Warren Nethercote

I had a locker diff on a street vehicle (OK, a 2WD pickup, but a street vehicle) and would not do it again. Maybe OK for track, but as noted by Slowmove, handling can be scary in low-grip conditions - you think you have lots of grip until it disappears all at once and you swap ends. You typically only do it once, after which you are wiser, but you never again take full advantage of the extra traction. My pirouette happened in lonesome splendor and did nothing but put a hole in the snowbank, but it might have been otherwise ...

Not if the local DMV is picky about headlight height ....

I am inexperienced in this but 2.8 degrees negative camber seems a lot. Are you perhaps overdoing it? My estimates of roll angle for my Locost 7 in a 1g turn (using Staniforth's methods) are of the order of 1.1 degrees, so that much static camber plus camber gain in roll could be over-doing it. But it's purely a theoretical thought: my car still sits very static on its build table.

Back to passing on the right ..... it is commonly forbidden in Europe. In England (where it is passing on the left of course) it results in a dangerous driving charge - as Slomove noted, the one exception is when the traffic is heavy and moving continuously 'in lanes,' without gaps.

On the other hand, I was driving on the Autobahn from Bremen to Koblenz 10 or 15 years ago on a summer holiday Sunday: for the first hour or so on the Autobahn no lane got above 50kph .... but later on it was different. :-)

On a Locost 7 - source forgotten, and no idea if it was ever completed.

Fitting an SR20 will be interesting indeed. I have an SR20DE Autech with 6-speed gearbox that I bought from a friend for my Locost 7 build. He bought the engine before his Birkin kit arrived and then discovered there was no way it would fit without serious cutting and welding, which he didn't want to do. He bought a Toyota and Type 9 and I got his SR20 .... But you are going beyond mere kit assembly. :-)

For best aero, position 1 is better than 2, which is better than 3. Covering as much of the advancing face of the tire tread (above the rotation axis) as possible will reduce apparent air speed at the tire (from car speed plus the surface speed of the tire to just car speed). Is also worst rock position unless you go with a longer (increased circumference) fender.

Various twin-engine cars have been built, typically with one engine driving each end. Throttle and clutch pedals, and gear-shifters are typically linked mechanically, but beyond that, the ground supplies the speed synchronization between the two in absence of wheel spin. If one engine is 'sick' it will run at the same revs as the other (it has to do in absence of wheel spin), with the sicker engine running at lighter load (producing less power). Multi-engine airplanes and boats rely on manual synchronization of revs because of the fluid drive medium. A 4WD BEC 7 clone was built in the UK using this methodology I think (details/source forgotten). I suggest 4WD rather than AWD because there was direct no mechanical link between the FWD and RWD drive trains (beyond shared throttle pedal, etc.) A shared ECU would be problematic if the 'tune' of the two engines was different, as they must be at some time during their lives.

It is an obvious choice for a 'not so Locost 7' but putting it in a Cat or a Birkin requires a willingness to cut and weld .... I got my SR20DE Autech and six-speed because the original buyer discovered that there was no way it would fit in his Birkin without cutting and welding: he wanted a bolt-together kit and went out to find a Toyota and a Ford gearbox. The same would apply to this engine. Better for the scratch builder with money.

With apologies for digression: many years ago a friend threw a rod out the side of his dad's Morris Minor (BMC A-series engine, a bit too much souped up for longevity). The hole went through the skirt and neither the bore nor the oil pan flange was damaged. To keep dad happy he promised to 'repair' the engine. The hole was patched with two pieces of plywood bolted together with some kind of goop in between to keep oil in and water out. With a new rod the engine ran fine until the car finally died of salt sickness. Maybe JB-weld isn't all that far-fetched, but perhaps we are a bit too upscale for anything but a replacement block. :-)

To address the 'Canadian' aspect of the string's title, there will never be a Canadian kit car of this or any description because while Canadian DOT standards allow 'home-built' vehicles they specifically prohibit kit cars. Yes, kit cars get built in Canada, and are even sold, but if you get close to the contract between seller and buyer you will find it awfully hard to find the kit-car word - car parts is the closest you'll get. My COLD frame is a 'steel weldment with no warranty as to its suitability for use or for its condition' or weasel words to that effect. It is not worth going into the gruesome details of the regulations ....

To quote Wikipedia: "This time zone (Newfoundland) exists because of the location of the island and the fact that it was a separate dominion when the time zones were established. The island of Newfoundland lies squarely in the eastern half of the Atlantic Time Zone, exactly three and a half hours from Greenwich. Since it was separate from Canada, it had the right to adopt its own time zone. While the entire province lies west of the standard meridian for a half-hour time zone, 52.5 degrees west longitude, this is also the near exact meridian of St. John's, the province's capital and largest city. In 1963, the Newfoundland government attempted to bring the province into conformity with the other Atlantic provinces, but withdrew in the face of stiff public opposition" The 'separate dominion' in the quote relates to Newfoundland being independent in the early part of the 1900s. It went bust in the depression, and 'rejoined' England under a colonial structure until it joined Canada as the 10th province in 1949. (Edit - and they do daylight saving. Saskatchewan is the only Canadian province not to do it, I think.)

There are aftermarket kits that provide electric heating pads for seats - a good alternative if you neglected to install a heater - or even if you did install a heater!

If you have some poor grounds in that area (tail or licence plate lights?) you may have stray currents 'roaming about' looking for a better ground. Any electrical systems performing oddly? I have had similar experiences in a marine environment with blistering caused by galvanic action and in that case epoxy primers performed worse than traditional primers. The real solution lay in finding the source of the currents, whether electrical or galvanic.

Most 'store-bought' NACA ducts are but poor imitations. The S-shaped longitudinal edges should be sharp-edged. An early proposed application was for side inlets to a single jet engine in the aircraft fuselage, where the sharp edged S-shaped sides initiated a pair of vortices that ingested the boundary layer and allowed the duct to draw in free-stream air for the jet engine. The NACA-ducts in the rear quarter windows of NASCAR cup cars (did I say that?) are closer to the original concept than anything I have seen on USA7s or Locost USA sites. Most commercial moulded 'NACA ducts' are little more than vents allowing the entry of high-pressure air. Using a NACA duct of any description as an exhaust does not recognise the principles of the original design concept: it would be simpler and cheaper just to cut a rectangular hole for an exhaust and install a small spoiler ahead of it. If you are after references to NACA duct geometry, an early one is Frick et al., "An Experimental Investigation of NACA Submerged Duct Entrances, " naca-acr-5i20, October 1945. I found my copy as a pdf through Google.

In Locost USA there is a discussion of coupling two engines together at http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=16343 There is more than one way .....

There have been a number of twin engine/separate drive cars built. To name a few, a Mini Moke with the second engine in the back driving the rear wheels, a Honda Civic reported (also many years ago) in Road and Track, and more recently a twin engined (modern) Mini seen on one of Jay Leno's videos. In all three cases, the engines were quite independent. Linked throttles and gear-shifts, and clutch slave linked to a common master are the only 'links' between the engines. In use the engines load share naturally, just like the engines on multi-engine aircraft or ships. If one engine is a mite sick the other carries a bigger load-share and the car goes slower.

If you want lower cost why not go for mild steel double-D? Unless you are building a show car, mild steel is probably a better engineering material for this role than the 304 SS that is probably used by Flaming River or Borgeson. I suggest that mild steel is better because of SS's tendency towards crevice corrosion, although I suspect that many 7s rarely see rain, let alone salt. (And millions of Chevrolets, Fords, Toyotas, etc can't be all that wrong ....)

Won't the success of a cat depend on why you are failing emissions? If the failure is for the right reasons, then shouldn't almost any cat for a similar sized engine do the job? If you want 'off-the-shelf' then Birkins have a cat available, as would, I assume, Caterham.

See http://www.bipac.net/page.asp?content=tag_title_toolbox&g=SEMAGA for information. Whether it's helpful or not depends .....

If Lotus mowers don't turn your crank ....

The Urea injection has been unique, as far as I know, to the North American market for emissions reasons. It was the cause of several European Diesels (VW, Mercedes) disappearing from the marked for a couple of years, while the makers looked at alternate solutions. It will be the primary difference between the North American and world market versions of the Diesel that will be offered in the Chev Colorado pickup when it returns to the market in 2015 (2016 model year for the Diesel)

There are various threads and photos over on Locost USA showing successful (and unsuccessful) cycle wing mounts. For example http://www.locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=39&t=14364

If people are into non-traditional lights I bought a set of these: http://www.rallylights.com/hl95330-hella-oval-120-external-headlamp-w-city-lamp-dot-ece.html I bought special order through a local Hella dealer rather than from the on-line supplier to let someone else deal with the hassle of shipping and customs.