Nocones $2020 challenge build thread

I think this is the THIRD time I've said this in this thread, but when you posted your conceptual sketchup, I thought you were smoking crack. 

I happily eat my words, sir.  Your work and vision for this car are very inspiring to a hack mechanic like me. 

So incredibly cool and well executed. 

Awesome!!

In reply to golfduke :

Thanks.  I thought I was crazy to.  There were many times I was like..   well I've ruined this car.   It really did come together in the end though.  Glad you've all stuck around to see how it went.  

can I get more detail pics on the rear central mount?

In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :

I took some pictures of the functional but fake Aero devices and was going to update the Aero thread with them.  I still think it makes sense to have a separate Aero thread for those kinds of details.  But I could be wrong.  

So awesome!  The renderings were mind blowing, and the real car is even more bad ass than the renderings!  Fantastic work!

I found a few more socials of the car.  I'm not going to share all of them but I thought this Grimmspeed reel was pretty cool.  

Okay so let's update back in time.  So when we last talked about buildering we were working on finishing the fenders.  

Following the fenders I started to work on the front element.   I initially planned to do the outer portion differently with fillers below the fenders and inset fog lights with dive planes on the outside of the whole thing.   Running into time constraints I realized I could just mount the fogs to the frame then put a dive plane over the top with a vertical filler at the outside pretty easily.  So that's what I did.  The diveplain and vertical are aluminum.  The stock outback fog light bracket is welded to the frame upside down.  A flanged filler above the diveplain was created out of 24 ga.  This was the same process as the fender flares with a flange added then the stretcher used to curve it.  

1/2" plywood was used for the rest of the element.   Some bulk T nuts where used to hold the plywood.   For the Wing in the middle the bottom surfaces are plywood.   For the top I bent a piece of 24 ga around a piece of conduit and then slipped it over the front of the wing.   I attached some more 24 ga to the top to smooth out the top side.   It just rests on the kicked up plywood on the backside.  

The 2nd elements are just 1/4" plywood.   The adjustable brackets where made from a side of the road stainless grill door.  

Here is a picture of the underside of the wing.

At this point it was 10pm Friday.   That's 1 day before SubieFest so I did what any intelligent person would do..  I built a rear wing.

I don't have many pictures of the wind under construction but it's a piece of 1" conduit with a piece of 1*1 square 9" behind it.   I welded a center piece that has mounts for the center swanneck.  Around this frame I wrapped .032 aluminum and riveted it to the top and bottom of the 1" tube and then riveted the top and bottom trailing edge together.  It actually produces a pretty rigid airfoil shape.   

The outer supports are 3/4 tube.  The inner swanneck is 3/4 tube with 1/2" triangulation.   It's stiff enough for me to hang on and push the car with.   I don't have many pictures.  Sorry.  

So Friday night finished with the car looking like this.  

Saturday was going to be busy I had to install/bleed brakes, install fuel cell/pump and driver's seat, install radiator and fill, finish the body side filler panels and paint.  Other then paint that wasn't very photogenic.

Next post I'll post some pictures of the paint process and discuss the current Hours and Total current cost for all the work as shown at the show.  

So the decision to "paint" was made ar 5 pm the day before SubieFest.   I knew I wouldn't be able to do a high quality job but the car being completely disassemblable would help make the janky job seem okay.  

First part painted

Superleggera?

I chose a "French Blue" satin Krylon 2X paint so you know it's high quality.  Prep was removing old Bondo with a wire cup on the Grinder and a wipe down with acetone.  The first part was painted at about 5:30.  The last part was done by 9pm.  I then assembled the car and had it loaded on the trailer at 12:30.   At this point I sleeps.   

The next morning I wake up at 6 to make it to SubieFest by 8.  A friend of Robbie with a Circuit cutter agreed to make me 3 "noconesgarage" stickers because I wanted to have some reference on the car if it started showing up on socials.  By 9 am it was parked and I was able to see it for the first time.  I am pleased.  There is still work to do but the look matches the rendering better then it should.  

So where does this leave me with costs and hours?   

Hours I am at 563.25.  This is actual in garage on car time.  It does not include going to get parts or digital work or planning.  

Costs to date as shown is $1849.43.  This still includes the $127 exhaust system. So my budget is still looking good to finish the underbody, sidepods, roof and seat covers for $2000.  Total value on display including the Fuel Safe Fuel cell and RFP1S and new RT660s was $3718.

The wings front and rear where $64.43, paint is 6 cans of Krylon which honestly I'm amazed was all it took.  The blue will likely get sanded off but the black will probably stay.   I will likely redo the front wing just to make it lighter as it's ~45lbs as is with all mounts and the fogs.  

I also as part of preparing for this weekends Subaru Challenge Autox in Lafayette In at the Subaru Factory I did the corner weights.  

Current weight as shown 1605 lbs, 37.5/62.5 F/R weight bias.  

Bucky Lasek touched your car

Simply out of words.

I'd say it just gets better and better, but this is seriously on another level...

NICE

Radiator fan is installed.   This is one of those I'm ashamed situations because a $25 Knock off fan or used fan would be a nicer looking solution but this is what I have to work with.   I re-used all the aluminum from the last radiator shrouds so no new costs added.  

It will be fine once the sidepod is built but for now it makes air move through the radiator.  

The Subaru Challenge Autox is this weekend and I only have a reasonable amount of stuff to do to get ready.  Fix shifter, route engine vents to catch tank, radiator overflow bottle, and footwell firewall for battery.   I'll give the car a quick bolt check and zip tie some loose wires and then should be ready to go.  

Next week it's fab sidepods and a roof so expect lots of progress next week.

In reply to nocones :

I told a couple friends from Lafayette that you'll be there, so don't be too surprised if either of them stop by. 

Oh yeah, I sent my photog friend your subiefest pics and told him to find you. You need some action shots!

OMG OMG OMG.  

BuckYeah! Video on SubieFest is out.  It contains about 40% of the video covering my build.   I even sound reasonably coherent.  Which is an achievement given how tired I always am when I bring this car to events, and that it's me doing the assembling of words.  

He actually did a really good job of doing a pretty thorough walk around showing the car details.  It's a great watch for people who haven't seen the car in person to see more details I haven't been able to document yet.

I'm trying so hard to look past all the unfinished parts when stuff like this happens.  It will eventually be done and it is a big achievement to get it this far, and I definitely appreciate it bringing joy to people and attention to the Challenge.  

If course like always there is chatter about "That's not $2K" and as I've said before as shown here it isn't.  But no major components are part of what it takes to get it back in budget it's just the Cell and the RFP1s.  But at least no one has complimented my Beetle yet!

Badass man!

Great job! That's a great advertisement for what the Challenge is.  Watching the video I laugh when the guy points out how many miles on the body for a Subaru.  It's like they all expect to blow an engine at some point.

In reply to nocones :

Someone had to say it! Congratulations, love this build!

Subaru Challenge Update!

Saturday I spent about 4 hours finalizing stuff for the Autox.  I added a "firewall" to the end of the footwell to isolate the battery.  Ran a radiator overflow tank, actually wired up the rad fan and riveted it in place and routed the 3 engine vents to the intake.   I ended up just using the stock outback intake elbow since it already had tube bungs to accept the vent lines.   The elbow also allowed me to install my Hilariously oversized K&N that came with the GC8.  

The position of the filter is perfect for the eventual roof scoop and for now it just looks hilarious like a Team Losi gas RC truck with it's foam sock filter sticking out.   After that it was time to load up and another Early morning to head out.  In great GRM tradition I took pictures at a gas station.  

I got to the event and gave the car a quick string alignment and added a few GRM decals that I have wanted to run basically since the concept was born.   I love the way LMP cars advertise on the insides of their fenders.   So now I do too.

I unfortunately didn't get this picture with the wing on.

The car ran great for 13 runs.  The event got rain shortened but it was good to get a feel for the car in light and heavy rain.  Morning runs where dry and the car did well getting FTD by ~1.5 seconds.  The event turned out to be a perfect test for the suspension as the lot is the employee parking lot at the Subaru of Indiana factory where most Subies are built.  The lot is a typical Midwest lot so lots of depressions from cars and sloping for drainage.  One section we ran went over a slope transition.  For most cars this was an abrupt full droop with both axles situation.  Some of the fast cars where just getting light under the tires.  The LMP360 with it's Generous droop travel had none of that noise and was consistently getting a few inches of air.  This is not a knock against the course or anything.  It wasn't in any way unsafe but just was a unique consequence of the stiffly sprung car. We dialed it back after a few runs and just went slower in that area but it was good to test the durability of the suspension by basically dropping the car 2x per run.   

Tire clearance on all body parts was sufficient and nothing rubbed.  The sides of the front element rubbed some under braking and turning but it wasn't huge rubbing and that's why they are wood and replaceable.  The rear wing seemed sufficiently rigid for Autox speeds but I will still plan some triangulation.   

The radiator seemed sufficient, the fan would cycle on and off indicating to me that the ducting was adequate so the fan running would result in coolant temps dropping and the ECU saying "all good".  

Performance wise the car had a better setup then at the challenge.  A bit less front camber and the corner weights where actually set.  It continues to be driveable with manageable transition from over to understeer.   The RT660s have really nice feedback and seem to offer grip over a fairly wide slip angle range.  

Does the Aero work?  I don't know.  It did feel noticably more planted as speed increased.   It wasn't a super high speed course but in the faster sections turn in seemed a bit more abrupt and you could pitch the car in harder without getting into oversteer.  

As the rain fell it offered interesting perspective on driving.  I really like driving in the rain because chassis dynamic problems are exaggerated and I learned that the chassis is inherently fine.  There where no bad traits that showed up.  As grip dropped times went up but the car behavior didn't change.   The last basically full wet run was a good opportunity for full Slidey-boi stuff and I learned that the car will actually do that.  I'm told it looked pretty cool while in full oppo.  

I got some video so will try to get something together soon.  It's been hard to film the car because it still isn't really "finished" so events are heavily focused on the work of getting the car ready and not on fun filming.   

For now I have a video I took of one of my codrivers launches in the light rain.  It was dark enough that I flipped the lights and fogs on.  They are so rediculously unnecessary but I do LOVE the way they look.   Totally value add installing them.  

In reply to nocones :

did y'all happen to run any data collection?

In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :

No.  I didn't even manage to put my phone with track addict on it so I don't even have bad G load data.   I may have another opportunity before SCCA Nationals but I may have to do it at Nationals.   Which should give me a little more time to mess with it as the pace is slower.  

In reply to nocones :

I completely understand... figured I would raise the question in advance.  I've gotten pretty comfortable with viewing/analyzing ApexPro data/app.  I'll see if I can figure out if there's a way to share/view TrackAddict data, since I don't think an ApexPro unit fits with a $2k Challenge car (since it'd be 'attached to the car').  But, I have a feeling that having some data, and making time for review of it, to where it becomes a 'normal' part of a weekend will pay dividends as you go forward to UTCC.  From the view of "set good habits early" perspective.

FTD by 1.5sec is pretty impressive considering the MASSIVE amount of fabrication, benchtop engineering, and highly educated guesswork involved in a project like this.  Super excited for you! 

And... reliability to boot! 

Local Cars and Coffee less then 2 miles from my house = both cars show up.  

And I got the chance to take the picture I really wanted to get at the Autox.  

I need a better camera though the parallax of this one makes the car look bent.  

Was a good event probably nearly 80 cars.