Improved Headlights

Although adequate the headlights on UGGS could have been brighter.  For a long time, I've been searching for bulbs that would both fit into the original small headlight fixtures and provide better light output.

The fixtures were made for H1 style Xenon HID bulbs. They came with 35 Watt H1 bulbs and ballasts.

Thinking that the newest technology and best options for improvement would be LED style bulbs, I tried numerous LED options. Most were not as bright. None were better.

I finally found 55 watt H1 Xenon HID 5000* K bulbs with matching ballasts from Kensun on Amazon. After extending the hi voltage wires to fit the car, the installation was easy. My lights have changed from adequate to excellent.

One more project completed.

Hello Again

Sorry for the long delay since the last post. Been traveling, tore ligaments off the bone in my left knee, rehabbing the knee, family stuff etc.

Also met friends with similar cars in the North Georgia mountains for a week of driving the wonderful roads of N. Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina. Unfortunately it rained most days but we still got to spend time with good friends, had several great meals and lots of good car talk. Also got in about 1 1/2 days of great driving.

Denise and I have discovered a great hilly, twisty, curvy road in Michigan that Car and Driver Magazine has written about. It took us a while to figure out the route but it makes a great day of driving to go there, drive several laps, have a nice dinner and then return home.

I've also continued to work on the car. The most recent projects were replacing the front brake rotors and pads. The pads were not nearly worn out but they were very abrasive to the rotors and the rotors had worn relatively thin. The new pads have been much friendlier to the new rotors. :)  Front to rear brake bias also needed to be adjusted because the new pads are not quite as sticky as the old pads.

UGGS also has new rear tires.

The latest project was to install a toothed wheel that DP provided on the transaxle's right inboard CV joint along with the associated wiring and GM inductive pickup.  After proper coding of both the GM VCM (engine control computer) and the MOTEC digital dashboard, I've been able to improve the accuracy of my speedometer and odometer. Previously the mileage and speed inputs depended on GPS logging from the MOTEC.  GPS is great unless you drive under tree cover or under highway underpasses...

Now that the VCM knows exactly how far and fast the car is going, I'll be able to set up the VCM to shut off the fuel injectors when at speed and zero throttle. In addition the VCM will be able to turn off the cooling fans if the engine is hot and forward speed is over i.e. 30 mph. Both functions will slightly improve fuel mileage.

Total mileage on the car now is a little over 11,000.

Next week I plan to visit the Performance Racing Industry (PRI) show in Indianapolis. Hopefully I'll get a new posting up before too long.

Orlando Speed World Drag Strip

When in Florida we trailered UGGS to a Wednesday night Test and Tune Session at a drag strip. Nice people and nice facility but the weather was super humid and drag strip traction was quite limited. We made several runs but had trouble getting the car hooked up. As an example there was so much dew and borderline fog that I used the windshield wiper to get moisture off the windshield before my last couple of runs!

Another problem was that my Toyo R888 rear tires are worn out. They show the wear strips and are heat cycled out. I was still getting wheel spin in 3rd gear at over 100 MPH. Definitely time to get new tires.

My best run had a 60' time of 1.9 seconds and 1/4 mile of 11.0 at 133 mph.  I think the car can and will do much better with better driving from me, tires and track conditions.  I was hopeful that UGGS would beat my Stalker's best times of 1.5, 9.94 and 141.5 (on drag slicks).  Time will tell.

A fun thing was that a TV crew interviewed Denise and I at the end of the night. They are making some kind of documentary about Auto Sports for teens and promised to let me know how to find it when it airs. Unfortunately we neglected to get contact info for the team that did the filming and conducted the interview.

I tried to do a good job of promoting safe driving, Palatov and Stalker cars.  Hope it comes out well. If/when I get more info from them, I'll post it.

Great Fuel Mileage

It was a beautiful day in NW Indiana today. Denise and I drove UGGS about 300 miles over rural roads with almost no traffic and at consistent speeds of mostly 50 to 65 MPH. I was amazed that we averaged 40.7 MPG!

That tuning session certainly paid off.

April Fool. :) The true mileage was just under 21 MPG. Not bad for a 427" engine that makes close to 600 HP. Also I think I can tweak the VCM again and improve the mileage a little more.

Dyno - Mileage

In Daytona I took the car to Redline Performance for extra tuning of the engine control computer. Although it ran well and made lots of power, fuel economy was very low at about 14/16 mpg when driving gently on the street.

We ran the car on Redline's Dyno Mite Chassis dyno, monitored air/fuel ratios (AFR) using the dyno's Wide Band Oxygen (WBO2) sensor on one bank and my Innovate LC1 WBO2 on the other. This allowed us to safely lean out the AFR at low load and RPM for better economy (and improved pollution control).  We couldn't resist a couple of runs and minor changes at higher RPM and full throttle. Minor changes also added about 15 HP at some points in the power curve and around 10 HP at high revs and peak power.  When compared to the base map that was developed on a SuperFlow engine dyno a couple of years ago, power, mileage and driveability are all improved. :)  It was a productive half day.

Fuel economy improved to around 21 MPG in the several hundred miles driven since the "Tune Up". :)

In total we drove Uggs 1323 miles in warm sunny Florida during the trip.

Kirkey Seats and Mileage

At year end 2014 I had put about 6000 miles on Uggs' MOTEC digital dash/data logger.

The picture shows about 650 RPM on the graph, 199*F coolant temp, 194*F oil temp, the big 0 is the current gear selected and is calculated by RPM vs forward speed, the car was stopped therefore no valid calculation could be made, i.e. if the car was going 60 MPH and the revs were 2000 it would display 5th gear, 29 PSI oil pressure, 0 MPH calculated via its GPS satellite sensors, 7.6 gallons of fuel remaining and 6035 total miles logged. The total miles displayed is around 5 or 600 miles low because I did not have the MOTEC installed until after the car had been running for a short while.

 

Santa brought Denise and I new Kirkey Intermediate Road Race Seats for Christmas.  As seems to be normal it took me longer than I had planned to get these properly installed prior to our departure for our 3 week trip to the Daytona Beach Florida area. It was a scramble but it got done. Pix follow.

More info will follow in the next couple of days regarding the dyno tuning and drag race experiences. Thanks for following this blog.

 

Long overdue update

Just returned from 3 weeks in Daytona Beach Florida with the car. Prior to the trip we installed new Kirkey seats and changed front brake pads.
During the trip we:
1. installed my Innovate LC1 Wide Band Oxygen (WBO2) sensor and connected it to my HP Tuners interface so that I can monitor, display and log Air/Fuel ratios for proper tuning of the fuel injection system
2. ran the car on a chassis dyno and modified the engine control computer's calibration to improve power slightly, low speed drivability and fuel mileage (significantly)
3. ran the car on Orlando Speed World's 1/4 mile drag strip
4. enjoyed about 1400 miles of warm and mostly sunny Florida roads
5. cruised Daytona's Bike Week among the interesting custom bike show
6. attended New Smyrna Beach's Collector Car Show that is held monthly
Now that the rush is done, I will try to do a better job of posting regular updates

I am back

Sorry for the long delay since the last update. I have been very busy lately and there has not been much activity to report on the car.  Since the last post we have:
1. Moved our household of 29 years
2. Moved our business offices of 25 years
3. Moved my race shop and the car parts plus machine tools that I have accumulated over the last 30 years
about 70 miles from Oak Brook Il. to Valparaiso IN

In addition we have almost completed the 2150 square foot shop addition to our Valparaiso property. The building is almost done and I've built 40 linear feet of workbench space with lots of shelf and drawer storage. In addition my lathe, mill, band saw, grinders, vices, welding equipment and drill presses are now at least in place if not all fully operational.

Not only the above has been done but Denise and I towed Uggs to a gathering of friends with similar cars in the mountains of N Georgia, Tennessee and N Carolina that we call the Ambush. This took about 11 days including the travel time to and from and entailed over a week of spirited driving over the terrific mountain roads in the Smoky Mountains, great companionship with friends and good dining. In total we put well over a thousand miles on Uggs.

I have a couple of videos that I'll try to post when I have time.

The car ran great. The only issue was that I had to stop a couple of times to clear tree leaves from the radiator inlet screens to keep coolant temps under control. Gave me a chance to admire the colors on those leaves :).  Also gave me an opportunity to test and fine tune the MOTEC Data Logger temp and oil pressure alarms that have been set.  Certainly not the fault of the car.

Today Denise and I drove Uggs to the Gilmore Auto Museum near Kalamazoo Michigan. Great collection of notable collector cars. Lots of Franklins, Packards, Cadillacs, Pierce Arrows etc. but my favorites were the Hot Rods with flames and a beautifully restored 1955 Corvette. (I used to own a 54 Vette). Wonder why those cars were my favorites... :).

More to come. Hopefully soon.

Fuel Level Working on Motec

It took me longer that it should have but I now have the MOTEC digital dash/data logger displaying fuel level in the fuel tank. It has 0.1 gallon resolution and appears to be quite accurate. If I had called MOTEC's excellent tech support people when I first had trouble getting it working, I'd have saved hours. :)

The MOTEC now has alarms set up for:
Low oil pressure with different thresholds that depend on RPM and oil temps
Low and high battery voltage, with different thresholds for RPM. This monitors the alternator output
High coolant temp
High oil temp
Low fuel level
Over revs
Shift lights - (Progressive)
Knock Retard (KR) is set up for alarm but I have not yet figured out the correct coding to monitor it.  This will probably need another call to MOTEC.

E. T. In Flames?

We finally got around to taking several pictures  in semi darkness.  The goal was to show off the reflective properties of Ugg's Flames. Suddenly we saw ET! He was even smiling at us.

Uggs is no longer ugly

A while back a gentleman at a local cruise night car show commented that my D2 was ugly without a body.  I said that the body would arrive sooner or later. He then smiled and said that it was an ugly duckling but would become a beautiful swan when the body arrived, was painted and had some graphics added.

A week or so ago Chris at Friendly Ford's show car paint shop painted the body which was subsequently installed. Today Steve at Extreme Graphics finished the graphics.

See below. Uggs is no longer ugly.  The picture was taken in twilight in an attempt to show the reflective properties of the flames in red, yellow and blue. The picture does not do it justice. More pictures soon. Also lots more to do. Although I now have the odometer function working in the Motec Data Logger.

Fenders, wiper, more stuff

All 4 fenders, windshield and wiper are now all mounted.

Note how the paint color seems to change as the angle of the sunlight varies.

More windows, rear wheel toe adjustment link supports and Vehicle Speed Sensor (VSS) electronics installation are next. Then graphics application to begin next Monday.

More Progress

All 4 fenders are now installed. We drove the car to our new home in Valparaiso IN today to check out my new workshop which is under construction. We cannot move until "Taj Ma Shop" is completed. I could not resist a detour over some nice roads on the way back to our existing home. Almost 200 miles total today. Great fun. 

Also went to the regular Elmhurst IL Wednesday night car show but for an unknown reason it was not run tonight. ?

The next step is to reinstall the windshield wiper and finish the installation of the windows. DP provided 6 full automotive safety glass panels that are supposed to be glued in place. The windshield is presently 1/4" Lexan that I fastened with removable 10-32 screws.  I will probably use 3/16" Lexan for the other windows and also make them removable.  Lexan is about 1/2 the weight of glass and it is possible to drill thru it for the screws.

I'll post pix of the car with fenders when I get a chance.

In addition we made an appointment to have the graphics installed a week from Monday.

Please use the comment feature and let us know your thoughts about the color we chose?

Right side pod/Car Show

The right side pod is now mounted and we went to the Sunday Night Car Show at Uncle Harry's.  The left side pod mounting will be next. The epoxy  for the inlet air screen was not cured in time to get it mounted for the car show.

The fenders will be next.  Then graphics.  Lots more to do.

Nose and tail of body mounted with Pix

The body parts are painted and the nose and tail are mounted.

Got another PFP yesterday with more wiring and the screens for the radiator side pods. I'll epoxy them to the side pods and hopefully get the pods installed this weekend. Also windows.

Progress is being made.

Major Progress

Picked up the body from the paint shop yesterday.  It looks great.

Today I mounted the tail section. Within the next few days I should be able to get the nose and side shrouds installed.

At that time I will post some pix.

:)

Minor Progress

Among many other non Palatov tasks this weekend the following was completed on the car.
1. Finished removing my wiring harness. After installing Palatov's harness this was superfluous. It is much neater now.
2. Installed the new shoulder harness mounting bracket on the driver's side.
3. Reconnected my MOTEC data logger.
4. Began adapting the new Palatov dash and data logger mounting bracket to the MOTEC.

I'll post a pic of the new dash when I have the logger mounted.

Still anxiously waiting for the body work and paint job to be finished.

Body to the painter

The body is now off the chassis and has been delivered to the painter.  We have been promised a two week turnaround.

The next tasks for me are to dress and finish the new wiring harness, trim and permanently mount the seats, install new shoulder harness mounting brackets and reinstall the MOTEC data logger.

Plenty of things to do. :)

Running with a body and lights!

The body is mounted and the lights are installed:

 

At last. Hurray!

 

I have also been to 3 body shops for estimates on the paint job and expect the 3rd. bid response tomorrow. When the body shop is selected, I will remove the body, deliver it to the shop and begin concentrating on a final assembly and finishing the wiring, MOTEC data logger/dashboard install and begin working on the interior.

 

I expect the body shop to take about two weeks to prepare the body for paint and actually apply multiple coats of paint.  When I get the body back we can install it and complete the process.

Body installed

Over the weekend I found the time to install the body. :)

I had planned to take and post a video of the car driving around the neighborhood.

This would show off the lights and the car finally running with the (unpainted) body installed. All would have worked out fine except it began raining hard just before I was ready to drive it and take the video. :(

Hopefully tomorrow for the video. Also I will try to drive to a couple of body shops to talk about painting the body with a nice bright color. :)