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I have done that also. It has the advantage of not needing to buy Race Ramps, and the disadvantage of putting more strain on the trailer jack and the person powering the jack. Another factor to toss into the mix is how you get the car into the trailer: Push it, winch it, or drive it. For me, the best way for me to get any kind of car into my trailer is to winch it. With my 3000-pound Champion ATC winch, I can get my 3000-pound Cayman or one of my 1300-pound Sevens in placed exactly on the E-tracks by walking alongside the car with the steering wheel in on hand and a little wi-fi remote controller in the other. When the Champion remote died, I bought a two-pack of remotes of another brand from Amazon for lunch money. I devised a system using E-track parts to change the lateral position of the winch to suit the placement of the "extraction" connection on any car. The Elise is on centerline. The Cayman and Sevens are offset by various distances. Winching allows one to observe how everything is clearing. Also handy for cleaning the stones off your tires while the tread is still warm. If I was going to put a Seven into a motorcycle trailer, I'd want to winch it. With a light, narrow trailer, a smallish truck, and a Seven, the Taber10 method makes sense. Even if the trailer floor is uphill, the winch method makes placement a breeze. After you get the car placed, put your straps over the tires and disconnect the winch cable. Be careful when selecting the winch. I started with a 1500-pound winch of another brand from Horrible Freight. The design was faulty: It allowed the cable to climb over the rim of the spool and a get jammed between the spool and the frame. Don't bother with trying to wire the winch to your rig. A substantial jump box runs the winch just fine. I have my trailer set up with lugs inside near the right door to connect a jump box (or in a pinch, jumper cables). My trailer has a recessed step inside the door, and the jump box rides and operates there. The jump box is easily recharged in my shop or motel room.

I'm interested. Sent you a message.

Gorgeous photos.

Great article and photography!

Haven't digested this whole thread, but the sump problem on my 7 is easily solved by jacking up the front of the trailer with the trailer's jack, taking all of the "travel" out of the tow vehicle's suspension. This makes the angle from the trailer ramp to the trailer floor much less, even straight depending on the parking location. Of course I do have a skid plate on my 7, and I have sanded down the forward edge of the trailer ramp a little bit.

I went to los Gatos dmv even though it's not that close to me based on recommendations that they were more familiar with sb100 than some other locations.

I don't know the origin of the parts in my green Birkin, but the engine certainly looks like a 2000cc non-CVT Zetec like the one in my Caterham. The non-CVT Zetec engine in my Caterham is from a 1996 Contour. This is the junkyard engine bought to temporarily replace the "Steve" engine. Steve built HIS Birkin from a new kit and sourced the non-CVT Zetec engine from a 1996 Contour. The T9 transmissions and the alloy bellhousings in both my Birkin and my Caterham look identical. None of the engines I speak about here are CVT. I will make some measurements and take some photos and get back to this thread. ======= By mistake, I bought from a private a Zetec CVT from a 1999 Contour. That engine is is still at Ron's shop and has nothing whatever to do with either of my Sevens.

New Brooklands Screens. One has a very faint scratch noted on the picture. Mounting brackets included. $200 per pair plus shipping.

We drove Purple Reign (cracked fender and all) to our first event of the season yesterday and today. This marks the one year anniversary of the infamous "stop sign crash." It was on Sunday morning, May 4, 2025 that it happened. We left our home Saturday morning around 8:20 a.m. and it was very cold, only 1c but with bright sunshine. However, it quickly turned miserable with heavy cloud cover and the odd rain drop or ten. Around 1:00 p.m. that turned to ice pellets so we packed up and drove home. It is only a 12 minute drive. Even though the weather was lousy the show lot filled up quickly. By midmorning the vender areas were packed. Sunday was still cool reaching a high of around 8c but with clear, sunny skies. However, nobody showed up. I mean it was dead. There were never more than 25 cars in the show lot and no lineups to get into the flea market. Oh well, it's the Boot and Bonnet Club's spring Autojumble and Car Show this coming Saturday, May 9. Hopefully the fender will be repaired by then and the weather will be as sunny as today was but much warmer. (That’s my brother’s ’59 Corvette he calls Betty Boop beside us.)

I was filling up my Locost at a gas station one day and a guy came up behind me and said "I bet you get good gas mileage in that thing?". I said , without looking up, "Not the way I drive". I then turned around and it was a cop!!!!! Russ

Saw them again in a video I posted and it reminded me of this thread

Almost done and doing more shake down rides! Question for those of you in California - are there specific regulations for placement of the CHSML? I just installed the set from CaterLED - deciding between placing them on the roll bar vertically or placing them up top horizontally. Also - as I prep for SB100, any recommendations on which DMV and inspection locations? I’m in Fremont but happy to drive around the Bay Area if it simplifies thing. I’m assuming you need to tow the car for the CHP inspection?

No problem at all. And sorry for the delay in responding. We were traveling for a few days. I can wait until you come back. Have a good trip.

I placed an order with Burton Power last week for parts including a dry sump, differential, and some other odds and ends. The total bill with processing, duties and clearance fees with DHL was about 13.5% of the purchase price. Scott

Okay, you have to enlighten me, how did you come to find this thread again after four years?

I will admit, these have grown on me

He won a brand new Caterham! | Bridge Classic Cars

Entry Level Caterham Sevens

My r400 is off 1/4 tank...if it reads 3/4 it is full.... I'm told wonky, poorly adjusted senders are very common. I've never had the fuel overflow unless I didn't place the gas nozzle exactly right. Exactly right means I have to hold it and find a spot where it will run properly. The fuel injected models seem very touchy about that.

Went to a local Cars and Coffee with some fellow Tar Heel Sports Car Club members this morning. Good publicity for the club. Planning to get back into autocross so I joined again after a 25 year break.

Over the years its hard for anybody to follow, including myself. There's no self mapping option on Pectel but there was a major change when I towed it down to NC for TurboFocus to put it on the dyno and tune it. If I recall since last update I did the whole headgasket fix, adjustable cam gears installed and timed by tuner, cat converted removed and maybe a few other changes. Fuel pressure should still be spot on at 40. I'll follow your suggestion and do another health check with compression and leak down test, check for misfires with temperature gun again etc. I'm not expecting any solutions from the crowd but I do enjoy the audience for this adventure. Eventually if the timing is right maybe I'll just throw a towel and swap to another Zetec and new ECU for a fresh start or commit to cutting a hole on other side of the car and throw in the Duratec I have sitting.

I'm having trouble correlating your last two posts. Nearly 6 years ago, you wrote: Now you say: Did you make map changes in those intervening years, or does the Pectel have a self-mapping function that would have altered it without your intervention? If not, and if the supplied data is accurate, then something else has occurred to account for the significant drop in mpg; leaking injectors, fuel pressure has increased, TPS is out of adjustment, O2 sensor feeding the closed-loop mode has failed, compromised cylinder(s), etc. Changing the map to compensate for an unknown issue is just kicking the problem down the road. You need to identify the root cause(s).

Hello, Thank you @TheDreamer for pointing out this calculation error. The UK/US split is 16 cars for the UK and 7 for the US. I only have photos of my car in its garage, so they’re not very appealing, and none of the exhaust, but I’ll try to take some and post them sometime next week. All the best, Patrick

We need to know what zetec you have. Likely a contour one that's vct or similar and it's going to be different than a Ford focus one. I went through this issue when I did my clutch. The car came with a clutch from a focus as a spare but it didn't work with the existing flywheel and after swapping flywheel it didn't work with the existing starter so I had to do a full conversion at that point.

In your next-to last photo, it looks like your hinges might be too low. Photos can deceive. If you slap a yardstick against your trailer ramp and side it forward, does it hit your trailer floor? Put another way, does the yardstick strike the vertical surface at the back of the trailer? I believe if I put such a such a yardstick flat against my trailer ramp and pushed it forward, it would pass over (the beavertail portion of) my trailer floor. I'm not going out at midnight to check it.