slngsht

Unfortunately that is so true. A couple of years back, I wrote this software for my laptop to do video capture, and overlay data from OBD-II diagnostics, as well as accelerometer data on the video in graphic format. It is similar to expensive products already in the market. I briefly thought about selling it, but after thinking about the headache of all the customer service calls from people having USB hardware issues or Windows install issues, I decided against it.

For ear protection I tried the foam, and the wax plugs. What seems to bother my ear most is the wind noise, rather than exhaust noise. Ultimately, I bought some cheap noise cancelling headphones. I only use them when I get to highway speeds. They work better IMO, and I can listen to some music on a long drive. I can still hear the traffic around me.

That's pretty low I think. I've only measured mine once... mixed twisty road driving, and cruising at about 75-80 MPH. My car is almost 1700 lbs without me, and has a 5.7L V8. I got 26 MPG

Congrats. Does this mean you'll have less time behind the keyboard now? http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/images/emoticons/wink5.gif

Date: Saturday, Oct 14th Rain Date: Sunday, Oct 15th Meet at Falls Grove shopping center (Across from Shady Grove Hospital on Shady Grove Rd) at 10:30 AM Leave at 11:00 AM. Right on Darnestown Rd Left on Travillah Right on Glen Rd. Left on Query Mill Rd. Right on Esworthy Left on Seneca (merges with River Rd.) Right on Montevideo Right on Sugarland Left on Whites Ferry Rd (goes through Poolsville) Right on Wasche Right on Martinsburg Rd Left on 28 West Right on Ephraim to park entrance This should be about a 50 minute ride There are picnic tables with good views, but no grills, so we'll have to bring stuff that's ready to eat.

Ted, are you a member over at the CaliforniaCaterhamClub.com? You might find some there too. -Mazda

930 lbs http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/images/emoticons/eek6.gif If you have a link to your build, or general info about the car, I'd love to read up on it.

Ouch!!!

Sweeet! Nice first post. Tell us some about your car. What are you using for your dash setup? And as Soareyes said, nice save!

That's very similar to the way corvetteforum is setup. The challenge we face is that our cars are very diverse... anything from custom built jobs (LOCOST), to defunct brands (like Rotus) to the traditional Sevens (Lotus, Caterham and the others). There is a wide variety of designs, drivetrain, etc... Elise or Corvette or most of the other guys don't have such diversity.

One more thing... to address locostV8's post. We need to think about technical sections. I can see the need for building and fabrication, drivetrain, chassis & suspension, and brand specific sections. Thoughts?

This looks like a good plan to build on. I still have doubts about having too many idle talk forums - CCC has something like 200 members, USA7s has 115 - probably 20 overlap. Having a general,east,west,south idle talk section will leave us with alot of idle talk sections that may have just a couple of posts a day. We do need to add sections that are club member only, and club officer only, for conducting club business, and presenting club finances, votes, etc... to club members. I'm in agreement with everything else.

by chatter do you mean Idle talk section? If so, that's the type of section that becomes so much more entertaining if there is 10X the number of people contributing. I can definitely see events and racing being regional for most part (there should still be a national events section for a couple of the bigger events). Parts for sale is another one where IMO national would be better than regional. Alot more parts to find as a buyer, or views to get as a seller.

Magnus, missed your post. what I said in my post above is similar to nasaproracing (integrated regional) you mention. Personally I find the familiarity amongst the sections (even down to color schemes) makes the site easier to use.

So, roll a 7, are you in favor of having one forum? The way to keep the regional relationships going is through the regional sub sections of the forum, in my opinion. So you have technical sections, regional sections, general section (this is mostly non-technical car stuff), and off topic, for non-car stuff or other cars (not 7 related).

The reason why local forums can be supported is that r1-forum has 62,492 members. At that kind of scale, even if 1% of the membership participates on the main forum daily, you have a pretty good flow of posts.

Magnus, that hasn't been discussed here either, other than really early discussions you and I had several months ago. Since the Seven community is relatively small, I think one common Forum would be best. It really takes all the members signing on to one place to make critical mass and have a forum where everytime you log in, there is something new. I'm not sure how we do that without thriving clubs losing their identity though. Perhaps we all share the forum in one central place, but have home pages separately??? In that case, how much traffic would the non-forum sites get? For the record, vbulletin is the top dog in forum software, which is what you guys are using. Can you let me know offline what the cost structure for hosting is? How many other US based 7 forums are there? locostusa.com is one, but that site has traditional 7 builds as well as other types of cars such as mid-engined cars.

Gert, based on this http://www.usa7s.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=179 I filed the club name as USA7s. Backup is USA Sevens.

Update on club formation: I finally managed to file the paperwork today. It will take a few weeks for formation to finalize since I didn't want to pay any expedite fees. Between the day job and the kids' school work (and the dreaded commute) time seems to be very limited, but we're plugging ahead.

Oh, the 3 Korean couples who were there because they lifted ferns from the park, got NAILED. $310 each... $1860 total.

The lesson I learned today: The war on drugs is a freaking joke. Went to court today regarding my relatively minor ticket. US District court, since it was in a national park. It turns out it's not just a traffic court. The room was full of drug arrests. Out of probably 60 people there, there were 2 speeders, 2 for suspended license and expired tags (probably didn't have insurance either), 3 couples for taking plants from the park, and THE REST were for posession http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/images/emoticons/eek6.gif The sad part is, EVERY one of them got off with one year probation - all charges would be dropped if not caught in 12 months. WHAT A JOKE. Not even a fine. $10 court cost http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/images/emoticons/rolleyes5.gif They reduced my ticket slightly - to 1 point, which I'm happy with. But I came out shaking my head. Even the judge was frustrated. There was about 6 guys in their early twenties - got caught with several different drugs as well as nitrous oxide, and the prosecutor agreed to a probation plea. The judge looked at the prosecutor and said something like "my hands are tied if you don't push harder" http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/images/emoticons/lol.gif

I must be losing it... I could've sworn I added calotus and californiacaterhamclub already. Those 2 are added as well as the UK Locost builders forum

Thanks, and welcome aboard. I'll add it tonight. I love the "Say What?" section http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/images/emoticons/lol.gif

What are they? I can think of one: aerodynamics - although in a Seven, that's like having a supersized meal with a diet coke. It's really not a factor. The Rotus came with an inboard front suspension, which is a pretty nifty feature considering it was designed in the late 70s. The design does not use pushrods or pullrods... the upper a-arm does double duty as the lever arm for the spring. Looking at this design, or any other inboard design (I like the pushrod design better since the upper a-arm doesn't have to be massive), I think the advantages are minimal, unless you go with some super small shock / spring combo which may result in weight savings. The other advantage of the rotus design is having a rising rate built into the geometry. Again, with a stiffly sprung car, I'm not sure how much of an advantage this is in real life. I can see one big advantage to outboard spring/shock... it's easy to get to for adjustment. Thoughts? DISCLAIMER: I typed this up without doing proper research. Educate me.

For whatever reason, there are alot of short term Ferrari owners. I've given up lusting after them. They do still turn my head though.