Ariel.Club Forum

Hi All,

Winter is here which means time to take the Atom to task and get it ready for next year. I want an Atom build that is built for the track with Slicks and sustainable performance.

Project remit will be as follows:
- extra performance
- reliable
- sustainable

I'll go through each of my mods and the rationale for the mod. This is just an intro to the project, more updates to follow shortly.

I'm not going to be able to get more performance out of the Atom 3 engine, reliably, unless I start with the foundation up and that means I need an excuse to rebuild the engine. The attached pic gives me the perfect excuse to rebuild the engine.

Slick tyres will increase stresses on the car and one of the must have mods will be the uprights. The factory uprights, bearings and shafts will come under much more stress. As you can see from the picture below, my factory hub literally snapped in two.

So I have replaced the factory uprights with Palatov billet uprights with Porsche bearings. The uprights are stronger and should more than suffice for handling slicks. See pics below:

This is going to be so much fun to follow! Love the uprights
What happened to the bend piston?? Does a car still run with a piston in this state??

Garmster wrote: ↑Sun Oct 20, 2019 4:31 pm I'm not going to be able to get more performance out of the Atom 3 engine, reliably, unless I start with the foundation up and that means I need an excuse to rebuild the engine. The attached pic gives me the perfect excuse to rebuild the engine.

Should have mentioned, my engine gave up at Spa and believe this was due to oil starvation, once again probably relating to the fact that I'm now running slicks. So a key consideration for the engine build will be the oil pump, baffling etc. All will be revealed as part of the new engine build, to be built by Mike Morrison MMR Race Engines.

Looking forward to following this!

Garmster wrote: ↑Sun Oct 20, 2019 5:24 pm

Garmster wrote: ↑Sun Oct 20, 2019 4:31 pm I'm not going to be able to get more performance out of the Atom 3 engine, reliably, unless I start with the foundation up and that means I need an excuse to rebuild the engine. The attached pic gives me the perfect excuse to rebuild the engine.

Should have mentioned, my engine gave up at Spa and believe this was due to oil starvation, once again probably relating to the fact that I'm now running slicks. So a key consideration for the engine build will be the oil pump, baffling etc. All will be revealed as part of the new engine build, to be built by Mike Morrison MMR Race Engines.

the old pan was baffled?

You won't be disappointed with the engine
Lightened flywheel ?

Dear forum, please email when there are updates to this build project. Thanks.

New "proper" Aero will be added, which will be built by DJ Race Cars, they don't know it as yet. It's not a cheap option at around 5k but has been proven in the time attack car pictured below and apparently shaves a good 1.5 sec per lap off the factory kit, depending of course on circuit types.

speedmachine wrote: ↑Sun Oct 20, 2019 7:07 pm

Garmster wrote: ↑Sun Oct 20, 2019 5:24 pm

Garmster wrote: ↑Sun Oct 20, 2019 4:31 pm I'm not going to be able to get more performance out of the Atom 3 engine, reliably, unless I start with the foundation up and that means I need an excuse to rebuild the engine. The attached pic gives me the perfect excuse to rebuild the engine.

Should have mentioned, my engine gave up at Spa and believe this was due to oil starvation, once again probably relating to the fact that I'm now running slicks. So a key consideration for the engine build will be the oil pump, baffling etc. All will be revealed as part of the new engine build, to be built by Mike Morrison MMR Race Engines.

the old pan was baffled?

Yes the sump was baffled as best as it can possibly be baffled but the problem is / was more likely to do with the fact that the FN2 K20Z4 (Atom3) engines uses a Balance Shaft Oil pump, which are not good for high revving and extremely restricted for baffling. Take a look at the pic below and see the monstrosity of the Balance Shaft Oil Pump. I'm surprised there's any room for an engine let alone a baffle, it's massive. My new engine will have a Balance Shaft Delete kit / 4PISTON Race Ported OIL PUMP, seen below. Actually saves weight too but also much better for high revving engines with less aeration. I'm also going to add Oil Pressure and Temp gauge to my car, another very important mod. As it stands, its binary. My current 3.5 dash will only show the oil pressure as 1 or 0, and if it's 0, I can only assume it's too late.

Check out the instagram of lambr00
Lots of aero

Following this one...

Have you looked at the Palatov bell cranks. He said they give much more predictable traits when you push on?

reg wrote: ↑Thu Oct 24, 2019 4:03 pm Following this one...

Have you looked at the Palatov bell cranks. He said they give much more predictable traits when you push on?

No sorry, not looked into it but would like to know the benefits.