GRM Exclusive Reveal: Exocet Spec-A

nderwater wrote: Warren - is it too early to call dibs on parts from your car? ;)

Depends on what insurance wants to do. I'd like to recover as much as I can for myself and part out the rest, but we'll see.

Dietcoke wrote: I find that odd. V8R said the long tubes fit the subframe fine (they've been in enough miata swaps certainly). I thought you used your house headers on the lsa car. Either way, I'm going to document all of this, since no one has really bothered to document much v8 swap stuff. Hopefully it can help some others down the road

We used our house headers on the LSA car, but we have another Miata in the shop that has the long tubes. Their headers interfered with their subframe using their motor mounts. The fact that it was a Miata and not an Exocet was irrelevant, this was before installation in the car. We clearanced the headers and then Swain coated them. I can't remember if we still have contact, the car's disassembled for paint right now.

I don't know if there are any Miata swaps running that actually use the V8R long tube headers - maybe one or two other than ours. Certainly not many.

I thought we'd documented the v8 swap stuff for the Exocet. What did you want to know?

There just isnt much clearance/fitment stuff all located in one place. What works, what doesn't. If those long tubes didn't fit, then they were wrong. The headers were designed on that very subframe, makes no sense for them to hit, as they were jigged for it. I will certainly stand assemble it all and take some detailed pictures. The tubes should be in next week. V8R did say they WILL hit if the forward mount frame is used. Maybe that was the miata issue? Not sure

We've never built a car with a forward subframe, so that was not the Miata issue. The clearances were going to be tight at best, there's simply a lot of tubing going through a very small space. Should they hit? No. Was it avoidable? Arguably not.

Hopefully yours will fit better than ours.

Use the QT bell housing unless you want to do some fairly substantial surgery to the chassis - there are some multi-tube junctions that will be affected otherwise. You'll also want to trim the bottom of the bell housing unless you want it to be a very hard-edged low point on the car. That could lead to a very damaging and abrupt moment if you run out of ground clearance.

We built a complete new exhaust from there back, using a single 3" pipe running into a Vibrant muffler with a single entrance and dual exits. I believe photos are on our site.

Put the rad in front of the frame with the fan shroud on the backside. The FM radiator works, it's been used on at least two V8 Exocets and solved a serious overheating problem on one of them.

I'll probably end up with your radiator, yes. I'm going to use the QT bell but cut out the bottom 1/2 or so of the spacer/block shield so it just goes over the top mount holes, like so, then grind/cut the center bottom of the actual bell flush to the oil pan.

Warren v wrote: I need to sneak into the impound lot and take off the "n't". First time I've ever let someone borrow her for the day. Sigh. Looks like I might finally get to build an Exocet of my own.

Ah no way!!!

Well... Look at it this way. The green ones make the best donors.

Warren i hope you took a close up of the fence post resting on the exocet donor sticker. Sorry to see the crash. We knew it was destin as a donor at some point though.

Keith Tanner wrote: We fixed the fuel starvation on the XXXocet. First step was to relocate the fuel return so it hoses into what remains of the sump - with the stock in-tank FPR removed, the previous return was just dumping from fairly high up. This was something I learned on an endurance racing car that could deal with the long left turns 1 and 2 at Thunderhill with 0.25 gallons on board. Secondly, we increased the height of the internal baffles in the tank by riveting in a three sided box. Back in testing, with 1-2 gallons in the tank it was just fine. Before we were getting starvation behavior with a nearly full tank. We didn't try less than the 1-2 gallon level. Before, we were seeing fuel pressures drop mid-corner on a steady throttle. It might have been enough to stumble a four-cylinder - but the fact that our engine takes a massive gulp of fuel on tip-in exaggerated the problem. FYI, we built a fuel cell car a while back with Hoosiers and a 525 hp LS3. No problems with pressure drop, the pickup was in a small box that has hinged flaps to encourage fuel to get in but not out and the return plumbed into the box.

Dragging this up from a few pages back. Do you have any pictures of the modifications made to the tank?

I am using the tank from my donor NB8B, it is tilted forward as much as possible...which really is not much due to the design of the body.

I am feeling a bit puckered about the prospect of having fuelling problems on track and the potential for losing my (boosted) engine.

Knowing that the fuel tank is positioned quite differently to the road car, are there any other problems? Assuming regular driving is the factory pickup going to be able to get fuel even down to the lowest level?

I might have some pics, I'll check. Not good ones.

We've never noticed the fuel starvation issue on our shop car, which is a little more typical. You do lose some tank capacity as part of the deal with the poor tank positioning.

Keith, Is there a reason you recommend putting the radiator on the forward side of the nose? Is that something you had to do to fit the LSA? I thought I had seen LS engines with the traditional radiator mount.

We had to do it for clearance to the engine. I cannot comment on what others have done, although I'm pretty sure Shane's LS3-powered XP-5 had to do the same. It's not a challenging thing to do, though.

Long tubes showed up

Keith Tanner wrote: We had to do it for clearance to the engine. I cannot comment on what others have done, although I'm pretty sure Shane's LS3-powered XP-5 had to do the same. It's not a challenging thing to do, though.

I'm going to start calling Sloan "Shane". Thanks for that.

XP-5 has an LS3 in the forward-mount position. There was |just barely| too little clearance, so we (Spirited Apex) mounted the FM V8 radiator in front of the tubes, using the regular Exomotive radiator top mounts backwards. With a rear-mount V8R kit (standard Exocet kit now, I believe), it would probably fit. We just trimmed the FM radiator shroud so the tubes would fit through it, and it bolted right up. I got a Jegs tee adapter for the steam hose and plugged the connector on the FM radiator, as it was too high when we passed the inlet hose over the frame tube.

Warren, my autox Miata needs one of the "Don't Exocet me bro!" stickers. Any chance you guys want to send me one?

Also, when do I get to pick my bodywork color?

XP5 would run 10 degrees cooler without those fuel rail covers and false top on the intake manifold

Warren, what is current chassis lead time y'all are running at?

We've found the estimated ship times have been pretty consistently optimistic, and actual ship times have been pretty consistently 4-5 months.

Sorry guys, you'll have to ask Kevin or Taylor that info, I don't have access to any of it.

Info@Exomotive.com

Sorry to hear about your car Warren - that is a major bummer. I'm sure its next incarnation will be a bit more sprightly

FYI eBay auction ending in just a few hours:

Supercharged Exomotive Exocet Sport Track Ready eBay auction

The insurance appraiser came by today for a ride. I've been approved for full coverage insurance (30k, 50k, 30k like normal car insurance) and the Exocet is valued at $40,000. Nationwide is my provider and the coverage is $240 a year unlimited milage.

Looks great greg!

In reply to Warren v:

Warren, what are you using for a dash/gauges in XP5?

The looks of the fully-caged model are growing on me...

Just out of curiosity has anyone looked at how an ND powertrain might fit?

Im disappointed not one person mentioned a v6 swap of any kind. I think some one mentioned rotary once or twice, but thats a perfect build right there.

A nice VQ35DE would be decently cheap, make 250whp out of the box and do so forever. Lots of aftermarket support and 300whp isnt out of the question. A VQ37HR would do 330whp with bolt ons youd have to make to swap it any way.....

Or a rotary....I have driven a 230whp street port na 13b. It was in an FB and this is much lighter. A nice semi p port on top of that and 300whp and 9000rpm for days. 11-12000 no problem if you use ceramic apex seals and a few other tricks.

~Alex

LFX is twice the motor the VQ will ever be, is cheaper, and already has a bolt in subframe available.