Restarting my SLC project in West Texas

[Hector]

We will get together as soon as we can. This year for sure. If you drive it here then well put it in the garage no problem. It might be a little soon to take her that far so I'll more than likely drive over to see ya again. More on that as timing reveals itself. Where did you put your award? Center of the fireplace in the living room I hope.

The best part of this hobby is the people you meet. You have been no exception, my friend.

Agree wholeheartedly about the people, truly amazing bunch. you were the very first SLC owner I visited, it helped seeing what a finished SLC looked like. especially one well sorted out and track ready. I certainly got a bunch of great ideas from you that I implemented.

You are always welcome here, bring your wife. I am crazy enough I may just venture over there soon, I have a tow hook and triple A LOL.

My wife did not let me put the plaque on the mantle LOL, will go on my garage wall of fame next to the Ken Miles picture.

 

[Hector]

So a couple of funny stories, I am slowly backing up of the garage and my wife is screaming the the car is smoking and smells really bad. It turned out the clutch was not releasing and the clutch pedal went to the floor. I decided to take a look and noticed a small leak on the hose fitting, took it apart and found out I used a wrong fitting, flange instead of NPT, went to order one and amazon told me I had ordered one in the past, wen to my parts bin and found it!!! And voila, leak fixed and clutch works perfectly , shifting is superb with the gated shifter. Love it !!

Drove to one of my friends house and seemed like the entire neighborhood came out to see the car. Same thing happened at work and at the gym. People have a hard time believing that I put the car together in my garage with no special tools at all.

I absolutely love my corvette lambo style sequential tail lights

The last picture shows the car agains typical Texas vehicles, it really looks like a toy !!!

Truly enjoying every ride, and getting butterflies every time, scary and cool at the same time, a totally new experience . Strongly recommend it

 

[Hector]

A little update and some helpful tips for future builders:

It has been in the mid 100s in West Texas and have been driving quite a bit lately, I don't have oil coolers and my water temps are peaking at 206 with the A/C full blast and sitting in traffic, very happy about that . My advice is spend good amount of time on BOTH your inlet and outlet duct design to maximize radiator flow and diminish turbulent flow.

I strongly recommend a vent into the footbox, I initially intended it for the heater but it helps a lot keeping you legs cool, even though I have a heavily insulated footbox, it still makes a huge difference. OH and yes insulate your footbox as much as possible, more is better , even with great ducting heat still transfers quite a bit as the radiator is right in front of your legs.

As Kurt mentioned in his post, backing up can be tricky, I strongly recommend a backup camera. Judging distances with my side mirrors and main rear view mirror (camera is mounted on the roof ) is difficult . the adjustable little cone images of different colors are super helpful .

I have my backup camera activated when the the car is in reverse gear and projected into the stereo, but could be done on the digital dash ( I have the AIM MXS 1.2) or the rear view mirror.

I have an AIM proximity sensor on one of my front wheels for speed readings instead of GPS based, it flutters a bit even at 10 Hertz , still trying to fine tune it, but overall very happy with the setup.

The stereo works well, I am able to enjoy some music but the engine noise wins every time rpms go up. unfortunately I don't think I could carry a cell phone conversation while driving , but I have my blue tooth connected so that I know when someone is calling , hard to hear the phone ring as well . But people sure know you are coming.

Love my valentine radar detector remote screen built into my dashboard. The radar is mounted inside on the roof. Always good to know when someone is around you with a radar on , it is super easy to get on it and exceed the speed limit 10 or 20mph.

Still getting used to the attention. It takes forever to get out of any parking lot as people flock to the car and always try to guess what kind of car it is , and the questions keep coming. Coming out of my office a couple of days ago several people (At least 10) on the building next door where lined up at the door taking cell phone videos as I was leaving.

A young woman got out of her car at a stop light to take pictures of the car, and the light turned green, I had to wait for her to get out of the way . Just crazy stuff !!, I find more funny than annoying and I don't mind talking to people when they have questions . I heard all about the attention thing , but was not expecting the magnitude of it all. Quite interesting .

 

[Neil]

A little update and some helpful tips for future builders:

It has been in the mid 100s in West Texas and have been driving quite a bit lately, I don't have oil coolers and my water temps are peaking at 206 with the A/C full blast and sitting in traffic, very happy about that . My advice is spend good amount of time on BOTH your inlet and outlet duct design to maximize radiator flow and diminish turbulent flow.

I strongly recommend a vent into the footbox, I initially intended it for the heater but it helps a lot keeping you legs cool, even though I have a heavily insulated footbox, it still makes a huge difference. OH and yes insulate your footbox as much as possible, more is better , even with great ducting heat still transfers quite a bit as the radiator is right in front of your legs.

As Kurt mentioned in his post, backing up can be tricky, I strongly recommend a backup camera. Judging distances with my side mirrors and main rear view mirror (camera is mounted on the roof ) is difficult . the adjustable little cone images of different colors are super helpful .

I have my backup camera activated when the the car is in reverse gear and projected into the stereo, but could be done on the digital dash ( I have the AIM MXS 1.2) or the rear view mirror.

I have an AIM proximity sensor on one of my front wheels for speed readings instead of GPS based, it flutters a bit even at 10 Hertz , still trying to fine tune it, but overall very happy with the setup.

The stereo works well, I am able to enjoy some music but the engine noise wins every time rpms go up. unfortunately I don't think I could carry a cell phone conversation while driving , but I have my blue tooth connected so that I know when someone is calling , hard to hear the phone ring as well . But people sure know you are coming.

Love my valentine radar detector remote screen built into my dashboard. The radar is mounted inside on the roof. Always good to know when someone is around you with a radar on , it is super easy to get on it and exceed the speed limit 10 or 20mph.

Still getting used to the attention. It takes forever to get out of any parking lot as people flock to the car and always try to guess what kind of car it is , and the questions keep coming. Coming out of my office a couple of days ago several people (At least 10) on the building next door where lined up at the door taking cell phone videos as I was leaving.

A young woman got out of her car at a stop light to take pictures of the car, and the light turned green, I had to wait for her to get out of the way . Just crazy stuff !!, I find more funny than annoying and I don't mind talking to people when they have questions . I heard all about the attention thing , but was not expecting the magnitude of it all. Quite interesting .

Get used to all the attention your car generates, it never ends. A fellow almost fell out of the passenger-side window of a van while it was driving down the road. He was taking a picture of my car.

 

[Rich Kruger]

After trying 100 different adjustments I figured out the the parking brake that came with the kit DOES NOT WORK, it will not hold the car on the slightest slope. So that was $1295 for the kit, $600 for the E-stopp and all my time down the drain. Cam warned me and I did not listen, I thought I could make it work, I was wrong. future builders, don't male the same mistake , cut your losses early .

I used the Pantera Tesla Brembo electric parking brake controller. The only thing useful from the previous kit were the thread inserts. SAD

But I on a positive note I was able to use the previous threads to attach the new bracket.

A new bracket was made, thank you Cam for the blueprint.

Press fitting the thread inserts was difficult without a hydraulic press, I bent the crap out of my bench vise handle, close to 90 degrees!!! so I cutup a large socket and used a cheater bar, beautiful solution , thank you .

then it was a matter of fine tuning the bracket , connect everything to the electronic controller that came with the kit and connect it to a push button on the dashboard.

It is super strong, works well. Since both were used units, I replaced the electric motors, since Cam told me one of his failed, super easy 5 minute thing to do and not very expensive.

I'm still perplexed how the stock parking brake system doesn't work for a lot of the builders here. I did install the superlite e brake calipers with an e stopp actuator. The only thing I had to do was to remove the release spring from the supplied cables as they limited the cable pull. So yes my first attempt failed until I noted that those springs limited the travel. Otherwise once corrected and adjusted the parking brake is very effective.

 

[Joel K]

I'm still perplexed how the stock parking brake system doesn't work for a lot of the builders here. I did install the superlite e brake calipers with an e stopp actuator. The only thing I had to do was to remove the release spring from the supplied cables as they limited the cable pull. So yes my first attempt failed until I noted that those springs limited the travel. Otherwise once corrected and adjusted the parking brake is very effective.

Rich, thanks for posting this. I haven’t given up on the e*brake yet But wasn’t at all confident I could get it to work. I’ve read many build threads on what the different builders have tried to do, but I don’t think anyone has suggested the cable springs were the limiting factor. Now I have hope!

I’ll report back later in the summer when I install the heavy duty linear actuator with the calipers.

 

[Hector]

I'm still perplexed how the stock parking brake system doesn't work for a lot of the builders here. I did install the superlite e brake calipers with an e stopp actuator. The only thing I had to do was to remove the release spring from the supplied cables as they limited the cable pull. So yes my first attempt failed until I noted that those springs limited the travel. Otherwise once corrected and adjusted the parking brake is very effective.

I tried that without success, I also had the e stopp setup. I also tried repositioning the calipers for maximum grab on the rotor, the setup will work on a tiny slope but not on a significant slope. the Tesla calipers are night and day 100% better. I think my experience is quite common . Believe me I tried everything. taking everything apart and starting form scratch was no fun at all . But if it works for you that is great !!! Just hope you won't find your car at the bottom of a hill someday