Nocones $2020 challenge build thread

Asphalt_Gundam said:

Other fix options include: Drilling a hole or two in the T-stat for flow before it opens or eliminating the T-stat and running a restrictor instead (might increase warm up time). Both of these you can keep the heater core stuff capped off.

I also find it strange that the T-stat is on the cold side of the radiator...

A lot of modern cooling systems are designed that way. Look at an LS, for example.

As seems to be the theme with this car, it's time again to do something new and uncomfortable.   I've sewn before but never anything complicated.  So definitely the best thing to do is dream up some overly elaborate pad scheme and then try to build it as basically your first thing right?  

So I started with some templates.  Inspiration for the seat pads comes from cars like the AM Valkyrie and similar modular padded carbon bucket seats.  

The templates are just made from the lighter weight 36" roll of masking paper you can get at big box home stores.  I cut the templates to the exact size I intend to reproduce.   

The templates are transfered to fabric.  For the sides the fabric is a khaki outdoor canvas.   I will document the making of the pads better (probably in a new sewing thread. (LOL sewing pun)). But my technique was to cut 3/8 larger then the pattern.  A piece of foam backed Headliner fabric (this gives a little bit of cushion, we will see how it holds up) is cut to the same size as this piece.  I then sewed a ~1" wide strip face to face with the fabric through the headliner material along the edge of the pattern.  This stip is then folded behind the fabric and a stitch is ran all the way around the part ~1/4" in.  This is the hard part because the narrow width and exposed nature of the stitch makes it critical to get right.  

Again now that I know it works I will take more pictures of the process I used.

This pad is shared between the driver and passenger.   I may run a stitch along the edges of the center tube but I'm not sure I would want that and again that would be hard to get "right".  The pads will be held on by exposed rivets with washers at their corners, and possibly spaced along their edge.  I was going to do snaps but I'm concerned they will pop off more then the ease of removal will be a benefit over rivets.  Also rivets are easy enough to remove if I need to.  

So bristling with my success at a super easy part..  I moved on to the hardest parts.  The headrests.  

The headrests are abit more complicated.  I'm not sure what the "right" way to do this is but I made an aluminum plate that I am attaching the fabric to.  This plate will get velcroed to the car.  The fabric wraps around a 2" piece of foam.  I realized quickly I can't have a continuous piece of 2" fabric so I cut it into sections that are seamed to match the plate.  The edge is a 2.5" wide strip. This is sewed "inside out" with 1/4 face stitches at every edge.  I then just tuned it inside out, stuffed the foam inside and pushed the plate in.  I then riveted the plate in pulling about .5" of foam compression.   And this is the result.  

I chose bold for the seat centers and headrest.  This is more outdoor printed canvas fabric.   We will see how it holds up.  I'm going to use 1/2" foam padding for the center sections.  

I'm sure my fabric choices won't be for everyone.   But that's fine.  

The total cost for the fabric and foam is going to be ~$20 when I'm done.  So it will push the car right to the edge of budget but still (for now) be in budget.  

You know what's cooler than a homebuilt challenge winning Subaru 360 LMP car?  A homebuilt challenge winning Subaru 360 LMP car with hand-stitched floral headrests.

Yeahno.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE it. 

This is a SERIOUSLY hardcore car that does not take itself so... seriously.  I absolutely dig it. 

I very much appreciate the sentiment but want to be sure to not take credit for work I'm not doing.  You could do this real Grassroots and actually hand stitch these, but I am using a machine.  This one. 

It's not anything special or an upholstery machine.  Just your generic 10 stitch thing.  

But I get what you are saying and genuinely appreciate it.

I'm concerned at some point along this process I'm going to find the limit of what is "cool" and my future efforts will flip to "trying to hard".   But I'm glad that I've yet to find it.

Phenomenal fabric choices! Glad you added the padding.

Love it!

Ugh that was hard..  now to install them..

I don't feel like using a sewing machine is cheating.  I mean they've only been around for like 200 years.  Pretty established tool there.

And I've used one some and it's hard to get things right even with the machine.  So kudos.

Ok so a busy weekend of repairing / refining things on the car.  

The underbody aero got a little beat up when I dropped the car on it.  Also the bottoms of the diffusers where unfinished at the challenge so I wanted to put wood on them and fix it.  

So I did some cutting and added wood back where I needed it.   Wood was again attached with Gorilla Glue style Polyurethane adhesive. 

I then proceeded to fiberglass them in.  But I decided to use Polyurethane resin instead of epoxy for 2 reasons; 1.  Time, I needed them to cure in less then 24 hours, 2. I could.  The only reason I used epoxy the first time was that polyester resin dissolves the polystyrene/polyurethane foam (side note these damn things are just a poly explosion, Poly-urethane, styrene, ester gotta catch em all Polymon).  Epoxy doesn't react to pretty much anything.  This repair almost all of the material being fiberglassed was wood, or epoxy from the first layup.  There where a few areas where the pink foam was exposed so I just mixed up a bit of 5 min epoxy and coated them.  

One note I learned about laying up the fabric.  When I wrapped the edges previously I had a real hard time.   I was cutting the cloth into strips along the weave (my strip had long strands along it's length and the weave was perpendicular to the strip).  This way when I layed it up I had glass fibers that had to turn sharp 90⁰ corners when I tried to wrap the 1/2 wood.  This would result in lifting and general swearing.  I had read that cutting on the Bias was better (the weave is 45⁰ to your material).  With this method when your weave encounters a corner the fibers only have to turn a 45⁰ corner because they are running 45⁰ to the 90⁰ edge of the part.  And OMG is it so much better.  The fabric just lays so much nicer.  It was actually a joy to layup rather then horrible.   I'll post more on that when I get around to doing a what I learned about fiberglass thread or video.  

I again don't have any pictures of the layup work because sticky gloves.  But what do you do when it's 40⁰ in your shop and you need the resin to kick off?  You make the LMP360 Aero art installation and pont your heater into the middle of it.  Surprisingly this worked great and the resin cured in about 1.5 hours and no fire!!

The last thing I did was do a mockup of the seat upholstery to validate that everything was present and fit okay.  I found out I needed to modify the drivers bolster.  

I need to make some simple side panels to hold the outer parts down.  Eventually these will meet with an outer wall that will closeout the tub.   Retention is going to be rivets with finish washers.  I initially planned on snaps but I believe the snaps will unsnap and frustrate me more then the occasional times I have to drill out the rivets to remove seat pads.  

That is a fantastic choice for upholstery. 

nocones said:

As seems to be the theme with this car, it's time again to do something new and uncomfortable.   I've sewn before but never anything complicated.  So definitely the best thing to do is dream up some overly elaborate pad scheme and then try to build it as basically your first thing right?  

So I started with some templates.  Inspiration for the seat pads comes from cars like the AM Valkyrie and similar modular padded carbon bucket seats.  

The templates are just made from the lighter weight 36" roll of masking paper you can get at big box home stores.  I cut the templates to the exact size I intend to reproduce.   

The templates are transfered to fabric.  For the sides the fabric is a khaki outdoor canvas.   I will document the making of the pads better (probably in a new sewing thread. (LOL sewing pun)). But my technique was to cut 3/8 larger then the pattern.  A piece of foam backed Headliner fabric (this gives a little bit of cushion, we will see how it holds up) is cut to the same size as this piece.  I then sewed a ~1" wide strip face to face with the fabric through the headliner material along the edge of the pattern.  This stip is then folded behind the fabric and a stitch is ran all the way around the part ~1/4" in.  This is the hard part because the narrow width and exposed nature of the stitch makes it critical to get right.  

Again now that I know it works I will take more pictures of the process I used.

This pad is shared between the driver and passenger.   I may run a stitch along the edges of the center tube but I'm not sure I would want that and again that would be hard to get "right".  The pads will be held on by exposed rivets with washers at their corners, and possibly spaced along their edge.  I was going to do snaps but I'm concerned they will pop off more then the ease of removal will be a benefit over rivets.  Also rivets are easy enough to remove if I need to.  

So bristling with my success at a super easy part..  I moved on to the hardest parts.  The headrests.  

The headrests are abit more complicated.  I'm not sure what the "right" way to do this is but I made an aluminum plate that I am attaching the fabric to.  This plate will get velcroed to the car.  The fabric wraps around a 2" piece of foam.  I realized quickly I can't have a continuous piece of 2" fabric so I cut it into sections that are seamed to match the plate.  The edge is a 2.5" wide strip. This is sewed "inside out" with 1/4 face stitches at every edge.  I then just tuned it inside out, stuffed the foam inside and pushed the plate in.  I then riveted the plate in pulling about .5" of foam compression.   And this is the result.  

I chose bold for the seat centers and headrest.  This is more outdoor printed canvas fabric.   We will see how it holds up.  I'm going to use 1/2" foam padding for the center sections.  

I'm sure my fabric choices won't be for everyone.   But that's fine.  

The total cost for the fabric and foam is going to be ~$20 when I'm done.  So it will push the car right to the edge of budget but still (for now) be in budget.  

At first when I read this I believe that only the beige fabric images appeared - so I was confused about your choice in upholstery... now that I saw it on Instagram in full color and came back to look a second time this makes a lot more sense. Looks good!

Just be careful - this car might start to attract attention. 

Ok let's get everyone up to speed on this pile.  So I had been vague over the past month or so about what was going on with the build.  I obviously was doing work for something but I hadn't yet heard that it was okay to share so I kept things quiet.  By now you have all seen that that event was getting invited to show the car at PRI.  

The goals for the car prior to PRI where seat covers, Repair Aero damage, paint the "windows", and get GRM branding on the fin. 

As is typical all of that got done in the last 6 days before the event.  I had shown the aero repairs, and some of the seat construction.  But here is a little more about the seat covers. 

So templates were transferred to fabric which was cut ~1/2" larger.  

This was duplicated on the foam or headliner fabric depending on pad.  1/2" foam was used for the floral, 1/4" headliner for the tan.  

A ~1.5" is sewn onto the face of the stack of foam and fabric.  This stitch is sewn at the edge of what I wanted the finished pad size to be.  This creates a flap that will get folded under the part creating the edge of the pads. 

For the thick foam pads the foam was cut away from the back before the flap was folded over.  For the thinner pads the foam was left.  The flap is the folded over the back of the part and the stitch made becomes the edge inside the fold.  After folding a stitch is ran 1/4" inboard through everything.  This holds it flat and provides a nice defined edge. 

The shoulder pads where made by literally making a part that fits inside out.  Then the part is flipped inside out and poof it fits. 

Installation in the car was fidgety and annoying simply because of how many rivets we're required.  

But the result is aesthetically pleasing and very comfortable so it was worth it. 

I installed all the aero and repaired a few things.  The lower edges of the rear wing verticals tended to hit on the trailer so I remade them out of aluminum and bent them in an inch which made them visually more interesting but makes it less likely I hit them on the trailer.  

I had the idea to put the same GRM flag from the fenders on the Fin.  Tom/Nicole agreed it was an excellent idea so we contracted a local vinyl shop to make them.  After several delays they came through at the 11th hour and got the fin wrapped.  

The last thing I did was paint the windows black.  I didn't like the huge expanse of blue that the back became without windows.  I was looking at LMP cars and the Hoonipig and realized they don't look like that because of graphics.  So I ended up going with the Hoonipig approach of just painting the windows black.  I extended the black to the doors and really like the finished look.  

So that was it the car was ready.  It was time to load up and drag it over to Indy.  Which will be the next post. 

So the trip to PRI started like all good GRM trips, with a picture of the car on a trailer at the gas station. 

PRI load in is best described as organized chaos.  They have a plan, and it's a good one but it's still chaos to execute.  You have to go to a yard 3 blocks from the stadium under the interstate over pass to start your adventure.  Then you have to drive about 6 blocks (because of 1 way streets) go to a lot to get told where to go.  Then in that lot you go stage in a staging lane before you are finally released to the lot you will unload at.  Since I was in the Yellow hall our load in lot was larger and between the stadium and the convention center.  I unloaded the car and installed the front wing and diffusers and got a picture before pushing it in (next time bring friends). 

Between the stadium and the convention center you push the car under some railroad tracks and then up a big ramp into the show floor.  I arrive at the base of this ramp and right in front of me I see the kinds of cars I will be on the floor with.  Bergsteiger, in the flesh.  What a beautiful car.  I feel inadequate immediately. 

Getting inside is only the first battle.  Then you have to get the car to the booth.  And there are plywood shipping boxes everywhere.   Eventually I find 3133 after family circusing my way there through the boxes.  A few people helped me push.  The car gets positioned in the booth, I send a few terrible pictures to Tom and then I just kinda leave it.  

Load in happens on Tuesday leaving Wednesday for booth construction, so being only 2.5 hours from Indy I drove home to work Wednesday.  It was wierd just leaving the car there..  It felt a bit like dropping your pet off at the boarding place.   

During dropoff probably 25 people stopped by the car snapped some pictures and asked questions.  At this point I still wasn't sure how bringing a $3100 car to PRI would go.   

But more on that next post when I talk about the actual PRI event.  

Inadequate!?!?? ........hardly.... worthy of  mass quantities of respect and admiration .....well done!!!

I tried to write a PRI summary post several times and they always tend to get long and expositional, I'm sorry deal with it. I think that is because there was a lot of anxiety and concern I had when displaying something that literally had less investment in it than most companies rolling stands for showing off engines. Grassroots Motorsports went out on a limb and paid real money to let my build speak for their market and I was concerned I would let them down. Add to that that builds are the culmination of hundreds of hours of work and there is a lot going on mentally when the build represents you. 

PRI is primarily set up as a Business to Business trade show for people in the performance industry to network and push products and services that will make you perform. The builds featured in most booths are almost always the absolute peak of performance, product, or process. Featured cars generally are Huge HP, Huge investment, and/ or Hugely successful. Billet, CNC, Carbonfiber you name it the cars in the show feature it. Dallara was showing a $500K full carbon track toy, Formula Supra was there with a Judd V10 and full carbon body. There were multiple Indycars, NASCAR Cup cars, a Formula E car, a Legit LMP2 car. I am incapable of comprehending the awesomeness that some of the drag cars were with features and technologies I don’t even understand the need for and there were dozens of them. And then there was the $2000 challenge winner. A car as displayed that was $3100 all in. There literally was about 8 booths away a set of drag racing lug nuts worth more. 

I really had no Idea what to expect when the lights turned on and the entire Performance Industry started stomping around the convention center.

But all my anxiety and trepidation were for nothing. Response to the car was excellent. Yes there where people who clearly felt that the car was beneath them, but there where more that loved it. Dozens of people told me it was the best in the show. And I got to meet dozens more who said they have followed the build and where so glad they got to see it in person. I got to meet and make several new relationships that will be helpful as I continue to develop the build.

Some highlight moments from the show for me:

Talking to a group from Iceland about the car who where clearly impressed. They where from a Icelandic racing team, which tend to be up there with the hall of champions on innovation and creativity. 

Having the Gridlife organizing crew all standing around the car encouraging me to bring it out this summer and letting me know how much they respect and appreciate the build.

Going to several vendor booths on the other side of the building to talk and having them know the build as soon as I said what car I owned.

Having people with nametags saying that they worked for legitimate famous racing teams and suppliers spend time looking at the car, and asking questions to understand how I did things and why. 

And many more. I truly appreciated everytime anyone had something positive to say about the car. I took every chance I could to cultivate knowledge in people explaining as much as they wanted to know about suspension design, chassis design and any decision I made on the car. 

Anytime the show was open (and even when it was afterhours when it was just people manning booths) there was a constant stream of people around the car, taking pictures, and asking questions. I genuinely hope that someone either at the event or as a result of online coverage is motivated to learn and try something new as a result of seeing my build. I hope that we raised awareness around the $2000 challenge and some new teams come as a result. And I hope that it was beneficial to GRM. I know that they could have had any number of cars in their booth and I thank them for taking the chance to have my car in. I know I really enjoyed the event and the opportunity to hang around with the GRM team for a few days. They are good people and really care about the success of all ends of the automotive community. 

I didn’t spend a huge amount of time walking the show but I did get to see some great stuff when I did. Seeing a real LMP2 car in the LINK booth was an absolute hoot. I have only ever seen them in digital land. These cars are something else entirely. But the similarity in feel when walking up to the LMP360 is shocking to me. It confirmed that I really did actually achieve the goal of making a “LMP car” for $2000.

Seeing builds I’ve followed on social media in person was really neat. Formula Supra is a top notch piece of fabrication. One of the best I have ever seen. Nothing on that car is less then the highest quality. Ryan Tureck said it was a passion build for him and you absolutely can see it. 

Saturday at 4, the end of PRI announcement comes and the absolute scramble to get the car out began. Gumby was there and helped me push it out and up into the parking lot where I went and got the trailer. The 3 lot staging process began and about 2 hours later I was backed up ready to load the car. I took 1 final picture of the car on the trailer as I get ready for the drive home.

Before I pull out of the parking lot I check Instagram. I’ve been tagged in a response saying “pic 7 is @noconesgarage”. I click to find out what it is and it’s this:

Larry Chen who is someone I have followed and respect greatly for what he has done for the car enthusiast hobby listed my build as one of the 10 best from PRI. I was shocked. Look at the other cars on that list it is such an honor to be considered next to them. 

After winning the $2000 challenge and then successfully showing the car at PRI it seems like there may not be much left for the LMP360. Literally everything I could of hoped to achieve and even things I didn’t even think were possible with the build has been done. I unloaded the car and tucked it in next the other obscure cars in my garage planning to decompress, take a bit of time off, and think about what’s next… .    But then...

no worries, it was a good balance of exposition whatever draft # you ended up clicking "post" on.

Congrats on the build and the reception!

re: pushing the car in/out of PRI
is that a "don't run ICE in a building" rule thing?  While I realize the likelihood of LMP360 going back to PRI is probably... below 50%... it makes me wonder about hybridizing the front axle so you can do that kind of thing on "EV" power.

I was pretty chuffed to hear GridLife was encouraging to have it brought out.  Periodically over the length of the build I've noodled through their TA book with this car in mind, "and on the surface", it's hard to say what class they'd want it to run in.  I think, though, that attending some of their events would give you access to some resources for developing yourself and the car as competitive unit.

I wish you could have displayed the midget next to it. Both are badass. 

In reply to nocones :

I'm really proud of you for  what you've done with this build, and I know you're not finished with it yet. Not only have you spent years acquiring the tools & learning the skills to be able to pull this off, but that you were able to envision it & see it through is amazing.

Even if you never touched another project in the future, just being able to look back on the LMP360 and know you've done something that no one else had even considered is sure one hell of an accomplishment. 

I probably speak for a lot of folks here when I say you deserve every accolade that comes your way. Your Herculean efforts to build AND develop a working car can't be understated. As I'm sure you know, most folks never make it past the concept phase, myself included. It's also neat that you take each opportunity to spread the GRM Challenge gospel in hopes to inspire more budget builds. Looking forward to what's in store for the next phases of development.

I appreciate your humility and chuckle at your anxiousness.

So far you have:

Won our hearts

Won Bucky Lasik's respect

Won Top 10 of Larry's 2022 PRI

Won 5 or so GRM Challenge awards

Won the Challenge 2022

I am sure more.

I am waiting for Pastrana and Block to catch wind of this car and I am sure you'd win them too.

I cannot congratulate you enough.

awesome!  There are many people out there who can build cool cars with tons of money.  The low budget, home build nature of this thing makes it significantly cooler than the others on Larry's list, in my opinion.  Great work!

In reply to nocones :

All your words make me happy!  I recommend in the other thread to milk the experience for all it has and it seems you have!

I imagine, like many or us, at age 15 you dreamed of some day owning one of those cool cars featured in the super influential car magazines of the day.  Some technology changes but...accomplished! 

Actually, more than accomplished...exceeded!

This entire build has been impressive. I am glad you had the opportunity to go to PRI and represent your work and show what an be done by a skilled person with determination.

Sorry if you have answered this already or if the question is rude but; What is your background? What do you do as an occupation? You have such a diverse skill set that has been demonstrated through this build I can't put my finger on your skill set. Design, mechanics, wood work, fabrication, welding, machining, finding the right sticks, CAD, fiberglass, sewing, book keeping, time management, social media. The list keeps going. 

Thanks everyone, truly for your kind supportive words.  I am very proud of what I have accomplished with this build and the support everyone gives really means a lot.  

In Reply to NY Nick:  I know I've shared in other threads and maybe throught this thread but it is a reasonable ask.  I am a Mechanical Engineer by education.  In school I was on the FSAE team and had the opportunity to do a lot of fabrication and machining paid for by someone else.  In my career I have worked in multiple industries Office Furnishings, Fluid Filtration, Nuclear Power, and now HVAC Controls.  I have done Product Development, Troubleshooting, Regulatory Compliance, Project Management, Engineering Manager, and Control Programing.  But that alone doesn't really explain things.  My Dad really set the example for me of never meeting a problem you can't solve.  He was uneducated but as good of an engineer as I've ever met.  He was a mechanic, fabricator of things, and Home contractor.  He had a strong work ethic and refused to let "I don't know how to do this" stop him from learning new things and doing.  My Mom helped as well, she is an art educator, artist, crafter, and always had a sewing machine around.  Between the two of them I basically grew up in a 90's version of a Maker space.  They gave me the space and tools to explore things at a young age.  I've tried to take what I learned from them forward into everything I do.  Approaching each opportunity you get in life as a way to learn lets you build your past experiences into something truly great.  People do all the things we try to do so fundamentally I know I am capable I just might not know how yet, so I take my closest experiences and I try.  A perfect example is Body work.  Bondo was built on techniques from drywall work which built on techniques from icing cakes with my mom.   Everything new is like that, find your closest analog from your memory and apply it.

Yes the Mechanical Engineering degree helps when it comes to evaluating loading and understanding materials and processes more deeply, but that Isn't required.  The general thinking and decision making can be cultivated in anyone.   My hope with sharing this build and the detail I've gone into has been to in a way mentor people in this way.  I don't really want people to look at the build and see what thing I did, I want them to see  the build and think what THEY can do.  Sadly my Dad passed away before I finished any of my builds.  I know that he might not understand why I did them, but he would be really proud to see how they turned out.