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FIRST DRIVE!!! I kind of can't believe that all this stuff I put together works. Beyond excited.

Video my wife took of the actual first time the car moved on it's own power:


The GoPro video of the first actual drive is unwatchable because of a horrible grinding sound from the right rear the entire time. Turns out the dust guard around the brake disc was bent and contacting the disc. With that bent out of the way, the second video of the trip around the block was much better.

Video from GoPro:


The clutch issue I mentioned was yet another frustratingly simple thing to fix. The issue I had was that the clutch wasn't disengaging when the arm was actuated. It turns out that when R1s sit for a really long time, the clutch plates stick together. According to the R1 forums, to fix it you pull the clutch lever and rock the motorcycle back and forth as hard as you can until the clutch plates come apart. It's a little harder to do this with a Locost, but it took about a dozen times and I could feel the plates unsticking. Amazingly simple, and I never would have imagined.

Speaking of clutches, the learning curve of driving a car with absolutely no clutch feel whatsoever combined with a hair trigger throttle is quite steep. You just have to sort of guess where the clutch bites. Hopefully practice makes perfect. I will have to do something about the short travel of the throttle though.

I still can't believe I drove the thing. Celebrating with a beer at the moment (Lagunitas Hop Stoopid, if anyone is interested).

Woo Hoo! Congrats, Andrew! Good test drive!

Love the name of your brew! It's 0745 here, so I guess I'll return the toast with my morning coffee, if ya don't mind.
(Community brand, New Orleans blend coffee and chicory.)

JD Kemp

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JD, father of Quinn, Son of a... Build Log
Quinn the Slotus:Ford 302 Powered, Mallock-Inspired, Tube Frame, Hillclimb Special
"Gonzo and friends: Last night must have been quite a night. Camelot moments, mechanical marvels, Rustoleum launches, flying squirrels, fru-fru tea cuppers, V8 envy, Ensure catch cans -- and it wasn't even a full moon." -- SeattleTom

NICE!
and the beer and coffee

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this story shall the good man teach his son,
and chrispin chrispian shall ne'er go by,
from this day to the end of the world.
but we in it shall be remembered.

Congratulations, Andrew. Bet that foaming soda tasted grand (well, it always does, but maybe grander)
The engine sounds great. As to the clutch, have you thought about adding a stiff, external return spring? As you probably know, different build logs have come up with a variety of ideas. I'm still leaning towards a hand lever; ie. Paigeo's build.

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Martin


My build log:
viewtopic.php?f=35&t=14520&start=0
My build video:
https://vimeo.com/143524140 password "matovid"

Congratulations on the first drive! One question, though. Is it me or is there something a bit dodgy about your steering? Seems like it was wandering. I wonder about your wander?

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-Keith

Thanks to everyone for all the kind words. I've watched many first drive videos on this website and was always happy for the builder. I also couldn't imagine the feeling of actually driving the car for the first time. I'm happy to report it's as great as I thought it would be.



I will definitely be playing around with this. I honestly haven't thought much about it yet, but I definitely will in the future. I worked on and drove Formula SAE cars back in college, so I was prepared for the light switch clutch pedal...I only stalled a couple times, compared to the 9 or 10 times when I first drove a FSAE car.



It definitely was wandering all over the place. I will chalk it up to the fact that I was so anxious to get the first drive over with that I did not even bother doing a rough alignment when I put everything together. The two front wheels have a comically large amount of toe in, and they're not even remotely the same. Doing a rough alignment using string is probably the first thing I will do. Hopefully that will fix the instability.

one thing you can try is changing the leverage ratio on the foot pedal, to give more relative pedal travel per clutch engagement. if you spread the pedal movement out over the engagement band of the clutch, it'll improve feel. try moving the cable attachment closer to the pedal pivot. if its a hydraulic clutch, you can either lengthen the pedal, or use a master cylinder with a smaller piston.



oooh, yeah, toe-in BAD. Toe-in will cause alot of steering instability. toe-out is definitely preferable. for just test driving, you can actually get pretty close by simply eyeballing the angle of the front wheel relative to the rear wheel. its won't get you to that last 16th of an inch, but it'll get you really close if you're careful. good luck and congrats on the first drive! JEALOUs.

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The B-3 build log: http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=13941 unfortunately, all the pictures were lost in the massive server crash

The beginnings of the Jag Special,
https://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=19012
Again, all pictures were lost.

As are all of us for you. That is a rare and remarkable feat, building something out of a whole bunch of little tubes and random parts and then driving it down the street. Definitely not something everyone can do. Congratulations!

Wait, Toe-Out is bad? It makes the car dart-y and is far more dangerous for a street car due to the unstable steering yanking the car whichever way the immediate pavement is cambered. Toe In lends to straight line stability and is what every car on the road was designed with. Neither is very good in large or uneven quantities though.

I'm happy to report that I did a quick ballpark alignment, and the car drives like a car should. It tracks really straight and stable. So in case you were wondering, about an inch of toe in on both sides is not a good thing, and makes your car wander back and forth.

The car has very little self centering steering, so I will be playing with adjusting the caster.

Congrats on the first drive. My first auto-x in mine I actually set toe out in the rear vs toe in it was quite a hand full.

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Chris White
Locost 7 type 1 power and a rear transaxle
Lotus Elise Sold
ND Club Miata
Nissan Titan Sold
Rubi Wrangler
http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=13200

Yea, in watching that I was going to say right off the bat that you need way more caster.
Toe in guys? Not here. Always toe out as far as I am concerned. Should be about 1/16 to 1/8" out. Toe in is when the car follows the irregular pavement.

Get yourself more caster and then get the Toe dialed in. Can't do toe before caster.

Hey Andrew, do you know what your caster is now?

whoops, didn't see your question until now. Caster is at 7 degrees, if I recall correctly. Just to experiment, I flipped the a-arms over to increase caster (sorry, don't know what angle that ended up as), and it didn't help matters when it came to self centering. I think part of the problem might be that I've been rolling around on the stock Miata wheels and tires (185/60/14), which are much, much smaller than the 205/50/16's I designed around. So I flipped the a-arms back to original configuration, and intend to test drive it with the new wheels and tires. Haven't done it yet, but will do so and report back.

Speaking of new wheels, I finally bit the bullet and bought tires to mount onto the wheels. Wheels are 16" Konig Feathers, which I bought from the Discount Tire ebay store for $460 plus a rebate for a $100 Visa gift card. Not a bad deal for a set of wheels that weigh 15.2 lbs each. Tires are Dunlop Direzza ZII's. I've never bought such soft sticky tires before, I can't wait to try them out.

I got to the point where I wanted to fabricate the mounts for the rear fenders, which necessitated the wheels and tires to be mounted. So I'm working on the fenders now, but in the meantime, I mounted the nose with dzus fasteners and made the lap belt mounts. Of course I had to push the car out for some pictures of the wheels.


(note: if you think there are tubes missing to reinforce the rollbar diagonals, you'd be right. they haven't been welded in yet)


Once the rear fender flanges are mounted and the antisubmarine belt mount is made, I'll be taking the car out for one more joyride, then taking everything apart to paint the frame. Not looking forward to that.

Its looking good. You're almost there.

Will you be adding any more tubes to where the roll hoop braces attach to the chassis?

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-Andrew
Build Log
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