LocostUSA.com

the title is a standard oregon reproduction vehicle title. the registration I have it under is street legal with some limitations. the car wont see the street other than tuning sessions and the occasional trip down to the diner with the lady friend or to scare a coworker

Way to go Tongman (time to drop the 'boy' now!).

Spent yesterday abusing the new street registration with a buddy out getting the tune sorted out

The difference between the vtec on and off is some fairly subtantial fuel and HOLY cow the sound, it's even louder on the bigger cam profile - if that was even possible...



still needs throttle & spark tuning but it is a whole ton better. it's alarmingly fast, I got used to the cammed ls1 in my m3, this is a whole new world of fast on top of that.

I also moved the GPS sensor outside of the fiberglass scuttle and bam, satellites. Pretty cool to see the data and - the software is definately a little cludgy to use but I suspect with time it'll make sense.

this is one of the many tuning runs - by default it starts logging at 25mph and shuts off 30 seconds after it's below 25 again.


I still need to calibrate the angle of the unit for proper accelerometer functions. Looking at the data I think it's off about .1g forward/back with the angle it's at. For whatever reason I have to hookup the buttons to the unit and can't calibrate that via the laptop software...

Not even trying and doing .9g on a corner is quality

I'm not really happy with the feel of the brakes yet. jamming the pedal down shuts the car right down as would be expected on wide slicks but it's a pile of effort and modulation isn't what i'd like. I'm running the smallest master cylinder size for the rears (5/8") and the next bigger size for the fronts. What have people's experience been - at least with the miata brakes as far as finding the right size brake masters?

I did a quick, page by page, rescan of your build log, but didn't see mention of what ECU and sensors your using. Those two screenshots from the tuning software look really slick. Where do you get the GPS data from? Is it in the ECU or an external sensor? Are you using any sensors on the coilovers or suspension to get changes in location or accelerations?

Cheers,

It's a combination of a haltech s2000 plug-n-play ecu and a racepak/haltech (really just a racepak that is ready to talk to the ECU) logging dash.

the GPS & accelerometer is embedded in the dash and then the ECU passes all the data from the stock engine sensors to the dash for logging or display. a few posts back on my initial firing video you can see the dash start up.

I haven't hooked up any shock motion sensors yet but I plan on doing it once i've sorted the car to a level I feel I'll be able to gain some worthwhile information from that. right now it's all about getting the basics like keeping all the tires pointed in the right direction...

Picked up my new trailer that I had made to be based somewhat on the brunton trailer.

nice & light so I can tow it behind my allroad

hiding out behind the shop



I've been fiddling with muffler options trying to get the ~120+DB down below 99DBs. I talked to a number of exhaust companies and spin-tech had the best answers so I picked up one of their mufflers and an amazon DB meter.



The giant, substantially heavier muffler brought WOT down to ~102DB.

I'm going to try another shot with a turbo style muffler and then if that doesn't get it done then i'll start playing mix and match with two mufflers to maximize power & sound.

I also picked up a pair of laser levels that i'm going to try and use as relatively inexpensive alignment rack as i'm terrible with string

the turbo muffler (thrush something or other) with a bit of a turndown has WOT down to ~96.8DB. That should be good for the majority of venues I run at.

It's also subtantially lighter than the spintech piece. Oh, and it cost something like 45 bucks... shipped... meanwhile, I don't want to compare that to the other two mufflers.



I've got a checklist to prep the car for its next outing and i've been working through that. the last week has been primarily focused on getting the tow hitch from europe installed in my allroad and installing the brake controller so I can trailer the locost ~2 hours to the middle of washington next weekend.

I finally wrapped that up and have been back working on the locost.

A buddy is going to co-drive next weekend and we had to trim a bit of the dash out so he could fit. I also fittted the brake bias adjuster


for anyone that plans on using the speedway bias adjuster - tilton changed their bias bar to a 7/16 size up from the 3/16 semi-recently. Speedway and wilwood still use the 3/16 bar. I made use of a nut and the welder to temporarily remedy the issue. Pegasus has the proper cable end available if you need to convert



I corner leveled (not balanced, yet) with ballast for the driver and gave it my first pass at a semi-legit alignment. it's certainly more accurate than my as-assembled alignment which was wasn't half bad for camber but trash for everything else.

I picked up a few laser levels from clearance at home depot in place of strings. After using them I think the string might have worked better... Both are tedious and take getting used to

Strings are good for alignment. You can mark the tubes to align to the chassis and notch the tubes to hold the string. Then you have a permanent reference to work from. Maybe that's overkill, I never got that fancy. Once you get an enclosed trailer you probably start carrying a lot of crap around. I always stuck with a little open trailer like you have.

You want to take a Sharpie or something and write a big "F" and an arrow on that brake bias adjuster. Things that seem obvious now will be less simple while driving at speed. So you should be very clear. At speed your car will cover 50 feet in the quickest look at the dash.

Good luck and have fun!

Certainly works in IndyCar, NASCAR, many ALMS teams, etc. Sting (bonus points if you use a fishing reel), rods, plumb bobs and steel ruler.

Tong, a good friend built this toe bar system…

That is a really slick set up. You could easily do something similar on a 7 and stringing would be a breeze.

It's pretty close to what is used in IndyCar and NASCAR. IN fact, probably a bit nicer. I'll try to get some pics someday.

I love this build!!! Hopefully Ill be joining you as another f20 powered locost..

That is a really sweet set-up. Things like this make me smile.

-Despite my ignorance, which I will now reveal with this question (never having aligned a car in my life): I assume that the front and rear posts on a given side need to be the same distance from the vehicle centerline. If so, how is this accurately achieved?


Pete

What steering rack did you use? I didn't see it mentioned anywhere in the thread.