Anaximander

Croc, That 1958 Lotus Replica that you just posted this morning with the wedge nose reminds me of some kind of ramming vehicle that would have been featured in a Mad Max movie! I could see this car stripped down from the body work and used as a wicked Exocet type track car with slicks on it. The chassis seems extremely stout and the only issue would be one of weight distribution with the engine in the back. Would likely have to add some weight to the front end to prevent understeer. Or, if you left the body work on and blew an element with a 5-cone wallem, the machine would take out the cone wall with the greatest of ease. We have a fabulous driver running in SCCA A Mod with a former C5 Corvette that he calls the LS1-Kart and he is very quick and it is even street legal!

Panamericano and USA 7's brethren, I am VERY happy to report that after Glen Minehart and I fixed the leaking rear end passenger half shaft leak, I successfully ran 6 runs at an autocross at Florida International Rally and Motorsports Park (F.I.R.M.) yesterday and the Stalker AXR performed spectacularly. No leaks and after the first run, my times kept decreasing my 2-3 seconds each run, such that I ended up placing 47th (raw time) out of 120 participants. Until the AXR that Glen and Scott Minehart helped me build, the 2014 Caterham 300r with 400r specs was the most wired into my brain car that I had ever owned/driven. Well, with Avon A11 compound slicks (10" and 13" wide respectively) on the Stalker AXR that weighs a 1625 pounds wet, the car behaved like a Hoover vacuum cleaner on the track and steering through slaloms and especially even the tight ones was a breeze. With the electric power assist steering, superb Coleman racing ratio steering rack and the Stalker AXR suspension, the car was the most wired into my brain that I have ever driven. I hope the weather back at the F.I.R.M. is as good as it was yesterday for an upcoming event next weekend. Hopefully, I will better understand the throttle, brakes, steering and suspension as I go out an try to perform even better at this next event. It was a long journey to yesterday, but I feel sort of exonerated that I took on what for me was a pretty complex task of completing a Stalker kit and came out at the end having a ball with the final product.

Searya, Thanks for sharing your interesting Stalker build. I have been fortunate to be on my 6th Stalker which is an AXR partially completed kit with a L33 upgraded with wilder cam and upper end components. Since my sort of ls1 had been assembled but not run, I bought a couple of brass pieces from my local NAPA store and hooked the pieces up that would go into the side of the block near the oil pump and bought a cheap $19 pump sprayer at Harbor Freight that I used to prime the oil pump and upper parts of the engine including the rockers with the garden sprayer and the Mobil 1 oil I put into the engine. I was concerned that attempting to crank an engine with no oil in the oil pump would just continue to try and pump air rather than oil so priming the engine was my security blanket and a simple thing to do. I gave the priming tool to Scott Minehart who has plans for a couple of other engines that will need priming after rebuilds.

The 1983 Westfield that Croc listed this morning that is in NC is VERY interesting if it is in fact the very first prototype of a Westfield. If I were a Westy fan and had garage space, I would certainly pursue the provenance issues and snap that car up as an incredible legacy to a company that reportedly has produced about 1500 copies of Chapman's concept. The seller reportedly has had it for 31 years and is offering it at a nice price that is still negotiable. That to me is a real potential "barn find" that hasn't been in a barn.

Croc, Where in the heck did you "dig up" that 500r Superlight. You would think that somebody trying to market it for all or more than their share of the money would take the time to wash the damn thing. That has to go down as one of the poorest presentations of a Caterham that I have seen to date.

My last scope was a 14.5" f/4.3 Zambuto/Starmaster with GOTO/Tracking. I have had several 32" reflectors, one 30" and two 28" reflectors in the past. I have partially returned to the hobby but not at the breakneck speed that I did for 20 years.

Well, 2023 was an interesting year.

The car will be shortly converted to a street legal car when I add the necessary lights, turn signals, windshield and wheels/tires. The car's Manufacturer Certificate of Origin lists it as a 1962 Lotus Replica Roadster and as such, most states will not require much to get it street legal. Companies like Hagerty's will insure it as a 1962 Lotus Replica.

Kitcat, Thanks for the kind words. Actually, it is $55k in the car and $9k in the trailer and all of the accessories for a total of $64k that has been laid out. The car drives amazing well and I have never owned an autocross car that was more competent.

I was going to but I realized after all of the money, time and energy that I had put into the project that at the end, the journey was the completion of a well sorted se7enesque car. Brunton M-Spec Stalkers are exceptionally stout from a frame architecture standpoint and I learned a lot from the build which was why it was on my bucket list. I know these cars go for a lot more money, especially with the expensive trailer but I just wanted to recoup some of my money and donated all of my time that was involved in the build. I have a history of "beating things to death" metaphorically speaking and this car represents my 6th and final Stalker. The Mineharts, especially Glen, spent an enormous amount of time helping with the project and the car is built exceptionally well with small almost hidden features that make it much easier to work on like having openings underneath the pedals to be able to easily remove them if there was ever a need. Additionally, Scott Minehart knows these cars exceptionally well and had to R&R the engine/transmission to get the clutch just right. I did not realize that the brand-new clutch had not been installed quite properly and Scott made it work perfectly as a new clutch should work and also provided a stop to insure its continued reliability. Essentially, no money was spared in the build and that gives me great pleasure in being able to hand it off to the first true operator of the car when it sells. It drives exquisitely with the Coleman racing steering rack and the electric steering assist and grips like a vacuum cleaner with the exceptional shocks and very sophisticated suspension. There is a reason that Stalker AXR's are the second, third and fifth fastest cars in national competition when it comes to E-Modified class autocross. The acceleration, sounds and feel are pretty incomparable and that is what makes this car so special. If somebody wants one of the badest street cars on the road, they can take the time and expense to make it street legal which in many States would not be very difficult. Scott Minehart, the designer/builder/owner of Stalker cars advised that the cost of a prospective upgrade by him to street legal status would be based on the State or country that the car was going to be operated in and he would have to know the specifics to quote a price.

I am really going to sell this magnificent car this time. I know that I have had numerous misgivings about letting it go, but I just bought a new Corvette and decided that my se7enesque days are likely on hold or over. I will miss it dearly because it was a great labor of love and is now so thoroughly dialed in. For sale is a 2022 M-Spec Stalker AXR with aluminum block 5.3 L33 V8 engine with Summit cam and hardened Summit valvetrain (valves, springs, guides, etc). It is also fitted with a FiTech Ultimate complete fuel injection system with the latest software. I added up all of the receipts for just the engine and the total came to $10k. It was purchased and built by an ASE Certified Mechanic who also races cars. The transmission is a new GForce custom wide ratio T5. It has a Ford 8.8 rear differential with 3.73 Eaton TrueTrac limited slip differential and electric power assist steering. With the exception of the low mileage LS built engine and the three-piece lightweight aluminum racing wheels, all of the components on the car are sourced from brand-new parts including Optima Red Top battery with master battery cutoff. It has Wilwood brakes/pedals with brake bias and state-of-the-art adjustable coil over shocks, clutch, racing seats, roll cage, and 5-point harnesses. The scuttle piece in a couple of the pics was reshot by the painter because the amount of coats was incorrect and now matches the rest of the car. There has been approximately $57k total investment in the car since the kit was ordered in 2019 and constructed by Scott Minehart of Stalker Cars here in Florida. Major contributions to the build were provided by Glen Minehart and Scott Minehart (the designer/builder) and the car has been fully sorted to be one of the finest autocross/track/street cars in the country. The car with full fuel (approximately 13 gallons) weighs 1645 pounds. You can go to stalkercars.com and see that this car would cost approximately $60k if you got one from Stalker Cars. To complement the Stalker AXR (See Stalkerscars.com), is a 2023 Aluma Model 7814 SA tilt trailer with trailer brakes, upgraded 15" main tires/wheels including a 15" spare. The trailer is equipped with a 3000 pound electric winch and a brand-new Optima Yellow Top Deep Cycle battery in case of a need to winch the car onto the tilt trailer that I will sell the trailer for $6000 additional money will buy you all of the extras seen in the ad except the GPS and suction cup. The car also comes with a custom seat cover for open towing to protect the driver's seat from the elements, a fitted rain cover for overnight parking, state-of-the-art professional wheel tie down straps, Longacre tire pyrometer. The total investment in the trailer and all of the spares totaled more than $9k bringing the total investment in the development of the car to approximately $64k and took approximately 8 months to complete. All fluids are new including engine, brakes, transmission and differential. The car has been on an autocross tracks x8 and a dyno x2 to do a shakedown and all of the gremlins were addressed following the shakedowns and the car is now ready for autocross, track or street use (if additional street equipment is added). The car makes approximately 340hp to the rear wheels which is ideal for controllability and ease of driving. It drives like it is on rails. This was a bucket list life challenge and I was fortunate to have the Mineharts close by to provide the majority of their expertise and talents to complete the car. I am including updated pictures that I took on February 22, 2024 with brand-new Avon slicks and a fresh ceramic coating job. I will post the updated pictures at the end of this thread.

What a very interesting story! With your steady work an attention to detail, this car is getting the rehab it deserves. That picture of the car in the weeds really tells the story of how this whole saga began after delivery to the first owner. Dennis Brunton, of SuperStalker lineage, used to tell his prospective and current customers that the cars are very capable of killing you if you do not respect their performance capabilities.

Bruce, After all of the machinations that went on in your decision to finally get a well-sorted se7en other than some other cars that were available at the time, why are you putting it up for sale? Bob

There have been some crazy prices commanded on BAT that don't make any sense even in today's market. I suspect that in the coming year, we are going to see a correction in the enthusiast market as peoples stock market portfolios and housing values potentially tank. The "wealth effect" is getting more difficult for some of us to imagine

Rich, Do you still have the Stalker XL that is in you tag line?

Marty, I have owned a Brunton Super Stalker. The turbo whine and acceleration are intoxicating. If Scott Minehart built the car and another specialist did some fine tuning, I don't think you can go wrong with it. The engine is practically brand new and they are good for hundreds of thousands of miles. Especially in a car with such limited weight. The fun thing about the Stalkers are that you can turn them sideways with just the power of the throttle but if you want it to go straight from that point you simply gently lift off the throttle and the car straightens out true as an arrow. No swapping tail to nose. They ride a bit rough because of the limited suspension but it never seemed to bother me.

Stalker Cars IT person appears to have gotten Stalkercars.com back up and running. Someone had some questions for Scott and can glean information about the cars/costs from the website or contact Scott or Glen Minehart for more specific information.

When was his car listed on our website? I would like to look at the listing. Thanx BTW, I have known Scott Minehart of Stalker Cars to be able to snatch and engine from a Stalker in 2 hours. He is so used to working by himself that he can manipulate engine/transmission packages with seemingly great ease due to his skill sets and fish those engine/transmissions into uber-tight spaces with the grace of a prima ballerina.

I let Scott Minehart know that Stalkercars.com is down. He said that he has his IT person looking into it.

Thanks Mike, We were 1-3 hours North of the devastation and did not suffer any damage except a few small pieces of trees that needed to be shaken out anyway. We had a tree company trim all of our large trees and removed 4 that were potentially threatening the house in hurricane strength winds about a year ago. However, we have lots of friends/acquaintances that really got hammered (one in particular on Sanibel Island and they have no idea yet what has happened to their "dream home"). We sold a property in Port Charlotte last year and have not yet heard from neighbors what kind of damage they sustained. When will we ever learn that barrier islands are meant to be barriers to the mainland? When you build on them, you not only put a structure out in nature to be taken away but you reduce the land friction that the barrier island was created for to reduce the wind/water impacts to the mainlands. With the rising sea levels all over the world, people need to get a bit smarter about where they buy/build these days. Bob

Panamericano, I can't believe that someone has not snatched up your trailer for $2300! What a bargain! My trailer, and I got a bit of a deal from the dealer, cost about $7k with tax/factory delivery and is only a 3500 lbs. single axle. Your trailer would be perfect and frankly almost overkill for a se7enesque car with the tandem axles.

Graham, The Aluma tilt trailer has a very large hydraulic cylinder (dampner/lift) underneath the trailer that articulates with the tilt and allows it to come down gently in both directions. It has a 12.5 degree tilt angle when in the tilt position to the ground.

I watched with great interest, the development of your storage space for your EcoBoost M-Spec Stalker.

Croc, You are a fun ENABLER! Take good care.