[ Alto Works ] Rally Roof Vent, Part 2

Once again, Matsuda-san at Rodeo Cars has allowed me the generous use of his garage for my selfish projects like my hood vents, lowering, oil cooler, among others, though I try to do as much as I can in front of my apartment. This one, of course, is especially critical that the car be covered because of the gaping hole soon to be in my roof. Here are some of the tools I’ll be using.

I read somewhere that they recommended a nibbler cutter, since the sheet metal is so thin that a jigsaw, angle grinder, or other reciprocating blade would potentially ripple or warp the roof. Supposedly this would make cleaner cuts as it essentially “punches out” the metal. Having never used one before, I experimented with other scrap material beforehand to make sure I was comfortable about how it works.

Holy crap it’s clean and doesn’t even make 0.5mm aluminum sheet too wavy.

First off, I did not want metal shavings on the front seats and I needed some room to work underneath, so the seats were pulled and plastic tarp laid out. In order for the interior roof lining to be removed, more of the interior needed to be taken out, as it is held in by clips, screws, and the plastic around the A and B/C pillars.

Excited to get started, I started masking off the lines where the vent will go, starting first with finding the center of the roof, then from there using a template to find the optimal position of the vent. If the vent is too far forward, the air will blow toward my legs and it may hinder an added roll bar in the future; far too back and the vent will blow toward the back of my head. With no way to necessarily test it, it was up to guesswork.

Once it was decided, I should’ve also rechecked the size of my template...

At first, a center punch was used roughly in the center to start the drilling process. Pop... There is no turning back now.

Once an adequately-sized hole was made, the nibbler cutter could be used. Being a complete newbie to the tool, I was slow with the cutter, moving the drill far from the edges in the off-chance I “slipped” and cut off too much material. As they say, you can cut material, but you can’t add it… easily, that is. I got a little confident towards the end and went only a few millimeters from the marked edge.

Using a portable belt sander, I shaved off the remaining metal until the edge of my template. It turns out, the template I made was about 6mm short, so the vent wouldn’t fit yet. I had to re-measure and shave off more material. But in the end, this was better than cutting too initially much, right?

The vent could finally be pushed through and fitted. I drilled 10 holes around the vent so it could be bolted into place.

Before the end of the first evening, I cleaned up the edges the best I could and painted all cut holes with specifically rust-resistant enamel paint which takes a few hours to cure indoors. The last thing I would want would rust to form as a result of my cuts -- there are enough rust spots underneath the car as it is.

Day 2
At the start of my second day of into the project, I added one more layer of fast-dry acrylic lacquer paint to ensure that the exposed surfaces would not rust for added insurance. Now it was time to put the silicone sealant on for as much water resistance as possible.

This stuff is messy, but an absolutely necessary step to prevent water leakage into the cabin. First, a generous coat around the exposed, unpainted silicon edge.

Once done, we pushed the vent through and put a few screws to help hold everything in place while the silicone cures. This stuff takes several hours to dry to the touch and longer to fully harden, so our working time is quite comfortable.

Unfortunately, this still leaves a bit of a “moat” around the lip of the vent and the roofline. Therefore, more generous coatings of silicone were needed all around the edges of the vent to prevent water from pooling. We liberally applied it in hopes of cleaning off the excess later.

This was a good idea, but I realized later removing this sticky stuff off is quite a pain.

[ Alto Works ] Rally Roof Vent, Part 1

There really is nothing glamorous about driving on a track on a hot day with the air conditioner off, baking in a double-layered, Nomex, fire-retardant suit under a bright midday sun. Depending on rules at the track, some require the window(s) to be up, possibly to prevent the driver’s extremities from flying out of the car in a crash. (For example, at Takasu Circuit in Fukui, the driver’s side window has to be fully up, although the passenger-side window can be left down.) This only makes things hotter and just… terrible.

Obviously running air conditioning would be nice, but when you’re chasing the last tenth-of-a-second for lap times, the approximate 5 HP drain from a compressor is not ideal. Proper race cars, in a bid to lighten the last ounce of weight, remove the whole heavy air conditioning assembly, saving potentially 15-20 kg (30+ pounds).

This forces drivers to get creative with airflow through the car to cool down. As with the aforementioned track day, many cars had air duct piping directed toward the driver.

Rally cars also often adhere to windows-up safety rules, often forcing them to use bulky “cool suits” that pipe-in ice water and roof ventilation which rams air down toward the driver (and passenger).

I think roof vents would be a cool addition to my project car, allowing me to keep cooler and flow additional air through the cabin. I know my car isn’t a “rally car,” but this would be especially useful during the spring and fall months, when the weather is just cool enough to not run AC, but hot enough that windows down just doesn’t provide enough cooling.

However, there is a huge potential drawback to a roof vent: shaken. As the biannual inspection is quite strict, they may not allow such an aftermarket modification to be made, citing some arbitrary safety or height guidelines. And the fact that cutting a huge hole in my roof could lead to rust and cabin leaks during the frequent rainstorms in Japan. That is, if I don’t install it correctly.

Overview
Roof vents can be simple panels that open when needed to huge, fixed FRP scoops that have elaborate water channels to prevent rain leakage into the cabin. Probably the most common one I’ve found over the years is the Subaru STI Spec C roof vent that some street drivers install on their own Imprezas to give their cars a cool rally look. Honestly, it is pretty nice looking and when installed, like it came straight from the factory with the underside finish panel. Not to mention when closed, it is barely noticable.

Looking around online, I sadly could not find this piece for under 30,000￥ ($300 USD) and the new units are about $500. There is no way I could justify spending that much on an albeit slick vent. I scoured the internet over for cheaper alternatives, some being cheap, repurposed Chinese stick-on “hood scoops,” to $800 OEM rally-spec Evo scoops.

Throughout the wide variety of “rally vents” on the market,  I finally came across a vent from Australia, a PMD Race Products alloy vent. The price was fair and looked pretty good. I was close to ordering it when I came across some forums which used repurposed vents from RVs. 

This is the one I found off Mill Supply. Cheap, simple, but the biggest reason I chose this over the aforementioned vent was this could two-way open and closing… as it could be used both as a ram air intake and cabin exhaust flow, not to mention that it could be opened or closed incrementally, so it needn’t always be fully open or closed. Other forum users have used this with good experience… so I figured I’d give it a try as well.

I placed an order for it when I was visiting stateside and brought it back with me from Japan. In my haste to get it ready, I didn’t take a photo of the bare aluminum finish before painting. As I wanted the finish to be somewhat stealth when closed, I only painted the top panel that would be exposed to the outside, leaving the flange of aluminum bare for proper silicon sealing when installing later.

After an agonizing few weeks waiting for some free project time, I finally found a 3-day weekend where I was free from work-related duties or other obligations. Time to get cutting!

[ Alto Works ] Momo Automatic Shift Knob Replacement

Manual transmissions are an essential part of the tuner culture before the early 2000s. Having three pedals in the footwell and rowing a 4, 5, or 6-speed in the car meant you were a serious driver. In actuality, most old torque-converter automatic transmissions back then really were quite terrible. Automatic transmissions shifted when you didn’t want them to, they couldn’t hold back higher torque and power modifications, and they had huge efficiency losses compared to their manual counterparts of the day.

Of course, I worded the above with past tense because, frankly, the “slushbox” automatic transmission is here to stay. With recent durability and speed improvements, along with other automated variants like the DSG dual-clutch transmission, automatics have virtually replaced all manual shifters on sports cars. You’d expect Ferrari, Lamborghini, and Porsche to do away with them first; after all, they are catered to the wealthy, gentleman driver. But now, even the top-of-the-line 840 HP Dodge Demon and venerable Ford GT500 are now only powered by automatic transmissions. No manual options. Period.

RIP, manual gearbox.

I’m not here to lament the eventual death of the move-it-yourself shifter. I’ll save that for another time. I’m here to complain again about the fact my Alto Works is powered by a crappy little 4-speed automatic that shifts at redline and feels doggedly slow. Granted, driving with two pedals around town is convenient, but this is the kind of car that really benefits with having a manual to really wring out the last ounce of power. Replacing it will also have to be for another time.

For now, I’ll deal with the practical, boring transmission. But one thing I can change easily is the shifter itself. The horrible, T-shaped handle in the center console really screams “pedestrian!” no matter how you look at it. So it’s about time I finally got around to changing it. Looking around online, I found that some folks swap out their ugly lever for something less ugly.

Would it be more difficult with the Overdrive and Shift Unlock buttons there?

This sleek little Momo shift lever can be found pretty cheaply online in various primary colors. I opted for a metallic grey to match the rest of the grey interior because any other color would scream “ricer!” (Ironically, this is probably one of those mods many would consider ricer, but I digress.) At least it doesn’t stick out too much like red or blue would have.

The aluminum looks pretty nice and hopefully won’t fade or the logos rub off too quickly. I realize it will get quite hot in summer and cold in winter, but unlike a manual shifter, I won’t be touching it frequently. Also as part of the shifter is a rather stiff spring button up top that depresses the Shift Unlock button to change drive modes. (As an aside, is this even really a Momo product? Having seen their selection and packaging over the years, it does seem like something they’d sell or sold, but I’m not actually sure.)

My only potential problem I could foresee before embarking with disassembly will be the O/D button which will need to be relocated. Switch, soldering iron, and shifter in hand, let’s see what it will take to get this mod installed!

The shifter base has a few screws that allowed the base to be removed. Behind the T-handle are two smaller screws that frees the handle to be moved up, but the two O/D wires that were connected and refused to be removed. For some reason I couldn’t find a quick-detach connector, so I tried to push the wiring up from the base as much as possible. Unfortunately, with a few light tugs, the old, brittle wiring snapped off. Whoops.

Which is fine, I planned on cutting the wiring anyway. With the wires freed, the handle came up and off. I test-fitted the Momo handle and it seems to fit pretty well. I just hope those 3 set screws at the base will hold and not loosen up.

The problem now is that I no longer have an O/D button, as it was a part of the handle. I have to resolder some new wiring and connectors. Without a button connected to the switch, the transmission always defaults to O/D on, which is good should the cheap switch I will use fail on me.

I put the switch at the base of the center console, toward the driver, so it is in easy reach when I need to force the transmission to downshift and stay at what is essentially 3rd gear. I crimped on a few connectors to the existing wiring and tested it out.

It seems the switch is lit when the O/D is on, and is extinguished when the O/D is off. I imagined it would have been the opposite of this, but whatever. Success!

I also removed the LED that the previous owners installed, since the base no longer needs to be lit up.

As awesome as the rest of this car is, I had to do more to hide the automatic shame. I purchased a universal fit, fake carbon cloth shifter boot meant for manual cars for around $10 USD. The quality and stitching seem decent and it looks more stylish to me than plain leather, though in hindsight I’m not sure how much the shiny carbon look matches the rest of my interior. I wish it was a bit more of a matte finish, but either way, it will be used to hide the ugly shift markings at the base.

Thankfully it is more than wide enough to be wrapped and press-fit around the shifter base. A few quick tugs and it doesn’t seem like it’ll be going anywhere.

So much better.

Now to make sure the Momo handle stays in place. I used a punch tool to put three dents into the shifter post where the set screws sit in to resist movement. As an added measure of security, I dabbed on some semi-permanent blue Loctite to secure them and ensure they will not back out too easily with use.

Conclusion
At first glance, you’d definitely think it was a manual transmission.

While there are probably better and more useful modifications I could do, I figure this will go far in tidying up the ugly interior. There is no real benefit other than making me feel less embarrassed about driving it around town. This was definitely a fun and easy to do mod, taking only a few hours and less than $30 USD altogether.

[ Alto Works ] Oil Cooler Project, Part 5: Epilogue

Now that my Oil Cooler Project has mostly come to a close, I don’t feel quite finished yet as there are some minor things I’d like to address. Though, in all fairness, when is a project car ever really “finished”?

Looking from the wheel well, we can see a bit of the rear of the intercooler is still exposed to rock chips. The tires constantly kick up debris, so protecting the radiator from excessive strikes is important. I fashioned a simple bracket holding a .5mm aluminum plate to block off the areas where rocks might strike directly. I might redo this later for a wider plate to also limit airflow around the space between the radiator and bumper, but for now it’ll do.

Let’s go back to the right side where the IC is. More than half of the 12.5mm diameter round opening is the radiator, but the remainder is exposed radiator brackets and hoses. It looks a little bit haphazard and not professional, so I considered blocking it off for a “clean” look. Out comes my polypropylene sheet again.

This time, I’m using the sheet to partially redirect airflow toward to the radiator and block off those hoses and mounting brackets. This is how I plan on doing it: a simple curved piece mounted here.

I also considered adding a bracket to hold it in place, but why bother when some zip ties will do just the same and are easier to remove for maintenance. To keep it looking good, I added a bit of carbon fiber vinyl to the sheet. The additional volume of redirected air should be more than adequate to cool the radiator and look great doing it.

But wait, I’m not done yet. While I know these angel eye halos aren’t super bright, they might provide me with a bit of lighting to supplement the parking lights and won’t require significant modification, nor block off too much airflow to the radiator.

I reused the existing fog light connectors, so they will be controlled by the OEM fog light switch in the center console. The right halo is easily attached onto the mesh. Not too bad, if I say so myself.

I have something else in mind for the left side. Take a look at my process and see if you can guess what I’m doing with this.

If you can recognize this, you might be a bit of an anime nerd, just like me.

Maybe you’ve previously noticed my car’s project name. This little Alto Works beater is named after an early antagonist in Neon Genesis Evangelion, my favorite anime of all time. (If you have no idea what it is, I highly recommend giving it a watch now on Netflix. It’s essentially a fresh take on the boy-in-a-robot show… but that would be an over-simplification.)

Everything seems to be running well over the past few weeks, having taking a few short jaunts around to Kyoto. There is a very tiny minor leak where the oil filter adapter attaches to the engine, but I don’t think I’ve lost more than a few drops over this time that I could tell. This is probably not a fault of the adapter itself, rather the limited space we had to fully tighten it properly.

I could find no change in oil pressure nor oil levels, so the loss is probably at a few drops every hundred kilometers. I’m glad I installed an oil pressure gauge so I can generally assure myself that there is no notable drop in pressure. As always, I’ll keep an eye out for any issues should they develop.

Conclusion
In the end, did I need this modification that took so much of my effort? Nope, certainly not at this time! But it sure was fun to give it a shot, having never done this previously. And in the future, should I ever run gymkhana, auto-cross, or on a racetrack, it will definitely prove useful to protect the longevity of this poor, little, old engine.

As for value… The price difference is huge between this universal oil cooler kit and a legitimate model-specific product made by a proven manufacturer. For some, paying the difference for a better kit and prefabricated mounts are worth the price. For me, the effort and hassle was fun in its own way. You really do get what you pay for in terms of quality. I spent $100 USD for the cooler kit and more than $20 in assorted brackets and screws, plus a ton of labor and the unknown, very huge risk of not fitting right. There were quite a few times where I could just barely make it work.

In terms of the time spent, granted, I wasn’t quick and it took awhile to think things through to get them the way I wanted. In hindsight, I would’ve also preferred mounting the radiator on the left side for weight distribution. But overall, I am more than happy with how everything came out.

And now I have a cool little external logo to finally mark my project car. Ain’t it cute?

I look forward to doing this all over again on one of my other cars!

[ Alto Works ] Oil Cooler Project, Part 4

This is now Day 5 (or so) of my oil cooler and gauge install and I’m hoping this will be the last day! I’m eager to get the oil cooler properly working. Today’s challenge will be getting the aforementioned oil relocation plate installed and oil flowing between all the components. This means I have to get the oil filter off, which is really inset into the engine bay behind the AC radiator, as I mentioned previously. Terrible location, seriously.

We actually had to unmount the AC radiator and with a lot of finagling, cursing, and sweat, the oil filter finally came off. The adapter did not want to install easily, either. For the thick AN10 hoses to fit, we actually had to cut 5mm off the front crash beam to give us a bit of clearance. Even then, it was an extremely tight fit. Properly tightening it was also tough, since there was little room to reach in, even with my friend’s huge variety of tools.

With a final tap, we figured it would be enough. Let’s pray this won’t leak.

Remember when I said not to trust cheap Chinese products? <l> Well, yet again we ran into another issue. Similar to my ⅜ -16 threading issue, the oil radiator itself had poorly cut threads, preventing me from attaching the AN10 hose smoothly. So close, yet so far. With additional filing work, we were finally able to thread it on, barely. We had to be extremely careful since both the radiator and hose connectors were made of aluminum. We couldn’t just “man-handle” them and crank them on, as too much pressure and either or both could be irreparably damaged.

My Alto usually takes about 3 liters of oil in its tiny engine, but with the additional capacity of the car, as the oil cooler itself will now occupy a bit of oil, he estimated 4 would be good. We first put in 3 and cranked on the engine, checking thoroughly for leaks. Matsuda-san felt confident after a few minutes, then he topped off and added the additional 1 liter of oil. Circulating it through, we let the car idle for a bit, checking for leaks. So far, so good. After a few minutes with everything warmed up, we rotated the throttle cable and idled at high RPM for awhile longer. Everything seems fine so far… no leaks or issues that we could see.

But before I button up the front end back up, the hoses are obviously a bit of a mess right now. With some wire loom protectors and cable ties, I fixed all the loose and dangling hoses, hopefully preventing excessive movement and protecting them from debris, rubbing on the chassis, and each other.

The left side has now a gaping hole where the fog light was. While I could just drop in a mesh to match the right, I don’t think that’s what I want to do. With the whole oil cooler radiator setup, I’m doubtful extra cooling needs to be done for the left side so there is no reason to expose the remote adapter.. Not to mention any rocks or debris could potentially damage the rather fragile oil filter and oil pressure gauge.

This leaves me with plenty of potential options, but this will be a temporary placeholder: A simple sheet of polypropylene and carbon fiber vinyl. While this doesn’t look bad, I miss having the additional lighting from my fog lamps. This is how I rolled for a few weeks until my other parts came in…

But before I drove off that evening, he warned me to check frequently for leaks and lowered engine oil pressure. While I’m happy to leave it as it is now, running right. But there are some minor issues I’d like to address. The final post on this project next time!