Davemk1

Like many, I'm looking for some new 13" tires for my Seven. I see that Tire Rack has a Vredestein Sprint Classic in my needed 205/60-13 size and I wonder if anyone here has used them. I would be using them in the street only. In the past I've used the Toyo RA1 and liked them a lot. They wear pretty quickly, but this is to be expected as I have a pretty aggressive alignment to work with the bias ply slicks I use for autocross...but they are smooth and the grip is huge. I could see the Vredesteins having less grip and that could be fine on the street...it could even be more fun and a bit playful. I have two concerns about the Vredestein. First is vanity. They have an old school vintage tread pattern and I don't love that. Silly I know but that's a thing for me. Secondly the tread width is listed as being much narrower than the same size Toyo. The Vredestein is listed as having a tread width of 5.5" and the Toyo is 6.9". That's a huge difference in size of footprint and I worry that my fairly high HP car will overwhelm them too easily. Thoughts? dave https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Vredestein&tireModel=Sprint+Classic&partnum=06VR3SCV2&vehicleSearch=false&fromCompare1=yes

It's something to keep an eye on. Remember that it's where the car sits relative to the trailer axle that is the important thing. Some trailers are build with the axle more forward or back compared to others. dave

I found that with my tilt bed 14' trailer that I needed to park the car as far forward as possible...and...I mounted my fuel can and spare trailer tire to the nose of the trailer to get the tongue weight at 12%. The weight distribution of a Seven is far enough back that it can be a challenge to get enough tongue weight. This is why I mounted the fuel can and spare tire up front. Some appear to suggest that tongue weight doesn't matter that much since the car and trailer are light. I would push back on this in a big way. If you've ever experienced trailer sway you know it's deadly and nothing to mess with. Even a light car/trailer combo weighs enough to set up sway in a full sized truck. In my experience it is more than worth the time to measure and adjust. I was driving my set up very early one morning before sun rise and I was moving along at about 70 mph when suddenly there was an elk standing in the road. One does not hit an elk and keep moving like it was a white tail deer. An elk weights about 700 lbs. It will for sure total your vehicle at a minimum. I needed to swerve violently to avoid the elk and the truck missed it but the trailer fender hit it and the whole system slid and swayed and then instantly went back into a calm and smooth sway-free roll down the road...as if nothing ever happened. The the tongue weight was not set properly it would not have ended that way. Please be careful to set your tongue weight. It's easy to do and will keep you from having a bad story to tell. dave

Hello - here's what's been working very well for me. I have a single axle, tilt bed steel trailer made by a company called Top Notch trailers in Washington state. The bed is 14' long and the trailer weighs 1150 lbs....the car and trailer package weigh 2350 lbs all together. I tow it with a 2020 Honda Ridgeline and the truck as a rated towing capacity of 5000 lbs. The trailer has its own brakes and they are controlled by an aftermarket brake controller I bought from eTrailer. The truck is wired for a controller so it's a plug and play set up. I tow about 3000 miles a year all around the state of Montana and that means that it goes over major passes on most trips and the truck does a great job pulling the load up and dealing with it coming down large and fast hills. I have the tongue weight set at 12% and the whole set up is super stable and when rolling down the interstate at 70+ mph you could forget the trailer was back there. I get about 19.5 mpg towing down the highway...a little less if it's windy. The truck as all the modern stuff like carplay, heated seats, back-up camera...etc. I've been towing this car on this trailer for the past 11 years. The first ten years I used a 2006 Honda Ridgeline and I recently upgraded to the 2020 model to get the modern stuff. The old truck towed it just as well but the mileage wasn't as good with its 5 speed trans (new truck as 9 speed). I'd estimate that I have about 30,000 miles with this set up and never once felt spooked, never had it wag, never had trouble getting up and over major passes. It's been better than I imagined it would be. It works so well a close friend who tows a Subaru BRZ bought the same set up and he has had the same result even though the car weights so much more. It's worth considering. dave

It's been too long since I've shared a photo of my Westfield S2000 in action. This photo was taken at a local autocross by my wonderful wife this past summer. dave

The engine is not running, the clutch pedal is pushed in, the engine starts running and the starter motor never turns? dave

I'm sorry to beat this dead horse but I want to be sure I fully understand. The engine will be running and then it will die so that there is no crank rotation at all. It will be completely still. Then you push in the clutch pedal and the starter activates and the engine starts running...and this without your touching the key in the ignition? Is that right? dave

I'm always amazed at how many exotic cars I see for sale online that have Montana plates and just didn't understand why that was. Could it be that there were so many rich people here that they own so many exotics? The population of the entire state is just over 1,000,000 people so that seemed unlikely. Finally I got curious enough to google it and then it all made sense. Montana has zero sales tax so if you buy a $500,000 car you don't pay any tax at all. If the car is over a certain age you can get "permanent" plates and pay for registration once and you're done. Lastly there is no vehicle inspection or emissions testing here so you can register and drive most anything on the roads here. The only thing someone from other any other state needs is to have is a legal presence in Montana and that's as simple as having a LLC here and a post office box. It's such a big business that there are companies that specialize in setting up LLC's and getting PO boxes for non-residents and then arranging the purchase on behalf of the buyer. It saves the buyer a ton of money and allows them to drive most anything, anywhere in the US, without it meeting any regulations whatsoever. After building my Westfield I went to the Montana DMV where I live to get a title and I wasn't asked for any officially documents aside from paperwork from Westfield showing the VIN and the car's weight. They didn't have the name "Westfield" in their database so they called it a "Westfalia" and then at the same time issued a spelling correction to get the name Westfield. So apparently I have the only Westfield registered with the state. Interesting stuff. dave

95°....not even close. I think we'll see 75° this coming week and that will be nice. Montana is worth visiting...have you ever been here? dave

Photo of my Westfield S2000 taken last fall for the Westfield Club calendar. This was taken near my home at the north end of the Bridger mountains, just north of Bozeman, MT. dave

Flat wound housing is good but it's not the same as compressionless...True compressionless is different in that the housing is not made up of a circular wound wide but instead it's made of linear wires that run axially. This makes a huge difference in both bike brakes and car throttles. Both will work well but the axial stuff is the real deal. And of course the housing is teflon lined and it feels virtually frictionless. I've been using it in cars for a very long time and as long you don't have the housing pressed against the exhaust you should be fine. Give it a inch or two of space and it will last nearly forever. Just my 2 cents as a bike guy who's worked in the bike biz for decades. dave

I think so. If it idles fine and as it warms the idle doesn't climb it's almost certainly the cable. If you blip the throttle by hand and then the rpm's stay high it's probably in the linkage. If the the idle speed rises when warm it's almost certainly an air leak between the carbs and the head (with the soft mounts being the most likely thing to look at). If you replace the cable I would not buy a car cable. Most seem to be crap. I would get a bicycle brake cable and some "compressionless" brake cable housing. It will be much lower friction than most car cables and since the housing is compresssionless the throttle will be easier to modulate due to the housing not flexing around when the cable is under tension. dave

I would be tempted to disconnect the throttle cable completely and then, with the engine cold, start it and see what it does. It sounds like it could be the cable hanging up and running it with the cable out of the picture would tell you for sure. dave

I have a Westfield with a Sierra diff and it is fit with a Quaiffe limited slip. I autocross the car seriously and it no doubt makes a considerable difference in my times. That said...if you are not competing in the car...or you rarely, or never, spin up the inside tire coming out of a corner then I think there would be no benefit in fitting the LSD. In the end I think it's about how the car is used. If it's strictly a street car there's much less need for an LSD. The LSD has had no noticeable effect on the driving experience unless you are driving very hard out of corners and having the inside tire light up. The LSD diff doesn't hurt anything in less than race conditions, but it also brings little to the table. I hope that makes sense...I've not finished my morning coffee so who knows how well I'm making the point. dave

I have no idea on your tech question but I have to say that your wife is a keeper! dave

I have a friend who used a Ultralite for autocross for a number of years and after seeing it run countless times I'd say that one could make it nationally competitive but that it will take a lot of work. I think there are a few challenges - - like my Westfield the Ultralite is powered by a Honda S2000 engine. It's a wonderful powerplant that revs to 9000 rpms and that's good. The downside is that it makes very little low end grunt to pull out of tight corners. My S2000 engine makes 250 hp and 150 ft/lbs but peak torque is at nearly 7000 rpms. At 3000 rpm's it makes only 118 ft/lbs, which given the weight of the car isn't bad but I doubt this would be nationally competitive. My S2000 has ITB's, a tubular exhaust, and light pulleys and flywheel to get these numbers. - the two Ultralites I've personally seen did not have an provision to use sway bars front or rear so it can be hard to really fine tune the handling. One can add a bar but it's not a straight forward "bolt-on" proposition. - Looking at the build of the Ultralite makes me think it would be a real job to get it down to min weight of 1400 lbs with the driver. One issue is that the S2000 engine and trans are very heavy compared to a Duratech or other engines out there. I wonder if there are any Ultralite owners out here with actual real world weights of their cars? - I think to compete at a national level I think that one would need to do a lot of work on the aerodynamics. Much of the underside of the car is open and it would need a full width nose so that you could run an effective front splitter. Last year's DM winner looks to have he winning recipe when it comes to aero and I'm sure it wasn't easy to get that to happen while staying close to min weight. I've been competing in the Northwest for many years in a Westfield and I think if I had a VERY good day I could make the top 5 in my car nationally...or should I say that I think the car is up to the task. I think that the Westfield, Caterham or Birkin would be better platforms to start with....particularly if they used a small engine/turbo/supercharger to boost low end torque. I suspect that these cars are lighter to start with and that the suspensions are easier to adjust and fine tune. Just my 2 cents. dave

I'll throw this out there even though it doesn't address the questions originally asked - If you've never driven a Seven you should drive one before you buy one. I've known more than a few people who have loved the idea of Seven who drove it a few times and then wanted out. The cars leave the driver very exposed and vulnerable and some people don't enjoy that sensation. I had one tell me that they got a ride in a Miata once and they loved that and therefore a Seven will be great. A Miata feels like Lincoln town car compared to a Seven. Your head is at about the height of a semi truck's lug nuts. A Camry next to you at a light will look like an SUV. If it's hot you'll be hot, if cold you'll be cold, if wet...you guessed it...you'll be wet. A drive will leave you dusty and dirty even with side curtains. The wind noise and buffeting are not like anything else out there. I don't want to discourage you from owning a Seven. I think they are offer the most pure driving experience that one can use on a public road. I've owned two and have put about 30,000 miles on them collectively. That said they are not for everyone and there is zero shame in that. If you don't like it, you simply don't like it. But buying one without ever driving one feels risky to me. It will be worth every cent and every minute it takes to travel to see the car and drive it. I hope you end up trying it and loving it...if you don't love it you'll have saved yourself a lot of grief. Good luck to you and enjoy the process. dave

I don’t wear a helmet when driving. I do where a full coverage pair of glasses that have 2.4mm thick ‘bulletproof’ lenses to protect my eyes. They are a shooting glass and the optics and protection are very good. I also find that I don’t follow other cars/trucks very closely to minimize the chances of a rock being thrown up at me. It’s funny - sometimes you’ll be driving along and suddenly see a large bug like a bumble bee headed straight at my face and then it flows the airstream right up and over my head. It’s like magic!

I owned a Birkin years ago and currently drive a Westfield and I found that with both of these cars that the further back from the front windshield that you sit the worse the buffeting issue is and the harder it is to fix. I'm 6'4" so I always end up pretty far back. After using wind deflectors and additions to the windscreen I found that this was one case where "less-is-more" is really a thing. On the Birkin I used a Brookland screen and that worked pretty well. On the Westfield I'm using an aero screen with a short lexan addition and it had taken care of the issue. Even at over 100 mph my head stays still without any buffeting. For me it's by far the best choice. dave

What rear toe are you running? dave

Good looking ride - do you know what it weighs? dave

A few simple folds and a Montana plate becomes part of a splitter. dave

I use 13" x 10" Real Racing Wheels on my Westfield for autocross. I run Avon Avon slicks and love the combo. They are light and strong and I have many hundred runs on them without issue. It's worth checking with Real Racing wheels. I think they are much less expensive than Kodiaks and he will make them with any width, bolt pattern and backspace that you want. dave

I've used brush on rubberized truck bed liner and it's done a great job even considering that I autocross the car with very sticky slicks about 20 days a year. I've used Herculiner and was able to pick up a smallish can at my local Ace hardware. I've used it on the underside of both fiberglass and carbon fenders and never got any cracking even with all the junk thrown up by the slicks. I've used 3 coats. One nice side benefit is that it makes driving a bit quieter with stones hitting rubbery stuff instead of a hard surface. dave

My 2014 Westfield Mega S2000 being autocrossed in Billings, Montana late summer 2022. dave