Nocones $2020 challenge build thread

Last night I glued the foam together.  For glue I used titebonds version of gorilla glue and some spray foam into the gaps.  

These are upside down and backwards.  The right in the picture is the drivers side.  You can see the 2 channels for air.  The tunnel is closest to the chassis and gets air from under the chassis step.  Outside is a pair of ramps that push air out the edge of the floor.  Allegedly.    Remember they are backwards and upside down so in the picture out is in and up is down.

And now the diffuser sections are at the same spot.  Now to fiberglass..

Are you doing "Poor Man's Fiberglass" ....?

Are these molds or will the foam be encased by the fiber?

In reply to TurboFource :

I am doing normal "rich man's fiberglass".

The foam is the part.  That necessitates epoxy. 

I'm going to cover it like a canoe.  I was originally going to actually use cedar strips to make the parts but it will just take way to long.  Maybe V2.0? 

These are going to be expensive.  I'll have nearly $100 into them when finished.  But I should just be under budget.. 

"The car is apparently symetrical enough that I was just able to template everything and mirror assembly. "

Of Course It Is......we wouldn't expect anything less from you.......DUDE caught the shift lever vid ......AWESOME!!!! Wanted to watch again but I'd have to subscribe to instagram........errr not  the real lever porn is at the back end....wink

Pink Panther looks like he approves!!

Had a question regarding the throat of the diffuser section. I noticed that it's sitting right below your rear axle. Is there any concern that the center of pressure will be too far behind your center of gravity? I'm thinking about understeer, or is that balanced out with the front wing? What type of numbers are you trying to generate when all's said and done? Very inspiring stuff going on here! 

In reply to 2GRX7 :

The CG is approximately where the yellow arrow is.  The tunnels are the same basic cross section through the green box.  I'm okay if the car biases towards understeer as speeds go up.  That way I can have it mechanically loose (which it is) and have the Aero balance calm it down as speeds increase.  

As to what the goal is, it's a bit of build what I can with the space that is available and hope it makes more then 10lbs of Downforce which is what I expect it all to weigh. 

Experimentation is going to be the name of the game with the Aero.   Overall the theory is to have the air under the step get shoved into the tunnels.  Outside of this is a fence that directs some air out under the edge of the floor.  This is hoped to induce a votex to seal the rest of the floor.  From the choke point the diffuser just gets as big as possible gradually while avoiding things under the car.  

here are a few more pics of the assembled parts again upside down.  Here the chassis would be to the right, the left would be the outside edge of the car.  

Here I added "flow lines".  Green is the air going out the edge of the floor.  Red is the tunnel air feeding the diffuser.  At high speeds if the tunnel throat gets choked air can go out the purple and join the vortex.  

That's the theory anyway.  Remember all the air approaching will be what comes under the front element so it's volume will be somewhat limited by the gap under the front wing which is 4".  

know the rest of the car is a little more Sciencey then this aspect and I apologize that I havent maintained that for learning here. 

In reply to nocones :

LOL-10lbs of downforce! Uh, more like a 3rd damper's gonna be needed! I'd be surprised if the main dampers can keep up by themselves! Are you going to measure downforce at speed? It would be great to have a little contest-guess the downforce at 70mph! 

I've had a bunch of work and family stuff pop up this week that has really nuked the progress.  The car will be really close to what it looks like now at Nationals.  Thats disappointing but it is what it is.  I think I will be able to get the underbody done and sidepods on.  Last night I added wood that will be where the mounts go and a layer of fiberglass to the inside of the panels.  This was a learning experience but so far it's going well.  I will do a writeup for my technique eventually but not before Nationals for sure.  

As always I've been tracking material useage but have lost track of hours for the last 15-30.  I'll try to update the log and cost spreadsheet after nationals and give an update.

I vote just split it and add 22 hours to your last figure.

Still love this!

Ok, sorry I disappeared.  I'm on my way to Nationals.  I didn't get as much done as I was hoping before Nationals but. Happy with what I did get done.  

Big items are sidepods and the underbody is done.  

I'll post more about how I did the sidepods and get some assembled shots of the car but time to get back on the road.

Obligatory Trailer at gas station shot.

What a berkeleyin machine.

...and the car ain't bad either!

Awesome job!  Congrats!  Good luck!

dunno how much bandwidth you've got left... but if you've got enough to do some 'visualization', ping me if you can access either some: 1) yarn and tape, or 2)  3-in-1 oil and marking line chalk

if not, no worries!  I realize the sacrifice you've made to get to this point, and get out to Lincoln.

I did it!  I made it to Nationals.   It was a busy day of towing, getting the car put together, putting on so many stickers, going through tech, running the practice course, talking to JG.   But here's a couple of glamour shots.

I'll get more tomorrow.  Tomorrow is first runs, start early at 8:30.   The goal is to have fun.  I also hope to not get last overall on index, though that may be hard running AM on street tires.  But I will grin so much.   People have loved the car so far with more questions about my beetle.  I need some it's not a beetle stickers. 

A short Nationals Event report:

I registered for Nationals this year for 3 reasons.  

1.  Because Nationals is fun.  Yes it's only "6 autox runs" but it's more importantly an excuse to spend 2+ days with 1300 like minded individuals most of whom who just want to play with cars.   It's definately one of those "Maybe the real event is the friends we made along the way" sorts of things.

2.  It would be really cool to run the car in succession at SCCA Solo Nationals, The $2000 Challenge, Gridelife Time Attack, and the UTCC.  Not many challenge cars run nationals (there where 3! this year that's some kind of record I'm sure), and I can't bat the circuit if I don't do nationals.  

3.  It was a big anchor on the calender to hold myself accountable to get the car ready and presentable enough for 1300 pairs of eyes to gaze upon it, and do some more shakedown before the challenge.  

Notice missing from that list is any hint of competitiveness.  The car is only truly Legal for AMod.  AMod is home to 900lb cars with multi element 20sq-ft wings with full slicks.   The 360 is not those things.  Honestly my goal was to hopefully not finish last on PAX and bringing Street Tires to AMod with it's 1.0 index that was a realistic possibility.  

Overall the car did very well.  I received lots of comments that the car looked very competent on course and all of the parts remained attached and nothing dragged on the ground.  Handling remained relatively nuetral and times were as competitive as can be hoped.  I actually ended up #notlast in AMod but that really doesn't matter as I was well into the AMod is an everything goes party end of the field.   Reactions to the car where amazingly positive.  Literally hundreds of people came up and said they had seen the car previously on GRM/Facebook/IG/YouTube and where really excited to see it in person.   I ran all the GRM challenge decals that I was allowed to keep on the car, and in true $2000 challenge style, used Ductape to promote the event on the rear wing.

The most encouraging thing to me was comparing the 360 to the car I finished immediately behind.  The Electric Formula Mazda conversion that finished ahead of me featured a Nissan Leaf power unit and batteries.  It had a weight with driver of ~1620 (210lbs less then the 360) and was running on Goodyear Slicks.  They had some gearing challenges with the electric conversion so I know their performance wasn't quite optimized, however for my $2000 strings on a garage door suspension geometry car to be able to lap within a second of something with a professionally engineered chassis and suspension tuned from years of motorsports competition give me a large sense of pride and accomplishment.   Additionally comparing my times to Zoomboni who ran the challenge unofficially last year It seem that the LMP360 is getting faster.  Zoomboni was faster by ~1.5 second a day for 3 seconds overall on the 130 seconds of competition (2 days total) at nationals.   This was about the same 3 second margin we had at the 2021 challenge on a 50 second course.  The expected delta to Zoomboni would of been closer to 7 seconds based on the LMP360's performance at the 2021 challenge.  

There is still much refinement to do in the next 5 weeks on the LMP360 to have it ready for the Challenge but it's great to have it perform admirally on a big stage and hopefully it's served to promote the $2000 Challenge to a bunch of people who didn't have any clue what we were about.  Real Performance, Real Fun, for Real Cheap.  

Here Is a link to in Car video of both days runs at nationals.  Normally I don't like the "Through your eyes" type videos but I feel like for the unique driving experience of the LMP360 it really helps to capture the feel of what it's like to actually drive the car vs a stationary camera.   You get a feel for what it's like to peer around the bulbous fenders and look UNDER the mirrors. 

Also just to say it again, Huge thanks to everyone who has commented on the build, followed along, and encouraged me.  Things like this are a HUGE undertaking and for those of you who have followed you know how I've struggled at times with looking past the gaps I see and keeping momentum.  It's really good to hear that the thing I am building is providing people with entertainment, education, or inspiration.  I had several people this week comment that they learned something by watching the build and that means a lot to me.   

If anyone got any exterior shots or video of the car (Or sees them popup on the internet/socials) I would love it if you would link them here or PM me about them.  I didn't have the opportunity to get any shots this week, and all of my friends happened to be driving the same heat as me.  

so, having watched the video... does anyone know a $50-100 thing that could raise redline 200-500rpm?  Seems like that might have been worth a couple seconds on the first course?

A large percentage of AM broke at some point last week and you did not, it's a win

You may have gained more than you think if you are comparing last year to this year versus Zoomboni. I can't remember exactly but I recall him saying he had some mystery drivability issue that had gone on for a couple years that he solved this summer. He may have gotten faster as well. Hopefully someone can come clarify that.

That is an impressive build by any measure. The vids were fun to watch.

Nice work fighting against the smaller, lighter A-mods! Your car looks to be very well sorted by now, which is a major advantage in the $2000 Challenge. You are definitely on track for a Challenge victory at this rate.

I ran some online calculators on the Gearing.  The Outback Trans is pretty Hobbling.  It keeps the max in 2nd to 55 mph for the EJ25.  Even if I could get 700 more revs it still just breaks 60mph.  I just need to get better at Shifting.   The advantage is 3rd gear only runs to 80 mph so the acceleration is still strong in 3rd.  

I just have to remember it's not a sports car drivertrain it's a SUV drivetrain.  I need to keep my eye out for a FWD Subaru trans.  They have a 3.454 final drive that would make it do almost 70 in 2nd.  

The car is getting much more sorted.  I'm still not sure it's going to be fast enough to challenge for an Overall win but It should do well.  

In reply to nocones :

Im so glad you made nationals. Amazing accomplishment in itself.

I agree the 2nd gear issue, you would have been faster with more revs. It does seem a FWD trans would be a good option.