JohnK

Let me know if your new tuners would like the Webcon CD, or anything else I might be able to scare up. Best of luck here-passing things on to the next generation.

Looks great! - had any practice doing this sort of thing before? With the larger diameter muffler it'll probably be quieter.

Heard much the same from a high-end alignment shop here with years of racing experience. Ampep was the brand he had worked with (http://www.skf.com/portal/skf_gb/home/aboutskf?contentId=244062). He changed them, I suspect, because that's what someone higher up in the technical staff decreed, but I wouldn't put past him having acquired his own usage-based experience in the matter. I doubt that my pitiful little attempt at a contemporary race car is going to put anywhere near the stress on it's probably way over-sized rod ends that an F1 car would on its, and those rod ends are spec'd by the engineers to fit their usage exactly (those guys DO tend to focus a lot of effort on things like lightness) and, weighing the pluses and minuses, the units they run may be intended as single-race fittings. When I changed all of mine from the poor-quality units I got with my "kit" to FK teflon-lined two-piece units, beyond the wonderful transformation that came from the car all of a sudden no longer sounding like a bucket of bolts, there was a pronounced increase in road feel - much greater sense of having your hands right on the asphalt. Road cars have compliance built into their suspension and steering links for driver comfort and quiet - at the cost of feedback and suspension control. Unless I find that I have to spend another $550 and the few days work every year, I judge the change well worth the cost and effort.

Upholsters', or their supply shops, carry a foam that's just right for automotive/MCycle use they name "rebond" - buy it in sheets and cut it to size. Recommend it based on all of 1800 miles of use with a poorly padded rear-end (i.e., mine) over driving stints of 2-3 hours on rough roads.

Colin Chhapman must be smiling in his grave. What a wonderfully insightful application of race car principles.

Congrats! It'll be all the sweeter after all the hassles.

Jim, Loren deserves credit for pointing this out, but I've lost track of his post. What you probably read was my contribution as an add-on to EviLRome0's bit about switching to FK 2-piece teflon lined rod ends. Got these bolts at Grainger who refers to them as Stripper Bolts. Found that I had to adjust the position of each in the chassis clevises and found arbor washers in different thickness for doing this - and these also are avail from Grainger - apparently some std industrial setup uses these. Anyway, http://www.usa7s.net/vb/showthread.php?t=3624&highlight=heim+joints will take you to the article. and my post on the bolts is several down. The take home here is that my car has both FK rod ends fitted to the clevises with these bolts and it is dead, and I do mean dead, quiet. It's downright eery - and was well worth all the hassle and cost just for the quiet - but it does drive better. If you need details, let me know and I'll scrounge up part numbers and quantities. Also, to anyone planning on replacing their rod ends and using the FK teflon-lined units, specify "F 1 fit" when you order them. This ensures that the ball is really tight in the housing and will give you the best chance for a long life for the ends.

Good to hear and thx again. Still lots of work ahead, but as they say, "When the journey is as important as the destination." - What are the characteristics/dimensions that let you identify a diff as an R160? I'm assuming I've got an R160, and am much relieved to hear that I don't have to worry about small differences among the different models other than ratio and LSD. - Look fwd to seeing your design for the diff brace and will certainly implement such when I do the swap. While things are apart, have you run into anything that suggests that a stiffening of the rear of the chassis would be worthwhile? Chuck mentioned that the rocking of the diff was in some part due to flex in the rear of the chassis, and I'm feeding the loads from my rear AR Bar into the section that's part of the diff's rear support. -Making progress on suspension balance. Will detail how I got there when I get it nailed. I'll wager that what I'm finding will be generally useful, especially for Ultralite owners. Cheers, John K

Loren, Thx for all the great info and recomendations. While I've got some really fine Se7en roads that I enjoy, I also designed the brakes to accept 13" wheels, and hope to spend time at local tracks. However, I'll have to dry sump the engine before I can run such wheels - so that's a bit in the future. Given this, and based on your feedback, it sounds like 4.11 is a balanced fit. And, from your earlier posts, I'll plan on making ABS bushes and reinforcing the fwd mount. In the back of my mind is a worry about compatibility with the inboard brakes I have and any differences there may be with the diffs you have. Are the castings all identical, particularly re the side bearing retainers? I'll send pics if necessary. Cheers, John K

Mondo, Worked out the figures: at 7K 1st is 34 MPH, 2nd is 53, 3rd 73, 4th 93, 5th 114, and 6th 141. Chuck said he was clocked at 140 and it was still climbing, so 4.11 seems like a good fit. Plus that, I'll guess that Honda lined things up pretty optimally with respect to the power band. John K

Loren, Thanks much, and I'm interested in a 4.11 (either kind of LSD is OK), but need to weigh shipping (to 45227) into the cost versus that of a local purchase. Also, I'm not in any hurry, so if you're traveling sometime that may help. Contact me via PM. Thanks again. Cheers. John K

Root of this problem is that the chassis was designed with a frame member right where it would have been most appropriate to put the steering column – so you had to put the wheel either higher or lower than you'd like - which lead to a lot of agonizing on my part. I reviewed a bunch of pics and one caught my attention as to what I did NOT like, https://www.dropbox.com/s/ehd0vtvktfdpjwa/DrivingPositions_Chad_rm4.jpg?dl=0 which, to my eye, looks awkward. and others that indicated a low position was probably not awful https://www.dropbox.com/s/h6m5g3tk2lkpaqi/da02DrivingPos00cat-superlight-R.jpg?dl=0 compared to what I implemented https://www.dropbox.com/s/pjwx1x2ew7hf4pp/da01DrivingPosition.JPG?dl=0 However, compare https://www.dropbox.com/s/pxqn8p5jx2ymx03/DrivingPosition_caterham-superlight-500.jpg?dl=0 and https://www.dropbox.com/s/hdcyaddcwb28gxk/DrivingPosition_Chad_rm11.jpg?dl=0 Does the light blue Cat have the steering wheel raised? Anyway, it seems there's not a clearly better way to place the steering wheel, other than right in front of the driver. Just thinking about my car, it seems like the wheel should be higher - but at the time the cost of doing the chassis modification was just too much. Along with that, experience over several hundred miles out in the country in familiar sport bike haunts surprised me. I started with my hands at 10:00 and 2:00, but found myself holding the wheel below 9:00 and 3:00 as the miles went by, because it was obviously more comfortable and offered the best sense of control. Two things contribute here: with an 11:1 steering ratio very little movement of the wheel is necessary, and with assisted steering there's need for only very little force to turn the car - which means no need for compensating body posture. My sense is that, if you're reaching up toward the level of your shoulders, the ergonomics point to more effort, and vice versa for when your hands are lower. Sitting in the car when it's not running, I don't have to shift my posture to turn the wheel against the force of the steering. One thing about the steering not commented on by Mike was its effect on the car's drivability at speed. On one stretch of moderately bumpy two-lane asphalt we got to well over 90 MPH (I was too busy holding my hat and glasses on to get a good look at the speedo) and there was no report that the car felt darty or twitchy. Absence of complaint in this regard made me feel that I'd gotten the steering right – 11:1 assisted steering in these conditions, not done properly, will make placing the car on the road where you want it difficult and make the car feel unstable. (N.B., The 11:1 ratio translates, with around 22 degrees of lock and 6 degrees of Ackermann at the inside wheel, to 1 1/3 turns lock to lock.) I'd read so often of people complaining about how weak the brakes were in their Caterhams, I figured you just used more force slowing down a Se7en. Apparently, Mike's Caterhams have been different, so I just placed an order for some racing (rather than street) pads. Friction will be much higher but at the cost of shortening the life of the brake rotors. We'll see how much. FWIW – when I designed my brake system (starting with a blank sheet of paper and Puhn's Brake Handbook) I had the rotors and hats machined to my specs by Coleman Racing Products (http://www.colemanracing.com/Default.aspx), who offer the service of machining brake parts like rotors and hats to customer specs. Cost-wise this was made much easier by finding close approximations from their considerable stock of blanks. Just looking at all the different rotors you can start from teaches you lots about brakes. They were recommended by Wilwood whom I chose to source the calipers. Happily, I find that Coleman is still in business, looks to be doing well, and and has added Spindles to their catalog of items you can get modified to your needs. Yet another set of options for the builder and fabricator. And the owner is indeed most grateful! The final major item to dial in is handling balance. The car god spake that race cars will understeer initially and oversteer finally, and the transition between the two states will be at the condition where the car is reaching the limit of its cornering ability. Time spent in a Boxter made it apparent to me that this is indeed gospel to be followed most ardently by the tuner. We'll see how well I can achieve this. Clearly, achieving this will be an occasion for inviting a second test drive. Many thanks for the feedback Mike, and, hey, S1Steve ! don't forget you're also on the list for a test drive! __________________ '97 Caterham Super Sprint, 1700 Crossflow-sold '09 Birkin S3, Duratec street car '03 Caterham Zetec track car

And what Se7en owner wouldn't be flattered to have someone with more driving experience than his own review his work? I remember all the trials you've endured (read: 'had to pay for'), particularly with the Birkin. Considering the 6+years I've been at this car, I certainly share the sense of relief that it behaved without problems, particularly during your drive (Who's law is it that says “Things will choose to fail just when you try to demonstrate to someone else how they work.”?) Kudos to Honda. Everyone accepts that they do absolutely great engines, and now with the S2000, transmissions as well. Builder's choice of this drive train was a major reason I chose his kit. As above, and, I guessed at the piston size the master cylinder should have (5/8” IIRC) and came out OK; neither too small, making the throw too long, nor too large, making it quick but heavy. Note that the stock damper mechanism was removed from the slave cylinder (Honda fitted this for the general consumer who might let the clutch out too abruptly and stall the engine at drive-away, probably concerned about all the bad press re the engine's lack of low end torque(UNTRUE!) ). Something NOT said was of any difficulty with the footwell controls. Sitting in the car some years ago, Mike had noted that the footwell was narrower than that of his Caterham Super Sprint, and he was wearing narrow racing shoes at the time. This time he was wearing ordinary street/track/trainer shoes and made no mention of any problem operating the pedals which pleased me. When I got the kit, I couldn't see any way of configuring the footwell controls that would not make them awkward to use. Guided by a mock up of the space and cutouts from the soles of a pair of size 10-C shoes, I used the cutouts to figure out where the pedals should be for easy use, and especially for being able to heel & toe comfortably. The thing that killed using the hang-down configuration was the combination of narrow footwell width and the presence of the steering column. These two pictures show the pedal layout that Mike used and above the pedals you can see the where the steering column sits – so its easy to see that, with the pedals hanging down, you get either a properly positioned brake pedal or a steering column in front of the driver. https://www.dropbox.com/s/gegh84b2gmcv7i1/Pedals_Brake_vs_SteeringCol_a.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/u0yf7tmajzrjk44/Pedals_Brake_vs_SteeringCol_b.JPG?dl=0 The cost here was modifying the chassis to support floor-mounted pedal assemblies. I managed to find a bit of room for the master cylinders by extending the front of the footwell (unused space isn't easy to find in a Se7en!) Challenging. https://www.dropbox.com/s/57mvhylsfzj0itw/Pedals_RoomFor.jpg?dl=0 Kudos to the Builder for his choice of muffler, plus the wonderful sonics produced by nearly any very highly tuned engine. Took some thought, planning and work as shown in https://www.dropbox.com/s/rl8lurrrsftzujw/ChassisMod_Dash.JPG?dl=0 Vertical pieces support bonded bushes which connect to the dash for shock/vibration isolation. Thanks to EviLRome0 's post “heim joints ...” and his reference to Gary at Fastener Specialties. For a mere $550 I replaced all these rod ends with FK brand CMX series pieces that had teflon inserts. I machined pairs of trammel points of the right diameters and fabricated them so that the could be bolted to the bench – taking one suspension link at a time off the (aligned) car, I was able to capture the length with high precision, bolt the points to the bench, pull the suspension link off the points, swap the rod ends, and then use the bolted-down points as the reference fixture to ensure that I transferred the length as it had been on the car. There was quite a difference in feel as well as a huge reduction in noise, both of which made all the work worthwhile. The little noise that remains is due to the front and rear anti-roll bar links which I've yet to switch. Also, there was a concerted overall effort to make sure that nothing in the car was free to flap about or rattle. Powderbrake, who also happens to own a Corvette (of course strictly for comparison purposes), wrote me when I announced that I was buying an S2K kit; “Congratulations! Now you will fear no man at the stoplight.” It really is potentially a very very fast car, and driving it quite quickly will be effortless not only due to its considerable power but also its very smooth delivery of that power, save perhaps through the VTEC band . However at present it may as well be dragging a boat anchor behind it. When you, as Honda et ala., design a power train, you engineer the thing so that engine's power band, the sizes of the steps between the gear ratios, differential ratio and the wheel size are matched in such a way, that the driver can access max or near max power everywhere in the car's road speed range. The S2000 was designed with a 4.10 differential . The Builder delivered my car with a 3.54 differential which is such a high ratio that it, as Mike could tell, emasculates the performance. I think this reflects negligence, if not ignorance, on the part of the Builder that is just inexcusable. Therefore, in order to get it to perform like it's capable of, I'm looking at time required to locate a 4.11 differential from the right model Subaru (thanks for the data on the different models, Loren), spending the several hundred dollars to acquire it, and days of pretty difficult work to do the swap – all, of course, provided there are no surprises along the way. The only good side is that this is a no-question fix; make this change and I'll have the “rocket ship” Mike expected. Agreed. I anticipate that the last 2K on the tach will be an exercise in personal reflex management, once I swap for the right differential. But let me comment on an experience here. In the past I had a 250 cc Ducati Diana MK II that was tricked out and performed REAL well. Then I bought an '87 Honda Hurricane 600 . . . and for quite a while I pretty much thought of the throttle, at anything over 5K, as an on-off switch. I eventually learned that you really did have throttle control there, but it took more than a little maturation of skills on my part before I got there. For the track, it's intuitively obvious when you're out there (depending on how much intuition your rear end has built into it) that the lower in the car you sit, the better positioned you are to control the car. And by being as low as you can get, you're doing your part to make the vertical CG of the car as low as possible – which is the best thing you can do to make the car handle better. In my car, driver height is limited by the fact that the engine, as wonderful as I think it is, is really tall, not to mention it being ~ 200 lbs. heavier than what you had in your Caterham Super Sprint. I mounted the seat only high enough so I could see over the hood, as well as getting it tilted back as much as I could so the driver was as far from the steering wheel as I could manage. For me this issue is a considerable compromise. Not yet having had track time, I have questions about being able to see things like corner apexes and making judgments about depth. Looking at approaching corners from the ride height of my sport bike this was never a problem, but in my car I'm now finding it is. I can guess that on the track, you know where things are from practice and memory. However I've got so many really fantastic roads nearby that I know and enjoy, I put more of a premium on being able to see, both the road and its hazards. With respect to feeling connected to the car; I'm certain the choice of seat bears a lot on this. The UltraShield ProDrag 12020 that came with my kit is sound and I tied it quite rigidly to the chassis, but it's hardly what you'd call 'designed for a road racer'. But then this helps one understand why more suitable looking units are on the order of $1K. I just noticed that there's quite a gap right at the hips, that even with the seat belt being there, conveys a 'lack of connectedness' when you're cornering. Probably time for judicious application of yet more padding ('rebond'), or upgrade to a 'spensive chair.

Really lovely. Congrats on its looks with that color combination. Many happy miles.

Loren, Changed from Falkens that came with the car (probably too old by now but definitely not a pattern that aids straight line stability) to Yokohama S.drives, and these made a huge difference in steering. Currently running 18# on both ends. Have not played with pressures. Am I correct in assuming pressures are for fine rather than coarse suspension tuning, unless they're varied by a large amount? Thank you for the feedback. Next goal is to get it to understeer, which I have had no success achieving so far. Approaches have been to go down on front section tire width from 225 to 205 (which has helped considerably) and to stiffen the front anti-roll bar successively over several steps. Rear ARBar is just barely there (weakest position on a weak bar) Tried Chuck's suggestion of -1.5 deg camber and there was a bit of a change, but after some time spent pushing it in the twisties, the inside and middle of the rear tires were warm while the outside edge was cold - this leaves me wondering if it's good or not. Disconnected rear bar completely and found a very slight decrease in over steer, but when the rear stepped out, it did so much more sharply than with the bar connected. Much head scratching. An even narrower front section (195) is a logical thing to test (he was last heard to say) but I'm wondering if there's a geometry issue involved. Spent no small amount of time getting rear ride steer to zero in bump and less than 2 degrees at full droop. Spring rates in front are 425# and 375# left and right (different motion ratios here side to side) and 170#s in rear (different mounts here than stock) - the fronts should be reasonably comparable to a 'std' car. VERY comfortable ride, little roll at turn-in. To select appropriate spring rates I calculated the wheel frequency since it takes corner weight and motion ratio into account along with spring rate. Do you use this metric? Corner weights, via Longacre scales, me in drivers seat, 3/4 tank fuel, are LF: 424 / 342 RF: 379 / 279 LR: 423 / 349 RR: 437 / 366 wheel Load / un-sprung 48-52% Front - Rear Wheel freq are 122 125 Front L & R 110 114 Rear L & R Shocks are Koni 8212s. Haven't begun playing with the bump and rebound adjustments, but I gave Koni the spring rates and they set the internal valving from that. Calculated the right size and stiffness for the Bump Stop rubbers so that the shocks will not bottom at full bump. Shocks are designed to limit suspension travel at droop, and with my measurements, Koni fitted droop limiters to ensure the suspension never runs into the chassis at full droop. Woman across the street claims to have mystical powers and offered to channel Mr. Chapman or Mr. Smith to come help me out but I declined. ;-) Thanks.

Mike W So how is your car concigured with respect to tire diam and section,, spring rates, and what was its weight distribution?

The uprights/spindles on my car were and are stock Fiero. The car came with inboard shocks articulated by bellcrank but it was,. . . I'll just say it didn't work and leave it at that. The rack was the standard MGB aftermarket unit that Flaming River sells used in the Ultralite, repositioned in my car so that it cleared the inboard shocks, but wound up interfering with the suspension. Brian sent me pictures and descriptions of the rack in a stock chassis and I, after cutting out all the inboard suspension additions mounted the rack exactly as told and shown by the photos. So it is a "standard" system. My decision to start with a blank sheet of paper and to not use the supplied rack was taken only after spending a bunch of time wrestling with the geometry/relationships explained so well in the Woodward catalog and measuring what could be gotten from my car - and realizing that my car's setup had been developed to fit the available rack, rather than specifying a rack to provide the car with good steering. Another of my intentions in putting together all of this material was to make very clear the amount of development effort necessary to size and place the rack for a steering system that had good geometry and gave good behavior. This was also prompted by people saying things like they wanted to buy "an anti-roll bar" or "a rack" for their car as if either were generic items that worked perfectly well in any setup. Such things have to be developed to suite each car, and that development takes time, skill and experience (or access to it). The electric assist you reference might be perfectly fine: "whatever suites your needs" is the key. However, in my review of possible solutions, and as I noted in my post, the pump recommended for my rack is equivalent to a 3 HP electric motor. Commercial vehicles (a Honda Civic or S2000) have different requirements than something that aspires to being a race car so maybe an electric assist is just what is needed in these situations - but they don't have the requirements that a race car does, and neither do they behave as one. For more visceral creds, the Mostler MT900 and Saleen S7 run the same rack (with its hydraulic assist). I can't be in too shabby company here, deciding on what system to fit to my car.

And here's the continuation of Steering II, Part 1. I've jumped ahead a little here, because there was one thing left to do before I had all the specs necessary to order the rack. This was to configure the steering path, with the goal of having the pinion (where the steering column connects to the rack) as close as possible to the CL of the car. The longer the tube between the pinion and the end of the rack, the better supported will be the bushing at the end of the rack. This prolongs the life the bushing that the rack rod runs through and is the reason you have to have the rack serviced due to wear. Starting at the beginning, the question was where to put the steering wheel re its height. The chassis dictated that the Steering Wheel was going to be either high or nearly in my lap. I chose the latter and think I guessed correctly. Compare this https://www.dropbox.com/s/pjwx1x2ew7hf4pp/da01DrivingPosition.JPG?dl=0 with (Crock's?) superlight R https://www.dropbox.com/s/h6m5g3tk2lkpaqi/da02DrivingPos00cat-superlight-R.jpg?dl=0 What I'm finding as I learn to live with the steering is that I tend to move my hands down on the wheel so my bet paid off. Comparing the pictures, Caterham gives you a whole lot more length in the cockpit – I'm envious. Steering path had consequences that kept me awake at night. If you look to the far left of https://www.dropbox.com/s/xetm4ffmabtztob/ea01StCol01.JPG?dl=0 that tab clipped next to the secondary steering shaft represents where the U-joint that connects the steering column to the rack goes: it has to pass between the ARBar cantilever tube, serpentine belt idler pulley and P/S pump pulley. None of those parts can be moved – so if I ordered the pinion a bit too far toward the centerline, I'd have to redo the entire rack. https://www.dropbox.com/s/yp3jztdeu6zzfbe/ea02StColumn03.JPG?dl=0 shows the complete steering assy in place (read Woodward's directions for fitting the different assy's he makes – 'course what my “kit” came with didn't take much coaxing for me to replace it. https://www.dropbox.com/s/5nn2g8c6p51drk3/ea03StColumn04.JPG?dl=0 shows a support that needed to be fabricated and a closer look at the collapsible primary steering column (when fitted properly, it's designed to prevent the column from trapping the driver's legs in a crash). https://www.dropbox.com/s/8y6a16t8y2eb32h/ea05StColumn.JPG?dl=0 Welding is coming along – it's hard to do when you're bent over the piece and standing up. https://www.dropbox.com/s/bjvawl0hhpbubys/ea07bStColum.JPG?dl=0 Mock-up . . . https://www.dropbox.com/s/w8nksmh3fyhin5k/ea07StColumn.JPG?dl=0 Reality. I've got 0.020” clearance at the PSP pulley and not a lot more on the idler and ARBar cantilever. Whew! Plumbing the system wasn't nearly as bad as it looks, though it took some care fitting the PSP reservoir to conserve space. The blue hoses are right and left rack assist feeds, the black ones are high pressure feed (maybe 1200 psi) to the solenoid and solenoid exhaust. Feed to the pump comes from the bottom of the reservoir. Woodward sells what seems to be a special (at least to me) Gates Green Stripe hose and the fittings for this particular hose, all of which you can buy separately. I haven't seen this series of product available anywhere else and they're particularly valuable. The hose, for hydraulic hose, is relatively thin wall and can be bent to a very small radius. The fittings are screw together to the hose and reusable. So the series is light, can handle space constrained applications, and offers multiple fabrications if you're fitting a system together for the first time. I used a lower spec product for the solenoid exhaust due to the tightness of the fit and the fact that it was low pressure. https://www.dropbox.com/s/7mjmpdl9ummvqk6/ec02PSPlumbing.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/flrgqh1odvk2r7l/ec03PSPlumbing.JPG?dl=0 The complete system is shown installed in https://www.dropbox.com/s/tngmcr0jt6awx7h/ra00Rack.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/rdpeixqa9bqy29j/ra01RackTieRodAndStArm.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/d19qgmbjghsm7jr/ra03RackStColumn003.JPG?dl=0 and https://www.dropbox.com/s/jx1jt6tvumdisto/ra04RackStColumn01.JPG?dl=0 Modification of the steering arm from a single shear to a clevis and shortening to give 11:1 steering is shown in https://www.dropbox.com/s/oebslkfsfdv4gtr/ra02StArmClevis.JPG?dl=0 I forget what ratio rack I ordered, but I measured 22° lock on the outside wheel and 1 1/3 turns lock-to-lock at the steering wheel. With Caster at 3.8° and 3.9° I think that unassisted steering would be pretty hard to take advantage of. I know I'm going to get PMs from folk recommending 12-step programs for people that get this carried away with their work... But I think if you went to, like, Dallara Automobili, you'd find them doing pretty much the same thing I'm doing here, 'cept it'd all be done in CAD/CAM which would have a bunch of accessory programs attached that would read out the consequences resulting from any particular placement decision. And the mechanicals they could handle would be much more integrated, detailed and informative. There was also the fact that I learned that I could rely on NOTHING about the “kit” I received to be trustworthy and, if I valued life and limb, had to verify everything. So all of this was pretty much a necessity. If you think the following is a bit more than over the top, then the other side of the picture lets you know why I have no respect for builders that throw a bunch of pieces together and expect you to believe that what they're selling is just like what the good Mr. Chapman created to become a legend. E.g. Caterham's been spending lots of money over the years doing very sophisticated analysis and development of their Se7ens and the performance of the car reflects that. Anyway.... I put all of this together in the hopes that other people who enjoy build/developing a Se7en have some sort of reference for developing this part of the car and might be able to find a few bits that are helpful in their efforts. This is also payback for all the people who have taken the time to share their work and discuss their experiences over the years which has helped me along.

MHKflyer52 asked for some pictures, and, of course, I got carried away. Also, for the terminally technical..... Note on Steering, II After I understood the costs and benefits of Power Steering and decided to go that route, it was clear that fitting the pump was the first thing that should be tackled. It also happened to be the easiest and most straightforward task to accomplish (however both of those terms are relative to the rest of the work ;-) ). The KRC Aluminum pump is both light and small and tucked nicely into the nook on the side of the engine where the A/C pump used to live. https://www.dropbox.com/s/t2h79gfxt6879aw/ab02PSPumpInSitu.JPG?dl=0 The pump has a red-line, and doesn't output much at low RPMs, so I did the arithmetic and found the pulley size I needed so I wouldn't hurt the pump at 8K, and still had an easy time when parallel parking. Jones stocks such things and makes adapters to different pumps. https://www.dropbox.com/s/hfz5mk9phizctz8/ab01PSPumpInSitu.JPG?dl=0 Happily I could even use the mounting bolt holes from the A/C and line it up relatively easily with the serpentine belt. Grainger carries a huge selection of lengths and the worst part was only figuring out how to measure the length over the pulleys. Fabricating the mounting bits made me happy I'd bought such a good TIG machine. https://www.dropbox.com/s/b0bjzbckyoj1fex/ab00PSPumAndFittings.jpg?dl=0 The plumbing took some fiddling but wasn't too bad. Notes: It's not obvious that the KRC pump is a 3 HP motor! (http://www.krcpower.com/ as well as Woodward's catalog http://woodwardsteering.com/ ) The electric-hydraulic pumps sufficient to power assisted racks are much bigger, heavier and require a higher output alternator. I wonder why Mosler (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosler_MT900) chose that path for the one they fitted to their MT900 when they're so much into lightness. The electric assisted P/S that for instance came with the Honda S2000, I will guess, can't have anywhere near the muscle. After I digested the info provided by Woodward (https://www.dropbox.com/s/hlrj6pdnwgknau0/tech%20section%20guide.pdf?dl=0) I made a mock rack using 2x2 heavy wall tube and fitted a 3/4x3/4 rack rod inside it with bearings that allowed changing of the length of the rack and allowed the rack rod to be moved in and out. I also jerry rigged tie rods out of cheap rod ends and bar stock. Preliminary stumbling about gave me a reasonable idea of how long the rack should be which is dependent on how long the rack rod should be so I could measure the amount of plunge as the rack rod swung the wheel through its range. This part is all wonderful until you get done and try to put things like fenders on and find that they run into other parts of the car at full lock, and even worse, at full lock at full droop/bump. I guess I was careful (or paranoid) enough to avoid major disasters here. I wound up with 22° of lock on the outside wheel and 6° of Ackerman added to that on the inside wheel. The car's wound up with turn-in you can brag about. I wound up re-making tie rods and rack rod only a few times. Once you get all of this set up for measuring Ride Steer it goes quickly and you can home in on a position for the rack without too much time. https://www.dropbox.com/s/0av03sz0ymgp7hn/ba00BumpSteerPlate.JPG?dl=0 Shows the Ride Steer gage I made, as described by C. Smith. All that mucking about with dial gages may be really accurate, but when you think about it is really is overkill. When you get close to zero, you can use a feeler gage or a graduated wedge to give you any accuracy you need. If you're not close to zero, why bother reading off of a dial exactly how much toe you've got? The rollers contacting the plate are from the sliding door section of Lowes and give highly repeatable behavior, and if you put radial lines on them, as you raise/lower the upright, you can easily see when one is no longer in contact with the plate and make whatever correction is needed. What's not shown is that the frame pivots on rod end brgs that are bolted to a 2” heavy iron channel. The plate and its wheel mounts require more than a little care. Woodward has a great description of Ride Steer which made the work easier to accomplish. I wanted to make Ackermann adjustable over a range but found there just wasn't that much space to play with. A CAD system could have made this process faster but inputting all the pieces would have taken many times as long as the trial and error method. I spent a lot of time measuring the chassis and deciding what to use as the reference points, the chassis' symmetry was not awful, but certainly less than what one would call "true". Referencing https://www.dropbox.com/s/lvy79jlmmm7n3iv/ba01JigFront.JPG?dl=0 that framework at the front is an alignment jig that plugs into to the inboard suspension pickups on the chassis. It's pretty rigid and I made the forward most horizontal bar movable fore/aft via screw mounting and the screw mounts clamp on the jig verticals so it can be leveled. So once you attach the jig, you adjust its reference points (like centerline and the front and sides of the reference rectangle) by hanging plumb bobs off the front bar to align to a reference rectangle laid out beneath the car, which in turn is centered on the chassis front and rear inboard suspension pickup clevises, averaging these dimensions to come up with a car centerline. After the car was completed, commercial equipment found that the Thrust angle was 0.13 degrees, so this approach is reasonably accurate. Matter of fact, all of the alignment was damn near spot on when measured with commercial equipment – so you can align the car yourself, but it takes quite a bit of work and time. Then I worked with the mock up and jig to find the position in the chassis that gave no Ride Steer, as much Ackermann as I could get, and ensure that nothing ran too close to anything else at full lock and full Bump/Droop. https://www.dropbox.com/s/0rpb5dmywoz3y04/ba02JigFrontRight00.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/705kpgb418zro3n/ba03JigFrontRight.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/tgmb9yu384s5ffo/ba04JigFromRight00.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/fr3hpolcmpy3cjt/ba05JigFrontLeft00.JPG?dl=0 show details of such work. Note shorter steering arm mock up, path of the tie rod through other suspension parts, clearance of anti roll bar link and attachment of plate to measure Ride Steer. https://www.dropbox.com/s/y5goz78r13q3xxw/ba06JigFrontLeft.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/7gjop9lqtwhdn7k/ba07JigLeftInside.JPG?dl=0 show a Diamond 13" wheel fitted to the left side and show clearance issues with the ARBar blade and the tie rod. At this point, I had the height of the rack in its space and its lengths. Using the specs provided by Woodward I knew how tall the rack would be and where its mounts would be located along the rack. Given this and the locations of the tubes on the chassis I could fabricate the mounts for the rack on the chassis. I used another 2x2 to capture the final position of the mock rack and then built two triangular boxes to match the actual rack's mounting bosses. Some of this is shown in https://www.dropbox.com/s/jfys9a2h4udiz0m/ca01TackingMountsInPosition.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/y5oj1lgxzxbsmme/ca02TackingMountsInPosition.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/k0qa1gyj2h4phlq/ca03TackingMountsInPosition.JPG?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/trhyycf5zd3e2gi/ca04RackMountsPostTacking00.JPG?dl=0 I then cut the tacked-together boxes from the chassis and completed the welding of these boxes at the bench, as per https://www.dropbox.com/s/trhyycf5zd3e2gi/ca04RackMountsPostTacking00.JPG?dl=0 When I got the rack I bolted these boxes to the rack and used the same capturing jig to position the rack https://www.dropbox.com/s/yi73hdwj4jbk9l6/cc00RackPositioned.JPG?dl=0 xx https://dl.dropbox.com/u/49212285/ANoteOnSteering/cc00RackPositioned.JPG and tacked the boxes to the chassis, and removed the rack and completed the welding. https://www.dropbox.com/s/58erfql14e29yfs/cc01RackMountsPre-finalWelding.JPG?dl=0 shows the space where this was put and https://www.dropbox.com/s/61vw3etzw409378/cc02RackMountsPreFinalWedlin01.jpg?dl=0 xx https://dl.dropbox.com/u/49212285/ANoteOnSteering/cc02RackMountsPreFinalWedlin01.jpg shows the finally positioned rack mounts. This worked well. When I explored how everything finally worked I got absolutely zero Ride steer and nothing ran into anything else - so much for those who make claims about TIG welding creating distort SEE PART 2 FOLLOWING

Thanks for posting such a long and detailed explanation of your issues. Did you experience the ride steer issue in your Ultralite after you initially built it? I ask because I have one as well and I havent noticed any issues on either street or track I made the decision to do the steering when I was finishing up the car, about to put it on the road. After doing all the other alignment, including +4 degrees of caster, when I went to do the front Ride Steer, I found that whether I put the tie rod on the top or the bottom of the steering arm I got lots of ride steer - I didn't bother recording the magnitude of the numbers but they were large enough to cause me to stop and see what others said about the effect. What I read left no question that it was a problem and, given the existing setup, there was no good solution but to start over. While this took a lot of time and money, I have no doubt that what I left behind was simply wrong, and that what I managed to pull together is well worth the effort. I'm not religious about this, but I have to take seriously what people who have managed racing teams have written and engineers who developed racing cars have written. One observation, from memory, is that the shocks delivered with my car had VERY stiff springs, perhaps stiff enough that the ride change was small enough that steering defects were masked. I was impressed riding in Kitcat's old crossflow Caterham that it had a very comfortable ride, yet it handled very well. Currently my car rides similarly. Two more options to reduce steering effort are: 1) larger steering wheel (even an single inch in dia makes a massive difference). This is also a cheap thing to try as you can often borrow wheels from different people at track days and see how you like them. 2) different tire width and/or compound for your front tires. More expensive than swapping wheels and harder to "tune" but equally effective. I agree on both issues. 1) But all the modern racing and high-end sports cars I see have small steering wheels implying that they don't need drivers with the strength of weight lifters to overcome steering issues, and that finesse is more important than physical strength when going fast in a sports car. and 2) Currently working on figuring out how to balance the suspension in my car, one of the clues as to the oversteer in my car is pointed to by the fact that the builder shipped the car with brakes that delivered the same stopping power at both the front and the rear of the car. This can be taken as strong evidence that the builder had no understanding of longitudinal weight transfer, and this ignorance may well apply to the sizing of the tires that were fitted to the car.

A note on steering. In the process of exploring how my Se7en works, I've discovered things about the steering I fitted that just knock me out. Building my “kit”, I wound up designing, engineering and fitting a completely new steering system to solve a problem. In doing this I had considerable help from the mfg of the rack and pinion I used: really extraordinary documentation, and advice along the way, which not only allowed me to solve the problem that caused me to tackle the work in the first place but wound up giving me benefits way beyond what I was shooting for. That everything had come together even better than I had hoped for became clear out in some hilly country over some very familiar stretches of aging blacktop. At 70+ MPH I found I was placing the car on the road exactly where I wanted with very little steering effort and very small movements of the steering wheel. I wasn't feeling any of the kick-back I expected from the roughness of the road, but still the steering feedback was excellent – the system was filtering road irregularities without killing feedback, and it was getting through rough stretches without the car being tossed all over the place. Nirvana! So the nett is that I have a really communicative steering system that offers really precise control, and allows me to toss the car around without needing the muscles of a weight-lifter. Getting to this point was really hard and fairly expensive (so what else is new?) So how did all of this play out? The starting point was Ride Steer. If you're going down a straight stretch of road and suddenly the car decides to point itself in a new direction when it runs over a bump, that's Ride Steer. Obviously this is a bad thing, particularly so if you're going around a corner when it happens. On my “kit” this problem was considerable and was due to the geometry of the steering, and the rack couldn't be repositioned to get rid of it. Having opened Pandora's box, I began the long journey of searching for a solution. Along the way I got a Woodward Precision Power Steering catalog from a dirt track guy at Zakiris Garage. The catalog had a really excellent section spelling out the geometry involved in placing a steering rack and the reasons why the different aspects of the geometry were important. It had equally superb sections explaining other steering issues. I had found a gold mine of steering information. Phase I. Woodward offered a rack that was a good fit for a Se7en and its construction was modular: when you ordered a rack you specified the dimensions of all of the parameters that define a rack (rack length, rack rod length, steering ratio, pinion placement, ...). Thus you could determine the optimal geometry for a rack for your car and then order a rack to fit. So armed, I fabricated a jig that allowed me to explore different rack dimensions, placement of the rack in different positions in the available space, different rack rod length and stroke, … and then assess the effect of each trial on Ride Steer and Ackermann and steering lock, and be able to capture the position for fabricating rack mounts. Yeah, it was a lot of work. Phase II. Woodward has a great section which talks about steering ratios - and I found that Pandora has another box. Being able to turn your front wheels really quickly is a very good thing, but this takes more force at the steering wheel. There are three ways of dealing with this. 1) Start an exercise program so you've got big enough muscles to handle the load and still be able to deliver good finesse at the steering wheel. 2) Decrease positive Caster, which will lighten the steering effort as the Caster value gets small. However, this comes at the cost of high speed directional stability (as self-centering of the front wheels). Taking this path also makes Caster adjustment really critical; adjusting for maybe +1.5° of Caster (I'm guessing at an appropriate value here), and getting it exactly the same on both sides of the car is at the minimum, time consuming. If you've done your own aligning you know that this involves a lot of work, and you wind up chasing your tail because other things change when you change Caster – and vice versa. 3) Power Steering. No need for an exercise program, Caster issues essentially go away, and, as I'm happily finding out, there are a lot of other benefits one gets along with these. Cost is higher for a power assisted rack and one has to select and fit an appropriate power steering pump. Woodward, in yet another excellent section, provides help with this latter issue by having done research on several different pumps, showing which delivers constant flow rate with changes in engine speed. This means that steering feel will not change with engine speed. Think about steering that becomes much more sensitive at high engine speeds and when in top gear. Clearly to be avoided. So, reflecting on all of this, I decided to fit P/S – and keep trying to come up with a reasonable sounding explanation as to why the heck do you need P/S on a car that weighs 1650 lbs. Phase III. Integration. With everything assembled, the steering geometry gave zero Ride Steer and 6° of Ackermann at full (22°) lock. The steering ratio was approximately 11° of Steering Wheel turn to 1° Front Wheel turn. Caster remains +3.8° and +3.9°, left and right, zero front Toe, zero front Camber, 5” front ride height. Very generally, a Power Steering system presents itself differently than a system that's unassisted. My steering is now quick enough that you can easily chirp the front tires with a flick of the wheel. The system damps the unwinding of the steering wheel when coming out of a sharp turn unlike an unassisted system, but on my car the steering ratio is quick enough that this is not much of an issue, and it disappears as an issue when driving at speed. At speed (see also below) there is a huge difference in feel and control. Once acclimated, fine control at high speed becomes almost magically easy, even lighter than on a, say, 250 cc GP bike where it seems all you have to do is 'think' to turn the bike. When first driving the car I wasn't too happy. It felt really darty and I expected that it was going to take a long time before I got used to its quickness and sensitivity. With more seat time I became more relaxed, recognized that much of what I felt as dartyness was due to my overcompensating, and the steering became progressively smoother as I became more and more comfortable. In this regard, one thing that became apparent was how easy it was to create unintended steering input due to being jostled by bumps in the road. I'm learning ways of positioning myself in order to steer precisely through stretches of rough road. One pretty dramatic finding was the difference tires can make. Out on a straight stretch of some pretty bumpy blacktop I'd gotten to the point where 80 MPH seemed like the limit. The car was becoming just too difficult to keep on the road, likely due to my being jostled causing unintended steering input. But whatever, I just didn't feel comfortable going any faster under those conditions. Working on a different issue I changed front tires from the cool-looking (but apparently useless) Falken Azenis RTs that came with the “kit” to a pair of Yokohama S.drives. The transformation was stunning. That same stretch of road was now comfortable at 90+ MPH, and more importantly, overall the steering was vastly more precise and steering feel was hugely improved. With respect to the superb feel that the system delivers: The rack has a torsion bar connected between the steering column and the solenoid in the rack that controls the flow of fluid from the P/S pump. This spring is light enough and works through a small enough range before it connects solidly with the solenoid that one can mistake its being twisted for free-play in the steering system when the car isn't running. Finally, when I was out in the country on familiar roads, having gotten comfortable with the steering, and having fitted good tires, I was able to get focused to the point where I was working completely within the range of the torsion bar on relatively straight stretches of road and realized how little muscle it took to make the car go where I wanted and how accurately I could position the car on the road. The mfg offers a selection torsion bars covering a range of different spring rates so you can tune the steering feel to fit your car's properties and driving conditions. Related directly to this is the importance of the power steering pump delivering a constant flow rate to ensure that this sensitivity does not vary with the how the car is being driven. I'll bet that folks who develop purpose-built sports-racing cars accomplish this sort of thing all the time. But for a retired Biologist who's dreamed for years of having his own Se7en, pulling all of this together and having it work so well makes me feel just like the King of the Mountain :-)

My condolences. Glad that you had a father that added to your life. I hope he passed peacefully.

Agreed. Two points to add: -A multi-party political system is valuable because many issues need to be presented from differing perspectives and discussed by us all. It's the only process that we've found that works better than any of the alternatives. I accept as fact that different facets of the overall challenge that faces us can be best solved by Conservative solutions in one case and Liberal solutions in another, depending on the particular facet. But adopting a single ideology hasn't proven to be a successful approach. One party may ascend in power, but that doesn't necessarily translate into what's 'best for the country'. Indeed, if a particular ideology were actually truly successful, everyone would adopt it because it produced successful outcomes all or most of the time. As such, and in support of the above,I have problems with the Republican party when its people say publicly "Our goal is to make the current guy fail." I can only read this as saying that they have a desire for power, not a desire to serve the people of the U.S. -I'm sure that all of us have been in a situation where we've had something dropped in our laps that we found was a lot uglier than we thought - and we failed trying to get it into shape in time. There are a lot of specific examples of this in the current situation, but I think that, most simply, the guy in charge doesn't have control over the size of each of the problems that have been dropped into his lap, hence they may be easily solved (unlikely), or are simply not solvable by anyone within the current environment, or have really ugly solutions that are necessary (like the bank bailouts). I think (or hope that ) the guy who happens to be facing the task of running our Country is really smart and amazingly skilled, but I don't expect him to be a magician. Consequently I am not so interested in getting rid of someone who, from my limited perspective, is not running things really well, as I am avoiding jumping from the frying pan into the fire. While this probably doesn't apply accurately due to historical context, the hard working and industrious German people democratically elected Adolf Hitler because they were unhappy with their circumstances and wanted a change. (Admittedly at the time things were really bad in Germany, but I feel the example has some significance.)

I was impressed to learn that the French have a university track/program/ whatever that you follow if you want to be a "minister" - like a minister of state. So when you run for office and get in, you've had formal introduction to the different areas that someone in that job is supposed to be knowledgeable about; like diplomacy, banking systems, taxation finance, national and local security ... To me it only makes sense that anyone aspiring to public office is faced with university level and hopefully graduate level courses where they have to face and work with the issues that a minister is likely to encounter, and the opportunity to present their work for the criticism of other aspirants and to be guided, hopefully well, by people who have spent their careers studying and learning about each of the different areas. I've heard Ronald Reagan criticized for not having the technical knowledge necessary to conduct the Presidency. What the French do certainly seems to be something we could think about.

Sears markets it as a motorcycle/quad-runner jack - If your motorcycle has an area under the engine that's flat it's probably great (mine doesn't). They include reasonable-strength straps to keep the thing you're lifting from tipping over and falling off the jack as you roll it around so it really is designed to be stable laterally. One complaint I've heard from "real" mechanics is that they don't buy or use non-commercial jacks because they've found them to typically have poor hydraulics and wind up pitching them because they start leaking pressure - and they're dangerous to say the least. I have not found this to be the case with this jack in spite of years of pretty rigorous use. I've seen copies made of steel rather than aluminum at Pep Boys and Harbor Freight. If I ever need a special purpose jack, I'll consider one to fabricate whatever structure applies to the need. I don't have the nerve to weld anything on something so obviously well engineered that's mostly aluminum - heat treating and all...