Sneak Peek: The NEMO Racing EVO, Part 2
Story by Eric Hsu, MotoIQ photos by Jeff Naeyaert, other photos by NEMO Racing
In Part 1 we covered a little of the history behind Chris Eaton and the NEMO Racing EVO, some of the build process, and the car's exterior features including the balls out aero. This time in Part 2, we'll cover what's going on inside and some of the awesome details that makes this EVO the fastest Time Attack EVO in the world.
If you think about it, the name “NEMO” sounds like something a young child would say. We as adults probably automatically associate the name with children because of Pixar's wildly successful “Finding Nemo” movie. As it turns out, it was Chris' then two year old son that accidentally named the EVO. Here's an excerpt I stole from worldtimeattack.com in an interview with Chris:
“I brought her home on the car trailer the night before the event. My then two year old son walked out and said, “Dad what’s that?”. I said, “That’s my racing car I am driving tomorrow.” He asked; “Is that a Porsche?” I said “No. It’s an Evo”. He responded, “You are going to race a Nemo?
You gotta love the baby babble of a two year old. My son is three so I know all about baby babble.
To top it off, when Jeff, Martin and I were walking around at WTAC 2012 looking for the car, Jeff said to me, “Hey I can't believe it. We're actually finding Nemo.” CLICK HERE
After two years of design, fabrication, and assembly, the NEMO Racing EVO is what it is today. The NEMO Racing EVO was designed, built and assembled by race car engineers, fabricators, and mechanics. It wasn't the brainchild of not any one person, but the team as a whole. Tony Porter and Nathan Leech, experienced Aussie V8 Supercar fabricator and engineers, designed and built most of the car. Andrew Brilliant had a lot to do with the car's component packaging and the integration of the aero features into the car's build. Brad Cawthorne from Cawthorne Composites fabricated all of the panels from scratch. Paul Mason, who wires many Aussie V8 Supercars, wired the car and its extensive list of Motec components. Will at JHH Performance has everything to do with the engine. McElrea Racing, an experienced Porsche cup car team, assembled and runs the NEMO EVO. With all of this motorsport talent working toward one goal, there's no doubt the result would be today's ultimate Time Attack cars.
Let's get straight into the details:
A mass of triangulated tubes is the basis of the cage/chassis here as with any proper race car. Here the main hoop and driver's seat position can be see in relationship to the A and C pillars. The B pillar's spot welds were drilled out and removed. The extensive cage renders the OEM B pillar defunct. The driver's seat is essentially where the rear passenger's feet would have been. Moving the driver this far back enhances the car's fore/aft weight distribution since the EVO's natural weight distribution is so far forward.
The front section of the OEM unibody is mostly intact with the radiator/core support and front section of the wheel wells cut off. Tubes come forward from the main cage structure to stiffen the unibody greatly of course. Very little of this is visible with engine in place and the final packaging. Notice the fabricated steel front K-member/subframe from Part 1. It only weighs 6Kg or 13.2lbs.
The double A-arm front suspension eliminates the factory McPherson strut and all of its inherent disadvantages. The uprights are from a Ginetta (a small British, low volume sports car) and allowed Nathan Leech to design the double A-arm front suspension at a much lower cost than having to design and machine uprights from scratch. The AP 6 pot front calipers appear to be loaded with Project Mu brake pads. Its really quite hard to miss that creamy, mint green paint isn't it? The bar directly right above the brake caliper is a mechanical bump stop that prevents the upper and lower A-arms from maxing out the rod end travel and damaging things.
The double wishbone front suspension is controlled by custom multi-adjustable MCA Suspension dampers from Australia. The springs are Eibach units. Fun fact: all of the WTAC 2012 Pro Class cars on the podium were using MCA dampers. That's the NEMO EVO in 1st, the Tilton Interiors EVO in 2nd, and the MCA Suspensions S13 in 3rd. I'll be writing features on the Tilton EVO and MCA S13 soon so check back on MotoIQ soon.
