Building an R1 Powered Seven
A few years ago I got it in my head to build a kit car. After months of searching I came across the Locost concept. In short, quite a few amateur hobbiests around the world have built their own Lotus 7 inspired cars from scratch, following plans available on a variety of Internet sites and published in a book by Ron Champion.
I started gathering parts and finally began building the chassis in July '05. In August '10 the car was titled, licensed and is now street legal. The following blog captures the progress of the build and driving experiences after completion.
I cleaned up most of the wiring yesterday and decided to lower the car onto the ground. Just pushing it around in the garage felt good. One more day to reinstall the dash, check the fuel and coolant lines, fill up with fluids, and I should be able to start the engine.
I still need to figure out what to do with the rear axles (Miata ones are too long). I sent a Miata axle to
http://www.dutchmanms.com/ for them to take a look at. It will be $495/pr and a couple of weeks if they can match the splines. Assuming that works out there's a good chance I'll be able to take it for a spin in September...
A good nights sleep always helps.
This morning I tore apart the harness that I spent hours neatly wrapping to figure out why the headlights and tail lights weren't working. I noticed that there were two yellow/black wires coming out of the ECU, one went to the meter assembly, the other to the headlight relay...maybe I mixed them up when splicing wires....
Turns out that wasn't the case, the motorcycle daylight running lights are linked to engine speed. i.e. when the engine is off the headlight is off. I ran a direct ground to the headlight relay (instead of the yellow/black wire from the ECU) and the lights worked.
The tail lights were an easy fix, closer inspection of the lights showed a terminal layout, I had the wires mixed up.
With that, everything works! Once I add oil, coolant and fuel the engine should run...
I wired up the last few lights today and decided to test things out. It has been a while since I did most of the wiring so I was anxious to see if things worked.
...so I hooked up the battery and turned the ignition switch, carefully listening and looking for strange sounds/sparks/smoke (you never know), as soon as I turned the switch....BEEEEEEEEEEP !!!! &$?!*!?! It's amazing how loud a motorcycle horn can be inside your garage.
I turned off the ignition, took a few deep breaths to bring my heartbeat back to normal, then scratched my head trying to figure out what happened. Tested the horn button, seemed okay, then pressed it a little harder and "click". That's odd, a momentary switch shouldn't click...turns out it's an on/off pushbutton switch (that happened to be in the on position).
With the horn temporarily fixed I tried again, no horn, but the turn signals were flashing. Didn't take long to figure out that I used the same switchs for the horn button and turn signals...
I didn't see any smoke or hear strange noises so proceeded to check everything out
fuel pump, starter, front turn signals, front marker lights...check!
rear turn signals, brakes, marker lights and headlights...nothing...
Tomorrow is another day...
