We took the Drakan down the road to our neighbors at Cunnigham Motorsports the other day to get a bit of tuning done. Out of the box, the GM E-ROD runs really well with our setup. We were not looking for more power from the tuning. We mainly wanted to verify that our tune was not negatively affected by our intake or exhaust solutions and the it was safe enough for the abuse this car will see on the track. Also, GM claims the E-ROD makes 430HP at the crank but we were very curious what our car was actually putting down to the ground via those big 315mm R888s. After a couple of runs, we found that the GM tune is actually pretty good but the guys at Cunningham were able to clean up the air-fuel ratio a bit as well as find us a few more horses. The final peak RWHP number was 412 hp and final torque was 411 lb-ft. To put this in perspective, the very fast 2015 Z06 has about 575 RWHP and weighs in at 3524 lbs, this gives the 'vette a power to weight ratio of 0.16. Not bad, but the Drakan beats it handily with a ratio of 0.21. Of course adding more reliable power to an LS is easily done...not that it needs it!
We are long overdue with an update, sorry as we have been overly busy! We helped finish assembling the first production Drakan up at Palatov. Joe and I have made Portland our second hometown with the ramp up of this car. Luckily Portland is a cool town to visit - shame we are usually too busy working! Since the car arrived to our shop in Temecula, several items were finished including side view mirrors, lights, venting, exhaust testing, suspension tuning and heat management. We'll cover some of these in this blog.
Dave working on his tan
Dave is a happy engineer
David Thilenius came out to run the car along a street test loop that he had used while doing Ride & Handling work at Hyundai. Dave now has his own consulting company, you can visit his website: Thilenius Group. This test loop is a great place to tune ride quality as it has many different conditions and road surfaces that challenge a car. Most people believe that CA roads are smooth - in fact they can be very rough. They can be pretty unforgiving to many cars that were not tuned for these conditions. Dave and Joe drove together with some tools in hand and made adjustments to the Fox Racing shocks and even a slight tweak to front toe. Street testing is done at civil speeds and lots of boring steady-state speeds. This allows Dave to really feel what is going on with the car. After several hours, they landed on settings that I would then get to try out. Some of Dave's comments about the car included that the car was not as 'buzzy' on the road as he thought it might be. The LS3 is not hard mounted to this chassis so the car remains smooth. He also commented about how flat the car handled as it sways very minimally with almost no perceived squat or dive. The suspension compliance is really remarkable and makes the car very comfortable. It does not have the stiffness you might expect in a car that is designed to be so elemental and pure. We think this along with the flat cornering will be very much appreciated by our clients. Naturally I needed to test out Dave's work. So I decided to drive the car up one of my favorite mountain roads: Mt.Palomar. This road is frequented by sport bikers and has plenty of tight turns and elevation change. You may recall the humorous video we made years ago at Palomar.
Gas cap is in the center!
I drove the Drakan down the 15 freeway and was immediately happy with the ride quality. The car is quiet and smooth at freeway speeds and holding a conversation with a passenger is easy. I exited at 76 and went east to Mt.Palomar. I filled her up at Pala and enjoyed the fact that I can park the car on either side of the pump thanks to the center mounted gas cap. The car ran through the bumpy roads comfortably. The suspension simply soaked up the irregularities. This car is a torque monster and I was able to go up the 'slow' side in 3rd gear. It had enough power to pull the car from each corner exit without necessitating a downshift. The grip levels were very high and fully confidence inspiring. The rear of the car could be convinced to come out under power but only if you provoke it. Steering effort builds as the wheel is turned and provides excellent feedback. The steering needs some effort but is so direct that you feel truly connected to the road. We had requested that this effort get reduced and Palatov responded with a geometry change that works nicely on the road as well as track.
Dave's tuning really made for a compliant ride. Dare I say it may be the most comfortable sports car in our stable? This is a testament to Dave's tuning but also the basic suspension design by Palatov. The Fox shock dampening and soft spring rates were selected by us from our track testing and I think they really work well on the street. This chassis is essentially the same raced by Palatov this year at Pikes Peak - they took the win in the Open class. The Palatov D2RS runs heavier springs but is basically the same chassis as our Drakan.
Sportbikers love light sports cars!
Of course, not everything went as smoothly as the ride. We had chosen a new high temp shifter cable housing to test on the car. The manufacturer felt it may be a better solution for us. We had been running a good cable from them on our test mule but also used an additional insulation sheath and had great track performance. These cables are the same construction as the ones we spec on our Lotus TRANScables. We thought the new cables without insulation might suffice. We were wrong. The cables began to freeze up when I was at the top of the mountain. So I drove home with a few less gears than normal. We'll swap back to standard cables + insulation to insure this does not happen again. Other niggles that I noted included side view mirrors that vibrate a bit, the lack of a dead pedal and the need for grip tape on the clutch pedal. The side view mirrors will soon get thicker metal on the base plate and should help stabilize the mirrors. A dead pedal is in the works and adding grip tape is simple enough.
What's with the different spoke count on those HREs?
Overall we are happy with the car and have some additional tweaks to make to it. Many of our clients are asking for wings. We'll get to that later this year. The cornering speeds of this car are already so high that we think most of our clients will be happy enough. Slicks and wings are in our plans - but first we need to catch our breath from getting this car fine tuned...
We are working hard with the Drakan and a few weeks behind on our updates. We been back to the track earlier in April for additional testing and up to Palatov/Lancair for body fitment two weeks ago. We go back again next week to begin building the first official production car. Keep reading to learn the latest...
More Track Testing
Joe and Dave went out to Spring Mountain once again to verify some changes that were made to the car. We had to test our new oil pan baffle, front suspension arms, and HRE wheels. Our previous test on SMMR's East Course 2.1 showed oil pressure dropping to 11 psi when the car was subjected to two quick successive left hand turns under hard braking. This drop in oil pressure was unacceptable to us - Dave is a pro and is driving the car hard so we know this is an extreme case. In all of our previous testing with Dave, oil pressure data was acceptable. In fact we posted about our good performance on this blog entry. Clearly this specific combination of left hand turns was too much for the stock pan to handle. We got in contact with Improved Racing and had them send us an oil pan baffle and crank scraper kit. With the new baffle installed, our lowest oil pressure in the same corner was 24 psi. The Improved Racing baffle will now be standard on all Drakan Spyders with a Dailey Engineering dry sump offered as a future option.
We had a few handling related tweaks to try out as well; a new set of front wishbones and our new HRE wheels. The steering was a bit heavy on our test mule - even compared to similar cars with no power steering. Palatov redesigned the new front wishbones with different geometry that has less caster built in. These new arms are a drastic difference, the steering is now much lighter, and this should contribute to less driver fatigue both on the street and track. Dave appreciated the reduced effort at the end of the test day! The new HRE wheels were also slightly different. The front wheels have a bit more offset and the rears are 0.5" wider than what we were running in previous tests. Dave was pleased with the new wheels, he said the wider front track provided more grip. Admittedly, some of this improvement may have been due to fresh rubber, but the wheels definitely did not hurt the handling.
Ultimately we turned 1:28s time on this circuit. This compares favorably with a new Lotus V6 Cup R that is running slicks and a sequential. This car is turning 1:27s at the hand of our good friend & Lotus Cup champ, Jack. With slicks, we're sure we can shave a second or two off of our time. Other updates
The new switch panel is in and operational. The backlighting looks awesome and the switch location and action is spot on. The ignition switch is locking so you can't accidentally shut off the car. The horn and turn signals can be actuated without removing your hand from the wheel and all the rest of the switches are well within reach. The left hand panel which is home to our master kill switch and brake bias knob turned out well also.
The switch paneling is nice but the new dash from AiM has certainly stolen the show. We posted a quick video on our Instagram page: HERE. The MXS is now in production and it is a bolt in swap from our old MXL2. Functionally, it is almost exactly the same; visually, it is in another league. The MXS features a beautiful TFT display that not only looks gorgeous but offers more flexibility for different page displays. There is a street page with a conventional style dial tachometer, a race page with a sweeping tach, and a test page that can display 11 different parameters at once. We are really pleased with this kit. The Drakan will will be ready for AiM video so owners will be able to add any of AiM's cameras easily. The other notable upgrade since our last post are the new rotors. We decided to up the braking performance of the Drakan with some 12.88" rotors from Girodisc, the same people who make our ULTRAdisc rotors for the Elise/Exige, Evora, and soon Alfa Romeo 4C (testing now). These disks are high quality, well proven pieces that add to the performance and reliability of the Drakan. Another plus of our rotor setup is that they are the same front to rear, this ultimately means that replacement rotors are going to be less expensive. We are thinking about you guys who keep spares and are properly prepared...8^)
Carlos and Joe brought the Drakan mule out to the track for some additional testing with our most competent ride and handling engineer. Dave was able to test the new Fox Racing triples that we installed with two different spring rates. Additionally we were able to confirm brake testing and continue to look at other performance and reliability parameters. SMMR remains our test track of choice as their facility is excellent. We ran the 2.1 East track again on this test.
The Drakan features Palatov progressive bellcranks (patent pending) that deliver very soft rates at full droop and then get significantly harder as the shocks get compressed. We suspected we could run softer than in our previous tests so brought some soft rates to test. Dave preferred the softer rates and delivered faster laps so they will become our choice as they will also deliver better street performance. We did not get a chance to fine tune the shocks (rebound, hi & lo comp) on this trip. This is on our test plan for the next trip.
One issue that revealed itself was an oil pressure drop under heavy braking combined with a hard left turn. Our oil pressures dropped into the teens. The LS motors have a reputation for this issue and in our previous tests, oil pressure was not a problem. We decided a baffled oil pan insert will be our solution to this issue. One is on its way that we will test later this month. We have a Dailey Engineering dry sump option that will take care of any track addicts who want to run slicks and wings. As is, with Toyo R888s and no wings, 1.2g is attainable. We think the pan insert should be sufficient for those folks who only run occasional track days - unless of course they run at Dave's speeds!
Production Body Fitment: Palatov & Lancair
Our first chassis was tack welded together by Palatov and brought to Lancair for us to start fitting body work. Joe and I made the trip to OR to get this process started. Our Drakan chassis features some differences from the D2 - the biggest being the roll hoops. Our clients wanted roll over protection but were not interested in a full overhead cage. Our hoops can be seen below and are only missing the final tubes that triangulate it to the rear.
The chassis uses chromoloy tubes and now features a height adjustable shoulder harness mounts. Side intrusion changes were made to the chassis as well. New front wishbones with less caster have been built (see right) for reduced steering effort at low speeds. We used this chassis to begin our bodywork fitment. We brainstormed with our partners at Palatov and Lancair to develop our mounting strategy for each panel. The Drakan bodywork attaches much like an Atom with simple external fasteners. Several tabs will be welded onto the chassis so that fasteners can then be used to secure the panels. We wanted to be able to remove the front 'hood'/nose and the engine lid without tools.Both will feature a combination of quarter turns and push release pins.
We started with the windshield base. This was our first time to see how the windshield had turned out. A seat was installed in the car and we took turns sitting in the car to check visibility. Though we looked at various perspectives in CAD, nothing replaces sitting in the actual car with actual parts. Our tallest man, Robert (6'4") is shown below in the car. He fits great and looks out from underneath the top of the windshield. Our DOT compliant safety glass windshield is not as tall as a standard windshield - hence the Spyder moniker. This shorter windshield was a concern for us. Robert confirmed that we have a broad range of heights covered. Of course we were also pleased to confirm that his head is well below the roll hoops. We intend to do a windshield-less version as well for the truly hard-core.
We worked closely with our partner, Zukun, to design a body that would be manufacturable and easy to install onto the chassis. Naturally, we discovered that some changes were still needed. The changes have been small but should allow for better manufacturing yields and improved fitment. We are happy with the changes and don't expect it to change the overwhelmingly positive reactions the design has garnered. Palatov will be making carbon fiber fenders for us. We are using the D2 design as it is both cool and functional. One of the first parts can be seen below. More work is needed but they are getting close.
Our first switch panel has arrived and we are pleased with how it has turned out. The panel is back lit so the icons and 'sector111' will be lit up. The ignition switch is a locking type to ensure we don't accidentally shut off the car. The Engine Start button is also lit up and will be easy to see at night. Very high quality switches and wiring all terminating with an automotive grade connector should deliver reliable performance.
We have many more details that we are still working through. New wheels from HRE have been built and I am very excited about them. We have at least 2-3 three more trips up to OR including one that will be our final track test of the first production car. We are shooting to complete this in late April and on track to making it happen.
We brought the Drakan out for testing at Spring Mtn this past weekend. New Nitron shocks, bellcranks, steering arms, half shafts, rear wishbones, AiM dash, new pressure plate and shifter updates needed testing. We ran the car for a total of 150 miles of testing on the East track over the course of two days and 12 sessions. We had three of our clients test the car as well. Our test driver fell ill so most of the driving was completed by yours truly. Overall we had a great weekend and car is proving itself to be the fast and pure car that we desired. Check out the video later in the blog of some laps in the Drakan from this weekend.
The Nitrons were single adjustable with 300/450lb springs front/rear. We started them at a mid position. The 2.1 East track is a smooth track with good curbs. I ran the car onto every curb in an attempt to disturb the handling. We made several shock adjustments until the car ran over the curbs with out disruption. The Drakan really absorbs these bumps and handles very flat. We will test out some different spring rates later this month and have Dave T. help us fine tune the car.
We staged our 'pit' close the the tower so the guys could monitor the Drakan closely and have their tools at hand. Joe downloaded data from the dash after each run. The new MXL2 dash is good with easy to see shift lights. This system is much easier for future upgrades and video integration. The car is rev limited to about 6500 but makes so much torque that shifting early is perfectly fine. In fact I used only three gears (3,4 & 5) on the track. Watch the video and you will see that I am making very few shifts during the lap. Water temps ranged from 190-194deg F. Oil pressures ranged from 26-66psi. Top speed that we saw on the first straight was 130mph.
We ran with Carbotech XP12 pads and had good results. We corrected the brake bias issues in our balance bar and the car performed well. Several adjusts to the bias knob were made and tested on the track and then on the skid pad to get the fronts to lock before the rears. All the clients who tested the car commented that they liked the brake feel. Our new brake set up is completely different so will need validation once we get our new HRE wheels(see pic). I am much happier with the brakes and believe our clients will be pleased.
Of course no testing is complete without a couple of hiccups. I managed to throw off the drive belt on one run. We simply went over to the local auto parts store and bought a replacement and got back on track within an hour. Palatov had sent us a belt guide update that we failed to install - we ran out of time. We now know the importance. In a similar vein, a grounding strap that we failed to install onto the alternator resulted in the alternator degradation. By the afternoon of the second day of testing the data was showing a drop in voltage. Luckily we were never stranded but we parked the car Sunday afternoon to avoid any trouble.
The big boy seat is too large for me so plenty of padding was employed to keep me somewhat secure. The standard seat will be the right choice for most clients but this seat is comfortable for bigger folk.
Our Mono client Pete was out running his car as well. He needed to get the car broken-in so completed two days of easy miles. This car continues to wow people - especially Pete who had been waiting a very long time to get it. This is the fifth car that we have finished. Parts from England remain the biggest constraint but they are flowing now and we hope to complete all of our existing orders by June. We had several of our clients out to blast aorund the track with us. Lotus, Ariel and BAC owners joined us. My good friend Andy brought some Stone Brewing beers for us to drink on Sat for Happy Hr. We enjoyed a nice meal at the Pahrumph Winery and had a great time hanging out with like minded enthusiasts.
We continue working towards our goal completing our first car in March. We have been working hard on many fronts. I made another trip up to Lancair to review our plugs and tooling. We sorted through some details and kept the tools flowing. It's great to finally see the body panels in full size.
The guys have been busy this week getting our test mule ready for additional track testing next week.
Ryan was in last weekend and we made some key decisions on wiring.
We also got some help from our friends at Olloclip and had our headlight 3D printed on their new rig.
We received new Girodiscs,
AP Racing calipers and adapter brackets from Palatov and test fit them. This new brake kit is massive! I suspect they will last a long time...though they are 5 lbs heavier per corner. The stock front wheels don't clear the calipers so we need those HREs...ASAP!
The new bellcranks have been installed but our Nitrons need different spacers. Dennis has filed a patent for this new design and I'm especially excited to see how they perform.
We've also had our interior guy create some rough patterns for us.
We will add some pockets and additional detailing to make it look properly cool.
Did I mention we have installed a new AiM MXL2? We want to ease the video integration that everyone is asking for...yes, we have been busy!
We've kicked off production of Project Dragon - now officially named Drakan Spyder. For 2015 we are accepting only 10 orders - 5 of which are sold as of Dec 15, 2014. This Blog update will discuss the additional CFD work, body tooling, light housing concepts and interior switch details. We have entered our commercialization phase so things are getting even more exciting! Aerodynamic Characteristics: We asked Dennis Palatov to conduct a Computational Fluid Dynamics analysis on our completed Spyder body to determine lift/downforce, drag and radiator cooling flow. Solidworks Flow Simulation 2012 was used using the solid models supplied by our partners Zukun. The simulations were run with and without wings. Test conditions were set at 100mph at sea level with a moving ground plane and rotating surface of the tires. The Palatov D2 has undergone both simulation and observation so we have a good 'control' for comparison.
Test results: Without wings the car creates about 138lbf of total lift and 295lbf of total drag. This is very similar to the D2 numbers. Radiator cooling flow also appears to behave similar to the D2. This is especially critical as we want to ensure adequate cooling exists in hot conditions as we previously tested. With wings the Spyder achieves 15lbf of downforce in the low rear wing position and with the rear wing raised 5" total downforce goes up to 122lbf. Total drag is 307lbf (low) and 322 lbf (high), respectively. The windshield clearly causes some reduction in overall effectiveness of the rear wing. We'll eventually offer a race version of the car that would lack the windshield. Conclusion: This analysis suggests that the Drakan Spyder design has benign aero characteristics in the base (no wings) configuration. With wings, modest downforce can be achieved with enhanced high speed stability. The drag numbers also suggests that top speed may be limited to ~155mph. We think we may be able to achieve both downforce and reduce drag if we consider using a dual element rear wing as we had designed for the Atom2. See it: HERE. Because 155mph is not really enough...;^)
Bodywork: Lancair
We visited our body supplier Lancair in early Dec. to kick off the bodywork tooling. Lancair are a composites manufacturer who specializes in carbon fiber airplanes. They are located in beautiful Bend, OR.
We spent the day working with them to finalize our schedule. Our plan suggests the first body will be ready in March for test fitment. The first plugs are underway (as of this writing) and expected to be done in Jan2015. The engine lid is shown below.
engine lid
e-glass
Lancair produce their airplanes with prepreg carbonfiber. They also use a product called e-glass that is a prepreg fiberglass that is strong and light. We will use this material on the majority of our body. There may be a couple applications like our windshield base that will be done in carbon.
Interior switch panel: Concepts
Our test mule had rudimentary switches that we used to run our car on the track. Placement of the switches has been scrutinized and we've landed on a basic layout that we feel should work for the Drakan. The switches will be very simple with back lighting.
This switch panel will sit to the right of the steering wheel with the 'sector111' logo centered over the gear shifter. All the switches are easily within reach of the driver. Ergonomic considerations can be as challenging as performance targets when designing a car. We've spent an inordinate amount of time sweating the details. The final panel will be prototyped in January.
Lights:
We have spec'd in Hella DOT legal lights for all areas of the car. LED lights have been used in all instances except the headlights which are Bi-Xenon. We have developed a housing concept that took inspiration from tactical tools like flashlights, gun scopes, etc.
We are getting these prototyped as well to see how they look and work. Ultimately our goal is create lights that can be removed fairly easily for track use. Overall, I'm very happy with our design and can't wait to get them.
We headed back to Spring Mountain for two more days of track testing on Sept 5th & 6th. We wanted to see how the Dragon would fare in extreme heat with a pro in the car. Testing in these conditions will ensure that clients have a reliable car on the street or track. I drove it on the first day and we had our pro, Dave, run her on the second.
I drove the car on Friday to shake it down and confirm some of the fixes from our last track day. The car ran well with acceptable oil pressures and coolant temps. Coolant temps hovered around 206degF while on track and creeped up to 212degF when I exited the track without a cool down lap. The oil pressures also looked very good with the lowest #s seen at hot idle (~14psi). The PCV was vented with a foam filter that made a big mess and ended my day after 50 miles of track time. I rigged up a catch can in anticipation of the next day.
On the second day, we ran the Mansell course. There are two corners at SMMR called Pahrump 1&2 that are excellent oil starvation corners. In fact they are so good that GM modeled these same corners at their Milford Proving Grounds back in MI. See image above.
Dave Thilenius rolled in Friday eve so we could get a start on Saturday morning. Dave is our pro driver and IMSA champ, who many of you already know has tested many of our cars. We experienced ambient temperatures from a low of 88degF up to 102deg F in our last session. Ambient temps really dictate how cool a car will run and higher temps will challenge any car run on track. Dave ran several sessions, starting with a 3 lap session to learn the car and get her warmed up. The Mansell configuration has some straights that allow the Dragon to really stretch its legs.
We ran 113 miles on the car over the course of several sessions. Dave averaged about 208-209 degF Coolant temps and Oil pressures that averaged about 29psi. Dave got her up to 149mph on a couple portions of the track. The fastest lap that he managed was a 2min31s lap. This came during the first hot lap in our last session.
During that last session, Dave accidentally shut the car off - we positioned our ignition switch a bit too close to the gear lever. The chart above is from the point that he fired the car back up until he came off the track. This session was also the hottest ambient at 102degF. You can see that the peak temps we experienced were about 212degF. This was a 10 lap session so we are happy with the cooling capacity of the car. Oil pressure also proved to be good. The data shown below is also from the last session. I've circled the areas that define oil pressure in turns Pahrump 1 & 2. The lowest numbers come during heavy braking but the engine is not under load and frankly we are still above the minimum specs recommended by GM at that rpm. The car is running Toyo R888s and has no aero. We will test again with slicks and wings. A Daily Dry Sump solution has already been developed for the car and will be recommended for cars running heavily on track with slicks and wings. I believe as is, the car is suitable for occasional track days - though heat management is still an issue that caused us some headache.
We intentionally ran the car with the factory cats that come with the eRod package. This car exists because of the smog compliant powertrain package. We know there are clients that want to register the car in certain states that require kit cars to meet smog tests. I felt that testing the car, in a smog compliant state, was critical. Frankly, we will recommend that anyone that is focused on trackdays should consider a decat.
The heat generated by the exhausts system (especially the cats) created some more collateral damage. The balljoints in the rear arms were beginning to leak, The trans cooler was located too close and resulted in hot trans fluid. This caused the car to shift very poorly in the last session. We will upgrade to higher weight trans fluid to combat this issue. Though better heat shielding is a must on this car. We have some work to do but it is a straight forward issue to solve.
At the end the day, the car inexplicably stalled and would not restart. We thought we may have locked up the engine. We dumped the oil, checked the spark plugs, scoped the cylinders and even ran a leakdown. Everything looked fine. No issues with the engine. In fact she started right up after cooling down. We suspect the starter may have overheated and refused to crank over the engine. Heat shielding is an absolute must...Palatov have actually sent us some shields that will solve some of the issues.
Watch our quick video:
We also took the time to test out some of the various suspension settings offered by the novel bell crank set-up. Ultimately we found that the softest settings were best and we ran the best time with that configuration. Thorough performance tuning will come at a later date. This was our first stab at it but not a comprehensive one.
We will continue our development. The quotes on tooling for the Spyder body, shown above are coming in now. We continue to press ahead...
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