Nocones $2020 challenge build thread

Ok so remember last year when everyone got to excitedly follow along when WAY to much work got done on this car in 2-3 weeks before the challenge, and I was all like "I won't do that again, I'mma gonna get everything done early and have lots of relaxing time before the challenge".  

Well I failed.  it's literally today just under 1 month before the challenge.  In fact 4 weeks from today I will be pulling into the Best Western with whatever I manage to get done between now and then.

And I know, you all have correctly pointed out how good the car is, and I really appreciate that, but there is still much I want to do.  In fact there is more then I feasibly have time for so it's time to prioritize.  So here is the goals for the next 4 weeks.

1. Roof / Fin / roofscoop.  This is required.  It is the last part to really make the car look like an LMP car.  It is currently in progress.

2. Remove Fuel Cell and Fabricate 1 gallon tank to hold OEM fuel pump.  This removes $32 from the budget (and the out of budget $795 fuel cell) and is necessary to keep the finished cost bellow $2000.

3. Fabricate new exhaust from Outback / Impreza exhast parts.  New exhaust will have no mufflers because Racecar.  This removes $127 from the budget and is necessary to facilitate 1.

4. Fix headlight surrounds and install them.  This is "signature" Subaru 360 parts.  I have never reparied the headlight surround area of the fenders and they need to be fixed so the shrouds can be installed.

5. Add taillights

Really Want to do:

1. Seat Upholstery.  Not *required* but is really part of what will make the car seem "finished".

2. Paint inside of body white chassis color

Nice to do is:

1. Paint outback wheels

2. Fix transition from sidepods to rear fenders

3. Bondo all the things

4. Adjust rear wing to be 2 element

5. Change 2nd element on front wing to be actual wing shape item.  

6. Cleanup whatever I can.  Like clean the engine, paint uprights/brakes, paint what I can on the roll bar..  Stuff to make the car look more "done".  

There is probably much more.  But I have limited time.  And I know it would be fine to just do the "I must do to be Legal" things and roll down.  

But follow along for the next 4 weeks as I try to do way to much work with the ever present focus on "don't break the car so it doesn't work".  This should be exciting to follow between now and the challenge.

If anyone finds themselves in Central Illinois and wants to help.. ..  .. 

I know it's not any help, but... excited to follow along once more 

I'm willing to help, is there a way I can help?  Maybe help make the drive down?

Please continue to entertain and amaze us at whatever pace you are comfortable at. Either way,

Thanks guys!

Last night I got the header rail for the roof done.  This wierd Half-life crab looking part will go at the front of the roof. 

Right now my plan is to have the roof be removeable with a few clips.  This part finishes off the firewall and covers the 3/4" cross bar.  

I love having a spot welder and shrinker/stretcher.  These little z parts are the top of the firewall would of been so much harder without them.  Now it's just 2 L pieces bent and spot welded on the vertical.  

I'm satisfied with the curve for both the firewall top and the front rail.  They match reasonably well side to side and look fine compared to each other.  

This level of small metal structure work is new for me but I'm enjoying it.  It's amazing how rigid this Headcrab is.  You can pick it up by either leg without much flex and it's only 22 gauge.

With this part complete it's time to start on the foam buck for the roof.

+2hrs+$1.31

Looks good!

Roof buck picture dump.  It's fairly self explanatory.   Masking tape to protect metal, cut blocks of foam to fill in.  Use expanding foam to adhere it to the frame.  Use Super 77 to bulk foam.  

I got 1 half shaped.  Rough shape with saw, then belt sander and final finish with electric DA.  

Buck is "done" 

I may take about 1/2" off the height of the scoop.  It would flow more with the hump of the roof.  The sides of the windows are "flat" when the car is on the ground.  I'd like the top of the scoop to be flat also.   Generally the scoops on LMP cars are further forward so they follow the flat roof.   

Hell yeah that roof is looking great

Looks great! Thrash on brother. This is my favorite time of any $2k build!

Ok I adjusted the snorkel.  It's amazing how small changes make big visual differences.  I like this much better.  And because I know some can't or won't see the IG here are a few pictures.

Is the hole in the foam indicative of the inlet?

generally you want the bottom of the inlet up away from the boundary-layer of the roof.

roof scoops just engage my need for speed brain so bad

In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :

No.  The inlet will be the outside surface, but won't be any shorter.  I'm not sure how effective it would be to get actual pressurized air or if it will just get boundary layer lazy air.  It's about 2.5" tall and 10" wide.  I don't really have enough height to have the bottom of the scoop be above the roof and let air under it.  I could potentially put a septum in it and exhaust the boundary layer into the engine bay and leave the intake portion be the top 1.5"x10" portion.   

That brings up another question.  I think I'm going to cut vents into the back of the roof and eventually build some almost Louvers.  I'm thinking 3 largeish rectangle opening per side.  I am just concerned about heat with stationary running Autox type use in the basic upside down bathtub I'm building above the engine.  

Work continues. 

Step 1 add half a roll of packing tape to the buck and car where I don't want resin.  

Step 2 add 60 oz of resin and 3 yards of  cloth.

Step 3 drip resin on un protected areas of the car anyway because they didn't need to stay clean.  

I struggled a little with the offset around the edge.  The overhang would lift the part away from the mold.  I ended up just cutting the part with a. Razor blade while holding the matt.  This left a little bit of a frayed edge so I just rewet it and that seemed to work.  As a bonus the part is basically trimmed already. 

I've demolded the part but I don't have pictures yet.  It's currently resting back on the mold so it can harden more.  It's rigid and light enough and I think it will work really well.  

Overall I'm very pleased with how this has turned out.   I'll post some more pictures and details tonight.  

I'm going to do a quick layer of Bondo on this part (except the middle where the fin attaches) because I want to have the buck to hold the part firm.  After that is done it can go on the car to see what it looks like in position because the body can't fit the frame with the buck on.

+6hrs, +$28.31

That looks amazing!

Hooray for composites!!!

Preview of the trimmed opening.  Still need to do Bondo so I can remove the rest of the buck.  

I mean, at this point in this thread I should stop being caught off guard at the quality and pace of work and just start to fully expect everything to be at 11. Keep it up Nocones. You're doing the good work. 

Last night I worked more on the roof with the goal of getting it back on the chassis to make sure it fit and see how it looked.  

Before I destroyed the buck I wanted to do Bondo work.   I am no professional body man but I have iced a few cakes in my day.   I put a very thin layer over the whole part and then sanded it down with the Harbor Freight electric DA.  It sucked but didn't take as long as I thought it would.  It's by no means anywhere close to perfect and really could use some cleanup in places but for ~1 hour worth of work on the part I'm pleased with the surface finish achieved.  

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I then took a saw to the buck and removed it.  I masking taped almost everything so it ended up not needing much cleanup.  

I then plopped the body on the car and it was the moment of truth.  Does the roof clear?  And yes it does.  Nothing gets close to it.  

I decided to spray a quick coat of paint on just to see it in body color.  My thoughts on it are complicated and I'll discuss them in the next post.  For now..  glamour!

+3 hrs, +~.1 can of Bondo (am tracking the can and will add it at the end.  I'm using 40% of whatever gets used from the can.  Right now I'm about 20% into a gallon can)

Ok so my feels on the roof are a bit conflicted.  By itself in isolation I am really happy with the roof.  Given that it was ~10 hours of work start to finish I don't think I could of expected a better part to come out of it.   The conflict comes from when I put the roof on the car.  There are a few things that bother me about it.

1.  The scoop is crooked.  It's about 1/4" high on the right.  It will be obvious in any picture taken of the front of the car.  I will have to fix it.  I think I can cut the right side of the scoop horizontally pull that side of the scoop down 1/4" and fiberglass it back together from the inside.  So It won't be "Hard" to fix but it's annoying and put me in a bit of a bad mood.

2.  It's quite tall.  I mean it has to be to clear the body and be above the windshield but when I look at the car from the side it has gained quite a bit of visual bulk up high.  Other then run no-roof forever though, there isn't much ways around this. Looking at pictures it appears the "crown" of the roof is very similar to the original 360 roof.  I think once I eventually build the front part of the roof above the driver, this will clean up the visuals.   Also this moring when I looked at it it's not as bad as I felt about it last night.  It may just be the visual impact of seeing it suddenly so different with the addition of the roof.

3. And this plays into 2.  It takes a lot of visual weight up and back on the car.  Especially when combined with the solid rear part of the windows.  As was pointed out talking about livery the car has a lot going on with small parts and shapes all over the place.  The roof is the Single largest uninterrupted part of the whole car.  it's about 2 times the surface area of the hood which has vents and logos on it.  So it needs things to break it up visually.

So I've got a plan.  I did a little googles of various LMP cars, and other "solid rear greenhouse" cars I know of.  A few common things became apparent.  All the pleasing looking ones have various vents and scoops on the back and sides to make them look less "amorphous blob".  Additionally the better looking ones usually take advantage of their livery or intentional paint patterns to elongate the "windows" to again break up the visual weight of that large "flat" area.  

So I've made some QUICK very rough markups using my phone to play with these ideas.  Basically it really looks like the addition of a few vents in the back, and painting the side windows/window frames black seems to fix it.  I really like the way the car appears "lower" with the side windows black, and the vents just break up the rear.  I don't think I will be able to do louvered vents for the challenge but just having openings will still breakup the visual.

I know this is more of that me being very picky and overly critical of my work.  But I thought I would share my thoughts anyway.

Personally, I think it looks amazing so far. You can easily fix the scoop to make it symmetric. I see what you mean about moving the "visual weight" upward, but I really think it will look correct when the front panel of the roof is built. I jumped back to page 2 with your original renderings. That design not only has a black roof section, but also windows. I like the 2nd to last picture you posted, where you removed the side engine cover. The shape of the rear side window really helps the flow of the body lines IMO, including the B-pillar which I think should stay. You could keep those lines by turning that into a vent or scoop. Same with the rear glass - that could be louvers or a vent of some kind. To reiterate, none of this looks bad, in fact it's looking pretty amazing. You started with a great vision and I think it still applies. I also want to take back what I said earlier about those wheels. Suddenly those wheels look good against this body, and are totally in line with your original concept.

No joke you could just paint or decal your vents and windows on the car. Way easier and simple to change. 

came here to suggest

• spine from scoop to wing (maschinenbau beat me to it)
• airbrush or decal windows on your solid panels (GoLucky beat me to it)

you could really have some fun with painting the windows.  who would you want as backseat drivers?