Build diary for my first kit car: an Aries Locoblade (http://www.ariesmotorsport.com/) that I will be building in Portugal for the next months (or years).
(NOTE: Post written on the 5th January 2018, in retrospect)
I don't want to talk much about the import process as it still is ongoing (as of January 2018). Suffice to say one of the steps if for the car to perform a B-level inspection. This is a more thorough inspection than the standard road-worthy periodic inspection (A-level inspection). It confirms the car adheres to EU regulations and it measures the CO2 emissions for tax purposes.
The car passed the exam without problems. Some pictures below taken during the rolling road test to measure CO2 levels.
I was very uncomfortable doing 70km/h facing a fan and having a wall not much further away. Thus my "braced for impact" position.
(NOTE: written on the 5th January 2018, in retrospect - I don't have the same motivation to keep the blog going anymore)
I ordered from Phil at Aries a rear difusor, along with a couple other parts. Adding it to the car was a mere "Jack it up, use a few self-tapping screws, jack it down". In the end, there was a gap between the lip and the fiberglass as I did not screw there (screws not long enough). Wife went along to help (hold the difusor while I bolted it) and took some pictures.
Later (next post) I was called for a B-level inspection as part of the import process. I had to remove the difusor prior to testing. Before putting it back in I bent it slightly and that gap was thus eliminated. Final look is actually great! Check future pictures as confirmation, specially from the 9th December 2017 track day.
Had the day off work and nothing else to do so I managed to get a few hours on the garage. First task was to finish wrapping the exhaust before the job became a never ending nightmare... It was done and, frankly, not as bad as I thought it would be, given how tight it was all becoming...
Then I moved into the storage room. My goal was to fabricate a small aluminium plate that could hold my mobile phone. This way I would be sure RaceChrono would have the best GPS signal and behave, something it didn't last track day when I kept the phone on my trousers, under the dash. I had a part from a chinese phone holder that broke on the first usage (my phone is a bit heavy but...). So...
First drilled and sanded a bit of ally to the shape I wanted...
Then, covered the ally with black masking tape to make it look nicer. Finally, used the part from the chinese holder on the ally and used a tunnel bolt to keep it in place. The final image does not have my phone there to demonstrate because I use the phone for the photos.
Next time I'll be installing the difusor. After that, there are no plans! For the next track day I just need to fill the deposit (it currently is 50% full), charge the battery and check the tire pressures. All other plans I have for the car (boot, cover for tunnel) are only to be done if I can get the car on the road... Paperwork for that was delivered yesterday, the 25th. I should get some news in a month, I was told... Lets see!
The wife came with me to help me trial-fit the diffusor. The part is big and hard to handle alone and then see how it fits. After jacking up the rear into stands, she held part of the diffusor, the jack held another bit and I could see how it fit and where to drill. I still haven't bought the self-tapping screws so she went home and I stored the part.
To take advantage of the fact I still had a bit to work on the car, wrapped another exhaust pipe. This time I remembered that I should soak the wrapping in water to make it easier to handle. And it really worked!
I've been considering swapping my diff with one with better gearing for a bike-engined car. I have the most common version, the 3,62 ratio. This means that I'm in 6th on the rev limit at 173,5km/h. I do half the Estoril straight on the limit. The advantage is that theoretically I can do 0-100 km/h in 4,5 seconds, doing a good gear shift (never tried this).
In theory, it is possible to calculate the theoretical maximum speed per gear using math. Knowing 1) the engine revs limit, 2) the primary ratio on the engine, 3) each gear's ratio, 4) If the reverse box has a 1:1 ratio or not, 5) the diff ratio and 6) the tire circumference it is possible to calculate the maximum speed on each gear.
Used an excel sheet that does the calculations, if fed with the correct data. The next image shows the difference between using my current diff (left) and the rare/best 3.14 diff (right).
For those that prefer a table with values, here is the comparison in numbers:
Gear
3.62
3.14
Speed in 1st (kph)
73,53
84,77
Speed in 2nd (kph)
101,80
117,36
Speed in 3rd (kph)
128,95
148,66
Speed in 4th (kph)
145,43
167,66
Speed in 5th (kph)
162,88
187,78
Speed in 6th (kph)
173,43
199,94
Well... The trade-off between the two diffs is that I gain top speed at the cost of acceleration. Also, if I get hold of a 3.14 I will get LSD with it. The top speed increases by 25km/h...
If I can get the car on the road, it is important to note that doing the maximum allowed limit on the highway (120km/h) I'll be at 7500rpm with the 3.62 and at 6500rpm with the 3.14. The difference in noise and consumption may be noticeable...
According to this page on Super7thHeaven, I'm looking for a diff out of a Ford Granada 2.0. There weren't many of these sold in Portugal... And I can't even find one on eBay currently, to have an idea of how much it would cost in the UK.
Well... I'm not completely decided on this, anyway...
EDIT 2017-05-27 - Another good reason to change the diff is to reduce the need to shift gears up. For instance, when I exit the parabolic on Estoril, I'm on 3rd (probably) and I'm constantly up-shifting until I'm in 6th because the max speed in each gear in between is just 15km/h more than the previous gear. And the car gets that extra speed quite fast!
The diff I'm looking for is a 7,5" diff (2 bolts on the top and not a single long bolt), with bolt-on shafts, 3.14 ratio. Having LSD is a plus. A similar diff but 7" and push-in shafts (no LSD) would cost around 300€, from an ebay listing, shipped from Latvia... Unfortunately, the inwards of a 7" are not interchangeable into a 7,5" casing.
Started this session by trying to align the steering wheel. This was not important to go on a track day but is one of the pending issues I have. Since I had to remove the side body to wrap the exhaust, this was a good time to also do this.
Some background story on the wheel alignment issue... I have the short steering rack, which means that a small change on the steering wheel position makes a noticeable change on the wheels direction. It has 2,5 turns side to side. When I bolted the steering wheel to the boss, I didn't notice the wheels were not straight and thus the steering wheel was not straight. It came with bad quality allen-key bolts that started to shred still while assembling. Later when I took the car to a shop to be aligned, the guy aligned the steering wheel by adjusting the steering rods. When the car got to the UK Steve considered the current setting dangerous as one of the rods was held by just a couple of threads. He made it safer but the steering wheel got a quarter of a turn misaligned. That is pretty visible in my track day videos.
Unbolting the steering wheel and bolting it back again was out of question. The bolts are shredding and have a bit of rust too. After some fighting with the column turns out I had to set it lose on the u-joint at the middle (the one that links the triangular Sierra part to the cylindrical lower part). Then untighten the connection on the UJ that links to the steering rack. Adjust there and then bolt the upper part again. Not undoing the upper part meant the lower would not budge and even undoing the bolt was not possible.
With the steering aligned, time to wrap the exhaust. The idea is to try to get as much heat as possible out of the engine bay. Also cover as much as possible the exhaust to prevent people from getting burnt on it. These type of cars are not common here so viewers on track days and the likes don't know that they should take care. I bought the fiber-glass exhaust wrap on ebay in November 2014... Has been around for a while. After some fighting got the first pipe done. Started doing the second but it was not looking good so I called it a day.
Before going away checked if the air intake pipes I bought fitted inside the nose cone between the cone and the radiator. Can't fit one, so no change of fitting the two! I'll have to think about a different place to put the pipes on...
Also found a bit of scrap aluminium I had, bent it a bit and mocked up a support for the mobile phone. I have to now clean the part, drill a hole and do a couple other changes to be able to use it. This will allow me to have the phone on a open place so no more problems catching GPS signals because of being on the trouser's pocket as last time. I want my racechrono software to have all the data for nice videos.
Talking of videos, next time I'm on the car I'll try to think of a couple different places to hold the camera to. The idea is to have a different angle per session on the next track day. Avoid having 4 dull videos all looking the same. So far considering, besides the usual rollbar place, to put it hanging from the driver's rear-view mirror (see the suspension working) and to put it on the front grill (close to the floor footage). Lets see if I can make it work.
I have lots of ideas of stuff to do. Just don't have time to follow through it them all...
Objective:
Had another bit of time with the car. Trying to continue scratching items of the list I posted last time, today was to install the new 3rd brake light.
Before actually doing that, I took a look at the suspension. After installing the new shock last time, I had to put the car down to move it to a different garage floor as mine was being washed. So I looked and the right rear is still lower. Turns out the problem is not the shock. Phil from Aries did say it was strange to be a failing shock as they are usually bullet-proof as long as they don't do full-course. He was right. The problem is the spring that seems to not hold the weight as well as on the other side.
Having both spring adjusters set at the same height, the right side is 1cm lower than the left side. Tightened the right side enough to eliminate the difference when measuring from the lower chassis beams to the floor. I'll have to see with Phil if I should replace the spring or this is normal/acceptable.
Then the brake light. The theory was easy... Splice a cable into the connection from one of the rear brake lights, hold the cable on the rollbar, connect to the light and hold it in place. Did just that, with lots of testing in between to be sure the light worked when the peddle was pressed. Used black electrical tape to wrap around the rollbar holding (and hiding) the cable. That worked well.
The problem was holding the rear light in place. it has a kind of a steam from where the cable exits and, since it is not flat, it doesn't sit well on the rollbar. Ended up "fabricating" a U-shaped support with a bit of shielded copper cable wrapped in black tape to put behind the light. Then held the light in place with cable ties. It looks really sloppy/temporary. I have to lose some time fabricating a proper support in aluminium to bolt the light to. Even if then the support gets just cable-tied to the rollbar. But for now that is enough and I'll feel safer on the next track day with this added light.
Had the day off work. Kids in school, wife at work, day for the car! Went shopping. Got a 3rd brake light (LED), electrical cable and black tape to install this. I will feel safer on the track if people can clearly see I'm braking. From another store also bought some pipes for air admission and braces. So, the list of tasks I want to do before the next track day are (M = mandatory, O = optional):
(M) Replace fuel filter, drain fuel and fill with only 98 again;
(M) Replace failed shock;
(M) Install 3rd brake light;
(O) Install air admission pipes;
(O) Wrap the exhaust in heat-shield cloth;
(O) Install the difusor;
(O) Align the steering column so that when I go straight the steering wheel is not at 90º.
Naturally I have other things I would like to do, like create a tunnel cover in black vinil with red pipping, to match the seats, and make the interior look nice. And make a boot floor to be able to store stuff on the boot.But those are long term projects, more important if I get the car road-legal that if it remains just a track toy.
After getting home, went to the garage and jacked the car up. Drained the fuel and replaced the filter. It was an easy job, just undoing 2 braces and doing them again, paying attention to the flow arrow on the filter. Picture of the new filter in place:
Took the chance to try to calculate the fuel consumption I had on the track this last weekend... I drained the tank before the track day and dumped 2 jerrycans, totalling 22 litres (it's a 10L thing but it can actually take 12l). On the afternoon of the track day added 10l and today I drained 8l (that I shoved on the tintop's tank). The odometer stated that I did 92km on this track day. This means it spent 24l in 92Km... 26l per 100Km. This is 11 miles per (imperial) gallon! Ouch!
Next task was replacing the shocks. Unbolted the top of the failed suspension. When I was taking the bolt out of the lower arm, noticed the bolt was hitting the rim. Had to loosen the rear wheel a bit to be able to take the bolt out.
Having it all out, separated the shock from the coil, moved the coil to the new shock, fitted it all back again, setting 5 clicks on the suspension (previously had 4, recommended by Steve; Phil's opinion differs and followed his) and raising the coil to the same height as in the right side. Phil advised me to change both shocks. As I was going to disassemble the right one I noticed I had put, back in 2011, the bolt in the opposite direction. I have already added an edit to that post... Having the bolt with the head towards the front of the car makes it hit the wheel hub or driveshaft assembly. I would have to undo everything just to take out the bolt... I gave up and decided not to change that shock, as it seems to be good. I guess that if later on I decide (or need) to do that side I'll just cut the bolt with an angle grinder and put a new bolt in, to avoid having to take it all apart...
Before calling it a day, tried offering the difusor to the car to see how it looked. It looks really cool! But installing the difusor will not be easy, not only because space is scarce under the car but also because it is too big to handle alone. I'll need one or two people to hold it in place at least until I bolt down two of the corners, under the seats.
Probably I should have talked about this earlier but I wanted to have proper contact with Phil first... Who is Phil? Back in 2015, as I was dealing with Steve about my IVA, he told me he was selling Aries to another person. He would still be lightly involved, doing electrical looms and some odd job, but he was passing the business. He also said the new owner was a very nice and committed bloke. I didn't have the need to talk with the new owner, Phil, so I just followed the company on Facebook.
Phil and his wife race cars on the UK. Phil keeps a more active presence online. He has also shown interest in technologically evolving the car. Early 2016 he also bought from Andy Bates, from AB Performance, the production rights for Sabre G2. So now Aries offers the Locoblade seven-style and the Sabre radical-style cars. Aries and AB Performance, that now has only the Arion S2, have been working closely benefiting customers from both with evolution of their products. All in all, it seems things will be good with Phil.
What made me write about this now was that I needed the fuel filter. I also had one of the rear corners lower than the other, seems like a failed suspension. Talked with Phil and he was real nice helping me out. In the end I made an order for a difusor, rear shocks and the fuel filter. Phil also printed and mailed in the box a technical document I need on my third attempt to import the car to have portuguese plates. Now that I have an opinion on Phil, I feel I can write about the change. Photo of the box below, that neatly packed all my goodies.
The difusor is just for the looks. It's one of the new additions Phil made and placed on the catalogue. It will look really nice!
With the document Phil sent I now have, as far as I understood, all the papers that I need to import the car. Sent a scan to the person at the Portuguese Auto Club and he said it was excellent. I just need now to fill loads of forms (manually), prepare a binder with all the documents and take it to the Club to start the process... Will it be "third time's a charm"?
The weather was glorious! It was almost a summer day and I regretted not wearing shorts and not having sunscreen. My regular tow truck driver from S. Bica e Almeida picked me up punctually and drove us to the track. The kid rides in the back!
We arrived pretty early. Mr. Almeida had two other cars to pick up and bring to the track.
As before, had RaceChrono Pro running on the phone to capture speed and GPS positioning and the SJ4000 cam on my rollbar. When, as usual, I got home and was going to mix the video and track data I noticed the data was really bad. Seems that storing the phone on my trousers' pocket, that go under the dash, broke the GPS precision. The data was unusable. The videos will have no data this time and next time I'll have a different solution to ensure this does not happen again.
1st leg - 9h00 to 9h20
Opening the track, I felt really well. I had been practising at home with my wheel and peddles on the rFactor2 simulator. Tried to apply a bit of that on the real thing. Did 5 full laps plus the warm-up and the coold-down (incomplete) laps. The most important thing is that the car now revs correctly and goes to the limit!!! So I was able to go to the 174km/h (phone GPS metrics, Digidash says 168km/h)! And on the first leg I was able to beat my best lap time! It was previously 2m52s and I did 2m39s! This was wonderful!
After the leg I met friends on the paddock and hanged out with them the rest of the day. They had a box and invited me over. They were running on a different group so we were not on the track simultaneously. Their first leg was red-flagged and shortened because of an accident where a Caterham collided with a spun Porsche.
2nd leg - 11h05 to 11h25
Another great session! I was feeling really well! Sometimes I would over-do it and make a mistake (failed brake, mostly) but after a couple of cooling corners I was going at it again! Made my best lap of the day on this leg: 2m36s! Unfortunately, when I was looking for my best lap I missed that one and considered this one the best lap, at 2m37s, making the video for it. I don't feel like redoing it all now.
Besides doing the best lap, this leg allowed me to do 6 full laps. The best lap is the first full one, from 2m59s to 5m35s on the full leg video.
Comes lunch break, I put my SJ4000 cam charging to be sure I had enough juice for the rest of the day.
3rd leg - 14h00 to 14h20
During lunch a friend asked me if I minded taking him along for the ride. Sure, hop in! First time I had someone with me on the car! It felt a bit different on the corners, can't say it was slower. This leg netted 5 more full laps.
My wife came for a bit between 3rd and 4th sessions. She brought with her the jerrycan. Digidash was saying my deposit was at 0%!!! So we dumped in 10 more litres... It seems the car spent a bit over 20 litres per 100Km... I'll be more precise with the numbers when I dump the tank again, check the odometer and do the math... Two good photos to represent the day below.
4th leg - 16h55 to 17h15
There was a huge crash with a Ferrari on the end of the straight having the brakes fail and hitting the tire barrier at 200Km/h. Seems the car is trash now. People were not hurt, fortunately.
This meant that that session was red-flagged and the following one started a bit later. It was a special leg just for a club and they gave them near full time. So people from our leg went later to the track and knowing it would be 15m instead of 20m and there was a yellow flag for the last third of the straight until after 1st corner. The organisation was taking 5m from each remaining leg of the day to compensate the time it took to rebuild the barrier and clean after the crash.
The problem was that I staid on a queue, with the engine idling, for over 10m. When I got to the track, the car felt a bit odd. After doing my first full lap, the leg was red-flagged because of a car spinning and throwing lots of gravel on the track. As I was on the queue, still not knowing if we would be allowed back in or not, started thinking about all the crashes of the day. About the Mercedes that almost crashed on my rear on this last leg. That my day had been great, why keep pushing? So I waved, went out and onto the tow truck heading home. Don't know if the leg was still allowed back in or not. I did what felt right and I'm happy with the decision.
The video for the last session
All in all, it was a wonderful day for me. Its a pity I didn't have the RaceChrono software running perfectly. Next time it will be different! Yes, next time! I bought insurance at DuoSeg for the 3 scheduled sessions (8 April, 2 July and 10 September) and now I can't miss them! The organisation opened up for registrations on the 12th and I signed up straight away! So...
Objective:
(post written on the 14th April, encompasses 4 sessions of around 2 hours each)
As written before, the car had issues on high revs and did not reach it's maximum speed. The most probable reasons where old gas (95 octane with almost 2 years mixed with new one half/half), clogged fuel filter and/or dirty carburetors.
Throughout 4 sessions I took care of draining the fuel system and cleaning the carburetors. The fuel filter was not changed as I didn't get a replacement timely. Started by pulling the carburetors out of the car, repeating what I did to remove the vacuum pipes, but this time also taking out the throttle cable and the gas pipes. Took it to my work bench, covered with an old towel. The idea was that if any small part was to fall, it would stay on the bench instead of ricocheting and rolling away.
Following step-by-step the instructions on the Haynes manual for the Fireblade bike, I took away the plastic cover from one side of the first carburetor. Pulled the diaphragm out and disassembled it also.
Then turned the carburetors around, took the metal cover on the other side, exposing the floating bowl and the needles. Removed everything.
Using the carburetor and injector cleaner from Wurth, and following the instructions on the can and scrubbing with a toothbrush and using compressed air to blow dirt around, got it all cleaned up.
Then it was just a matter of reassembling and moving to the next carburetor. The book clearly recommended doing one at a time to avoid mixing parts. Each one took around 1h30m to do... I did this without buying a new rubber kit to replace existing rubbers, o-rings and seals. I should be able to reuse them, no? I was... But carburetors 3 and 4 missed a specific o-ring on the idle needle. Well... If it was working without them there, it should keep working, no?
When all were clean, reassembled the carburetors on the engine. Before connecting the pipes, used the fuel pump to drain most of the deposit, throwing the gas on the deposit of the tintop. All connected, more gas on the deposit, this time 98octane quality fuel, started the car... It works! But the choke now floods the carbs; can't use them. Seems those missing o-rings are needed and all worked before because the clogging prevented the flooding... Did a couple of other odd jobs and added a second jerrycan of fuel on the tank. Put gas until the Digidash said it was 100%. Don't know how "full" that actually is but I didn't want fuel spilt on the floor... The tank should take 23 litres and I dropped there 22 litres. I was ready for the next track day. And it was just in time!
And there we went! Raining a lot when I left the garage waiting for the tow truck. Funny to see the rain evaporating when it touched the exhaust pipe. The trip to the track was uneventful, the credentials office almost empty and, after unloading, off I went for the briefing (without which I wouldn't be allowed on track). As we got to the track the rain stopped. And that was wonderful!
As before, had RaceChrono Pro running on the phone to capture speed and GPS positioning and the SJ4000 cam on my rollbar. At home I then copied the videos to the phone, tried to synch them with the data and produced the videos below.
1st leg - 9h00 to 9h20 a.m.
The track was very wet. I was very afraid of having an accident and even more of having someone crash into me. It was my first time driving a rear-wheel drive car on a wet surface. Drove very carefully and let everyone pass me. Very slow times. Did 4 laps, being the fastest 3:49:32 and getting to 133,8Km/h as top speed. Still had one trip outside the track and a small slide (fortunately was going slow).
Noticed that the electrical gremlins continue. So, I still can't see the gear I'm on, it jumps as crazy. Also, forgot to move the dash from miles to kilometers so was getting "odd" speed readings.
Don't watch the video, it's boring :)
Before 2nd leg went around with friends and gave a small drive to a young boy, son of one of them.
2nd leg - 11h30 to 11h50 a.m.
Track was getting dry, the weather continued to be good and I got a bit more confident. As that happens I accelerate more and notice that the car is not going over around 150km/h. Is starts to stutter and will not go further. This happens as it reaches higher revs, but not yet in the red. I think it happened on all gears but on the lower ones I would up-shift and "problem solved" but nothing I could do in 6th...
Anyway, still afraid, still letting everyone pass. Don't want to ruin anyone's fun and, specially, don't want anyone crashing on me! 5 laps with a best time of 3:12:73 and top speed of 151,7Km/h.
A bit after the 2nd leg my wife, kids and mother-in-law arrived to have lunch with me. After that I gave a drive to each one of the kids.
They staid to see my 3rd leg.
3rd leg - 14h20 to 14h40
Well... As I was about to start I noticed the SJ4000 battery was out of juice. Even with wi-fi turned off, the battery only lasts for 1h. So I left it charging from a USB powerbank and went on track without video. As the family was watching, I have a fly-by on the straight.
I did 3 laps before the session was red-flagged due to a car that got trapped and broke an upright on a sand trap. Best lap was 3:11:35 and max speed was 151,1Km/h.
4th leg - 16h50 to 17h10
Last leg and I felt a lot more confident. Maybe it was because if something broke I wouldn't lose other legs. Maybe it was because of what I had already driven. Although the car was stuck around 150km/h, I was happier.
5 laps with a best time of 2:55:40 and max speed of 155,2Km/h. Even on the best lap I got out of correct trajectory to let others pass.
Aftermatch
Got rain on the way home. Dried the car and disconnected the battery. I have work to do on it. Try to see about the electrical gremlins: besides the gears, my indicators are not working (but the emergency 4-blinking does!). The limit at 150Km/h may be because the fuel I used was bought in the UK in May 2015... Almost 2 years old! Probably also have the carbs a bit clogged with dirt. So I need to drain whatever is left of fuel on the tank (I added 10L of 95 octane fuel) and clean the carbs. I was told to use always 98 octane not only for performance but also because it doesn't decay, so no carbs issues... So, these two things are my objectives to achieve before the next track day. Specially the carbs cleaning.
Talking of next track day... Two days after the track day, on Tuesday, they opened up the enrolment for the next one, on the 8th April. I signed up on Friday for a full-day. They already had some half-day options full!
