Alaskossie

Well, this would certainly give a boost to mass transit for the millions of American commuters who drive to work, one car/one occupant..... Doesn't affect me as much, as i have a home office... But such a proposal probably violates Constitutional federalism precepts -- unless they tie it to interstate commerce and the fact that most highways were built with federal funds....

Hard to believe how gullible and hair-trigger some folks are -- just itchin' to poke someone else in the nose..... i had a good laugh over this one. I would have expected to see this "news item" in the Onion.

An R500 with aero screen, half doors, tonneau, and Dale Lomas at the wheel would leave the Evo for dead, I'm thinking. In 2000, Robert Nearn lapped the Ring at 7:55 in a Caterham R500 (I assume with VX powerplant). In the same year, Horst von Sauma lapped at 7:56, in a Porsche 911 Turbo.

I am really impressed with how smooth and controlled Dale Lomas looks, from front or rear... every corner set up just right, every transition smooth, calculated, and controlled, using every bit of the road. Oh, to spend one's working days at the 'ring......

Very smooth driving in the 175 CSR -- compared to the R500 driver, who is opposite-lock and almost losing it a couple of times. Pass the blood-pressure pills! According to the Blatchat thread, the smooth driver in the CSR 175 is Dale Lomas, who is a long-time driving instructor and demonstrator at the 'Ring. It shows. He obviously knows that long track very well. It would be fun to see what he could do in the R500 Superlight......

Croc, Who makes that roll-bar windblocker? Is it readily available? I have the first windblocker that SBFS made for Tillets, and it is adequate, but could be improved upon.

I bought Pilotis for my medium-width feet, but found that I had real interference problems with the pedals in my Caterham Series 3. Puma Speedcats solved the problem. The Pilotis are supposed to be "driving" shoes, but they are noticeably wider in the welt area than the Pumas. Like others said, don't plan to do a lot of walking in dedicated Seven driving shoes. Carry a spare pair of walking shoes.

Jlumba81, Congrats! That makes four Caterhams in Alaska -- two in Anchorage, one in North Pole, and yours in Juneau. Wish you were connected with the rest of us by the road system; we could meet up for a long blat. You have one of two SVs in Alaska; the other is owned by Dr. Jim O'Malley here in Anchorage. Please let me know if you are planning to be in Anchorage any time soon; perhaps I'll have my repaired S3 on the road by then. And if you are looking ahead, we should plan to rendezvous in Haines next summer and drive down the Alaska Highway to the Canadian Rockies for the Grizzly Bear Blat, if it takes place as planned. I'd love to have some company on the Alaska Hwy.

Blubarisax, Any photos of the engine with the Reverie c/f cam cover installed? You and I are the only two people I know of with that setup on a Duratec. I really like the look. Did you get the low-profile Reverie cover without the oil filler hole? I have had a persistent oil seep from the front-side mating surface of the cam cover. I plan to get a new formed gasket from Ford, and then put something (what? --any recommendations?) in the groove in the cam cover before inserting the gasket, to see if this stops it. Any other suggestions? The cam cover hold-down bolts are all very tight, but I need to measure to see if one or more is bottoming out in the holes.

Correction: the official name of the 2005 tour was "How the West was Driven" or "HTWWD." The route was from Houston TX, north and west through New Mexico, then north through the Colorado Rockies, then west through the Utah desert and Monument Valley, across Nevada, and to San Francisco. It was in early September, but Texas and the deserts were still very warm.

Sean, I was a passenger in Bsimon's Caterham during part of the 2005 HTWW Tour through Colorado. It was really great seeing 60+ Sevens in one place -- a sight we never see in N. America. I was impressed with the thoroughness of the route book -- though it did have a few items that only bolstered the Euro stereotypes of the American West (how to treat rattlesnake bites, how to avoid bear problems, etc.!). However, I had some questions about route choices. Although they needed a seaport to embark from, I questioned their choice of Houston, with a long hot drive between there and anything Seven-interesting. A better plan would have been a West-Coast port, and a long loop tour instead of a point-to-point, some of which was definitely not Seven-friendly. Even in Colorado, some of the best Seven roads (known to the locals, but not necessarily to the route planner) were neglected. I trust that Johnty Lyons, in planning for a possible 2015 repeat of the 2005 HTTW, is considering a repeat of the grand concept, and not necessarily of the route.

I guess we'll all find out what this is about next week. Here are some UK links: http://blogs.news.sky.com/kleinman/Post:8f4cbbfe-d52f-45f6-b63f-1da435550b9b http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/21042011/66/team-lotus-linked-caterham-tie.html http://www.thef1times.com/news/display/03149 http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/90907 http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/team-lotus-linked-to-caterham-takeover/657497.html Does not sound good, because the right motives don't seem to be present. The worst outcome would be like that Russian teenager's takeover of TVR, which has killed the marque.

Correction to my post #14 above: Ultralite, not "Superlight."

Scannon, The 2005 "How the West was Driven" Tour from UK (Houston, TX to San Francisco via Colorado) was primarily Caterham/Lotus, but was not exclusive. There were several very fast Westfields with V-8 and V6 power there, as well as Robin Hoods, other Westfields, etc. And a number of the locals who joined for parts of the blat drove Birkins, Westfields, Superlights, etc. Superlight even had a support vehicle and trailer along for everyone's use. It was great fun. That's the way it should be.

I had similar loom problems with my 2.3 Cosworth Duratec, and Ken Anderson supplied the correct loom. The car fired up and was running fine. Last July I bought the engine-management CD and flashing kit (KK3559 ECU Flashing kit- CD Calibration Software, for $540.00) from Cosworth USA, but when Nathan Down in Boulder tried to install it, we got no signal at all. So it remains uninstalled. i told Kyong that Nathan thought perhaps the kit was faulty and I would send it back to be checked, but unfortunately I have not sent it back yet. My car is complicated because it was supplied from Caterham with a wiring loom for the Zetec, which has a bunch of wires and applications that do not match the Duratec. This was only discovered by Nathan after my car was 80 percent finished by me, so Nathan had to do a complicated work-around that I'm sure only he an a couple of others would have been able to figure out, in order to get the engine to work. This involved abandoning some wires in the loom, stringing yards of new new wires, and using some wires for different functions. So even if I find my flashing kit is faulty and get a new one, I'm not sure I can install it in a way that will make it function correctly.

Sean, What make and model of driving shoes are those?

This message was just posted on Blatchat by Evotell: THE GRIZZLY BEAR BLAT Ourselves and Super 7 Cars Inc. the Canadian Caterham importer are floating the idea of doing a Blat from Calgary – Vancouver. This trip will take in some of the world’s most spectacular scenery, be 800 miles and 10 days long. At present we are floating the idea to see how much interest there would be for such a trip. Proposed time scale August 2012. THE GRIZZLY BEAR BLAT Fly into Calgary and collect car from container port Start Calgary (ride the Olympic bobsleigh) Visit Lake Louise Columbia Ice field Jasper (Trip up mountain) Revelstoke: (White water rafting) Frazer Valley Kelowna Track day at Mission Vancouver Trip to Whistler Mountain Ferry to Vancouver Island Afternoon at Super 7 Cars Factory Return to Vancouver, where car will be dropped at container port Fly back to wherever. YOUR THOUGHTS PLEASE

The exhaust will only be on the non-driver side on a RHD Seven if you have one of the earlier-generation engines. The Latest Duratec/Caterhams have the exhaust on the right side -- which is one reason I got mine in LHD. I have spent a number of Colorado mountain miles in the passenger seat of a well-driven RHD Caterham, and I still got nervous about passing maneuvers. I gained the impression that the driver was, in part, looking underneath, and/or down the right side, of the vehicle ahead of the Caterham to see if the road ahead was clear. Of course, some of the analysis of the safety of a proposed passing maneuver will fall into the lap of the passenger (if there is one), who may have variable or unreliable judgment as to what is either safe or possible. The justification for ordering a RHD Caterham or Birkin or Westfield is usually that it will have an advantage on a road-racing track, where right-hand turns predominate (I think that is the excuse). Anyway, if that is your sole focus, go for it. But for primarily street use, I see overtaking/passing safety as the real strike against a RHD Seven. Being quick and narrow is no cure for a potential head-on.

Croc, Sounds like great fun! Wish I could have made it. I have sampled scannon's hospitality several times. And he knows all the great roads in the area. You're fortunate the weather cooperated.

I have a 36-inch waist (despite my best efforts), and the Tilletts in my S3 are comfortable over long distances (like 6100 miles total, or up to 550 miles a day), but admittedly there is little extra side room to spare. When I was building my Seven at Jeff Ball's garage in Greeley, Colorado, we ran a little experiment with my potential Seven passengers. We would place the unmounted Tillett on the floor, ask the passenger to sit in it, and then to stand up. If the Tillett came up with them when they stood, the Tillett was a press-fit, and that person was on the bubble as far as being a passenger of mine. Of course, some potential passengers simply high-centered in the Tillett, and never made it to the press-fit stage. My sister took one look at the seat on the garage floor, and said, "no way...!" Smart move on her part...

I recall the early road tests of the Lotus Seven Series 1 that described the horizontal lever-handle for the emergency brake, which I recall was located in the roof of the passenger footwell. That was a long time ago.... In fact, so long ago that when these road testers commented that this location of the e-brake handle was perfect for "breaking the ice on a date," I had no clue what they were talking about... It took a few years before it dawned on me.....(!). All right, I'm just slow on the uptake....

Hank, Not to be picky, but having served in the Army 1967-69, I believe these 2 1/2-ton trucks were nicknamed "Deuce-and-a-Half," not just a "Deuce." Don't sell your big rig short! Tom

On my LHD Duratec/ Seven S3, i moved the alternator to the exhaust side of the block with an adapter from Mick Atree in UK. We had to add another idler pulley to get the serpentine belt to avoid that large cast lug on the end of the block. We could have cut the lug off, but Nathan didn't want to remove the head and perhaps affect the Cosworth warranty. He found a stock-length serpentine belt to fit. Moving the alternator to the exhaust side freed up some room for the dry-sump fittings and hoses to pass from the front-mounted Brise dry-dump kidney tank.

Gert, Are you familiar with the Pashnit site for driver's roads in California? http://www.pashnit.com/motoroads.htm A friend in Anchorage who is a vintage motorcycle road racer and who grew up in southern California says this guy has roads on there, in his own backyard, that even he wasn't aware of. It is a pay site, but apparently has hundreds of Seven/motorcycle roads.

The Gallardo has amazing punch on the straights! But not so ultra-quick in the corners...