Color0's Widebody '13 Skyactiv

[jaynsue13]

Rice would be an off-the-shelf-designed-for-another-car-or-no-car in general wing. This one has design as well as computer wind tunnel testing put into it.
Official ruling on the field rates it 1/10 on the rice scale.
Points deducted for lack of power upgrades.

Fair enough

[SKyactivmanny]

Looking good! What CFD are you using for all this?

[Dave_The_BMXER]

I like this guy.

[jwoods_24]

More please.

[asyed]

[MAZDArati]

geezzzzzzzzzzz

[color0]

Sorry for the radio silence but I'm back! This was the route:



Baltimore -> Myrtle Beach -> Atlanta -> New Orleans -> Houston -> Ft Stockton -> Phoenix -> Las Vegas -> Los Angeles -> San Francisco.

So, a recap of all the good, bad and ugly lol...

Day 2 -- Atlanta (900mi):

Met the infamous XCNuse and his racecar! I love it, basically the antithesis of my car in every way except that we both don't have power. :p





Playing Three musketeers with a 600hp Speed!






Day 3 -- New Orleans (1400mi): We grabbed a quick breakfast at an Atlanta market and headed out to the Gulf Coast.





Welcome to French Quarter!



Breaking necks. *:icon_lol:



Bourbon Street is, of course, Bourbon Street, but we finally tried Hand Grenades for the first time! And discovered that they're essentially iced margaritas lol, next time we'll go for Hurricanes!




Day 4 -- Houston (1800mi): Driving into Baton Rouge it seemed like nothing was wrong... and then all of a sudden, we find the front wheels and suspension soaked in Mountain Dew Baja Blast lol. Except that it's not, the Baja Blast was in fact Koni shock oil! I'll find pics of this later as @DomTheGhost has my SD card. Without any tools to deal with it though, we decided to simply continue and drive into Houston on blown shocks.


Day 5 -- Ft Stockton (2300mi): We had planned to meet the one and only Juan Ortega at his place in Ft Stockton at the end of this day, but he had all sorts of problems too it just couldn't be arranged. As those of you who follow him on Facebook may have noticed, two tire blowouts and one axle failure, that sucks! With us on blown (and cracked! pics later) struts, Juan generously lent us his driveway and tools so that Dom and I could crank out our repairs. We quite literally jammed the scissor jack handle into my knuckles, hammered the Konis out, rammed the BC's in and salvaged Juan's discarded zip ties to secure the brake lines to the canisters and didn't give a single f-ck about the alignment. Pictures later...


Day 6 -- Phoenix (3000mi): Strangely enough, the car drove just peachy after our janktastic suspension install and we didn't notice any tire wear going into El Paso, or even into Phoenix, for that matter.



We constantly checked front tire wear at every rest stop but it seriously looked like we did a good job -- even the mpg's were still alright.





Though we kept the car in "limp mode", 50% of our cornering capability is still a ton, which is why this van driver totally surprised us by going 60+ through a mountain pass while towing a scissor lift!



And welcome to Phoenix! Scottsdale, to be precise.




Day 7.1 -- Grand Canyon! (3200mi)





Epic failed selfie:




Day 7.2 -- Las Vegas (3500mi):

As you probably realized by now we're not exactly serious tourists, so I take more fun in capturing the exasperation of my companions:




Day 8 -- More Vegas: Once we discovered Chinatown, we barely spent any time on the strip at all!



We did bring back some neat drinks.




Day 9 -- Los Angeles (3800mi): We landed in LA just in time to put my car back on the alignment rack and see how badly we screwed up the BC install in Texas. Results?

Front Before: L-Camber: -2.3, R-Camber: -2.4, L-Toe: -0.03, R-Toe: +0.02
Front After: L-Camber: -2.5, R-Camber: -2.5, L-Toe: 0.00, R-Toe: 0.00

Almost nailed it! For ramming the struts in and not even stopping to adjusting anything we were less than 0.01 degrees from being bang-on with the front toe lol. But of course we corrected everything back to perfect, and with that, finally reunited with the Cha for Tea gang at a local dumpling house.




Day 10 -- Los Angeles (3900mi): The next morning we finally built Splitter V2 at Castro Motorsports again! Few pictures this time as I was very involved in the building and adjusting of the rods. I designed the rod frame to be compliant for occasional scrapes and easy to replace sections of if I mess something up. I've also converted the bumper to pseudo-quick-release so it comes off in less than a minute.

With all that done and the car finally back to top shape, we washed the car and went to crash the Rita's meet with this guy:



None other than our own MattGentle. So much has changed since we last met, this thing is rad!








Day 11 -- NorCal: After saying our goodbyes (and missing some, sorry!), the next morning we headed up the coast! Taking a stop at the Getty Villa for prettiness.



So many beaches along the coast are simply beautiful.









Nestled in all cozy at home -- and that brings us to the end of our adventure! Total 4,300 miles driven, many places been, and now time to settle back down, I just started a new job and will be sticking around for future shenanigans.



Now that I'm home, I brought my CNC mill back from the dead (7 years since the last boot) and cut some 1/8" fiberglass plate:





New endplates! Going on soon. Just gotta drill a new setting for the wing.

[Dave_The_BMXER]

You da real MVP

[color0]

Looking good! What CFD are you using for all this?

Sorry I missed your reply. I briefly picked up Autodesk CFD for those simulations. I don't know it well enough to optimize anything, just the bare-bones analysis of "Am I being stupid?" lol. Btw I am hella envious of your taillight setup, I need to find time to bake mine open...

[color0]

Doing small things to fine-tune the wing installation. I looked back through my CFD simulations and realized that the wing wasn't far back enough (in reality) to match the sims. Busted out the drill, tap and rod ends from McMaster and fabbed up a little turnbuckle action.



With the 'buckles hanging off the extreme rear edge of the wing risers, you can see how the wing has moved almost 2" further back. The screw-turn wing angle adjustment is a plus! Now that the mounting pattern is more "universal" for different types of wings, I can start gearing up to make a few kits for sale.

[color0]

This has been a great weekend -- all the minor details are getting buttoned up. Hella Supertones, rear wiper delete, fender welting strips, and...

Brake light flasher!

I like it, subtle compared to the rest of my crap.

[FD22]

Cool! Definitely haven't seen that on a 3 yet, myself.

[Mazduh]

That flasher could be really useful!

[color0]

New RSB, all tidied up. Not washed yet though lol, not since the road trip!

[FD22]

Silly Corolla trying to photobomb

Also looks fairly clean for not having washed it in that long haha

[genericmoniker]

First saw this car on Reddit. Looks awesome!

[color0]

@FD22 that's called Lightroom Noise Removal hahaha

So, Streets of Willow CCW: Good, Bad, Ugly

Ugly: God DAMN I forgot to record any of the sessions even though I have a GoPro now. *Track was dusty as hell and I didn't push, so ended up with a 1:37, nothing to write home about.

Bad: Even with 550/600lb springs and the 28.5mm bar, I'm still understeering a little bit more than I want on the track, especially low-speed uphill kinks right after Turn 1 (Skidpad). That behavior + no power = the exit onto the uphill back straight kills me. There's at least 3-4 seconds to be had there, and 1-2 more at the last corner, with more power and the ability to flat-out those uphill corners.

Good: Countered the understeer somewhat by reducing front rebound 1 click and increasing the rear 3 clicks, made the rear freer. Despite my complaints, it grips! In a strange role reversal, I caught Miatas and MR2's in the corners and then watched as they walked away on the straights. After being smoked by a GT-R and two Evos down the back straight, I gained back ground in the Bowl and subsequent corners before getting left behind again in the uphill section.

It looks like at this point a quick RSB adjustment, LSD and a damper revalve will complete the chassis package. I also found a pair of 650lb springs for $90, might jump on that. After that happens we can go a bit more serious with the aero development -- finally graduate to a flat floor + blended diffuser with the resultant downforce and mpg improvements. Some CFD work to be done in the next few months.



Cruised through downtown LA after coming back from the track, nostalgic. I think I feel like an LA boy more than a NorCal boy at this point.

[FD22]

@FD22 that's called Lightroom Noise Removal hahaha

Haha touche


Car looks quite at home on the track. Sounds like the adjustments are really aiding in cornering ability! Next time remember to put the GoPro on so we can see some action

[Kiyomi]

more seat time will net you faster times.

[color0]

more seat time will net you faster times.

Yes but also a setup and track conditions that don't suck haha. I squealed the tires 3 times the whole day, besides that all my traction loss was dust-caused and completely silent!

650lb Hyperco springs are on their way to my rear subframe. I won't have a chance to test it out for a while but I know this change won't kill me lol.

I hope this pic looks OK on your screens -- I absolutely love moody lighting, hope it translates over the interwebs.

[TonyM3H]

wow sick ride man, that spoiler actually works pretty well with the wide body, i like

[loki]

@babcock








Edit (FD22): Sorry Loki, total #ModNoob moment edited your post by mistake instead of quoting it..

[FD22]

Another cool shot!

@babcock

haha

[babcock]

@babcock








Edit (FD22): Sorry Loki, total #ModNoob moment edited your post by mistake instead of quoting it..

haha
you know what. This car is actually appealing, I know it has a lot of crazy mods, but the overall execution seems well done.

[babcock]

To add on, props to the owner for going through with this. It looks very well planned out. It doesnt look like you stuck pieces on without thinking it through. The fender flares are just right, not obnoxious.
The rims are great, PF01 if im correct?

Im a fan!