My Grassroots Motorsports $2009 build

[Shaun41178(2)]

Congrats on placing 20th. sounds like you had a good time. how many cars were there this year competing?

[Indy]

Good job on the best-engineered trophy!

Well deserved.

[Nashco]

There were 50something cars there. I definitely could have placed higher if not for the last minute problems, oh well...shoulda, coulda, woulda. I was just glad to avoid any DNFs after having travelled all that way and be able to show the potential of the EV stuff.

I'll be thinking for the next few weeks on my plans for the car...whether I should continue developing it (focusing on getting the batteries repaired, then suspension rebuild and engine swap), put the powertrain into a different car (perhaps something a little lighter to start with), or sell the Fiero to somebody else who wants it more than I do and start on the next badder, better, faster project.

Bryce

[Shaun41178(2)]

overall winner of hte GRM challenge. Just a civic. Looks like you can make them fast for little money. /sarcasm

it ran an 11.84 in the qtr. Now what do fiero owners say about putting XX amount of dollars into a fiero and it will wax XX car on the road. Well everyone with the same budget, civic comes out on top. think V8Archie could do build a 11.84 v8 fiero for $2010 dollars? Could I build a fiero for that and run 11.84? Probably not.

http://www.honda-tech.com/showthread.php?t=2663882

[Nashco]

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. The Civic that won has been to the challenge for three years in a row and had (literally) dozens of people working on the car... of course they took the tires home! The winning car wasn't really my bag, but it was obvious they'd poured a ton of blood, sweat, and tears into it. That's an awful lot of work for a set of tires (and the glory and good times that go along with it).

Bryce

[Nashco]

The Fiero has been on a bunch of websites now and so far making the Jalopnik front page was my most proud...but I think this one has them topped:

http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11 ... -for-1600/

Pretty cool!

Bryce

[The Dark Side of Will]

Sweet, mang... Google hits!
When does NashCo Motorsports open its doors?

[Nashco]

Sweet, mang... Google hits!
When does NashCo Motorsports open its doors?

Well I'd say the doors are open once a paying customer walks into my shop. As the old saying goes, "Cash talks."

Bryce

[AkursedX]

Congrats man. You have really done something quite amazing and have been more than deserving of all the press you have received.

[Shaun41178(2)]

have you been able to do any real world gas mileage tests yet?

[Nashco]

have you been able to do any real world gas mileage tests yet?

Highway = 30 mpg (gas only, same as stock)
City = bajillion mpg (electric only) until I run out of battery
Racing = Live my life a quarter mile at a time (read: same fuel economy as stock, except the car is way faster in the quarter)

Remember, this thing isn't super integrated (like a Prius or similar current OEM hybrid) to blend together the engine and motor to maximize fuel economy. Really, I created this thing for performance first. Fuel economy would be calculated like a Volt or similar if I was trying to conserve fuel; drive it with zero gas until the batteries are done, then switch on the gas engine until your trip is over. In my case, the Fiero wouldn't get very far on battery power alone. However, if I was sitting in stop and go traffic, in the city, in the staging lanes, etc. I can just shut the gas engine off.

It was a lot of fun at the drags to move along the staging lanes with EV power. While everybody else was pushing their car in the Florida heat/humidity to keep the engine off, I got to stay inside the shade of my car and just hum forward with the electric motor. Everybody got a kick out of it. I'm still having fun playing with it, FWD EV burnouts from a Fiero are hard to get used to. A perk of the manual trans, which is more difficult to integrate than an auto would be, is that if I want to start the engine when the EV motor is powering the car I can just bump-start the engine and not have to use the 12V starter.

Of course, with more integration work I *could* make the car juggle electric and gas power to maximize fuel consumption, but that's a long way down the road (if ever)...I'm still trying to iron out the bugs of what I have, stuff like that is just dreaming right now.

Bryce

[Shaun41178(2)]

how many miles can you go on a full charge? 10? 20? Even so, if just running down to the store, its still no gas being used which is cool.

[Nashco]

how many miles can you go on a full charge? 10? 20? Even so, if just running down to the store, its still no gas being used which is cool.

I haven't done any full-to-dead driving yet, but I suspect more like 3 or 4 miles worth of city driving. My commute to work is about 3 miles (and mostly downhill) so I figure I should be able to drive it to work in EV mode and back home on gas. I plan to test that out in a couple of weeks, I've got some repairs to do (from the Florida adventure) to do before that.

Bryce

[The Dark Side of Will]

have you been able to do any real world gas mileage tests yet?

A perk of the manual trans, which is more difficult to integrate than an auto would be, is that if I want to start the engine when the EV motor is powering the car I can just bump-start the engine and not have to use the 12V starter.

Of course, with more integration work I *could* make the car juggle electric and gas power to maximize fuel consumption, but that's a long way down the road (if ever)...I'm still trying to iron out the bugs of what I have, stuff like that is just dreaming right now.

Bryce

The pressure pump/accumulator assembly from the early '90's Teves anti-lock systems can store brake fluid at 2600 psi. You might be able to pirate the isolation/dump valve pack from that or a similar ABS unit and use the setup to operate a clutch with electronic controls. You cuold reprogram one of Whipped's trans controllers or add a few lines of code to a megasquirt to control it. You'd also have to make a new master cylinder (maybe with a 1/2" bore...)

[Atilla the Fun]

overall winner of hte GRM challenge. Just a civic. Looks like you can make them fast for little money. /sarcasm

it ran an 11.84 in the qtr. Now what do fiero owners say about putting XX amount of dollars into a fiero and it will wax XX car on the road. Well everyone with the same budget, civic comes out on top. think V8Archie could do build a 11.84 v8 fiero for $2010 dollars? Could I build a fiero for that and run 11.84? Probably not.

http://www.honda-tech.com/showthread.php?t=2663882

So the same car, times three years, that's $6024, right? For $6024, I could put my Mustang in the high 11s and pull 1g and so on, the only way he ran an 11.84 for $2009 is if he ran that quick the first year he won. Otherwise it's just a winning car plus $4017 of acceleration improvement.

[The Dark Side of Will]

So the same car, times three years, that's $6024, right? For $6024, I could put my Mustang in the high 11s and pull 1g and so on, the only way he ran an 11.84 for $2009 is if he ran that quick the first year he won. Otherwise it's just a winning car plus $4017 of acceleration improvement.

Just like any other racing series, you're not competitive until you've sunk multiple years of development money into your effort.

[Atilla the Fun]

Except drag racing.

[Nashco]

overall winner of hte GRM challenge. Just a civic. Looks like you can make them fast for little money. /sarcasm

it ran an 11.84 in the qtr. Now what do fiero owners say about putting XX amount of dollars into a fiero and it will wax XX car on the road. Well everyone with the same budget, civic comes out on top. think V8Archie could do build a 11.84 v8 fiero for $2010 dollars? Could I build a fiero for that and run 11.84? Probably not.

http://www.honda-tech.com/showthread.php?t=2663882

So the same car, times three years, that's $6024, right? For $6024, I could put my Mustang in the high 11s and pull 1g and so on, the only way he ran an 11.84 for $2009 is if he ran that quick the first year he won. Otherwise it's just a winning car plus $4017 of acceleration improvement.

No, you've got it all wrong. Even if you bring the same car year after year, it can still only cost $200X. You can iterate and replace a $200 part with a $120 part that took 40 hours to rework and make room in the budget, but you don't just get more budget. Actually, you do, you get an extra $1 per year. Also, I don't know anything about your Mustang, but keep in mind the purchase price of the car is included in your budget. That's why I didn't use my GT, I paid a bunch for it long, long ago and found a good deal on the Formula I ended up using.

I had about $350 left in my budget this year. That means that next year I can still spend about $350, more if I find a way to get rid of some money I spent this year like a cheaper electric coolant pump or cheaper sail panels, etc.

Bryce

[Atilla the Fun]

The one that Jegs sells for $250 can be had for $215 from www.competitionproducts.com. That'd be $35, if it applies to you.

[The Dark Side of Will]

Nothing on any GRM car came out of a catalog.