I designed and 3D printed a locking ring to prevent the air jack mounting rings from loosening. They don’t take any force so a 6-32 screw was used to keep them from rotating.
In the last post I notched the removable floor in the nose to clear the front floor jack. I created a 360-degree lock that spans the gap between the mounting ring and the floor to reduce drag… oh, and it just happens to hide my less than perfect notch ;-)
I’ve been working hard to get jacked — don’t worry, I’m not taking roids or considering wearing a mankini.
Instead, I’ve been busy working on an air jack system. The hydraulic lift discussed in a previous post raises the nose to handle speed bumps or steep inclines. This system raises all four wheels off of the ground. Since I’m not going to do any endurance racing I have no rational need for it. However, this is my halo car so do it I must. I’m trying to talk my wife and kids into be my pit crew…
The write up and lots of pictures can be found here.
The suspension uses 36 Heim joints (a.k.a., spherical rod ends or rose joints). For 28 of those instances Superlite provides two aluminum cone washers and four grade 8 washers to mount each Heim joint (see the "Before" picture below). The cone washers allow the ball to rotate to a large angle without the case binding in the mounting bracket and the grade 8 washers take up the remaining space between the cone washer and the mounting bracket.
It's a simple but exasperating process to get everything lined up so that you can slide the bolt through, particularly if you're doing it by yourself. The bolt is a tight fit in the bracket and ball swivel holes (a good thing) and the diameters of the grade 8 and cone washers are different.
I've taken these assemblies apart many times and I finally decided to improve things. I had Agile Automotive Performance make a set of custom cone washers. They have the following benefits:
The weights in grams of the before and after assemblies are as follows:
So what does that amount to for the whole car? Approximately 2,096 grams (4.6 pounds) which is negligible. That said, the primary reason I made the change was to make assembly easy.
On the dyno the belt driving the super charger and water pump starts to slip at 950ish HP. Adding the alternator and A/C compressor would only make that situation worst. After a lot of thought, I decided the best approach would be to mount a custom 6-groove pulley to the face of the crankshaft damper and run a second serpintine system. This is going to make things very tight and require custom brackets for both the alternator and the A/C compressor, but it seems like the best approach -- time will tell.
I spent a lot of time searching for "custom billet pulley" and found lots of companies making beautiful pulleys, but all that I spoke with are focused on products and not one-off pulleys. Anyone with a CNC lathe can make one, but I wasn't sure of the profile of the ribs. I eventually found ASP Racing and they were great to deal with.
The diameter was optimized for the A/C compressor because that A/C compressor doesn't work well at low RPM and running it too fast will damage it. In addition, unlike the pulley on the alternator which can be easily changed, the compressor pulley has an integral clutch which means that it can't be changed.
Here are the final specs:
The next step is to pull the engine and design the custom brackets and serpentine system.
I spent a lot of time thinking about the low-pressure fuel system. My primary objectives were:
The fuel pump bracket was made with 1/4" x 4" x 4" angle aluminum. I milled a rectangular opening and drilled a circular one to reduce weight. I also designed and printed a spacer because the pump was too tall for the bracket (a 5" piece would have obviated the need for this). While the pump's mount is coated in rubber, I also created a 1/16" rubber gasket to go under the spacer to further improve vibration isolation.
It was too tight to get the flex hoses to make the bend between the shutoff valve and the filter so I made a custom "hard line" out of 1/2" aluminum tube. Fortunately I only needed a single 90-degree bend which is a simple to do with a tube bender. I then needed to put a single 37-degree flare on each end of the tube. It took a couple of tries to get it right but it came out perfect. On my second attempt I had the perfect length, perfect bend and perfect flares, but I forgot to put the tube sleeve and tube nut on BEFORE making the flare – Do'h, another do over. Here's the top-level steps:
I decided to cut a hole in the floor for an access hole. The first step was to lay out the opening from the inside of the car. I maximized the opening, but I left a 1/4" lip to clear the weld beads (they're really hard and not fun to cut or drill). I used a 1" diameter annular cutter to drill the four corners from inside the car. I then used a jigsaw to cut the hole from the underside of the car.
The removable panel was made from 0.1” x 12.25” x 8.5” aluminum. To make it easy to remove/install the panel, I decided to use Dzus connectors. Rather than attempt to cut the Dzus profile and holes in the floor I used pre-made Dzus weld plate spring receptacles. Since you can't weld steel to aluminum I simply drilled and tapped the chassis for screws to fasten them. To make up the space between the panel and the fastener I designed and 3D printed some spacers. The spring heights were a little off, so I used a spring height adjust tool below to stretch them a little. This is a lot better than doing it with needle nose pliers.
I wanted to be able to replace the filter element and only need to disconnect one hose connection (rather than disconnecting both ends of the filter and removing the entire assembly). To accomplish this, I tilted the filter bracket downward and ground off the 1/4" lip on the floor so that the filter would clear. WOW, did that make a mess. I had metal chips everywhere. It's a close fit, but it works.
I wanted the fuel shut-off valve to be accessible from the engine compartment. To do that, I needed to extend the shaft so that it would pass through the close out panel. I bought a valve from Peterson which is beautifully machined. However, I really didn't like how they implemented the full-open and full-closed stops. When the handle isn't attached, the shaft can be continuously rotated in either direction. As you can see in the picture below, a screw is used to tighten the handle on a round shaft. The full-stop positions are implemented via a fixed pin on the housing which fits into a slot that's machined into the handle. If the handle slips the full-stop positions will be off. While not the end of the world, I went to a lot of trouble to have no restrictions and there is no easy way to know if things are lined up (i.e., full open) once installed.
There must be a better solution. After doing research, I found one from Speedflow. It's not as cool as Peterson's, but the stops are cast into the body and it has a hex shaft which prevents the handle from rotationally slipping. I loosened the screw and was surprised that I couldn't remove the handle. This is because the screw passes through a groove in the shaft. The only way to remove the handle is to remove the screw which is another nice design feature. Extending the shaft was easy using a hex coupler and a cut down 3/16" hex wrench.
I designed and 3D printed a two-piece cover plate. It prevents any fumes from passing through the closeout panel and any lateral force from being applied to the valve. Oh yeah.... and it it also hides the off-center hole that I drilled
My new best friend
I raved over how great aramid-braided PFTE hose and fittings were in my Bullet Proof Hose post. I still really like that stuff, but Abe brought over his hydraulic crimper, a bunch of XRP hose and bags of XRP crimp fittings. You simply cut the hose with a single snip (no mess, no fraying), slide the end on, orient it the way you want, crimp it and use a micrometer to ensure that the OD is within range. Wow, that's easy. The crimp-style hose ends are smaller and lighter than the reusable AN fittings. In addition, since the crimper applies 35 tons of pressure, it creates a superior connection,. .
Problem is that the machine costs several thousand dollars and you need a die, which costs hundreds of dollars, for every size fitting. So Abe's my new best friend;-)
The last step was to install the lines for the fuel out, fuel in and fuel tank vent. The filter element is trivial to service and everything is serviceable. I also added heat shrink tubing and Deutsch connector to the fuel pump.
To securely mount the fuel tank I fabricated the top brackets out of 1/4" x 4" x 4" aluminum angle. For the front bracket I used 1/4" x 2" aluminum. Because the closeout panel sits on top of the 2" x 6" cross member I made some spacers to clear the close out panel out of 1/2" aluminum bar (the cutout in the middle is to make them lighter). I had Abe, formerly of Kaizen Tuning, TIG weld them to the tank... his welds are a little nicer than mine;-) Most builders tap holes into the 2" x 6" cross member, but I decided to through bolt through it with 3/8" grade 8 screws. After all of that was done, I covered all of the tank's surfaces with vibration damper, which made it a lot heavier!
To mitigate heat and noise intrusion into the cockpit I decided to fabricate an closeout panel to separate the fuel tank compartment from the engine compartment. Some builders decide to do nothing, some build a solid panel (and don't put anything else in the compartment) while others make a full-length panel with an access door so that they can service the low-pressure fuel system.
I wanted to locate the low-pressure system in the compartment, but I realized that even with an access door it would be very hard to service it once the body was on and the high-pressure fuel system was installed. So, after much thought I decided to cut a hole in the floor to service the low-pressure system. I'm pretty sure that I'm the first builder to take that approach.
The close out panel is very simple in concept, but it was a lot of work to finish. The first step was to cut some 0.1" aluminum to the rough size. After that I cut notches around the 2x2's on the floor and then I coped the sides around the weld beads on the chassis. I must have had the panel in and out of the car 40 times to get it to fit perfectly – lots of measuring and small cuts means no big mistakes! Once that was done I drilled and tapped 37 holes
Clecos temporarily holding the panel in place
Before tapping the holes I mounted the panel with clecos. As discussed in the video above they come from the aviation industry and are extremely useful when fitting panels. I thought that the panel fit perfectly, but when it was held completely flat by the clecos I discovered it was too wide. It was easy to remove all of the clecos, trim the panel and reinstall it.
My daughter helped me tap a bunch of the holes. I thought that I was teaching her something until she explained that she had used a much larger tap to extract tree cores. I then explained the purpose of cutting fluid and once again she was not impressed, "Dad, we coated the tap with wax to do the same thing." LoL so much for me teaching her something.
Once this was done, I cut holes for the fuel filler tube and the shift cables. Although the fuel filler tube is round, I had to make a slotted hole because the fuel tank must be rotated when it's dropped in. Fortunately Will was visiting when I did this so the cuts came out perfect.
Any resemblance to my daughter's pastry roller is purely concidental
Next I covered the engine compartment side with heat shield. It can withstand direct continuous heat up to 1,750° F, but the embossed 10 mil aluminum skin dents easily. I used a special rubber coated roller to ensure it laid flat. Any resemblance to my daughter's beloved pastry roller is purely coincidental. I thought it would be easy to trim the overhang with tin snips, but that didn't work well. I found that a Dremel cutoff wheel worked OK, but the glass-fiber core made a huge mess (if you go this route, do it outside and wear a mask!). In addition, when I drilled the holes the adhesive film hardened on the drill bit... so I had to clean the drill bit 37 times with a razor blade.
I then fabricated some brackets out of right-angle aluminum to seal the sides. Once this was done I installed Second Skin Damplifier Pro on the side that faces the cockpit to deaden vibrations. The last step was to install the panel with 10-24 screws and Permatex Black RTV Silicone Sealant.
I mounted the hydraulic lift pump today. There wasn't an easy way to mount it where I wanted it so I fabricated a bracket. The only right angle aluminum that I had that was tall enough was 1/4" x 4" x 4", which was overkill. After cutting it down to size, drilling the mounting holes and cleaning the edges up on the sander, I milled two openings to reduce weight.
The bracket that comes with (and is required to mount to my bracket) was damaged in shipping so I removed it to straighten it. I noticed that there was some oil between the pump body and the bracket. Apparently, the two mounting bolt thread directly into the pressurized part of the pump. As can be seen in the picture below, they stack two small o-rings on the bolt to prevent the oil from leaking. There are no groves and the pump body has a 2.5" diameter (i.e., it's no flat) which results in a less than ideal seal. I considered using some 1/32" rubber to make a gasket, but that would reduce the amount of thread into the body and the o-rings wouldn't get as compressed. I also thought about 3D printing a curved washer, but I was concerned that it would be so thin that it might eventually crack. So I decided to use a little Room-Temperature-Vulcanizing (RTV) silicon.
After installing it, I realized that I could have tapped two holes into the 2" x 2"for the bottom two bolts and used a much smaller piece of aluminum for the top two bolts... oh well.
To complete the hydraulic lift pump I need to install and plumb the reservoir and plumb the lift rams. To do that I need to order some more hose ends and wait for Penske to return my reconfigured shocks.
That hair, like stainless steel hose, is so 80s!
I plumbed the front brake, rear brake and clutch reservoirs today. I upgraded the supplied Wilwood master cylinders and remote reservoirs with ones from Tilton. Amongst other benefits, the Tiltons feature -4 AN outlets rather than push-on barbs. Having made that change, I needed to figure out what type of hose to use because brake fluid is highly toxic and eats through all types of things including most types of automotive hose. This usually means that you need to use Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) hose jacketed in stainless steel.
I used to love stainless hose, but that was in the 80s when I was in high school. IMO, stainless steel hose is as dated as 80's big hair... well, at least the music has stood the test of time! Beyond dated looks, it's heavy and real pain-in-the-ass to install. I will use it where lines are exposed to road debris, but no where else. If you're wondering, I do have the Koul Tools which makes it much easier to install hose ends, but installation goes pretty much like this; I get stabbed, I bleed, and then I swear like a sailor.
In any event, the Aeroquip Startlite hose that I'm using elsewhere isn't compatible with brake fluid and Aeroquip's PFTE hose has a stainless steel jacket... what to do? I found some really nice aramid-braided PFTE hose from Goodridge which can be bought from Pegasus Auto Racing. It's not cheap, but it has lots of benefits; it's:
In the picture below the foremost object is the PFTE liner with the sheathing removed. This exposes the convoluted outside diameter which is what provides the super-flexible bend radius. Note that the interior diameter is completely smooth. The middle objects are the hose ends. The silver part simply slides over the hose and the black part threads into the hose. The top object shows how flexible the hose is.
The installation instructions suggest that you wrap the point to be cut with low-stick painter's tape. A Dremel cut-off wheel makes a clean cut, but I found that removing the tape caused fraying which was a hassle to stuff into the silver collar. I began using a couple wraps of Teflon tape before the painter's tape which significantly reduced the amount of fraying. I latter figured out that I could just wrap the hose exactly one time with a 1/4" wide piece of painter's tape. After removing any small frays with a high-quality micro shear (I like Xuron), I was able to simply twist the silver collar on without removing the 1/8" of tape (the 1/4" tape was cut in the middle). After putting a couple drops of light oil on the threads, you twist the end on until it's tight and then you spin the silver collar a couple of times... that's it.
Ok, on to the install. It's important that the lines always pitch up towards the reservoir or are at worst horizontal, to facilitate bleeding the system. You want all air bubbles to flow up to the reservoir and out of the system. I considered keeping all of the bulkhead fittings at the same height, but I couldn't get the hose to lay properly. So I decided to increase the of the bulkhead fittings from left to right. Everything is above the fittings on the pedals and below the fittings on the reservoir. Note that the "horizontal" hose does slope up a bit. To keep the hoses in place I designed and 3D printed a custom bracket.
So it's the first week of spring and here are a few photos from my son's soccer game... yeah, all that white stuff is snow. You'll note that the boys in blue have hats and leg coverings while my son's team, the boys in black, have a hardcore coach who insisted on bare legs and heads. Fortunately it was OK for the parents to remain bundled up.
In any event, it should be apparent why I'm building a SL-C (coupe) rather than a Le Mans (spyder).
Action-packed video with professional voice over
Two posts ago I showed a video of a hydraulic lift test, but I've posted it here again just in case you missed the action-packed sequence:-)
When I removed the shocks I realized that there was no easy way to disconnect the hydraulic lines which means that oil gets everywhere and that I need to re-bleed the system when I put it back together. To solve these issues I purchased some quick disconnects which are tested to 15,000 psi. They enable me to quickly disconnect the hydraulic rams without any fluid leaking.
In addition, I decided to upgrade the hydraulic fluid reservoir from 3/8" push-on barbs to proper -6 AN fittings and hose. I spent a fair amount of time looking for reservoir with AN fittings to no avail. So I decided to modify the supplied one. I purchased a -6 AN Fuel Cell Bulkhead Adapter Fitting from Vibrant Performance which came with a nut and two PFTE washers. I removed the barb with a Dremel cut-off wheel, sanded the bottom flat and then carefully enlarged the hole. The nut was too big to fit so I had to grind it round and press fit it. Now I can sleep better knowing I have a proper AN fitting:-)
The reservoir bracket as supplied is on the left. The hex nut and two PFTE washers are on the right. Note that the nut has already been ground round and that only one of the PTFE washers was used.
I installed the fuel-level sender a year ago. It's a nice unit from Centroid Products with no moving parts – it uses capacitance rather than a float. The one supplied in the kit was configured to integrate seamlessly with the Koso gauge. Specifically, it applies signal damping to prevent the reading from bouncing when the fuel sloshes in the tank and it maps the unique shape of the SL-Cs fuel tank to eight discrete restive/ohm-based values. The Koso then maps those eight values to the ten display bars on the gauge.
My MoTeC system can provide a more accurate and granular solution so I contacted Centroid to purchase a sender with an analogue 0-5V output an no tank shape compensation. They informed me that they would re-calibrate the sender at no cost, a nice surprise.
To calibrate the system, I will put some fuel in the tank and run the low pressure pump until it stops pumping being careful to not damage the pump by running dry for very long. I will take a voltage reading which will be the "empty" setting. I will then add a gallon of fuel and measure the voltage. I will repeat this until the voltage doesn't change at which point the tank is "full" as far as the sender is concerned. Of course, more fuel could be added at the very top of the tank and the fuel filler, but that's not a concern. Given that the tank holds 19.2 gallons, I will have 20 data points with all but one being approximately 5% apart. I could also go with half gallon increments, but I doubt that I'll have that much patience.
This data will then be entered into a custom map in MoTeC.
I've been having some issues figuring out my Penske shocks and my friend Will visited me last week to help with the car and sort through the following issues:
We solved all of those issues and more. Plus we found a way to mount the shock such that it can be easily removed without needing to even touch the upper control arm! We also decided to add a bump stop and a bump spring.
The manual indicates that the ride height minimum is 4.0" and the recommend height is somewhere between 4.25" and 4.5". Given the condition of the roads in in Boston, 4.5" seemed like a good target. Keep in mind that splitter and the bottom of the seats are actually lower! Even if I adjusted to last thread on the shock body (not a good idea), I couldn't get any lower than 4.75" with the supplied 400 pound / inch springs. While the car will weigh more when finished (lowers the car) most people run 600 to 800 pounds / inch springs in front which will raise the car even more.
Most builders have the standard QA1 shocks, but I went with the high-end Penske shocks. When they are fitted with hydraulic lift rams (to raise the nose for speed bumps, steep inclines, etc.), and zero-rate springs (to keep the springs aligned when at full droop) and short 4" main springs there aren't any threads left to lower the ride height. The zero-rate springs and associated spring divider take 0.8" when fully compressed. I might have been able to achieve the desired ride height without them, but it's a real pain in the ass to keep lifting and dropping the front end to get the shocks to seat properly without them. In addition, you have the potential for an unsafe situation if you unload the front end while driving and the shocks don't settle properly as discussed in an earlier blog post.
Unless I wanted to buy new shocks (very expensive) the only solution was to move the location of upper shock mounting point. My first attempt was to machine an aluminum spacer to relocate the existing steel bracket. Since this moves the bracket's top bolt directly over the monocoque's weld bead that bolt must be solely supported by the bracket. The rule of thumb for tapping a bolt into aluminum is that it must be at least twice as thick as the diameter of the bolt. Since the bolt is 5/16" that's 10/16 which I up-sized to 12/16 (i.e., 3/4") because that's what I had on hand and it allowed the shock reservoir hose to clear upper control arm.
The new milling machine and its digital read out (DRO) came in handy. As you can see below, we had a lot of man glitter to clean up. The spacer came out great, but it caused the hydraulic lift ram to hit the upper control arm at full droop – D'OH!
Given that the spacer wasn't going to work, we needed to prototype a new bracket that would be eventually manufactured the same way as the original one (laser cut, bent and cadmium plated 0.184" steel). In this case, we relocated the shock absorber bolt 1.4" higher vs. the supplied steel bracket. We also moved it 0.3" inches towards the wheel so that shock cap would clear the bracket's top mounting bolt.
I drew it up, 3D printed it and installed it. We determined that the shock would fit, but that the reservoir hoses would hit the upper control arm. So we bled the 150 psi nitrogen, drained the oil and disconnected the reservoirs (I didn't do this initially because it will cost $300 to have them re-filled and bled on the dyno at Penske).
Provided steel bracket and pre-explosion Onyx prototype
We then wondered, "Are they strong enough to support the car so that we can adjust the ride height?" So I printed another bracket and gave it a whirl. They held up for several up/down cycles on the lift until I set the car down a little too hard and POW! they exploded and pieces were everywhere with one piece making it into the hallway.
Third time is the charm, right? Now that we knew the design parameters we made a more durable temporary set out of steel. This required use of the bandsaw, the bench sander, the welding equipment and the milling machine. Oh yeah, lots of points earned on the man card that day.
We swapped the 400 pounds/inch springs with 700 pounds/inch springs, installed the shocks (still on the last adjustment thread) and lowered the car and it looked nice and low. We measured 3.75" inches - yeah, baby! Despite increasing the spring rate by ~1.75x the bracket lowered the ride height by 1". We were then able to adjust the ride height to the desired 4.5" as which point we had 6 threads of adjustment left on the shock body. While the shocks didn't have nitrogen in them, the car will get heavier by the time that I'm finished which means that I'm in great shape with respect to ride height now.
Temporary steel bracket; note that the reservoir hose has been removed
We also wanted to make sure that the hydraulic lift was able to raise the front of the car to an appropriate height. So, we temporarily wired up the electric, plumbed the hydraulic lines and filled it with oil. As the video below shows, we were able to raise the nose from 4.5" to almost 7".
I had previously called Penske because I anticipated that the reservoir hoses might interfere with the upper control arm. I learned that you can configure the shocks any way that you want. In particular, you can clock the collars (i.e., the orientation of the reservoir hoses) 360 degrees and you can chose from multiple NPT and banjo fittings. So, I ordered some parts from Penske to figure out optimal fitment. Superlite ships the shocks with a straight NPT fitting, so I ordered a NPT collar, a NPT hose and 45-degree and 90-degree NPT fittings. I also ordered a banjo collar and a banjo hose. Lastly I ordered a body and a body cap. The parts are beautiful, but expensive... that's $937.50 of parts! Fortunately, I can return them for no charge if they're in perfect condition.
After trying lots of permutations, the best solution was the banjo collar clocked 90 degrees so that it pointed directly towards the wheel. The banjo is then pointed towards the front of the car raised approximately 30 degrees from horizontal. This loops the hose up and over the upper control arm and sway bar as shown in the picture below. Will has decided that he wants to pursue a career as a hand model.
We decided that the best place to locate the reservoirs was on the wheel side of the aluminum panels that support the radiator. To accomplish this Penske will shorten the provided 20.25" hoses to 16". This will make it easy to adjust compression and nitrogen pressure. However, it will expose the reservoirs to road debris so I'll 3D print a protective bracket that contains some mesh to allow them to cool.
When I took the front suspension apart I had a hard time getting the shocks out and I was unable to reinstall them. I called Superlite and spoke with Josh. He indicated that they were very difficult to install and that there were two approaches: (1) two guys and a crowbar or (2) compress the shock on the bench, use zip ties to keep it compressed, line it up and cut the ties (and I assume pray). His preferred option was the crow bar which is the approach that I used every time I reinstalled the shocks.
You really want another set of hands when going with this approach. Even then, no matter how careful you are you wind up scratching the really nice anodized finish on the shock and the aluminum on the control arm. You also put burs on the lower shock pin which requires you to sand/polish it so that it will easily slide through the mono ball. This is further complicated by the need to slip a high-misalignment washer and two grade 8 washers between the mono ball and the slot in the control arm. Once that's done, you need to insert something in one of the threaded holes to rotate the pin so that the socket head cap screws can be inserted. This isn't good for the threads. Beyond all of this , the steering tie rod ends up being the droop limiter which isn't good. Worst I needed to jack the lower control arm to get the tires off.
Droop limiters in 1/8" increments
So I called Penske again. They're familiar with the SL-C and indicated that they were at a race when the Raver team approached them because they couldn't remove the front tires without separately jacking the lower control arm – the same issue that I was having. According to their notes, they determined that the shocks were 1.5" too long and that there was a negative spring pre-load of 2.2" which was excessive.
To fix this, they simply installed 1.5" of droop limiters. Penske stocks them in 1/8" increments and you can stack them to achieve the height that you need. You can also easily make your own on a lathe. As far as I can tell they're made out of Delrin.
Raver's 1.5" seems consistent with the new bracket. Recall that I moved the mounting point 1.4" up and 0.3" outward. I am now able to get the tires off without jacking the lower control arm. They rub a little bit, so I'm considering having 1/8" droop limiters installed. While I don't know the suspension's geometry, the outward movement mitigates the upward displacement somewhat. That said, our measurements are in the ball park.
I also asked Allan to measure the length of the QA1s at full droop and he got 14". I then measured mine. It was a little difficult to get an accurate measurement because the mono balls swivel and the shock body makes it hard to get close to the mono balls. So, I 3D printed a couple of tools to get a more accurate measurement as shown below. We measured 15.2", a 1.2" difference from the QA1s.
I then spoke with Allan regarding Preston's car which also has Penske shocks. He had the same issue and his solution was to cut the side profile of the leading edge of the front wheel arch. This is a fair amount of work and it's not something that he had needed to do to cars with QA1 shocks. Will spoke with Ed whose wheels also hit, but this is mitigated by his custom sway bars. So, four of four of the SL-Cs with Penske shocks that I know of have the same problem.
My conclusion is that the Penske shocks are approximately 1.2" to 1.5" too long depending on what wheels, etc. you're running. The good news is that this can be easily fixed by installing droop limiters which, to my understanding, can be done in the field without draining the oil.
The next step was to figure out what would happen at max compression. Given that I moved the shocks up ~1.4" I assumed that the wheel would hit the body well before the shock bottomed out. We removed the spring, slid the shaft position o-ring to the top of shaft and jacked the lower control arm until there was a small gap between the top of the tire and the body. We then let the control arm down and measured the distance that the shaft position o-ring had traveled (these Penske guys think of everything).
Some fairly typical rubber/composite bump stops seen in oval track racing
We then determined that after the wheel lifted the body up the suspension's travel would be eventually impeded by the steering column tie rod which isn't good. This can be simply solved by using a bump stop. While a bump stop will protect the body and the steering tie rod, the 700 pound / inch spring rate will suddenly go exponential which will upset the driver if not the car. A better approach is to use a bump stop and one or more bump springs. A bump spring acts like a really stiff main spring that's mounted on the shaft like a bump stop. This provides a more progressive and manageable experience before max compression is reached.
There's a great article here on bump springs. Apparently people get paid big bucks to optimize bump springs as shown in the picture above. For my purposes, I'm going to use a bump stop and pick one bump spring that's a good bit higher than 700 pounds / inch.
Once the shock is unbolted you need to do the following to remove it:
You need to redo all of the above to reinstall the shock, but the real pain in holding a high-misalignment washer and two grade 8 washers on both sides of the upper control arm's heim joint when sliding the bolt through.
I no longer need to do any of the above and I no longer need a crow bar to jamb things in. In fact, I now need to raise the lower control arm to reach the lower shock pin. Changing the shocks or springs is now a pleasure!
It was really great to have Will help out. I don't know how many times we had the shocks in and out, but we're about efficient as a F1 team. I also can't say enough about the support I got from Penske.
The Penske shocks as delivered by Superlite are approximately 1.2" to 1.5" too long which makes it hard to install the shock and requires you jack the lower control arm to remove the wheel. This can be easily and inexpensively fixed by installing droop limiters.
If you have Penskes and use a hydraulic lift and zero rate springs (IMO both are must haves for a street/track car), you won't be able to get the ride height low enough. This can be fixed via a custom bracket. In addition to fixing the ride height issue, it mitigates and potentially removes the need for droop limiters. Furthermore, it means that you can remove/reinstall the shock without touching the upper control arm. However, you must clock and potentially replace your shock collars. If this is the route that you want to go, make sure that the shocks are configured the way you want them before you order or you'll going to be dropping ~$700 before you even get to the custom bracket.
Key measurements:
Key changes:
The results were:
Next steps are to ship the shocks back to Penske and to have the final version of the bracket made.
The family CEO allowed me to go to SEMA, the world's largest automotive show, last year. You won't see any production cars there. It's focused on automotive suppliers, aftermarket parts and cool/insane custom-built cars and it's only open to people in the industry. My friend Will and I walked it all which is a lot to do in three days.
One of the primary things I was looking for was a rotary controller that I could integrate into my MoTeC ECU and PDMs. While I found several they were typically designed to work with a proprietary screen which meant that integration was a big question. I was really disappointed that MoTeC didn’t have a booth.
However, this week I received some parts from my MoTeC supplier and this marketing flyer was in the box...
The ability to configure menus and sub menus via their PC-based application is really cool. They don’t have anything on their website yet and the spec sheets aren’t available yet, but I have one on order. I think it's a great valentine's gift for the car;-)
Although my climate settings can be controlled via a smartphone app, I want manual controls in case the batteries run out on the phone, I forget my phone or the bluetooth interface has a glitch. The climate controls for most home built cars are awful. IMO Restomod makes the nicest ones on the market. I had their Reactor control on back order, but they announced their Elevate controller at SEMA and I dropped by their booth to check it out. They're less expensive so that's the only booth visit that saved me money!
Like their other controls the Elevate control are made from billet 6061 aluminum. However, the knobs are completely flush until you push them at which point they pop out. They are very compact, look great and have a nice feel. I went with red LED back lighting, but I can easily change them to white, green, blue or cyan. The only thing thing that I don't like is that each of the four twist in/out LED modules have two wires hanging out the back. I'll need to clean that up when I figure out where I'm installing the controller.
I've met a lot of great people while building the SL-C. The community has a massive talent pool which is a critical resource when building this type of car. One of the guys that I've met is "H"... yeah, he's fun to look him up in my contact list. He's an amazing fabricator and the owner of H Craft Customs. He was also the chief fabricator for the Robertson Racing team which took third place at Le Mans with a modified Ford GT. The body of Superlite's GT-R (the "R" stands for Robertson) was modeled after their car.
Robertson Racing's Ford GT-based car
H is building a Superlite GT-R for himself and he's using lots of OEM parts removed when preparing the Ford GTs for racing. He's also building one for a customer. I wish I had a fraction of his fabrication skills or at least lived close enough to have him do some work on my car. However, computers are his Kryptonite and he asked me if I could design and 3D print a part that adapts Restomod Air's oval shape to the GT's 3" ID circle on the dashboard. He could make something by hand, but it's a fiddly part and he needs three, so 3D printing offers a good solution.
I kept trying to draw a hollow oval and a hollow circle and loft the two surfaces. I then recalled that SolidWorks is best at solids, so I extruded solid shapes, lofted their faces and then used the shell feature to hollow out the interior. Once I figured that out it was easy to design the part including a barb, mounting bosses, etc. -- I mailed it to him yesterday, so we'll have to see it it works.
In the screenshot of the 3D slicer you will note it now indicates the estimated materials price and the mass of the object. I had requested those features a while ago (I assume that others have requested it) and via the magic of cloud-based software the feature just appeared. The next picture shows another feature that just appeared. It's the bottom of the removable support structure. You will note how much more sparse the section on the right is than the one on the left. This "turbo supports" feature reduce the time and material to support a part. This approach is used up to a distance near the actual part at which point the support structure because more dense (i.e. the left side).
The part was printed in 0.2 mm layers (0.1 mm would have taken a little over twice as long) and it looks pretty good. The bottom didn't look great after the support structure was removed and I continue to wish that they would provide an upgrade path for an additional extruder for water soluble support structures like my Replicator 2X has. That said, this part is buried in the dashboard and won't be seen.
I finally got around to installing the A/C evaporator / heating coil unit. This is complicated because the side impact bars prevent the standard one from fitting. To fit the aftermarket one from Restomod Air I needed to man up and cut a big hole in the monocoque. I took some inspiration from this commercial...
Esmeralda had the kids, so my version involved cranking music to insane levels, playing Foosball beer (actually scotch) pong, tweaking the webbers on the cobra, welding and grinding some steel tubes to keep the car from rocking backwards off the lift and cooking some sous vide short ribs and finishing them off with scotch and blow torch. I did all of this while wearing only my boxers – yeah, not a pretty picture, but my man card was totally charged up.
The monocoque is 1/4" thick aluminum and Allan recommended that I use Bosch T227D jig saw blades. Eight teeth per inch (TPI) seems way too few for metal, but it's my understanding that the higher TPI blades easily become clogged. I used some cutting fluid and they cut it like butter... well, maybe frozen butter.
I got the Restomod Vapir III to fit, but it was going to a nightmare to get the hoses routed, so I went with a Restomod Bantam. According to Restomod Air even the smaller Bantam has more cooling and heating capacity than the largest Gen IV unit from Vintage Air. I'm not sure about that, but I think that it will certainly be better than the supplied Vintage Air Slimline unit.
I made some brackets out of right angle aluminum and mounted the unit (I'm not going to trim the brackets until I figure out the exact height of the dashboard). The net result is that the Bantam takes about as much vertical space as the Vintage Air does when it's mounted under the the foot box (i.e., no hole). That said, the Bantam extends further towards the front which leaves less room for your toes to point upward. Keep in mind that when you're sitting flat in the SL-C your toes take more vertical space than your legs!
The blue tape is covering the three dash and two defrost ducts. They point straight up so I will need to cut them off and design and 3D print a manifold to fit under the dash board. The heater dump points down between the two brackets so it will not need to be modified.
The bottom of the evaporater isn't flat. There is 12.5" vertical space between the bottom of the evaporator and the floor at the horizontal cross bar (i.e., directly in front of the passenger). That reduces down to 10" as you move forward. I think Allan measured one of his recent cars to have 10" of clearance. However, the Vintage Air unit doesn't extend nearly as far into the foot box so you have more toe room once you're seated.
The foot box slopes forward at about 7 degrees so the height of hoses from the foot box varies. The bottom of the right angle in the picture below is where I expect the bottom of the dashboard to be.The evaporator projects 3.25" above the footbox at the cross bar and about 5" at the point where it ends in the foot box. The plan is to have the 3D printed manifold directly under the dashboard. The hoses will attach to the manifold directly under the dash board but they will quickly slope down to the top of the foot box for mounting.
I also setup my Precision Mathews PM-25MV milling machine today. IMO it's the best entry-level, bench-top, Chinese mill. It has a variable, brushless 1 HP motor, a three axis DRO and an x-axis power feed. It should handle my needs. I managed to crack the chip shield bracket the first time that I used it. According to the manufacturer, 99.9% of the users remove it so I just 3D printed a replacement bracket to hold the switch and I tossed the rest in the trash.
The next step is to route the hoses.
Part 1 can be found here...
So why is Lyme so poorly understood by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the medical community at large? It really boils down to two things: greed and profound silo-based arrogance.
Some doctors and individuals at the CDC have been paid by insurance companies to deny the obvious, thereby condemning tens of thousands of people to misdiagnosis, financial ruin, abuse and wrecked health. Rather than go into a long rant, I'll explain it this way. The CDC's refusal to acknowledge that chronic Lyme exists is as flagrantly dishonest as Trump's most egregious "fake news" claim. It doesn't matter what the real experts know, what the data proves or what the masses know, it's fake merely because they say it's fake. To my understanding the CDC is a world-class organization, but when it comes to chronic Lyme someone has their hand in someone else's wallet and they have their collective heads in the wrong place.
If you'd like to understand more about Lyme and, in particular, the political issues with the CDC and the healthcare community you should watch Under Our Skin which is a great documentary on the subject (full disclosure, my parents helped fund it after my mother's awful experience with Lyme).
The CDC has recently recognized Lyme as one of the fastest growing vector borne diseases and they're investing heavily into prevention. While that's a good thing, they continue to damage the prospects for chronic Lyme patients.
“What is “Chronic Lyme”?
In the majority of cases, it [Lyme] is successfully treated with oral antibiotics. Physicians sometimes describe patients who have non-specific symptoms (like fatigue, pain, and joint and muscle aches) after the treatment of Lyme disease as having post-treatment Lyme disease syndrome (PTLDS) or post Lyme disease syndrome (PLDS).”
Wow. Antibiotics, and certainly oral ones, are only proven to be effective if the patient is treated soon after they are infected. Once the bacteria is established antibiotics are next to useless, but prolonged use will certainly destroy your health and finances. Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) is the most complex bacterium known to science. It has five subspecies with more than 100 strains in the USA and 300 strains worldwide. Bb takes three different forms to evade the immune system and antibiotics; the spiral shape (spirochete) that has a cell wall, the cell-wall-deficient form, and the cyst / bio film form. The purpose of conventional antibiotics is to fight against free-floating bacteria. However, once a pathogen creates a biofilm, they are 1,000-times more resistant to antibiotics. The National Institute of Health states that approximately 80 percent of chronic microbial infections are caused by biofilms. Even if patients see improvement from antibiotic treatment, it is common for them to relapse due to the presence of biofilms which helps to explain why chronic Lyme patients remain ill after extensive antibiotic treatment.
Despite the CDC disseminating misinformation, why do otherwise good doctors miss the mark? Well, the Lyme literate know it as "the great imitator" because it can mimic many other chronic disorders and this just doesn't fit the doctors' view of the world. They simply write off people who advocate chronic Lyme as wackos. They'd be much happier placing patients into well established silos that fit the symptoms; arthritis, clinical depression, auto immune disorder, etc., even when it makes no sense. The CDC's utter bullshit regarding chronic Lyme reinforces this approach.
For example, I worked with one woman in her thirties. A total workaholic who in a matter of weeks had joint pain so bad she couldn't pick up her children and she often had to take pain killers just to drive home. She was reputedly diagnosed with arthritis. After six months and multiple doctors she was correctly diagnosed with Lyme. Really? This was recent and those were Boston-based doctors and acute joint pain is probably tied with chronic fatigue as the top Lyme symptom.
Lyme's impact on the Energizer Bunny
Another friend used to run at least eight miles before breakfast, work a full-time job and before going to bed he'd build things. He built his house, he built a plane (that he flew), and he's built a bunch of cars including seventeen SL-Cs (I'm trying to finish my first). You know, the Energizer Bunny type who makes you question what you've done today.
He got sick and in three weeks he needed to take a nap in the middle of the day and be in bed by 8:30 PM. Other symptoms include: chronic hives all over his body, sore joints, heart beat skipping, muscle pain (like he used to feel the day after running a marathon), facial twitching, ringing in ears, etc. Yeah, he's a train wreck and after spending five years meeting with every sort of specialist they diagnosed him some form of autoimmune disorder. He has a P.H.D. in biology and he read everything about that diagnosis. He kept telling them that that it made no sense and that he thought that he had Lyme. He lives in Connecticut and both his dog and neighbor had Lyme, so his theory doesn't require an advanced degree. They put him in a convenient silo and condemned him there for life. I was recently able to get him in front of the right doctors and they confirmed that he has Lyme in his spinal column and he is currently in phase two of a brutal treatment protocol.
Syphilis spirochetes, they look a lot like Borrelia (aka Lyme) spirochetes
These experiences aren't outliers. Everyone that I've met with chronic Lyme has a similar story which ranges from repeated misdiagnosis to outright abuse. Perhaps you're thinking that I'm being too hard on the healthcare system and that they should get a pass because it's the only disease that breaks their vaunted silos. WRONG!
Person with tertiary (gummatous) syphilis. Bust in Musée de l'Homme, Paris.
They have failed to understand the obvious, and well documented similarities between Lyme and Syphilis. To my layperson's understanding, the primary difference between Syphilis and Lyme is that the former is a Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) and the latter is a tick-borne infection. A second and very unfortunate difference is that there are excellent diagnostic tests for Syphilis whereas the ones for Lyme only detect a few of the Lyme variants and even then there are many false negatives. Finally, late stage Syphilis is often more catastrophic than Lyme; gross disfigurement, insanity, death, etc.
Beyond those differences, they both feature spirochetes, they both have three stages (although the CDC denies that the third stage exists for Lyme) and they are both known as "The Great Imitator" because they can mimic almost any medical condition in the textbooks, including major psychiatric disorders. The imitator has great range, Beethoven went deaf due to syphilis and it killed Bram Stoker, author of Dracula.
In fact medical students in the USA used to be (and perhaps still are) taught that they should always consider neurosyphilis as a potential cause for atypical behavioral and psychiatric symptoms because late neurosyphilis can be difficult to diagnose and typically occurs 4 to 25 years after the initial infection! While you don't hear about syphilis in the west very often, Wikipedia states that in 2015 about 45.4 million people were infected with it and it caused about 107,000 deaths. Other than greed and profound silo-based arrogance, it's inconceivable that the medical community readily accepts chronic Syphilis and it's ability to mimic other diseases, but calls chronic Lyme patients as wackos for insisting that it exists and that it can manifest in a wide variety of illnesses.
OK, back to my story... I was fortunate to get an appointment at The Dean Center for Tick Borne Illness. They looked at my previous test results and gave me a bunch of neurological tests. The most interesting went something like this: stand, stand on one foot, the other foot... why am I doing this? Then, stand on one foot with your eyes closed... holy shit, if the doctor hadn't been standing next to me I would have hit the floor. Apparently one of the places that Lyme likes to live in the fluid in the ear which is why many patients have tinnitus or balance issues. They took a lot of blood. I think it was 18 vials, but that stuff makes feel nauseous so I wasn't looking and I certainly wasn't counting. They then strongly recommended that I go the St. George Klinik in Germany for two and a half weeks of treatment.
Now some of you highly-educated doctors might think that I met with some wacko alternative medicine person. You types usually want to know the person's credentials so you can summarily dismiss them. Well my doctor is an attending physician at Harvard Medical School and has dedicated her life to study of tick borne illness. That doesn't make her ipso facto correct, but she likely has a higher cred factor on Lyme than you ever will.
Why do I need to go to Germany? Boston is the healthcare capital of the world and I'm sitting with the best doctor in the best facility for Lyme in the city. It's pretty simple, the treatments in the USA are not very effective for chronic Lyme. In fact, they won't be covered by insurance and they will likely wreck your health. Remember according to the CDC the condition doesn't exist! The treatments in Germany are effective, but they would cause a USA-doctor to lose their license. So off to Germany I went.
Breakfast of champions
While St. George has a robust three-week protocol, the primary parts are: (1) hypothermia therapy, (2) intravenous ozone therapy, (3) intravenous antibiotics, (4) detox, (5) nutrients and (6) diet. One of the first things they do is install a "port" into your arm which enables them to give you infusions. I have good veins so this wasn't a big deal and mine lasted the whole two weeks. You're pretty much hooked up to these things all day.
Most patients receive two full-body hypothermia treatments. Since you'll be sedated for six hours they give you vegetable broth for dinner and nothing for breakfast. Early the next morning they sedate you and over a two-hour period they raise your entire body to 107.2 °F. They hold you at that temperature for two hours at which point they cool you down over a third two-hour period. I'm no doctor, but a quick Google indicates that you can die at 108 °F which is why all of this is done in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU). They've done it in excess of 15,000 times over the last 20+ years, so they know what they're doing. The treatment is covered by insurance in Germany!
Julius Wagner-Jauregg
Now you may be thinking, like most USA-based doctors, that this is some treatment invented by Lyme wackos, but there is medical precedence and science behind the treatment. Firstly, everyone should understand that when you get sick your body creates a fever to cook pathogens. Secondly, Julius Wagner-Jauregg took this "fever-is-good" approach to the next level when he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1927 "for his discovery of the therapeutic value of malaria inoculation in the treatment of dementia paralytica." In short, he used the blood from a soldier with malaria to infect three of his neurosyphilis patients with malaria. The good news was that the resulting high fever killed the syphilis bacterium. The bad news was that they now had malaria.
Thirdly, according to the St. George Klinik, in vitro cultivation of Borrelia burgdorferi (B.b.) demonstrates that the spirochete replicates most quickly at 37 °C (98.6 °F) making the human body the perfect incubator. If the temperature is increased to 39°C (102.2 °F) the growth of B.b. is significantly impeded. At 41 °C (105.8 °F) all spirochetes in the culture are killed after 24 hours, whereas at 41.6 °C (106.9 °F) all spirochetes are killed after two hours. They also claim that the intravenous antibiotics are 16 times more effective at that temperature. That's the science behind the hypothermia treatment. Of course all of this makes me think of the time vs. temperature pasteurization tables that I use when cooking Sous Vide.
Unfortunately, they couldn't do the whole body hypothermia on me because of my heart, so they gave me a special local hypothermia on my head. I walked into the allotted room dragging my IV stand. The nurse swapped my clear IV bottle for a new one with nasty looking yellowish liquid...
"What's that for?", I asked.
"To keep your brain from swelling too much."
"Why do I need that?
"We're going to heat your head up."
"How hot?"
"44.5", she replied. I know that 100 is boiling, so that sounded hot, but I don't comprehend Celsius so I looked it up on my iPhone. That's 112.1 degrees Fahrenheit!!!
"Isn't that dangerous?", I asked.
"Ya, ve know what we're doing."
Where's that calming gel? This has to be easier that getting three shots to the eye, right? There was a machine about as tall as I am with lots of buttons, dials and LED readouts and cables that led to an articulated arm hanging over the table. It looked like something from the set of The Six Million Dollar Man - high tech, but dated (not worn, just not state of the art electronics). As instructed, I took off metal items and I laid down on the table and rolled on my side. The nurse carefully positioned the business end of the arm on the back half of the side of my head such that it covered half of my ear. She then gave me a horn and told me to squeeze it if things got too hot. At first I didn't feel much, but I started to profusely sweat, especially on my head. At some point the skin directly under the contact area with the machine started to burn and then burn really bad.... "HONK!".
The nurse came in and said something like "Wow, you're sweating a lot." When I told her that the machine was burning me she removed it and let me feel the part that was in contact with my head. It was cool and felt like a gel pack. She explained that cool water was being pumped through that part and that the burning that I felt was electromagnetic waves interacting with the impurities in my sweat.
Wait a second... I had a flashback to a Christmas morning in the 70's when my dad surprised the family a microwave. It was the first one in the neighborhood and it was so cutting edge that my father actually consulted the manual and the number one takeaway was to not put any metal in it. There was a multi-generational debate with my grandparents weather or not it was safe to stare through the window when it was running... Jimmy you used to look at your toes in the X-Ray machine at the shoe store until they figured out that wasn't a good idea. However, it went without saying you weren't to stick your head in it!
Stay tuned for Part 3...
My SL-C will draw a lot of current for a home-built car. This is primarily due to lots of cooling fans (two for the radiator, one for the intercooler's heat exchanger, one for the engine oil cooler, and one for the transaxle cooler) plus lots of extras like the dynamic wing, linear actuators for the adjustable sway bars, etc.
I'm also planning on using a cutting-edge Lithium-Ion battery, the Antigravity ATX-20. I saw it in their booth at the SEMA show and picked it up. "This is a fake, right?", I asked. "Nope, that's the real thing," was the reply. !@%#! that's light. It has some has some really impressive specs:
Given that the engine is supercharged, the compression ratio is only 9:1 vs. the stock 11:1. Therefore the 780 cranking amps should be enough to start the car. However, the battery is only rated at 25 amp hours and, from what I can gather, an average car battery has around 70 amp hours. So, I need to have a really good alternator that generates lots of current at low RPMs.
An alternator is a generator that's driven off of a belt or serpentine connected to the crankshaft pulley. So why don't the just call it a generator? I think it's because cars run off of direct current (DC) and a generator creates alternating current (AC) which is then rectified into 12v DC.
Current plan... subject to change
Unfortunately my engine doesn't currently accommodate an alternator or an air conditioning compressor, so I've been pulling my hair about that. In the diagram to the right you can see where I'm thinking about placing these pieces which will require custom brackets!
Since it's an LS engine I wanted to go with an alternator with a General Motors (GM) bolt pattern. I chose the CS-130 style rather than the older and larger CS-144 style because space is at a huge premium in an SL-C – think Manhattan penthouse across the street from Central Park.
Once I had decided on the CS-130, I had to pick one of the hundreds if not thousands to choose from. My biggest concern is idling in traffic on a hot day which causes two issues from an electrical system perspective; (1) all of the power hungry fans will be running at full speed and (2) low RPMs typically means low power generation and even though the engine generates 1,000 HP it idles like a kitten at 650 RPM which is low. As I already mentioned the Antigravity battery has low amp hours, so a "normal" alternator isn't going to work for me.
After doing a lot of research, I found Mechman Alternators. They custom make alternators with really impressive low RPM output as demonstrated in this video.
Mechman's Elite & S Series have the following advantages:
Perhaps most surprising to me is that these are one-wire rather than three-wire alternators. One-wire alternators are easier to wire, but they typically have poor, and sometimes zero, power generation at low RPMs.
I went with model B8165170M with a 54 mm pulley. It has a billet aluminum case and is rated at 170 amps. However, what's really impressive is that it will generate 120 to 130 amps even at my low idle! I just got it today, and it's beautiful. I went with the "machined" finish because that's in keeping with all of the CNC'd suspension parts. Now I just need to figure out how to mount it.
It's been a long time since my last post. Beyond procrastination and copiously chasing my tail on the project, I've been busy dealing with a lot of health issues. If you're wondering why I'm blogging about Lyme on a garage-oriented site, it pretty simple. I need to be alive and have the energy to finish the car. Secondly, I've become a bit of a Lyme advocate and this is the best way for me to tell my story, at least for now.
While I'm man enough to admit that part of the reason for my positive outcome was due to persistent, unsolicited input from my wife and mother, I'd like to be 100% clear that such admission isn't an open invitation to layout coordinated outfits, comment on when I should cut my hair or to reiterate that you don't like the "moving fin thing" (i.e., dynamic wing discussed in this post) on the back of the car.
There's a basic lesson here for all of you proud "man card" carriers out there – if you're getting tag teamed on health issues, you might want to listen. Women, if the man isn't listening fire up a team.
It all started with a vein popping under my left cornea causing me to lose almost all my vision in that eye. During my vision test I could see the wall and just one small corner of the eye chart poster. Other than that, I couldn't even tell that there was a poster on the wall. They fixed that with three shots to the eyeball, each a month apart. I have a needle phobia and they don't knock you out, so that wasn't a lot of fun. They do a couple of applications of dilation drops, then a couple of applications of numbing gel, and then a couple of applications of cleansing gel. After that they tilt your head back and put a metal clip to keep your eyelid open – that started kicking my flight response into gear and I asked "I'm getting the shot now?" The doctor with the bow tie simply responded, "Yes."
Post shot eye
Where's the calming gel? Nope, pull out the man card and sit still. WTF, they're prescribing opioids by the ton and they're dispensing marijuana a quarter mile from the high school, but there's no calming gel? They need to work on that protocol. It wasn't nearly as bad as my mind imagined and, as the doctor had told me, the burning after the numbing gel wore was much worst than the actual injection. In any event, my sight was mostly restored and I’ve since discovered that the issue is caused by a rare genetic defect, Pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE).
So what does this have to do with a tick? Hang on, I'll get there...
Ejection Fraction
Although the doctors were certain that the issue with my eye had nothing to do with cardiovascular issues, my mother didn't care and she forced me to get a nuclear MRI at a research facility run by a family friend. They stick you in a tube for two hours and inject you with something that places stress on the heart and makes you feel like your peeing – who invents this stuff? They indicated that "the study is 100% at your discretion and if you start to get claustrophobic just squeeze this ball and we'll take you right out." Ha, my mom will send me back so no matter what don't take me out. I’m in my 50’s and mom still makes me do things I don’t want to do. A couple of days later they told me to come back to the hospital where they explained that my Ejection Fraction was 26%. Normal is 55% or higher and anything under 36% is bad and you're deemed to be in heart failure.
So, what caused that? Surely my years of stress running a company combined with not eating properly and not exercising properly. Nope, my cholesterol was fine, my arteries were clear, I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, I don't drink too much (except on vacation), so they diagnosed me as having cardiomyopathy, which is doctor speak for they don't have a clue what caused the problem. Their best guess was that "some virus" wacked me and they prescribed me some drugs, but they didn't do much to figure out what had caused the problem. The challenge is that if the drugs don't work to remodel the heart and the heart gets worst, the only surgical option would be a heart transplant. While I understand that's not a moon shot these days, it's not on my bucket list!
So my mother repeatedly suggested that I see a leading "functional medicine" doctor. Unlike most doctors who operate in a very tall and narrow silo, a functional doctor looks at the big picture. He told me that the medication that the other doctors prescribed were "mopping up the water on the floor" and that we needed to "figure out what was plugging the sink." Apparently functional doctors can have functional conversations with their patients.
They took a lot of blood and I filled out some long forms with a lot of personal questions which you’d rather not answer. I’ve been an adult for a long time, but I don’t like talking about my poop, masturbation habits or a lot of other topics. One would think that there was nothing left unanswered, but he asked if there was anything that wasn’t covered. I mentioned that I run hot and sweat a lot. On some nights I soak multiple pillows and need to change my shirt. This was a point of long-term martial stress because my wife would need to buy new pillows and we have a lot of pillows.
Borrelia spirochetes
He then declared, "I think you have Lyme." I insisted that I didn't and he asked me what made me think that. My mother had Lyme and I didn't have any of the symptoms; achy joints or crippling fatigue (FYI, Lyme has more than 100 symptoms). He then explained that I perfectly described babesiosis, a common Lyme co-infection. It’s a blood parasite that's very similar to malaria. If You Think Lyme is Bad, Meet Babesia! does a great job explaining it. I recognized a bunch of symptoms described in that article and in particular the description of one of her patients who had a “hot flash” so severe that it fogged up the front windshield of the car. In fact, I pretty much exactly described that in my Human Heater blog post well before I knew I had Lyme:
“I have an amazing ability to steam up a car. I’m not sure what the hell the issue is, but it starts at the window nearest me and migrates out in a radial pattern.”
Good thing I'm not a woman or the average doctor would have told me that I was just going through menopause!
It's important to understand that if you're in the United States, get bitten by an infected tick and you notice the classic bull's-eye rash the medical community will treat it with antibiotics and you'll very likely be cured. However, if you don't detect it early and Lyme becomes chronic, the treatment you'll get from the vast majority of the doctors in America is FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Repair), I was going to use Fouled, but the nasty word is appropriate. Many don't believe in chronic Lyme and if they treat you at all they will likely wreck both your health and finances. I would put as much faith in the majority of their views as I would a tweet from Trump at 2:30 AM in response to some perceived slight. Their views are as arrogant, misinformed and as destructive as anything I've seen from that megalomaniac.
A recent study by Tulane University exposed ten primates were exposed to ticks carrying B. burgdorferi spirochetes. Half received treatment with 28 days of oral doxycycline. Some key takeaways;
All subjects treated with antibiotics were found to have some level of infection 12 months post treatment.
Despite testing negative by antibody tests for Lyme disease, two of 10 subjects were still infected with Lyme bacteria in heart and bladder.
Few subjects displayed a rash. Although all subjects were infected, only one of the 10 displayed the classical bulls-eye rash. The subject that developed this rash, interestingly, never mounted an immune response to five borrelia antigens throughout the study period, prior to and following treatment.
