powderbrake

The desert is HOT in the summer. Here is a pic of the dash of my vette, top down, 6:14 pm, near Hoover Dam, on the trip to Monterey for the Concours D'Elegance at Pebble Beach. 119 degrees. It was too hot to touch anthing that was metal in the car. Why was I at Hoover Dam on the way to Monterey?. We were hitting the Imperial Palace car museum in Las Vegas. And then the Petersen and Nethercutt car museums in LA, and then a cruise up the coast highway to Monterey. http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/upload/1366517080_IMGP1266.JPG

The latest on this is that the cop turned out to have two convictions for stealing, one in the 1980's and one in 1990, and he managed to talk a judge into getting the records expunged, so he could get a job as a cop.

An engineer's view of women http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/upload/1206233716_EngineersViewof women.jpg

Many years ago, I couldn't even spell inguneer........... now I are one!

No Backsies :lol: :lol: I will remember that. This is my fourth daughter to get married. She is 31, last year I married off #3, she was 37, I had no idea that I would be paying for weddings in my 70's. :ack: Let's see now, over the years, I have spent enough on weddings to have 4 more Se7ens. Or maybe a nice Porsche or Ferrari. :crazy: Just kidding... I am looking forward to Saturday, all my other kids, grand kids and great grandkids will be there, and I wouldn't trade my life with anyone. :hurray:

I am running about 2 3/4 to 3" ground clearance on a stock Honda pan. I do not have a dry sump, it is a stock Honda engine. I am not sure of Loren's setup.

I would be there except for the fact my daughter is getting married Saturday. I tried to get he to change the date, but to no avail :lol: Check out the good cruising roads in the area, naybe we can get together for a blat in that region

This event occured in the city of St.George, a suburb of St.Louis. I drive thru St.George very frquently, as it is near my home, and it is a known radar trap. St George is 6 blocks long and 2 or 3 blocks wide. It has one main street which connects to Interstate 55, so it gets a good bit of traffic. The city gets 28% of it's revenue from traffic tickets. It has only 3 or 4 cops. The police deppartmennt and the city hall are in a small house. The local talk radio shows have been concentrating on this event for two days. That guy is going to own the town after his lawsuit of the police department. The park and ride commuter lot where he followed this guy into is NOT in the city of St George. It is adjacent to I55 and is owned by the State of Missouri, and is the territory of the State Higway Patrol. I couldn't hear it on the tape , but it was reported on the radio when the cop asked about the camera, the guy told him it was broadcasting the images to a computer in a secure location.( the cop got nicer after that) The reason the guy had a camera, was that he was once hasseled by a cop, and won his case, and thought that a camera, which he always keeps running, would give evidence of any possible situation. Guess what!!!! the cop reported that the camera in the police car was not operating properly!!!! The chief of police ( more on him later) was on the radio this morning, and said he checked the camera, and it was working properly!! :crazy: Guess what!!...Now the St George police say they can't find the tape from the cop camera The Chief of police was suspended for days 3 by the State Review Board for molesting a 17 year old girl when he was a partolman in another suburb. During his interview on the radio, he stated the cop should not have gotten belligerent..... but he said " the guy was asking questions of the officer, and that's unususal, most people don't question an officer" ( WHAT PLANET IS THIS CHIEF FROM?) The mayor of the town of St George is a former cop in the nearby city of Bella Villa, which is 1/2 the size of St George!!, so he knows a thing or two about using traffic tickets for revenue. The reason the guy said he was in the commuter lot at 2:00am, was that he left his cell phone at his girlfriends house , and she was bringing it to him there as it was halfway between their houses. I think that sounds a little funny myself. Actually the cop was parked, blocking the road tp the commuter lot, and had to move for the guy, so that is probably what ticked him off in the first place, as it probably woke him up. The whole thing stinks, and that cop will take the fall. Telephone call ins to the talk radio show are about 50% saying they were hasseled in St George, and the other 50% are demanding the police in St George be disbanded.

I defer to scannon, he obviously has more familiarity with the region than I have.

Heater, I ain't got no steenking heater !!!! In fact I ain't got no top or side curtains, so it's cold in the middle of November. http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/upload/659991921_IMGP5151 (Small).JPG

Al: Rapid City itself doesn't have too much to offer. I have been there 4 times in the last 5 years, on trips to Mt.Rushmore. We hunt prairie dogs in central South Dakota, and have made the trek several times , via the Badlands. While the Badlands ( which are about 60 miles east of Rapid City) are cool, the real attraction in the area is the route up through the Black Hills to see Mt Rushmore. You have to go the long way, about 30 miles south of Rapid on the interstate, then turn west on route 36, then Alt16 thru Custer State park, and there are a couple spots where you can see the monument through a tunnel. This is a great route, but the Black Hills region is not that big, and is flat and not so interesting to the east and west. (no offense to the local residents). http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/upload/570094208_DSC_0509 (Small).JPG As to the Ozarks , there are some good roads that we ran on a three day tour last year, but we stayed a different hotel each night, and I don't know if people would prefer to remain in one hotel, or to keep moving around. I'll contact you with more details.

Yes, that's it, a Diva. I saw one at Carlisle in 2003 or 04. It looked like someone had simply grafted a new nose on a Cobra.

I looked at the Curta link. Well, now I can see how they are made, and also how foolish it would be to ever try to disassemble one. :crazy:

Your points are well taken. The getting sued by Caterham is a good point of definition. I wonder if the (I forget the name of the car) which is a Cobra with a lakester style front grill and cycle fenders will get sued by Caterham or Carrol Shelby? :lol:

I have always been facinated by the Curta Calculator. I would love to have one, if only to disassemble it

I also believe that it would be fun to run with some Atoms, but if they are "cousins" they have got to be the red-headed milkman's kids. :lol: :lol: The LSIS was defined as a sports car with its engine behind the front wheels, but it is a real stretch to equate that with a rear engined car. Just because a car's front suspension is exposed, and it's a small, 2 seater, open car, and may or may not have fenders in frort or rear, doesn't make it a Se7en. A 32 Ford roadster would meet those criteria. I may not be able to define a Seven completely, but I know one when I see one. I believe the national event sponsord by USA7s should be primarily for LSIS vehicles. If an occasional car of a different vintage arrives it should not be a problem, but if USA7s sponsors a Se7en & Atom event, it should be fully advertised as that, and should not be our main national event. As Randy said in his posting, he could not invite all Se7ens to the Atomfest for the same reasons. I think the Atom is an absolutely fantastic car, and would love to have one for blatting around. It is unique, visually stunning, powerful, and uses advanced suspension techniques. I think it is more like a 4 wheeled motorcycle, being all exposed as you are in an Atom. While we might consider them a bit pricy, the owners obviously feel they are worth it. A fully outfitted Caterham SV with a hot motor in it is in the $60,000 neighborhood, which sure ain't cheap!. I haven't read the article yet and haven't been on their website, but every car entusiast is biased towards his own car, and isn't expected to be or required to be entirely impartial. We can only treat other cars and owners with respect and courtesy. So far the USA7s group has universally accepted all types of LSIS vehicles, and has managed to discuss them without negative references to the other persons car. There is no reason we cannot discuss Atoms in the same manner, even if they aren't an LSIS (IMHO). What is said on other websites is immaterial.

I get lots of "challenges" in my Se7en, and I generally don't respond to them. I try to drive carefully in the 3 miles between my house and the Interstate, simply because I do it so often, and there are so many cops around the area. I don't run a front plate, and I don't want to arouse their attention. So far I have been keeping under the radar. If some one asks me how fast it is, I generally respond with " Faster than yours" this generally results in complete surprise on their part, followed by their massive burnout. If there is a cop around it can be very entertaining. :d

Al: having a baseline dyno run for your future engine mods is a good idea. You can then evaluate the incremental hp increase. It would be preferable to have the engine at the same temp on the run after the mods. It is also preferable to use the same dyno, as there is no calibration between dynos. This whole dyno thing was researched and commented on ad nauseum on the Corvette Forum a few years ago. When the C5 vette appeared, lots of people made engine mod items with outrageous horsepower claims. One dyno maker joked that he could "prove a horsepower increase by changing tire valve caps" The dynojet, being an inertial dyno doesn't need the feedback transducer and intermittent calibration that a Mustang ( brake type) dyno does, but it always better to use the same dyno to test your mods, as they have their temp and air pressure adjustments set the same. You can get differet numbers on subsequent runs on the same day. Keep the one you want , or an average, and note the increase you get after the mods, rather than concentrating on the "actual"peak hp. The local Lotus club is having a dyno run this saturday. When asked by a member why I wasn't going to dyno my Ultralite, I told him that since I wasn't planning an engine modification, I really didn't care what the baseline numbers were, and generally all dyno runs seem to give disappointing numbers since we hear about hp numbers at the flywheel. Good luck on your mods.

The video demonstrates "Heel & Toe", but depending on the location of the pedals, it can also be done by rolling your foot to the side, to hit the gas, not by moving your heel. And to do it well, you have to set up your brake and gas pedals so your foot is at the correct height when the brakes are applied, so you can roll it to the right & hit the gas. I went to the Bragg-Smith driving school, and the first day, they made us drive up and down the straight for a good half hour, upshifting and down shifting while "heel & toe" blipping the throttle. The instructors were all along the straight, listening to the cars, and they would radio to us if they didn't hear the blips. They wanted us to practice so we could match engine speed while downshifting so we wouldn't let out the clutch with too few revs, and lock up the rear wheels.

My wife partially shares my enthusiasm for sevens. She is really a good sport about riding in the seven, never complains about the wind and noise. She has gone with me on a couple of 200 mile blats, and once on a 3 day, 600 mile trip through some real twisty roads. She also rode with me on a NASA HPDE track day at Motorsports ranch in Texas, and she will NEVER do that again. Some of the Tail of the Dragon made her a bit queasy in the stomach, but she didn't complain. She knows the "passengers secret", i.e., always look at the road where you are going, and don't look sideways at the scenery. She doesn't drive it, so I am perfectly happy with giving her the rides. I'd say I was lucky that she approves of my hobby. I need a category that says, rides frequently, doesn't get scared if I don't drive over 80%.

Great car!!! I really like the color scheme

I once got stuck in a Birkin, and couldn't get my feet out fronm behind the pedals, but I can drive my Ultralite with any shoes . It has massive room in the pedal area. Welcome to small car world.

The ...beep.... beep.... beep of my radar detector.

Coupequat: Welcome to the USA7s.com Canada seems to be the locus of the BEC crowd, so you are in good company.