demoray

Similar to @toldfield, I did the calculations and found that paying an auto transporter was more cost effective.

It's good to hear your positive outcome. Was that Honda S800 coupe as pretty as they look online? I've never had the opportunity to see one in person, but love the look in photos.

I took a rock to the chest at 60mph on the highway in my sand rail years ago. After that, I'll never run without either a full windscreen or full face helmet.

It's a rare day when I'm out in my 7 that I don't get asked what I'm driving. I've simplified what I say to something basically like this: "it's a Caterham 7. Originally designed in the late 50s by the founder of Lotus to enable them to go racing. They are available with a number of different engines. Mine has a rather spicy 2.3 litre Duratec, built by Cosworth."

I agree that the two color wall mockups look pretty sweet.

I'll be replacing the oil catch can with a unit I bought from Mocal, but I have to fabricate a new bracket to mount it. Investigating replacing my harnesses is on the short list as well, such that I will be ready for the usa7s outing at NJMP.

Put it on my calendar as well. Time to start prepping my 7.

The Northern Virginia Lotus Club had a "Get Your Lotus Out" meetup today, with *37* lotuses in attendance, including five 7s.

Have you read the tariff paperwork? Multiple lawyers I've interacted from both sides of the pond are struggling to understand how things fall out. It's an inconsistent, complicated, and fluctuating mess.

Let's try again as jpg.

Apparently there are two 7s in the inbound RORO of the Baltimore port at the moment. My brother-in-law sent me these this morning. (Deleted unsupported files)

A family member that works in the docks saw it as well. They said it was in the RORO area from Japan.

I wear a pair of Wiley X Gravity prescription sunglasses from Sport RX. They have impact rating, a removable foam gasket which reduces impact from wind/dust, and a removable elastic strap to keep them secure to my head. These are *much* better than any other sunglasses I've used for reducing strain from wind. The styling is a bit too "tacticool" for my taste but they are exceptionally good at what I need them for, so I deal with it.

Depending on your locale, the in dual light install from the das76 light kit may not be legal. As much as I like the look of that kit, I had to use something different. My Maryland inspection required a single central light. I went with the JAL third brake light kit which was exceptionally simple to add. https://justaddlightness.co.uk/product/caterham-7-high-level-led-third-brake-light/

I agree that process feels clunky compared to Amazon or the like, but I similarly appreciate the willingness to answer questions given how much variation there is across the generations of our cars. My only frustration is the payment service they use is even more clunky than the process, which means I've had to call and provide my credit card over the phone to place an order. I'll continue to order from them in the future, while being thankful for the communication and grumbling at the payment processor.

In my newish-to-me CSR, the washer bottle oil catch tank (similar to the one shown in @Croc's picture earlier in this thread) has a slice in the plastic along the seam where it attaches to the mounting bracket. I found this upon changing the oil, which resulted in a mess similar to the first picture in this thread. On caterhamlotus7.club, I found a handful of other threads where people ran into a similar problem. I'll be looking to replace my split plastic bottle with something less fragile.

If you buy the eckels door mounts from DPR, you can use thr hardware on either the door or the windscreen. When I'm going somewhere with the doors, I use the door mount. When I am going somewhere without the doors, I mount them to the windscreen.

Thanks for discussing the quality of the results from SCS. Most of what I've seen is through sponsored videos, which is hard to trust.

I have the stock Caterham leather seats in my CSR. I sat in cloth versions like yours on my path to buy a 7. The seats have the same comfort, but the leather slides slightly more.

I'm in Millersville. Near the intersection of 97 & 32.

In addition to the above brake rotor information request, there were a handful of other things I had to address in my initial inspection. 1. making a (removable) mounting bracket for the reverse light, as the Caterham backup light is ugly as hell. 2. fixing the backup light sensor 3. finding and fixing a short in the front turn signal wiring 4. Acquiring and mounting a center-line high level brake light 5. swapping around my rear lights such that the turn signals were on the inside, this way the DRL portion of the brake lights were visible from the side of the vehicle. (Per request of the inspection shop's State Trooper point of contact). 6. Repack the front wheel bearings to remove the "excessive play". Though it feels exactly the same to me now. Oh, and wait for all of the sand/salt/grit that was dumped onto the ground over the winter to get washed away as I have no intention of ever letting this car see winter roads. There was some back and forth between the inspection shop and the State Police asking for clarifications, but all of that has been resolved. As of today my Caterham is now "fully street legal" and registered in the State of Maryland as a 2013 Caterham. The inspector didn't care about bumpers, front plates, or a handful of other issues I heard others had struggles with.

My experiences with Brian G, and the rest of his family, were all exceptionally positive. I originally started autocross +20 years ago in Brian's home region (WDCR), back when Brian's dad was actively involved in running the events. I'm hopeful to compete locally this year, so will see Brian then, and perhaps at a higher level in the future. For my CSR I acquired in October, I had to address a handful of issues over the winter to pass MD's safety inspections. I went through the inspection this week. The shop generally thinks I passed, but they are waiting for clarification from their State Trooper contact on something before submitting the paperwork. Fingers crossed that I'll be blatting about soon.

Moved the discussion of autocross classes here: https://usa7s.net/ips/topic/15429-new-solo2-classes-for-7s/#comment-148809

For those interested, XU can almost be boiled down to run-what-ya-brung, with minimal limits to performance, as long as it is street legal and on 200tw tires. Last year's nationals included the class, with a Stalker AXR in it.

Moving a discussion here from a build thread. There is a relatively newish class that most 7s fit into at the national level called XU, which stands for Xtreme Street Unlimited. If you are on Facebook, you can check out the group "SCCA Solo XU Class". https://facebook.com/groups/392020123979507/ The Facebook group admin is a former national champion from the WDCR region that drives a Stalker AXR Classic. The overarching X* class rules currently preclude kit cars, however the rules committee has published a clarification in FasTrack after multiple people sent letters, including me, asking for clarification. This is the response published recently; #37152 Kit cars in XU Thank you for your letter. The CAM/XS advisory committee believes that under the current CAM/XS rules there is nothing preventing kit cars from competing in the XS classes. However, the CAM/XS advisory committee does not feel that kit cars are within the spirit of XA or XB and as such is seeking feedback from the membership on the following proposal to limit kit cars to XU. Add the following bullet point to the "EXCLUDED FROM XA/XB" section: “Kit or component cars from low-volume manufacturers who intend or allow completion of assembly by the end user in order to obtain registration and titling paperwork." https://cdn.connectsites.net/user_files/scca/downloads/000/073/888/2025 SCCA Solo FasTrack All_0423.pdf?1745432869