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PostPosted: February 13, 2015, 12:09 am 
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Adam when you get through with the show spend a little time on this thread (http://www.ozclubbies.com.au/index.php?/topic/158-settebello-mid-engined-clubman/). It might help you with some of your rear suspension set up.

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PostPosted: February 17, 2015, 1:08 am 
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Went to the Autorama over the weekend where they were displaying this car.

Attachment:
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I was pleasantly surprised at how professional this car looked. It looked like a finished product from a real company, not the first one built or a home built.

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First let's address the elephant in the room - the rear "floating" strut attachment rods. I'm beginning to think this is genius rather than a disaster waiting to happen. They were solid as hell. Only some track time will tell for sure, but they want to put in the track time and I'll keep them posted as to dates & times so I'll probably get to be there to see it work.

It seems like in best case scenario there would be 3 attachments (they have that) and one would come from just about the wheel. Well obviously that ain't gonna happen so what they did looked very good. I believe the attachment br@ck!ts need to be fully welded rather than the 2 beads they have, but that's an easy fix.


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PostPosted: February 17, 2015, 1:16 am 
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Attachment:
IMG_8851.jpg


The hood used a gas strut from the Cobalt and it opened effortlessly and stayed up. I wish they had used a larger metal pieces in the attachment points, but that's just me worrying bout the longevity. This might be sufficient.

Here are some more shots of the body.
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I believe the mirrors are mounted too low for a couple of reasons. 1) they were awkward to look at and you had to take your eyes too far off the road ahead, but 2) the most important reason is that the mounting points poked you in your knee. And I don't mean hit it on the side slightly, I mean in an accident or heavy bump they'd have removed your kneecap type of hit your knee. But that's easily remedied.
Attachment:
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PostPosted: February 17, 2015, 1:21 am 
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The car wasn't finished.

2 very important bulkheads were missing.

First was the one behind the seats. It left you inches away from the radiator.

Attachment:
IMG_8866.jpg


Here's hoping that radiator placement works. They are going to do a diffuser type of opening underneath the seats leading up to the rad. There's plenty of room for that. I think that might work up north, but in Texas summers I'll bet it proves inadequate, but if it does it will be very easy to add side radiator pods. That would be easier than finding room in the nose.

The floor was in, but the bulkhead at your feet was not in yet. That would put lots of water, sand & rocks inside the car if left like this.

Oh, they have a very slick way to work the electronics. They mounted everything up front and then built a cable with plugs on both ends to attach all the stuff in the front to the engine in the rear. That will make wiring up their kit a snap.

Attachment:
IMG_8884.jpg


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PostPosted: February 17, 2015, 11:32 am 
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They use the stock engine cradle.

Attachment:
IMG_8869.jpg


This is the manual transmission version which is going into Goblin #2. It's also the newer more powerful engine. Notice it is offset towards the passenger side to give a good side to side balance.

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IMG_8870.jpg


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IMG_8871.jpg


I got into the car to show perspective, but for some reason my son took pics of an old guy and not the young, slim, dashing and debonaire me.

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IMG_8878.jpg


It felt awfully nakie and exposed to my sides.

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IMG_8879.jpg


But it was awfully roomy.

Attachment:
IMG_8880.jpg


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PostPosted: February 17, 2015, 11:39 am 
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They used quarter turn fasteners to attach the body panels.

Attachment:
IMG_8887.jpg


All in all it's a kit that has quite a bit of potential.

I believe they will need to fit wider tires on the rear and do some suspension tweaking, but they are more than willing to work on things. They are already on the 3rd version of front suspension and the newest one will reduce the laydown of the shock and shorten the UCA for better camber characteristics.

Mirrors, radiator and a few other little things like that are about all that need to be worked on. I'd love to see a door and a way to use a glass full sized windshield, but those are things for a step up model.

This was the nicest first car built with no instructions I've ever seen.

I'm sure Adam will chime in here soon since he's now a member.


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PostPosted: February 17, 2015, 7:03 pm 
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It was nice meeting you & your son and Austin from here on the forum. It was neat how you two and Austin showed up at the exact same time.

Thanks for posting all of the pictures. With all of the craziness of the weekend, we forgot to take lots of pictures of the car in the booth.

We've already been contacted by a local Goblin enthusiast that is in the process of buying a Cobalt to begin stripping it. He's going to be buying one from copart.com in the next couple of weeks. We also have email conversations going with a few other locals that have more questions about the car.

We are ready to move on to Goblin #2. We have already started ordering parts for and building a CNC bender so that we can bend up the next frame. It's quitting time at the machine shop so we are going to head home, have some dinner and then come back up to get to work on the fun stuff.

-Adam


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PostPosted: February 17, 2015, 10:36 pm 
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Adam,

I'm concerned that your roll bar isn't actually going to do anything in a rollover and would provide minimal assistance in a T-bone type collision. It appears to be too short and has no diagonal in the main hoop plane to resist collapsing to one side; using the old broom test, I think we would find most drivers have a significant amount of their head above the imaginary "ground" when the car rolls. I would be concerned that unsuspecting Joe public will gain a false since of safety when there isn't much protection offered.


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PostPosted: February 18, 2015, 12:45 am 
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Good eye, esp.

We've already made most of the changes to the frame 2 model that we think are necessary. This included raising the roll bar considerably and adding an uninterrupted diagonal and seat harness bar behind the seats. The stock cobalt seats are so tall that they do require a high roll bar.


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PostPosted: February 19, 2015, 5:06 am 
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carguy123 wrote:
First let's address the elephant in the room - the rear "floating" strut attachment rods. I'm beginning to think this is genius rather than a disaster waiting to happen. They were solid as hell. Only some track time will tell for sure, but they want to put in the track time and I'll keep them posted as to dates & times so I'll probably get to be there to see it work.
Image

It seems like in best case scenario there would be 3 attachments (they have that) and one would come from just about the wheel. Well obviously that ain't gonna happen so what they did looked very good. I believe the attachment br@ck!ts need to be fully welded rather than the 2 beads they have, but that's an easy fix.

Can we hope that those tiddly little tabs that the rod-ends attach to will be beefed up and made into proper double-shear mounts in version 2? I wouldn't like to rate the longevity of those as they currently stand :shock:

D


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PostPosted: February 19, 2015, 10:09 am 
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Is there enough room in the driver's footwell for three pedals? At full lock there is a lot of wasted space on the outside of the frame rails that could be usefull on the inside.

Great looking car though.

Tom

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PostPosted: August 31, 2017, 11:15 am 
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I don't want to nit pick... lets face it these guys have invested more time and effort than most of us would be prepared to do and it would be hypocritical to criticize, but as a positive suggestion and as a potential improvement...

Swap the position of the radiator and the fuel tank and battery: Get a smaller cross section (thick) radiator and out it up front with a good supply of ducted air in and out.
Put the fuel tank transverse across the car behind the seats - look at an Elise tank.
The fuel is a varying load and putting it close to the center of mass means that full or empty would would have less of an effect on the weight distribution. The position in the center of the car is also safer versus impact.


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PostPosted: August 31, 2017, 11:58 pm 
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Beardy wrote:
I don't want to nit pick... lets face it these guys have invested more time and effort than most of us would be prepared to do and it would be hypocritical to criticize, but as a positive suggestion and as a potential improvement...

Swap the position of the radiator and the fuel tank and battery: Get a smaller cross section (thick) radiator and out it up front with a good supply of ducted air in and out.
Put the fuel tank transverse across the car behind the seats - look at an Elise tank.
The fuel is a varying load and putting it close to the center of mass means that full or empty would would have less of an effect on the weight distribution. The position in the center of the car is also safer versus impact.


Wow, this thread hasn't been discussed in a while. They already made that change a while ago. Check out their webpage:

http://dfkitcar.com/

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