Denver Gray here just saying Hi

[Denver Gray]

My "Perfect Post"

• My name is Denver Gray
• I'm born and raised in New Orleans
• I do not currently own an Atom but I am in the market and will be buying one shortly

Sorry for the typos in advance.
Currently trying to figure out how to modify my driveway approach to accommodate for an Ariel's clearance. Does the forum have any thoughts on this subject? Any direction would be hugely helpful and I look forward to nerding out on my dream car. Little bit of back story I started out driving a Ford Crown Victoria (white so it looks identical to an older police car menus the tint) over time built my way up to a C6 Zo6 which i traded for a 06 Cayman s. Drove the Cayman for a year or so and got into track driving eventually upgrading to a 2011 Porsche 997 911 GTS which I just sold because I still have that old Crown Vic as my daily and I realized my dream car (the Ariel Atom) would get used just as much if not more than my higher maintenance and insurance Porsche. So i sold the Porsche and now that I'm figuring out my dive way/ garage for the Ariel have started seriously looking for one and have one i might actually be getting next week... but we'll see if it's close enough to what I want. I think the one I'm seeing next week is a 2s with the supercharger and everything a local car collector owns but never drives. Any red flags I should look for when I go and see it? Key points or just general bullets of things i should be looking for and wary of would be great. Look forward to taking part in the community.

[Terry Kennedy]

Currently trying to figure out how to modify my driveway approach to accommodate for an Ariel's clearance.

In 34,000+ miles of driving an Atom I've had very few instances of ground clearance problems, excluding the time my GPS app had me driving down the side of a mountain on an unpaved abandoned segment of the original Santa Fe Trail. If you are definitely going to scrape, you could try some ramp extensions (do an Internet search for "trailer ramp extensions").

I think the one I'm seeing next week is a 2s with the supercharger and everything a local car collector owns but never drives. Any red flags I should look for when I go and see it? Key points or just general bullets of things i should be looking for and wary of would be great. Look forward to taking part in the community.

An Atom 2 in the US will almost definitely be a Brammo car with an Ecotec engine. Take a look inboard of the left rear shock absorber and see if the air intake line is a smooth molded piece or something that looks like a oversized vacuum cleaner hose. If it is smooth, that means that the previous owners kept up with at least some of the Brammo fixes. Another thing to check is if the car has the correct rod ends. Look at any of the suspension A-arms or pushrods and inspect the rod ends. They should either be silver in color or yellow-ish with a very smooth outer surface. If they are yellowish but have a rough surface and an obvious "waistline" like this, the car is likely missing almost all of the fixes. Almost all of the Brammo retrofits are described here. There's also a useful pre-purchase inspection checklist by forum member bolus there. Note that some of the retrofit parts such as the molded air intake and the ECU are no longer available, and if the car doesn't have them already, you're going to need to look at alternatives (like buying a tunable ECU and starting from scratch).

If you post the last 6 characters of the VIN, we can see what is known about the particular car.

Other things to be aware of are the rear wheel bearings and hubs which can fail if the car is tracked and / or running wider or stickier tires than normal. In those cases, regular inspection is advised. There were at least 2 aftermarket upgrades offered, by Palatov and Unique Fabricating. Both are no longer stocked, but may be available by special order. Lastly, the alignment thimbles on the 4 upper suspension A-arms have occasionally cracked. There doesn't seem to be any pattern to when / if that happens - mine were intact (but one had signs of developing future fractures) at 30,000+ miles. Other owners have had one fail at much lower mileage. This seems to be related more to poor roads (potholes) than track usage. Unless the history of the car is known, it would probably be a good idea to proactively replace them. TMI should have the originals in stock at a reasonable price; there was a group buy here of aftermarket ones some years ago, but the vendor probably has a minimum order requirement. Lastly, many of the Brammo cars had fuel tank gaskets that fall apart over time due to not being gasoline-resistant. The usual symptom is a car that will idle fine, but will stumble either on any acceleration or during heavy acceleration. You can shine a light down the fuel filler neck - if you see brown crud in the tank, you'll need new gaskets and either a replacement fuel pump assembly or a good cleaning of the fuel pump and pickup "sock" filters. Gaskets should be available from TMI; the pump is the stock pump from a 2005 (no matter what year the Atom is) Cobalt SS. Changing it is an art (no, you don't actually have to remove the engine).

All of the above applies only to the Brammo Atom 2's. UK Atom 2's (very rare in the US) and TMI cars use many different components and thus this stuff doesn't apply.

Don't let all of the above put you off from considering a Brammo car - when the retrofits have been applied and the car is properly maintained, the car is fine and I put over 34,000 miles on mine before I sold it. Just remember that those cars are 7+ years old at this point and how they have been maintained affects both the quality and price of the car. Note that I'd prefer a car with some real mileage (thousands of miles) vs. a car that just sat - I've seen ones advertised as "only 250 miles!" and I'd be more worried about those than ones that had actually been used.