The Goat's Birkin Under Construction

[DeanG]

How about black flames to integrate the CF nose and air filter? Black chrome the exhaust cover - big bucks.

[thegoat]

I could try for the one that Hank uses on his Westfield, but I have a feeling that is a bike exhaust.

[thegoat]

I expect I will be there afternoon time (330-4p). But I may be 7-less. The car is having trouble running above 4500 rpms which right is thought right now to be a bum crank position sensor. We will see...

 

CPS has been swapped for a different one with no success. Tom is supposed to call Alamo (the ECU supplier) today to see if it is something we are missing. Fingers crossed for being fixed by this weekend and Skip's Great Gathering of Colorado Se7ens...

[scannon]

Good luck Danny. You are welcome to come to the gathering even if the car isn't running.

[thegoat]

I will without a doubt swing by, car or not.

[thegoat]

Long time without an update: the tune has not been messed with for a bit because the cooling on the engine was taken off to replace with some upgrades. The current plan is for me to start the journey from CO to NV on April 17th/18th. Fingers crossed on the tune and the weather. Otherwise, the car is done.

[thegoat]

Here are a few photos of the upgraded fuel and water lines (with a photo of the water lines before). The car is headed down to Salta Motorsports in Denver tomorrow to, fingers crossed, get the tune right. They are Haltech people from what I understand. If all goes well, I am picking it up on Saturday to begin the journey to NV.

[Hank]

Much better job on the routing! Good luck with the tune.

[thegoat]

Tune has been pretty much dialed in, and I left in the car tonight from Gypsum, CO at about 920p. Had a great time driving a windy section of I-70 before stopping for the night in Rifle, CO (not a very long drive - want to make sure the cold start goes all right in the morning before getting too far from Tom's shop). Ear to ear grinning and shouting with joy. Ridiculously good time. Feels good like when I finished adding the SC to the former Exige.

 

Forgot my long sleeve coat, so put on three layers of long sleeve shirts and a vest - and a helmet. Actually wasn't even cold. Nice night.

 

This is a different route than I planned to take, but it was snowing at the eisenhower tunnel today, so I decided to bag heading to Denver first. I will post up some final photos when I get home either tomorrow or the next day (depending on how many hours I can take driving a seven at one time).

[MHKflyer52]

Forgot my long sleeve coat, so put on three layers of long sleeve shirts and a vest - and a helmet. Actually wasn't even cold. Nice night.

 

That is what happens when you are enjoying your new 7 (car) for the first real time. I bet your face will still have a big smile on it when you get home and the cheak musels will hurt from the smile you now have.

 

Have a safe trip and enjoy your ride.

[lancylad]

Hi Goat

Wot Martin said, about the cheek muscles hurting, getting strange looks from people, they all wonder what I've been up to, smile just wont go away. Enjoy.:hurray:

[thegoat]

I made the trip which I will detail in a bit. In the meantime, here are some photos from the Tom's shop, a hotel in Rifle, CO and various shots from along CO and UT.

[thegoat]

And some more.

[thegoat]

and even more

[Mondo]

Very nice!!!

[MightyMike]

Danny - your car looks wicked!

[thegoat]

Ok, so here is the travelogue:

 

Left on Saturday night about 8p or so from Gypsum, CO. It was dark and as I went to climb into the car, I realized that I somehow left my jacket at home. Tom offered me his jacket, but I declined, instead putting on the three long sleeve shirts that I had brought, a vest and my helmet. I then headed off. Stopped to get some gas before jumping on I-70 West. I thought I would drive about an hour or so to make sure nothing fell off before I got too far from support.

 

I had initially had a long and detailed route planned for the route home. However, it snowed that day at the tunnel, so I would not be heading back towards Denver on my preferred route. As the story unfolds, I don't know whether this is good or bad - given the delays I encountered, I think good.

 

My drive to Rifle was fun and more fun. Tunnels and corners abound on that stretch of highway, and I took advantage of them. Tom made me a custom mounting bracket for my Valentine, but I didnt have any velcro, so I just wrapped the power cord around the unit a few times to hold it in place.

 

I had a smooth ride to Rifle where I stayed the night. I got up in the morning and had the hotel's complimentary breakfast and headed out for the day. It was still probably 40 degrees in the sun, and a little cooler in the shade where my car was parked. I had a laptop with me, but my ECU Manager software for the Haltech unit on my car was too old to interface with the ECU in the car. I was concerned this might be a problem and tried to download the software the night before at the hotel, but the connection was too slow. Can't really complain; it was free internet.

 

I wanted the new software so that I could adjust the fuel map if necessary or adjust the cranking when starting it cold. The car took about 5 minutes to get started, but it did start based on the current tune. That was the only time it took that long to start on the trip.

 

After letting the car idle for a bit to warm it up (which doesn't happen with the current EWP and thermostat setup), I set off on my way. It was a great day. The car had some hesitation until it warmed up, but once it got warm, it ran beautifully.

 

I cruised for some time and entered UT. I was pretty much out in the middle of nowhere near Moab when suddenly my elbow got soaked by something. I didn't remember seeing any puddles and wondered what was going on. I then felt that my right leg was also wet. I looked over at the temp gauge and saw it was climbing rapidly and pulled over. I pulled the hood off and saw that the coolant reservoir had discharged a bunch of coolant from getting too hot. I called Tom and we started to talk through the situation. After checking all the hosing, the EWP, the coolant level and other items, we decided that maybe the car had an air pocket in the system or that the coolant was overfilled. I headed on my way and the temp remained fine. At the next stop, about 9 miles away (and without service), I pulled off to make sure everything was ok, which it was, and continued on my way.

 

I don't know how long I drove until I saw the car discharge a little more coolant. I was climbing a hill somewhere out in the middle of UT. I pulled off again and checked everything out. Everything was working. I talked to Tom again and headed on my way. I was getting a little concerned by now, so my eyes stayed glued to the temp gauge.

 

By now, the car would drive for a while and then start to overheat. When it overheated, I would pull off, turn the car off and let the EWP run until the temp stabilized and then head off again. My stops started to become very frequent. At this point, I was literally in the middle of a 109 mile no service gap. I was limping along. Finally I pulled off to a rest area about 50 miles into the no service gap and decided that I would let the car cool down so that I could get a good look at it. After waiting 20 minutes or so and enjoying the scenery, I called Tom yet again to have him brainstorm with me what might be the problem. I noticed that when I turned the ignition on that the EWP did not turn on. Both Tom and I thought, oh crap, dead in the water out in the middle of nowhere. I started checking the fuses in the car and the wiring. I discovered what I thought was a loose connection on the power wire for the EWP. I wiggled the wire a bit and the EWP came to life. Yes! I was no longer dead in the middle of UT. It seemed to me at that time that the crimp on the connector for the wire was not good. I played some more with the wire and discovered that the pump was only running at about half power because of the bad connection. I tried to jimmy it to stay on full position so I could make it the next 50 miles. I literally limped the next 50 miles. That 100 mile stretch took me 4 hours with all the stopping. At one point, while waiting for the engine to cool so that I could get to the loose power wire, I realized that I should have a photo of my car dead in the water because this was how I was spending most of my trip. You can see that below. That will be a forever classic picture for me.

 

Back on the road for a brief bit again, the alternator light started to flick on and off and then finally go on. My volts started to drop and I wondered if I had lost my alternator as well. I was still 20 or 30 miles from the nearest civilization. I pulled off to take a look and discovered that a wire to the alternator had backed itself off - most likely from my jostling of the other wires. I couldn't get it back on with my hands, so I headed off with the hopes that my battery would hold me until the next stop where I could get some needle nose pliers.

 

I severely limped my way to the next service, pulling off regularly to restart the car (I learned that if I turned off the car and restarted it, the thermostat would open and cool the car - it appeared that the cooling was more than just a loose wire - or that the restarting would move the wire back into position). I made it. The service station had a pair of needle nose pliers for $9 which I happily bought. I then headed next door to Denny's to sit down, get out of the sun and eat and think while my car cooled off. After eating, I went back out to the car, put the alternator wire back on and worked on the loose wire some more. Turned out that the crimp was not bad but rather the nut on the power post on the back of the alternator was not tightened all the way down and so the eyelet on the EWP power wire would move and not make contact all the time. I tried to position the wire as best I could and figured I would stop the next day at a mechanic when I found one. It was 6p on a Sunday. I drove all the way almost without any problems until West Wendover, NV. I started to get too hot once, but I was getting off for gas at the time, so it corrected itself while I got gas.

 

I drove about an hour the next morning until the problem started to reoccur. I stopped in Elko, NV and found a mechanic who could fix my problem. There is a picture of that below as well. About an hour later, I was on my way again. Heading across NV on a gradual incline, my car would start to get too warm. It would gradually overheat, not like when the water pump would cut out and the temp would skyrocket. I dealt with this by pulling off and restarting or restarting while driving. It seemed to open of the thermostat in most situations. However, when climbing, this would not fix the problem.

 

With heating issues here and there, I made it back to Incline Village at about 430p just in time for a snowstorm to move in.

 

It was definitely an adventure - not the exact one I had planned - but certainly was not dull. I did get a little tired of dealing with temperature issues. The car looks great - about as good as I expected it to - but there are some improvements to be made. It is also ear-to-ear grinning fun to drive. It is what driving is supposed to be.

 

As an epilogue, I have since come to the conclusion that the current setup of an EWP and a thermostat is not correct. It won't let the car warm up when it is cold unless you run it at a good pace, and it won't keep the car cool when running hot. I am going to remove the thermostat and put a pump speed controller on the car instead. I think this is also what Craig-Davies says is the preferred install (it is a Craig-Davies pump). The two installs they provide are: (i) EWP to supplement the mechanical pump and a switch to activate the EWP or (ii) EWP and no tstat and a speed controller to adjust the pump speed and control the fan. Now, here are the remaining pictures:

Edited April 23, 2010 by thegoat

[Mondo]

I salute you... brave soul.

[MHKflyer52]

Good store and a great adventure that you will always remember I would suspect.

[MightyMike]

Thanks for telling us about your drive home. Glad you got home before the snow.