Oh as in its in production with him not you starting the build :) well poo!
Oh as in its in production with him not you starting the build :) well poo!
Jaynen wrote: Oh as in its in production with him not you starting the build :) well poo!
Actually a step away from that. It's at our laser partner's facility, getting gently massaged by lasers. Along with out UTCC car. It's basically like Inception.
Once we have it and it moves to the construction stage, we won't be keeping it a secret.
Thankfully the only big unknown in producing this revised chassis has been figured out! Nailed the first try of the new bending process (free 6" CLR push-bend with a custom die). This method is stronger than the previous 4" CLR mandrel bends.
Our custom in-house (our laser partner's house) bend die:
Hey Warren! I'll show you yours if you show me mine 
Keith Tanner wrote: Hey Warren! I'll show you yours if you show me mine
Mmm, magic snails. You know how to make a girl blush.
I regrettably didn't take a picture of the end-of-shift picture, but here is about the halfway point of the night. The total count was 416 tubes cut, this picture has about 275. The laser was running for about 3 hours in total. Sick machine.
Looks like we'll get everything cut out tomorrow.
728 / 912 tubes. We're crankin' through them. Have my mentioned my love for lasers? This labor reduction is how we can sell the kit so cheaply.
The notches in the fishmouthed tubes are excellent. Make sure you get lots of frame build pictures, we'll share them once we start putting our car together.
I figure your car will be approximately 25% FM content by weight, but 60% FM content by power 
Keith Tanner wrote:
So. Happy.
Warren, was that you I spoke with at Mazmart Saturday during that AMOC BBQ? I was the old guy with the ABARTH at a Mazda event.
banzaitoyota wrote: Warren, was that you I spoke with at Mazmart Saturday during that AMOC BBQ? I was the old guy with the ABARTH at a Mazda event.
Nope, I was doin' behind-the-scenes stuff and didn't make it to the BBQ this year. I did go last year and drove this naked one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQc7-96Dzvo. The tall ginger berkeleyer you met was most likely Kevin, our fearless leader.
Cross posts:
If you guys are in Atlanta and want to swing a wrench on this thing next weekend, check out the MX5ATL post!
We decided on a color scheme:
http://www.prismaticpowders.com/colors/PSS-1221/
I'd recommend painting the wheels instead of powder coat. But I dig.
Keith Tanner wrote: I'd recommend painting the wheels instead of powder coat. But I dig.
Curious, why do you suggest that? Weight or ease of touch-up?
Also, the driveshaft won the shipping race. Looks nice, love the zerks, might even be able to reach them in situ.
If they are like 949 6uls, powder coating can weaken the rim due to heat and voids the warranty
Emilio feels strongly about that 
But basically, the heat range and duration of the powdercoating process overlaps with the heat treating and aging of 6061-T6 aluminum. Not dramatically, it's at the lower end, but it can over-age the metal and make it more brittle. As Jaynen said, it will void the warranty on 949 wheels as well.
Every powdercoater will say "oh, it's not a problem, we've done thousands of wheels" but then again they tend to do stock rims or steel ones, not race wheels with every extra ounce shaved off.
I powdercoated a set of mine before finding this out.
yeah, i powdercoat diamond racings, not aluminum wheels. bad juju
In reply to Keith Tanner:
Wow, design factor is that close, huh? Thanks for the heads up. Probably would be okay in our application and usage, but I'll trust Emilio.
Just for fun:
Looks like the 6ULs are low-pressure cast 6061, so their characteristics will be a bit different than the graph for the sheet above. I wasn't aware 6061 was used to cast wheels, I figured it would be a casting alloy like 356. Interesting...
Production Run #1 starts NOW!
Flyin' together. Follow the build of this specific car in this thread: http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/exocet-xp-3/66618/page1/
Someone in GA please go buy this and build an Exocet since I can't right now:
http://www.copart.com/c2/homeSearch.html?_eventId=getLot&execution=e1s1&lotId=16131563&returnPage=SEARCH_RESULTS
Keith- do the Afco's come disassembled, or is this to show all the bits and pieces? Going with customer spring rates due to the lighter weight, or will the standard rate springs be the same as goign with a heavier spring in the lighter car?
AFCOs require some assembly on the part of the new owner. You need to put the spring on the shock, install the upper mount and the top adjuster knob. The Exocet is using a few more pieces than usual, as there are helper springs in there. That's what you can see in the bags, the yellow helpers and the blue spring separators.
At least half of AFCOs that leave us go out with custom spring rates, and this set is one of them. You're right that the lighter car means a given spring rate will effectively act like a stiffer one than it would on a heavier car. In this case, it's going to have rates that are a bit lighter than what we usually run on the V8 Miatas.
This is just theory until we test it, but these are the rates I got during my ride frequency analysis of the car:
Road Course: 450/300 (F: 2.5Hz R: 2.6Hz R/F%: 105%) Autocross/Hard Street: 325/250 (F: 2.2Hz R: 2.4Hz R/F%: 108.5%) Old farts around town: 175/125 (F: 1.6Hz R: 1.7Hz R/F%: 105%)
The final frequencies are rounded down to the nearest tenth to avoid implying too much precision, the F/R% is taken from numbers with higher sig figs since the ratio will be more accurate than the actual frequency values.
Stock NA springs will get you right at 1.5 Hz matched front and rear, which could give you a little bit of a see-saw action on bumpy roads. The 97 R-Package gives you a nice 105% R/F ratio.
OEM NB coilovers are great for the Exocet. 1.5Hz / 1.65Hz and a 109% R/F.
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