v8 Atom in Colorado

[rhoutris]

Hi All,

I have Dennis Palatov's v8 Atom here in Colorado. I run it at the local karting track and the High Plains Raceway and Miller Park. Believe it or not I have never seen another Atom. If anyone has one near by, I would love to hook-up with them.

The car is currently off the road as I am in the middle of a complete re-build. I changed to colors, made some engine and gearbox modifications.

[bolus]

Welcome! I remember you got such a great deal buying that car from DP. That's definitely a wing with unrestricted air flow!

We'd love to hear about the mods you got going

[Gage]

What a car! We all know it. I agree with Bolus. We would love to hear more.
Its great to have a new owner and a legendary machine joining us.

[Steve]

Awesome to have you with us, Rhoutris. Welcome! Can't wait to get to know you (and your car) better!

[Norm]

Welcome! Cool car. Is this the father or the son that posted on the other forum?

[Karl]

Are the bits on your nosecone wind deflectors for the driver/passenger?

[Norm]

Dennis gave me one of these when we were at ORP. Yes, he was using them for wind deflection at that time. He mounted one for me and I did notice a difference. I was his head sticking way out of the cockpit experiment ...

[bolus]

Those are vortex generators. I have 4 of them I need to mount. I was going to put thm under the car for a tiny bit of downforce. http://www.airtab.com/. They are only like $3 each

[rhoutris]

Hi all,

Thanks for your interest, I am rhoutris farther of mhoutris My son Max has just turned 16 and I am doing my best to ensure that he is not going to drive the Atom any time soon. He already has a taste for the RS6 and that is more than enough for him.

The Airtabs were put-on by Dennis and I think that they are a good idea. They are supposed to produce a vortex causing the boundary layer of air to move away from the structural mess and create a better, more aerodynamic airflow around the vehicle. All I have done is add a plastic trim rivet to the front of each of them as they do tend to fall off. I have never run without them or driven a normal Atom but Dennis said that they significantly reduce head buffeting. There are also a couple of them on each side on back of the tub in-front of the rear wheels.

I talked to TMI about the Ariel aero-package and came to the conclusion that it was more cosmetic than performance based. As you said my wing is in clean air. There was no way I was going to run the car without the roll bar. It is safer and I believe that it looks better too. Other than making the roll-bar the wing I could not think of anything else that could be done. This moves the applied load in-front of the rear wheels adding some load to the front wheels and in my eyes removing the need for the front wing. The front wing may have some value as in air splitter causing better laminar flow under the car but, at low speeds it add nothing to the handling. To that end I have experimented with adding weight to the front of the car. I originally added lead in the luggage thing in the front. It stopped the front wheels sliding in tight corners and allowed me to easily control the car in the bend on the throttle. Before I had the weight, I was always worried about just pushing the car off the track rather than power-sliding around the corners. Anyway as I own a sheet metal shop I was able to get a new battery carrier built that change the orientation of the battery to allow me to add weights to between the front wheels. If anyone is interested, I can look into building more; just let me know.
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I added a 2” threaded coupler to the front clip so I can screw a threaded pipe with a cap into it, to jack up the car without removing the nose-cone. It seems to work great. I have one 6” nipple and another on 18” so I can lift the car higher. I re-designed the head lamp mounts to allow for full adjustment. I hate the standard Atom head lights and I think that there are a lot nicer.

Terry Haines from Haines Motorsport re-built the gearbox and modified the shifter system for me. It appears that the reverse gear was trying to engage when it was not needed and it was completely blown after only 1800 miles. Terry is a great guy and I am sure that they box should be good now.

After I changed the oil I started having the same oil foaming issues that Dennis had encountered. His solution worked only if the oil was at a certain level. Any more oil and it would over-flow; any less and you risked starving the engine of oil. The issue is caused by the dry sump configuration of the engine. A dry sump allows the engine to be set lower in the car as you are not storing the oil below the engine. To remove all the oil a scavenge pump has to remove 3-times the fluid that is pumped into the engine. A bi-product of the system is a vacuum is created in the sump. This pulls the piston rings down on their groves and helps improve power delivery from the engine. Anyway, John Hartley made me a deal I could not refuse on a generation-two oil pump conversion. This new oil pump has an air separator built-in and it should significantly reduce the foaming.
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There are plenty of other modifications including a new dash and moving the electric water pump but I’m sure that I can bore you all with that later.
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Regards,
Ricky

[MadMaxAtom]

Sounds like you have Atom-fast fever bad! RS6..nice!! Terry Haines is the Go to guy for MTX-75 transaxles. (I have two of them in my Focuses)

Looks like you will fit in just fine with the USA Atom crowd..