do you work for Hayward, saw the box?
I don't, I just have a pool that likes to break.
The garage was the barn originally. When they connected the house to the barn they then converted the barn loft into what's now our master bedroom. So it's a pretty cool little space. The wood floor has a lot of charachter and I'm certainly adding to that.
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I don't, I just have a pool that likes to break.
The garage was the barn originally. When they connected the house to the barn they then converted the barn loft into what's now our master bedroom. So it's a pretty cool little space. The wood floor has a lot of charachter and I'm certainly adding to that.
Lol, there's a Hayward plant in our town, and I've got a friend who's an engineer there. Your house sounds pretty cool. When are sending everything to the body shop for repair?
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I don't, I just have a pool that likes to break.
The garage was the barn originally. When they connected the house to the barn they then converted the barn loft into what's now our master bedroom. So it's a pretty cool little space. The wood floor has a lot of charachter and I'm certainly adding to that.
Lol, there's a Hayward plant in our town, and I've got a friend who's an engineer there. Your house sounds pretty cool. When are sending everything to the body shop for repair?
It is a cool house. Only about 2,000 square feet but I noticed that every contractor who comes through comments about how cool it is. Normal people don't seem to notice. But houses were just more interestingly built in the 1800s. I still love it although I could say more has broken in the 2 years we've been here than most homeowners deal with in over a decade.
Already dropped the front clam/bumper off at the body shop yesterday. He's not the cheapest place for sure, but he's trusted by the local corvette guys, he's local and he was within the range I wanted to spend. And the front clam needs to be done right it's where all the focus is on the car.
Paint overall on the car, is not terrible, but like I mentioned inside and out everything is nicked, dinged, pieces are loose everywhere. It's a ton of small stuff both from a body work perspective and interior perspective above and beyond the obvious damage. The car looks like it has 130k miles, not 13k. But overall, I don't know if we need to repaint the car. With just paint correction you could make this car look pretty cool right now.
It looks better in person than in pictures.
From about 15 feet away it's really an eye catching car.
in fact I was outside fiddling with it this morning. I put the battery on the trickle charger last night, and the local dealership is supposed to call me back because I can supposedly start the car without de-activating the alamr system by entering a pin. I need that pin from the dealership. Checked and the car had oil in it. Doesn't look like any leaks underneath, so I may try to start it today.
Anyway while I was out there fiddling a cop pulled over in front of my house. Got out and chatted me up a bit. Said he stopped because he saw the car and didn't know what it was.
I think he was half interested in what it was, and half checking to make sure I wasn't stealing it. So it's already grabbing attention in sleepy new england (land of the silver camrys)
He gave me his card, and I asked him to take it easy on me if I come buzzing by his cruiser :drive:
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Cool, hopefully you can get everything sorted with a dealer. My buddy would drive his to campus all the time and people would always be talking about it. Even one time I was walking by it and overheard some kids saying whoever drove must be super rich to drive a ferrari to class. Had to chuckle to myself cause I knew how much he really paid for it.
Looking forward to updates now that you have it in your garage
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lol it's in the garage but i don't think the rebuild is going to go any smoother at this rate.
the broken glass from the foglight got me good. i looked down at my hand to see my knuckle cut wide open with the center all white. had that experience a few times where i can confirm my bones are indeed white.
figuring i should get stitches but the slight pukey feeling was overcome by basically blind rage at that point. I wrapped it electrical taped it and got back to work. i little worried about unwrapping it later lol but i did disarm the immobilizer.
tried cranking it, it cranked and cranked but zero ignititon. so i'm thinking the inertia switch might have been tripped when he crashed it but the crash doesnt look bad enough. will also find the fuse block to make sure its not just a fuse.
theres an fuel pressure gauge right on the fpr next to the rail so i'll just have my wife look at it while i crank it over, but i dont hear the fuel pump so i'm assuming it's not being powered. The gas in the car is probably a year old too but if it was getting fuel it woulds still have some ignition.
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Not to be a sissy but if you saw white, it could be bone or tenden. If you nick the sheeth on the tendon, it can get infected and super bad things can happen. Get to a doctor and antibiotics. Oh, and use masking tape to bandage wounds, it is easier to remove.
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Havent unwrapped it yet but deff saw prob tendon... it basically opened up a flap on the top of my index knuckle.Never felt it at all. still barely feel it... wierd...
anyway this car may be already drawing blood and sweat (no tears yet) but I got it started. it was the inertia switch. car didn't like the year old gas, will prob siphon that off but it starts now. Of all things the only thing not working is the radio, the wideband, and the radar detector, they all are next to each other so I'm guessing same fuse, but checked all fuses in the car and everything was good
car runs though. Vibrates like a basterd though, bad gas, cold engine and stiff engine/trans mounts prob down't help. hope it smooths out as it warms up:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js3dN0ZxP5k&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=js3dN0ZxP5k&feature=youtu.be)
Btw had another car turn off the road right into my driveway as i was out there to ask about the car... I just told them i was just transporting it for a friend. then got thumbs up from a bimmer driver as i was backing the trailer into the driveway. cant even leave this thing outside without rubber neckers. Theres just no interesting cars around here, not sure i'm really a fan of the attention. That might eventually get really old.
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Alright so update on the car.
I obviously got it started and I wanted to slowly bring it up to temp to see if it would hold. I get the car idling and I see that the temp is rising uncontrollably. The car gets up to about 200 and I shut it off. The radiator is ice cold so I know the thermostat isn't opening. And we grab some of the radiator hoses and they seem empty but we can hear some coolant in the radiator.
So we top off the coolant with some water. We put in maybe a half a gallon in and brought it up to temp a couple more times, revved it up tried to get some air out. We ended up bringing it up to 200 about 3 or 4 times before the thermostat finally opened. We immedialy saw the water in the reservior turn pink as it mixed with the coolant already in the system, and then our radiator started finally getting warm.
From there it held about 195 for 20 mins. We didn't see any coolant leaking out anywhere, and the car's not smoking/no water in the oil. So I'm a bit at odds to where the coolant went... That seems like something that could come back to be a pain in the ass later.
But once we got the car to hold temp we decided to put it in gear and roll it around a bit. It's got a flat tire but it was really nice to back it out of the garage which I did and drove it up and down the driveway a few times. Usually I can tell somewhat how a car is going to feel almost immediately as I take off from a stop and the clutch, engagement and feeling of the car overall just from rolling it 20 feet was very promising.
I also pulled the parts from the front that were destroyed in the crash and I think for this summer I'm just going to run it the way it is, and do all of the work over the winter on the car.
We spent most of today cleaning up the garage again, and cleaning up the car.
Tues I have the new R888Rs coming that I'm going to get mounted, but for now, I still need to figure out how to get the lug nuts off (lol stupid special tool is required from the dealership. I also had to get new jackstands with flat tops. Also bought a new battery. I'm going to try the Lithium Iron battery (The biggest Shorai) which is overkill in terms of CCAs, but the reserve is realistically equivelent to about 10-12AHs. So that should be useable as a dual purpose battery with a tender and a remote shut off switch.
Pictures from today after we cleaned the car up a bit:
(http://i.imgur.com/Nuk4wMb.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/AyZjODP.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/Plf4Ogh.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/iHsFF3Y.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/EKaJ5pD.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/jLXkcBT.jpg)
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Awesome progress. Wonder how the toyos will feel
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
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Looks like the interior cleaned up really nice!
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Pretty cool toy! Hope it works out for you once on the road/track. The coolant thing seems strange.
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Awesome progress. Wonder how the toyos will feel
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The toyos are the new version of the R888s. The tread pattern is more like the NT-01, which is the tire I really want but they don't come in the right sizes for these cars.
Its supposedly stickier than the old R888s in the dry, not as good in the rain, and less noisy, all of which work fine for me.
Pretty cool toy! Hope it works out for you once on the road/track. The coolant thing seems strange.
Yeah I hear you, maybe it's got a slightly blown head gasket and I won't see smoke out of the exhaust until it's under load. But I hope not, no smoke yet and I've revved it up to about 5k, once the thermostat opened it didn't drink considerably more water, so the missing coolant was in the engine area.
Looks like the interior cleaned up really nice!
Yeah its really a nice interior, the guy spent some money, but this nice interior confuses me a bit on this lightweight little car. Here I am surrounded in leather and suede and the car's vibrating like a honda hatch with solid motor mounts.
The vibrations I have found do get better as the car warms up and settles into idle, but still, but I think I'll go back to stock mounts the first chance I get, then it really will feel luxurious (for a 2,000lb car)
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My Focus ST had really loose stock motor mounts and I spent a LOT of time researching a "tighter" solution that wouldn't shake my fillings out. When I was younger I was all for "racecar" but now it's nice to get 90% of the benefit with 50% of the NVH increases. :D On my MINI Cooper I filled the mounts with urethane. I won't do that again, haha.
I went with the upgraded Ford Racing OE manufactured pieces since it seemed a good balance. If Lotus has anything in that range, it's probably worth it.
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Fixed the radio, which was bothering me a lot more than you might imagine. I track 12v power from the radio fuse all the way to a set of relays under the dash, which are FUCK-ALL hard as hell to get to.
I hated getting udner the dash of the FC, this car is a nightmare under there. if you get claustrophobic at all, this would not be the job for you.
So I'm trying to figure out why the radio/Radar dectector/Wideband are all dead. They're all right next to each other and obviously on the same circuit because everything else is working in the car.
So I trace 12v the whole way, to the radio, and I pull the harness for the wideband and check continuity of the ground wire there (figuring they also probably use the same common grounding point, or at least if they don't and it's a grounding issue than one should be working and not the other)
Grounds are good, it's getting power, now I'm thinking the relay is bad, and it is tucked up under the dash, so I'm in the passenger seat, in my driveway (to use the sunlight so I can see) with my feet sticking out of the roof and my head under the dash with the car running to burn off the last bit of the old gas.... ohh what my neighbors must think :D
Finally I remember that the last jackass tried to jump start the car, and I see some of the hex bolts holding the trim around the column is still loose. So I pull it... thinking there's no way that the radio's key on power is driven directly from the ignition column (that would be too simple)
Take it all off and low and behold one of the connectors is off the terminal on the ignition.Plug it back in turn the key and the radio/wideband come right on.
Lol
This car may have some specialty parts but it's AWESOMELY simple for a 2006. It's really no more complex than my Rx7. All the relays are you standard looking square type that you'd find on a race car, everything is driven off the ignition. The RX7 really prepared me well for this car. I thought I'd be jumping into uncharted waters with such a new car, but it's old school under the hood.
Still tryin to figure out the radar detector but that's not a project for this summer.
Things left to do before I get this on the road
-Install new turn signal light - light gets here by end of week
- get insurance - should hear back from grundy in the next couple days ($333 / year to insure this car, no limit on miles)
- Got the specialty tool (lug key) from the dealer to pull the lugnuts finally, so now I can pull the wheels and get the tires mounted and balanced. Might have a bent rim (it's deff heavily scuffed and the lip is slightly bent, but if it's straight and it holds air, it'll do for the summer)
- Need to move the oil cooler on the side that got hit in the front. it got pushed back and is making contact with the front tire at full lock, will need to bend the mounting tabs back out, or take it out all together. I've had 2 race teams tell me the stock dual oilcoolers actually never allow the oil to come up to temp, so pulling one is actually a good idea.
- Fix the drivers side window, it was supposedly repaired but it's off track and jammed. The motor works but the window gets crooked halfway up the track and jams. Will also need to adjust the windows to fit flush with the soft-top which is coming today.
As long as no other surprises come up, I should be on the road, potentially next week
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Good news
Race car parts:
(http://i.imgur.com/WOhYE7K.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/JbIkivA.jpg)
Bad news, my lower control arm on the passenger rear looks a little wavy. Which kinda makes sense based on the hit that rim took from what looks like a curb:
(http://i.imgur.com/LQ2XGaK.jpg)
And for comparison, the other side:
(http://i.imgur.com/shw4BYI.jpg)
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Well crap.
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Well crap.
I know, insurance forms should be coming tomorrow too, so I could have been driving it tomorrow.
Rolled it to the end of the driveway and spun the tires a bit coming back up the driveway. Made sure I spun them clean. I wish I had gone wider, these new R888Rs run super narrow for R-Comps. I would have gone 215/245 if I had known. They don't look aggressive enough but supposedly overall grip is better than the old R888s. So I guess I can't complain too much.
The car just from backing it up and down the driveway feels really tight, and light. I think I'll really like the way it drives when it's done.
There's a junkyard in Ohio that has an elise, and I got the soft-top crash structure and a couple other smaller parts from them. I'm going to see if they have the control arm and see if they can overnight it to me. That way I still might be able to drive it for real next week. Control arms go for like $125 used and they usually price anything at market rates so it shouldn't be bad,
And the stock rear toe links on these cars are known to fail suddenly, so I should replace those too while I'm in there. Already have the upgraded ones sitting there, so might as well take care of it, and while the rear undertray is out, might as well change the oil finally and install the diffuser. So it's an opportunity to do things that need to be done anyway.
My only concern is the remote possibility of frame (control arm mount) damage which is really nearly unfixable on these cars. But from the damage on the rim... don't see that being possible, and I looked at the mount, and it looked untouched. Some of the other componets could be damaged as well, but I really looked at each side, comparing them over and over and ran a straight edge down a few of the tubes, and everything else looks good.
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Great progress! I would love to own one of these someday. Keep the pace going! Summer is 1/2 way thru......
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Alright so started in on the control arm dissassembly, and like I said to get to some of the control arm bolts on the chassis you really need to pull the undertray. The whole car has a flat underside, consisting of 3 aluminum sheets, and the diffuser.
So I figure while that stuff is down I'll change the oil, like I said in my last post.
I pull the undertrays, no problemo. get the car up high on stands.
Get under there and see that the car has an aftermarket pan on it. Nice piece!
Aluminum pan with a nice drain plug. Drain the oil and it looks old, and then I say after the fact... ohh I should run a magnet in the drain pan and it picks up all sorts of metal fragments.
So I begin to freak out a bit, but remember I didn't clean that pan out so I don't know if they came from the oil or it was just dirt that fell on the drain pan and was there already.
See below for the drain pan, you can see all the pieces in the shiny oil. I'm still freaking out a bit inside because I'm not sure if this came from the engine or it was there:
(http://i.imgur.com/uKP8syE.jpg)
So I decide I need to pull the pan and see what's at the bottom of the pan
Takes me 5 minutes to pull the bolts and 3 hours to work a putty scraper all the way around to break the seal from hell held in place with some whicked RTV:
(http://i.imgur.com/P5VGMmc.jpg)
So I pull the pan, and it's a nice trapdoor pan like the one I had for the rx7.
But I put a magnet down into the bottom of the pan swirl it all around the bottom of the pan and I 2 small metalic items are stick to it about the size of a small grain of sand... Hmm still left a bit wondering if that crap came out of the oil or not....But it seems a lot cleaner in here than outside.
I dump the rest of whats left in the pan into the drain pan and I notice some red/orange globules, they don't feel like anything just can't figure out what they are so I took some pics:
(http://i.imgur.com/oFjKtWC.jpg)
Any idea what those might be, like I said I see them, and they stay together on their own but I can't feel them.
Well anyway I got to the job at hand, and unless you guys tell me otherwise, my thought is to throw some new oil in it, run it the rest of the summer unless I run into issues and then pull the pan again this winter when I rebuild the car and see if there's anything new in the pan.
Thought this was interesting, where the front of the control arm mounts to the chassis. It actually bolts to a removable box that then bolts to the frame in 4 spots, making the suspension parts, part of a modular system so you can ruin the rim, ruin the control arm, even ruin the mount and still unbolt it from the chassis. I'm sure the rim and control arm are designed to fail before the mount, which is designed to fail before the chassis. I really really like the way this car is built, it's more race car than road car. I do not dare touch my daily driver, or my wife's, but again, this car makes sense to me. In a ton of ways it's just like the rx7 (I know I've said this before)
(http://i.imgur.com/oXI7Pms.jpg)
Everything is unbolted the control arm is just connected to the spindle at the ball joint. Just need to seperate them, and the lower control arm should fall right out. Then need to seperate the ball joint for the toe link and it should fall right out too. So I can replace them:
(http://i.imgur.com/OzuUN07.jpg)
So I'm leaving this up to the crowd smarter than myself. should I just throw some oil in it and go, or should I pull the windage tray and pull some of the rod bearings. I've never done it, but it seems pretty idiot proof. Rod bolts should be right there once I pull the windage tray.
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Did you cut the filter open? Anything in the oil pickup? I'm not an expert but that doesn't look like bearing material to me.
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Agreed. Not sure what's in there, but it doesn't appear to be bearing material.
I'd run some high detergent oil (like Rotella) for a 50-100 miles and cycle it out, then check that, personally.
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Check and check, will do exactly those things. I'll cut the filter open and see if it's filled with shiney goodness.
And I'll throw some new oil in it, and run it and check it shortly after and/or send it in for analysis.
I'm also going to go around the car and do a bolt check. Just disassembling everything I found the lugs on one wheel super loose and one of the bolts on that lower control arm mount i could spin with my hand.
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Red stuff could be silicone, I would run a magnet on the filter as well
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Well I was pushing myself on friday night, and I was over-tired and still pushing. I found a way to take the bolt that's used for the brake caliper (rear slide calipers) and drive it in one of the mounting points for the lower A arm. Btiched the threads up on the bolt but found that when I tried the correct bolt, it threaded in surprisingly nicely and torqued to spec. That being said I'll probably change that out this winter.
It was a massive freakout moment, though because everything on this car seems to take a month to get from the UK, and I figured this bolt would be the same. Find out though that it's a standard metric bolt, but hardened. I tried home depot first just to see, but they done have fine pitch hardened bolts.
So just for fun I try my local hardware store. This place is amazing place that while being small, seemingly has everything in the planet you could ever want in life, from liqour to landscaping supplies, and apparently not only 8.8 M10 x 80 with a 1.25 pitch hardened bolt, they even had the same bolt in 10.9. I love this place.
Thread it in, and we're back in business.
Reassemble the suspension on that side with the new toe links installed (the stock lotus elise/exige toe links like to break suddenly)
But here's the old arm with the new arm next to each other:
(http://i.imgur.com/1HELw3M.jpg)
Then installed the toe link on the other side which requires pulling the brakes. And I absolutely mangled the boots on the outer ball joints on both sides trying to get them off, so that will just have to be another job for the winter.
The rotors also have a centering screw on these cars like the Rx7 and like the Rx7 this one was siezed, then stripped out even after heating it up. Started drilling/EZ out and it came right out after most of the head was drilled out.
Promptly went back to the other side and added anti seize to the threads of the bolt on the other side.
Will have to run without for the rest of the summer
Toe links installed
(http://i.imgur.com/NoMINSZ.jpg)
Then reinstalled the pan, new oil filter and the undertray. To put the undertray back on you need to take it off jack stands, and I then installed the diffuser. Bad photo but I'll take a better one tomorrow. It really looks good without looking ridiculous for a street car or ricer at all:
(http://i.imgur.com/DA7s4xF.jpg)
Backed the car down the driveway again just to feel it rolling. Man it feels smooth. This car changes speed without drama. I dumped the clutch slightly at the bottom of the driveway at maybe 2500 rpm and without seemingly any weight transfer or drama it just gripped and I was at the garage door very quickly. The lack of weight allows you to just do things that would be difficult in a heavier car. Hard to describe.
If UPS isn't slow as shit, I'll have my RMV forms from the insurance company to register the car tomorrow. And I'll have the car registered tomorrow/get plates. Then it needs an alignment bad. The side I worked on looks like it has visible negative camber and visible toe out. Don't know how these double A-Arm cars adjust camber. I'll have to look it up
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Got the car registered, and then it actually made it to the alignment rack:
[smg id=9275 type=preview align=center caption="IMG 0607"]
Had a great day, drove the car maybe 10 miles total just got some gas in it, tested it out. Still no WOT.
Car felt great but they weren't able to get negative camber. Said they need shims to do it. I look it up and you take out shims to get negative camber so I don't know what they hell they were talking about.
Was going to bring it back, but I see a puddle of oil under the car after it's been sitting a few hours. Shittt.. must be something I did because the car never had a leak before. Will have to check the oil pan and the oil filter, those are the only things that I touched in the oiling system, unless something is leaking because it's now being pressurized.
Car held temp, about 195 consistently, but need to pull the diffuser/undertray again tomorrow and look around. I have to laugh at this point. I wasn't actually expecting this car to be a "project" but it certainly is.
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Car looks good, that wing is massive! I figured you used camber shims for adjustment, maybe some need to come off the upper control arms and go in the lower control arm mounting points. Do you have an oil pressure gauge?
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Car looks good, that wing is massive! I figured you used camber shims for adjustment, maybe some need to come off the upper control arms and go in the lower control arm mounting points. Do you have an oil pressure gauge?
No gauges in the car, other than factory. I'm sure it has a low oil pressure/low oil light on these cars, but I think I was just rushing getting the car back together.
After reading more I didn't give that black RTV enough time to set up correctly, and I didn't do a good enough job prepping the surface, and I bet it just never sealed.
I'm going to just get a cork felpro gasket from autozone, and use that. It'll seal immediately and at worst it'll weap slowly over time, but dropping the pan with a real gasket is legit a 10 min job vs 3 hours trying to break the RTV seal from hell with whatever assortment of putty knives you have lying around.
BTW the wing is kinda big. I would never go wingless usually but when I look at the car from certain angles with the roof off, it kinda feels a bit like the supra from the first fast and furious which is not what I'm going for obviously.
That wing actually comes from the later exiges I believe so it is an OEM part surprisingly. I think I want a wing out back, but only if it's functional.
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Did he give you the U S with the sale, or do you have to purchase those to round out the L O T on the trunk, haha?
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Did he give you the U S with the sale, or do you have to purchase those to round out the L O T on the trunk, haha?
I like to say, it will take a "LOT" of time or a "LOT" of money to make it a LOTUS again :D
Those stupid chrome letters are $100 so I'm waiting until the body work is done and it's repainted before buying them, until then the car will be driven with half the front end missing and I can use that joke to get me by.
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No gauges in the car, other than factory. I'm sure it has a low oil pressure/low oil light on these cars, but I think I was just rushing getting the car back together.
After reading more I didn't give that black RTV enough time to set up correctly, and I didn't do a good enough job prepping the surface, and I bet it just never sealed.
I'm going to just get a cork felpro gasket from autozone, and use that. It'll seal immediately and at worst it'll weap slowly over time, but dropping the pan with a real gasket is legit a 10 min job vs 3 hours trying to break the RTV seal from hell with whatever assortment of putty knives you have lying around.
BTW the wing is kinda big. I would never go wingless usually but when I look at the car from certain angles with the roof off, it kinda feels a bit like the supra from the first fast and furious which is not what I'm going for obviously.
That wing actually comes from the later exiges I believe so it is an OEM part surprisingly. I think I want a wing out back, but only if it's functional.
That makes sense, I use the 1 minute gasket stuff from Permatex and it works really well if you want to try that instead of the cork one. I assume that wing is functional, but a more traditional racing wing may look better like the one on the white one you posted earlier
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I would ditch the Lotus on the back all together.
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I would ditch the Lotus on the back all together.
If it was a different color I probably would but if I stick with my plan of repainting it black. This car would be my inspiration, and the chrome Lotus on the back looks good against black:
http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/f94/sold-amazing-award-winning-lotus-elise-sale-feeler-125937/ (http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/f94/sold-amazing-award-winning-lotus-elise-sale-feeler-125937/)
That makes sense, I use the 1 minute gasket stuff from Permatex and it works really well if you want to try that instead of the cork one. I assume that wing is functional, but a more traditional racing wing may look better like the one on the white one you posted earlier
I was thinking of using that stuff but I read it's even more glue like than the standard RTV and I already bitched up the pan slightly and the bottom of the block just trying to get this off the first time. Nothing major, but if I did that 3 or 4 more times I might actually need to go over it with some sand paper.
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Pulled the pan again, in about an hour and a half this time.... I'm making progress.
Got Great stuff and I got the cork gasket just to have both options. Took one look at the cork gasket, and said there's no way that'll seal. Prepped the surface. I noticed where the pan was leaking there was a raised ridge on the oil pan from me prying on it both times. So I took some 220 grit to it and knocked it down. Then went around the mating surface on both sides with some and cleaned them up with some brake cleaner
Got the great stuff on and put the pan on quickly. Focused on tightening it down a bit more this time. So far so good. Don't know if it's still leaking but I didn't see any leaks under the car so I took it out with my wife for a ride. It's a nice night.
Went out for about an hour going on our favorite back roads, down to the beach and then along the coastline and looped back. Car ran 180-190 the whole time, got to go wide open throttle a few times.
Checked the wideband and the AFRs seemed to settle in around 12-11:1 as boost came in, so I know it still has the right tune in it.
But there were some kinda weird drivability things, especially around throttle tip in where it would sputter initially before going, sometimes idles bounces a bit, and the 2 times I went all the way to redline in 2nd and tried to go to 3rd, and all I got when I got back on the gas in third was backfires/ sputter. But once I get off it, goes back and idles fine, cruises well etc. So there may be some tuning left to do. It also did this a few time while revving high up in neutral.
Still working on getting used to the car. It doesn't feel fast but it feels quick. The supercharger does A LOT to make it not feel like a wimpy 4 cyl. It likes cruising at 40mph in 5th for example and it's fine. So it has torque even at idle like a nice 6cyl or small v8
It might be as fast as my RX7 was with the stock motor, but like other higher revving motors you need to work at it to get the most out of it.
My wife just got this short video, just punching it in 2nd, got u to about 6,000 rpm in the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZENd_gwkA8&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZENd_gwkA8&feature=youtu.be)
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Cool! I should have told you too that the great stuff gasket maker works best if you let it tack a little and then put it on and torque the oil pan bolts in 2 or 3 steps. Sounds like it worked for you though. Does it have the stock ecu? I know there is kind of a funky way the IAC works on those cars
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Sounds good in the video too!
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It is a stock ECU but the company that does the supercharger kit, flashes the stock ECU.
I was also thinking about it, and that car still has old gas in it, so I'll take the WOT easy. When I went to the gas station, 8 gallons went in and its a 10.5 gallon tank, so I still have 2.5 gallons of bad gas in there, now that I think of it.
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Yeah the gas could be causing some of the stumbling as well. Be best to try and burn a full tank full and see if the problem is constant. I like how girls scream when you step on it LOL. Everyone I have given a ride to they scream like someone cut their hand off HAHA! 8)
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Yeah the gas could be causing some of the stumbling as well. Be best to try and burn a full tank full and see if the problem is constant. I like how girls scream when you step on it LOL. Everyone I have given a ride to they scream like someone cut their hand off HAHA! 8)
Lol, the Ls1/Rx7 with it's 4.10 gearing is much more brown stain inducing for passengers that have never been in a fast car. This is more Euro or Import type fast. Speed through revs, but still has good torque. I've driven some 4 cyls and they don't seem to like to lug along, this thing does fine.
Drove it about an hour on the highway today. Don't know why people say R compounds are loud, how could you possibly hear them over the exhaust and the wind, I honestly can't hear any tire noise and this is the quietest exhaust they make for this car.
Havent tested overall grip of these yet, but they don't seem super special. I have zero camber up front though so will report back once I get some camber. Stock suspension can do about 2 degrees negative up front and about 2.5 degrees negative camber in the back I'm told.
Pretty good for stock suspension.
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Went out for about an hour and a half with the wife again for a nice cruise.
Had 2 women try to race me off a stoplight, one in an M4 convertible and a newer ls3 Camaro.
It's hard having to actually work at winning stoplight races, I'm not used to that, the Rx7 spoiled me.
Car gets lots of attention though, and I was worried, living in a blue collar town what type of attention it would get. But folks around here seem to associate Lotus with their cars and racing history from the 60s-80s and so it's all been positive so far. Bumper is finished being fixed so I'm picking that up and I'll post pics probably later today or tomorrow.
The tuning issues are still there, I called the company BOE and they said that's not normal for their cars, that they should literally feel as refined as OEM, so any breaking up that I was dealing with is not normal. And they suggested getting some new gas in it, as well as the pretty standard proceedural stuff, starting with Plugs, O2s, MAF, etc. So if the gas doesn't fix it I'm going to start going down that road.
For now though, I just found out that we have 100 octane unleaded on pump literally right in my town, so I'm going to go over there and get 3-4 gallons which should fix any issues with the gas. Some of the advantages of living where people have lots of boats/atvs/snowmobiles and other powersport toys.
Will report back after I pick up the bumper and after I get some good gas in the car.
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Went out for about an hour and a half with the wife again for a nice cruise.
Had 2 women try to race me off a stoplight, one in an M4 convertible and a newer ls3 Camaro.
It's hard having to actually work at winning stoplight races, I'm not used to that, the Rx7 spoiled me.
Car gets lots of attention though, and I was worried, living in a blue collar town what type of attention it would get. But folks around here seem to associate Lotus with their cars and racing history from the 60s-80s and so it's all been positive so far. Bumper is finished being fixed so I'm picking that up and I'll post pics probably later today or tomorrow.
The tuning issues are still there, I called the company BOE and they said that's not normal for their cars, that they should literally feel as refined as OEM, so any breaking up that I was dealing with is not normal. And they suggested getting some new gas in it, as well as the pretty standard proceedural stuff, starting with Plugs, O2s, MAF, etc. So if the gas doesn't fix it I'm going to start going down that road.
For now though, I just found out that we have 100 octane unleaded on pump literally right in my town, so I'm going to go over there and get 3-4 gallons which should fix any issues with the gas. Some of the advantages of living where people have lots of boats/atvs/snowmobiles and other powersport toys.
Will report back after I pick up the bumper and after I get some good gas in the car.
lol why are women only trying to race you? I am normally skeptical of fuel injector cleaner but I wonder if that wouldn't hurt in this case either.
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lol why are women only trying to race you? I am normally skeptical of fuel injector cleaner but I wonder if that wouldn't hurt in this case either.
Lol, I have no idea.
They are doing 2 for 1 on the Techron Fuel system cleaner right now too at Autozone. And I looked at it twice and said, naww that's a big scam. But why not. I'll give it a shot too.
Quick Update: Race gas fixes everything =)
Put 5 gallons of 100 octane in the car on top of about 3 gallons which are a mix of 93 and whatever was left in the tank before
Seems to have fixed everything, at least I didn't notice one stumble or issue on the 45 min drive, and I tried tip in several times, idle was consistent, and the couple times I was fully able to wind out second shift near redline and get it into 3rd, the car didn't breakup when I got back into it.
It does however still backfire on every redline shift, which if I pull my cat will result in fireballs :drive:
Getting the car inspected this weekend most likely, then it's fireball time
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Alright Enough Talking
Time for some videos:
https://vimeo.com/229208995
https://vimeo.com/229209015
And Took the opportunity to do a little brap brap under the overpass:
https://vimeo.com/229208939
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Thing sounds sweet, and looks like a lot of fun to drive.
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Thing sounds sweet, and looks like a lot of fun to drive.
Thanks man. It does sound pretty sweet under the bridges/tunnels and it is pretty quick and I haven't even started tinkering with it yet. If I want to throw pistons in the motor and lower compression a bit I can add another 60-70whp. More if I change the exhaust and port the heads.
I've actually just been driving it around like a cadillac, and enjoying the top down motoring. It's getting towards the end of summer so I've been going out every single day around sunset.
Got the front clam back from the body shop yesterday. It looks like they did a really really good job. I don't think even an experienced eye could tell this was ever fixed, and the plan when it's painted is to have a better finish than OEM:
(http://i.imgur.com/NeGbHiA.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/c5q8zEV.jpg)
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Wow, that was fast! Looks great.
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It's probably just a trick of the lighting, but it looks like the edges of the grille opening on the driver side are sharper than those on the passenger side. Just a reminder to make sure all that stuff is uniform before priming and paint.
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It's probably just a trick of the lighting, but it looks like the edges of the grille opening on the driver side are sharper than those on the passenger side. Just a reminder to make sure all that stuff is uniform before priming and paint.
Probably the photo, I can't imagine he would change the angle, because all of the fiberglass in those areas was already there.
It was just cracked everywhere.
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It's probably just a trick of the lighting, but it looks like the edges of the grille opening on the driver side are sharper than those on the passenger side. Just a reminder to make sure all that stuff is uniform before priming and paint.
I think the black primer is making that edge look sharper. that was really quick, are you gonna put the new front clam on now or wait until it is painted?
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Yeah, things might slow down a bit, as I'm planning to just run the car the way it is until the winter.
But I have a new problem.
Finally found an OBD2 scanner that can read the codes from the Lotus. Got one of those Bluetooth ones that works with the Torque Android app.
This is the third one I've tried, so it's taken a while, but checked codes (had a code based on a TPS issue that I cleared) but when I checked Emissions Readiness, 2 were still not ready. 02 Heater and Catalyst.
Then when I cleared the code O2 sensor become incomplete too, so might need to do some drive cycles to clear the O2 code (guessing I tripped it when I cleared the code) but the others should already be done. I've driven it at least a couple hundred miles since I got it on the road.
Did read that those particular 2 readiness not coming ready are associated with a bad battery, and the optima red top was brought back from a 15 month deep drain. Through the trickle charger and running it every day. It will hold enough charge to start the car the next day, but 5 minutes with the A2W fan running which comes on at key on and it's dead again.
So I need to figure the readiness issue out quickly because the car needs to get inspected. Car has a cat and primary and secondary 02s, so it should be good.
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I would check the wiring for the O2s as well and make sure its there. O2 could also be gunked up or junk. Sounds like the preheater is not working on the O2 sensor which you can check
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The 02 become ready, but the 02 heater and Catalyst are still not ready.
Got in touch with the company that tuned the car and from initial research the original customer didn't ask for the car to be set up to pass emissions testing. So this stuff has probably been disabled and won't become ready.
They won't be able to think about re-tuning it until next week.
So for now, we're going to AUTOX the car.
I decided for fun to bring my wife out to the parking lot near our house and teach her to drive. I brought her out on Wed for the first time ever and taught her to drive stick. Just worked on starts etc.
She did really well, getting the car started, going through some bucking sessions, but this car is actually really easy to drive.
So when I signed up for AutoX this weekend I decided I'd sign her up too and not tell her :D
She came down bewildered about an hour later asking why she got this email from the autox organizers :D
So after she got over the shock. I told her the autox will be easy, but idling around the parking lot will be more difficult. So we worked on just finding the engagement point and creeping the car forward a few feet at a time. Moving the length of 1 parking spot at a time, to simulate being in a line inching our way to the starting line. She nailed it, had a couple stalls, but did about 20-30 starts in a row finding and navigating the engagement point smoothly. So we started trying to get her a bit up to the pace of AutoX but I was a bit nervous because it was raining out and the car's on R-Comps:
I'll take some video from the autoX, but we're co driving the car, and here's our practice session in the rain:
https://vimeo.com/230242705
I think the car will understeer heavily with no camber up font and about 2-2.5 degrees negative camber out back, and I have control arms coming tomorrow that would give me about 2 degrees negative camber up front, but the question is, do I risk it and install them??
The tie rods/upper ball joints are the unknown with regards to how long they'll take to install, otherwise if I can break those free easily they're just 2 bolts holding them in place. So in theory I should be able to install them in a couple hours. Decisions, Decisions
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That's awesome that you are getting the wife involved. I taught my wife to drive stick when we got married;. I gave her a new Subaru, but it was a stick. Her options were learn it, or drive the clapped out 91 Grand Am she had in college. ;)
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When I met my wife she didn't know how to drive an automatic. LOL
She learned to drive while she lived in Germany. They require you to learn on a stick to be licensed to drive a stick, and she always had manual transmission cars while she lived there.
I taught her to drive my Mom's Merc, and she kept slamming on the brakes thinking there was a clutch pedal. :banghead:
Finally, I had her tuck her left foot under the front edge of the seat and keep it there, which finally broke her of the habit. ;)
Since Mom no longer drives, she uses the Merc all the time, but I still have her drive one of my cars now and then, because I don't want her to forget how to drive a manual. 8)
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When I met my wife she didn't know how to drive an automatic. LOL
She learned to drive while she lived in Germany. They require you to learn on a stick to be licensed to drive a stick, and she always had manual transmission cars while she lived there.
I taught her to drive my Mom's Merc, and she kept slamming on the brakes thinking there was a clutch pedal. :banghead:
Finally, I had her tuck her left foot under the front edge of the seat and keep it there, which finally broke her of the habit. ;)
Since Mom no longer drives, she uses the Merc all the time, but I still have her drive one of my cars now and then, because I don't want her to forget how to drive a manual. 8)
Thats funny, I've never heard of that but I did go for the clutch the other day on startup the first time back in the daily
That's awesome that you are getting the wife involved. I taught my wife to drive stick when we got married;. I gave her a new Subaru, but it was a stick. Her options were learn it, or drive the clapped out 91 Grand Am she had in college. ;)
Have to get her involved. We went to the autoX and the long and short story is that we showed up drove a bit and were kicked out.
Now this car has the quietest aftermarket exhaust they make so I never thought much of it, and I don't know if they had noise limits on this AutoX in the past but the RX7 had dual straight through 3" dynomax bullets and it never ran into noise issues anywhere.
First run out I'm driving the car. We're the first heat, and I have no idea what to expect but once I get through the more technical part of the course and I'm not looking for gates, I open it up quite a bit more and get the car nearly 90 degrees sideways, still recover the slide and make the next gate :drive:
So my fear of the car terminally understeering, is alleviated. It will dance if you want it to. Although it generally would understeer, so I was right but the chassis is good enough that you can make it oversteer if you like. Had one of the Pros drive the car and he confirmed that he felt like driving neutrally that it would push in the corners. I also had a fear of this car's snap oversteer tendency. Lots of videos of people stuffing these ass end first at the track, and despite being completely incompetent and on R-Compounds the slide was super controlled still.
But on the end of my first run someone comes over and says they had me at 91dB (limit is 90) and so I say no biggie. I'll just drive the course in 3rd the rest of the day. You only get 1 warning and then you're out, but I wasn't worried. I knew the wife would be driving miss daisy and I'd just keep the revs down.
Well anyway one of the pros we met who I actually know from many years ago (more on that next) we ask to drive Angie in the car to show her how you're supposed to drive and he properly rips it, and when he comes back the fun police pull us over again saying we're at 92 dB.
Only Good vid from the day from the start of that Run: (Lol @ "Very angry Lotus Exige"
https://vimeo.com/230385824 (https://vimeo.com/230385824)
Organizers were very nice about it and the pro felt really bad. It's funny because he's the first guy we met pulling in (he was running tech)
And we walk the course with him too, and not 1 minute of conversation has gone by between him and my wife, as he was asking about the new car etc. and I'm trying to catch up. My wife says he used to have an Ls1 Rx7.
The pro immediately goes, I know that car! I drove that car!
yes he did and he's the fastest driver I've ever run into he beat my time by 8 seconds in the rx7 and the other pro's by 5 seconds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvaTUiGbK5c&t=16s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvaTUiGbK5c&t=16s)
Coming back 8 years later (using the date from the video) and within 1 minute I reconnect with the last person I probably met 8 years ago. And if I remember correctly he drove the rx7 so hard, it was the only time I needed to shut it down because it was overheating.
So both times he ran the car he went so hard that some sort of fall out came from it.
But he did run around the paddack looking for a supertrap, or a turn down. They tried putting steel wool in the exhaust with a mesh screen, which held until the first backfire / fireball happened (which is damn near every high rpm shift). so that was gone after run one.
Anyway fun day regardless. It was pretty hot so being able to get outta there around 1-2pm actually felt like a big blessing.
Get home and they wrote me an email. Gave me a full credit for future event.Pretty awesome group!
Any thoughts on quieting it down? Super trap might work, but people have reported significant exhaust restriction with them to the point where they've blown header gaskets.
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Sounds like the AutoX people are a great group to be with. I wonder if the higher frequency of the 4 cylinder makes it seem quieter than the RX7. I would try a turn down or maybe some sort of bullet to add into the exhaust, that should drop you a few dB and not restrict too much.
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Yeah people at the autox were super nice and looked around the paddock for a turn down that would fit, but no luck.
Just a thought... Why a turn down and not a turn up. Think about an extension off the exhaust tip that points straight up, like those stupid exhausts on stanced cars in Japan. I would imagine that would be best for passing dB. Rather than having the sound bounce off the road.
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Yeah people at the autox were super nice and looked around the paddock for a turn down that would fit, but no luck.
Just a thought... Why a turn down and not a turn up. Think about an extension off the exhaust tip that points straight up, like those stupid exhausts on stanced cars in Japan. I would imagine that would be best for passing dB. Rather than having the sound bounce off the road.
lol I think the idea of the turn down is to get the sound lower and not out the back, I think a turn up would allow the sound to be pushed more by the wind coming off the car. Just an idea I'm not real good with acoustics.
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Yeah people at the autox were super nice and looked around the paddock for a turn down that would fit, but no luck.
Just a thought... Why a turn down and not a turn up. Think about an extension off the exhaust tip that points straight up, like those stupid exhausts on stanced cars in Japan. I would imagine that would be best for passing dB. Rather than having the sound bounce off the road.
lol I think the idea of the turn down is to get the sound lower and not out the back, I think a turn up would allow the sound to be pushed more by the wind coming off the car. Just an idea I'm not real good with acoustics.
The advantage of a turn-down is you can use it to direct the sound away from wherever they have the sound meter.
From that video, it looks to be out in a field, so I can't imaging why they have a sound restriction in the first place. :scratch:
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Yeah people at the autox were super nice and looked around the paddock for a turn down that would fit, but no luck.
Just a thought... Why a turn down and not a turn up. Think about an extension off the exhaust tip that points straight up, like those stupid exhausts on stanced cars in Japan. I would imagine that would be best for passing dB. Rather than having the sound bounce off the road.
lol I think the idea of the turn down is to get the sound lower and not out the back, I think a turn up would allow the sound to be pushed more by the wind coming off the car. Just an idea I'm not real good with acoustics.
The advantage of a turn-down is you can use it to direct the sound away from wherever they have the sound meter.
From that video, it looks to be out in a field, so I can't imaging why they have a sound restriction in the first place. :scratch:
They don't tell you where the sound meter is at this event, but safe to assume they had i on the right side of the course, which would be the only reason the car would fail, because the exhaust points in that direction (looking from the back)
The location is the abandoned Devens Army base, this is the airstrip on that base
Looks like they might have been having a small AutoX event when these Google Maps Satelite images were taken:
https://www.google.com/maps/@42.574295,-71.6025949,214m/data=!3m1!1e3 (https://www.google.com/maps/@42.574295,-71.6025949,151m/data=)
You could clearly hear that an outdoor gun club / shooting range is in that area too... so I don't know why loud cars are a problem.
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Looks like a great place for a racetrack. Someone should buy that and build it into a proper race facility. :yay:
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Unless its way too close to people that would complain
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Unless its way too close to people that would complain
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Yeah, thats the problem. It's still within about 40 mins of Boston, so while it's a bit of an industrial/blue collar town it's still quite developed and dense from a residential standpoint. I live about a quarter mile from almost the exact same thing. An abandoned airstrip that used to house blimps in WW2. It's even more dense where I am, there are literally houses that have backyards overlooking the open grassy areas around the airstrip
I would assume these were built afterwards, but the base was only decommissioned in the 90s, so I don't know how they dealt with the noise of the base.
Locals talk about the blue angels doing shows here every year. I can't imagine jets flying over my house.
Some cool photos I took around the base thats in my backyard, I would thought about starting some autoX events here, but they're working on turning this place into a mini city,
Current condition of the base, right now it's a pretty cool place to explore. I hear you can still climb the stairs of the air traffic control tower and it's a great view, gotta do that before they tear it down:
(http://i.imgur.com/D48cu9O.jpg)
I'm assuming Free wasn't a good enough offer:
(http://i.imgur.com/OPHCxfv.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/vlIDewf.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/xXzcAvx.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/uCIJETZ.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/1zmbT2g.jpg)
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cool! airshow in the backyard would be sweet.
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Have you heard of Twin Loop style mufflers? They make a 4 cyl sound more like a 8 and take out the high db pitches that will probably keep you under the radar. There are generics on Flebay but Mugen gets the credit for the first and patented one. Yours would have to be custom but if you take a dual in dual out muffler (make sure its straight pipes in there not a X) and route a single back into itself, they flow like a mutha and sound deadening is incredible because it goes through the muffler twice, which effectively makes it a long muffler but also get some noise cancelling as well. Glad your having fun! :drive:
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Have you heard of Twin Loop style mufflers? They make a 4 cyl sound more like a 8 and take out the high db pitches that will probably keep you under the radar. There are generics on Flebay but Mugen gets the credit for the first and patented one. Yours would have to be custom but if you take a dual in dual out muffler (make sure its straight pipes in there not a X) and route a single back into itself, they flow like a mutha and sound deadening is incredible because it goes through the muffler twice, which effectively makes it a long muffler but also get some noise cancelling as well. Glad your having fun! :drive:
This is a good suggestion, I didn't see your post. It looks like from the shape, that one of those style mufflers would fit too.
for now I'm just going to try a turn down. The autoX club was nice enough to redit me for the last event so we'll try the turn down with the next event and see how that works. Trying to figure out how to make a slip over, on that pie cut exhaust tip.
Also thinking about colors. I've been asking everyone and I don't think I'm going to stay with black.
Which is a 180 degree turn from my thoughts before.
As I think about it more, the Elises look good in colors. Never thought about having a wild colored car, but I think it fits the personality of the car. Also all of the vents on the car are black so the contrast is good.
So here's a couple ideas, and I wanted to get some unbiased feedback on. All color options would be paired with carbon fiber accents. Roof is carbon fiber, but I may sell that for a regular roof which would still be wrapped in Dinoc cobor fiber, along with the mirrors and the Exige Side scoops which would be real carbon fiber. Same with the rear wing unless I go wingless. Rims, color and style would depend but if I can get away with keeping the rims I have, even better. I need input big time on this
There is a darker red available for the Elise/Exige that looks like. I hate maroon, but I think this is a bit different it's called Canyon Red
(http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=158291&stc=1&d=1292879269)
In the sunlight:
(http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1026233&stc=1&d=1477874029)
Then there was this bike I had as a kid. The color was Acid Orange. I thought it was the coolest color in the world, and I think it might be good for this car. The closest I could find to the color is this vette:
(http://i.imgur.com/AqRzsz1.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/bf65SGr.jpg)
Then there's the safer choice that I was sure I was gonna go with originally if I didn't go black. The car I test drove was this color and I liked it a lot in person
This is graphite Grey:
(http://i.imgur.com/kL1gs14.jpg)
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/b-NdDLJyn0E/maxresdefault.jpg)
And then there's the wrap options which are basically what I'd do if I can't make up my mind:
The satin white (still a very good option although I think the crazy stance on this car is helping it):
(http://i.imgur.com/9qn41nL.jpg)
And then there's a new 3M color that I think might be the perfect red, from the few photos I've seen. It's called Lipstick red, but they haven't released any daytime shots of it:
(http://i.imgur.com/oZwiJil.jpg)
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/EQYTsDj6whM/maxresdefault.jpg)
(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/rdLBDYoO-MA/maxresdefault.jpg)
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Lipstick red or orange would be my vote! I tend to like a little flashier colors with understated body mods. I am also a HUGE fan of battleship grays right now with gloss black accents. But that fad might pass.
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I like the orange. 8)
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I like the orange or the canyon red
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Predictably, I like the Orange.
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Interesting, everyone likes the Orange.
I thought I was going out on a limb a bit with that color. I bought the Elise because i always wanted a gokart, and I like the orange because it reminds me of this bike that I had as a teenager:
Best images I can find. The company is out of business, color was called acid orange
(http://i.imgur.com/gM8W1Ok.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/V9N7cy1.jpg)
I think orange could be epic, but it's risky.
Heres another orange I like even more, called Volcano Orange although god knows how much this paint job costs. McLaren doesn't even post paint codes:
(https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3932/15556300161_0e7a574116_b.jpg)
And this guy successfully pulled off duplicating the color on his Cobra Kit car:
(https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5609/14990949954_dd29da583a_b.jpg)
And I was happy at first to see someone painted their car Volcano Orange on the Lotus Forums. But as you'll see.... this Volcano Orange looks nothing like the cobra and the original. And you're left with this flatter/paler orange:
(https://www.thelotusforums.com/forums/applications/core/interface/imageproxy/imageproxy.php?img=http%3A%2F%2Fi18.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fb114%2Fddotderek%2Fphoto1_zps9c8970ba.jpg&key=6cb91124ce151da483107eb3ae3e01f57d66177771b0c0c03f5d548de1d685df)
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Wow. That mclaren and cobra look AMAZING!!! That's the color! Lol
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I'm sure you know this but Gary Fisher was absorbed into Trek. The color on the cobra is amazing, but I really hate orange on the europa for whatever reason, maybe cause its not that good looking to begin with
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Wow. That mclaren and cobra look AMAZING!!! That's the color! Lol
I know right!
But lets be real, this is probably a crazy multistage process. From the little bit of work I've done on the paint job is that it's water based, it's multi stage obviously, and it comes out yellowish and gets darker
This is probably prohibitively expensive. Probably something like the dodge viper red. There's a red paint option on the viper thats 15k alone. It's like 8 stages.
I'm sure you know this but Gary Fisher was absorbed into Trek. The color on the cobra is amazing, but I really hate orange on the europa for whatever reason, maybe cause its not that good looking to begin with
I didn't follow mountain bikes after I went to college but I assumed something like that happened.
And I agree with you. That was the point I was making about a complex orange like this being risky. The Cobra NAILED the color, but whoever did the Evora totally messed it up, so this is not exactly a simple paint job and going back to my comment above, it would probably be crazy expensive to duplicate correctly.
That would be my reason for not going orange, would be that it's too difficult/expensive to do correctly
Was watching vinyl wrap videos last night, and I've tinted some headlights / taillights with film before that had complex curves and I could only imagine trying to do the curves on this car. Only $350 in material though so I'd have some room to make a lot of mistakes.
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Good luck on the vinyl wrapping, but I will say a heat gun makes a big difference. Hopefully you could do 1 section at a time. Have you thought anymore about spray vinyl/plastidip
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Good luck on the vinyl wrapping, but I will say a heat gun makes a big difference. Hopefully you could do 1 section at a time. Have you thought anymore about spray vinyl/plastidip
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The challenge I found with the liquid wraps / plasti dipping is that for the good stuff it's about $1,000 in materials.
Then it can be more difficult to put down because it goes down in more coats and thicker, so in some ways it's more difficult to lay down well than regular paint.
And the prep process to doing a good liquid wrap job is basically the same as painting. So you might as well just paint the car because you're going through the exact same process.
That's the primary conclusion I came to with the liquid wraps.
I'm still looking for somewhat of a temporary solution because long term I'm not sure if I'm going to like the attention with the wild colors.
There is a similar orange in vinyl wrap that I think would work which is why I started looking at it again. The lotus could be a painful car to learn on, but I'll get pricing from a shop to do it professionally, and I figure I can get at least the doors/roof done and if I need help I'll get the front/back professionally done
Gloss Fiery Orange on a Slingshot, like the combo with the carbon fiber wrap, will deff incorporate some carbon fiber wrap on the element of the wing, the mirrors more than likely and either the roof or the sail panels in the hood area:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gOQMW4_N8g (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gOQMW4_N8g)
On a Scooby:
(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c3/d5/dd/c3d5ddc8fb1a5acf286b746f6a464029.jpg)
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that color looks great in the video.
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Found another burnt type orange, that might be a bit more do-able compared to the McLaren Orange, if I chose to paint it (sorry if I'm boring folks with the color obsession)
BMW Sakhir Orange:
Came on the recent M4's and there's a used car for sale 20 minutes away in this color so I can see it in person. There are 2 car's and coffee in a row this weekend within 3 miles of my house so after Cars and coffee I'm going to go take a look at this color in person. This one seems more reddish, but it also has a lot of gold flake, and copper when it's cloudy
(http://f80.bimmerpost.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1044523&stc=1&d=1403032945)
(http://www.motorward.com/wp-content/images/2015/06/Sakhir-Orange-BMW-M4-SP-2.jpg)
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that BMW orange may be multi stage as well, I'm sure it was an upcharge
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that BMW orange may be multi stage as well, I'm sure it was an upcharge
Most euro paint jobs are 3 stage, I'm sure this one is too. But most shops can do that work, and I'm sure BMW posts easy to find paint codes to make it easy for shops to duplicate.
BTW went to 2 Cars and Coffee in 2 days, both 2 miles from my house. Talked to as many people as I could. Everyone seems to be on board with the Burnt Orange/carbon idea. One guy was even saying the curves of the elise will really make the flake obvious, and almost make it look like a pearl. I also am 99% sure I saw a car in Sakhir Orange at the show. Couldn't find the owner to confirm, but when I took a photo it looks red in the photo but clearly orange in person. Looks good, even a bit subtle. Will hide dirt well I think.
I'm waiting for more guys to post videos of cars leaving, as I wanted to see the car in action, but it looks like the first video from yesterday's cars and coffee I caught sleeping as the elise comes by at about 3:12 in this video
https://youtu.be/QHRXWqRxm00?t=3m05s
LOL @ the mustang that left after me. Didn't see that at all because I was gone, but as savage as that looks on the video you have to understand that this show happens in one of the richest most stuck up little new england towns, so how that mustang got away with that horror show in front of their mall in the middle of the day, is just so epic
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haha car sounds sweet, those kids liked it. Plus how did that Mustang driver get away with that! Do they not have cops in the parking lot? Its nice to see a mustang not crashing while showing off
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Is there actually a rule that EVERY Mustang driver has to be a total jerkoff??? :barf: (And I'm a Ford guy).
Any idiot with 200 horsepower can do a big smoky burnout holding the brakes. ROTFLMAO
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Is there actually a rule that EVERY Mustang driver has to be a total jerkoff??? :barf: (And I'm a Ford guy).
Any idiot with 200 horsepower can do a big smoky burnout holding the brakes. ROTFLMAO
Lol,
I told my wife about the mustang car show curse, and to just start running if she sees a mustang getting sideways
Found 2 more vids
Arriving at the Saturday cars and coffee:
https://youtu.be/3n6476R7ebE?t=6m21s
Leaving from another angle
you can see everyone basically had to drive through the impromptu waterbox, which is why you see me drive it to the dry get it straight then get on it, don't trust this mid engine layout enough yet to try to powerslide it, and it didn't feel like it spun but you can hear it cut once or twice when I first get on it, that's the traction control.
https://youtu.be/k6O47dU_Yq8?t=13m56s
Also Turbo Ls FD at the 7min mark with NORTRS MA plate. YOHB?
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Heres another red for you. Its a PPG multistage that uses a silver base(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20170924/fca2be685e68014ce0ac7ddc9839095a.jpg)
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That could be good, I have deff been looking through PPG and HOK options. It seems like the only way to do it right is at least 2, more like 3 stage. Really nice candy/pearl oranges like the ones on the McLaren, and Skryker Orange (a 15k option on the Viper) are like 5 stage paints, that start yellow and build in layers of pearl darkening it. So that silver base makes sense.
I'd like to keep it some sort of OEM, just to make the next buyer feel a little better but most use PPG anyway.
I found another OEM option that looks pretty good in pics and I can buy this color along with the BMW orange in areosol cans to test out. BMW is 2 stage, this is 3 stage, but the paint is pretty reasonable.
Kawasaki Candy Burnt Orange:
(http://i44.tinypic.com/og1ns.jpg)
Also found TVR Chameleon Orange (Not real chameleon) and it's $500/liter. Looks pretty good too
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That Ninja color looks pretty close to the fox body. When are you planning on getting it painted
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That Ninja color looks pretty close to the fox body. When are you planning on getting it painted
Later this winter, basically once first snow hits. At that point, it's pretty much a sure bet that the car isn't going to move the rest of the season, so at that point I'm taking it all apart. Today was 82 degrees though, and we'll have the stray 60-70 degree days well into November so I prob won't touch it until about then.
The super long, dismal months in new england are actually July, Feb, March, even April. That's when the majority of the work will get done.
While I have the clams off, depending on how much bodywork/paint ends up costing me, I also may do the engine.
I need to re-tune the car to turn the emissions equipment on (it's currently disabled because the car resided in an area with no emissions testing) to pass OBD2 emisssions testing here in MA. It costs $850 every time to get the car re-tuned at the place that tuned it initially (and there's no options in Lotus Land)
So I said why waste basically 1k when I know I'm going to go for more power in the future and require another re-tune. If I port the head, and put lower compression pistons in the car it'll make about 60-70 more whp, if I add cams it'll produce another 20whp. I'll also need a front mount A2W intercooler and injectors, but at that point for little investment I'm at least maximizing the hardware that's already on the car.
Then the car would put out at least 350whp, probably closer to 360-370whp. Which on paper would make it a lot quicker than the Rx7, in reality, it would probably be a little faster.
Anyone have any idea what machine work would cost on a 4cyl to just change the pistons (rods are factory forged). I'm guessing it's just balancing the assembly, correct? I've always just run stock bottom ends on all my cars, so never had to go to a machine shop.
Other ideas for this winter, depending on how my year goes could also include suspension, and a quicker steering rack and light weight flywheel. The clutch in there is good for the added power but it's picking up at the very top so hopefully it's not close to being too worn. I know that it went in the car at 9K miles, so it only has 5k miles on it.
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About $400 for block machining w/ wash and probably $60-100 for balancing the rotating assembly. Just paid for it myself. A lower end shop may be a little less - this is a well known performance shop.
That was a bore, hone, and deck.
Don't forget to freshen the head. Might want to have it slightly ported while it is apart.
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About $400 for block machining w/ wash and probably $60-100 for balancing the rotating assembly. Just paid for it myself. A lower end shop may be a little less - this is a well known performance shop.
That was a bore, hone, and deck.
Don't forget to freshen the head. Might want to have it slightly ported while it is apart.
Ok cool, so for a little more than the cost of the extra retune I can get Mahle pistons, rings, and the machine work associated. That's why I decided to hold off. The big front mount IC will be a few hundred, injectors are pretty cheap.
Ported head is important on these. They're Toyota motors so they don't have legendary head flow like Hondas.
The most common vendor only charges $600 to port the heads, so I don't know how much porting actually happens for that cost. I'd go through and port match everything for some free hp.
Cams make a good bit of different like I mentioned but they're expensive, plus the cost of springs/retainers. I might need springs though anyway. With springs and retainers you can spin them up to 9k, which helps take advantage of the headwork and increase peak numbers.
They don't really have NA vs FI cam specs for these cars though, but the NA focused cams still seem to add power.
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It would make sense to me to save up and do everything at once, $600 for a 4 cylinder actually sounds high to me. Can you not go standalone and tune yourself?
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It would make sense to me to save up and do everything at once, $600 for a 4 cylinder actually sounds high to me. Can you not go standalone and tune yourself?
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If it was CNC ported like some of the high volume LS heads 600 would be expensive, as it's just CNC time.
But these cars are super low volume. About 2k produced per year so I'm sure it's all done by hand.
And so there's a certain tax associated both with the Lotus name and the low volume.
They do offer a couple standalone options.. they're about 2-3k and I would need to pull it each year for emissions testing as well, and tuning's outside my wheelhouse.
The basic MO in the Lotus community is to build your car essentially as someone else has built it, that's been tuned on site with the primary tuning company (BOE) and then they essentially mail you the tune that's appropriate for that setup.
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Thats a shame there isnt the aftermarket support like the LS
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I've started gathering quotes and getting more serious about the repair/paint work
I went to a local shop that's known for doing good work, and they're car guys so they really enjoy and do several show cars/bikes a year as well.
So I knew they were more than capable.
Brought the car down and they quoted me 12,500 to repaint the car, and an extra 5,500 if I wanted to change the color.
This is with me taking the car apart and delivering it disassembled, and them not needing to re-assemble it either...
I was flabbergasted honestly.
Turns out there was a bit of a miscommunication and they included some of the fiberglass repair in there, but even still I can have all of the rest of the repair done for about 1k-1500 so those prices were just ludicrous.
Since then I've found a couple places with a bit more reasonable 3-4k range, but still these seem high for a simple black respray when the fiberglass work has already been taken care of and the car is disassembled. Don't get me wrong they'll still need to block sand it more than likely but it still seems steep for a car that you can hang the panels like motocycle tins and spray them individually.
I'm thinking of trying my hand at painting the car myself, if I keep it black unless I can find someone to spray it for cheap. Would pay a couple grand to have an experienced hand do it, and spraying the car is the easiest part.
I also found a competitor to the very expensive Autoflex (liquid wrap / dip) that I was considering a while back. They had quoted me $1000 in material which was a bit too much to try my hand at, having never painted or sprayed liquid wrap before, but a lot of preofessional installers actually prefer another company Halo EFX and I found their colors for sale for $39/gallon. Most small cars take 2-3 gallons
https://www.kppigments.com/coatings/halo-efx/gallons.html (https://www.kppigments.com/coatings/halo-efx/gallons.html)
KP pigments also allows you to add pearl or candy into the clear for another 15-20$, all well cheap enough for me to buy a gallon and a couple body panels from the junkyard first to practice on.
I was going to create a spray booth in my garage by hanging plastic, but this guy did his liquid wrap in a parking garage :o
How pissed would you be if you're the gay parked next to him with overspray all over your car:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REqUDfTVlvw (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REqUDfTVlvw)
So if I can't find someone reasonable enough to spray it, I'll figure out the liquid wrap myself and put that right over the primer
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Good body and paint work don't come cheap. :o
Way back in 1998-99 when I built my 427 Cobra replica my paint job cost over $12,000.
That was with me prepping and painting the engine bay, doing the prep work on all the jambs, under hood and under trunk areas, leaving only the exterior prep and blocking for the shop to do.
Also, nothing real fancy for paint, just a metallic silver with a bit of blue pearl over it, and a pair of black LeMans stripes.
I'd expect the same job today would be $20,000 plus.
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Everyone thinks paint is expensive till they see how many hours it takes to get it perfect. 3-4K is cheap and I would consider in the low side and 12-15k is on the high side for a basic black paint job.
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I agree that a good paint job is not cheap. If you dont wanna spend 5k I would try the halo efx route.
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FWIW, if I paid someone to do all of the body/paint on my Mustang project, I'd likely be in the 20-25k dollar range, for labor + materials. I learned to do this stuff myself because it's simply crazy $$$ for it, as it's a SLOW process.
I vote learn it yourself.
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Remember guys, that I'm doing about 80% of the hard work here.
So I'm having a different shop do the body work/fiberglass repair, which is costing me about 3k on it's own.
Plus I'm stripping the car, and not asking them to re-assemble. As one of the shop's pointed out, thats about 30-40 sweaty hours right there for a typical breakdown/re-assemble. Which at $75/hr is about $2,500 right there.
So I'm not going to fool myself and say they can just hang the panels and spray em. They'll still need to prep the surface but most of the work/time is already done before it gets to the painter.
I'm trying to make it basically the same process as painting a large motorcycle, and thats how I'm looking at it, because almost all of the panels unbolt, and they fit in a small booth.
I don't know body work, but from everything I've read, spraying is the easy part, so maybe I should do it. Getting some body panels from the junk yard to practice on is cheap enough. If I get a bunch of fish eyes and runs then I know I'm over my head.
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$75/hr is cheap!! I though the std shop rate was $100/hr now. have you tried any body repair? I am thinking about doing the body work on my FB and then trying my hand at spraying but Im not sure
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$75/hr is cheap!! I though the std shop rate was $100/hr now. have you tried any body repair? I am thinking about doing the body work on my FB and then trying my hand at spraying but Im not sure
It probably is, especially around Boston. I don't live in the cheapest region, but NH is only 2 hours away and rates up there get pretty reasonable quick. I just don't know any shops up that way. I'm working the local car scene now to hook up with the right person/shop. I was just floored by the first estimate.
My fist thought was, I'm in the wrong business if people are actually paying this out of pocket.
I mean if I end up doing it, I'll take photos and document it step by step so you know how it is from a total noob's perspective. If I nail it, than you can certainly do it. I plan to just rent an air compressor from home depot for the days I'm going to spray. The rest of it is just hand tools.
And I'm guessing I would see if I can borrow a good spray gun.
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The big concern with $$$ for body work is most good shops will have to go over EVERYTHING before they paint anyway, so even if you prep, they still have a lot of work to do. It's kind of a "trust no one but yourself" mentality in that area.
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What level of paint job are you looking for? You can probably do something decent yourself but it would be comparable to a 3-4k job. Spraying isn't hard but it also isn't easy. The more practice, the better you will get. I consider myself a pretty good painter but wouldn't spray my FD because if I do repaint it, I want it to be show quality.
If you haven't, read through Halfspecs paint thread to see what it takes to do a show winning paint job. He has one of the best examples of a PERFECT black paint job. Whenever I go to car shows, I can always tell a good paint job from a shitty one. But I am probably more critical than most.
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Honestly, I've painted cars and there are only a couple things to remember:
1. Prep
2. Prep
3. Solid colors are much easier.
4. Light colors hide flaws, but highlight panel gaps.
5. Prep
6. Clearcoat, spray on a LOT and you can cut/buff away a lot of mistakes.
7. Prep
8. Did I mention prep?
You can do a pretty good job with a little practice. That said, we'll see how this all holds true on my Mustang in a few months...
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Honestly, I've painted cars and there are only a couple things to remember:
1. Prep
2. Prep
3. Solid colors are much easier.
4. Light colors hide flaws, but highlight panel gaps.
5. Prep
6. Clearcoat, spray on a LOT and you can cut/buff away a lot of mistakes.
7. Prep
8. Did I mention prep?
You can do a pretty good job with a little practice. That said, we'll see how this all holds true on my Mustang in a few months...
That sounds like it's something I can do, but there are certain tasks that require knowledge to do correctly, and others that require touch. I can learn how to wire a car from a book. My real concern is if bodywork/paint is more of a touch/feel/experience thing than something you can learn. That's why I had the front end done by a professional, because there were segments that needed to be re-created essentially in fiberglass. That takes touch, not necessarily knowledge. You can't learn how to do that from watching videos.
So I'll keep you guys posted on the quotes process, and that will determine if I'm forced to pick up the spray gun.
If I save the money on paint though, it's going right into the engine and suspension. Penske shocks and lower compression pistons so I can max out the TVS blower on pump
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OMG couldn't pay me enough to paint a car! Worst job ever IMO only cause I do not have the patience and it takes fail after fail after fail and experience to know what to expect and the outcome. I would maybe interested in it if I had a shop with right tools and a mentor.
How much would a wrap cost? There are some crazy innovations in wrapping and many exotics and big $$$ cars doing wraps for a custom look but also I think to preserve the paint below. They can do jams, under hoods, trunks, it seems crazy.
My black paint can't be photographed its so good. Hard to get that look IMO for less then $15K anymore. Don't cheapen a Lotus with a garage paint job please :)
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The big concern with $$$ for body work is most good shops will have to go over EVERYTHING before they paint anyway, so even if you prep, they still have a lot of work to do. It's kind of a "trust no one but yourself" mentality in that area.
X2 !!! Shops name will be on it so most would want it done their way. I did body work years ago (mid 70's). Not that hard to learn but it is very time consumimg. Materials are expensive. Paint is outrageous. Oh it makes one hell of a mess !!!
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OMG couldn't pay me enough to paint a car! Worst job ever IMO only cause I do not have the patience and it takes fail after fail after fail and experience to know what to expect and the outcome. I would maybe interested in it if I had a shop with right tools and a mentor.
How much would a wrap cost? There are some crazy innovations in wrapping and many exotics and big $$$ cars doing wraps for a custom look but also I think to preserve the paint below. They can do jams, under hoods, trunks, it seems crazy.
My black paint can't be photographed its so good. Hard to get that look IMO for less then $15K anymore. Don't cheapen a Lotus with a garage paint job please :)
I wouldn't do it unless I was sure I could do it right. Every time I go out into the garage I look at it and try to figure out what I'm going to do. I'm in that laboring part of the project where you're trying to figure out how you're going to approach it.
If I did it myself I'd hang plastic floor to ceiling including plastic on the floor with a box fan pulling air through hepa filters. Other than not being able to increase the heat to bake the car this environment is good enough for even a show quality paint job. I know I can get a good paint gun if I have to buy it, for about $200, and I can rent an air compressor (and if I want to get crazy I can use a portable fill tank for added air storage) with a 10$ inline water catch.. I mean someone who knows what they're doing can do show quality work with what I just mentioned above.
So I'm sure the tools aren't the problem, the tool behind the tools... that's another story.
I'm thinking I'll pull off the damaged front clam and test my self out on that. If I do it, it would just be factory black and that way I can use the door seals as the break, so I don't need to do the jambs. Remember that I'll just be going over the factory paint for about 3/4 of the car, with the same color. Other than the spots that were repaired on the front and back.
The way I look at it I can do essentially a paint correction to the stock paint, and even if I can't do the paint job, getting the factory paint to 800-1000 grit will save me money in prep. At that point the car really would be at a stage where someone would really just need to hang it and spray it. And the paint would be better than stock. If I can find someone to just spray it at that point I'll pay the extra to have an experienced person spray it.
BTW I don't think it would be hard to get the paint better than stock, even though it being a Lotus would make you think it's an exotic car with exotic paint, check out some shots below of the factory orange peel:
By the rear window:
(https://i.imgur.com/87AyB6z.jpg)
Under the Rear Spoiler:
(https://i.imgur.com/IOdZIgV.jpg)
Also under the rear spoiler shows some imperfections and the orange peel in the stock paint:
(https://i.imgur.com/RB0rEBh.jpg)
Also some more photos of the "before" condition of the paint
(https://i.imgur.com/Cwex2pQ.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/tdgOX9G.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/LwrU7ZT.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/2ogOCSt.jpg)
My thoughts are that the car will be a lot more valuable keeping it factory black. The Lotus community seems to be filled with a bunch of older guys who wanted a cool car, and very few seem willing to pick up a wrench. They also seem to be scared of modified cars.
So if I repaint the car I think it makes sense to make it phantom black again, and in the meantime I can still wrap certain items carbon fiber, and go for the carbon/black look, maybe with gold rims, which would look like this:
(http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=74532&stc=1&d=1203780791)
Then liquid wrap the car something crazy. Figure if I'm successful painting I can handle the liquid wrap
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Could you just liquid wrap over what you have now?
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Could you just liquid wrap over what you have now?
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I could, and that's another option if I choose to kick the can down the road a bit further. would need to prime the repaired areas and get them to at least 800 grit and do all of the exact same prep work that I would need to do if I was getting it painted though. So it's the exact same amount of work.
The liquid wrap is no easier to apply than paint as well. It is essentially just thick paint, which in some ways makes it harder to do correctly. It takes 14 coats in a standard autoflex job and they're thicker than paint. So you have a pretty thick layer on the car that's hard to keep from developing orange peel.
BTW freeskier, I never thanked you. You're the SOLE reason I own this car. I was dismissing it quite frankly... for I don't know... unknown reasons, mental block maybee..... And then you kept mentioning it and that lead me to test drive one (I drove several of them but it had been almost 10 years) and I still loved it, and then this car came up for sale like less than a week later, which addressed my only real issue with the car (the stock power output)
I'm so glad I didn't get any of the cars I was looking at.
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That makes sense, I'm glad that you like it so much, I'm quite jealous of it. Its funny I have never drove one but my friend loves his, and from what you were looking for it sounded like a good option
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Check out http://www.urekem-paints.com/ (http://www.urekem-paints.com/) This is what I used on my interior panels, it was very easy to use, laid very well and was really reasonably priced. I liked it much more than the Nason which is what I used on my engine bay. As some have said, make sure you get enough clear on so you can cut and buff. And talk about PITA, cutting and buffing. LOL
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Alright so I wasn't planning on going to the track with this car, because I can't afford to crash it at this point, but I figure if it happens it's better to happen while the body work is already messed up.
And I finally found a little track that has real runoff areas.
It used to be a kart track, but they added about a half mile and now it's a tiny technical road course, called Canaan Motor park, up in Canaan NH.
Since I last drove the Rx7 on track, there's been at least 3 tracks added to this area (within 2.5 hours) within the last 5 years. This is one of them, and while it's the least impressive, it seems like the only one that's actually safe to learn on.
There's some good tracks being built around here but they line the tracks with guardrails which is not beginner friendly.
Speeds are low and runoff is abundant it looks like so I think it's a great place to actually get a feel for the car.
Plus it was $150, and everyone gets 6 20 minute sessions at this event. Thats right 100 miles of racing for $150! :drive:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlMAFNrAsvM (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlMAFNrAsvM)
I still can't figure out how to heel toe this damn car correctly without upsetting it so I'll have another 100 or so opportunities at it.
Event is on the 29th, will make sure to take video and pics.
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Cool! I know that track is popular with drifters and pretty nice for what it is. Theres so much grip in your car so I think you will be fine as long as you respect your tires
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Cool! I know that track is popular with drifters and pretty nice for what it is. Theres so much grip in your car so I think you will be fine as long as you respect your tires
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Hey man, I didn't see your reply. Yeah it's big with the drifters.
There's actually a pretty big drift scene and rally scene in New England, neither of which of course I have much interest in, but that's always the way it is.
The car is on R compounds (Toyo R888R's the newer version of the R888s) but from the one AutoX I did they don't seem much different than the highest level summer performance tires, and the car currently the way it sits understeers by default because it doesn't really have any negative camber up front.
I will be changing the steering arms (a common upgrade) to both get more camber and reduce the bump steer so that the car will turn in while driving smoothly. Right now you kinda need to flick it to get the car to rotate and I'm not comfortable doing that on a track.
Other than a bolt check and flushnig the brake fluid (as it came with the car) I'm running it as is.
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It's been too long since I updated this thread.
I haven't had much reason to start the restoration process since it's been in the 50s-60s up until this week.
2 weeks ago I was supposed to go to a HPDE up in NH with nice 60 degree weather, but it got pushed out until tomorrow. And while there isn't any snow or rain in the forecast, thank god. We're getting record cold.
It's going to be around 10 degrees tonight up at the track, about 25 down here in MA. I've got the car in the garage which is about 20 degrees warmer, so we're really going to be pushing the lower temp limits of the r-comounds. Tomorrow will be about 40.
(https://i.imgur.com/SYWU4qP.png)
Traction won't be the best but it'll still be better and more consistent than rain.
I went through, flushed the fluids in the car, and did a bolt check, and there was a shocking number of bolts that were A LOT looser than they should have been. I went through and tightened everything up as I'm going to be disassembling most of the vehicle this winter on the rebuild, where I'll lock tight everything.
What is it with this vehicle, I've never had a car where bolts liked to loosen up so easily.
Anyway I wasn't planning on doing a HPDE with the car until I learned the car better but this small local track has good runoff areas.
A view of the track at speed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGgyCf0qI4I (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGgyCf0qI4I)
While I was under the car I also installed control arms (V2 Arms) which were magical at stopping bump steer, reducing steering effort, and giving me the camber I need up front.
(https://i.imgur.com/7ZRnbRJ.jpg)
Sitting at about -2.5 degrees camber up front with about -2 degrees out back
Due to the cold temps I took a chance to use the front end damage to access and block off one of the oil coolers, and I may tape over the vent on the other side.
(https://i.imgur.com/fBX8rrI.jpg)
Never tried sitting in the car with the helmet on, like every other dimension I barely fit.
Sitting in the garage waiting for tomorrow:
(https://i.imgur.com/nroiE9R.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/35iW7GU.jpg)
Tow vehicle ready to roll out at dawn:
(https://i.imgur.com/JfmRn9W.jpg)
I downloaded Harrys lap timer, so hopefully everything will perform correctly and I'll have lots of video to share.
Then the weather's forcing my hand on starting to dig in. This is my last hurrah for season
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Well probably one of the most satisfying days I've ever had with a car.
Everyone was telling me not to do this track day. The temps being too cold for these tires, the oil being cooled too much on the stock car to allow it to get up to temp on this cold day, and the fact that both my wife and I felt like we were getting sick the day before.
But despite those things, and having several scares, I had a crazy good time.
Arrived late, and went out with the Novices first. Went out easy and I was still passing a large portion of the field.
Temps started cool about 32 degrees, the tires were understandably not that grippy, but seemed consistent to start. The one turn in the shade had considerably and predictably less grip, but everything seemed good. Back end would move around but very controllable.
And like I thought, I got away with doing the whole track in third. so just worked on my line.
Anyway the first part of the day is fun but pretty uneventful, but by lunch time I had more track time under my belt than if I had AutoX'd all season.
I have the full 20 minute session of the laps but they're over a Gig, short vid instead from my wife track side:
https://youtu.be/ZSQxFW-zMZY
After lunch, I had someone ask to ride along, and of course about 4 laps out, the traction is becoming really inconsistent. Like every 5-10 laps all of a sudden a corner is just not what it used to be, and I have my first pretty major off
https://youtu.be/6RJXYJHR0KE
No biggie, this is why I chose the track with run off areas (and this off would be referenced later in the day by the staff, but more on that later)
A couple more sessions go by, it's becoming late afternoon, everyone's having a good time and then BOOM. We all knew the noise and everyone runs over to the guardrail. A miata in the Novice group came around the off camber left hander in front of the gardrail, and when he ran out of track, instead of just letting it roll out into the grass, he over-corrected and snap oversteered head first, full speed directly into the guardrail. Car was totalled, both frame rails to the engine toast, both spindles and wheels destroyed, airbags deployed obviously, it was a worst case scenario type accident.
(https://i.imgur.com/kTIhfza.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/sIopumC.jpg)
So the instructors rounded everyone up and went through some pointers, reminding people that you can always just use the grass, referencing that Black Lotus in the car having such a beautiful and controlled off earlier in the day :wave:
The second that crash happened, I said, I'm done. Like this has been a great day, I've had 5 20 min sessions, the car's run great, no need to push my luck. But I don't know... within 30 mins I change my mind, and say ahh hell with it. I'll go slow. Why not use all of the track time. Plus the Sun's setting and other than getting colder, it's really nice out. I even say, to hell with it I'm going to put some music on an enjoy.
So I go out there going really slow. I start at a 1:26, then a 1:16, then a 1:14, then 1:13, then a pair of 1:12's fastest laps of the day.
Perfect song came on so I started picking it up:
https://youtu.be/qhXPKWPsuyA
https://youtu.be/KXQB6wVHg4E
https://youtu.be/bqEV503kbX8
Out side the car it's FIREBALL city :drive:
https://youtu.be/vdmyJs23AnU
https://youtu.be/6dp1SKYzE9c
And I just can't help myself even though the crash earlier shook me I just kept getting after it harder and harder until I have another little incident:
https://youtu.be/DRN-3PHbyk4
I remember clutching in and looking over my shoulder mid spin to back it across the track. I could have parallel parked it if there was a parking space.
From the outside, it's more dramatic:
https://youtu.be/0HP3rYlv6xA
The last session ends shortly afterwards and I make it back to the pits unscathed, although very much achieved my goal of pushing myself and the car.
And at the end of the day she made it through the cold, the off track adventures and through most of the field. I passed almost everyone in the intermediate group and I never had to give a single point by all day. I'm pretty damn happy.
(https://i.imgur.com/MtJkOC5.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/KEIZYC8.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/w6uz2nc.jpg)
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Glad to hear it was a successful track day! it seems like almost every time there's that one person that wads up.
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Nice vids, but I'd recommend holding onto the brakes in a spin like that, to avoid going back across the track into potential oncoming traffic.
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Nice vids, but I'd recommend holding onto the brakes in a spin like that, to avoid going back across the track into potential oncoming traffic.
I 2nd that, both feet in when you spin
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Thanks guys, the spin caught me off guard a bit.
I was worried that I didn't get on the brakes/clutch fast enough, and I might have put stress on the motor, as it started going backwards.
About halfway through the spin though, the car was already stalled and so I clutched in looked over my shoulder and purposely backed it off the track into the grass, otherwise if I had stayed on the brakes I would have just stopped in the middle of the track.
So I consciously clutched in to keep enough momentum to back it into the grass. Figured that was safer than being out in the track stalled.
I also knew the next car wasn't behind me for a while, but I would have felt really uncomfortable staying in the middle of the track waiting to see if they saw me in time, or really uncomfortable if there was a car right behind me.
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The thing is, if I see a car spin in front of me, and he keeps it locked down, I can predict his trajectory and usually miss him.
If he lets it roll and the tires grab and it shoots off in some unpredictable direction, not so much! :o
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The thing is, if I see a car spin in front of me, and he keeps it locked down, I can predict his trajectory and usually miss him.
If he lets it roll and the tires grab and it shoots off in some unpredictable direction, not so much! :o
Its way easier to avoid a stationary object than a moving one!
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Parts are starting to trickle in for the build this winter.
But just to re-cap the very end of the season before getting into that:
I was so hooked after the last event. I had to do one more before the end of the season.
I ended up doing a high speed autoX the next weekend, and I found a BWR front sway bar used for sale, so I purchased it and installed it before the autoX.
The event was a disaster, but I got a few good photos, and the sway bar while greatly reducing the body lean from the factory Track pack suspension, was way too stiff for the conditions/surface and the car understeer'd heavily.
(https://i.imgur.com/TFfkMeJ.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/sMlaYZv.jpg)
Installing the BWR bar:
(https://i.imgur.com/ByyPBun.jpg)
I feel like I could bend the factory bar over my knee. I'm still getting used to how dainty most of the parts are for this car.
(https://i.imgur.com/KoiqQRU.jpg)
High speed AutoX action shots. Can't believe the car is leaning this much with how stiff the new sway bar feels:
(https://i.imgur.com/c9RO6au.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/J5lHIZA.jpg)
Wanted to address that body roll, so I took advantage of the black friday sale and picked up some Penske Double adjustables and some self lubricating bushings. I don't actually know what these bushings are made of, but it's really stiff, stiffer than Delrin it seems:
(https://i.imgur.com/Fkq6Hjz.jpg)
At this point the suspension will be about as good as it gets on the Lotus platform.
Plan for this winter's build has changed many times, but I think I'm getting a bit clearer on how to get what I'm looking to do.
I drove the car today for what will probably be the last time before it comes apart, and even being away from it for a month, I came back to it and the power wasn't sufficient. I need more power in the car, and the current vendor who installed the TVS1320 and tuned the car is saying that it will take tens of thousands of dollars to get into the high 300s range and I'd likely have to send the car to them across the country.
So it was at that point that I decided I'm not going to move forward with the Rev400 kit (Tvs1320 setup) any further.
I had played with the idea heavily of swapping in a K20 and I'm still not opposed to that, in fact that was my idea before buying the car, was to swap it immediately, but the cost is obviously high, and the thought of the shifter feel being likely worse than stock is kinda hard to swallow after you just spent so much money.
I was a bit lost as to what to do and I still don't have it all figured out, but I started looking at Dyno graphs of some turbo 2ZZs and noticed that the graph didn't look so bad. I started doing some research and I saw some nationally competitive Miatas running Borg Warner EFR turbos. Even the smallest EFR turbo makes 350whp possibly 400 on E85, which is my goal (400 whp when running the E85 map)
If the turbos are responsive enough for AutoX on a motor that's got less head flow, and lower compression than the 2ZZ than the 2zz shouldn't have an issue spooling it either. And it looks like at 3k rpm most of these small turbos make more torque than even the TVS setups.
At least from what the miata guys are saying the EFRs walk all over comparable GTXs in terms of lag and transient response.
So it sold me on the idea of turboing the car.
But of course none of the off the shelf kits fit the EFR turbos, and it's unknown if I can even use an off the shelf manifold because turbocharging doesn't seem to be popular in the lotus community.
So I might use a site like Build Your Own Custom Set Of Headers With Our Header Build Kits - Stainless Headers Mfg., Inc. (http://www.stainlessheaders.com/customheaders) to make a custom turbo manifold or there's a local header shop but they don't generally work with stainless. So if I do a sch 40 mild steel pipe manifold I might use them. There's even a Jet hot shop right across the street, 1 mile away.
Still need to figure out mounting.
Still need to figure out Cooling. Air to Water Intercooler (http://www.frozenboost.com/) A2W was recommended to me, but I'll need to figure this out as no one seems to have built their own setups for the Elige.
Also need to figure out a plug and play standalone which will run well with an easy way to plug back in the factory PCM and be able to pass OBD2 emissions. The car runs a flashed factory PCM which can be tuned, the only thing I worry about is the secondary O2 cel running without a cat.
Also need to find a tuner locally.
But otherwise it seems like something achievable over the winter, especially if I can find ways to make off the shelf parts work.
We have a very long winter, in which I can do the bulk of the work, and we have a very long cold and miserable spring too, which is warm enough to test the car, but will give me time to work the bugs out before the summer.
The bottom end with lower compression forged pistons is plenty stout, and for the top end, probably just SS valves/valvesprings for safety.
The transmission, not so much. I'm going to replace 3rd and 4th which are the weakest, and I'll still need to be careful.
Depending on the turbo I go with the car will be capable of 400-450 whp with full spool around 3500 rpms.
But wait, there's more
The front clam will be replaced, and the rear clam will be repaired. I haven't found the right shop to paint the car so I'm going to have a buddy liquid wrap it. If you're not familiar with it, look up liquid wrap or autofelx on youtube. This is a bit of a waste of money, but I want an orange car, but I don't want to take the depreciation hit of painting it orange, so this temporary solution will work until I find the right shop.
There's a pretty new and awesome pearl available for liquid wraps, called Tupelo, which is pretty close to what the end result color will look like, but I'll likely tweak it a bit:
(https://i.imgur.com/01G3hat.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/oTNvxnH.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/UELqdLM.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/55z8xd8.jpg)
It's going to be a busy winter, and right now I'm balancing this with a total remodel of our bathroom which we're working to get finished before Christmas
Bathroom current state:
(https://i.imgur.com/DCu6JdG.jpg)
Stay tuned, things are about to start heating up big time with this build
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That color ought to look amazing.
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That color ought to look amazing.
Thanks man, I'm excited. The car's going to be LOUD, both literally and figuratively which is generally not my style. I was worried about the type of attention the Lotus would attract in my town, but it's been super positive, hoping that trend continues.
Wheels will be satin black along with the diffuser (car has all black accents stock grills are all black, windshield trim is black, etc) and I'm going to do carbon fiber wrap on the center section of the rear wing, the front lip and the mirrors.
The carbon fiber satin black will contrast well with a bright color. Thats why I'm thinking this is the way to go
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I hear you on being subtle, but that car just screams to have an "interesting" combo, which that really should hit well. It seems like it'll just flat out be fun to drive though. I'm jealous of the "cool track toy" aspect of it, once you get it dialed in you ought to be able to beat it like it owes you money and it should just take it and be a blast. :D
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Love the color! Should look great with all the curves the Elise has. As far as turbo, my buddy did go that route. He used an AEM ecu, but only ran 6 psi cause of the high stock compression. I assume you will be running low comp pistons?
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
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Yeah low comp pistons and probably valve springs. Can you hook Me up with your buddies info? It looks like I'll be blazing this path mostly alone. The lotus forum members are not like this forum members
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Yeah low comp pistons and probably valve springs. Can you hook Me up with your buddies info? It looks like I'll be blazing this path mostly alone. The lotus forum members are not like this forum members
Sad story but he was killed in a motorcycle crash a few years ago, his twin brother has the car now, but put a 2GR V6 in it. I can ask if he has anything leftover from the turbo build.
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Yeah low comp pistons and probably valve springs. Can you hook Me up with your buddies info? It looks like I'll be blazing this path mostly alone. The lotus forum members are not like this forum members
Sad story but he was killed in a motorcycle crash a few years ago, his twin brother has the car now, but put a 2GR V6 in it. I can ask if he has anything leftover from the turbo build.
That sucks man, sorry to hear.
only reach out to his brother if you think that would be alright? I know things like this are emotional decisions.
Thanks
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That sucks man, sorry to hear.
only reach out to his brother if you think that would be alright? I know things like this are emotional decisions.
Thanks
Thanks man motorcycles suck, I've lost 2 good friends in wrecks. I will think about asking. Look up Wek120 on lotus talk if you are on there, should be some build threads and info.
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That sucks man, sorry to hear.
only reach out to his brother if you think that would be alright? I know things like this are emotional decisions.
Thanks
Thanks man motorcycles suck, I've lost 2 good friends in wrecks. I will think about asking. Look up Wek120 on lotus talk if you are on there, should be some build threads and info.
Will do.
BTW pulled the front clam today, and it looks like the radiator and hoses have been replaced on this car already (factory radiator end tanks are plastic so they're prone to failure)
Well it's funny because I just jumped on a used radiator, looks like I'll be turning that over.
I found an adaptronics Stand alone for about half price which is good.
The thing I'm trying to figure out is the turbo setup.
I'm open to using sch 40 mild steel pipe but 2 local fabricators said that mild steel can't handle the heat of a turbo setup.
But it seems like a popular option. The one shop has been doing custom headers for 20+ years and they're 1 mile from my house. Plus they seemed very willing to work with me on pricing. There's a Jet hot and other coating shop right across the street from them too so keeping it local would be nice.
Any experience with the mild steel pipe, I'd still get it Jet hot coated.
As for Turbos the EFR 6258 has been super popular with the Miata crowd, here's my inspiration, instant spool and 375whp on pump gas, E85 you could probably push it to 400+ (not very efficiently though)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxAF_RMmcIQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxAF_RMmcIQ)
The scary thing is the next size up the 6758 in .64 AR supposedly spools similarly and can make 450+ whp so I could continue to go up from here without a lot of lag. And because they're all internally gated I don't need to worry about the science behind gate placement and boost creep.
So what say you guys will sch40 pipe work? What diameter?
T
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If you can stomach the cost and want it to last forever try to go 316. You'd also want pretty small runners to keep velocity and heat at a maximum. No smaller or bigger than the ports on the heads. Most people oversize the crossover on V8 turbos. 2.5" is enough for well over 1000whp. Most could get away with 2-2.25". I'd also consider the one step up for the turbo. The 6758 would be a really fun car. You just need to make sure you have full boost well before the low side of any shifting.
Most lotus anything I ever saw at an autoX spent more time facing the wrong way. Get that balance in line with the power and you'll annihilate most cars out there.
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I would do the bigger turbo, Is there a big difference in cost between the mild steel and stainless options? I would really go stainless with a turbo set up
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I don't know if I agree that mild steel "can't Handle" the heat BUT I think the issue is more to do with corrosion/heat weakening the material over time. No coating will hold up to the extreme temperatures and the material will be more susceptible to rust which will weaken it over time and could lead to cracking. With that being said, I have seen/heard of stainless cracking also, especially in tight/compact designs.
I would think stainless is the better option, probably in the 300 series. As asked above, what is the actual cost difference? And why do you want mild?
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If you can stomach the cost and want it to last forever try to go 316. You'd also want pretty small runners to keep velocity and heat at a maximum. No smaller or bigger than the ports on the heads. Most people oversize the crossover on V8 turbos. 2.5" is enough for well over 1000whp. Most could get away with 2-2.25". I'd also consider the one step up for the turbo. The 6758 would be a really fun car. You just need to make sure you have full boost well before the low side of any shifting.
Most lotus anything I ever saw at an autoX spent more time facing the wrong way. Get that balance in line with the power and you'll annihilate most cars out there.
Yeah 316 seems to be the way to go from what I'm reading. And I think the miata guys had already figured that 1.5" pipe gets you almost a 2" primary in terms of tubing (basically equivalent to 1 and 7/8th), but I'll just go a touch bigger than the head port, and port match. I'm guessing it will either be 1.25 or 1.5.
BTW I did have 2 offs on my first HPDEs, but honestly this car has amazing handling. It's not sketchy to drive at the limit and I'm on stock suspension which is the most sketchy. I had the offfs because the car was tempting me to beat it like a red headed step child. It was that fun.
Plus I did address the suspension. Got Penske Double adjustables ready to go on the car to match the new power :drive:
I would do the bigger turbo, Is there a big difference in cost between the mild steel and stainless options? I would really go stainless with a turbo set up
There really isn't a big cost difference between the two.
If you guys aren't familiar with this site Ace Race Parts is about 30% cheaper than McMaster Carr at least from comparing sch 10 and sch 40 pipe:
https://www.aceraceparts.com/ (https://www.aceraceparts.com/)
Second vote for the bigger turbo, and here's a thread about a 400whp Miata build done on pump gas with the bigger turbo so it certainly delivers:
https://www.miataturbo.net/dynos-timesheets-21/soviet-era-car-space-age-turbo-efr-6758-a-68914/ (https://www.miataturbo.net/dynos-timesheets-21/soviet-era-car-space-age-turbo-efr-6758-a-68914/)
No one on the miata forum complains about lag, but the 2ZZ is an inherently gutless motor. Think Honda B series.
I've gone from an Ls1 to a positive displacement 4cyl, which has been a good transition but I really want to keep the charachter of the motor. I don't want to wait for lag at all, because it will just kinda ruin the rest of the exerience. Everything else in the car is the definition of instant. And I think the smaller turbo will not only be instant, but it'll stomp the TVS everywhere under the curve. And still make the numbers I want.
Only concerns with the small turbo will be how much heat will it be producing while trying to push it.
BTW I could go with the larger turbo and seeing as I'm making the manifold, is exploring the twin scroll option worth the hassle??
I don't know if I agree that mild steel "can't Handle" the heat BUT I think the issue is more to do with corrosion/heat weakening the material over time. No coating will hold up to the extreme temperatures and the material will be more susceptible to rust which will weaken it over time and could lead to cracking. With that being said, I have seen/heard of stainless cracking also, especially in tight/compact designs.
I would think stainless is the better option, probably in the 300 series. As asked above, what is the actual cost difference? And why do you want mild?
This is what I was thinking.. Mild steel may crack, but I've seen countless stainless manifolds crack too.
I was doing research on how much each of these materials weigh per pound and I might as well make it from 316 sch 40, and it should last forever.
A mild steel manifold isn't much cheaper, but it's just much easier. I can take a crack at tacking it myself and get it welded nearly anywhere. Not many people want to touch stainless around here.
I'm only 20 mins outside a metro area (boston) but a lot of the car guys and fabricators are really old school around here.
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316 schedule 10 should be more than enough.... I think that's what Nick's manifolds are in the FD, and they've held up fine. Just brace natural stress points.
Ace Stainless rocks, that's where all of up pipe parts came from on the Mustang. Schedule 10 316, FWIW.
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316 schedule 10 should be more than enough.... I think that's what Nick's manifolds are in the FD, and they've held up fine. Just brace natural stress points.
Ace Stainless rocks, that's where all of up pipe parts came from on the Mustang. Schedule 10 316, FWIW.
If thats the case sch 10 316 is actually cheaper than sch 40 mild. But the labor is where the real cost is.
The shop down the street said for a rough idea, figure 125-150 a tube. Now thats how they usually price NA headers, so I'm guessing a short turbo manifold would be on the lower end of that, but I don't know how much work they do with stainless.
I'll just need to ask, because they were the ones that even said, don't go mild steel.
Just doing some math It loks like flanges will be 100 total, tubing ill probably be about 150-200 and labor at 150 per tube is 600 so I could be done with this for around 800-850$
Thats only about 100-150 more than the off the shelf options
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The vast majority of headers that crack are 304 and 16ga because it's easier.
At sch 10 316 done properly will last a very long time. Can't beat it short of inconel.
A note about the steel types. 304 can actually take slightly higher temps than 316. But 316 more corrosion resistant. The corrosion resistance is why it last longer. Not the melting point.
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Can you not weld it yourself? May be a good time to buy a tig welder...but turbo manifolds are not the easiest things to weld as a beginner
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Why not check with a few guys on the forum to see what they would charge to weld it up. I know some might depend on how well you do the prep and fitment. I know fabchild has quoted me a couple things that have been very reasonable.
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Why not check with a few guys on the forum to see what they would charge to weld it up. I know some might depend on how well you do the prep and fitment. I know fabchild has quoted me a couple things that have been very reasonable.
Honestly don't think I have the fab skills, but I'll give it a shot. I can mock up the header up with PVC and see how far I get.
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I can TIG for you, but it's probably not worth shipping that stuff around the country.
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Isn't @dvous nearby in CT, maybe he can help
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
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Isn't @Dvous nearby in CT, maybe he can help
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
CT isn't bad, maybe 3 hours
Most of the online custom header companies send you a pvc based kit to use as a template. Then once the pvc is in the right place you send it back to them and they send you a header that matches. If I can make the header using 45s and 90s, I can use actual pipe instead and tack it together, I'll have something that just needs to be finish welded.
If I use 316 or 304 stainless. I'm guessing I just need stainless wire on the mig, but to tack it together I don't need to back purge or anything like that right? The person finish welding will need to grind all of my tacks off anyway, correct?
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As long as you don't use enough current to make the back side glow it will be fine. Just note on thicker pipe there should be a chamfer to get proper penetration.
For the sake of whomever is welding it...no gaps. At all.
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As long as you don't use enough current to make the back side glow it will be fine. Just note on thicker pipe there should be a chamfer to get proper penetration.
For the sake of whomever is welding it...no gaps. At all.
No gaps will be tough for me.
While we're building a custom manifold here, why not go twin scroll? Again the integrated wastegate removes the dual wastegate challenge.
Thinking a Tri-Y type design would actually be easier to fab.
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Isn't @Dvous nearby in CT, maybe he can help
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
CT isn't bad, maybe 3 hours
Most of the online custom header companies send you a pvc based kit to use as a template. Then once the pvc is in the right place you send it back to them and they send you a header that matches. If I can make the header using 45s and 90s, I can use actual pipe instead and tack it together, I'll have something that just needs to be finish welded.
If I use 316 or 304 stainless. I'm guessing I just need stainless wire on the mig, but to tack it together I don't need to back purge or anything like that right? The person finish welding will need to grind all of my tacks off anyway, correct?
I may be able to help, where are you located exactly?
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Isn't @Dvous nearby in CT, maybe he can help
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
CT isn't bad, maybe 3 hours
Most of the online custom header companies send you a pvc based kit to use as a template. Then once the pvc is in the right place you send it back to them and they send you a header that matches. If I can make the header using 45s and 90s, I can use actual pipe instead and tack it together, I'll have something that just needs to be finish welded.
If I use 316 or 304 stainless. I'm guessing I just need stainless wire on the mig, but to tack it together I don't need to back purge or anything like that right? The person finish welding will need to grind all of my tacks off anyway, correct?
I may be able to help, where are you located exactly?
I'm on the south shore. Hingham, Ma if you want to plug into your GPS, to get some idea. It takes me about 4 hours to get to NYC with no traffic
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You can do a twin scroll setup but need to make sure the cylinders are paired properly. A tri y isn't necessary and adds only complications.
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You can do a twin scroll setup but need to make sure the cylinders are paired properly. A tri y isn't necessary and adds only complications.
The thought was not having to deal with a collector, and making the runners equal length, seems like it would be easier from a fab perspective
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Equal length is good but shorter is better. A tri y adds unnecessary length but may make it easier. There are a couple good videos on YouTube on turbo manifold fabrication.
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Equal length is good but shorter is better. A tri y adds unnecessary length but may make it easier. There are a couple good videos on YouTube on turbo manifold fabrication.
The good news is watching this video, I saw the same issues as he saw with this manifold design before he mentioned it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeEeISLrjUA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeEeISLrjUA)
Runner #1 I said that's a straight shot, no other runner is going to be that direct/short
Runner #3 I saw that gap and said man I'd hit that with a belt sander and make it fit up a bit better
Otherwise, this guy makes it look way way way too easy
outside of a band/chop saw, how to make straight cuts??
I liked his tip on finding that awkward angle on runner #2 or #3
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Ok so here's the plan thus far for the engine/transmission modifications this winter. My goal is to create a relatively simple plan/blueprint, that others can copy, to getting to 400whp in the Elige platform via a turbocharger without any lag what-so-ever, while keeping the car completely street friendly.
I'm REALLY looking for the boards help in poking holes in this plan so that I can address as many issues proactively as possible. I wanted to work with vendors trying to adapt certain elements of existing offerings, but I've been told by a couple vendors now, that I'm too far outside of their standard game plan for them to be able to assist me any further.
That's fine, and I know I have the general knowledge to make this happen.
So, here's the recipe I'm planning
Engine Prep - Major Components
- 10:5:1 Compression Mahle Pistons
- Stainless Steel Valves / Valve springs
- Port matched intake and Exhaust ports
QUESTION: Whats the tyipical cost to balance a rotating assembly and assemble the short block?
Transmission Prep
- Jubu 3rd and 4th
- Refresh 2nd gear synchro proactively
- Was planning on keeping the ACT HDSS Clutch (Not drag racing the car, but the mid range torque of these turbo's might be too much for this clutch)
- Fidanza Flywheel
QUESTION: What should I expect for cost to replace the 3rd/4th gear?
Turbo
- EFR 6258 .64 or EFR 6758. - I'd like to use the vband version on these and still might but part of the reason they respond so well is due to the small T25 and the .64 AR. The 6258 has been shown to build positive manifold pressure on other 1.8L motors around 2,000 rpm, hitting full boost under 3,000 rpm depending on amount of boost, manifold design etc. These turbos are so much better than the GTX series turbos on small motors that even the Miata guys are seeing instant boost and making 400whp with them, and the BP motor is much harder to make power with.
- Turbo manifold will be custom. - we went through this already, plan still remains the same Sch 10 304 or 316
- A2W setup from Air to Water Intercooler (http://www.frozenboost.com) . Using the largest setup I can fit, but from rough measurements their 600whp KIT should fit, but I would upgrade to the Bosh pump, which comes factory on a couple A2W cars: Water to Air Intercooler (http://www.frozenboost.com/liquid-air-intercooler/water-to-air-intercooler-p-1006.html)
This would be the general arrangement of the components, very similar to the Radium turbo set up, but the turbo would likely need to mount slightly lower and I might need to trim the trunk slightly. The fewer of these things I can get away with I will, but the EFR turbo is larger externally because of it's integrated Wastegate and BOV, and different vendors have told me space is tight in that general area. And I can't mount the turbo too low or else we'll need a scavenger pump to get oil from turbo to pan (another potential point of failure).
Here's the layout I'm copying generally, look at how short that cold side tubing is.
(https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.miataturbo.net-vbulletin/883x591/80-05ef3f7b_ecc8_40da_8646_a71501257e67_883x591_fe896228ba9ff3dc22e41c437a268cf3381611c4.jpg)
Engine Management
I need to pass emissions, so I need to retain the factory PCM but I also would like to take advantage of the local E85 so I need a standalone as well. Something that is plug and play and runs the factory dash.
Adaptronic seems to be the cheapest option, a big support community, a couple local tuners list it as one of the systems they support, and no one's given me a good answer on why I need a more expensive system.. but honestly open to input here. Tuning isn't my forte, and I want the car to be reliable and run well.
Fuel
It looks like the Walbro 255 in the tank currently will support the 400whp E85 numbers, but I'll be pretty close.
I don't want to change injectors between my pump gas and E85 maps, I'd like have a flex fuel sensor and just flip the map on a switch. This would also make emissions time easier.. I'll just need to figure this out with a local tuner if I can make it happen on the same set of injectors (aka 350whp or so on pump and then 400whp on E85, don't know if this is possible)
Tuning
BOE for the Factory PCM flashed with an Emissions friendly tune - We just have OBD2 testing here in MA. So Readiness needs to be set for all systems, and only 1 is allowed to be not Ready, which I'm assuming in my case will be Evap or Secondary 02. Then once I'm through emissions the plan is just to swap back to the Standalone ECU in the parking lot before pulling out, which is why it's truely got to be plug and play.
Local tuner to get me up and running, and then I was watching videos on tuning VE tables for most of these standalones, and it really does seem like simple but tedious work. So I'd probably work on improving the street tuning manners myself.
Funding
If I do this I'm going to be selling my current Rev400 supercharger kit, and I think I'll be able to cover the cost of the Turbo setup, with money to spare doing this.
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You will absolutely love the Borg EFR. I had a 9180 (68mm) on my 13B and loading the engine at 2500rpm on the Dynapacks, it made 7psi of boost!
I would go with the 6758. The bigger compressor will be better matched to the high VE of that 2ZZ.
Take a look at the Megasquirt MS3Pro ecus. They've come a looooong way since the DIY days of soldering together radioshack ECUs. They have all the bells and whistles of today's top dollar ECUs and a really nice software package and support network. I've helped convert several cars from stock ECU to MS3 using jumper harnesses - rotaries, turbo BMWs, DSMs. All you need is an old ECU to harvest the harness connector from.
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+1 on Megasquirt since it has so much functionality for cheap. I would think a balance on the rotating assembly would be $200 at most. Any reason why you don't want to assemble the short block yourself? If you can tack the header up and it fits well I don't think you'd have a hard time finding someone to weld it up for you as long as you do a neat job of fitting and tacking
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You will absolutely love the Borg EFR. I had a 9180 (68mm) on my 13B and loading the engine at 2500rpm on the Dynapacks, it made 7psi of boost!
I would go with the 6758. The bigger compressor will be better matched to the high VE of that 2ZZ.
Take a look at the Megasquirt MS3Pro ecus. They've come a looooong way since the DIY days of soldering together radioshack ECUs. They have all the bells and whistles of today's top dollar ECUs and a really nice software package and support network. I've helped convert several cars from stock ECU to MS3 using jumper harnesses - rotaries, turbo BMWs, DSMs. All you need is an old ECU to harvest the harness connector from.
The lotus uses a CAN/BUS system I believe for the gauge cluster so a system like the MS3 wouldn't drive the cluster, otherwise something like that would be the easy choice. The adpaptronic drives the stock cluster, and is plug and play (although I believe building a pluggable jumper harness wouldn't be too bad on a normal car. CAN/BUS makes things more complicated, and I don't even want to touch the CAN/BUS adapters out there.
The EFR turbo though... thats why I'm going through all of this headache, there's a turbo kit available for the Elises, that's based on the GTX turbos, but it's about $4500 for just the manifold/turbo/dp and oil/coolant lines.
And the A2W is pretty much a requirement due to space constraints. I'm going to dig into your thread, you must be dealing with some of the same challenges, and I'm curious how your A2W system is keeping temps down. The key to a good A2W system seems to be simply big lines (especially with longer runs like what I'm doing) and as many Cubic inches of Heat exchanger as you can possibly fit.
Big reserviors are the same as adding oil capacity.. not a great fix.
But I'm not endurance racing the car, I'm only planning on doing 20 min HPDEs and the car will be turned down, so I hope it's not as hard as I'm reading to keep the car cool.
I've been talking to a couple people running some pretty wild and very expensive A2W setups and they were HAPPY with 140 degree IATs
+1 on Megasquirt since it has so much functionality for cheap. I would think a balance on the rotating assembly would be $200 at most. Any reason why you don't want to assemble the short block yourself? If you can tack the header up and it fits well I don't think you'd have a hard time finding someone to weld it up for you as long as you do a neat job of fitting and tacking
Mainly just laziness.. I'm working on so many other aspects of the car at the same time that I need to farm out the cheaper portions to other people, so I don't get overwhelmed.
BTW update on the process thus far, it's been damn near negative outside for over a week now, and I realize that before anything happens I need to get a heater in the garage. It's a small 2 car with 7-8ft ceilings.
We have NG in the house and I have a pretty good plumber I'm working on with the house reno project.
So I was thinking of getting one of those Mr. Heater vented NG units. It would be nice not to take on another project, and just get one of those ventless propane units I could run off a 20lb bottle but I've heard bad things about fumes, etc. Let me know your thoughts are.
I'm also calling around to try to figure out different vendors for different pieces of the project, and I think I've got the manifold creation covered even if I can't do it.
But what I'm running into is problems figuring out the cooling. There's a massive Heat exchanger sold which fits the Elise but its $1000+ (Elise tax) and it replaces the AC condenser, which I'd like to keep.
Other than that, there's no proven front mount systems to copy that I've found, other than the guy I mentioned earlier who's replaced the entire front end of his car, as it's a race car and runs 3 large custom heat exchangers and still has 140 degree IATs (in his TVS supercharged K20 setup)
The other challenge I'm working on which I didn't expect is Tuners
No one tunes these cars in New England it seems. The 2 adaptronic tuners in New England are both booked solid until the spring, and honestly didn't sound like they had any interest in this particular project.
Everyone seems to want to build the car for you and charge you 20-30k, and if they can't, they don't want to deal with it.
Honestly, the 2ZZ can make plenty of power I'm sure, but in the elise platform especially it's a massive pain in the ass. The few vendors out there don't want to deal with anything that's outside of the ordinary and even within "the ordinary" they want 20K out of you.
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My A2W with the 13B was very simple and extremely effective. I ran an intercooler identically to a Frozen Boost "Type 15", a GT500 pump and expansion tanks and a used heat exchanger from a Roush Stage 3 mustang. My IATs were typically 85° driving around and about 95 at the end of a pull. When I dyno'd the car, I ended up doing 55 pulls in 4 hours (!) Trying to chase boost creep issues. I had ONE pull where the IATs exceeded 100°F. Although the system was susceptible to some heatsoak, temps, we're almost never over 100 and would drop to 80-85 as soon as you started moving. They wouldn't go much lower due to the temps of the engine bay. If space wasn't an issue on the LS, I'd do A2W again
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You will absolutely love the Borg EFR. I had a 9180 (68mm) on my 13B and loading the engine at 2500rpm on the Dynapacks, it made 7psi of boost!
I would go with the 6758. The bigger compressor will be better matched to the high VE of that 2ZZ.
Take a look at the Megasquirt MS3Pro ecus. They've come a looooong way since the DIY days of soldering together radioshack ECUs. They have all the bells and whistles of today's top dollar ECUs and a really nice software package and support network. I've helped convert several cars from stock ECU to MS3 using jumper harnesses - rotaries, turbo BMWs, DSMs. All you need is an old ECU to harvest the harness connector from.
The lotus uses a CAN/BUS system I believe for the gauge cluster so a system like the MS3 wouldn't drive the cluster, otherwise something like that would be the easy choice. The adpaptronic drives the stock cluster, and is plug and play (although I believe building a pluggable jumper harness wouldn't be too bad on a normal car. CAN/BUS makes things more complicated, and I don't even want to touch the CAN/BUS adapters out there.
The EFR turbo though... thats why I'm going through all of this headache, there's a turbo kit available for the Elises, that's based on the GTX turbos, but it's about $4500 for just the manifold/turbo/dp and oil/coolant lines.
And the A2W is pretty much a requirement due to space constraints. I'm going to dig into your thread, you must be dealing with some of the same challenges, and I'm curious how your A2W system is keeping temps down. The key to a good A2W system seems to be simply big lines (especially with longer runs like what I'm doing) and as many Cubic inches of Heat exchanger as you can possibly fit.
Big reserviors are the same as adding oil capacity.. not a great fix.
But I'm not endurance racing the car, I'm only planning on doing 20 min HPDEs and the car will be turned down, so I hope it's not as hard as I'm reading to keep the car cool.
I've been talking to a couple people running some pretty wild and very expensive A2W setups and they were HAPPY with 140 degree IATs
+1 on Megasquirt since it has so much functionality for cheap. I would think a balance on the rotating assembly would be $200 at most. Any reason why you don't want to assemble the short block yourself? If you can tack the header up and it fits well I don't think you'd have a hard time finding someone to weld it up for you as long as you do a neat job of fitting and tacking
Mainly just laziness.. I'm working on so many other aspects of the car at the same time that I need to farm out the cheaper portions to other people, so I don't get overwhelmed.
BTW update on the process thus far, it's been damn near negative outside for over a week now, and I realize that before anything happens I need to get a heater in the garage. It's a small 2 car with 7-8ft ceilings.
We have NG in the house and I have a pretty good plumber I'm working on with the house reno project.
So I was thinking of getting one of those Mr. Heater vented NG units. It would be nice not to take on another project, and just get one of those ventless propane units I could run off a 20lb bottle but I've heard bad things about fumes, etc. Let me know your thoughts are.
I'm also calling around to try to figure out different vendors for different pieces of the project, and I think I've got the manifold creation covered even if I can't do it.
But what I'm running into is problems figuring out the cooling. There's a massive Heat exchanger sold which fits the Elise but its $1000+ (Elise tax) and it replaces the AC condenser, which I'd like to keep.
Other than that, there's no proven front mount systems to copy that I've found, other than the guy I mentioned earlier who's replaced the entire front end of his car, as it's a race car and runs 3 large custom heat exchangers and still has 140 degree IATs (in his TVS supercharged K20 setup)
The other challenge I'm working on which I didn't expect is Tuners
No one tunes these cars in New England it seems. The 2 adaptronic tuners in New England are both booked solid until the spring, and honestly didn't sound like they had any interest in this particular project.
Everyone seems to want to build the car for you and charge you 20-30k, and if they can't, they don't want to deal with it.
Honestly, the 2ZZ can make plenty of power I'm sure, but in the elise platform especially it's a massive pain in the ass. The few vendors out there don't want to deal with anything that's outside of the ordinary and even within "the ordinary" they want 20K out of you.
Check into the MS3Pro. I believe it may be able to handle the CANBUS interface.
I put one on my FD, and though I didn't need it, there was a lot of CANBUS info in the manual.
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Well it's been a busy winter, both with house projects and with business. It's going to be spring next month and I haven't touched the car much.
So big plans for this winter seem out the window, but I am pulling all of the body work and I'm going to be doing the suspension this year with some other minor revisions.
The plan for the bodywork has changed multiple times but at the end of the day I still can't figure out what I want to paint the car, and I've always wanted an orange car, so I'm going to use the AutoFlex product that I mentioned. It should last 5-7 years with how I use the car (Summer / weekend driving and garage storage)
Front clam is already off the car and the front clam has been block sanded (yes still need to replace the front crash structure, but that didn't stop me from taking it for the first drive of the season.
Barely made it back from the bodyshop before sun down, and passed 3 cops on the way over with no incidents =)
(https://i.imgur.com/AjRuy0W.jpg)
So tonight I embarked in a short 2 hour project (whoever said this took 2 hours must be a lotus master tech) Between the custom interior, and the sound system it was much much harder to remove the rear clam. The bulkhead had some extra bolts holding it in place behind the subwoower, and some extra glue, and none of the wires had quick disconnects on ANYTHING so I'll be soldering in some for to make this much easier in the future. I can only imagine how much more the car will squeek and rattle every time it gets pulled apart.
Passenger seat out:
(https://i.imgur.com/2OMHqRd.jpg)
Remnants of the last owner under the passenger seat:
This might help explain the previous owner a bit
(https://i.imgur.com/OMu0tZr.jpg)
More interesting items under the seat:
I thought this was lube when I first saw it. There seems to be womens products all over this car. Purple eyeliner, multiple lipsticks, etc... The last owner was a guy...
(https://i.imgur.com/lX5E18z.jpg)
Both Seats out. Had to run to the store to get an extension but it was smooth sailing at this point:
(https://i.imgur.com/r0pbHsC.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/pSCxj1B.jpg)
Things went way off the rails trying to get the bulkhead off. Turns out there were some hidden fasteners and glue, that were not there stock. Whoever did this interior didn't think about it coming apart again one day:
(https://i.imgur.com/VbYykna.jpg)
Rear Deck Lid Off The Car:
(https://i.imgur.com/nyhlmiC.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/ZBcrYer.jpg)
First Attempt At Pulling The Clam:
(https://i.imgur.com/R12C8SQ.jpg)
Turns out even though I disconnected all of the stock wiring there was an absolute mass of wires still left to label and pull from the sound system/amps in the back:
I've seen chassis harnesses with fewer wires than this damn thing:
(https://i.imgur.com/5AFfDQB.jpg)
And finally at 11PM:
(https://i.imgur.com/cf7ZQCq.jpg)
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What a royal PITA with that stereo.
Also, I initially read the logo on the engine as "Supercharged by Bob" and thought "well damn Bob, not real humble, eh?" LOL
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What a royal PITA with that stereo.
Also, I initially read the logo on the engine as "Supercharged by Bob" and thought "well damn Bob, not real humble, eh?" LOL
I LOLed at this, this morning.
Good time to go through the car and check everything mechanical. I have the Penskes to put on. They're deff going on, that should be a breeze with the car the way it is right now.
The 2 other aftermarket parts I wanted to install are full monoballs all the way around, and a lightweight flywheel, but dropping the transmission just seems like too much with the first track day coming up at the end of April.
I still need to completely disassemble the front end as well and scrape off basically what it some sort of industrial bonding agent, then replace the front crash structure and re-assemble everything.
Garage is getting tight already
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Nice progress, I bet the previous owner had a lot of girls that liked to party in the passenger seat, didn't you say he was pretty young?
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
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Nice progress, I bet the previous owner had a lot of girls that liked to party in the passenger seat, didn't you say he was pretty young?
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
He is pretty young. I think very early 20s. And the ZigZags make sense, other drugs make sense, but ladies man I think not.
I'd almost guess he was a cross dresser before I believe he was getting all sorts of tail. Or he had a GF who was running a makeup store out of that car. I think I took a couple tubes of lipstick out of the car before the seat came out and a couple other things.
Very odd...
There was also the paperwork for his insurance under the seat along with Emergency room discharge papers for a cut to the hand. Furthering the belief that this kid was a walking train wreck.
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Hey man, take a walk on the wild side.
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More work accomplished today on the car.
What the front suspension looks like disassembled. It seems like the new nylon bushings will fit nice and snug but it says something in the directions about sanding them to fit, don't think I need to do this. If the control arm is out of round it doesn't seem to be. I could very lightly tap them into place and knock them out again without any grease.
Just need to put the new bushings in and bolt in the Penskes, do I need to grease the bushings and the sleeves?
(https://i.imgur.com/qxhLl6G.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Rgjm2bN.jpg)
In comparison to removing the clam pulling the bushings and shocks has been about 2 hours. This so far has been the easiest bushing job I've ever done.
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I highly recommend greasing everything with a thick waterproof type, should make everything last longer and no squeaking.
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I highly recommend greasing everything with a thick waterproof type, should make everything last longer and no squeaking.
Thats what I was planning to do, but the instructions also said that when the arms are welded at the factory the holes for the bushings aren't trypically round anymore and to shape the nylon bushing basically to match. Seems pretty round to me, round enough that I can't tell where to take material off.
So I think I'm just going to grease them up and put them in.
Another update on the color BTW. We're working at re-creating Volcano Orange, in AutoFlex, which is the professional version of plasti dip.
From all of the local hype the process has been creating a mutual friend had connections at the only local certified McLaren service center. So we got the full process involved in spraying Volcano Orange, and it's pretty complex, plus all pints sold of the paint are matched to a VIN, to be accounted for, so getting the paint still seems very difficult if I actually wanted to paint the car down the road.
But from the process we learned that they use a silver and layer candy and tinted oranges over the silver. So we took the same concept and sprayed a silver base with 3 layers of HOK tangerine candy over it in AutoFlex and here's where we're at so far.
Silver base on the left and after 3 coats of candy on the right.
I think we need another coat of candy to darken it a bit further, and add the gold interference pearl to it
(https://i.imgur.com/OchPHnK.gif)
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That's Autoflex? Wow, that is looking pretty good. Spraying candies scares me. Haha.
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That color looks awesome!!!
It is amazing how far the flexible coatings have come from people rattle canning flat black... What will something like that cost?
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That color looks awesome!!!
It is amazing how far the flexible coatings have come from people rattle canning flat black... What will something like that cost?
You can do basically anything that you could do with paint. It has a clear coat which you can wet sand/buff, and thats typically the best way to do it.
The thickness of the Autoflex is the only real downside, from my understanding it's harder to keep a good consistent surface when you're typically doing 8-10 coats and a coating of AF is much thicker than any paint job.
So to get a great finish you need to cut/buff the clear.
Cost is 2K. And the surface under it needs to be ready, just like paint. You need either factory clear on the car or the primer needs to be sanded to 1000 grit.
Getting the last of the fiberglass done now, and I'm either going to prime it/sand it to 1000 grit or have the shop that's doing the fiberglass work do those sections. There's still a good portion of the car which still has factory clear on it, so i just need to maybe wetsand those slightly and/or do a paint correction type action to them. This is not something I'm familiar with, but it seems pretty easy.
Need to get a DA, hand sanding everything does suck.
Figure that the coating will give me 5 good years, but the guy putting it on said that the way I keep the car in the garage and only drive it weekends, it could last really as long as I take care of it.
The idea is that I try a wild color, because I've always wanted one, and it makes sense on these cars, before I actually paint the car, and I'm doing so much body work that all of the cost of a paint job is really already done. If this guy did a good job with the AF I'd probably give him another $1,000 maybe at most to actually spray it down the line.
How I'll feel in 5 years, I don't know if I'll want an outrageous color, black does fly under the radar a bit. It's really going to stand out A LOT here in grey/silver Toyota Camry land, so this will let me kinda try before I fully commit to spraying the car.
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Waiting on the rear clam still so I figured I'd start in on the bodywork on the front clam. Learning bodywork on a Lotus seems risky, but I've probably watched more videos on sanding/prep than is really necessary.
400 grit, you can see the edge of the guide coat, where I've sanded and where I still have left. Half the clam took a good 2 hours.
I actually found it quite zen work. I typically wont touch body work, and prefer mechanical, but this has been relaxing in comparison to removing the clam.
(https://i.imgur.com/8I7rvXb.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/gMNl0gf.jpg)
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Damn, that's the first time I've heard anyone describe bodywork as "relaxing". :poke:
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Damn, that's the first time I've heard anyone describe bodywork as "relaxing". :poke:
I'm doing the dumb grunt work though.
The fiberglass repair, and the final prep/paint will be done by the pros, but getting the body sanded down with 400 then primed and sanded to 1000 aint bad. Its just time consuming especially doing it all by hand. I'd get a cheap DA from harbor freight but with so many curves on the car, most of it you have to do by hand anyway. Like I said, I just put some music on and zoned out for a couple hours after work, it's good work to do in chunks when you get bored of handling other stuff.
I would suggest this to anyone thinking of getting a paint job done. You can save yourself hours of work which most shops charge you around $100/hr to do.
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Some big updates on the mechanical work, put in about 12-13 hours total this weekend. I'm committed to getting this done for spring.
Parts are finally starting to go on the car, but hit some roadblocks as usual.
I have a room next to the garage just for storing parts coming off, and ready to go on, it's getting full:
(https://i.imgur.com/udUFOf2.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/EyyWfUR.jpg)
BWR self lubricating bushings installed up front and Penskes Installed up front. Front suspension is buttoned up as of yesterday.
(https://i.imgur.com/GkvO7BK.jpg)
Today I started in on the rear suspension and man I was tired, but started slow, and kept working through sun down:
(https://i.imgur.com/LnhVoap.jpg)
First rear shocks removed (easiest swap I've ever done)
(https://i.imgur.com/XHqtyLz.jpg)
Then I replaced the bushings on the passenger side and was about to start reassembling the passenger rear, only to think about the flywheel job I'm going to have to do next, so I said while I'm in here might as well keep pulling it apart.
Pulled caliper, and unbolted the passenger side axle:
(https://i.imgur.com/wdfFzKf.jpg)
Parts that have come off the car next to parts ready to go on:
(https://i.imgur.com/v2L2GiA.jpg)
Sun goes down, now I'm just starting on the drivers side, but even still I'm able to pull it in about an hour:
(https://i.imgur.com/gXn7d5v.jpg)
Hit my goal for the weekend, and by combining the suspension install/bushing/flywheel job, I saved a lot of duplicate labor
How I left the car at the end of the night:
(https://i.imgur.com/84gMgvX.jpg)
Now all I need to do is pretty much disconnect the cable shift linkage, pull the slave cylinder and unbolt the tranny/motor mounts. I'm at 1/3rd to half way through already. Hoping to finish it next weekend.
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Forgot to add my one little snafu... I really need to adjust to working on such a delicate car.
I don't think this was there before and I think I did it with a small pry bar when I was trying to unbolt the rear upper control arm. I still think of control arms as pretty incredibly durable things but the below is a dent that I think is my work. I didn't notice it until the end of the night..
So one little wrinkle is I need to get a new drivers side upper control arm....bummer:
(https://i.imgur.com/is50Q5e.jpg)
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Good progress. Bummer about the damaged arm though. :(
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If progress seems slow it's because one I was on vacation last week, and this weekend I had to go grab my father in laws car with him and bring it to the shop, where he's going to have a 383 stroker put in the car, along with the nitrous kit and I gave him that I bought for the Rx7 but never installed, and I got a chance to use my new winch!
(https://i.imgur.com/Zcmw1TT.jpg)
The other reason progress is slow, is because this car is a dirty little hooker!!
I knew this car lead a rough life with the last owner, but it looks like the abuse started LONG before the last owner.
I knew it had a minor accident in it's life, before the one that tore up the front end (as I received it) again the car has a clean title and most of the bolts up front seem like they've never been touched.
But I picked the rear clam up from the fiberglass shop after 3 trips (kept finding minor issues with the work) and the repairs look good now, and they kept saying there's a lot of paint on this thing. We saw a few colors. I didn't think much of it until I started stripping paint off the rear engine cover and gave up after about 3 hours. Look at this modern art piece, how many colors can you spot?
(https://i.imgur.com/xD6y4Af.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/8irzW67.jpg)
Suffice to say this thing's going in the garbage. The paint is as thick as my finger nail, and it was kinda peeling off like latex paint after sitting with some stripper on it for about an hour.
Got a new engine cover for about $300 on ebay from a green car (want to make sure I followed tradition and make each body panel a unique color, to make sure the next owner is as entertained as me :chug:)
I'm getting some 2k primer/filler this week, I've already filled most of the deep scratches and rock chips and now once I prime those spots, I'm going to sand everything out with 800 and then 1000 grit. I've done most of the grunt work though with the 400 grit and after buying a DA I've gone back to hand sanding everything, it takes forever but you do it once and it's perfect. The DA is kinda a pain in the ass. I had some grit or something on the pad one time and it left a long trail of scratches in the surface that took me 10X longer to sand out later... so my excitement about using some power tools waned a bit.
Starting in on today, the rear clam after I got it back from the fiberglass shop, sprayed my guide coat and hand sanded it with 400 grit. That took probably 4-5 hours, only to notice additional cracks in it that need to be fixed, back to the fiberglass shop :banghead:
(https://i.imgur.com/ZexWJOm.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/P9s61Lz.jpg)
Basically I'm putting off the mechanical work. I still need to pull the transmission, and to do so I may need to pull the supercharger for clearance. But once that flywheel is in, I just need to put the rear end back together, get the car to roller status, make sure it's mechanically sound and I'll drive it to the fiberglass shop to fix a couple more cracks including the new ones I found today. Once those cracks are fixed all of the body work will essentially be done, so I can go almost straight to paint.
It's going to be a push, but I want to have the car painted by June 1
BTW major teaser, when I was in FL I decided to see if there were any Volcano orange Mclarens in south florida. Despite there not being 1 within 500 miles in new england, there were 3 within an hour drive in south florida. So I called up the dealer and decided to go see the color in person, as I've never seen it up close and personal.
This is for sure THE COLOR, and we've connected with the only McLaren service center in New England, and we've made a connect with one of their painters. They have a volcano orange car coming in for service in the next couple weeks, so the guy is going to paint a sample piece in VO so we can use it for reference in our goal to replicate it.
Check out this color, it's insane:
(https://i.imgur.com/Y2lyn6U.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/FRm7C9Z.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/QrdhfFK.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/r5cE7sP.jpg)
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Ohh yeah, how could I forget the best part.
When I was doing the bushing job on the front control arms, after installing the new bushing and torqueing to spec the wishbone bolts, I heard a loud pop around 15-20 ft/lbs. I couldn’t see what had caused the loud pop noise until I noticed that the aluminum channel that the wishbone bushing sits in separated from the glue in one section. See photo (zoom in on the red glue directly below the head of the bolt). This is the front upper wishbone mount on the drivers side. Shockingly this same thing happened on the passengers side rear upper control arm mount as well, and at this point I was being extremely careful.
(https://i.imgur.com/hWrBd1Y.jpg)
That 2” section separated and now there’s an air gap there. This is bad news as far as I can tell, as the Elise has an unserviceable chassis setup with pretty advanced adhesives and rivets holding together extruded aluminum pieces. The factory adhesive needs to be baked/cured in an over at the factory and to have aluminum seperating from glue I believe is technically frame damage.
Now there's a lot of redundancy in that section and from a practical perspective that piece of aluminum is completely surrounded with other aluminum sections, glued 360 degrees all the way around and down the length of it, and there are many structural rivets that are also glued as well. so this little section isn't going to create a rigidity issue, but I'm still reaching out to the dealership to see if they have a replacement adhesive for servicing.
Suffice to say, while I'm not asking endless questions on this build like I did with the Rx7, this build is turning out to be the same anxiety inducting roller coaster. :barf:
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That color looks amazing. The frame stuff, much less so.
FWIW, if the dealer can't help, look up the 3M 2K panel bond line. They have some stuff that should be more than sufficient to lock that together in an very permanent manner.
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That color looks amazing. The frame stuff, much less so.
FWIW, if the dealer can't help, look up the 3M 2K panel bond line. They have some stuff that should be more than sufficient to lock that together in an very permanent manner.
Ohh I'm sure there are plenty of good adhesives and people have completely rebuilt their elise chassis even when there was legit frame damage. Aka cutting welding aluminum, gluing entire sections etc, but it's rare.
Talked to the dealership and as far as the manufacturer is concerned any disruption to the glue or the aluminum requires an entire replacement of the frame, there is no servicing the frame what so ever.
Now even the service guy said it's probably not a structural issue and many people have fixed chassis with real issues, but I guess the plan for now is to run it as it is, mark the ends of the seperation and check it every so often to make sure it's not propagating. If it does then reinforce it with a much thicker bead of something different, but I don't want to do that now, because it sure would raise a massive red flag if I went to go sell the car in the future, even though this is likely to never be a big deal.
Father in law is coming this weekend to help with the transmission. If I can get that done this weekend and get the car back together, there is a track test session may 5th I could go to if they let me run the car without fenders.
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I would guess the bond is just broken on the side and not where the two panels are actually bonded.
And that color is amazing in the pictures, I bet it is even better in person.
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A few updates:
I found a candy that's closer to the volcano orange, right out of the can. Sent it to my painter and he's going to be doing probably half a dozen new test samples.
Here it is, it looks very close
(http://cdn6.bigcommerce.com/s-xe0cp/products/162/images/2350/Tangerine_Orange_Fire_Candy_Speed_Shape_Clear_Binder_Big_Brain_Graphics_Quslity__02166.1468167102.800.653.jpg?c=2)
But we're going to be adding even more gold to it, and darkening it just a tinge and I think we'll be there.
Mechanical work on the car has not stopped and I have not caught a break with this car yet lol.
Ordered the new engine cover lid, and it came with shipping damage, sending it back tomorrow:
(https://i.imgur.com/0jW4TpV.jpg)
Then last weekend my father in law came up and helped me get the transmission out, which we were able to do thankfully rather uneventfully, but we had to take SOOO much apart to get the transmission out it's absurd. I still think I might need to pull the supercharger to get to the bolts on the engine mount closest to the firewall, bolts for the starter, and bolts for the slave all need to be put in from the bottom as there's no access from the top due to the supercharger.
The good, the transmission is out:
(https://i.imgur.com/u2K5VuF.jpg)
The bad, Clutch end of life is 7mm:
(https://i.imgur.com/1qD42r0.jpg)
How a clutch gets 90% worn in about 6-7K miles I will never know, but from the hotspots it looks like it was fun:
(https://i.imgur.com/DwstUuV.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/cl2CWby.jpg)
Waiting on a new clutch, and in the meantime I started in on the front.
Pulled the Radiator/AC condenser and the upper shroud that holds everything in place along with the front oil coolers.
Before:
(https://i.imgur.com/ajFuq2Y.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/4Bgzf40.jpg)
And after:
(https://i.imgur.com/9LrafUC.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/dYl174p.jpg)
Basically removing the rest of the crash structure requires running a sawzall across the fiberglass structure to shorten it, then run an vibrating/oscillating cutting tool along the bead of adhesive to cut/scrape it from the aluminum.
In reality, the heat created by the friction with the blade gets the blade hot and it goes through the adhesive, which is very similar to windshield seal.
Will have the new clutch this week, and I'll hopefully have the clutch and transmission in the car this weekend. If I can also get the new front crash structure on the car before the end of this weekend I will consider it
(https://media3.giphy.com/media/a0h7sAqON67nO/giphy.gif)
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Good progress, sucks to get damaged crap in the mail though. I like following along on this one, mostly because I want one of those cars, but can't justify it (yet). Haha.
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You're a braver man than me tearing this car apart, can't wait to see it painted
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
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You're a braver man than me tearing this car apart, can't wait to see it painted
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
Its no more complex then the RX7s (except that little glue issue)
But it's just tight as fuck to work on. I literally have to take my sweatshirt off because it gets in the way and bunches up when trying to reach anything.
Now I know what they mean when they say american cars/engines are easy to work on, have great access to everything.... Ohh I get it now, I was just spoiled before, now I know other people's pain, lol.
The modifcations done to the car made the job 2X harder than it needed to be too. The supercharger is really making everything in the engine bay more difficult to access, and in the car the custom sound system and custom interior made removing the interior/body panels a much bigger pain in the ass, but I'm getting to know the car, and uncovering a lot.
I mean I complain that the clutch is worn out, but I just bought a new disk for $130 and if I had quit on this job, then I would have had to do this all over again in a year when the clutch fully wears out.
So my need for more revs mo quick, ended up being a blessing in disguise. I also had an idea the clutch may be towards the end because of the high engagement point.
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I know what you mean, I would almost rather build me a tube chassis car instead of buying an elise, it seems the body work makes everything harder to work on
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
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I know what you mean, I would almost rather build me a tube chassis car instead of buying an elise, it seems the body work makes everything harder to work on
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
I know what you mean, hence my current project... 8)
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double post
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I know what you mean, I would almost rather build me a tube chassis car instead of buying an elise, it seems the body work makes everything harder to work on
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
I know what you mean, hence my current project... 8)
(https://i.imgflip.com/1gql1x.jpg)
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I know what you mean, I would almost rather build me a tube chassis car instead of buying an elise, it seems the body work makes everything harder to work on
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
I know what you mean, hence my current project... 8)
...what... is... that?
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Thimk thats his mustang challenge car, right?
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
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It's a Pro-Challenge car that I'm converting from an oval to a road racer. It has a fiberglass Mustang body.
Planning to start racing again next year. :D
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Well I'm still on track going into the weekend.
Front crash structure is totally removed. Which means all I need to do to hit my goal is to glue the new one on, and get the transmission back in the car and re-assemble rear suspension. putting the new crash structure in should be quick.
The dark horse will be the transmission re-install, if I can get that done, everthing else will be a breeze. Lets just hope it all still works when it goes back together:
Taking some measurements of the original crash structure so when I install the new one I can match the elevation/pitch so that the bodywork will generally align after the fact:
(https://i.imgur.com/2wgIxFs.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/C5uykZv.jpg)
Took lots of little cuts, but I classify this work as similar to body work. Lots of time involved but mostly easy mindless work. I find the mechanical work much more stressful:
(https://i.imgur.com/j3RN8zi.jpg)
Finally after about 4 hours of heating and cutting:
(https://i.imgur.com/4YrW3U3.jpg)
And so I declare that with the removal of the front crash structure, that disassembly is finally complete. On to re-assembly finally!
(https://media.giphy.com/media/l0ErWnkLjegNB5LlC/giphy.gif)
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It's very interesting to see how they built that car, underneath, to keep it so light.
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Color is finalized. Painter says theres no visble flake in the paint, thats just the camera. If so this is perfect, if not we'll just use the same color pearl with smaller particles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkCOrCzVJmY&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkCOrCzVJmY&feature=youtu.be)
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Purdy!
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Super sick!!!
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keep your fingers crossed, with a little luck the new crash structure should be permanently adhered to the car.
Prep is a 2 step process before the adhesive, but it was originally supposed to be a 3 step priming process. I'd read on the internet and the dealer told me i dont need to remove all of the old adhesive because the primer re-activates it. so I thought installing the new crash structure would be quick. Well after reading the factory service notes, it's the compound that's no longer available that re-activates the old adhesive.
So I made a decsion that in the face of not being able to do this twice, and get it done early summer (lead time is about a month from the UK for the adhesive) that I needed to remove all of the old adhesive, which I ground off with a DA and a 2" mini sander on a drill, which took about 2.5 hours, and makes body work seem fun.
(Another day being covered in itchy fiberglass dust)
So I got it all ground down, used the Beta Clean which seems like pretty much isopropyl alcohol or some other general degreaser:
(https://i.imgur.com/2YU9kMn.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Yrd58op.jpg)
Then you apply essentially a black paint to both surfaces that creates a surface for max adhesion:
(https://i.imgur.com/ekY5VfD.jpg)
Then people use clamps and bungee cords to hold it in place, but the adhesive is so thick I had a panic moment when my caulk gun wouldn't move the stuff an inch. I ended up cutting the package open and sacrificing a 2" putty knife which seemed to work a lot better anyway. I got what seemed like a perfectly level coat and probably a lot more adhesion from a lot more surface area.
So I had thought about using rivnuts in the chassis with fender washers to hold it in place and pull the crash structure hard enough to engage the glue, but I didn't want to drill holes in the chassis. I've never used a rivnut and i didn't want the first one to be in my overly expensive brittle chassis.
So I used 2 c clamps on the top and vice grips on the side and then to get enough push, my wife actually came up with this idea, I thought it was pretty damn clutch and genius. I wedged these in and kept giving it a light tap every once and a while, and they're tight. The adhesive actually oozed out a couple inches around the edges so I know it's enough combined pressure to compress and engage the adhesive.
(https://i.imgur.com/nSeBt89.jpg)
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Interesting, add this to your bag of skills! How did you ensure everything was lined up perfect?
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Interesting, add this to your bag of skills! How did you ensure everything was lined up perfect?
I outlined the old crash structure with sharpie, and just lined this one up in place.
Then there's a couple pieces of aluminum with attach with rivets to the frame and crash structure. I mocked them up and the holes lined up pretty much perfect.
Then I just checked the horizontal pitch (which was pretty dead on within .2 degrees of before)
And the vertical pitch, which was pretty off, which just means I should have put more adhesive on the bottom half, because right now it's about .8 degrees more sloped down than it was before 5 degrees vs a little over 4 before.
Doing some simple Rise over Run algebra (that school shit pays off in the weirdest ways, but still way overpriced for something I ended up googling) it ends up being less than a 1/4" over 2 feet which I can make up for with shims.
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Well, that looks like a gigantic pain in the ass. Nice work, though!
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Ok, Interesting update. I put the suspension back on the car (although I stripped one of the lower mounting points in the rear, so I need to order another one (the mount bolts to the frame with 4 bolts). Thats the only thing from keeping me taking this for a quick spin.
I was getting a bit concerned because the immobilizer was disabled, and I still wasn't getting any power to the starter. A local member had suggested that I didn't plug back in the energizing wire. Double checked and it was in place.
So I really started scratching my head as to what it might be. So I said let me just keep putting the car back together.
So I put the PCM back in the car, and when I tried to start it again, I could hear the starter engage with a loud clunk but no clicking, and it's not turning the motor over. Just a clunk, like the starter is engaging but not spinning.
It felt like a starter trying to start a seized motor, just a clunk.
So now I started getting quite a bit worried, so I grabbed a socket/breaker bar and just turned the motor slightly using the crank pulley. Turned just fine.So now I'm dreading the thought that my starter went bad right after I put everything back together.
Then I started looking at 2 fuses I pulled. I pulled 1 for the fuel pump and 1 which is labeled (Fuel Injectors/Coilpacks) so that I could prime the engine with oil and get oil circulating around all of the lines that were all drained when I took the front end apart. So I said to myself the PCM somewhat completed the ignition circuit maybe these fuses are somehow integrated (It was really a hail mary idea, I would never think that the PCM is integrated into the ignition circuit or that the Fuel injector/Coilpack circuit would be tied into the starter circuit, but IT WAS.
So I put that fuse back in(R7) and the starter starts working normally.
I unplug the injectors instead so it doesn't wash down the cylinders and I cranked and cranked and cranked the motor over. The oil light never went out while cranking, so I decided let me just start it and see if the light is always on during cranking. Plugged in the fuel injectors, put the fuse in for the fuel pump and it started instantly. And no oil light.
So this idea of priming the oil by cranking the car does seem to be a good idea, but if you remove any of those fuses, they all seem to be integrated into other systems (which is kinda stupid... but I'm no engineer) so you won't be able to crank the car.
A couple dash lights still are still on. The ABS light (Wheel speed sensors are still disconnected) which makes sense, but the transmission light is still on. What triggers the transmission light on a manual car??
Some short videos:
https://youtu.be/kJXIYT8nsis (https://youtu.be/kJXIYT8nsis)
https://youtu.be/T1DWG6b4c94 (https://youtu.be/T1DWG6b4c94)
I also just got the computer back from BOE for tuning and the shift light is now coming on at 5K (despite the engine being up to temp, thats odd :scratch:) and the engine hunts a bit at time for idle. I did install a lightweight flywheel which can trigger some of this, but I did mention it in my specs for the tune
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BTW the exhaust is way to quiet. I'm actually going to take the sweet thunder resonator I had in the RX7 and mount it up in this car. I think it'll actually sound amazing. I lost the video of the Rx7 running with just the sweet thunders (when streetfire disapeared) but they sounded amazing and VERY LOUD on the RX7.
I'm keeping this on until it goes through emissions, then I'm pulling this resonator, and likely decatting the car. This is the goal sound wise. I'll be keeping the quiet muffler for road trips, should just be 1 v-vand to switch between them.
Here are a couple supercharged cars after uncorking the exhaust a bit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi4XWCn3TBo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi4XWCn3TBo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuYVa4S2xlc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuYVa4S2xlc)
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Transmission light is weird... not sure what they'd be monitoring, maybe a temp sensor or something?
I hear you on the louder exhaust; my Focus ST is too quiet, even for daily driver duty. I think I may delete the resonator and see if that wakes it up a little bit. It's nice to hear a "fun" car when you drive it.
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Transmission light is weird... not sure what they'd be monitoring, maybe a temp sensor or something?
I hear you on the louder exhaust; my Focus ST is too quiet, even for daily driver duty. I think I may delete the resonator and see if that wakes it up a little bit. It's nice to hear a "fun" car when you drive it.
Focus ST with resonator delete sounds good.
Transmission light went out. For some reason this car just seems to have lots of random lights when you first connect the battery until you go through some drive cycles.
Update:
Car is running and mechanically it's 99% functional. Waiting for the lower control arm mounting point in the rear that I cross threaded. It's 4 bolts, and I'm getting the new one tomorrow.
So if we're a little lucky I'll have some driving videos of the car in go kart mode.
I have a set date on when the car's going in for AutoFlex, thats the 15th of June which means that I have exactly 3 weeks to get all of the fiberglass and body work done, and I've had 3 people flake out on me for handling the rest of the fiberglass work.
So I don't have much choice. I guess it's time to see how deep the rabit hole goes and start watching fiberglass videos.
I just got a compressor for the garage, so I can shoot the primer. It's really the fiberglass work that's got me shook, and most of it, I think is mindless,
But recreating this triangular section on the door that the mirror mounts to has got me nervous:
(https://i.imgur.com/dXH2KnT.jpg)
These make me less nervous:
(https://i.imgur.com/phzpWFq.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/eNUeSHK.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/SFCaZC4.jpg)
I'm noticing several small cracks around the rear lights which might be tough to gain access to but other than that it shouldn't be bad.
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The Autoflex should take up small gaps and remain pliable, right?
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The Autoflex should take up small gaps and remain pliable, right?
Probably true, that it wouldn't crack, but you'd still see it right through the autoflex. Autoflex comes out of an HVLP gun, with a standard tip size, so it needs to be the same thickness as automotive paint, which means it'll settle into all the little cracks an imperfections and they'll show though just like any regular paint job.
Plus the idea is to get all of the body work done now, basically prep the car as if I was painting it, so that when the Autoflex starts peeling, I can literally peel it all off, degrease the surface and almost literally start spraying paint.
That way if any of the resin shrinks (common on fiberglass) and these cracks start showing again down the road, or if any of them propagate then I can fix it before the final painting.
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If you don't mind me asking, what price did they quote for the Autoflex? I've been quoted $1500 for vinyl wrapping and wasn't sure if it was comparable.
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If you don't mind me asking, what price did they quote for the Autoflex? I've been quoted $1500 for vinyl wrapping and wasn't sure if it was comparable.
It is comparable, I'm paying about 2k to have it installed professionally.
Given that almost 1000 of that is materials (especially with the fancy pearls and candy I'm using) I thought the extra money to have it professionally done was a good idea.
If it lasts 5 years, thats only $400/year or under $40 a month to try an insane color, before committing to a full paint job.
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If you don't mind me asking, what price did they quote for the Autoflex? I've been quoted $1500 for vinyl wrapping and wasn't sure if it was comparable.
It is comparable, I'm paying about 2k to have it installed professionally.
Given that almost 1000 of that is materials (especially with the fancy pearls and candy I'm using) I thought the extra money to have it professionally done was a good idea.
If it lasts 5 years, thats only $400/year or under $40 a month to try an insane color, before committing to a full paint job.
That's really not bad, most wraps are this much, if not more. I think it is a great idea to wait to paint it too because as you said, fiberglass does have a tendency to shrink and show things after time.
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When I started building my Cobra replica, the first thing I did was take it to the painter and he ran it through several heat cycles in the booth, to post-cure the fiberglass, prior to the final bodywork.
It's held up really well over the past 18 years. 8)
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Mechanically the car is complete!
Got the suspension completely assembled the brakes back on and the wheels back on.
Go Kart Mode Enabled:
(https://i.imgur.com/pwcaDca.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/SI7rHvZ.jpg)
Just missed sunset, all I needed to do was put the seat in and get it off the stands and it was dark.
Tomorrow I will finally get to test the new suspension out, make sure everything mechanically feels good. The car feels so much better just idling. The lightweight flywheel finally gives this otherwise boring motor some life, and the car still trembles and vibrates slightly, but I can now see out of my rear view mirror perfectly.
Clutch pickup feels lower than I like but I'll just have to work on that. Shifter somehow feels better/tighter than I remember.
There's a cars and coffee this Sunday. If it doesn't rain I'm making a run for it, in full go kart trim :secret:
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That looks even more fun to drive around like that, somehow. LOL
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That looks even more fun to drive around like that, somehow. LOL
I know, I actually like it more like this somehow. I just need a big wing mounted to the frame like this car
(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/f1/59/90/f159908d01115c1aa7a05a839153735a.jpg)
I would totally rock a naked elise, or build a salvage car into a lotus version of Leroy. If you don't know leroy, look up leroy corvette Cleetus.
My wife joked that she doubts the car will get nearly as much attention all fixed up as when it was smashed.
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So the corvette shop that did the front clam stopped returning my calls. Then the body guy I was supposed to get the work done by stopped returning calls, then the replacement body shop started going quite.
Even today I was supposed to meet another lotus owner who did his own body work and he was a no show.
So I said to hell with everyone. Time to get this body work knocked out, basically finished the fiberglass repair today and got both doors to 400 grit, just the rockers left and a few other spots (jambs/mirrors, etc)
Tackled a section by the rear tires where it looks like the car bottomed out and ground some off the fiberglass. Another area on the other side where the rocker was cracked, and finally the door where the mirror attaches. This one was and is going to be difficult because I had to glue multiple pieces in place and if any of them fell in the door they'd be gone forever.
Also recreated the lip on the rear deck lid which unfortunately came cracked:
Crack ground out of the rear deck lid:
(https://i.imgur.com/iQqe7Po.jpg)
Epoxy resin over fiberglass sheet, about the strongest repair you can make:
(https://i.imgur.com/apKVCVJ.jpg)
Filled with fiberglass reinforces filler:
(https://i.imgur.com/YSfhOpb.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/jFM274L.jpg)
That filler leaves a lot of pinholes and other imperfections which need to be filled with glazing putty:
(https://i.imgur.com/XqL3E3I.jpg)
Deck lid finished the rough in process:
(https://i.imgur.com/1PgLN0q.jpg)
You'd never know about 2" section of lip was missing. I had to totally recreate it, and this gave me the confidence to tackle re-assembling the mirror.
Got one side of the car to 400 grit:
(https://i.imgur.com/hjQap2M.jpg)
Then starte talking about a 4-5" crack on the other side.
Ground out the damage and drilled out the end of the crack:
(https://i.imgur.com/mkvlCWm.jpg)
Looking through the fiberglass after grinding it down to make sure I got to the end of the crack:
(https://i.imgur.com/YQgtKM8.jpg)
And filled with fiberglass cloth both front and back:
(https://i.imgur.com/TOYAqO0.jpg)
Then on to the door/mirror. This was going to be difficult, but I felt like I learned enough doing the other repairs that I was ready:
State of the mirror prior to repair:
(https://i.imgur.com/PfvZhIG.jpg)
Holding the 3 pieces I could find in place:
(https://i.imgur.com/M4pB9x2.jpg)
I know this looks like Frankenstein but you gotta trust me this came out great. I waited about an hour until the epoxy went from the consistency of maple syrup to the consistency of thick tree sap, then I took each piece and dipped it and set it in place, then used just a little bit of cloth to hold these pieces in place. Once this dries the epoxy will help the peices in place along with the fiberglass pieces (like a tack weld) and then I'm going to re-inforce with more cloth from behind and then grind these stray pieces off and fill the cracks with fiberglass reinforced filler again. Or lay cloth over the front and grind flat:
(https://i.imgur.com/FheCoQE.jpg)
BTW got rock chips?
(https://i.imgur.com/EE8bxnT.jpg)
And finally I also had some time to install some badass shelving and organize the garage
Before:
(https://i.imgur.com/GtbHDFQ.jpg)
After:
(https://i.imgur.com/5fX0kU2.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/qznCy3Y.jpg)
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1. This is exactly why I decided to learn body work (and now paint). The last two paint guys I talked to, literally started the conversation with excuses, like, they were pre-making reasons that they'd screw me over later. Screw 'em, do it yourself.
2. NICE WORK on the repairs! I've done some really minor glass work, but that's pretty hardcore.
3. Wow, garage looks MUCH better. Bet that makes it a lot easier to work out there!
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1. This is exactly why I decided to learn body work (and now paint). The last two paint guys I talked to, literally started the conversation with excuses, like, they were pre-making reasons that they'd screw me over later. Screw 'em, do it yourself.
2. NICE WORK on the repairs! I've done some really minor glass work, but that's pretty hardcore.
3. Wow, garage looks MUCH better. Bet that makes it a lot easier to work out there!
Thanks man, did a ton more work today, just called it quits at 8:30.
The racks btw are available at home depot for $200 each. Went together in a coupel hours and they're 90" high and 90" long each, couldn't believe it. We put the first one together and my wife goes, this should be like 600-800$, we should go back and get another.
So we did, lol.
Repairs were going well today. I finished the long crack on the rocker, despite it taking about 5 coats of filler to build up and shape the body line. Sanded out all the filler on all those rock chips on the passenger side:
Finished fiberglass crack from yesterday:
(https://i.imgur.com/vlTpiJs.jpg)
Then I turned to the mirror, the small bit of epoxy and couple peices of cloth strengthened it more than I thought it would.
So it was strong enough to hold everything in place so I could re-inforce from the rear. I had to feed the cloth down piece by peice and basically use a popsicle stick to stick the cloth in place and slather epoxy over each layer, but I got a plenty of layers in there:
(https://i.imgur.com/oBGnAaF.jpg)
So next step is to basically grind all the ugly stuff off the front and create a smooth surface and then fill in with fiberglass reinforced filler, and shape the top portion of the door that's missing.
Everything was going so well and THEN:
(http://24.media.tumblr.com/d5c65cce451be53b926edfca58aa1a49/tumblr_mm36nkM0Qc1snpt38o1_400.gif)
I take my finger nail and pick at a loose edge and a flake of paint comes off, then another, and another, soon I'm here:
(https://i.imgur.com/GC1IhnH.jpg)
So I pull out a razor blade and 5 mins later I'm here:
(https://i.imgur.com/jec777A.jpg)
Adhesion is obviously not the previous paint job's strong suit.
Both sail panels peeled off easily... I don't know if something was done differently on these panels as I haven't run into this anywhere else, but after reporting back to the painter, he made the judgement call that it should ALL come off.
So the tens of hours I've spent hand blocking the existing surface to 400 grit and filling all of these rock chips, well all of that's getting ground off down to the bare fiberglass.
Painter is coming over with his DA next weekend, and his paint gun and we're going to work together to get everything stripped and primed. He's saving my ass because I think he's legit excited about the project, and I got literally no one else. Everyone's fallen through and the black hole that is this car seems to be getting outta hand.
As he says though I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, so he's either crazy or really really skilled, because this shit is driving me bonkers.
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....son of a bi-atch.
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....son of a bi-atch.
Lol I know right??
But it'll be done right, that's for dam sure. This is always the way ebay cars aren't they?
Isn't this what everyone warns you about, about buying cars sight unseen on ebay
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....son of a bi-atch.
Isn't this what everyone warns you about, about buying cars sight unseen on ebay
I believe I warned you haha
Eitherway it will be great when complete. Your getting a degree from the school of hard knocks!
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....son of a bi-atch.
Isn't this what everyone warns you about, about buying cars sight unseen on ebay
I believe I warned you haha
Eitherway it will be great when complete. Your getting a degree from the school of hard knocks!
If that were true I wouldn't have bought this. The RX7 was just as big of a basket case and I didn't learn my lesson.
fiberglass on the mirror is complete:
(https://i.imgur.com/9TmbZW7.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/13oGdBa.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Ld4wuns.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/3jMddQ4.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/9Da73a1.jpg)
Sanding has commenced:
(https://i.imgur.com/T3ocEuq.jpg)
Ohh thats a pretty color, how many more are under there?
(https://i.imgur.com/qQdalN7.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Hph8Zcd.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Gy34Tdw.jpg)
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Lol, it looks like the YOLO goes even deeper with this car than I thought.
So, I'm going through hell stripping this paint, but I've got the hang of the DA now, and it's making things go a bunch quicker.
Anyway, things are going well, and I'm getting the first panel done, then the next, then the next
(https://i.imgur.com/THErZl1.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/FN7ikKR.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/5FnMl6b.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/kEEscPm.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/vPVwdvE.jpg)
And then I uncover some yellow. I know that the car had some yellow, but I finally figure out why I'm seeing yellow in spots and not other spots.
Looks like this car had yellow racing stripes before the silver stripe.
I was thinking ok, thats pretty cool, that makes sense:
(https://i.imgur.com/3Go6ZWy.jpg)
Then I start uncovering below the racing stripes, and I'm looking at it, and it looks like it's really sparkly. Thats odd... is that color changing... No way the damn thing was painted with a chameleon paint job at some point. YOLO!! holy shit this trail of shit heads that owned this car before me is epic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj1bAJKA98E&feature=youtu.be (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uj1bAJKA98E&feature=youtu.be)
(https://media.tenor.com/images/03c10054dfaa625cab755a26af5c39c1/tenor.gif)
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Sweet jeebus that car had a hard life.
Also, it's hilarious how small the parts of that thing really are.
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I've never painted anything before.
This cheap harbor freight gun is pretty damn impressive. Laying down primer was easy, and from how smooth this is, in likely going straight to 800 grit.
Then 1000 then off to the painter next weekend:
https://youtu.be/w99h1ndjxgE (https://youtu.be/w99h1ndjxgE)
Video doesn't really capture it. I was shocked by what a first timer with the cheapest HVLP gun can do with some simple instructions. I'm pretty sure I could do a better than OEM paint job with this gun. This was with a large 1.8 primer tip.
(https://i.imgur.com/PvfpeV0.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/AaPCmV3.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/qs6L6ZU.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/jMlPyHx.jpg)
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Wow! Looks good, anything else you did to get that finish?
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
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Wow! Looks good, anything else you did to get that finish?
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
No, thats the crazy thing. I watched some videos on setting up the spray gun. I still don't even know what all the dials do, I picked up the gun sprayed a couple test shots, and they looked pretty good, so I just started spraying.
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Well you certainly can't argue with the results. It's looking great!
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Need opinions. I'm thinking of wrapping the rear wing in either a carbon fiber vinyl wrap, like the 3M Di Noc,
Or now that I've got my feet wet with fiberglass I saw a tutorial on wrapping existing parts in real carbon fiber and coating it with clear epoxy.
Anyone have expereience with the Carbon fiber vinyl wrap? How does it realistically look? I have a real carbon fiber front lip and I want to give the mirrors/wing center section a carbon look too, but I have no interest in it if it looks cheesy.
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Dinoc looks pretty realistic but has a texture to it. It is also expensive, doing real carbon wrap may be a better bet
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
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Dinoc looks pretty realistic but has a texture to it. It is also expensive, doing real carbon wrap may be a better bet
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
I was going to have the painter clear over the wrap, so I thought the texture would actually be kinda cool under the clear, and look more realistic
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The really nice carbon wraps look like... really nice carbon wraps. They resemble dry carbon, but it's just "pretty good" in my opinion.
Wrapping in real carbon is not for the faint of heart though; getting the weaves to look good and consistent is a real PITA. Clearing it isn't so bad, you can put a few coats on and cut and buff.
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The really nice carbon wraps look like... really nice carbon wraps. They resemble dry carbon, but it's just "pretty good" in my opinion.
Wrapping in real carbon is not for the faint of heart though; getting the weaves to look good and consistent is a real PITA. Clearing it isn't so bad, you can put a few coats on and cut and buff.
If you're saying it's a massive PITA. I'll just viny wrap it. It's $40 on amazon to get the good stuff. If I want to wrap in real carbon, I can do it over the winter.
BTW feeling better about my body work, now that most of the car is in primer:
(https://i.imgur.com/Bre9XY6.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/latHUmQ.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/H2zkmBz.jpg)
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The car is smiling because of all the love its getting :)
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Masking is almost as annoying as sanding, and I got a huge monkey off my back in terms of masking.
Shot the rear clam yesterday, then today I had to mask the whole car, to paint the jambs/rockers. And then pull all the masking off, flip the car around (because the garage is too small) and re-mask, do the other side.
Before all of that though, I had to strip the doors, because it's been decided that it would be better to pull them. Intestingly the door shells bolt to the beam, and the shell slides on an off the beam:
(https://i.imgur.com/DXf0eIq.jpg)
Prepped/sanded vs Not:
(https://i.imgur.com/2Rz9mUN.jpg)
Pulling the panels and glass:
(https://i.imgur.com/kgZTxEZ.jpg)
Once the doors are off, I'm even more tempted to drive it around like this:
(https://i.imgur.com/WgK016S.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Dr4d3o8.jpg)
Then I had to remove all of the seals and spent 2 hours just getting the sticky residue from the seals cleaned up. To give you some sense for how fiddly bodywork can be:
(https://i.imgur.com/T1uRmeb.jpg)
Starting to mask up before shooting the jambs, (this ended up taking 4-6 hours alone)
(https://i.imgur.com/2lbY5Yh.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/7nCPY01.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/3Z6gDFC.jpg)
Spraying starts finally at about 5PM:
(https://i.imgur.com/W8g99Qu.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/6UT4zQe.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/pawIBGi.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/F80c5WT.jpg)
And then unmasked:
The tape line is under the door seal so it doesn't matter if it's less than perfect
(https://i.imgur.com/4RQaSox.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/WPX8qBJ.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/RjKmTeq.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/PEcVLdJ.jpg)
And finally the rear clam is done:
(https://i.imgur.com/7AdWWet.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/tjt5tXa.jpg)
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Did you just paint your hammer??? :o
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Did you just paint your hammer??? :o
Yes, lol The sacrifices I make for this car.
I figured someone would notice that. I just bunched the plastic up in that area to keep the overspray down (even though that area is typically hidden, and I just needed some weight to hold the platic in place so it didn't blow around.
Surprisingly the hammer works just as well.
Now other posters are going to go back through all the photos, trying to spot the hammer in the picture. This thread has become where's waldo, the hammer edition
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...I totally just went looking for the hammer. LOL
The body work is looking really good, though you're giving me fits as I remember how much more work I have to do to my project before paint. Stupid bodywork is stupid.
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Bodywork looks good! I think not painting this for awhile is a huge plus because fiberglass tends to revel a lot over time.
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Bodywork looks good! I think not painting this for awhile is a huge plus because fiberglass tends to revel a lot over time.
Well I think the way this painter is having me spray the primer, I think it'll help.
He just told me today, yeah now block sand what you just did with 180, and go prime it again.... That last round of primer was $350 and it took a week mind you....
So I went mental and just shredded what I just laid down with 180 for the last 11 hours straight and I laid in bed thinking about it and I got really pissed, I'm like WTF is this guy doing. There's no way shops do this amount of work. So I ask him and he said this is the way top quality jobs are done, but if I can sand out the primer thats on there to 1000 grit without going trough on the edges, or just spot spray the spots I did go through, then I should be fine.
WTF guy, make up your damn mind. I'm fuckin killin myself over here and spending way more on primer and sand paper than anyone really should.
Good news is I found a pretty cool DIY carbon fiber kit on Ebay, so for the money I decided I'm going to try my hand at wrapping the rear wing in real carbon fiber and I should have enough cloth to make a real front splitter. If I could get both out of this one $70 kit, then that money would go pretty damn far:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/For-Real-Carbon-Fiber-Cloth-2x2-kit-50x72/273142289360?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649 (https://www.ebay.com/itm/For-Real-Carbon-Fiber-Cloth-2x2-kit-50x72/273142289360?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649)
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Annnnd, added to watch list.
I need to build my center console stuff and I'm starting to think that rear carbon wrap over 3d printed parts is a good path... wanna get good at it and share your methods? :D
Also, that really blows on the primer/effort there; that said, smoother will never be WORSE, so your effort/money should pay off in the long run. That's what I tell myself anyway, LOL
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When I built my Cobra, I bet they primed, guide coated, and blocked it at least 5 times before laying down the color.
It really does make a difference in how straight it comes out though. I had it at a national meet at Carlisle, and had several people tell me I had the best paint job they'd ever seen. :)
That said, it's always been difficult for me to drive it much, precisely because of the time and money spent on paint.
I'll never do another car to that level, as I can have more fun with a really nice looking driver that doesn't make me paranoid to park it at a restaurant and have dinner, or get caught in a rain shower. :cheers:
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Annnnd, added to watch list.
I need to build my center console stuff and I'm starting to think that rear carbon wrap over 3d printed parts is a good path... wanna get good at it and share your methods? :D
Also, that really blows on the primer/effort there; that said, smoother will never be WORSE, so your effort/money should pay off in the long run. That's what I tell myself anyway, LOL
Thats the plan, I'll post the process good bad or indifferent so you'll get a chance to see how it is before getting into it. I think the 3D Printing/carbon wrap is a great idea. I was already thinking what sort of parts I could make with the exact same process. (great minds think alike 8)),
Only downside I could see with 3D printing is I think you'd need to sand it and make the object smooth or else you might see the texture through the CF. Take it from someone doing a lot of sanding, it does blow after a while.
But I was thinking about it and the primer that I'm using is a high fill primer. I stopped even filling in rock chips as I found them, because this stuff is thick enough that it fills them in. So maybe after 3d printing, spraying it with some thick primer, or drizzling the part in epoxy resin which encapsulates and smoothes the rough edges, something like this:
https://www.artresin.com/pages/gallery (https://www.artresin.com/pages/gallery)
When I built my Cobra, I bet they primed, guide coated, and blocked it at least 5 times before laying down the color.
It really does make a difference in how straight it comes out though. I had it at a national meet at Carlisle, and had several people tell me I had the best paint job they'd ever seen. :)
That said, it's always been difficult for me to drive it much, precisely because of the time and money spent on paint.
I'll never do another car to that level, as I can have more fun with a really nice looking driver that doesn't make me paranoid to park it at a restaurant and have dinner, or get caught in a rain shower. :cheers:
Thanks for the validation, and I hear you on dealing with a show quality paint job. This car is a driver, so I know it's going to get ruined.
The good news is the Autoflex should mostly protect the bodywork, so when I do decide to paint it, it'll hopefully be very little work.
I could also see on a metal car with lots of metal work done to it, lots of blocking and, prob same with some of the fiberglass from these kit car manufacturers. Nothing's straight. I guess it's the same with the lotus (which is essentially a factory built kit car) but the panels were at an OEM level of fit and finish before, so they were relatively straight.
I ended up buying another gallon of primer so we'll have plenty of options. I'm going to try to shoot it using a 1.4 tip which he manufacturer says you can do, but I guess I was reducing it as much as you possibly can too, so we'll see how that goes.
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Everything looks really good, as long as you can get a nice smooth surface with nothing showing through I would be happy. At least you're not paying the labor for someone to do what you're doing.
The end result will be worth it!
Also there are smoothing agents for 3d printed parts, plus the carbon wrap would stengthen it so its not just for looks which is cool
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
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If you 3D print in some nylons with a good printer, the layer lines are almost invisible. With ABS, you can just acetone vapor smooth (assuming you can handle the loss in tolerances/sharpness, which shouldn't be an issue with carbon wrapping anyway). Then you have zero layer lines (again, with a good print). Both ways with no sanding, because screw sanding. LOL
Also, I shot my car with epoxy primer with a 1.4 tip, reduced 20%, as well as some poly filler primers (z-chrome rust defender) with the same 1.4 tip, and both sprayed fine, though I got a tiny touch of grain with the rust defender. I knocked the grain off with 320 grit though, it was very minor.
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Some updates from this weekend:
Updated my makeshift paint booth a bit:
(https://i.imgur.com/soQvWxr.jpg)
where the car stayed while paint's flying:
(https://i.imgur.com/5Q0Lp9w.jpg)
My office the last 2 weeks:
(https://i.imgur.com/wDgOEyb.jpg)
A day's worth of paper, these cheap sanding disks aren't worth the paper they're made of:
(https://i.imgur.com/Opeo3kl.jpg)
Mocking up the carbon lip:
(https://i.imgur.com/wPoKZWo.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/PMpG2jM.jpg)
Looks pretty good for an Ebay lip:
(https://i.imgur.com/ZPPElkn.jpg)
Mocking up the panels for fit, and for fun:
(https://i.imgur.com/27ppivh.jpg)
Yeah... the corvette shop nailed the front end except for the angle on this edge... not so much a match... Looks like I'll be expanding my fiberglass skills even further by recreating this:
(https://i.imgur.com/hCKmIYl.jpg)
This is another little issue, looks like it's just classic lotus attention to quality, If you'll notice the 2 stripes, they represent the way the body lines need to be modified to align properly, Everything below the bottom yellow line needs to be trimmed, and the bottom of the top yellow line would be the new edge for the flat surface, this might be a bit difficult
(https://i.imgur.com/7QcnLnf.jpg)
Otherwise the gaps need work everywhere, but they're workable:
(https://i.imgur.com/iq1Ened.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/OVJycar.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/xbJOI3l.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/yl7h0zk.jpg)
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Need some outside perspective:
I'm a bit too close to this so I'm not sure I'm impartial any more.
How close do you think we got to the original color target (McLaren Volcano Orange), see pics of a car I took pictures of in the spring with photos of the sample.
(https://i.imgur.com/0Zwlr5h.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/idKZzKt.jpg)
Sample:
(https://i.imgur.com/OQs0LOO.jpg)
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It looks pretty damn close to me. But it is also hard to tell from pictures. I would stop comparing to the McLaren and just decide if you like the color on the sample.
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Agreed. If you're happy with it, then it's right. :)
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Agreed. If you're happy with it, then it's right. :)
It looks pretty damn close to me. But it is also hard to tell from pictures. I would stop comparing to the McLaren and just decide if you like the color on the sample.
Thanks guys, I do like the color on the sample.
But the paint on the sample looks a bit flat in comparison, I think that's just the sample, the finished product I think would be similar. I told him to add more gold just in case.
Got finsihed with those 2 problem fiberglass areas. This was really the first time that I had to reschape a complex curve rather than just fix something that was cracked, but I just kept at it and I have videos of the entire process actually, but I'm still trying to find the right app to stitch them together and make it into a timelapse, because even the edited video is over 3 hours.
The almost finished product for that point that was sticking out:
(https://i.imgur.com/YwN6cnb.jpg)
and Primered
(https://i.imgur.com/oVw4OnV.jpg)
Mounted in Place:
(https://i.imgur.com/oexRGyn.jpg)
The rear fender, I actually just shaved down to match the body line of the rocker panel, and you can't even notice it's thinner there:
(https://i.imgur.com/MsNd8dP.jpg)
Just had to take her out for a drive when I was done mounting and aligning the body panels:
(https://i.imgur.com/PsxRVC5.jpg)
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That's really nice work! I don't envy all of that fiberglass work, though, for sure.
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That's really nice work! I don't envy all of that fiberglass work, though, for sure.
Other than being very itchy, it's a lot better than metal work.
Metal work takes actual skill, this is pretty easy.
I would say that about the whole process, easy but so insanely time consuming. I've never thrown so many hours at something and got almost no where with it.
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Great job!
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The heavy lifting is over, dropped it off at the painter's for AutoFlex.
I told him I don't want to see updates or pictures, NOTHIN until I see it in person.
He's likely spraying it today, and I'll be picking it up in another day or two to let the paint cure a bit:
(https://i.imgur.com/1Wvvr94.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/b0cG6XL.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/FusuHJI.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/MCRYL7c.jpg)
Painter teased me with this vid:
https://youtu.be/Z1vGpzkdCRw (https://youtu.be/Z1vGpzkdCRw)
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Me = excited!
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Wow... sorry guys. I need to vent a bit of bad news as I'm not going to be going to sleep tonght.
Painter's Autoflexing the car currently, and the very fine pearl we were using wouldn't suspend correctly in the autoflex. I guess no one's ever used as fine of a pearl as what we're using and it never occured to the painter that using pearl thats about 1/5th the size of standard pearl flakes might lead to mixing issues.
So the pearl came out splotchy. we decided to try the candy over it just to see if it might hide it a bit, make it less obvious.
We shoot one panel in candy, and all of a sudden red marker is showing up. Now I used red marker to mark the areas that needed to be sanded. There was still red marker on the car when I dropped it off. He took it off with a solvent before starting the autoflex, and before puting on the candy, you have to build up a thick base coat (which is typically like 8-10 coats) to get enough thickness so it's peelable. So somehow despite this marker being visibly gone before we started the process, and then didn't show in any of the 10 base coats or the pearls on top of the base coats, it magically shows up when we apply the candy.
So I'm pretty much screwed. The stuff won't really peel off unless we put the clear coat on and the candy/pearl combo we were doing isn't going to work, so our only option is to put black base coat over the pearl we shot, and clear it for now, and then figure out what the hell we're going to do.
More than likely I'm guiessing we're just going to peel it all off and paint the car now, but I'm down 2K, and I know even if the painter does an entire paint job for free as a make good, the material alone will prob be closer to another 3k...
I'm really starting to get the feeling that this just may be one of those cursed cars.
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So it looks like I'm getting this instead... only he hasn't clear coated it, so it'll prob turn into borling glossy black instead of this pretty cool satin black....
(https://i.imgur.com/QhPMmVP.jpg)
He also just texted me and offered me $250 off the price of this project, which made things worse cause I don't think he realizes how far he dropped the ball.
I don't need $250, I need a fuckin paint job now
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I honestly think the above satin black looks awesome! Can he keep that look instead of making it gloss?
That does really suck about the orange... I was looking forward to seeing it.
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Well, that totally blows. :(
On positive note: Get car back and hoon the shit out of it. Black, orange, primer, whatever, it'll be super fun to drive, so at least that part doesn't suck.
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After the clear.... I got exactly what I had before...
(https://i.imgur.com/6tdvqfY.jpg)
I'll be honest I don't see how this could end well at this point, cause I'm sure as fuck not going to spend however many hours to peel all this shit off, and if I have a shop do it they'll probably charge thousands. So I bring him to court for the added expense, he's not good for it anyway.
I'm supposed to pick the car up tomorrow, and he's expecting about $1,300 from me to complete payment. I don't think I can pay him and take the car, or else I'm accepting the work. Does anyone know the law on this?
The car is also sitting in an area that I don't want it left. The car is only insured for 30K and I can't duplicate what I have for 30K, so I'm not comfortable leaving it there to fight it out.
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IMO, this would be a tough legal battle. Did you agree to him painting it black to at least have a completed job? If you didn't want black and the orange didn't work, what color would you have preferred? How well did he communicate throughout the entire process?
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IMO, this would be a tough legal battle. Did you agree to him painting it black to at least have a completed job? If you didn't want black and the orange didn't work, what color would you have preferred? How well did he communicate throughout the entire process?
It's not even painted black really, it's just clear coat over the black base. It's like clearing over black primer.
The car was pretty cool looking in just flat black base coat like i posted before, and I asked him if we should just leave it that way because I knew I wouldn't like clear over it.
But his response was that it would be hard as fuck to peel without the added clear.
Almost everything was communicated through texts... I'm a millenial technically, but it seems like younger millenials don't ever pick up the phone any more, and in this case it's good beause everything is in writing. For something like small claims court, that helps
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IMO, this would be a tough legal battle. Did you agree to him painting it black to at least have a completed job? If you didn't want black and the orange didn't work, what color would you have preferred? How well did he communicate throughout the entire process?
It's not even painted black really, it's just clear coat over the black base. It's like clearing over black primer.
The car was pretty cool looking in just flat black base coat like i posted before, and I asked him if we should just leave it that way because I knew I wouldn't like clear over it.
But his response was that it would be hard as fuck to peel without the added clear.
Almost everything was communicated through texts... I'm a millenial technically, but it seems like younger millenials don't ever pick up the phone any more, and in this case it's good beause everything is in writing. For something like small claims court, that helps
At the point when the Orange didn't work out, what options did he give you? It seems like he just wanted it out of his shop and did the easiest thing. I would TALK to him and see if you can come up with a better solution. I know texting is nice but sometimes talking through things together can get better resolutions. I would try that before threatening or not paying.
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And I agree, the primer color looks cool.... I am really surprised he couldn't so a satin clear on it to keep in the same...
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And I agree, the primer color looks cool.... I am really surprised he couldn't so a satin clear on it to keep in the same...
He didn't have satin/flat top coat available.
But I just got off the phone with dipyourcar and here's where he might have pulled a fast one on me. He said I can't peel it the way it is (when it was just black basecoat), like it would be hard as hell to peel. We really need to put clear on it to make it peelable.
This was one of the only phone conversations we had, and he said the car needs to be out of the shop by 6am the next day when his boss gets in.
So the plan was to clear it so if we decided to peel it, it would be more manegable.
Today I just called Dipyourcar.com to see what they would say. Told them about the fact that the pearls weren't mixing right, and they said they've never had a problem with pearls mixing (but that's also what you'd expect them to say so that was no surprise, and they weren't aware of the type of pearl we were using). But what surprised me is that they said we could have just as easily peeled it when it was just base coat (with no clear) and it would have left our options open, we could have sprayed any color right over it, and maybe figured out another color or option that would have worked with minimal extra effort.
Now that we cleared it, we can't put anything over it, and if we have trouble with removing it, the dip disolver won't work on it any longer because that clear is obviously very chemically resistant.
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And I agree, the primer color looks cool.... I am really surprised he couldn't so a satin clear on it to keep in the same...
He didn't have satin/flat top coat available.
But I just got off the phone with dipyourcar and here's where he might have pulled a fast one on me. He said I can't peel it the way it is (when it was just black basecoat), like it would be hard as hell to peel. We really need to put clear on it to make it peelable.
This was one of the only phone conversations we had, and he said the car needs to be out of the shop by 6am the next day when his boss gets in.
So the plan was to clear it so if we decided to peel it, it would be more manegable.
Today I just called Dipyourcar.com to see what they would say. Told them about the fact that the pearls weren't mixing right, and they said they've never had a problem with pearls mixing (but that's also what you'd expect them to say so that was no surprise, and they weren't aware of the type of pearl we were using). But what surprised me is that they said we could have just as easily peeled it when it was just base coat (with no clear) and it would have left our options open, we could have sprayed any color right over it, and maybe figured out another color or option that would have worked with minimal extra effort.
Now that we cleared it, we can't put anything over it, and if we have trouble with removing it, the dip disolver won't work on it any longer because that clear is obviously very chemically resistant.
Well... This changes things a ton.... He didn't handle the entire situation well and made snap decisions based on the fact that he needed the car out. And now you are left with a color that you didn't want and he is going to wipe his hand of it. It sound like you might be able to leverage the fact that he did this "after-hours" to get him to peel and re-spray it.
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Called my buddy who owns an autobody shop, he said because this guy is someone doing work on the side getting money out of him will be basically impossible, which I figured anyway, even if he had his own shop.
Here's the photos of the car when the pearl went down, you can see it's a bit blotchy:
(https://i.imgur.com/Yyfze7G.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/qFXJdul.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/2BSTAPC.jpg)
He sent me this photo highlighting the largest problem area:
(https://i.imgur.com/6iARYTf.jpg)
And then when he put the candy down,
Like I said the color wasn't right, and he sent a video showing the red sharpie coming through the candy:
(https://i.imgur.com/gwXVhZC.jpg)
Vid of the sharpie showing
(https://i.imgur.com/2JKbRuu.mp4)
When the car was in black base coat it looked best and I confirmed with the manufacturer that I could technically put matte top coat over the gloss, but no guarantees it'll go back to how it looked.
Given that from these photos the black looks as good or better than factory paint... I don't think I'll touch it.
Also he finally agreed to wipe out the second half of payment. So I got a black autoflex job for 1k or the cost of the materials only. Picking up the car tonight, and you could tell he sent me some photos of the car to help make me feel a bit better:
(https://i.imgur.com/VuPgMDm.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/KMg6A79.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/ARiAKX7.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/rH7UCrz.jpg)
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Car looks awesome despite it being the wrong color. Glad your painter refunded some money, but I would have told him to not spray clear if you wanted flat black. I dont think I would use someone doing stuff on the side unless I personally knew them and they were painting at their house or own shop
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
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OMG I think I like it WAY better then orange anyway! That thing is awesome!!!!
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They were good pics, but this autoflex looks like a maaco paint job, and he sprayed EVERYTHING. So this crap is going to need to be pulled from everywhere.
If this turns out to be a nightmare to pull off I'm going to shoot myself in the face
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So I missed the Autoflex part, I have never heard of that, its removable like plasti-dip? For 1K it looks awesome but what are your plans to remove it and re-do with another painter?
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So I went to go start peeling it and the worst case scenario happened. This is exactly why you get it professionally installed, which is what I supposedly did, yet....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg7XEl3r-3k (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg7XEl3r-3k)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85RmeDSnwrY (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85RmeDSnwrY)
So I had a bit of a meltdown honestly. And after a couple days I decided to see what a shop would charge to remove it. Only $3,000-$5,000. Thats when the thought of a lawsuit really came to mind, and I let the guy know that I was looking at big bills and luckily before I could make the threat, he offered to remove it.
So now I need to pull the car apart again, and we'll be removing it in a week or two. I would wait until winter to remove it because it looks good from 10 feet but I don't want him to dissapear.
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Forgot that I posted this BTW, vid of priming the car. The finish on my primer was equal or better to the Autoflex professionally sprayed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE5MOHGmiek (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mE5MOHGmiek)
I'm thinking I've come this far, I might as well paint the car myself at this point. And if I wasn't looking for a pearl/candy paintjob I would deff do it myself.
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And here's a timelapse video I did of the final area that needed to be repaired. Fixing cracked fiberglass is super easy, reshaping, even small areas is much tougher. This represents about 6 hours
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEbUBEjBT74 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEbUBEjBT74)
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"Video Category: Comedy"
Did they not have a "tragedy" option?
What a mess. You going to just spray it yourself with paint, or try another shop/option?
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"Video Category: Comedy"
Did they not have a "tragedy" option?
What a mess. You going to just spray it yourself with paint, or try another shop/option?
I don't know man.... I need to step away from it for a while for sure... I'm getting the sense the car is actually cursed, so I'm not kidding I might have it blessed. I really wish that was a joke, but I don't want to get rid of it.
I'm thinking the orange I'm going after is so particular and difficult I'm worried that the chances are very high that if anyone else does it, they'll miss the mark, and if you miss the mark a bit on this color it would look terrible.
That being said I can't imagine what else I'd paint it.
I did look at the Viper Stryker Orange as well which does have a Paint code we could get a hold of, but at 15K from the factory, even though most of that is labor, I'm sure the materials are at least several thousand alone. Not the type of paint you want to screw up and have to do twice.
Stryker orange:
(http://cdn-ds.com/stock/2017-Dodge-Viper-ACR-EXTREME-Tomball-TX/seo/4662-1C3BDECZ4HV500024/sz_144148/w_1020/h_780/1C3BDECZ4HV500024_44b6d161a5b3e209.jpg)
The other color was carndy burnt orange from suzuki. thi one is pretty cheap at least:
(http://i645.photobucket.com/albums/uu174/MegaTorque/09%20ZX-10R/DSCF6650.jpg)
Those are the only other orange options I found, open to ideas on other colors
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You can leave it in primer and just beat the hell out of it at the racetrack. It won't be shiny, but it'll sure as shit be fun.
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You can leave it in primer and just beat the hell out of it at the racetrack. It won't be shiny, but it'll sure as shit be fun.
I was actually enjoying the shit out of with no bodywork on it. It feels noticibly heavier/slower with the bodywork back on. Like it's a mid/low 12 sec car with the car in full trim and prob a low 12/ high 11 sec car stripped. I could be totally wrong with those times, but it was noticible
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Personally I would wait for awhile before you do final paint. Fiberglass tends to move and show things after several heat cycles. It would suck to put more money and effort and have things “pop” in a few months. My vote now is either leave in primer like Blake said or go buy some plastidip and spray it yourself for $500 to get you through the summer.
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gray primer would look cool for the summer...
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Time for plasti-dip! https://www.dipyourcar.com/products/magma-orange-car-kit (https://www.dipyourcar.com/products/magma-orange-car-kit)
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Time for plasti-dip! https://www.dipyourcar.com/products/magma-orange-car-kit (https://www.dipyourcar.com/products/magma-orange-car-kit)
You're kidding right?
Tonight mad some lemonade from lemons. Loosly bolted at least the major panels on the car tonight for cars and coffee tomorrow.
(https://i.imgur.com/fTAktGr.jpg)
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Well, you've certainly convinced me to never try a removable paint job (or really anything not absolutely 100% proven regarding paint). What a PITA. I don't have much advice other than acknowledgement that it's OK to throw it on jack stands and walk away for a while. You can drive it and get some enjoyment that way, but if it were me, it would bug me that I'd fallen short of the mark I had in my head, so eventually I'd be sanding it all back down to bare glass and having a pro do a more traditional paint job. Part of the reason I paid a pro to paint my rx7 was that my self done paint job had a weak primer stage that took rock chips easier than it should have. I did everything by the book as best I could but it still wasn't quite right. I had them sand through everything I'd done when I had it reshot. Sucked, but after a few years of living with it as "okay" i was ready to spend some more $$$ on it.
In the grand scheme of life, getting burned for a few $k in bad paint isn't nearly a gnarly as a kid with cancer or any of a 1000 other catastrophes that some folks live through. That may or may not be a helpful observation but it's true. I don't think law suits or other legal deals are viable. The painter dude acted in good faith and put in a hell of a lot of work. He probably has mouths to feed as well and regardless you just end up with painter and manufacturer pointing at each other. Eventually they would probably point back at you too (some sort of prep, use of sharpies etc). Just not worth it. Let it go and move on. Hug your family, or your girl, or your grandma and be thankful that your challenges are that of a sticky restoration on a vehicle that 90% of the world couldn't afford in the first place.
Last thought, since too much adhesion seems to be the problem rather than too little, have you already looked into a wrap? That's at least a known layer of known thickness, in a consistent and known color.
Good luck!
-Joel
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I'm considering a wrap for my racecar once the body is prepared and primed.
I think the cost is about the same, once the cost of numbers and graphics are included.
The wrap itself should be cheaper than paint, and if stored indoors should last a long time.
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I'm considering a wrap for my racecar once the body is prepared and primed.
I think the cost is about the same, once the cost of numbers and graphics are included.
The wrap itself should be cheaper than paint, and if stored indoors should last a long time.
Just paint it, seriously it would be cheaper and easier. If I end up bringing the car back to factory black which is a 2 stage non metallic paint job (AKA you spray it black and if you screw up like getting runs in it or there's dust in it or splatter or whatever, you just send that crap out, and as long as it's still black when you;re done sanding it flat, you just spray clear coat over it and it turns the surface into glass smooth. If you get runs or dust in the clear coat, again you can just sand it out, but you would just need to polish it to make it look shiney again), and if you go too far sanding it, again unless you go all the way through the black to the primer, you just throw more coats of clear on it untill you get it just right. This way you can learn as you go. Starting with primer which you could literally paint on with a brush if you didn't care abuot how long that would take to sand smooth, to basecoat which takes more work, to clear which is hard, but still fixable.
This will last 10x longer, look better, you can do it cheaper yourself with a harbor freight HVLP gun. As you may notice my FIRST ever panel I shot with that harbor freight gun was smoother in primer than the majority of what this guy painted. It's a race car, you don't need to spend 1000 dollars in primer like I did. Some of the low end (but still professional qualty) primer will outlast the car if applied right.
Also while I hope I've shown the dangers of this type of removable coating, vinyl wrap is really no better. That shit can get baked on the car and EASILY be just as difficult to remove, same with those clear bras, they can like partially melt into the clear coat of a car and turn into a plastic rubbery goo which is dangerous to attack with solvents, and fucking IMPOSSIBLE to sand because it'll just ball up. So yeah think about spending easily 100 hours getting that stuff off, plus if you're doing it yourself you'll find it technically very difficult.
I wrapped that rear wing in carbon 1080 before the show, just so it wasn't primer white. It was VERY difficult. It takes the sort of touch/feel that you can only gain by doing it many times. Painting a car really doesn't take much feel. Have the right equipment, be super anal retentive about the details and basically more time = better result (take it as far as you want) and thats it.
Now looking back, regular paint is a removable coating too. Compared to these other products and their supposed "removability" it makes paint stripper and 80 grit sand paper on a standard paint job look pretty "removable"
Well, you've certainly convinced me to never try a removable paint job (or really anything not absolutely 100% proven regarding paint). What a PITA. I don't have much advice other than acknowledgement that it's OK to throw it on jack stands and walk away for a while. You can drive it and get some enjoyment that way, but if it were me, it would bug me that I'd fallen short of the mark I had in my head, so eventually I'd be sanding it all back down to bare glass and having a pro do a more traditional paint job. Part of the reason I paid a pro to paint my rx7 was that my self done paint job had a weak primer stage that took rock chips easier than it should have. I did everything by the book as best I could but it still wasn't quite right. I had them sand through everything I'd done when I had it reshot. Sucked, but after a few years of living with it as "okay" i was ready to spend some more $$$ on it.
In the grand scheme of life, getting burned for a few $k in bad paint isn't nearly a gnarly as a kid with cancer or any of a 1000 other catastrophes that some folks live through. That may or may not be a helpful observation but it's true. I don't think law suits or other legal deals are viable. The painter dude acted in good faith and put in a hell of a lot of work. He probably has mouths to feed as well and regardless you just end up with painter and manufacturer pointing at each other. Eventually they would probably point back at you too (some sort of prep, use of sharpies etc). Just not worth it. Let it go and move on. Hug your family, or your girl, or your grandma and be thankful that your challenges are that of a sticky restoration on a vehicle that 90% of the world couldn't afford in the first place.
Last thought, since too much adhesion seems to be the problem rather than too little, have you already looked into a wrap? That's at least a known layer of known thickness, in a consistent and known color.
Good luck!
-Joel
I'm going to drive it. It bothers me that I can't figure out what I'm going to do with it and after a year can't seem to come up with a good solution, but that never stops me from rocking it. I drove the car when it was still cracked up. I drove it in primer, and I even brought it to 2 cars and coffee with absolutely no body panels on it. And thats the thing you know... people loved it when it was in go kart mode, and I actually liked it a lot better. It was faster and more nimble.
Like I said in my reply above if I end up going back to a simple 2 stage paint, I'll do it myself. If it's tri stage, or just has pearl/candy in it. I think I'm out of my league, because you can't just turn to sandpaper to fix your small mistakes. Small mistakes mean you have to strip it and start over, and for nothing else given what's happened, I don't have the patience for that any more.
I hear you about the comparison to real life catastrophies and I understand. As for the course forward though I think I still want to give this guy the ability to fix this without going the legal route, but I spoke to a couple body shops, and they actually suggested it. They said what if he comes to your house, uses a solvent which starts to affect the fiberglass, and a month later the panels start to get wavy and soft (some solvents deff are NOT ok to use on fiberglass, and the manufacturer won't give us the OK to use their topcoat remover on fiberglass btw).
Other shops are also saying that it'll be tens to hundreds of hours to remove, this guy thinks it'll take 1 long day with the both of us...
So what I'm getting at, is this guy's perspective seems to clash with reality, and based on his previous work here... I don't know if I should trust the guy touching the car further. In fact I have a pretty clear case right now against him and his employer, to give this car over to a professional shop to remove and send him the bill. I don't want to do that for obvious reasons, but by workign with him I open myself up to the possibility (as small as it may be) of him causing further damage to the car, and then I basically have ZERO recourse because I was there helping him do it, or I at least OK'd it.
If a shop takes on the job and totals the car, that's what insurance is for...
So yeah I need to figure out what I'm going to do... I couldn't swallow the concept of the car being totalled, without insurance, but the alternative would be very ugly too.
I've actually been looking for opinions from other car guys on this decision because it's really difficult
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An example of the removability of standard paint which makes most of these removable options irrelevant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xp91nSjMU8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xp91nSjMU8)
This vid btw is just a more extreme version of normal body work. You can see where the hundreds of hours go.
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BTW just found another color option. The Mclaren Volcano orange doesn't release paint codes, and I believe even if we sourced it, it was something along the lines of $1,000 a quart is what we heard through the grape vine.
Stryker Orange from the viper has a paint code we can find, but @ 15K from the factory optional paint, I haven't even looked into the price of materials, because I figure it's nearly as ludicrous.
After searching for nearly a year I seem to still not have turned over every stone on this, and I found a new color that seems very similar to Volcano orange and it's aptly named....Lava orange metallic and was a pretty rare option on the BMW bikes, has a paint code, and it looks like I can source the paint, and if it needs to be matched down the line a different shop can work on it because it's not some crazy candy job, thoughts?
(https://theneed4speed.com/Images/K13S55.jpg)
(https://theneed4speed.com/Images/K13S56.jpg)
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Color looks awfully close, I'm sure it'd look great.
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So I think I already told you guys this car might be cursed and I don't think anyone took me seriously.
Well, I went on a cruise yesterday from the boston area to Cape cod (about an hour drive without traffic)
This was invite only, and about 200 exotic cars. It was by police escort the entire way, and the big dollar cars at the front of the pack were running a strong pace that was hard to keep up with without weaving through traffic and trying hard to keep up.
I know in our smaller slower group towards the back we were pushing doing a lot of 80-100 with bursts to 120-140, we actually had a pretty serious pucker moment as we came up on traffic that was stopped dead stopped at one of our fastest paces. Myself, a ferarri, an s2000, a corvette and a 991 porsche all made a stop from 140-0 successfully, thank god but the smell of brakes was very real.
I guess I naively didn't expect speeds like that and while I didn't think the car was really ready for that, I felt mechanically, I'd been driving the car all summer and felt it would go, stop and steer as consistently as ever, but when we left the show, we hopped back on the hgihway quickly to visit my wife's family the next town over. After hours of high speed driving, I take the last corner, to go into town, and I start hearing a thunk thunk thunk (that varies with speed, not rpm) I thought I had a flat, thats the best way to describe it, but I'm doing 20 mph so if you had the radio up you wouldn't have even heard it, and I didn't feel anything particularly different at that speed.
So I pull over (in the middle of down town) and I try to reverse into a spot. The car binds when I put it in reverse as if the parking brake is on. So I hop out. Look at the rear wheel and see it's tucked more than usual. I look through the spokes of the wheel and I see axle grease everywhere and then I see it.... the top ball joint is completely seperated from the spindle.
That nut could have come off before the cruise even started and I could have been driving that whole time with nothing more than friction holding that ball joint in place. I'm 100% sure both my wife and I would be dead if that had failed on the highway.
Fancy cars get a lot more attention when they're being loaded on a trailer in the middle of town:
(https://i.imgur.com/mzRa7L6.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/lmWMsir.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/sE9CCqg.jpg)
What the wheel looked like after backing it off the trailer:
(https://i.imgur.com/WayBF1B.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/noFRTdw.jpg)
I don't know what happened to these threads, but the tow truck driver during our hour plus ride home asked me a good question. He said did you forget to put the cotter pin back in.... and I thought for a second.... and I'm like yeah that's right there's cotter pins on ball joints but I don't remember there being one on this car. And low and behold, these cars dont have cotter pins. Just a nylock nut which obviously wasn't enough in this case. Suffice to say I should be dead, along with my wife, and I'll be drilling all of these ball joints and adding cotter pins just to be sure, plus I think it makes sense to actually bring this car to the dealer spend for an hour or 2 of labor and just have them double check my work. before final reasembly.
(https://i.imgur.com/ri58pUh.jpg)
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Holy hell dude... that is one of the scariest things I’ve seen in awhile. Mainly after the high speed stuff. And all I have to say is wtf to not have a castle on there from the factory. Time to go buy safety wire and a bunch of drill bits and get to work....
Glad you didn’t get hurt...
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That’s a scary thought, I could only imagine what could have happened! Glad you and your wife are ok. [emoji106]
Side note, I just did exactly as you just mentioned. I took my car in to a highly respected shop in my area, got an alignment and told them to look the car over. It’s better safe then sorry especially when I know I will be pushing the car to the limits on the track.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Holy crap glad you're not :halo:
Holy hell dude... that is one of the scariest things I’ve seen in awhile. Mainly after the high speed stuff. And all I have to say is wtf to not have a castle on there from the factory. Time to go buy safety wire and a bunch of drill bits and get to work....
Glad you didn’t get hurt...
Wire for fastener heads, cotter pins for fastener shanks.
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Jeebus man, that's scary stuff.
A few things:
1. My "bump steer correction kit" on the Mustang had nylocs. I drilled/castle nutted/cotter pinned that shit. Definitely worth doing!
2. Paint markers. Buy a few colors and mark EVERYTHING on your suspension when you bolt check the car. Super worth the time!
3. Glad you all are okay! Wow that had to be super terrifying ex post facto.
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I prefer castle nuts and cotters on those.
Nyloks are pretty reliable, but you shouldn't re-use them, especially on suspension and steering parts.
At work, since nylon isn't allowed in spent fuel pools, we have to use Flex-lok nuts on most of our stuff.
Those things are VERY secure, but unfortunately our stuff is stainless, and they usually gall and the only way to disassemble them is to twist the bolt in two. :banghead:
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At work, since nylon isn't allowed in spent fuel pools, we have to use Flex-lok nuts on most of our stuff.
...spent fuel pools? Sounds atomic-y.
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Still can't figure out where the threads went. I will deff drill and cotter pin these next time around.
Anyway, figured out why we were running into so much traffic and having a hard time keeping up. Here's video from the front of the pack. By the time we got there they had opened up the highway again, and we kept running into congestion. next time I'll be doing some agressive passing early on to get to the front of the pack:
Pretty cool video, at least I made the intro: https://youtu.be/tyc4oYFIoGY (https://youtu.be/tyc4oYFIoGY)
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At work, since nylon isn't allowed in spent fuel pools, we have to use Flex-lok nuts on most of our stuff.
...spent fuel pools? Sounds atomic-y.
Yep. We inspect and repair spent fuel assemblies and reactor control components.
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In racing we never use nylocks on critical parts, always all metal locknuts with red loctite, and throw out the nuts when they are taken out. If you don"t want to drill that is always an option.
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
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Looks to me like it was previously over-torqued or something.
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Check the taper bore, Ill bet the loose rod end has wallowed out the taper and the damaged threads are the result/cause.
DD
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First off so glad you and your wife are ok!
Second - The cops shut down the road for exotic cars to drive at high speed!?!?! Man I need to move!
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I forgot to reply to this thread.
The threads were completely stripped off the ball joint. Still don't know why.
Good news is that the damage was as minimal as possible. A new ball joint and a new CV boot later and we're back in business.
I slapped the car back together and did a big cruise. The small one is about a 50mile 1 afternoon affair, and as the organizers say, it's the warmup run for the big 3 day adventure towards the end of the summer.
The first day consists of about 150 mile trip up to the first racetrack, Canaan Motorsports park, a tiny little track that is actually a private owners personal track that he rents out for track days.
Second day we drove across New Hampshire to the second track Club Motorsports, which as you'll see in the video is basically built on the side of a mountain and has the most elevation change of any track in this region.
Third day we did the "Kanc" cruise, which is along the kancamangus highway through new hampshire, one of many high speed twistymountain roads (Think mini tail of the dragon) and the locals set up shop with cameras.
Anyway enough talk, here's a video of the best weekend of my life, filled with all the car stuff above, and yet by the end of it the cars didn't matter. THe people, the experience even outside of the cars was amazing. Great accomodations, great food throughout (who would've thought up in NH), and everyone wants to party and let loose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVlgqDTXPKE&feature=youtu.be
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BTW Yes the helicopter was escorting us the whole time getting footage, but it was also hovering below the treeline and racing the cars around the track as you'll see in the vid. Fuckin nutty. The pilot is a hell of a driver. His wife brought their range rover family cruiser and he was hurting some supercar feelings with it
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Wow I am drooling! So much want!!!
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cool!! do you find that you get more respect from drivers of "fancy" cars with the elise vs the RX7?
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cool!! do you find that you get more respect from drivers of "fancy" cars with the elise vs the RX7?
Ehh probably some truth to this, but one of the organizers has a turbo LS swapped 300ZX, so it's genuinely a mixed crowd.
The crazy part is everyone's just kinda part of the group regardless of the car you have. I got to drive that Green Viper in the video, and the Grey Huracan Performante (with green accents), just because the owners are jsut normal dudes with extra cash.
The Performante is next level... seriously legitimately shocked by that car.
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Ehh probably some truth to this, but one of the organizers has a turbo LS swapped 300ZX, so it's genuinely a mixed crowd.
The crazy part is everyone's just kinda part of the group regardless of the car you have. I got to drive that Green Viper in the video, and the Grey Huracan Performante (with green accents), just because the owners are jsut normal dudes with extra cash.
The Performante is next level... seriously legitimately shocked by that car.
That's cool, usually people with cars like that that actually drive them are really cool. Viper is still a car I want to drive at some point, it was my favorite car growing up
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Been lax on updating this thread.
Started the process of stripping the car, it's painful to say the least, but I finally threatened to sue the guy who screwed up the car after seeing his facebook posts about going to SEMA. Figured if he has the money to do that he has some funds to fix his mistake. So he actually agreed to pay a shop to have it removed. This was my work after about 5 hours. It's going to be a tough job but a body shop is going to do the rest.
(https://i.imgur.com/vQQbQ2H.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/gHXcKrU.jpg)
Before bringing it to the bodyshop though I figured we'd take care of the cracked windshield as you need to pull the front clam to replace it. Was supposed to drop the car off at the dealer the day after christmas, so I figured I'd take my sister for a short ride around town on christmas just to make sure everything's running right.
Well... I'll tell you...I should start a youtube channel.
I could give Tavarish a run for his money with his burnt lambo rebuild.
My sister got it on film and, it was the first time I accelerated with more than 20-30% throttle and well here's the video:
https://youtu.be/FPTAymQKu7U
Thought it had popped out of gear but none of the gears were giving me any forwar motion. Limped it to the side of the road and called AAA.
(https://i.imgur.com/kq4HIr9.jpg)
Gates in the transmission feel good clutch feels good, and it made no noise when it let go, and still doesn't make any noise have any wierd feelings or vibrations just no forward motion at all in any gear.
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How very Lotus of it. :(
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You cant catch a break with this car! I hope its just a clutch and not a diff. Whats the plan for the repaint
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
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How very Lotus of it. :(
I know right?
Well it may be toyota parts in it, but it certainly has the heart/soul of a lotus.
It's a great time though when it's running :drive:
You cant catch a break with this car! I hope its just a clutch and not a diff. Whats the plan for the repaint
Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk
Well the more I think about it the more I think one of the axles popped out of the transaxle, or I broke a CV.
Called the dealership today because I don't think it's the clutch.
And once I told the service manager that the clutch was just replaced at the beginning of the summer he did a 180 now figuring it was something in the diff that was broken.
Stating multiple times that the passengers side wheel spins when the car's up in the air, but when he stops it from spinning the other wheel won't spin.
I had to tell him like 3 times nicely that certain LSDs wont transfer power like that and I don't know what type of diff the Quaife is but if it's torsen, then it'll act like an open diff when there's no load on it.
Looked it up and it is a Torsen.
So, I asked him did you make sure that the splines on the drives side axle are engaging with the trans? He is going to double check as he did say that was the side the looked loose/wobbly and fluid was pouring out.
Would make sense why it was leaking too.
So they're going to take a second look at it, but I have a sneaking suspicion thats all thats wrong, and it came out because the circlip that holds the axle in got a little banged up when the ball joint failed.
The axles come in and go back into the diff with a pretty solid click as the circlips click into their slots. When I put the axle back in after getting it checked out, it didn't have as much of a pronounced click. Didn't think much of it at the time, but makes sense that it may have lost some sping to the clip and not seated very securely.
Keeping my fingers crossed that I know more than the dealership. Which would be pretty damn pathetic @ $155 an hour, but I would have this board to thank 100%.
My Rx7 project and this car would have never happened without the people on this board.
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Well, hopefully that's all it is; that's certainly the very best answer for your pocket book. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if you know more than the dealership, 90% of the dealer mechanics I met were, uh, so-so at best, though there are certainly some sage ones out there as well.
It's sad that all of your tribulations should make me want one of these less, but I still kinda want one, haha.
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If you are doing their job for them, get the car out ASAP and stop their billable hours. The service manager doesn’t know *anything* except what he is willing to bill for. That’s his job. Being in the industry I know many that fit that description, keep in mind they are not techs. The tech is the only one working on your car that may know something, but it is highly unlikely unless they have frequent experience with your specific problem. The troubleshooting proves this is not the case. You would have had better luck at a speed shop. Hope you get the car running soon, I really enjoyed this thread.
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Was looking up the rally from the summer and someone in the group found a reactions video someone shot on the drive up. You'll notice I didn't even make the video I was so far behind.
This is everyone's new favorite video now from the rally:
https://youtu.be/pkgc-uz_jpM
They're all charachters, the guy flying the helicopter made a pretty funny video with his new toy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=db8K9g1IOIs&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR2htZi874W2_ZGKV2q3IcGR_E2iYNfZSAgXpXiy0FoGL1ZgqKpcaUZ1700
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Haha, that was pretty well done. I really, really like the new 911s, too bad I'll be around 120 years old before I can afford one.
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Well found my problem:
(https://i.imgur.com/vI4MLvT.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Pwp2PHj.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/RBfRIJS.jpg)
Looks like the circlip didn't hold the axle in place strongly enough, maybe got dinged up a little bit on the ball joint failure, the axle started coming out of the transmission and then when I used a bit too much gas from the stop light it broke off right where you would expect it to break.
Certainly cheaper than pulling the trans, but at 4 hours to diagnose and replace and 1K for a new axle, still not cheap.
Hopefully will be driving to the body shop next week
Found out that this cobra used the PPG Volcano Orange formula I found, so I am encouraged about the possibility still of making this happen:
(https://i.imgur.com/N3uRVBZ.jpg)
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So it sheared the end off and then the axle pulled out?
Have you thought about taking this car to an exorcist or Voodoo doctor? To remove the curse?
That color is so :bacon: :bacon: :bacon: :bacon: :bacon: :bacon: :bacon: :bacon:
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So it sheared the end off and then the axle pulled out?
Have you thought about taking this car to an exorcist or Voodoo doctor? To remove the curse?
That color is so :bacon: :bacon: :bacon: :bacon: :bacon: :bacon: :bacon: :bacon:
Lol, don't provoke the spirit.
We're going to get it blessed this summer though, just to be sure, then it's :drive: time.
I remember during my swap I bought multple diffs for the RX7 and lots of extra parts overall because I thought that car was going to fall apart, but despite the electrical issues, it was a friggen tank.
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So it sheared the end off and then the axle pulled out?
Have you thought about these effective fat burners for belly fat (https://www.muscleandfitness.com/supplements/best-fat-burners-for-belly-fat/) and taking this car to an exorcist or Voodoo doctor? To remove the curse?
That color is so :bacon: :bacon: :bacon: :bacon: :bacon: :bacon: :bacon: :bacon:
Lol, don't provoke the spirit.
We're going to get it blessed this summer though, just to be sure, then it's :drive: time.
I remember during my swap I bought multple diffs for the RX7 and lots of extra parts overall because I thought that car was going to fall apart, but despite the electrical issues, it was a friggen tank.
Man, next Summer is going to be fun for you! Nice weather can't come soon enough when you have this bad boy in the garage eh?
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That's a really nice looking car, but I think I would have given up long ago.
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I would have too, but I'm in too deep now. It's not worth anything in the state it's in and I've got at least 30-35K into the car now.
Spring progress photos. This stuff is worse than paint to remove. They had to use a fiberglass stripper, cut slits in the material and attack the primer underneath to get it to bubble up. Mind you that I blocked the car 3 times to 1000 grit which is like a concourse paint job. They have to wreck some of that work just to get this stuff off. If you've done body work you can feel the pain associated with this job. See progress photos in progressing order below:
(https://i.imgur.com/591T6Qb.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/qDqZUiu.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/qDqZUiu.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/3hlGAkW.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/9uwknmf.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/036XH7g.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/b03TPwt.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/l26edUB.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/cadKetv.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/6qyJgkn.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/2RlW96e.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/9Eoj7dI.jpg)
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Holy crap, that looks like a horrible task.
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Car is almost done. Should be painted on the 4th of July, and wet sanded Friday/over the weekend.
I went with the BMW Lava Orange Metallic color I posted earlier in the thread. It's the closest color with a paintcode I could find to Volcano Orange and it looks a bit paler than VO but does seem to have a good pop of gold pearl in the sun.
Took a dramatic video near sunset with the speedshape he painted:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7CdiClUi2k
Keep your fingers crossed. The hope is that I love it. If I don't the car will likely get parted out and I'll move on to an Ariel Atom.
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Awesome color, but the cat looks positively disinterested. :laugh: :laugh:
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That's going to look really good all sorted out!
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Had a productive 4th. Stay tuned
(https://i.imgur.com/TRsNLf9.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/M3jgwpk.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/9Ov1OR9.jpg)
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looking good 8)
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NICE!!! That's going to be beautiful.
Glad to see this finally coming together for you. :bacon:
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Spray booth does the color no justice. I wasn't 100% sure I went with the right color till I saw it in the sunlight:
Walk around video in the sun: https://youtu.be/SBZRpovIWvQ
(https://i.imgur.com/8NWVDJv.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/zMcZzrJ.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/zDJ2BYB.jpg)
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wow !! Great to see your plan coming together :cheers:
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That looks awesome, but I kept worrying that you were going to trip while carrying the camera around and step right in the middle of the roof panel. :o
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That's freakin' beautiful!
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That looks terrible. You should just sell me the car. ;)
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wow, you're crazy if you sell the car after this!!
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wow, you're crazy if you sell the car after this!!
I could see myself selling it. It's taken this long just to get it the right color and while I know it's a Lotus... it's been VERY LOTUS'Y
So if it keeps up the constant antics I will likely get rid of it. My hope is that I can stop putting money into it for a while and enjoy it. It is a very fun car when it's running well.
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wow, you're crazy if you sell the car after this!!
I could see myself selling it. It's taken this long just to get it the right color and while I know it's a Lotus... it's been VERY LOTUS'Y
So if it keeps up the constant antics I will likely get rid of it. My hope is that I can stop putting money into it for a while and enjoy it. It is a very fun car when it's running well.
I'd imagine so. I know my friend likes his, but he doesn't drive it much. With that new paint I bet you would sell it very very quickly
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Got the car today.
And it even started first time and drove on and off the trailer, which was shockingly undramatic for this car. They're still finishing the doors but loading and unloading the car without the doors on it, kinda made me want to drive it doorless A LOT more often. Felt more like a T-REX which was cool.
Paint job overall looks pretty flawless. I've been studying paint now for 2 years and did the whole first round of prep and learned a lot. This paint job was done well and it shows. And the color is more gold than I thought it'd be. I'm still processing it and everything's still too much in limbo but I think when it's all together it's going to look amazing.
Some preiminary shots, and a quick video from my painter, but his camera I noticed washes out the color. It's darker than this in person:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz_QJtR7Egk&feature=youtu.be
Here's the one shot my buddy took of the car on his iphone and it better shows the color. (Don't mind my ride on lawn mower battery bungee corded to the top of the engine.)
(https://i.imgur.com/BVMjRff.jpg)
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wow, you're crazy if you sell the car after this!!
I could see myself selling it. It's taken this long just to get it the right color and while I know it's a Lotus... it's been VERY LOTUS'Y
So if it keeps up the constant antics I will likely get rid of it. My hope is that I can stop putting money into it for a while and enjoy it. It is a very fun car when it's running well.
I assume you know why Colin Chapman called the company Lotus?
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that looks awesome!
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Beautiful.
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Absolutely fantastic.
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wow, you're crazy if you sell the car after this!!
I could see myself selling it. It's taken this long just to get it the right color and while I know it's a Lotus... it's been VERY LOTUS'Y
So if it keeps up the constant antics I will likely get rid of it. My hope is that I can stop putting money into it for a while and enjoy it. It is a very fun car when it's running well.
I assume you know why Colin Chapman called the company Lotus?
Lots Of Trouble Usually Serious?
BTW I'm getting there. The only technical challenge is disecting the wiring harness for the stereo system.
Going to pull the thermostat tomorrow, it was sticking closed at times last year
Put some last peices of trim on the car and then I'm going to lower it about half an inch, and if I have time, put a straight pipe on it for lawls.,
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I was on a mission last week to make it to the Mission 22 new england rally. Every summer a local group of car clubs converge to make one giant rally group for a giant charity rally weekend full of shenanigans and high speed hijinx.
I recieved the chassis back from paint about a week before the rally but I still had parts coming back from paint up until 2 days before the rally so I was working on the car up until midnight, the night before the rally and my drive to the rally meeting spot at 6am was literally my shake down.
I ddn't post much about the re-assembly of the car because it was mostly tedious yet uneventful. Just like the RX7 I still seemed to be able to remember where most things were, recognize all of the major bolts just by looking at them, and I was able to find the majority of the peices easily although the car came back to me well less than assembled lets say... so it was a full week from wake up till after dark every day with help from friends.
But that morning, we drove approx 50 miles to the rally start point without issues, in fact the braking from the larger rear radially mounted calipers I installed and the lowered (+ more rake) stance transformed the handling along with the A052 tires (Never going back to R888Rs).
We started the rally which was high paced from the git-go, and made it another 30 miles before hitting traffic. While putting through traffic the car started sputtering and stalled out then stalled out again and again and started puffing a bunch of white smoke out of the ehaust (but no coolant smell)
One of the guys on the rally (a vintage racer) pulled over and made the determination that it was fuel coming out of the exhaust and flooding the cylinders. Insted of quitting on the rally the guys told me to tow it to the race track (our final destination for the day) and we'd get cracking on it.
Sat on the side of the highway for an hour and a half with temps over 100 degrees due to the traffic/hot road. Got a chance to talk to lots of people crawling by at about 3mph:
(https://i.imgur.com/E0ujxrQ.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/le2CYLC.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/qUZJKRI.jpg)
We got to the track towards the end of the day, and people got busy looking through the car. Car would barely stat and continued to puff smoke out of the exhaust. So we pulled the plugs and 3 of 4 were nasty. Changed the plugs and she started up but it was running 9:1 A/F. Super rich and was starting to foul the new plugs. We went on a hunt to look for injectors but finding even stock injectors was impossible.
(https://i.imgur.com/SyS2JiY.jpg)
The next day one of the other Elises on the rally actually crashed on the track, so we decided to try to borrow injectors from him even though they were stock 300 cc injectors instead of my 750cc injectors. Figured they should work perfect for idling and low rpm/low load. So it would be a guaranteed way to get home.
Didn't work and the car was lean even at idle to the point it barely revved.
So we had to throw the old injectors back in and magically after tapping them a bunch and working some carb cleaner through them, they seemed to be working perfectly again. Burned 2 days till they decided to work again, but the car was up and running and maintained A/F the rest of the trip, allowing us to go on the Kanc cruise on the third day.
(Think NH version of Tail of the Dragon)
We did the trip up as a group of about 30 from Loon mountain and the car's handling and braking was really really next level. Nothing short of flat out amazing.
(https://i.imgur.com/P1DQGDy.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/yjk9GPa.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/0twpMO8.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Wk9SJiS.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/llzB6Rp.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/WbQRKyu.jpg)
And some short videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gf2SaWT3IY&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH0A01sAwcA&feature=youtu.be
Amzing weekend, and surprisingly we made it home
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Typical Lotus right?? Magically fixes itself. That color is insane!! I bet you were getting lots of comments on it, and makes all the hard work worth it. I really miss being able to drive my car on the street
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I know it took way too much work, but it sure turned out well. Congrats on getting to (mostly) use it for purpose!
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Did the cruise go to the Tamworth NH track on Rt 25 ?
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Did the cruise go to the Tamworth NH track on Rt 25 ?
Yep, club motorsports. Great track.
We were there 2 days and I literally never even saw the track i was just head down on the car. I came back yesterday and basically slept the whole day.
When it ran though the car was an absolute monster in the corners. It's really too bad I didn't get to use it on the track as the limits are so much higher now, I really need to re-adjust.
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I know it took way too much work, but it sure turned out well. Congrats on getting to (mostly) use it for purpose!
Typical Lotus right?? Magically fixes itself. That color is insane!! I bet you were getting lots of comments on it, and makes all the hard work worth it. I really miss being able to drive my car on the street
Thanks guys, I did get a lot of compliments on the color, and just the look of the car overall. I slammed the car before the event which helps a lot too, but was getting some rubbing in hard corners. Only scraped once though. Pretty good all else considered
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Finally got it out on track,
First time to this track, but had a good time. Actually had a couple "moments" on the track and luckily found my biggest on on video from a car chasing behind. He seemed more enthusiastic about it then I was Lol. Is that a "bug-aboo" chant?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ9J_KIpsA8&feature=youtu.be&t=555
And From in the car (not soo much drama) The A052s are pretty progressive during breakaway but I'm not honestly sure what caused this slide so I just let the cars behind me pass and let the tires cool off a bit.
https://youtu.be/gxqygDy3rfs?t=440
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Finally got it out on track,
First time to this track, but had a good time. Actually had a couple "moments" on the track and luckily found my biggest on on video from a car chasing behind. He seemed more enthusiastic about it then I was Lol. Is that a "bug-aboo" chant?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ9J_KIpsA8&feature=youtu.be&t=555
And From in the car (not soo much drama) The A052s are pretty progressive during breakaway but I'm not honestly sure what caused this slide so I just let the cars behind me pass and let the tires cool off a bit.
https://youtu.be/gxqygDy3rfs?t=440
That thing understeers like crazy. It looks like you are braking pretty late and deep into the turns as well. braking and turning is never good on a racetrack
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Finally got it out on track,
First time to this track, but had a good time. Actually had a couple "moments" on the track and luckily found my biggest on on video from a car chasing behind. He seemed more enthusiastic about it then I was Lol. Is that a "bug-aboo" chant?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ9J_KIpsA8&feature=youtu.be&t=555
And From in the car (not soo much drama) The A052s are pretty progressive during breakaway but I'm not honestly sure what caused this slide so I just let the cars behind me pass and let the tires cool off a bit.
https://youtu.be/gxqygDy3rfs?t=440
That thing understeers like crazy. It looks like you are braking pretty late and deep into the turns as well. braking and turning is never good on a racetrack
Do the braking in a straight line, apex late, and accelerate past the apex and she won't oversteer at all. I think I just initiated the turn too quickly/sharply off the braking becuse it slid through the whole corner.
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Finally got it out on track,
First time to this track, but had a good time. Actually had a couple "moments" on the track and luckily found my biggest on on video from a car chasing behind. He seemed more enthusiastic about it then I was Lol. Is that a "bug-aboo" chant?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ9J_KIpsA8&feature=youtu.be&t=555
And From in the car (not soo much drama) The A052s are pretty progressive during breakaway but I'm not honestly sure what caused this slide so I just let the cars behind me pass and let the tires cool off a bit.
https://youtu.be/gxqygDy3rfs?t=440
That thing understeers like crazy. It looks like you are braking pretty late and deep into the turns as well. braking and turning is never good on a racetrack
Do the braking in a straight line, apex late, and accelerate past the apex and she won't oversteer at all. I think I just initiated the turn too quickly/sharply off the braking becuse it slid through the whole corner.
Ah that makes sense I would assume this thing is twitchy
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Do the braking in a straight line, apex late, and accelerate past the apex and she won't oversteer at all. I think I just initiated the turn too quickly/sharply off the braking becuse it slid through the whole corner.
Yea, it looked like you were braking too late and put too much steering wheel in trying to get it to turn... once it slowed enough, the front grabbed and sent the car sliding.
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I need to make up for some lost time so today I did a Trackcross event. $75 and no flagger duty at my favorite track.
The track was actually flooded by a local river ripping entire portions of the track up. The hight of the water was over 6 feet in some spots.
Someone actually caught the start of the flooding. This is the track...
During flooding: https://www.facebook.com/richard.hemingway.35/videos/10218572664898103/
After Flooding: https://www.facebook.com/CanaanMotorClubNH/videos/609770969510853/
Now just a little over a month later they've cleaned up the track completely (parts of the track that weren't ripped up were buried in over a foot of fine silt) have the area graded and ready for repaving.
So I was absolutely estatic that it was open even if we were using the go kart infield track to bypass the section that was washed away.
(https://i.imgur.com/DOF8JG8.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/C5O5qGT.jpg)
And a lap of the track When a lotus feels like a bus, you're on a tight track:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rue1C48HFQ
Car ran well, needs more front end grip, but I can place the weight on the rear under full acceleration and it just sticks. So brake late apex late and keep the weight on the rear and theres just endless grip.
I was getting a very stiff pedal on the same spot in the track. I thought I was fading the pads, but on one of the laps the stiff pedal broke away, which revealed more travel and much more braking force. The ABS on these cars is considered somewhat of a liability, with the dreaded "ICE mode" which leads to a stiff brake pedal and no brake pressure, but the car was still braking pretty darn well, and I only got this sensation consistently in 1 braking zone (after the hairpin) headed at the cones downshifting to 2nd.
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Man that really came out great! Are you happy with it? It sure looks like a lot of fun!
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Shit I don’t think a vette would even make it around some of those turns haha! Car looks like a lot of fun.
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Man that really came out great! Are you happy with it? It sure looks like a lot of fun!
It looks great from 10 feet but the new paint job is basically ruined. The paint was so fresh and soft that there's already hundreds of rock chips under/near the rear grills. every single panel needs to be re-done almost. So I'm still a bit pissed that the painter basically delivered me the car 2 days before the rally. There's also still a lot of small bodywork items to address as it was hastily put together so I could make the rally and enjoy it this summer.
The stereo with it's massive wiring harness is still a mess
The injectors are still acting up even though I ran some carb cleaner through them.
The front end needs more camber which will actually require milling the upright, meaning I need to pull the suspension completely apart up front and get it milled (will need to do that in the offseason)
The thermostat sticks closed some times, (and it's a massive pain to get to
And my throw out bearing just started squeeking last week.
So to me it's driving but the thought of it coming back apart is just driving me a bit crazy. It still feels kinda far from being back together and a normal car. We're still keeping our fingers crossed every time we drive it.
The Rx7 by comparison once I sorted it mechanically it never as much stuttered. It was bulletproof by comparison.
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That’s a bummer. If you end up reworking any of the paint, you should out PPF on it.
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The Rx7 by comparison once I sorted it mechanically it never as much stuttered. It was bulletproof by comparison.
One of the many reasons swapped 7's are so good! Mine has had a few minor minor quirks in 3 years and 10K miles but for the most part bulletproof and no real need to pull it apart. Halfspec did an amazing job of course but also fixed many things after getting it driving and I have got to reap the rewards of just being able to drive/upgrade the car!
That said the lotus is definitely amazing! I know its a ton of work but you have to be getting close! One more winter and you should have a solid set up. Don't sweat the paint, now you can drive it and enjoy it without worrying about every chip. I need to change my signature my paint is NOT immaculate any more with sticky tires and all the dang sand on the roads here. Its much more pleasurable to drive now and not worry. I will re-paint it RIGHT before I sell it LOL This is how I justify the chips LOL.
Keep at it bud!
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Thanks guys.
I'll keep you posted, but yes when I get the paint fixed, PPF is necessary (actually comes on the car from the factory) on the front clam and at least the rockers, which flare our in front of the rear tires, and they just get absolutely HAMMERED here. I should take some photos up close so you can see it. You'd think the car had 100k+ miles already based on the number of rock chips.
I might also go with these, but can't figure out how I feel about the look:
(http://i1190.photobucket.com/albums/z449/gunpilot1/null-63.jpg)
Certainly cheaper than PPF though