Confessions of an Automationeer, Part 63: Road to Rehab
Not long ago, I got hold of a car called the Concord LaCampeli by winning it at a virtual car auction. This was a pristine example of a late-80s/early-90s personal luxury coupe, finished in metallic black and powered by a pushrod V8. It sounds like the ingredients for a desirable recipe, but in truth it was quite half-baked, to say the least. So here's how I turned a sow's ear into the proverbial silk purse it should have been.
The most obvious place to start was the engine. Bizarrely, hidden within its cast-iron block and heads was a highly aggressive cam profile and a flat-plane crankshaft - both of which were totally at odds with the Concord's mission statement of being a grand tourer. So I swapped in a milder cam and a conventional crank for more torque in the lower rev range. In addition, I ditched the cast internals in favor of sturdier forged items, leaned out the air/fuel ratio, advanced the ignition timing (for use with premium unleaded gasoline), fitted a second throttle body and swapped out the stock exhaust system for long tubular headers, a high-flow catalytic converter and reverse-flow mufflers. On top of that, I limited quality points to +2 on the valvetrain, allowing me to save costs on other areas by setting the quality there to zero.
The aero balance was all wrong (and a poor fit to boot)...
...the interior was all over the shop...
...the tires were the wrong size and type...
...the gearing and diff setup were awkward...
...the brakes were inadequate...
...the suspension was out of sorts...
...but at least it had adequate safety, plus power steering and anti-lock brakes.
Worst of all, the engine was under-delivering on its true potential.
Not only was the retuned engine exceeding all expectations...
...but the rest of the car was also massively improved.
Aesthetically, the Concord remained mostly unchanged, with the exception of different wheel rims (as stated above) in a larger size, and a modest rear spoiler to balance out the effect of the front spoiler the car came with by default. Downforce levels were then tweaked to ensure an appropriate aerodynamic balance between the front and rear ends. Thus, the basic look of the car was preserved in most places, and enhanced in others.
The revised Concord LaCampeli after its makeover. Despite the very subtle exterior changes, it became a much better car under the skin. To say that I was impressed by the mechanical makeover might even be an understatement.
The finished product was much more cohesive and better built than before, which was to be expected. What I did not expect was for the car to be more of a sports car than it once was. After its makeover, it gripped more tenaciously through the corners, and sprinted off the line much more vigorously. It also stopped better, too. In fact, the rebuilt car could now cover all bases with ease; it could finally be used as a grand tourer, daily driver, sports coupe, or muscle car (depending on the situation) simply by combining the best elements of all four of them.
In short, what was once a lame duck had finally become an apex predator of the streets, just as I hoped it would be. I had previously done similar work in the earlier Kee engine build of Automation, but this marks the first time I carried it out on such a severely flawed car using the UE4 4.21 release. And now that the transformation is complete, I feel proud of my work - and remain as eager as ever to make improvements as I see fit on outsourced cars whenever I feel like doing so.
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