Marc's Public Blog - Cars

gotta love the airvents to keep the luggage cool :)

I had my slow car parked next to him :)

Justice was sedate enough on the drive, despite his faster car

We did arrive at the beach 22mn before everyone else :)

hello :)

Mia, our new recruit

thanks Justice for the picture

We then had a stop at Pescadero for coffee:

And a fun drive back up pescadero/84 with few cars. My car was a bit thirsty at the top:

ridiculous line to go eat at Alice's

Drive back down had an interesting (but slow) 570S with a giant ass aftermarket wing, that didn't make the driver faster :)

Fun drive and beautiful day out, thanks to all.

Thanks to Ren and driveclub for inviting me to their track day. Lots of cars, lots of drivers of different ability and it worked beautifully considering, I was beyond impressed.

hi joon

represent!

I arrived just in time for a group picture, but got in trouble for getting there a bit too quickly (oops):

Social distanced-ish meeting time, and then driving most of the day:

Lots of different cars:

I rented a Porsche GT4 clubsport from SP Motorsports, and Paul took good care of me (thank you). It was a fun new car for me to learn to drive. It had enough power, the brakes were really good, the included tires were scrubs, so that was the main downside (real slicks cost a lot). Still, eventually got the car down to 1:57 when it's apparently good for 1:53 with proper tires and a real driver, so that's not too bad:

after a good day of driving where I used up all the brakes :)

That was my best lap in the afternoon on one of my few almost clean laps (didn't get many) and 2nd set of scrubs before they went downhill. 1:57 is 9 sec slower than what I would do in my F458 GT3, but well, that car is a bit cheaper too :)

After that, the scrubs got worse, and I got more tired, so I went back to 1:58 and above, but still had a great time.

Thank you to everyone involved in making the day happen, it was lots of fun!

The flight back was also nice and uneventful (i.e. good):

really nice, inside

social distanced meeting

We then went for the drive. It was fun once I was able to get some free road on hwy84, all the way to the beach:

huge line at alice's resaurant, we skipped it and went home

Thanks to all, it was fun.

You can read about our two trips with it, here:

Here are specs on the converted vehicle: Kuga Campervan PDF Specs

Platform

the Kuga didn't like twisty mountain roads though, it was a boat to drive and the seats in the back would fly around

That said, the conversion inside is the better one I found amongst rentals I looked at:

Power System

this is how it's supposed to work

similarly, RV sites have water that you can use to refill the Kuga

This is how it looks by default: big cable to allow jump starting the car if its battery is dead, power input from the car's alternator to charge the battery when the engine is on, and solar charge controller:

my big 3000W inverter didn't quite fit in the battery cabinet, but there was a hole to feed cables to the battery

non standard equipment, but nice addition :) (uses over 1000W, just like the microwave)

the kitchen is definitely better than other campervans that trade this space for a 2nd row of seats

Because I made a temporary addition, I didn't wire the inverter into the car's 120V system, so cheated by making a male-male plug (totally illegal ;) ):

Two things have to be done to use the inverter: turning off external power (to make sure outside power is never backfed into the inverter), and the 2nd breaker turns off battery charging from external power. This one is important or the battery charger tries to charge the battery from 120V while the 120V is coming from the battery through the inverter:

our Kuga had been upgraded with a 12V and USB plug coming from the battery, my inverter meter is on the left. The 12V plug there was only good for 10A though, so you can't use it for an inverter

Here is a demo of the microwave. The start was a bit rough because the microwave needs around 150A from the 12V battery at start, my connecting cables didn't have the best connection for so many amps, and the battery was a bit low, so the voltage sagged a bit at start:

Demo of the expresso machine, which also requires over a 1000W and peaks at more than 120A on the 12V battery:

I will however stress that, if you attempt this:

Space in the Kuga

don't let the picture fool you, the middle seat is only ok for someone not very wide and ok being somewhat sandwiched for many hours of driving

The kuga is not meant to have 2 boards on top, or hold luggage or more than the first, non moveable, board. If you put 2, you need a way to stop the luggage from flying off, and even the board from sliding around:

because there was no way to stop the bottom board from sliding, I jerry rigged something with duct tape and got it secured that way. Ghetto, but it worked well enough.

normally if you only need the minimal of luggage depth, there is fabric and clips to hold things

this was the 2nd board before I found the way to properly secure it

The bottom bed is big enough, albeit a bit short. I'm 5"10 / 1M77, and my feet stuck out a bit, but thankfully stopped just before the doors:

you're actually supposed to sleep in the other direction, but if you're short both directions work

One of the boards used for the bed, is conveniently also the table, that works pretty well:

we can also note on this picture that the pantry had decent space

while we often used the microwave, the gas cooker was quite functional

At the end of the trip, we had to refill the little propane we used:

the container is well sized and should be enough for most trips

Conclusion

And here are the adventures we went on with ours. Maybe it'll inspire you for yours:

I left for Sears Point early in the morning, going through the fire smoke:

It had been 6 years since I last went:

Fast Toys had this rental race car for me:

no space for a passenger

the bumper started to get melted by the exhaust

Alex owned the car and got data from it for me, as well as gave me basic coaching

My best lap was a 1:53:98. I think I never learned to fully use the car, especially on this track I don't know well (jump to 6:38):

While an instructor did a 1:49:68. Doh, I left a lot of time on the table (jump to 6:00)...

I also drove my Mclaren 650S for 30mn, and got the time down to 1:57 on used tirees. Car could have gone faster, but I need to get better at this track.

We took a few pictures at the end of the day:

The drive back took me back through the fog and downstream from the fires:

I hope that was fog

280 was definitely smoky

I was not able to get my racecar back, as it was up for sale, so I had to take the Mclaren.

Unfortunately, McLaren had an issue on my service that week (they were a bit overwhelmed, and I'm sure difficult conditions), and they did not fix an undertightened leaky valve, which forced me to stop twice during the drive there to add air as my tire was getting empty. I arrived there, uncertain that I'd be able to drive.

made it with a bit of air in my tires

with Covid-19, no drivers meeting

everyone had masks and we mostly kept social distancing

a couple of teslas were there, that's dedication

It had been a while since my car saw the track:

as always, the car was wasting my time with alerts when the tires were fine.

that said, one lap my valve failed and I lost almost all my air, barely made it out

turns out all it was, was a valve that was never tightened right

Thanks a lot to BR Racing for helping me with my car when the valve of my tire popped out and I lost almost all my air. Thanks to their help, I was able to get back on track, but by then, my tires had lost their grip, and my brakes had sadly also gotten a lot more worn than they should have.

All in all, it was a bit vexing, I started with 1:39's in the morning with my tire issues and my not remembering the track much, and as the day went by and the track and my tires got slower, I got faster and finished with the same 1:39 until my tires and brakes gave out.

the front sensors melted and went to metal without any warning, as usual

rear brakes were not happy

Oh yeah, and I got a reminder that my Mclaren is not as stable and planted as my racecar, along with cresting a small hill, getting the car light, not having the wheel completely straight, a bit of coolant on the track left by the previous car, and my using too much of the track with differential grip between the track and the runble strip, didn't work out indeed (jump to 11:45):

The plan is that I'll be able to rent from Fast Toys Club in the future:

ideally that's the one of the cars I'll be able to rent/drive after selling mine

After a quick drivers' meeting, it was time to go on track:

Lots of Mclarens:

Justice took his SVJ, beautiful car:

Ken came with my car and gave me support during the day:

a few pictures for posterity

I had a bit of extra fun by taking my Tesla around the track for a few laps. It was of course slower, I boiled the brake fluid in a single lap, but it was fun :)

I had fun, despite my times getting worse throughout the day as the track got warmer. In the afternoon, all the rungroups merged, so it was interesting, but it worked out pretty well.
Thanks to Fast Toys Club for the good day.

trying to get some charge from the 50A/220V plug I found.

ready, all you need is stickers, right? (they fit nicely on top of the mud I got driving in the snow in tahoe)

Anyway, given that ignorance is bliss, I went out with all my crap in the car, I figured removing it wouldn't change much anyway, and planned on doing only 3 laps so as not to thoroughly destroy the brakes. I did manage to hit 119 mph on my 2nd lap, and that was just when the brakes started not working due to overheating. Stopping in turn 2 was going to be "fun" (I made it though).
After 2 laps and boiled brake fluid, but also having passed a lamborghini and a porsche on the outside of the corkscrew, and being blackflagged for it :) I figured I'd call it a day. My 2nd lap (which was far from clean) was 1:56.

Those were not fast drivers, but it was cool to pass a few of them:

I passed several cars on the outside after the corkscrew in my ferrari, but got one in my tesla too :)

Sorry to the driver, I must have scared him a bit, he likely never saw/heard me until 'WTF is that car doing here'

And then there was the lambo I passed fair and square :)

wee!

Here is the first "session": (really 2 full laps and then I got black flagged for passing the porsche and scaring it). I passed the porsche at 3:40 and the lambo at 5:00

I came back for 2 more laps later in the afternoon when the track was warmer, my tires still over inflated, and my brake fluid still boiled (no firm pedal), and I got 2 laps of 1:55. I didn't commit for more speed in the straights because honestly I didn't know that car would stop and I didn't really want to completely destroy my braking hardware. Had done my first lap right, now knowing how to drive that car, I should have been able to get a single lap at 1:50 before the brakes gave up.

4 laps, 13 miles, 35% battery used

Two cleaner laps at 1:55 each, obviously not that fast, but my brake fluid was alrady boiled, my tires were likely too inflated (55psi) and the track was already 3-4 seconds slower than it was in the morning when I started I wonder how much faster the car could have been (I was already 10 mph slower before 2 due to the lack of brakes):

Looks like a full battery would have given 36 miles and 12 laps or so. This makes me question the wisdom of going through the work of tracking a tesla with proper brakes and tires. 12 laps is not a lot, and if you don't have a supercharger nearby (which is still 1h charge), that's not a lot of laps.

Overheating stuff, made other stuff unhappy :)

1.5Kw/mile, it's 1.5H of my house's power used in a single mile

On the plus side, despite all the errors I got, the car recovered when it cooled down, and even the brake fluid got back in a state that my brakes work somewhat. Not as well as before, but enough to stop the car :)
At least I didn't ran the pads down to the backing plates while destroying the rotors. That said, it's still amazing how a single lap at laguna seca can overheat stock breaks and boil brake fluid (which is exactly what happened in my case).

This was stupid, but it was fun. For comparison I did some 1:31's in my Ferrari F458 Challenge GT3 that morning on used tires. Looks like a stock Model 3 Performance with proper tires and brakes, can go 10 seconds faster than my 1:55's, not bad!

Here's a marketing video:

Just like last year, we stayed at Esterel Resort

when not going racing on ice, there isn't much else to do but ice skating and snowmobiling

We met most of our time there having dinners after a long day of driving

The first morning, we had a short class on car dynamics:

how controlled sliding through an icy turn is the quickest way compared to the sticky track line which doesn't work

the most fun you can have, driving 90 degrees or more from the direction of travel

Every day, we then took a 40mn bus from Esterel to Circuit Mecaglisse, which is in the middle of nowhere:

we then got to meet our cars

we drove 992s and 991 Turbos

someone, drove our car at 262kph, I don't think it was us :)

we had 3mm studs for god like traction on ice

Kees, our instructor, introducing the cars to us, with our assistant, Emilie

The big whiteboard on the ground made it easy to write instructions

By luck, I got paired with the best student in the group, Mathieu, so he doubled as my instructor :)

Kees, showing us how to do a scandinavian flick around a corner with a set of cars showing a snapshot of the line

Our assistants worked hard for us :)

but more seriously, they kept us on track, and cleaned our cars of all the snow we shoved into them. Poor Emily got her wooden spoon broken by all our snow

Here are a few nice pictures from our professional photographer:

driving sideways with the wheels straight

this is why the cars had snow stuck everywhere :)

we often helpded make the track a bit wider :)

yes, this is fun :)

I did my part helping clean the loose snow at the edge of the track :)

I might have done this too :)

Here are a few videos, 3 way snow drifting:

And videos of my crashing in snow banks in different ways :)

Thanks to all the instructors, also to Porsche for letting us drive their cars and make mistakes, and the great codrivers in our group (blue group was still #1 !) :)

After the program was over, we had a celebration dinner and prices for the best drivers:

Mathieu, my co-driver, won the price for best driver in our group

This was so much fun, there are no higher levels, but I'm quite tempted to go back :)

I knew that this could void the warranty on some parts of the car. I was ok with that. Tesla wants me to buy a powerwall, but I think powerwalls are stupid.

I'd need to spend $30 to $40K in powerwalls to get the same amount of energy I already have in my car and I already paid for. Sorry, but I'm not spending that much for something I may need once every few years. Load shifting my solar in california is otherwise a straight loss, and PG&E forces some silly rules about not allow using powerwalls for time of use power arbitration if you accept the buying credit for them. You get penalized for helping take the peaks off the grid, yeah bureaucracy!
If tesla sold a powerwall that would allow using your car as a battery source for emergencies only (car batteries are not designed for daily cycling like powerwalls), I'd be super interested, but they do not, so I decided to make my own answer.

I knew that I could probably only get 2-3000W out of my car, honestly for emergency use (a couple of fridges and essential equipment), that's good enough. Sure, it wouldn't power all my house lights, or even my furnace for heating (which happens to use over 1000W just to run the fans), but eh, it's for emergency use only, so good enough.

Plugging into the standby 12V battery

My plan was to connect a big GLA 12V battery in parallel with the car's battery, so that it could absorb big peaks and buffer a it longer in case the car's battery recharge didn't kick in quickly enough. I did however confirm that the car's DC-DC system only recharges the standby battery at a slow rate, so it was not adequate for my need.

Plugging into the cigarette lighter adapter

Tapping into the car's DC-DC system

The 2 white holes are where the clips that you need to release. are located. You can also see the black and red tap points:

Building it up without resistor and protection relay

If you do not see a spark, you may just be able to connect the inverter dirctly to your car with just wires (although if that works wrong, it will trip the DC-DC converter in the car, and require a full car reset to bring it back online).

Building it up

Originally I tried those:

What happens is:

This shows the current meter shunt connected to the bypass relay (which is powered by the connectors on the inverter side). You then see the thick 100W resistor connected in parallel with the relay. This allows current to flow more slowly and ramp up the connection:

I tested a 1300W microwave which worked without issues, so did my fridge and other devices. The pure sine wave inverter is very important for a microwave, but a cheaper inverter worked well enough for my fridge and basic loads.

Since we're talking about currents of 100A or more, we need to talk about wire gauge. The inverter I got came with 10AWG cables of about 1m. These cables are insufficient for 100A (never mind 200A), but in real life will mostly work for short distances and as long as you don't use the full power continuously (which could technically heat up the cable enough to melt its insulation and cause a short eventually). In my tests with 100A, I lost 0.7V due to inadequate wiring:

Given that the car outputs 13.5 to 14V, this drop is not big enough to matter since the inverter works all the way down to 10V or so, but be mindful of potential heat. Here is the end result:

Keeping the DC-DC system awake

Backfeeding your house

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