605bhp Per Ton 200SX Powered Kitcar

[dave2007bc]

Mr MXT said:

That looks epic, very impressive....just two minor things as a fellow sevenesque owner..

1. I'd want some cross bracing on that cage
2. I'd always wear a helmet (your road test video)

Bracing across the middle from corner to corner? - I was going to but it made get in and out an absolute pain in the balls (I'm 6'4) - I may change my mind this year now I have be-friended a fabricator lol

I agree with the helmet comments - the glasses do have bullet proof lenses but unless I'm just pootling to the shops I always wear a helmet now.

[dave2007bc]

Those cages look lovely; there's generally a big difference in the owners annual income when comparing Locost and Westfield owners though ;-) I will look at adding bracing but it's not at the top of my list. It's not an FIA cage and never will be; side impact bars are more of a priority atm to be honest, but it's all weight and the CA18 is a heavy lump as it is.

[dave2007bc]

A few videos from the Blyton trackday -

Me getting letter an S/C Ariel Atom past and thinking I could keep up! ha.


The same lap on-board the Ariel Atom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ayi21iuRdyw

Me chasing a 250bhp K20 powered Lotus Cup Elise. Top owner and good fun. I was faster in the straights, he was quicker in the corners; damn those wide tyres and race-prepped cars :-\


...and finally a spectator was looking to build a Locost so asked for a few laps as a passenger, I was more than happy to oblige.



With (my first) little one on the way at the end of May I've booked one last trackday before she arrives so I'm heading back over to Blyton this Saturday for a final blast before parent-hood commences. With a great weather forecast I'm hoping to find the team to play with the suspension and tyre pressures a bit more

Edited by dave2007bc on Thursday 7th May 10:13

[dave2007bc]

charltjr said:

Looks like huge fun to drive, just caught up on the whole build and that looks like it was a lot of fun too

Thanks Charltjr, I love it. One of the most fun cars I've ever owned.

[dave2007bc]

Well, I've been chasing Ariel Atoms', again :-) and I actually 'kept up' with one this time -



I urgently need to upgrade the brakes, I was having major issues slowing down..

I think the speed the three of us come back this chap says it all though, such good fun.

https://youtu.be/vn1OFOOvUj0?t=30s

Edited by dave2007bc on Thursday 7th May 10:15

Edited by dave2007bc on Thursday 7th May 10:15

[dave2007bc]

4 months since my last post, lots has happened.

The week after the trackday at Blyton my turbo let go in a big-way, thankfully nothing went engine side so it was a simple choice to decide what spec to replace it with.

I took off the original turbo (surprisingly easy even though it's a tight fit) and took it to a local turbo place. Thankfully the shell of my turbo was in good nick. This meant that I could get my original one repaired and then upgraded. I went for the option of having the turbine upgraded with a billet aluminium version (should spool faster), 360 degree thrust bearing and staggered oil-seal.







The result looks lovely




I went out for a few drives with local kit car clubs -

Somewhere in Derbyshire


Squires Cafe, Sherburn




Then on 1st June 2015 I became a Dad, saying hello to my beautiful daughter Rowan Mae. Garage and car time was rightfully slim on the ground but over the last few weeks I've started sorting a few niggles out.

I always suffered badly from heat-soak, to the point that on hard pulls in 4th gear the car would misfire. With a bit of headscratching and some visits to the local silicone hose shop I sought to fit my air filter outside of the engine bay.

I replaced the cheap filter I had with an Apexi Mushroom filter. The performance difference from moving the filter is huge, I'd have never thought it would have made that much difference. The noise outside is also increased







I went out for a drive on the moors to see how the noise sounded from the outside of the car...

Edited by dave2007bc on Thursday 7th May 10:18

[dave2007bc]

I've always had trouble slowing the car down at 3 figure speeds. Surprisingly, even though the car only weighs 600kg the Cortina brakes just aren't enough to slow the car down adequately.

I've had my eyes open for some Wilwood 4 pots for a while and a suitable second-hand set came up for sale.



Grubby, but they'll look better all cleaned up

Before and after discs - 247mm solid to 285mm vented


I probably dont need vented discs so when these are done I may go for 285 solids as the discs alone weigh 9kg each, which isn't ideal for un-sprung weight.

The setup was originally from an RS turbo, so I had to get the bore of the discs made bigger by just 0.2mm to fit over my hub.

Test fit onto a spare hub


Things are VERY VERY tight




A quick skim on the hub arms with a grinder I think before they get fitted. The kit came with Wilwood 'race pads', whatever they are. They're about half-worn I'll stick them in for the moment to get the discs all scrubbed in and see how they perform. I'll go for DS2500s or 1.11's in the New Year I think.

The setup will get fitted next week when my mate has some free time at his garage; the calipers will have a fixed copper pipe going to a fixing on the back of my upright and unfortunately I don't have the tools for copper piping so need assistance with this.

There was a car show held locally so I took my green-bogey along.





It received some great interest, children, adults and elders all showed a good interest in the car. I also managed to fit my BeeR rev-limiter to make bangs and flames...because I love bangs and flames

Edited by dave2007bc on Thursday 10th September 10:30

[dave2007bc]

I can honestly say that fitting these 4 pots has been the worst 'car-job' I've ever had.

Even after refurbishing the calipers the brakes still kept sticking on, so I decided to replace every thing in the braking system.

The original pedal box had been butchered to fit the hydraulic clutch (it was previously cable) so I called up OBP and ordered their 'eco' pedal box



This came with 3 master cylinders; .7, .625 and .7

As my clutch was perfect, one of the .7's were sold on. The new .7 and .625 were fitted in place of the originals. I went to Clear Motorsport in Preston to have the work done, as quite frankly I was at my wits end with it all.

It took ages to go through the system and get everything bled and by the time I was due to leave the heavens had opened. I had a small drive around the workshop and everything seemed OK.

Then it was on to fitting some carbon vented side panels; the car never overheats but does get extremely hot under the bonnet as you'd expect. I managed to stumble upon a Westfield carbon side panel for a bargain price. As a Yorkshireman, I'm keen to make the most of my money so cut it in half so I could have a vent on each side

The car was a mess after all the cutting the grinding so needed a quick clean. Snowfoam to the rescue!








I then bought some road-tax and went for a drive....and the brakes stuck on. again

I went back home, ordered 2 more MC's (Wilwood this time) and dragged the car back up to Clear Motorsport. We replaced both MC's - it turns out the ones OBP sent me were knackered. Absolutely rubbish!

The weather was kinder to me this time so I covered a few miles around the Clear Motorsport workshop - I didn't realise I'd bought sintered pads - so now I get sparks from the disc under hard braking.

The finished brakes -




To get some miles on the car and I went out and gave it some abuse, including practicing '11s' - a new one for me; more practice definitely needed.



I'm pleased to say the car is working great, and I'm looking forward to my first trackday of the year at Blyton on March 18th.

Other things; I needed some storage on my trailer for my ratchet straps. Old Ammo boxes (£18 from eBay) work brilliantly; metal and lockable!

Edited by dave2007bc on Thursday 7th May 10:20

[dave2007bc]

That'd be great thanks! I've got a few from that trackday on my Youtube channel, you might be in there somewhere too!

All I remember from that day is the god awful 3-series BMW spewing blue smoke out the back

[dave2007bc]

Mr MXT said:

Dave - tell me more about that gearlever, got a link?

Type 9 box presumably?

The original car had an MT75 gearbox, this had some random homemade extension on with a long rod that went into the MT75 box - the MT75 is really really short compared to the Type 9.

The new engine uses the original CA18DET gearbox and was about 4-5" 'off' of where I wanted the gearstick. After hours on Google I stumbled across this -

http://r.ebay.com/16kd3f



All I did was chop the original Nissan stick down and weld that VW attached above on to it. The gearstick then simply screws on. Very simple and works perfectly and as smooth as the original Nissan one as I'm still going direct into the box.

[dave2007bc]

DMN said:

dave2007bc said:

That'd be great thanks! I've got a few from that trackday on my Youtube channel, you might be in there somewhere too!

All I remember from that day is the god awful 3-series BMW spewing blue smoke out the back

I think thats you coming past at about 5.40 on this vid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_LJX7GOn8s

You can make out the engine noise as you pass. I missed the smoke fun as I left around lunch time.

Thanks for posting the video, that's not me unfortunately. That was a bike engined one - it was a track only car (no plate).

[dave2007bc]

DMN said:

Ah..

I do have another clip of a green LOCOST going past, but its about a second long. Taken whilst I was sat waiting to join the circuit.

Is that on your channel? I lost 2 nuts from my trailing arms in the morning so spent most of it lying under the car taking my trailer apart to replace the nuts That's probably why I was never on track at the same time as you lol

[dave2007bc]

j4ckos mate said:

Please take thst 1.4s label off.
Honestly mate your goin to get in hot water if you go through a tunnel or the police see it
It'll be an arv job

I will; when I bought the box I wasn't told to remove anything. The 'ammo' that was in it was non-lethal rubber bullets so I assumed the outer markings would be OK. Thanks for the heads up!

DMN said:

Its really not long, but at 40 seconds a green locost goes by:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTwGqUYjOFQ&fe...

Ha, yes that's me! I always think it looks 'lardy' going round corners as I think it sits quite high. Thanks for posting the video. You've got a way better memory than I have for remember where stuff is.

[dave2007bc]

I went on my first trackday of the year and the car performed impeccably. The only fault the whole day was a boost hose popping off; for some reason the car is now pulling 1.5bar (rather than the 1.18bar target of the Gizzmo controller), I guess the hose clamp couldn't take it.

I can honestly say nothing came past me all day, the car was absolutely flying.

A few photos -






I love this picture of me leaving tyre marks as the car comes on boost in 3rd gear.
955A7044 by frank hall, on Flickr

Some 'session' videos are on my Youtube Channel -
https://www.youtube.com/user/davebgsi/videos

The most interesting video from a spectator point of view is the compilation of slides, skills etc etc


However, no car is ever fast enough, right?

So it was time to fit the stage 3 bits:

New injectors (left from an R33 skyline, right the original ca18det)


Swopping over the management chips from one ECU to the other:



Next on the list is to swop the AFM for a larger version from a Nissan 300zx. This should be completed this weekend and then we turn the key and off we go. The chip should command around 300bhp (flywheel) but I'm never confident with off the shelf stuff so I've booked in for a proper remap (ign and fuel tables) on May 9th where this is potential, assuming the engine can take it, to push past the 330bhp barrier.

Edited by dave2007bc on Friday 15th April 13:18

Edited by dave2007bc on Thursday 7th May 10:22

[dave2007bc]

The image below shows the comparison between the standard ca18det afm and the z32 afm


As you can see the z32 is significantly larger, allowing greater airflow into the turbo. The Z32 has an 80mm centre as opposed to the 45mm centre of the ca18det one!

After that, it was time to get the mapping done -


I chose to take the car to RS Tuning in Leeds; I've used them for years and Paul Murray (the mapper), really knows his stuff. He shows the same passion and interest whether he's working on a £100k rs6 with 650bhp (the car running when I turned up LOL) to a cheapy home-made kitcar.

Paul ran the car up with the stage 3 chip fitted and it made just 10bhp over the previous figures. I then set about removing the ECU so that Paul could install an emulator to carry out the live mapping. An hour later and we'd reached the magic 300bhp figure -


I asked how much additional boost I was running; None was the response! After a brief discussion it was agreed, due to my er, driving style, that it would be safer to retain the original boost setting and stick with the current power rather than trying to chase figures and risk stressing an engine of unknown age and specification.

As you can see from the graph above, peak power is between 6500-7000rpm so it drives almost like an N/A car - ideal in a 7-style motor.

On Sunday I made the most of the hot weather, and promptly broke down, 3 times!


Unfortunately the number of cars around Huddersfield ringroad meant I was stuck in a lot of start-stop traffic which my 20+year old ignition coils didn't agree with. They kept over heating causing the car to cut out - time to upgrade this area of the car then!

I've ordered a VAG conversion harness and Audi r8 ignition coils - the coils (aside from being new) are longer meaning they don't have any heat transfer from the cylinder head, and are known to perform well on high-power/race car situations so they should be fine for my little go-kart.

I have a few videos during the re-mapping and run out (including over 20 people stopping when I was broken down to see if I needed water/tools etc!) - owning a kitcar really does help you make friends, ha.

[dave2007bc]

Short video of the mapping session -

Edited by dave2007bc on Thursday 7th May 10:25

[dave2007bc]

Back again!

So, although I'd upgraded the car to my target of 300bhp I'd also gained a new fault - the coils were overheating causing huge misfires and eventually leaving me stranded in the middle of road junctions.

On with the upgrades then!

First up, fix the ropey looking accelerator cable that, at some point, was sure to leave me crying at the side of the road somewhere (more than normal no doubt!)

Old One


New One




Ahh that's better, now I'll sleep easier.

Proper upgrade time;

CA18DET engines are, at their youngest, 19 years old. Spare parts are abit thin on the ground and any spare parts you can find are normally knackered. You can still get CA18DET coils at the dealer but they are verrry expensive and will offer no real performance benefit.

There are various options in terms of upgrading CA18dET ignition coils; VAG, LS1 or aftermarket Bosch to name a few. As I'm no auto-electrician, I went with option one - VAG coils; R8 coils to be precise

There is a chap on the Driftworks/SXOC/CA18 FB groups that offers an aftermarket plug-and-play loom for the CA engine, for use with R8 coils, the quality is second to none.

Here it is alongside the R8 coils;


The R8 coils themselves also oooze quality; although in this instance I've gone for aftermarket NGK ones as they apparently last longer then the R8 Bosch ones (Time will tell I guess?)


The R8 coils were from OpieOils and cost just £105 delivered.

Here you can see the R8 coil against the original CA18 coils -


You can see that the CA18 coils bolt to a metal rail on the CA cylinder head, the heat from the head rises up and heats up the coil; eventually this causes a misfire as the coil breaksdown. The R8 coil is twice as high and aside from where it sits onto the plug has no direct contact with the head. This alternate design, coupled with the 'newness' and quality of the R8 coils should hopefully fix any previous problems I had in this regard.

Onto the fitting -

Before (yes, messy, needs a clean - built to be used not to be polished etc)


During


Rather than have the coils floating about, I drilled the original spark-plug cover and used that as a mounting template


Coils In


And Finished


Simply plug and play, turn the key solution.

I can't say they've improved anything as when I rolled the car out on to the drive yesterday the heavens opened

There's a video here of me testing the car before the coil started playing up, post 300 bhp remap -

https://youtu.be/KQWUmTuBuJk

Edited by dave2007bc on Monday 23 May 13:55

[dave2007bc]

me again

So following the 300bhp mapping and upgrading of the coils I had a bit of maintenance to do. With the new z32 afm, the air filter wouldn't sit where it did before so I went to Slide Motorsport to have custom hard-pipe fabricated.




This took something like 4 hours and is made up of over 25 individual 'slices' to get the angle correct. The pipe size goes from 3" to 2" over the course of the bend.

It worked perfectly and gives an entirely different turbo-stall sound now that the pipe isn't compressing under boost.

I went shopping -



and then booked my second trackday of the year at Blyton again.






I also bought a cheeky private numberplate



With the more hp came less traction, so my hand went in my pocket and I bought some new Nankang AR-1 semi-slick tyres. This is a photo of them side by side with my previous ones -



The difference is huge. They are so sticky.

Videos from the trackday -

Me getting absolutely destroyed by a 300bhp, 400kg kitcar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6v15SmR2PM

Me vs a 400bhp Turbo Reliant Kitten
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FP9lUY_Wg4c

Overtake Compilation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_F0_1h3vqg

Oh, the mapper put a bit of 'pop and bang' into my map, which produces stunning flames. I really like flames.





The temperatures of the car at the track did still keep creeping up, so I installed a 'post-turbo' water cooler in the side panel -


I also swapped out my aluminium rear diffuser for a carbon fibre one, saving me nearly 3kg.




Last month I booked on at Anglesey and shared a garage with a car-friend








Some videos -
Me vs Cayman S


Compilation of Sliding



The videos and day at Anglesey highlighted something. I have major, major traction issues. That's going to be pretty obvious given the power and weight but there's something a miss somewhere. The next job is to do some checks on the chassis, with the possibility of altering the axle mounts. Swapping the Capri LSD for a "proper one", and altering the spring-poundage to something that is more suitable.

There's always things to do, but I wouldn't have it any other way

Oh, in other news I killed a bird with the car

Edited by dave2007bc on Thursday 7th May 10:28

[dave2007bc]

Long overdue update - most updates are now on instagram (locost_turbo) if any of you are on there.

Videos on my YouTube channel as always...

Anyway...

I had a YouTube feature by a chap called MonkyLondon; loads of fun. You may enjoy it, you may not. A few photos and a link to his feature below -









i had some new rear shocks fitted by Procomp to try and improve traction - Custom valved Protect..



I cut up the front end bit to get more air in!



Bought some new wheels..


Bought and modified some carbon fibre rear arches



I did a trackday at Croft, managed 8 laps before I broke it I did however manage to get past a GT3rs which I was fairly happy about!









Made a carbon fibre bootlid



Ruined some tyres -


Did plenty of miles on the road...




...and finally some proper mods. Boost pipes replaced with all stainless ones to reduce hose clips and therefore the risk of leaks. Coolant hoses replaced and improved. Oil cooler moved somewhere more practical too.

Edited by dave2007bc on Thursday 7th May 10:29

[dave2007bc]

Sorry, only just seen this reply 6 months later. Rate the AR1s a lot, can't comment on how they compare with the others you mentioned but they are really really sticky. They do need lots of heat in them to really be effective, but that doesn't take long in my car tbh.

All sat tight ready for the bi-annual update? OK then

After the last trackway I decided it would be a good idea to change the clutch and flywheel. The flywheel was replaced for a 5kg, down 8kg from the factory 13kg one!! Great weight saving and great improvement on acceleration.

I also replaced the clutch at the same time.







It's a good job I decided to take it out...this could have been very nasty indeed.



I then broke the clutch in, the only way I know how



I did a trackway at Blyton to get the year started







Managed a 1.11 around Blyton, more than happy with that.


Made a car friend and went to the East-coast




Time for some improvements; I'm all about the carbon fibre this season -

















Interior done (unless I trip over some CF seats somewhere...)

Now lets look at that mess under the bonnet;

Edited by dave2007bc on Thursday 7th May 10:30