Drakan Cars East - Our Partners on the East Coast!

Developing, building, selling and servicing a car takes a real team of like-minded people/companies.  Much like Palatov Motorsports, Drakan Cars East (DCE) is another key partner for us with the Drakan Spyder.  Bill Thomas and Kurt Nehlig are partners in this venture and support the NorthEast region for us.  Not only will they sell and service the Drakans, they are fully capable of installing the powertrains.  DCE have proven to be more than just a dealer and have helped to make the Drakan more complete.  I've worked with Bill for nearly ten years on Lotus and knew that they would become a great asset for us.

powertrain installation at DCE

A key feature of the Drakan is that it is available as a Rolling Chassis without an engine or trans.  The engine that we recommend is the eRod LS3 from GM Performance Parts.  This is a 50 state emissions compliant engine that is availalble from your local GM dealer.  Clients can select this engine or other LS variants that may suit their needs/desires.  The transaxle choices are various Getrag gearboxes but others are available as well.  In fact sequential solutions have been run on the Palatov D2 and will be tested on our car as well.  DCE have full capability to conduct powertrain installations.






DCE took delivery of their Drakan Spyder as a Rolling Chassis for their client, Adrian.  This was the second Drakan that has been built.  They completed the full powertrain installation at their facility.  Their extensive experience with boutique cars helped us finish some incomplete features (windshield wiper).  Additionally they also suggested improvements like a rubber cap that finishes off the rear of the headlight housing (see below).  I attended their Drakan unveiling and was pleased at how well they had finished the car.  These improvements will be incorporated into all future cars.

See rubber cap on backside of headlight housing - a DCE innovation!

DCE & Adrian went to the track to put it through its paces.  The Drakan is a powerful car but the handling is predictable as the car communicates clearly.  The guys had some fun playing around with the suspension to tune it to their liking.  They have also been testing out a new paint protection coating that is working well on high impingement areas - which is an important consideration on an open wheel car with sticky tires.  They have had the car out for 2 or 3 track days so far and have been suitably impressed.  Needless to say, they can't wait for their track season next Spring!

Bill and Adrian making tweaks to the Triple Adj Fox Racing Shocks

Power to spare!

  DCE are a great partner for us and I'm confident that our collective clients will be well served by them.  

Drakan Spyder (Project Dragon) Update #13: Street Testing

Dave and Joe heading out

 We are long overdue with an update, sorry as we have been overly busy!  We helped finish assembling the first production Drakan up at Palatov.  Joe and I have made Portland our second hometown with the ramp up of this car.  Luckily Portland is a cool town to visit - shame we are usually too busy working!  Since the car arrived to our shop in Temecula, several items were finished including side view mirrors, lights, venting, exhaust testing, suspension tuning and heat management.  We'll cover some of these in this blog.

Dave working on his tan

Dave is a happy engineer

David Thilenius came out to run the car along a street test loop that he had used while doing Ride & Handling work at Hyundai.  Dave now has his own consulting company, you can visit his website: Thilenius Group.  

This test loop is a great place to tune ride quality as it has many different conditions and road surfaces that challenge a car.  Most people believe that CA roads are smooth - in fact they can be very rough.  They can be pretty unforgiving to many cars that were not tuned for these conditions.  Dave and Joe drove together with some tools in hand and made adjustments to the Fox Racing shocks and even a slight tweak to front toe.  Street testing is done at civil speeds and lots of boring steady-state speeds.  This allows Dave to really feel what is going on with the car.  After several hours, they landed on settings that I would then get to try out. 

Some of Dave's comments about the car included that the car was not as 'buzzy' on the road as he thought it might be.  The LS3 is not hard mounted to this chassis so the car remains smooth.  He also commented about how flat the car handled as it sways very minimally with almost no perceived squat or dive.  The suspension compliance is really remarkable and makes the car very comfortable.  It does not have the stiffness you might expect in a car that is designed to be so elemental and pure.  We think this along with the flat cornering will be very much appreciated by our clients.

Naturally I needed to test out Dave's work.  So I decided to drive the car up one of my favorite mountain roads: Mt.Palomar.  This road is frequented by sport bikers and has plenty of tight turns and elevation change.  You may recall the humorous video we made years ago at Palomar.

Gas cap is in the center!

I drove the Drakan down the 15 freeway and was immediately happy with the ride quality.  The car is quiet and smooth at freeway speeds and holding a conversation with a passenger is easy.  I exited at 76 and went east to Mt.Palomar.  I filled her up at Pala and enjoyed the fact that I can park the car on either side of the pump thanks to the center mounted gas cap.

The car ran through the bumpy roads comfortably.  The suspension simply soaked up the irregularities.  This car is a torque monster and I was able to go up the 'slow' side in 3rd gear.  It had enough power to pull the car from each corner exit without necessitating a downshift.  The grip levels were very high and fully confidence inspiring.  The rear of the car could be convinced to come out under power but only if you provoke it.  Steering effort builds as the wheel is turned and provides excellent feedback.  The steering needs some effort but is so direct that you feel truly connected to the road.  We had requested that this effort get reduced and Palatov responded with a geometry change that works nicely on the road as well as track.

Dave's tuning really made for a compliant ride.  Dare I say it may be the most comfortable sports car in our stable?  This is a testament to Dave's tuning but also the basic suspension design by Palatov.  The Fox shock dampening and soft spring rates were selected by us from our track testing and I think they really work well on the street.  This chassis is essentially the same raced by Palatov this year at Pikes Peak - they took the win in the Open class.  The Palatov D2RS runs heavier springs but is basically the same chassis as our Drakan.

Sportbikers love light sports cars!

Of course, not everything went as smoothly as the ride.  We had chosen a new high temp shifter cable housing to test on the car.  The manufacturer felt it may be a better solution for us.  We had been running a good cable from them on our test mule but also used an additional insulation sheath and had great track performance.  These cables are the same construction as the ones we spec on our Lotus TRANScables.  We thought the new cables without insulation might suffice.  We were wrong.  The cables began to freeze up when I was at the top of the mountain.  So I drove home with a few less gears than normal.  We'll swap back to standard cables + insulation to insure this does not happen again.  

Other niggles that I noted included side view mirrors that vibrate a bit, the lack of a dead pedal and the need for grip tape on the clutch pedal.  The side view mirrors will soon get thicker metal on the base plate and should help stabilize the mirrors.  A dead pedal is in the works and adding grip tape is simple enough.

What's with the different spoke count on those HREs?

Overall we are happy with the car and have some additional tweaks to make to it.  Many of our clients are asking for wings.  We'll get to that later this year.  The cornering speeds of this car are already so high that we think most of our clients will be happy enough.  Slicks and wings are in our plans - but first we need to catch our breath from getting this car fine tuned...

Project Dragon Update #7: Extreme Track Test

We headed back to Spring Mountain for two more days of track testing on Sept 5th & 6th.  We wanted to see how the Dragon would fare in extreme heat with a pro in the car.  Testing in these conditions will ensure that clients have a reliable car on the street or track.  I drove it on the first day and we had our pro, Dave, run her on the second.

I drove the car on Friday to shake it down and confirm some of the fixes from our last track day.  The car ran well with acceptable oil pressures and coolant temps.  Coolant temps hovered around 206degF while on track and creeped up to 212degF when I exited the track without a cool down lap.  The oil pressures also looked very good with the lowest #s seen at hot idle (~14psi).  The PCV was vented with a foam filter that made a big mess and ended my day after 50 miles of track time.  I rigged up a catch can in anticipation of the next day.

On the second day, we ran the Mansell course.  There are two corners at SMMR called Pahrump 1&2 that are excellent oil starvation corners.  In fact they are so good that GM modeled these same corners at their Milford Proving Grounds back in MI.   See image above.

Dave Thilenius rolled in Friday eve so we could get a start on Saturday morning.  Dave is our pro driver and IMSA champ, who many of you already know has tested many of our cars.  We experienced ambient temperatures from a low of 88degF up to 102deg F in our last session.  Ambient temps really dictate how cool a car will run and higher temps will challenge any car run on track.  Dave ran several sessions, starting with a 3 lap session to learn the car and get her warmed up.  The Mansell configuration has some straights that allow the Dragon to really stretch its legs.  

We ran 113 miles on the car over the course of several sessions.  Dave averaged about 208-209 degF Coolant temps and Oil pressures that averaged about 29psi.  Dave got her up to 149mph on a couple portions of the track.   The fastest lap that he managed was a 2min31s lap.  This came during the first hot lap in our last session.  

During that last session, Dave accidentally shut the car off - we positioned our ignition switch a bit too close to the gear lever.  The chart above is from the point that he fired the car back up until he came off the track.  This session was also the hottest ambient at 102degF.  You can see that the peak temps we experienced were about 212degF.  This was a 10 lap session so we are happy with the cooling capacity of the car.  Oil pressure also proved to be good.  The data shown below is also from the last session.  I've circled the areas that define oil pressure in turns Pahrump 1 & 2.  The lowest numbers come during heavy braking but the engine is not under load and frankly we are still above the minimum specs recommended by GM at that rpm.  The car is running Toyo R888s and has no aero.  We will test again with slicks and wings.  A Daily Dry Sump solution has already been developed for the car and will be recommended for cars running heavily on track with slicks and wings.  I believe as is, the car is suitable for occasional track days - though heat management is still an issue that caused us some headache.

We intentionally ran the car with the factory cats that come with the eRod package.  This car exists because of the smog compliant powertrain package.  We know there are clients that want to register the car in certain states that require kit cars to meet smog tests.  I felt that testing the car, in a smog compliant state, was critical.  Frankly, we will recommend that anyone that is focused on trackdays should consider a decat.

The heat generated by the exhausts system (especially the cats) created some more collateral damage.  The balljoints in the rear arms were beginning to leak,  The trans cooler was located too close and resulted in hot trans fluid.  This caused the car to shift very poorly in the last session.  We will upgrade to higher weight trans fluid to combat this issue.  Though better heat shielding is a must on this car.  We have some work to do but it is a straight forward issue to solve.

At the end the day, the car inexplicably stalled and would not restart.  We thought we may have locked up the engine.  We dumped the oil, checked the spark plugs, scoped the cylinders and even ran a leakdown. Everything looked fine.   No issues with the engine.  In fact she started right up after cooling down.  We suspect the starter may have overheated and refused to crank over the engine.  Heat shielding is an absolute must...Palatov have actually sent us some shields that will solve some of the issues.

Watch our quick video:

We also took the time to test out some of the various suspension settings offered by the novel bell crank set-up.  Ultimately we found that the softest settings were best and we ran the best time with that configuration.  Thorough performance tuning will come at a later date.  This was our first stab at it but not a comprehensive one.

We will continue our development.  The quotes on tooling for the Spyder body, shown above are coming in now.  We continue to press ahead...

Project Dragon Update #5: Wiring

This past week/weekend was devoted to finishing the wiring on Project Dragon.  We removed the D2 bodywork and started running wires.  We have placed reliability as a very important criteria for us with this car so Ryan has been using OE connectors and other high quality components for the harness.

The car has a couple of inline Delphi connectors being used between the firewall to ease any changes we need to make during our development process.  We decided to to use the GM fuse/relay box that comes with the eRod engine.  It is a tried and true component that has all the functionality that we need.  We have located it at the front of the car above the battery.  Owners will have quick access to it by removing the hood of the Dragon - using quarter turn fasteners.

OE fusebox

Wiring switch panel

 Ryan wired up the switches for the car, which we tested and then finally mounted this week.  These switches are not representative of our final interior.  They are simply developmental parts so we can proceed to test the mechanical aspects of the car.  Our final design is coming soon.

Checking continuity

Tools of the trade

We wired up the Hella lights - Bi-Xenon headlights and LED turn indicators, taillights and reverse lamp.  We will also include a rear rain light to add additional visibility - a smart choice for small and low cars.  We created some simple temporary harnesses for these lights as we knew changes would be required once the final mounts were developed.


The Cosworth dash features a configurable display that we are now sorting.  We will be data logging water and oil temp along with oil pressure during our track testing.  We are running the GM calibration so don't expect to have any air/fuel ratio related problems.  Running the car at SMMR, in the heat of the summer, will be a good test of its durability.  We expect the street reliability of the car to be assured if we can make sure it lives after track abuse.  Wide open throttle for extended periods of time - as experienced on track - it an excellent way to test the durability of a car.  Dave T. will be testing Project Dragon for us this month.