powderbrake

I have been enjoying the build thread, and your attention to detail. Keep up the good work!

1) It's a replica of a 1967 Lotus 7, a British sports car. I add the last part, because most prople have no idea what a Lotus is. 2) I'm not too sure of how fast it will go, I've only seen 125mph on the speedo. 3) Yes, it's a kit car, and yes, I assembled it. The smaller kids like it the most, and if I'm at a gas station, or a parking lot, I generally ask them if they want to sit in it, which really blows their minds.

I saw a quote recently that fits this subject: "Straight roads are for fast cars, turns are for fast drivers."

There should be a sticker on the inside of the rim that gives the offset. I have a set of these in a silver color. Here is the sticker info: These are great wheels, they are forged aluminum, lightweight and very strong. I believe I paid in the $400 a piece range for mine when I built my kit.

I'm believe the success of the show is NOT based on the personalities of the 3 principals, but the outrageous, funny, unusual, wierd and unbelieveable premises that the segment is based on. Like putting steel wheels on a Jaguar convertible, to make a "Sports Train". How in the world did they get the British Government permission to run that on the railroad tracks? Likewise, cars racing jet airplanes, building a hovercraft, a home made electric car getting stuck in downtown London, etc.. The producers of the show are the reason the situations are so interesting. There is no doubt that the personalities of the three principals greatly help the success of the show, but I believe they could easily find a replacement for Jeremy Clarkson. Just advertise for a self centered, irritating jerk who knows a lot about cars, and can drive an expensive one without crashing it (too often).

The horsepower junkies trend towards the Cobras and hot rods, many of them don't have any idea about tracking a car, or going fast around a corner. It's acceleration they desire, so light and Sevenish is not in their minds. The first time at Run & Gun (a Cobra sponsored event at Gateway in St. Louis) that a Seven showed up and blew by them in the twisty parts they were astounded. Of course most of the Cobras blew by the Seven on the straights., that is until John Meyers showed up with his LS powered Stalker or the original owner of the Stalker (forgive me for not remembering his name) showed everyone the proper line in his V6 Stalker.

It seems that the cost of entry into car manufacturing keeps getting higher, and that will keep people out of the process. There have been a few new cars made recently, ie, the Atom, and others like it. The people who made the three wheeler got hammered in Texas, as has Factory 5 and others who made a new "car" and tried to sell it as a kit, then Texas says it has to be a copy of some existing car. If you really try to build a car, the government requirements and crash tests are brutal expensive to pass. Manufacturing is a tough business to break into. It takes a lot of capital for the equipment that you need. Most guys today want to start up a tech company, where the initial capital expense is a computer. They want to write code, do apps, and sell the company for enough to retire on. I'm presently in a manufacturing startup with my son, and we make steel shooting targets. It took a lot of cash to buy a cnc plasma cutter, a cnc machining center, and the mills and saws and lathes and other stuff it takes to support the business. I did it more for the fun of getting back into manufacturing after retiring from 40 years in the manufacturing business. I had a friend who bought a defunct kit car company and tried to revive it , it was an MG TD with a small block chevy. It never got traction and he sold the company to some other guys who thought they could make it work. I believe the kit car or Sevens idea only appeals to a select few. Of Course the Cobras are the largest group of kits around, and have a great following, but to me It's just another V8 hot rod. The thing about the Sevens is the lighter weight, the four cylinder engine and its location behind the front axle, as well as the Lotus heritage. The Atom has it's engine in the wrong place, and for me, the Stalker has 4 too many cylinders. One great thing about the Stalker is it's continuing development and refinement, they have really upgraded since the first Stalkers and they are formidable machines on the track. So, I guess it just costs too much to get into the car business, and there are too few customers.

I use a pair of plastic ramps under the rear door to eliminate the scraping. I got them at Wal mart, they are about 24 to 30 inches long, and have a small bump on top as astop, which I sawed off. I store them under the Seven once it is in the trailer. This is a low cost and simple solution which does not involve changing the trailer.

Probably the roomiest 7 around. I have an 18" drivers seat and a 14" pass seat, and lots of footroom .

I cannot sit through a 32 minute video. Who won?

First thought is " some guys are lucky" but as a second thought, that is a scary situation.

Those 4:44 gears really make a difference, enjoy!

Try using plastic tie wraps to create the bundles as you do the wiring. You end up cutting off the tie wraps as you add wires, then add a new tie wrap. I bet I used over 200 tie wraps wiring my dash, but it came out well.

I have always loved Mozart.

It looks like a cruise through a rock quarry

Just a comment on your brake pressure switch. I had problems with the hydraulic switch on my Ultralite, replaced it once, then went to a mechanical switch on the brake pedal. The pressure was too low to reliably turn on the brake lights under light braking.

I use very similar hood props on my Ultralite, and they work fine. Go for it.

I suggest you send a PM to WestTexasS2k, the WCM Ultralite company owner, he is generally up to date on Ultralites that are for sale. Where are you located? It is always handy to see the location of the poster in his profile. An offer to "come by and see my car" is not much use if you are 2000 miles away.

I cannot speak to the reliability of the Birkins as produced by TMW, but the sevens in general are a conglomeration of parts of many cars, and the woes which you refer to may be just the problems of getting all the parts to work together. If you are a S2000 fan, then you should consider a WCM Ulltralite. It is designed around an S2000 engine and transmission, and can easily be supercharged. The man to see is West Texas S2k. He has built and supercharged these cars and he owns the company. http://www.wcmultralite.com/ I built my kit in 2005, and have never needed to work on the drivetrain. It is extremely reliable, just needing a new parking brake pad, and a fuel sender which failed. I have replaced some heim joints, which being all metal, will wear. But all in all, it's a Honda, so you start it up and drive it. And welcome to the USA7s Forum.

I believe the compression ratio is around 13:1, and yes it does require premium fuel. If you acquire the S2k, I am sure you will be happy with the performance, and if there is anything you need to know , there are plenty of Ultralite members on this forum for help. Since I assembled my kit in 2005, I took the plugs out when I got the engine, (with about 1500 miles on it), they looked good, so I put them back in, and it has required ZERO engine maintenance except oil and filter changes. Those Honda engines are bulletproof.

I don't have your size problem, and I have the below the dash mount, but would a smaller steering wheel help? The steering is light enough to use a smaller steering wheel.

Very cool ! That was probably a zillion lines of G code.

I have a foam filled tank, and I have had fuel starvation issues on long banked turns. My solution was to always keep between 1/4 and 1/2 full on the tank, which solved the problem.

A solution may be to buy HDPE containers that do not "nest" (like a tapered cup or glass) and fill the tank with them. You can calculate the size of the tank, and determine how many containers you need to use. I googled HDPE Containers to find these. I would recommend cutting a large hole in the bottom of each container so it cannot capture fuel if it is vertical or near vertical. 1 ounce = 1.8 cubic inches 1 gallon =231 cubic inches 1 gallon = 128 ounces So you need 128 ounces of containers for each gallon in your tank. A 15 gallon tank would then need 15 X 128 = 1920 ounces of bottles So for an 8 oz container, you would need 240 containers. Now you would not need that many, because the containers will not stack in there perfectly, and a sphere only takes up 78% of volume of a cube. So likely it would take about 0.78 X 240 = 187 . Actually probably less than that, but 187 8 oz containers is $109 from this link. http://www.containerandpackaging.com/item/J102 or $114 from this link http://www.uline.com/BL_8185/Natural-Round-Wide-Mouth-Jars?keywords=hdpe containers

I totally agree. I consider myself a "ground fanatic'. I used the engine block as the ground, and ran separate ground wires of the appropriate gauge to the headlights, fuel pump and brake/tail lights. I also ran a separate ground wire from my speedometer magnetic pickup on the half shaft. All these grounds terminated a a singe spot on the rear of the engine. So far, no ground problems.