7evin

@ Klasik & Croc These are some of my favorite Days. I have had them look at my car and ask what class I was running ? I tell them their class and they laugh and say I doubt it... I always giggle to myself. I follow them for several with my front wing tucked up under their tail (just to make them nervous) then blast by them smiling and waving. I always go by and visit with them afterwards and brag on how great their car looks on the track and how I liked the lines they were carrying through a particular corner. At that point they will either be a real man or continue being a snob. Most of the time they are cool and realize they completely underestimated what they were looking at. On the other hand I have seen the GT 2/3's driven well and you will play hell to catch them.

Day 3 of the One Lap, after driving through 7 tornados in Iowa. 3:15 am Evanston Wyoming Hwy 80. 23 degrees. Towing the coffin. Are we having fun yet? The competition feared us.... LOL

Everything comes at a price. If you have the HP the dual element wings will give you some down force. Below 100 mph don't even bother. Ian7 a couple of years ago tried to educate me on some of the issues of what happens to the rear of the car when you create this large deflection of air at the rear... My brain did not compute what he was trying to say.... I was creating a parachute behind me... In racing its about air management as much as HP when you get over 100 mph. Is my car stable with the addition of the wings ? Yes. Am I jacking the air flow at the rear of the car up? Yes. It has taken allot of work under the car to fix even a portion of this. Can I detune the rear wing and reduce the awful aero? some. Does it make it crazy stabile in the rain at 140 mph? Beleive it or not Yes! Does it scare the hell out of my competitors when they see a winged 7 show up... ? Hell yes and that is enough of a kick in its self .

Well I must say this ..... If you just like to drive a 7 for fun on a beautiful winding road just do it as often as you can.... Life is short. I ain't worth arguing over when you can be driving. If you are built like Westtex, John M and myself and you would prefer to blow by a GT2/3 vs waiting for a gracious point by (the GT 2/3's I race with be pointing their fingers at you when they blow by... ) Then more horsepower to ya. 7's are amazing cars, 7's with more HP are more fun (IMO) 7's with ass loads of power under boost or V8 are 100% orgasmic ! BUT... They are not for everyone. Regardless 7's are just cool to drive .... so go drive and keep smiling PS. Touche Jim

I always liked to think Mojito was the fastest 7 in America.... LOL Till I raced John... His Car is FAST and Awesome, But I am not sure its Just the Car. He is an amazing driver and Fearless ! It takes a special kind of man to buy (or build) and drive this kind of machine. When you approach 3lbs per horse power in a street driven car you need to have a very clear head to stay alive... LOL Just a thought: John's car 530 hp/1625lbs= 3.06 lbs/hp $52,500 Indy car 650 hp/1600lbs= 2.46 lbs/hp $7,000,000 Bang for the buck.... that is a no brainer.... just sayin...

Wow, So glad you are ok. Being rear ended has always been a concern of mine in these cars. You can out stop almost anything on the street and of course being so low. takes you out of the normal line of site. Sure glad you're OK.

Hopefully we have the kinks worked out and we won't be wielding her back togather in the middle of the night like we had to at Buttonwillow... Have you had that black beauty to the track lately?

Hey Guys, We are prepping Mojito to go to battle this coming July 22nd at the Grassroots Ultimate Track Car Challenge. http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/events/UTCC2011/ We will have either the big trailer or a garage at the event and we would love to have some 7s at the event. We will be BBQing, drinking beer and telling tall tales about 7s... And of course Racing. All are welcome. The roads to and from VIR are great fun. We could also use your help bringing up our rankings on Car Domain. If you have time to sign in and boost us a bit that would be great. Please make sure you rank us on the utcc category. http://www.cardomain.com/ride/3062790/2008-lotus-7 There is another 7 in the event so please help him out also See all cars applying for the event http://www.cardomain.com/MakeModel/all/all/30 Thanks for you help.

Hey Tony, WestTex and I both went to the guys that do the Hearing Aid molds. Had a mold taken of our ears and sent it off to have them made. My wife's came out great she loves them. WestTex's came out ok. Mine are atrocious..... I would just about rather take an as$ whipping as to wear them for more then about 30 min. They must have mixed my ear molds up with Shreks or something... No matter, the ear fuse is like having nothing in your ears. Super comfortable and only $45.... Thanks for the info Tony, I'll send them back.

Wow..!! I hate that.... I know the feeling... We kind of have to take the attitude of the 6 million dollar man..... We can rebuild her, stronger, faster better ! Unfortunately our wives don't always share the same thought process....

We have looked at and tried several different types of hearing protection. When doing the 1 lap you have to have some thing that will work on the track and on the street. We have used everything from the custom ear molds like they use in pro racing (very expensive) to the crush-able roll ups. When you have something stuck in your ear for 12 to 14 hours it had better be comfortable.... I assure you the silicone units I paid nearly $300 for ARE NOT ! I recently came across these and I have to say they are the best so far. Fuse custom earphones. http://www.earfuse.com You can use them with or without a helmet. Plug them into you cell phone then they are a hands free device allowing you to get past certain state laws. They are a combination of the crush-able memory foam and a custom molded ear piece. It takes about 15 minutes to make them and they fit like a glove. The ear phones themselves have a little more bass than I like but other than that they are great. Best part.... $45

Wow......

Storage: (defined as) I am a puss and don't like driving in the snow...... Yes it snows in GA. Two many 1 lap flashbacks....

Having flown just shy of 30,000 miles in the last month. I have had alot of opportunity to watch the TSA and other international airport security in action. In general I would have to say that TSA security is a joke. It is basically a great way of getting the American public used to bending over and taking a little more. There is a great document called Silent Weapons for Quite Wars that is basicly a manual for social engineering. It explains this whole process of shock testing. I have a hard copy of most of the orignal. It is very technical reading and quite genuis. Here is a quote that I found to be quite revelant for todays society. "The quality of education given to the lower class must be of the poorest sort, so that the meat of ignorance isolating the the inferior class from the superior class is and remains incomprehensible to the inferior class. With such an initial handicap, even bright lower class individuals have little if any hope of extricating themselves from their assigned lot in life. This form of slavery is essential to maintaining some measure of social order, peace, and tranquility for the ruling upper class" If you are interested in more follow the rabbit down this hole.... :] http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/silentweaponsforquietwars.htm

I guess Mojito will be getting Diesel fuel for her winter storage.....

I wish Mojito was so easy to take apart and put back together. http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=lgwF8mdQwlw&feature=player_embedded>

Great shots..... I can not wait to catch up with you and see this thing run. Congrads

I agree with you Mondo, Brief, and very clear. Kudos Jack

Check out Carrol Smith's Engineer to win. Its a great book. http://www.carrollsmith.com/books/

I love the suspension set up. Do you have any issues with your shocks over heating in a race. I have seen shocks get so hot that they blue the rod. One of the advantages of having them out in the air is cooling

How was it on the track? Did it take long to get it tuned in? Or was all of that done already? It sure looks awesome.

Hank its not official, They were not measuring 1/4 mile times. My wife strapped her I-Pad into the car to measure some different parameters. We hope to make to the 1/4 mile track weekend after next to see what she can put down.

Wow I wonder if we can get him to make us a tranny for Mojito

You guys are right on the money on several issues. BussaNostra, We lowered the compression with pistons to 9.5. Which is great for a turbo motor running pump gas, not good for a supercharged motor running E-85. (Tactical Error on our part) We were producing 387 Rwhp before we toasted the motor (oil pick up issue) with the smaller C38-61 Rotrex. This allowed us to redline to 9000 in 5th gear (Road Atlanta 2008) Turbo: I agree with you this would be no problem to accomplish with a turbo. We choose to do the project with a Rotrex for 3 reasons. 1. HEAT.... The Rotrex unit produces very little and makes living in the cockpit for 4000 mile trips much more bearable. 2. The car is set up to be a road racing/ street car, not a drag car 1/4 or mile. The Rotrex unit provides a very smooth linear power curve that is very controllable. Very important when road racing a 1500 lbs car. 3. Packaging. It would fit the hole we had. The air conditioning compressor hole.... If I was going to build something to do the Texas mile it would most likely not been a 7 type. (Bad aero) But we were thinking one day..... I wonder how fast this thing will go.... I think the last run of the day we would have broken 170 mph but, I did a 2nd gear launch and smoked the clutch. (167.4 mph) I will try to get the video posted of that run. Pulling off this kind of speed in one mile may not sound so hard when you can run 146 in the 1/4 mile. But, when you shift from 4th to 5th gear at 150 your rate of acceleration decreases rapidly. We should have been shifting to 5th at 165. Maybe in March. Slngsht: Fuel pumps.... It is more of a challenge than one might think to find a fuel pump for this little beast. A couple of things to consider. It has to be compatible with both Alcohol and gasoline.... That is a challenge just by its self... Next it has to flow enough GPH @ 80 psi to feed 4-1000cc injectors. Next is Cost. The pump we were using cost $400..... and kept failing... The new Weldon pump.... We don't want to talk about that... because my wife reads this forum and I would like to keep my limbs.... Our goal was to try and keep all the components affordable for the car. Thanks for the interest Guys and all the good input. There are some pics @ http://www.usa7s.com/vb/showthread.php?t=2107&page=17 and here is the nose.

We did the Fire Ball run with the whole crew from Tail fins and chrome. Great bunch of guys.