JohnCh

I like the idea of incorporating the West Coast Lotus Meet. Al, if you decide to do that, I'll break into my upgrade budget and buy you a beer :cheers: -John

Agree with all the above (even Croc ). Two things to add: Final build quality is more dependent on the builder with some brands than it is with others. Consequently if you are buying used, you might see a wider variation among examples from brand A than brand B, but that doesn't mean that any given example of brand B is better built than something from brand A. It also means that if you are buying new, your efforts will have a bigger impact on the finished product with some brands. Depending on your perspective, that's either good or bad (personally I like it). A se7en, regardless of make, is never really finished. All owners suffer from Acute Upgraditis and are always tweaking things to improve the driving experience. So yes, setup and mods will make a big difference in how various cars compare. The good news is that you can generally achieve what you're after with any of the major brands, particularly if that includes an ugly credit card balance -John

I doubt it. I've gone from 195/60-14 AO32R to 185/60-14 AO32R, and later from 195/55-14 TS1 to 205/60-13 R888. Both times the difference in effort was negligible. -John

I’ve run the R888 and RA1. The R888 seems to have a touch more grip, but I prefer the handling with the RA1. Kind of hard to describe, but the car just seems more playful and communicative in the corners. According to Toyo, the sidewalls are about 10% softer, so that might factor into what I feel. As for cold weather driving, they are great to a point. When I bought my R888, they were on different wheels, so one morning with the temps hovering around 47F, I took the car out on the outgoing Toyo T1S (a "real" street tire), then came home, swapped the wheels, and retraced my steps with the R888. Even with less than 1 mile of warm up time spent driving at 25mph through a neighborhood, the R888 still had more grip than the T1S. Yes they do grip a lot better when warm, but they still grip well when cold. The RA1 feels identical to the R888 in this regard. Once the temps dip into the mid 30’s, they do begin to feel a bit slick, but nothing dangerous. My old Yoko AO32Rs, by comparison, were a handful when the temps fell into the 50's. -John

Gone but not forgotten: '74 Renault R17 Gordini (rally spec engine w/DCOEs) '85 Honda CRX '87 Honda CRX-Si (lots of Jackson Racing engine & suspension mods - a little giant killer of a car) '86 Porsche 944 '76 BMW 2002 (lots of suspension mods but still had skinny 165-13 tires) '69 Alfa Romeo 1750 GT Veloce (suspension & engine heavily modified - rust helped keep the weight down) '00 BMW M-coupe Current: '86 Porsche 944 turbo '95/'03 Westfield '95 Porsche 993 C2 '95 Miata (set up for track) Of the ones that are gone, I miss the Alfa the most. -John

Based on my earlier research, one of the benefits of a Ferrous Phosphate battery over a Cobalt, Manganese, or Nickel Oxide battery typically found in consumer devices, is safety. They are reportedly a lot more stable and harder to ignite. Are you hearing about LiFePO4 batteries specifically exploding, or Lithium batteries in general? -John

Somewhat ironic that the two people on this thread who have called into question the need for saving an additional 10+ lb by going with a lithium battery, both run an Odyssey battery rather than a cheaper, heavier, traditional car battery. Hmm... :jester: While I agree that 12lb doesn’t make a noticeable difference to the driving experience, saving a few pounds here and there does add up. There also aren't too many places on a se7en where you can shave off that much weight in one chunk without doing major surgery. -John

Just to make your decision harder, the EVO2 is available on Amazon from Mueller Motorsports for just $226 incl shipping. BTW not sure you want the EVO2 HD over the EVO2. The $30 more expensive HD has the same specs, but is sized differently to fit a Harley Davidson battery box. As for weight, my EVO2 came in at 3lb 4.5oz on an accurate postal scale vs. 14lb 10oz for my outgoing PC680. -John

I switched from a PC680 to a Balistic EVO2 16 cell battery almost a year ago. Saved over 11 lb. and starts the car in mid-upper 30 deg range without issue. http://www.throttle-steer.com/uploads/1/1/0/8/11083275/409951_orig.jpg -John

Might be worth a call to Ivey Engines in Portland, OR. They are arguably the crossflow experts in the US and might either have something in the shop or can steer you in the right direction. -John

Done! -John

I just looked at the mounting instructions on Raceline's site (see bottom of this page). It states: -John

Are you sure it uses a gasket? I have their wet sump for a Duratec and it uses liquid gasket. I thought the design for the Zetec was similar? -John

I ditched my spare tire years ago and now carry a Safety Seal ATV tire repair kit with a few additional CO2 cartridges, and also a Mini Versair dual action hand pump in case the CO2 runs out or I need to adjust tire pressures when on tour. The hand pump may sound like an exercise in futility, but they work surprisingly well in a low volume/low pressure situation like a se7en. Here's a link to webBikeWorld's review of the Versair for motorcycle usage: http://www.webbikeworld.com/r3/hand-air-pump/. BTW if you're not familiar with that site, it's worth checking out. A lot of items targeted at bikers are also applicable to us given our obsession with size and weight...or lack thereof http://www.gemplers.com/images/items/134083-lrg.jpg -John

You just had to keep adding lightness to the project car until you finally wound up with that, huh? What kind of bike? -John

Tom, no enthusiasm lost. If I'm organizing a tour, that means I am going along, so I'm really doing it for me. Although now that I think about it, I had to pull out prior to the start of the NorCal tour I organized in 2009 that had 6 or 7 cars in attendance. Hmm... that's an odd datapoint . I always cross-post tour info to California Caterham Club, so that is already covered. Agree about Pashnit. I used that to plan much of the Northern CA legs. I just didn't bother to check for updates this time. I'm sure they noted the road after Garberville has deteriorated a lot over the last 2 years. -John

Tom, both of the Monterey tours were official tours. However, no one really seemed interested. Perhaps the third time is the charm? Went through all my photos today and found a few more to post.

Tom, sounds like a plan. We'll want to do a minor reroute to avoid the hell that now exists after Garberville, and perhaps to cut out the painfully straight and boring sections of OR, but that should be easy to accommodate. We made it back home safely yesterday. The Westfield covered just a touch under 3000 miles, which included about 925 freeway miles to Monterey. Aside from (what I believe is) a failing TPS sensor in my car that resulted in a little unhappiness when cruising at speeds below 45mph, the cars ran flawlessly. The weather was great the entire trip, with only a couple of hot afternoons, and a few very cold - and sometimes foggy - mornings preventing me from deeming it perfect. Even traffic and speed enforcement officials were light to nonexistent the entire route. For those of you who have never toured backroads in your se7en, you need to change that. Yes, track days are a blast, but getting out in the middle of nowhere with beautiful scenery, empty winding roads, friends, and your se7en is an incredible experience. Here's a parting shot taken on the North Cascades Highway yesterday morning. Now why would someone spend their vacation on a beach, when they could do this instead? -John

Here are a couple of more from today. When we entered Mt. Rainier, the Park Ranger told us "No racing" to which Hudson replied with the ambiguous "Absolutely." Given that we weren't trying to see who could make it out of the park first, I think we safely satisfied the ranger's edict. Of course if you asked our tires if we were racing, they might offer a differing opinion. -John

Aside from the potholes that tried to eat us, the frost heaves that attempted to send us into the air, and the heat on a few of the days, it has been just about perfect. The roads yesterday leading into our overnight stop were pretty incredible. Smooth for very long stretches with most corners marked at 20-25mph. Unfortunately the weather report is showing that Mt Rainier is fogged in until mid morning, so we either need to wait for the fog to lift and have a late arrival into our next overnight, or leave at the usual time and miss the views. I guess when that's your toughest decision in the morning, it's a pretty good vacation I only took a few photos yesterday, and it appears there's a problem with my camera. I tried to take this one over my shoulder, but somehow the camera messed up and didn't take the picture where I was pointing :jester: -John

Individual throttle bodies will also give the charactersitic blat sound. You need these. -John

Sorry Sean, would have been great to have you along. I bet you could convince Tom to rerun all or part of that leg before the weather turns - just make sure you have fresh rubber on the car -John

And a few more including a few from the Blat. BTW Alaskossie, when we stopped at the Chevron in Weaverville, not only did they remember us from 2010, but they asked about you :-) http://www.throttle-steer.com/uploads/1/1/0/8/11083275/3073849_orig.jpg http://www.throttle-steer.com/uploads/1/1/0/8/11083275/6961932_orig.jpg http://www.throttle-steer.com/uploads/1/1/0/8/11083275/723734_orig.jpg http://www.throttle-steer.com/uploads/1/1/0/8/11083275/9089453_orig.jpg Hudson has a number of great photos, so hopefully he'll post a few here. -John

Two years ago, Hudson, Alaskossie, and I did a tour post Monterey car week that took us from there up to northern WA. Alaskossie, of course, continued on all the way to Alaska, while Hudson and I headed south to my house near Seattle. This year, Hudson and I decided it was time to do a repeat. After spending several days in the Monterey area doing the various shows, auctions, and races, we hooked up with Pierats, and assaulted the roads above Santa Cruz, followed by my favorite stretch of Highway 1 that begins shortly after Stinson Beach. That day was in a word, epic. Yes, we had a little more traffic than last time, but the roads were superb. By the time we arrived at the hotel in picturesque Gualala, I felt like I had run about 8 sessions at the track, and my tires looked like they had done the same (new set is already on order). The next morning, Pierats had to head back home, but Hudson and I soldiered on to Willow Creek, the home of Bigfoot (everything in town is the Bigfoot something: Bigfoot Motel, Bigfoot Grocery, Bigfoot Hemp Shop. The hotel even mentions the creature in their wireless password). This was a rough day. It started out cold and foggy, but it quickly dried out and the road was incredible. Corner, after corner, after corner. Most marked at around 25mph and all taken at speeds *just* a bit faster. The period after lunch, however, was miserable. When we took this route two years ago, the road was a little rough and there were several short sections where the pavement was replaced by gravel, but the inconvenience was offset by the great twisties and relatively smooth tarmac on the other side. The passing 24 months have not been kind to the road. We literally had to idle through certain sections in first gear, and were constantly dodging potholes and what looked like frost heaves from hell. My car was shaken so much, that not only did the nuts on the back of some gauges work their way off, but today I discovered that a zip tie that was holding some wires in place under the scuttle had come undone. I didn’t even know that was possible. Today started out much as yesterday. Fantastic road with little traffic, but after lunch, the temps climbed and the roads straightened, so the driving was all about the scenery. We still have a few days to go. Tomorrow starts out on winding back roads in Oregon, followed by a long patch of straight boring road, and then a bunch of great roads that begin right before we cross the border into WA. We’ll hit Rainier and the North Cascades Highway before finishing up on the local roads I drive on weekends. Here are a few pictures from Monterey. http://www.throttle-steer.com/uploads/1/1/0/8/11083275/3556211_orig.jpg http://www.throttle-steer.com/uploads/1/1/0/8/11083275/4082014_orig.jpg http://www.throttle-steer.com/uploads/1/1/0/8/11083275/3141936_orig.jpg http://www.throttle-steer.com/uploads/1/1/0/8/11083275/500268_orig.jpg -John

About 2650rpm at 60mph. My speedo is programmable based on tire circumference, and dead accurate up to 45mph according to our local radar signs. Doubt it gets into any significant error over the next 15-25 mph. -John