Desert Sasqwatch #155 Track (mods) - 08 SS/TC crate LNF F40

Desert Sasqwatch

Goblin Guru
Maybe I'll need to come down and let you take it for a spin to renew, in your mind, the importance of this project. Your priorities are all out of wack. A house over a wild ride project car? You're 21 year old self would be kicking your butt Lol.
Jim, you're forgetting the first rule - happy wife, happy life - especially since she works from home full time. This new house is only minutes away from the new grand baby, rather than an hour drive. No chance of this being changed. There's not enough room in my smaller soon to be new garage for me AND the cars. :oops:o_O:D
 

r3drckt

Goblin Guru
Jim, you're forgetting the first rule - happy wife, happy life - especially since she works from home full time. This new house is only minutes away from the new grand baby, rather than an hour drive. No chance of this being changed. There's not enough room in my smaller soon to be new garage for me AND the cars. :oops:o_O:D
Should tell your wife “Happy spouse, happy house.” Working on the goblin doesn’t have to cost more money so assembly shouldn’t get in the way of the move. Even if it is finding additional speed holes to make ;)
 

G Atsma

Goblin Guru
Jim, you're forgetting the first rule - happy wife, happy life - especially since she works from home full time. This new house is only minutes away from the new grand baby, rather than an hour drive. No chance of this being changed. There's not enough room in my smaller soon to be new garage for me AND the cars. :oops:o_O:D
Boy, you got ALL that right! Priorities..... But hey, keep those drill bits sharp.....
 

Torchandregdoc

Goblin Guru
I hope nobody takes that sarcastic loaded sorry piece of poo post, that I wrote, serious. Do what Tim does, not me, to find true happiness. Time is probably the real problem, not money. He has most everything baught, but he's building one of the more unique Goblins and that take a bunch of time.

Tim, I look forward to that first cruise with you and your wife. I'll be patient. Oh, and sorry for the hijacking.
 

Desert Sasqwatch

Goblin Guru
I hope nobody takes that sarcastic loaded sorry piece of poo post, that I wrote, serious. Do what Tim does, not me, to find true happiness. Time is probably the real problem, not money. He has most everything baught, but he's building one of the more unique Goblins and that take a bunch of time.

Tim, I look forward to that first cruise with you and your wife. I'll be patient. Oh, and sorry for the hijacking.
No problem. I know where you're coming from. I have the same frustrations to my desire to build my Goblin, but life gets in the way sometimes. I'm in no hurry (can't be right now) to get my car on the road - this is a retirement project. But a part of the problem is too many real cool things to do to my car keep popping up on the forum and my planning for mods keeps growing. It's definitely a sickness I have that the engineer in me can leave anything alone...:rolleyes::cool:
 

Desert Sasqwatch

Goblin Guru
Been a couple months since I posted last, still waiting on a final close date on the new house. It went from Halloween to Thanksgiving to Christmas - seems like we will never get into the new house. :mad:

On a brighter note, I've been reading up on the Saturn Vue steering box and how to achieve a variable steering effort. Seems an external electronic box is required to generate the proper signal (PWM?) to feed the Vue steering controller to adjust the steering effort. Not sure if @bradr has looked into this - still waiting on the TPM controller to be released on the Programmers 4D Tech website?

I found a variable effort controller on ebay, from steering electronics (Bruno) in Portugal for a reasonable cost ($45 + $20 shipping). This is the splice into the existing harness version, there is a plug and play version for about $20 more. The controller has a variable switch that can be dash mounted to adjust the steering effort from maximum to minimum - full on to nearly no assist.


Since I've already purchased the Vue steering box, I'm going to pick up one of these variable controllers - but it will be quite a while (too long!) before I can check to see how well this setup works. Anybody else already gone down this path yet? Let me know your experiences. :cool:
 

Desert Sasqwatch

Goblin Guru
I have the EPS and Ebay control for mine but planning on waiting for the winter to install.
You will probably get yours installed and operating before mine. Will be good to hear about your experience once you reach that point. Please be sure to post in your build log. :D
 

Brian74

Goblin Guru
I was talking to Lonny sometime back and IIRR he said they had installed one in the Tesla Goblin. I guess the biggest issue for street driving is the lack of ability to vary the steering assist/effort based on speed. A vehicle speed sensor input to vary the assist in place of the potentiometer would be a huge benefit. I will be looking into this later on.
 

DCMoney

Goblin Guru
I've been running the Vue EPS and pot box set up for over a year. I run it at the lowest assistance setting, turned it back up to full assistance the last time I was out and forgot how much assistance it provides, the steering feel like a mini van at full assistance.

Highly recommend for anyone that doesn't want to lose their power steering for slow speed assistance but wants something stiffer for highspeed stability.

My plan was to wire it into an Arduino instead of the pot and have the assistance based off GPS speed, faster I go the less assistance it provides.

 

Desert Sasqwatch

Goblin Guru
Received the variable steering controller for the Vue steering box - but this is the newest version that has a GPS speed sensor input to the controller to automatically vary the steering effort - no dash switch required. This is what @DCMoney said a couple days ago thinking about this in his post- wish granted! :D
It will be some time before it will be installed, but wanted those who have been thinking about the Vue steering box to know about this improved controller. ;)

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DCMoney

Goblin Guru
Received the variable steering controller for the Vue steering box - but this is the newest version that has a GPS speed sensor input to the controller to automatically vary the steering effort - no dash switch required. This is what @DCMoney said a couple days ago thinking about this in his post- wish granted! :D
It will be some time before it will be installed, but wanted those who have been thinking about the Vue steering box to know about this improved controller. ;)

View attachment 26623
Didn't know that was a thing! Got a link?
 

Desert Sasqwatch

Goblin Guru

Brian74

Goblin Guru
I thought about seeing If I can just run an analog speed signal from the AIM. Will have to look over the output channels and see of anything for that is actually available.
 

Desert Sasqwatch

Goblin Guru
Closing date for the new house is finally confirmed, we will be moving over the Thanksgiving weekend. :oops:

Soooo, I need to get the rest of the Goblin parts out of the garage and over to the storage unit. I spent a few hours this afternoon building a movable base to mount the LNF and F40 to for the move. A couple straps and it won't go anywhere.
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BTW, the weather has broke here in the desert and we are headed into 7 months of great weather. :cool: Can't wait to get moved in and get my build cranked up again, I have sooo many cool things to incorporate and fab up for Racer X! :D
 

OptimizePrime

Goblin Guru
Looks great! As much as I've dropped my engine/trans I need to build one like that on wheels so it'll be less of a struggle getting it under the frame.

You may have one already, but I've found having a load leveler on the hoist makes life a lot easier!
 

Desert Sasqwatch

Goblin Guru
Update: tomorrow is move-in day, finally here. :) Spent the last week epoxing the garage floor - highly recommend Garage Floors Inc out of Colorado if anyone is thinking about doing your floor. Not the cheap crap from Home Depot or Lowe's, this is the same epoxy used in industrial applications. It is not water-based, and is really tough stuff when cured.
Getting back to my update; also got most of the inside of the house painted to keep the boss happy. Waaay easier to paint now than waiting until everything is all ready in the house. We do have the 'old' house sold - going to miss my 3rd garage and 8' RV gate. Anyway, I'm much closer now to getting a restart on my build, once I can get my garage organized and have enough storage - shelves and overhead - installed. Feeling like the same anticipation waiting for my kit to first arrive - which was 2 years ago already! :eek: Hopefully I will be back at it again around Christmas to get an 'unfinished' build up to determine what else needs tabs or other accessories welded on, suspension mods, engine mods, etc; but not drilling many more speedholes. :p
 

JBINTX

Goblin Guru
Update: tomorrow is move-in day, finally here. :) Spent the last week epoxing the garage floor - highly recommend Garage Floors Inc out of Colorado if anyone is thinking about doing your floor. Not the cheap crap from Home Depot or Lowe's, this is the same epoxy used in industrial applications. It is not water-based, and is really tough stuff when cured.
Getting back to my update; also got most of the inside of the house painted to keep the boss happy. Waaay easier to paint now than waiting until everything is all ready in the house. We do have the 'old' house sold - going to miss my 3rd garage and 8' RV gate. Anyway, I'm much closer now to getting a restart on my build, once I can get my garage organized and have enough storage - shelves and overhead - installed. Feeling like the same anticipation waiting for my kit to first arrive - which was 2 years ago already! :eek: Hopefully I will be back at it again around Christmas to get an 'unfinished' build up to determine what else needs tabs or other accessories welded on, suspension mods, engine mods, etc; but not drilling many more speedholes. :p
Don’t put the drill bits away yet………. ;)
about time. I want to see all your planning start to come together! Gonna be a good build for sure.
 
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