More Video from the Ambush

This guy should have his Corvette confiscated! My wife's 82 year old mother drove better than that.  I apologize for the sun's reflections on the windshield. The top of the dash will eventually be painted or covered with a dull black. Our makeshift fix was black duct tape (left side) or tan masking tape (right side). Neither was perfect but both were improvements from the shiny aluminum.

 

More fun, safe and controlled driving.

Also check out the video in the previous post. It shows the same video as before but I've succeeded in getting it updated with a video of higher resolution.

Now over 2100 road miles

We arrived home from the Ambush last night. I think all the folks involved had a great time. Denise and I certainly did. Thanks a ton to Paul Whittle for finding and guiding us on the super roads of N. Georgia, Tennessee and N. Carolina.  He also found several great restaurants for the group to visit. 

The D2 ran flawlessly (except for the brake light switch) and handles amazingly well.  In total we put over 1150 miles on it over the 8 days we drove it in the mountains. Total miles now exceed 2160.

Check out the following video.  Please note that I have my wife convinced that the speedometer reads about 40% to high. Please don't tell her :) . 

There are a couple of places that show the wrist strap for my kill switch swinging to the side. I think a 45* angle on that strap indicates 1.0 G lateral acceleration in a turn.  Also note how quiet it is and how quickly it accelerates.

 We have more videos and will attempt to post better files within the next couple of days.

Mountain update

Update:  Total mileage is now over 1900. About 900 in the Smokies,  The car has been totally reliable except for the hydraulic brake lite switch. Bought a replacement yesterday from a local auto parts store and installed it this AM.  All OK now. 

Engine oil temps are tracking coolant temp within about +5/-15* F. Gas mileage has been 16/18 MPG. Not bad for a high HP car being driven aggressively.

We have taken a couple of hours of video but are unable to load them onto my laptop's hard drive because the hard drive is almost full. Will get that done when we get home next week.

Video before leaving for the Smoky Mountains

We are about to leave for "The Ambush".  This is an annual gathering of mostly Seven Sports Cars in North Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina. We enjoy driving on the wonderful curvy roads in that area. The following video shows the new windshield, wipers, seat cushions, MoTeC digital dash and our weak attempt to add "Flames" like my Stalker had. As the body progresses, the flames will get better.

Several things to report

1. Added FIA roll cage pads to the frame inside the cockpit to protect driver and passenger's heads if there were a mishap.
2. Replaced the original 1/8" Lexan windshield with a larger and thicker 1/4" piece of Lexan. The original piece flexed and wobbled at speed. This is much more stable and was done at the same time that the windshield wiper was installed.
3. Fabricated and installed small supports for the center of the windshield. It is quite stable now.
4. Denise painted our "hi-tech" "Ugly Duckling" front bumper

5. In over 950 miles of driving Illinois' "Finest" Roads none of the 4 shock absorbers had ever traveled more than about 1/2 their available travel. I know this because I've installed small rubber O-rings on each of the shock shafts. The O-rings  are pushed down on the shaft by the shock body and mark the extent of shock travel.  This is a cheap, simple and effective way to monitor shock travel.

Although the car is very stable in a straight line, it rode quite hard. There are several cloverleaf highway interchanges near my home. I have been known to drive around these in an aggressive manner and noticed that in a certain washboard section the car would tend to skip over the low spots and just hit the high spots. Fun for me but disconcerting for my passengers.

A set of softer springs were purchased a couple of weeks ago and I finally got them installed tonight. The car now rides much better and is more comfortable to drive.  It also tracks much better thru that washboard section.  I need to review the data logs for detail but noticed 0.9 lateral G's on the dash. Not bad for cold tires on a very bumpy public road!

Mileage  now totals 1002.

We are leaving tomorrow for a gathering of mostly Stalker, Caterham and Birken owners in the Smoky Mountains. I promise to get some pictures taken and posted before we load up our trailer and leave.

Engine oil cooler now operational

Completed two tasks today:
1. Denise stitched up some denim covers for our memory foam seat cushions and we installed them today with head rests. Not fancy but functional.
2. Routed the engine oil thru the oil to engine coolant heat exchanger. Ever hear of a task that you thought would only take an hour but took much longer?  This happens to me all the time.  Guess what! It only took me about 55 minutes to remove the old oil adapter from the side of the block, replace it with the adapter that routes oil to and then back from the cooler via AN-08 fittings and hoses, make two hoses with Earl's push lock fittings and install it all.  Wow! There is a first time for everything.

I promised updated pix today. Sorry, we chose to go to a cruise night car show instead. Hopefully I'll get the pix posted tomorrow.

Got another Package From Portland

It contained the window wiper parts. Spent much of the weekend making a bracket and installing it.  Have also been driving the car. Over 900 miles so far.

How many kit cars have a two speed wiper with adjustable  intermittent feature?  Mine does!  Pix tomorrow.

I've also finally installed the dry sump oil tank temperature sensor and wired it to my MoTeC CDL3 dashboard.

The next step is to connect my engine oil to engine coolant heat exchanger. The heat exchanger came with the LS7 engine and has been installed since the beginning but I never routed engine oil thru it. Now that I have the oil temp sensor connected I can record back to back tests and see how much faster engine oil comes up to temp and how much cooler it ends up when running the engine hard.

We plan to leave this Thursday for "The Ambush". This is a week long gathering of mostly Lotus 7 guys in the Smoky Mountains of North Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina. We will spend most of our time driving the most fun roads I've ever found. Hilly, Curvy, Smooth Roads thru beautiful country with little traffic.  Also a great group of people. We might even have a beer or two over dinner and talk about the good times:).