roll a 7

13", Caterham.

As a native born Winonan and Caterham owner I am compelled to comment on your GL Blat plan. First, you should know that the Winona area suffered a "100 year" rainstorm this past weekend. Nearby Witoka received 17" in twentyfour hours and two residents were killed when a road collapsed. Some of the area roads and bridges are closed or washed out. This may include highway 61, the beautiful Hiawatha Valley drive from Red Wing to La Crosse, WI. Even Bob Dylan may have trouble revisiting highway 61 now. If you determine that a visit is feasible I offer the following travel tips. As a place to stay the B&B called the Alexander Mansion would offer the most charm and a fence to protect your precious 7s @ night. Another B&B on west Broadway might finish second. The local motels offer little to no charm and no protection for your cars, in my opinion. At this time there do not seem to be any hotels in the downtown area, and you should not much care. The locals like to eat walleye pike and I'd recommend it. If there is a really good restaurant in Winona these days I don't know the name. About 40 miles up the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi in Pepin,WI is the renowned Harborview Cafe which is a destination restaurant for a wide radius of diners that care about how their food actually tastes. Also, it is a scenic drive along the river. There are many roads on both sides of the river that will offer good drives to the top of the bluffs. Unfortunately, they are not very long, but still fun!! Above Winona the Garvin Heights road and lookout are worth seeing. Grand-dads Bluff above LaCrosse is also a worthy drive and view point. Travelling up one side of the Mississippi and down the other would probably make for the most interesting trip. Trempeleau, WI would be included in such a route. Regrettably, my 7 and I are trapped in CA for a while longer and will not likely be in attendance. Have a great time without us in a very beautiful part of the USA!!!

The SVT head is the only one, to my knowledge, that was designed for the zetec, from scratch, by Cosworth. The other is, I suspect, a variant of the standard head reworked, or, at best, the Ford Racing head revisited. Your throttlebodies can be fitted to the SVT head with some fettling. DougL on the CCC website can tell you just what to do. He did it. I bought an SVT head on FocusFanatics a while back and still believe that they can be found if you really want one. It's likely a less expensive AND better alternative, in my opinion. It has the biggest valves on a zetec and Cosworth designed porting, which is what I think that you are trying to get. With a stock zetec head gasket it will even raise your compression a few tenths, if you are going powermad. The svt choice is truly the most Cosworthy of the lot, I'd say. And may be the least costly.... It's advantages should give it the chance to be the best performer among the entrants. An easy decision for me....

From my cursory study of trailers the one I'd most want is the Brian James clamshell sort of version with tire rack, storage, wench etc. Getting one to the USA, from the UK, is probably as expensive as the trailer....

So, I guess that it is now official, the name has two "T"s. I will admit to having heard many a Brit pronounce it that way.

Chasecam.com :_deadhorse:

I've always been a voyeur.

Those Bimmers are really wonderful cars. PERFECT, for towing a 7......

Umm, Fender? Isn't that a guitar company...

If I was in the market for a head I'd first try to find a low mileage SVT head from a wrecker. Bigger valves=more HP potential, And the entire head was designed from scratch by Cosworth!! Again on the merger topic: I have the feeling that each indivdual site thinks that all of the others should merge into it; or the others can merge and "their" site needs to remain independent. Like one of our CA Locost gents would say, "It's like herding cats". Quote attributed to Dave G, a fine 7er. Built his 7 from a pile of tubes. Wish I could do that..........

On zetec-jenvey mileage: Autocross and track swallows gas really fast. On the rare highway trips I think that I'm in the 20-25 mpg range. This from a zetec with 200-215 HP and a leadfoot/idiot driver. The underdrive pulley is of questionable value. Adjustable cam verniers would be a much better item for performance.

Yup, I was able to lie my way back in.

Before giving my ignorant opinion on a head which I have NEVER seen, please allow me to expose my biases on the subject of heads for a 7. I am convinced that the duratec is the best motor for a 7 because it weighs forty pounds less than a zetec and the over square design permits those big 34 mm intake valves. The zetec undersquare design results in 32 mm intake valves. The smart guys all say that in order to make more HP a motor has to breath better. Advantage duratec!! I want more power but am not willing to fork out the more than ten grand a good duratec upgrade would cost. So, what is the best way to impove my zetec? The focus sport cosworth head is unknown to me, other than a visit to their website. It appears that the head has been ported and unshrouded with much time on the flowebench to measure the results. Cosworth is eminently qualified to do such work!! Nowhere, that I could find, does the website mention larger valves being installed. So, I conclude that this head is a very optimized STOCK zetec head (please correct me if I am wrong). What I want for my next motor is a head with bigger valves so I have some chance to hang with the local duratec guys on the track. The possible entrants are some after market guys that port and put in bigger valves, Ford Racing and, again, Cosworth. In my mind Ford and Cosworth have the most resources to throw at the problem so I would prefer to use one of them, all things being equal. Some independent guy may have stumbled upon the best solution, but how much better can it really be?? Don't know the answer to that one. The Ford Racing head was developed by Ford (surprise) and is ported with 33 mm intake valves and bigger exhaust valves. At $900 it looks like a contender to me. Have yet to actually see one or speak with anyone that uses one. Darn! Five or seven years or so ago Ford hired Cosworth to design a high performance version of the zetec for the road. Good choice! The result was the SVT zetec. This features a different head with better flow and 33.5 mm intake valves and bigger exhaust valves. Now we are talking about something that I want! And that head just happens to bolt onto the regular zetec block, if you can find one. Even better, if you use the thinner xz3 head gasket instead of the SVT head gasket you will raise the compession ratio, which can also cause increased HP. Be careful, the SVT is an interference motor. The bottom end of the SVT zetec uses the stock block and crank. There is however some good news there too: It has forged rods and lighter cast pistons. Add all that up and the SVT looks like a very good alternative if you can find a low mileage example from the wrecker. It's likely to be my next move because it IS the best zetec starting point, I think. Thank you, Cosworth & Ford!! Al, on the subject of merger: It's fine by me either way. There is some sentiment on the CCC website to stay "as is" as the west coast 7s sandbox/pigpen. Magnus is in Sweden and will not be returning until the end of the month, at least. He conceived and designed the CCC website and has the biggest vote in the matter. If put to a vote among the site users I'm not certain it would pass, or fail. There are 4 se7en related sites that I regularly follow and it would be good to have some consolidation to make it easier for everyone to find/sell/question etc. Some of the guys that did the grunt work setting up the various 7 sites probably don't want to see their efforts disappear from the web. It is their choice. Do NOT infer that the preceding paragraph includes Magnus!! It does NOT. I don't know where it will all end up, but I think that by default this site will get the most traffic over time.

7s have been known to outlast wives.

I have a zetec and went through the same process figuring out just what I should do. Relied greatly upon the guys on blatchat and followed the guiding principle of NEVER trying to reinvent the wheel; just do what already works!!! It worked very well and I have a really good zetec. Do the Fidanza flywheel for sure!! My advice to you: Go with a ZX3, not a ZX2. Why buy a $1300 head when the Ford Racing head with bigger valves sells for $900? Better yet, go find an SVT zetec and put that in the car (about $1500 from a wrecker). You will then have a Cosworth designed zetec with much better internals and a good induction system. Some one will have to fix the wiring harness and it will cost. This will still cost less than what you are contemplating, push 200 HP and scare the snot out of you; all for less money. Cosworth did the work, you can shave on their whiskers!

Chris in MA has a great deal of time/grade on the cars. Woody in CA certainly knows a lot. Chip Bond in VA is in the running. And probably another 10-20 guys around the country that I don't even know. Locally David L is an encyclopedia of 7 autocross applied knowledge---gained over 25 years of trying to go faster in a 7. The guy @ Dave Bean and the restorer in Santa Barbara are also worthy of mention. And Nathan @ RMSCI is especially helpful on Caterhams. I'm siure that the rest of you can come with more names than I just did.

"Hot Lap" works a treat for local autocrossers.

I have a Pectel T2 with Jenveys on my zetec. It was programmed some years ago but starts reliably, although it often takes two tries when cold here in San Diego; cold being relative(!). As I recall we set it to give extra gas @ the 500 RPM level and also advanced the timing some to prevent stalling/dieing. The map has a noticeables spike @ the 500 and 1000 RPM levels. Some experimentation should produce a better solution. If I find the map I'll provide more flesh on these rather vague guidelines. Marren Fuel injection has helped some of us figure out what injectors to use. Tim Marren can be found on the internet and is located in NJ, I think.

I have been under the impression that the 13" AO 48s were not imported to the USA. Good find!! Do you know if that is the only 13" size available?

Kodiak are excellent.

Thanks, I needed that........

I doubt if you would notice any difference with 1" wider rear rims. For convenience the same dimension at every corner seems best, whatever you choose. You will probably get more than six track days out of the V 710s. Magnus said he got around 2000 miles on his between street and track. Ask him about low flying/aquaplaning @ 30 mph.

Stosh, You are correct, there is only one 13" size made in the V 710 Kumho. The recommended rim widths are 6-7 1/2". Currently mine are running on 6 1/2" fronts and 8 1/2" rears with no problem. I bought a used set for $100 to try 'em out and I was just amazed at how good a one year old set of used tires could be. I have another set mounted on 8" fronts and 8 1/2" rears. The guy that sold me the used tires had run them on 8" rims with no issues. He thought they were in the best ever category too. These are not raelly a suitable street tire, although they are DOT legal.

That site does not include Avon, which designs tires specifically for 7s. Their tires are relevant because almost all of the others are designed with 3000 pound cars in mind. A 7 weighing 12-1300 pounds needs different tire characteristics designed into it. Sidewall stiffness makes a difference. This is also the most likely reason that we inflate our tires to 16-18 psi rather than the manufacturer recommended 32-36 psi. I inflated some Kumho V 700s to 35 psi once and they were terrifyingly bad. Dropped 'em down to 18 and they worked a treat. The National Champ Corvette driver that was using a higher inflation figure was not germane to the optimum performance of my 7, as I learned after copying what he was doing. Over inflation reduces the contact patch on a 7 from a racing slick width to a bicycle tire width----ok, I am exaggerating again but the point is hopefully made: Inflating our tires like our cars weigh 3000 pounds is not beneficial to the handling. Roger Kraus can be found online and offers various Avons including those designed for 7s. Stokes Performance Tire in Santa Monica, CA also stocks Avons for 7s.roll a 72007-01-20 21:28:26

I thought I heard an advertisement on the Versus TV channel that referenced for more info go to: U S A 7s dot com. Perhaps it was spelled in a different way, but I think that is what I heard..... Anyone else out there hearing strange voices..........