I'm starting to wonder….
Do these cars ever get to the point where all the teething troubles are sorted, utterly reliable, inspire you with confidence?
I'm getting to the point where I'm half afraid to open the garage door let alone go out in the darn thing.
Here's a pic of the latest shock horror.
To give you a clue it was 120mm from the exhaust manifold.
Cheers
Paul G
Description
Depends how it's built!
Use new parts
Get a new engine and gearbox and keep it standard
Make sure everything is bolted in right and use thread lock
Drive it steady
Then you have a good chance of it running without issue.
Break the above rules and it won't last.
David
Is that spiral wrap?
quote:
Originally posted by daniel mason
Is that spiral wrap?
Spot on.
Arrowed in red. Runs under the top chassis rail marked with blue line.
That's quite a way from the manifold, or so I thought.
Wires were ok. Just the wrap melted.
Paul G
Description
With cars (in fact with most things), you can plot reliability using the 'reliability bath tub curve'. What this typically shows is you have
three main phases of reliability. The first part of curve where your car is more susceptible to failure is called the EFR (early failure rate), this
is picking up issues caused typically by the build. Basically in the first few hundred miles you are more likely to see failure. Once this phase is
over, the curve settles into 'IFR (intrinsic failure rate) - typically this flat lines for a long time until the third part of the curve kicks in
- wear out. This is when components start to give up due to their designed life.
Yawn, I've even board myself writing that down!.
I brought mine built and let someone else, more experienced than me, deal with the teething issues.
This gave me the chance to enjoy a 95% reliable car. Time spent driving and tinkering lets me slowly find my way around the world of kit cars.
Bought not built and proud of it. The best way into the scene in my eyes.
I wish I bought pre built one now. I could have taken it completely to bits and rebuilt without endless fricking brackets and issues that a new
builder has to think about. Oh and saved £5k
I would think it'll get more reliable as you sort issues. My isn't even Iva yet and some of the rubbers have perished!
[Edited on 8/7/15 by Irony]
I think things like find out just how hot exhausts get and just how easily things melt can only be found out with time and experience of your car. Which does tend to mean that you find out what breaks by it failing. The clutch master cylinder on mine was a major pain for me, as the builder (who was clearly a cowboy) used a 1" cylinder instead of the 1/2" it should have been at that pedal ratio for a BEC, so the slave kept blowing it's seals out. It took me ages to figure out the problem, and then finally a weekend to re-do the master with a new bracket and mountings. After that it was faultless. There's no real way round these things, other than hard won experience!
quote:
Originally posted by Irony
I wish I bought pre built one now. I could have taken it completely to bits and rebuilt without endless fricking brackets and issues that a new builder has to think about. Oh and saved £5k
I would think it'll get more reliable as you sort issues. My isn't even Iva yet and some of the rubbers have perished!
[Edited on 8/7/15 by Irony]
All cars will have teething problems, not driving it is not the answer
Took me about 2 months to sort out.
I never went more than a 10 mile radius from home before I felt confident, then 2-300 mile trips at the weekend, with 30-40 mile trips in the evenings
became the norm.
It's funny how "Just popping to the (1/2mile away) garage" took an hour
I did 2000miles in the first 3months
I'm actually looking forward to the unreliability? As long as I'm not dumped in the middle of a foreign country with a broken driveshaft (
), then I'm looking forward to having to 'tinker' on a regular basis.
I had planned to do the same with my motorbike, but the damn thing is far too reliable!! The only thing I have to do on a regular basis is replace a
fork oil seal every couple of years due to pitted chrome.
we spend months or years building them, and then months and years agian sorting the issues out, or making it better,
suppose that's why production cars are so expensive they have to iron out all the little issues and that's time which is money ££££
still once fixed its another problem solved,
best of luck with the car hope it can only get better
quote:
Originally posted by INDY BIRD
we spend months or years building them, and then months and years agian sorting the issues out, or making it better,
suppose that's why production cars are so expensive they have to iron out all the little issues and that's time which is money ££££
still once fixed its another problem solved,
best of luck with the car hope it can only get better
After a few initial problems mine has been surprisingly reliable, though I don't do many miles.
It's never actually stopped or failed to start, and nothing serious has broken (exhaust mount). It's passed every MOT bar one which was rear
brake seals so nothing major.
I've done several track days as well and always driven there and back.
I think the best advice is to keep things simple. The most complex bit on my car is the Megajolt and it will run without that, bike carbs also seem
much more reliable than EFI (and infinitely easier to fix if they go wrong) in my experience, but many will not agree with that.
Stu
[Edited on 9/7/15 by SJ]
You give me new hope Stu.