Ariel Nomad Turbo Conversion

[The Rotrex Kid]

Who’s doing the final mapping?

[scottos]

Excellent to see, that exhaust is coming on well.

I've been up Hartside quite a bit recently, with the nice weather and great evenings and have been keeping an eye out! I forgot it was still away though!

[BillyB]

Your trip looks outstanding and a nicely put together video 👍

(The exhaust set up looks pretty awesome too!)

[ol]

PhillipM said:

Going around Walters Arena?

I know a few did not long ago, heading there in October with our buggy.

Sounds good! Ours is at Sweet Lamb. The Nomad was part developed there so seemed fitting

[ol]

mattdavies said:

I dont know but it might be harder to clean when ceramic coated, being that it is all exposed.

With Stainless all you need is some bleach and 5/10 mins and your all clean and shiney again

Thanks - will see how it looks in the metal, but I've never been fan of shiny bits on cars, and definitely not a fan of cleaning them!

[ol]

The Rotrex Kid said:

Who’s doing the final mapping?

Paul from TPW Engineering in the North West - he did the mapping for the supercharged car for Ariel, so knows his way around a Nomad!

[ol]

scottos said:

Excellent to see, that exhaust is coming on well.

I've been up Hartside quite a bit recently, with the nice weather and great evenings and have been keeping an eye out! I forgot it was still away though!

Thanks! Will be up there on Saturday as long as collection works out on Friday

[ol]

BillyB said:

Your trip looks outstanding and a nicely put together video ??

(The exhaust set up looks pretty awesome too!)

Thank you - much appreciated!

[PhillipM]

ol said:

Sounds good! Ours is at Sweet Lamb. The Nomad was part developed there so seemed fitting

Ah yes, sweetlamb is fairly flat and fast, should go well there, mainly smooth gravel track.

[ol]

Collected the car from the exhaust place last week. Need to take some better photos, but it looks great, and obviously really well made. Having the valve in the system works really well, and makes a huge difference to the sound when open / closed.

Untitled by Olly Olly, on Flickr

Met some friends and had a drive on Saturday. Poured down all day, but the Nomad was still awesome fun, and just make sliding it about even easier.

Untitled by Olly Olly, on Flickr

Untitled by Olly Olly, on Flickr


Final mapping is this Friday, then rally day on Saturday, so should be a few awesome days ahead!

[jenkosrugby]

Frickin' awsome!.......Make sure you update on the re-map, and glad the exhaust worked out well.....I just love this car.

[drgoatboy]

One of my lottery win cars with upgraded goodness.
Love it! In fact not even lottery win, if I had garage space I would have one tomorrow (but I don't )

Keep up the good work. Exhaust looks great.

[Leon R]

ol said:

I also did a little edit of some of the trip footage. Will do a proper length edit at some point, but this gives a good idea of what we got up to:

https://youtu.be/6LjEL8h-3hY

That looked like it was awesome.

Very jealous of you and your mates.

[sinbaddio]

Wow - what a thread and a car!

Just subscribed to your YT too - first season racing a Locost, some hair raising moments there!

[ol]

Thanks for all the positive comments, much appreciated.

So last Friday was mapping day, and then on to Sweet Lamb rally complex in Wales to spend Saturday sliding around the Welsh countryside with a group of other Nomad owners. A potentially perfect weekend...

So I set off from Northumberland bright and early at 5:30am for the 4 hour drive down to Cheshire.

Untitled by Olly Olly, on Flickr

Arrived back at TPW engineering to see Paul West. Paul did the mapping for Ariel when they developed the Nomad, so knows what he's doing, and works closely with Hard Knocks who did the turbo conversion. I had taken it to Paul to do some base runs when I first got the car, so was nice to go back to see him.

Untitled by Olly Olly, on Flickr

Untitled by Olly Olly, on Flickr

but.... DISASTER!!! I forgot to pack the bloody Flash Pro unit that lets you talk to the ECU and map it. So we couldn't map it properly. ARGGHHH!!

Luckily when he did the base Map after the turbo conversion, he just ran it off wastegate pressure, so we were able to put a little bit of boost in safely, and got the boost controller working.

The runs we did when it was standard showed 225bhp (and 195 Ft lbs torque)
The base run we did with turbo at wastegate pressure showed 235bhp
With a little bit of boost in we got 270bhp (and 270Ft lbs torque)

So it seems that for the last few weeks (and the Portugal trip) it has only had 235bhp! It felt a lot more because of the torque, but even the jump to 270 has made a huge difference, and it feels much quicker now. The way it picks up on acceleration is just savage. I just have a permanent smile when driving it.

Untitled by Olly Olly, on Flickr

Untitled by Olly Olly, on Flickr

Untitled by Olly Olly, on Flickr

Video of a pull here:

Untitled by Olly Olly, on Flickr

Paul is confident we can easily get 400bhp out of it as the system is so efficient, but I think that will make it undrivable. 350 will probably be the sweet spot.

So I have now booked in AGAIN to get the mapping finished in 3 weeks time. By then I might have invested in some 18 inch wheels with sticky tyres for trackdays, as it's going to be a monster!

Edited by ol on Tuesday 30th August 16:16

[ol]

After we finished at the dyno I met 2 other Northern Nomad-ers and we convoyed to Wales.

I'll do some photos and write up of the Wales trip when the photographer sends the finished images, but here are a couple to set the scene...

Needless to say it was a lot of fun.

Nomads by Olly Olly, on Flickr

Untitled by Olly Olly, on Flickr

Untitled by Olly Olly, on Flickr

[scottos]

That photo of the Nomad in mid air has me grinning like a Cheshire cat

[lel]

Absolutely fantastic build

I have a K20 Type R that I've been thinking of throwing a turbo/supercharger at, I think this has swayed me

[ol]

scottos said:

That photo of the Nomad in mid air has me grinning like a Cheshire cat

Thanks! There are more awesome photos to come soon. Photographer was great

[ol]

lel said:

Absolutely fantastic build

I have a K20 Type R that I've been thinking of throwing a turbo/supercharger at, I think this has swayed me

Thank you! If you need to outsource any of your turbo build I would absolutely recommend Chris at Hard Knocks speed shop near Oxford who did my conversion. They were absolutely faultless, and I’m very fussy!