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V1 Ark's City Goblin #187 (2008 SS/TC donor)

Ark :D
I am a very mild driver compared to most of you, anyway. Street only, and none of my regular traveling goes anywhere near major highways, so I'm under 60 mph nearly 100% of the time.

But @Gtstorey I appreciate the heads-up and will keep my eye on the boost gauge, for sure.
 
G
The experienced LNF tuners on HPT ( a pretty small number) recommend staying under about 23 psi. More than that and replacing the turbo will happen a lot more often. Of course your experience may be different.
 
Ark :D
A couple minor updates on my car.

The mild tune I installed a little while ago has been great. The most noticeable impact of the tune has been how the engine runs now. The tune seems to have smoothed out some of the wrinkles that appeared when the Cobalt morphed into a Goblin. Good stuff for sure. I am a street driver only, but I'd call my style "spirited" and thus far, I've topped out around 21 psi. Feeling pretty good about it and might offload the MPVI2 soon to recoup some costs. Maybe not though, I don't know yet.

Reworked my alignment recently. My rear tires were showing some uneven wear, so I put in a second set of camber bolts on each side and now both sides are really close to -.5 degrees. I also rechecked the toe in the back and I think I had some minor crabwalking going on. Fixed that (double, triple, quadruple checked with toe plates, etc) then redid the front alignment as well because redoing the back knocked my steering rack off-center. I think I am just going to find a shop willing to do a professional alignment, and be done with it.

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Last but not least, I changed out my dash buttons and lighting to better match my current color scheme. I like it.

20230910_113513.jpg
 
Ark :D
I say the same d*** thing to myself, every year, with this car. "No major updates planned." Yet somehow, I always manage to come up with a list of things to do. Such is the life of owning a home-built kit car, I suppose!

Here's my concrete plans for 2024. All are in motion now.
  • Replacement floor pan - I made a big mistake, coating my floor pan when I built my car. The coating just hasn't held up. The underside is fine ... I coated that with some sort of rubberized stuff. The problem is, the truck bed liner I used on the top side of the pan. For the last two years, I'd had to get in there and scrape off bubbled-up coating and "patch" it. At some point, some brake fluid dripped from the reservoir onto the coated pan and just ate up the coating, and even with no drips, I can't properly get the coating to stick now. Add in the fact that I dinged up the pan a little bit when I was mounting my seats, and well ... I'm tired of it, so I acquired a new floor pan from Adam, some time back, and will install it without any coating.
  • Shallow subwoofer - I acquired a NVX QBUS10P self-powered, shallow subwoofer to augment my sound system. I figured the time is right, since I will have the seats out to replace my floor pan. I'm hoping to fit it under the passenger seat, but we'll see. I'll get it mounted, somehow.
  • New rear-cam/perf metrics monitor - One of the weaker choices I've made in my build, as far as I am concerned, is the monitor I chose for my full-time rear camera. It is mounted via a suction cup to my windscreen. This presents problems ... every so often, the suction cup loses its grip on the windscreen and falls off. This leads to cleaning the windscreen, which if massive care is not taken, leads to a scratched-up windscreen. Also, for a long time, I've wanted to get some additional performance metrics visible, so I chose a 7" IPS screen and a camera-style bar clamp to mount it without suctioning it to the windscreen. We'll see how it turns out once I fully install it, but it looks to work well in my mock-up install. And finally, this monitor has a HDMI input to better support the next item...
  • Secondary dash - To go along with the monitor above, I think it's finally time to pursue making my Raspberry Pi dash. I ordered a wired USB-OBDII adapter and will revive this project. It's been a while since I've looked at it, so I need to refresh myself on where my Pi 4 stands in terms of software.
  • New headlights - I have no logical reason for doing this one; the existing headlights still work great, I guess I am just ready for a different look. So I grabbed some new headlights and buckets, in addition to some harnesses for a clean look. I don't think that link actually leads to the lights I got; my wife got them for me for Christmas, but they're very similar.
  • New body color - Yep, I decided on a new color scheme and have the materials in my possession. I'm not going to divulge the color I choose just yet, but I am sure it'll have some of you shaking your head, asking "Why?". I do think I have arrived at the car's "forever color" though ... I just really, really dig it. We'll see how it turns out, once it's done.
  • New underside lighting - Decided to remove the existing lighting and go with something higher-quality instead. This was almost necessary, as the floor pan is coming off and I want to install the new lighting in a different way than I installed the old.
  • Painted calipers - I'm going to clean and paint the brake calipers. I haven't decided on which color yet; I need to decide between going with a neutral color so I can continue to change the body color at will every year, or going with a color that's specific to the new body color scheme I went with.
  • Fingerprint Starter setup - I have acquired all the bits I need to finally make a secure keyless-start system. I still have some design work to do on this item, so I am not 100% set on how it'll work. I know there will be three separate pieces that all need touched to start the car: a latching power button that places the ignition in the "On" position; a hidden toggle switch somewhere that enables/disables said latching power button; and a fingerprint sensor attached to a relay that will crank the engine when a matching fingerprint is detected. All of this is, of course, contingent on all the components being quality stuff ... if any of it is half-a**ed, I won't do it and will just continue to use the Cobalt key/ignition setup.
I think that's it for now. Next year will definitely be different seats/harnesses, since I might actually be out of ideas by then. LOL!
 
Last edited:
Robinjo
I've considered underbody lights as well, what did you go with there? Just something to make the vehicle easier to see at night would be great.
 
Last edited:
Ark :D
Robinjo said:
I've considered underbody lights as well, what di you go with there? Just something to make the vehicle easier to see at night would be great.
Click to expand...

I'll have to check what I picked up, when I get home from work. I'll get you a link later today.

Desert Sasqwatch said:
Curious to see if that subwoofer fits under the seat? Heck, for that price put one under each seat and double the fun! Crank them tunes! :cool:
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We'll see! If I have no choice, I'll put it behind the seat. I'm not expecting a ton in terms of the quality of the sub or the output level. The price was right so I grabbed one on Black Friday for even less.
 
Ark :D
Robinjo said:
I've considered underbody lights as well, what did you go with there? Just something to make the vehicle easier to see at night would be great.
Click to expand...

@Robinjo I went with these, I got them on a Black Friday deal back in November so they weren't as spicy then. I'll be getting a connector kit as well so I can cut the strip and size it correctly for the underside of the floor pan.
 
Desert Sasqwatch
Are those strip lights going to be weather proof enough? They are IP64 rated, most 'outdoor' electronics is rated IP67. If you don't drive in the rain or soak the underside too much while washing your Goblin you will probably not have much of a problem. Just wanted to put this out there as info.
 
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