roll a 7

Burns is in the next county up the road. I will include them on my list of potential silencers. Thanks for the swift responses!!!

Is the Hushpower noticeably quieter than your previous exhaust? Have you run it on a dyno for a power comparison? Was it necessary to reprogram your ECU, if you are using one? I would like to make the switch from my Caterham supplied 5" catalytic conv unit to something less restrictive AND quieter. If I need to reprogram my ECU on a dyno I'm willing to do so, if I can be reasonably certain that the car will be quieter and gain some power. My dream of increased power comes from a conversation with an ex Caterham employee who said that ditching the cat conv system would be less restrictive and usually resulted in a gain of 12-20 HP. If I get some extra power without noise reduction it will be a problem. Any thoughts would be appreciated. The Raceco.co.uk solution looks good because it is light, but would require a heavy sum to be transported to the UK for the 7" can plus freight. Hence, a USA solution would be preferable, if it works.

A Memorial Day autocross in San Diego allowed the paralyzed vets that normally run off-road events to run on the tarmac with the SCCA guys. These guys use hand controls to get about in lieu of what we get to use. They had an absolute blast and are thinking of running more events with us. Our local club paid their entry fees. One Corvette owner said he didn't know of any paralyzed vette owners. We set him straight.

I think that this is the first car built by Autocourse and subsequently owned by Rod L. The color looks kinda funky in the pics and renders the car unrecognizable.

Mine is also velcroed to the bulkhead in the drivers side footwell. Never had a problem.

Al: A few of us have some questions about the zetec in Mr. Orange. Would you be willing to tell us about the HP, torque, throttlebodies, cams, headwork, dry sump, flywheel, ecu and other mods that gearheads care about? TIA!

Yankeedoodoo on Blatchat. You did take my 7 for spin a few years back whilst shagging some fun time from a business shindig. Have you ever tried the Hoosier A6 cantilevered sidewall tires? A friend uses them to good effect on his AutoX 7. I like the idea of your tires lasting into a third season versus 30-70 laps; hence my question. Also, what sort of cars get TTOD in your region and how do you fare against them?

Tom: What tires are you using for autoX? Brad

I stand corrected, TYVM. It is also worth noting that the above mentioned Caterham SV HAS an SB100 CA title and is ready to roll with no issues/hassles from the dreaded CA DMV. The SB100 title grants a permanent exemption from smog laws, which some enthusiasts find very useful. SB100 is one of the very best enthusiast laws ever passed in CA.

AZNATAMA: Hie thee to Britalia Motorsports @ 3001 Red Hill Ave. Building 1 Suite 217 in Costa Mesa 714-432-8482 or 949-842-9198. There you will find a Caterham SV with less than 2000 miles. It has a lot of good stuff on it and the best motor currently available in a 7: the aluminum block 16 valve oversquare 2.3L Duratec. It's light, develops fantastic torque (not a word typically associated with 7s) and a bit of Cosworth magic puts it over the top. The SV model is scarce and the cars trade at a premium because of the extra size, which is said to add about 50 pounds to the car. Much of that is offset by the light duratec up front. On the premise that the car is for sale you should be able to procure a ride/drive from the owner. Don't know if it is within "bike" distance, but it ain't far away. There is an s2k being offered in the "For Sale" section of this website at a significant discount to the cost of a new one, I think. It appears to have very few miles and illustrates that it is a really good idea to try such a car BEFORE you buy. Most of the rabid 7 owners try to reduce the weight of their car rather than add cylinders or forced induction. FI can offer blindingly fast acceleration, sometimes at the expense of driveability/enjoyment. Weight in the front of the car drastically reduces the handling/fun factor in a 7. Drive a few and the IRS may not be as important as you now believe. Fun to drive is why we own and become addicted to these cars.

For a preview of 7 style fun go to autocar.co.uk Scroll down to the pic of the yellow 7 with black stripes and give it a click. When the video box comes up click on "watch now" and double click on the screen to bring it up to full page size. These 7 inventing Limeys are hoot in the cars!!! Enjoy!

www.carsandcoffee And it is in your neighborhood bright & early on saturday morning. Check out the mopho 7!!

I suggest that you look at as many cars as possible BEFORE you write a check to anyone. There are a lot of 7s in SoCal and most of the owners love to talk about their 7s. The new 7 arriving tomorrow will be at some car fest around Irvine on saturday morning, possibly held at a Ford facility. I will come back with the name. Most of the advice given on this thread is very good and can save YOU a LOT of $$$ and headaches IF you use it.

A number of good 7s have changed hands in the past few months, including a PA to CA swap that is being delivered to the LA area tomorrow. As far as handling goes, do not limit yourself to IRS cars only. All 7s kick ass on other cars and most 7s are not IRS. There are a few companies in the UK that scratch out a living by making various iterations of 7s handle better. Take a ride in mine one of these weekends. 1266 pounds/210 HP is not sluggish. My brother stalked and dusted a Z06 @ Buttonwillow last month on his very first track day. The mechanical difficulties of a BEC car are not for every one. The reverse in my car is used frequently and you may find such a gear useful, too. If you managed to get the weight down to 1000 pounds and had a 160 HP bike engine would you really gain much? There will be some advantages in handling, but the torque of a 2 liter modern 16 valver will triumph in the hands of a good driver. You will welcome the torque when you have a passenger. Also, check with some Westfield owners on the weight of their cars. There is a gent in the LA area that owns a BEC Westy, works for Virgin Mobile, last I heard. A lot of CA 7 owners can be found on the californiacaterhamclub.com website. Magnus works in Irvine frequently and just installed a 217 RWHP duratec screamer in his 7. Likes to frighten people with rides! Plenty of guys will show you their cars and you are very welcome to join any of our events to learn more. Brad

MOMO, 260mm. Suede.

Paid $4.07 for regular yesterday morning. Highest EVER, in the USA.

It's already even. We are sending a very nice Birkin to PA any day now.

I vividly remember standing with the 7 owners and wondering if there was any other 7 owner(s) @ LS that day who were missing our informal meeting. I posted on the CCC site that I would be there and just did not think to post it here. Darn! Missed opportunity.

This past weekend I went to Laguna Seca with a friend that owns two IMSA vintage racecars. The professional driver he had "convinced" to drive his March GTP car bought a Series II Lotus last month. While we were talking one of the SCRAMP officials came by and pulled out photos of the Series II Lotus racer he bought last fall. Voila: three 7 owners have found each other in the pits and are talking 7s. Everyone else just sorta moved away.....

New cars are programmed to pass the smog test. The test parameters are something like readings taken @ idle, 1500 RPMs and 2500 RPMs. So, cars are set up to run lean at the designated levels. This may not result in very meaningful operation of the smog systems in the real world of motoring. But they pass the sniff test, if not the smell test... My 7 is presently running at around 93% stochiometric because I want to be sure that it runs a bit cool. Any smog station will tell me that I am running a bit rich. Another guy I know runs his zetec @ 100% and has no issues.

It has long been my opinion that SB100 allows us to put vehicles on the road that may pollute the atmosphere more than almost all other vehicles being registered for the first time in CA. As a compensation for this privilege, if we were required to remove a gross polluting old vehicle from service and have it CRUSHED we would then be making a positive step toward cleaning up the environment. And my miniscule conscience would be mildly assuaged. It would make me feel good to know that I had also done something to make the place a bit better. Several years ago, when I had my Acura smogged, the guy doing it remarked about how clean the exhaust was for a six year old unmodified car. He said that one old VW bug put out about 25 times as much pollution in the same test. That makes a pretty good case for removing such a vehicle from the roads for the privilege of operating our 7s, in my view. Most 7s do not accumulate that many miles in a given year, I think. Many get more miles on a trailer than on the road. This year my 7 has more than 500 miles on a trailer and less than 250 in operation, with most of the miles accruing @ Buttonwillow a few weeks ago. OK, fire away at the liberal California heretic!!

Mike: When will we get to see you on the road?

A guy I know here in CA is trying to buy a Noble and would likely appreciate any raesonable (legal) solutions for registering the car. Thanks for the link!

My understanding of SB100, after using it to register my car, is that a homebuilder can identify the chassis OR motor for purposes of registration as the determining factor of what the car is. A modern kit car is clearly not a 1960 Lotus, but as a replica it will be classified as that on the registration supplied by DMV, and then subject to the laws in effect in 1960; if the builder has chosen to register the Lotus looking kit by the chassis. This is an enthusiasts dream law for 7 type cars and kit Cobra builders like Sen. Johannesen. The safety and smog laws were virtually non-existent in 1960. If I had chosen to register the car by the modern zetec motor I would have been subject to all of the modern appendages attached to such a motor. That is why I chose to register the car by the chassis. In my opinion the Ultralite is close enough in appearance to be a Lotus 7 replica for DMV.

Can you try to register it by the body? It does bear resemblance to a Lotus 7, upon which it is obviously based. If the ref will sign off on that you can register it as a 1960 Lotus 7 with the SPCNS designation. That would exempt you from smog regs. SB100 allows the builder to choose whether the car is registered by the engine block OR the chassis. Choose the chassis and show the ref a a copy of an old Lotus 7 road test.