JohnK

OK, I never though about this before until I saw the names right next to each other: Lotus -- Rotus Please tell me that the latter name was chosen because they designed it around a Wankel engine, rather than that Lee Kaiser was working for a client from Japan.

The show shots are really nice for a technology freak like me. but this shot puts me right in the driver's seat - I'll fantasize about it as I sort out Ithaca Lemonade's suspension. Do you know who the photographer was?

Great selection of pictures, Steve. This is kinda like looking at pictures of Ferraris, except that you can actually own a piece of the pie without having to be a robber baron banker type.

Steering Wheel display is pretty awesome, but hang on for what's likely to be coming down the pike. Saw some notices on PhysOrg.com that major mfgs were getting ready to roll out heads-up dashboard displays for new production models. Wonder how long it'll be before they're adapted to aftermkt products?

Thx guys. I'm still amazed that it's operational. Putting together the collection of pictures, and then annotating them helped me walk through several of the more challenging fixes - and why it took so bleeping long. Local guy, who I've since lost touch with and who I was lucky enough to find named Geoff Moore did the paint. I wanted a high-visibility color and 1970 Dodge Charger "sublime" is what we both found acceptable, but Geoff twisted my arm to add just a touch of pearlescent dust and a couple coats of clear. His experience was that that treatment makes irregularities in the bodywork disappear. I showed him pictures of several different Se7ens with different paint jobs and let him exercise his judgement re the graphics which are in dead-flat black, like the Charger. The traditional nose circle stayed, but he chose to split the trad center stripe, de-emphasizing the hump. In sunlight it really looks like a show-car. Mike, you're on the test-drive list along with S1 Steve. Will be nice to see you again and hear of your recent adventures. Steve, come on down! While I'm pleased that people like the way it looks, the goal here was to see how well I could get it to WORK. In all of 62 miles it seems like the steering handsomely justifies all that work and adding anti-roll-bars feels similarly worth the effort. Instant turn-in with what seems to be zero roll, precise pointing, fine directional stability but instant response to input. It/I may like softer coils. It's gonna take me years to get to know this thing well.

“When you set sail for Ithaca, wish for the road to be long, full of adventures, full of knowledge. ...” * And if your Ithaca is a Seven kit, the journey just may allow you to learn how to make some pretty interesting lemonade from that lemon you got stuck with. Out of my journey came: A completely new brake system from the pedals in the footwell to the calipers on the uprights; a completely new steering system from the steering wheel to the steering arms on the uprights; much of a new suspension system from shocks and roll bars to links and uprights; and dozens of ergonomic, mechanical design and good practice issues, the solutions of which brought me to a new appreciation of the difference between something slapped together from a grab-bag of parts and a car that might have put a smile on the face of the good Mr. Chapman. Now that I've finally arrived at Ithaca, Laissez les bons temps rouler , as they say in N'orleans. =========================================================================== ============ Serious update, 3 years after first getting it on the road ===================== ========================================================================== . . . . . . So, now that it's a couple of years later, and after getting the car on the road and driving it for a season, I found some changes were justified. Here's a LINK http://www.usa7s.net/vb/showthread.php?7421-Ithaca-Lemonade&p=97613#post97613 that describes what I decided to change, how I made the changes, and the results of the work. ========================================================================== *http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavafy His famous poem, Ithaca, is echoed by the Caterham motto, “When the journey is as important as the destination.” Many thanks to: Steve Sheddy for opening the door many years ago to my learning from the homeland what Sevens were all about at se7ens.net. And of course all the good folk at usa@se7ens.net , http:// http://www.usa7s.com and Ultralite_USA@yahoogroups.com for sharing their knowledge, experience and helpful suggestions. Also, -The late Carroll Smith for laying out so clearly much of what one needs to understand and do in order to make a sports car that works. And Allan Staniforth for doing the same in matters of suspension. -Wm. C. Mitchel and his friend Warren Rowley whose softwares allowed me to see how the chassis / suspension would behave as the car was driven and how to determine spring rates and design effective roll bars, all to make a car handle like the gods that rule such things intended. -Speedway Engineering for providing all one could need in the area of anti-roll bars. -Koni Racing Tech for identifying the right model of shock to fit my needs and building a set to fit my specs perfectly; superb suspension control, priceless advisory service. -Woodward Precision Power Steering for an extraordinary R&P along with a superb explanation of how to make such a thing deliver steering that gives new meaning to the word 'precise'. -And Miller Welding for creating their Dynasty DX 200 power supply for TIG and Stick welding; an amazing piece of technology without which I could not have fabricated all the pieces that make my 'lemonade' work. Pictures below are 800x600 as per site directions. More pics at higher resolution can be gotten through an annotated index at https://www.dropbox.com/s/1h5vxfz5bvp6zes/Annotated_IndexEd01.doc?dl=0 This will allow you to download the file, (Word format), and you can get back to DropbBox by clicking on the hyperlinks. (Dropbox changed its rules so this is completely redone internally.) . . .

Slomove, Nice approach!. Something I found that may work and live for a long time is refactory cement that's handled by Flexbar specifically, http://www.flexbar.com/shop/pc/High-Temperature-Adhesives-Cement-c82.htm which I used to cement my DEI exhaust wrap to my headers at both ends. Wurth also handles a pipe to collector sealer that's holding up so far on my car, It's at http://www.focussport.com/wurth.htm

Agreed. However the times certainly have changed a lot. Jackie Stewart got a bad reputation because he put his foot down about the abysmal condition of driver safety in F1 but he did get it to change a great deal and very much for the better. For the better we've lost the old "Iron Man" ethos and the bravery, and all that testosterone-fueled, macho status driven stuff which we used to in order to believe that, as Frank Zappa sang, "It can't happen here."

I wound up using Deutsch connectors for wiring up my se7en, and got them from Batts Racing (no relationship of any kind). I have past experience with Weatherpack and know them to be well designed, but found that the Deutch design is at least of equal quality and that the connectors are in general much less bulky. Also, you can get clean wire to terminal connections without having to buy a crimper (although, there's nothing that produces nicer connections than a mfg's crimper - if you can afford it.) My take-home was that, if I was connecting things whose amperage's called for 12 or 10 ga wire, I'd buy Weatherpack, but, after checking wiring specs and what Honda uses in their ECU, found that nearly everything on my car, fuel pump included, was ok with the gauges that Deutsch products offer. These were easy to work with and offered a nice range of sizes. Along the way I found Anderson Powerpole connectors for high amp connections (15, 30, 45, 75, 120 & 180) which offer a nice design - but these aren't sealed - just rugged, very positive and easy to work with.

Mondo, If you've got the same seats I do, I wound up (after much fighting with bending the wings as per the mfg's recos) trimming them. Seems to be just about right to keep my elbows intact. Also glued in some padding (upholstery people call it 'rebond') to stop my bum from being able to slide left and right.

No, I'm pretty much out of circulation these days so I don't figure that I' m likely to be an attractive or conspicuous target for some scammer. So $100 for a year's service doesn't seem worthwhile (he was last heard to say).

Been using the original Abine for managing all my different accounts and logins for some time now, and just added DNT+. Good products, and the soon-to-come Privacy suite with its one-click logon and control options (replaces the original Abine) should be great.

Caution, I am a (perhaps THE) Electronic Engine Management curmudgeon. I've never had experience with an EMS that was actually 'bad', but have seen some situations that made them seem so: personal experience includes Haltec, Pectel, Edelbrock and Alpha. All of the one's I've had any kind of experience indicates they're all working out of the same basic model - with the notable exception of the production Ford system - which is amazing. The Megasquirt has been around for a long time and seems to have had a long history of improvement (a big plus). If you like technology, its software is Open Source so you can have a lot of fun playing with it. But, overall, the EMS is just a starting point: it is not a bolt-on, load a likely software calibration, and expect even a reasonably-running engine. Experience with several engines/cars has overwhelmingly indicated that a Dyno and a well developed testing protocol (done by someone with a very fundamental understanding of how an engine works, patience, and his (her?!) head on straight). When done well, you can get truly wonderful results and most likely have you turning your nose up at distributor+carbs systems for the rest of your days. Best of luck.

Ain't it typical. Who knows what legislators had to fight with parents groups, food manufacturers, each other and whoever else to put something in place in an attempt to expose children at school to a healthier diet, and what makes the news is some bizzarro episode that a sit-com writer would have trouble thinking up (unless that is indeed where it came from). I guess this is what some media outfit thinks is important in order to feed the appetites (no pun intended) of all the people out there who are desperately looking for something to get hysterical about so that they can complain about the gv'mnt. Maybe if the same media outfit compared this situation with the number of instances where whatever it was that was put in place that specified better diets resulted in kids getting a more balanced diet.

Folks that rebuilt the engines are a 15 minute walk from my house. First time I stumbled into their shop (if you can call it a 'shop'). ..there was a very originally liveried Lotus Seven parked outside, which caused me to pull over and have a look. Perfectly ordinary mechanic-type came out and we chatted for a bit about the Se7en as he took the car inside, and invited me in for a look at the place. First thing I walked up to was a McLaren Group 7 car from, what, the 60's in for a restoration before being shipped back to its museum home in England. I'd thought I walked into the back entrance of the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum (which I've been to) - but it was cars instead of planes and rockets. Beyond a jaw dropping selection of things they're working on at any one moment, the shop itself really isn't that spectacular at first glance. What's so impressive are the people who work there. Really, really low key and incredibly knowledgeable and competent. 'Mechanic', in their case should be replaced by a term that means something like "uber-craftsman-engineer-inventor", but that still doesn't do them justice, even if you add 'magician'. Oh, yeah, they're Miller engine specialists - I think THE Miller engine specialists.

There gotta be a lot of different facets to this problem and a solution that will actually work (must by why people have such trouble predicting the future ;-) ). Take for e.g. http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-miscanthus-giganteus-great-potential-alternative.html What's the best way out of the thicket?

Looks like the Ethanol issue may be left behind, for better or worse. " After a series of bitter political fights, the US Congress allowed a subsidy for ethanol fuel to expire at the end of 2011, ending a program harshly criticized by environmentalists and others." http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-01-ethanol-subsidy-expires.html Part of my knowledge of it is that the plan was to save energy and that it turned out to have an even higher cost and other negative side effects - beyond the possibility that it's bad for engines and needs more research in that area.

Automobile had a typically excellent review a month or so ago.

Looks great. Every time I see a picture of your car it brings back such great memories.

Lovely piece of work. Congrats! So... how'd you go about creating a spec for ordering your Ohlins? The very last thing I did before going into "just put the damn thing together already" mode, was order shocks for the thing I've (re) built, agonizing about motion ratios, max and min lengths, spring sizes and rates, integrating shocks and springs with spring rates and motion ratios of the anti-roll bars I added at both ends. Measuring and re-measuring to where someone could have recommended me to some sort of 12-step program, not to mention much hand-wringing and software modeling. Koni Racing Tech is in my neighborhood and they were extraordinarily helpful. Wound up with 3-ways: internal valving which can be changed by Koni and is based on corner weights and external Bump and Rebound adjusters which are up to me to get right. Still there were three different models that provided this, so I trusted Koni's advice. Are Ohlins from that company that builds grand pianos? (oh yeah, Yamaha).

Yes, the Caterham's implementation is pretty! The advantages of getting the mechanicals out of the air-stream aside, suspensions with more complicated mechanical arrangements generally are done to provide for greater flexibility in tuning the suspension. Simplest e.g. being able to change the curve of the motion ratio for rising or falling rate, and similarly the MR of the anti-roll bar. All I have read indicates that, while there are a large number of fundamentals that must be well-understood and taken into account, suspension performance is still a black art and from the git-go and only most conspicuously is a compromise between the bad effects generated by camber, scrub and caster in roll and bump. There was a PBS special on a while back about the Penske Indy team's development of their car. The take-home was that, even with huge resources and a large and talented team, they were unable to get the car to handle properly (push/loose) at higher speeds. Wm.C.Mitchell's WinGeo3 allows you to look at how the suspension moves from many different perspectives and conditions and, if you have the patients to measure your car, you can give yourself a baseline to work from and explore changes. Watching how things mover around on your own car is great fun, but figuring how that translates into lap times on the track, it's still is a black art.

Re working with CF: I'll offer what I think is an excellent source on how-to for doing fabrications of fabric and resin at http://www.fibreglast.com/?gclid=CNnPpvHfgK0CFYPc4AodV0eewg They have a several part video detailing a university project that created a CF chassis for a 100 mile per gallon vehicle. Very informative and well done production IMHO. From their catalog and the videos I got all I needed to do my first vacuum bagging project, making a reverse NACA duct to exhaust underhood heat out the side of my car - like the Caterham top-of-the-nose vents but less ambitious. For a first attempt at such, it turned out really well and the info I got was key to knowing that such a thing was even possible let alone spelling out how to do it. They have phone support that I found likewise very helpful.

So what do you do with such a car that has that much damage? Is there any way a repair could ever make the car "right" again?

Kinda takes Observed Trials to the next level - or perhaps that should be "order of magnitude".

I think PB wins for having the slickest looking shifter, and possibly having a connection to the best machinist.