scannon

Did a 160 mile rally with the British Motoring Conclave yesterday in the foothills above Denver. Great roads and lots of old Brit crocks running around in all directions. Great weather in the low 80s. About croaked from all the unburned hydrocarbons being spewed out by around 60 pre-smog British cars. Today was the British Motoring Conclave car show, around 500 oil drippers on the lawn. Six Caterhams in the show and I saw another unidentified Se7en parked on the street when I was leaving. Bsimon won 1st in class and I got 2nd. I'll post pictures later of some really interesting and nice cars. Trivia question from the tie breakers on the rally: What was the first British car to sell 1,000,000 units?

PK, The placement looks good but what are the load ratings on those tie downs the dealer added? With only two bolts they might be a bit under rated. Think not only of the weight of the car, but the stresses under panic braking or even an accident. The factory ones on my trailer are rated at 10k lb each and that was designed for a motorcycle which weighs hundreds of pounds less than a Se7en. I'd suggest you get under there with a can of spray undercoat and seal those backing plates and bolts against corrosion.

PK, How about some pictures of the inside of your new trailer? I'm curious to see how the tie downs turned out. It looks great, wish I had an all yellow trailer instead of an all black one.

Before you drill it larger, get to the hardware store and get a selection of rubber grommets. Note the inside the groove diameters and then start drilling in those sizes until the connector goes through. You will have to stretch the grommet to get it over the connector. Try to get a grommet that meets both the inside diameter so the wire is snug and the groove diameter so it fits the hole.

Derek, I found a navigator. I can probably find you one as well if you can get out of the previous commitment. Let me know.

It was my intention to run a bypass hose between the head and the water pump when I do remove the heater. On my engine it is probably not needed as the heater feeds from just upstream of the thermostat and dumps into the water pump inlet. However, the cooling system pressure tank is T'd into the heater hose that connects to the water pump so the bypass will remain just to connect the pressure tank to the system.

I agree, totally awesome. I was surprised to realize when he took his helmet off that the passenger was Captain Slow (James May) from Top Gear. He's now faster and higher than his compatriots on the show.

I decided I needed something to block the flow of air through the heater core since the valve does not turn the hot water completely off. I can feel hot air blowing into the foot well through the heater vents. I made this from a 1/4" thick sheet of black rubber. It is held in place with two picture hanger suction cups. A quarter turn on the metal part releases the rubber plate and it can be lifted out. I went with the suction cups as I didn't want to drill a hole in the heater housing. It took all of 20 minutes to design, engineer and install. I'm thinking about removing the heater completely this winter. Should save a few pounds and clean up the engine compartment as well as under the scuttle.

http://www.kirkhammotorsports.com/book_aoe/ A truly amazing effort. Some of the parts are similar in design and construction to the spacecraft I've worked on over the years. Some of those were done with massive billets of titanium as well as aluminum.

Bob, Are you doing the drive on Saturday as well as the show on Sunday?

There is a thread on the Miata.net forum about a fellow with leaks in a nearly new Koyo aluminum radiator. He provided a link to someone called the RadiatorReporter which provided a good explanation of the problem. http://www.radiatorreporter.com/electrol.html I measured the voltage on my Caterham cooling system today and found .24 volts, not good. I have had problems with seeping at the header tank interface. I shut off the master disconnect switch and it dropped to essentially zero. This got me thinking about grounds and I reviewed how I had wired the car during assembly. I found that although I had run the negative battery cable directly to the engine I hadn't provided a heavy duty connection between the battery and the frame of the car. Digging around in my parts shelves yielded a battery cable of the correct length with eyelets on both ends rather than the usual terminal connector. I installed this cable between the Odyssey battery negative terminal and a central ground point on the frame and checked the voltage again and it was down to .027 volts. I rarely drive the car at night but when I have, I've noticed that the headlights would suddenly get brighter or dim a bit as I drove and maybe the lack of a good chassis ground is the problem. I'll take a drive tonight and find out. Update: I drove the car tonight and not only is the self dimming/brightening gone, the headlights are much brighter in both low and high beams. I'll be likely to drive it more at night now as I didn't think the motorcycle headlights I mounted on the care were bright enough to be safe. I had been thinking about adding another ground cable for awhile but never got around to it. Glad the article pushed me to get it done.

http://www.autoweek.com/article/20090916/F1/909169998 Renault to plead for clemency. Must have been some substance to Piquet Jr's allegations after all.

I used to be a world class snorer. People from 2 floors below me used to complain frequently. This product will make sleeping better for both of you. http://www.snorban.com/ It takes a few nights to get used to it but if you follow the setup directions it is very effective. I've been using it for over 10 years, it also helps with sleep apnea which is commonly associated with snoring. I've recommended it to many friends and many have said it saved their marriage/relationship or at least saved them from separate bedrooms.

It's Lotus in name only. Lotus disavowed any involvement with the team, in fact was seeking to prevent them from using the Lotus name. Buried deep in the article is the following statement: "The organisation behind the new Lotus team have bought the rights to the name Team Lotus - which competed in F1 from 1958 through to 1994..." Hopefully Lotus got a nice chunk of change for selling the rights to the name.

Japan is a fairly large market for Caterham. Not sure about other Se7ens.

One of the best laughs I've ever had was watching a skit on Benny Hill on drag racing, you can imagine where that went. I'm not PC and I don't care. I consider myself an equal opportunity offender.

I've been looking around for a project car for this winter when I spotted this little jewel in the rough. I can see this in BRG with a yellow stripe, probably using the classic John Deere green and yellow paint. The current color is metalflake green and fading. It came with a single seat which is not shown in the pictures. It's a pure plug in electric with an on board charging station. Having only three wheels I'm thinking of seeing if I can get it licensed as a motorcycle. Speaking of motorcycles, I'm also thinking of converting it back gasoline power with a small motorcycle engine and transmission. Top speed on the existing setup is a leisurely walking speed. It appears to be from some type of carnival ride. The fellow I bought it from used a frame and running gear from something called a Mart Cart, probably those powered shopping carts you seen in Walmart. Anyway, lots of possibilities here, we'll see how/where it goes. The pictures are from the CL ad but it is now sitting in my shop.

Kevin, If your timing is good, you can rent a Caterham at one of several tracks and do some laps. You can also rent one for the road. Here's a link to the August issue of Caterham Life put out by the factory. There will be info on their various events and contact info. http://www.caterham.co.uk/assets/pdf/caterham_life/August_2009.pdf They can probably point you to tracks with rentals as well as road car rentals. I think you can arrange a factory visit through them as well. Take lots of pictures, I'm green with envy.

A friend of mine has both of these cars in his fleet. Both are tracked and driven well and hard. I've had the privilege of driving the Turbo S on the track a number of times, a great experience. For those not familiar with the car, it is a limited production (135 units IIRC) Porsche, twin turbos and the last of the air cooled engines producing 435 HP and all wheel drive. Very easy car to get in and drive fast from the get go. I've also driven the Ford GT on some back country roads. The car is even better than the Turbo S. At one point I thought I was doing 70 - 80 mph, looked over at the speedometer and saw I was actually doing 135 mph! He didn't even ask me to slow down. I've been promised a chance to drive it on the track next time we both hit a track day together. He has a Corvette ZR-1 on order, should be showing up this month. I asked for a ride on the track. He said no, you will have to drive it yourself. This same fellow owned the flappy paddle Ferrari I wrote about earlier. Nice to have friends like this that share their special cars with others. After he drove my Miata on the track, he was razzing all his Ferrari club buddies about this little Miata that could whup their Ferraris on the track.

I drove a flappy paddle Ferrari 360 Modena. Other than the great down shifts I didn't like it. The owner sold it after about six months and bought another one with a 6 speed manual. Apparently he didn't much care for it either. And like Mazda, I get great satisfaction every time I nail the heel/toe downshift.

I bought a "clunker" '97 Honda Civic EX coupe last week for a winter beater and general daily driver. It got 35 mpg on its first fill up. Except for towing/hauling duties it will replace my Silverado which gets 17 mpg at best. Based on the difference in gas mileage it looks like it will pay for itself in about two years of driving. The Civic turned out to be a better car than I thought when I bought it. Only 93k miles, no rust, runs like a Honda and it cleaned up very well. Only downside is the insurance. Due to the theft rates for Civics it has the highest premium in my fleet of four vehicles other than the Se7en which is insured to a stated value with Hagerty. I paid cash for it. That's my personal Cash for Clunkers story.

No, we cannot. Quite a few of our local club members have automatic Miatas for various reasons, bad knees, a spouse who cannot drive a stick or just prefer to let the car do the shifting. None of them to my knowledge are gay. Many young people have never learned to drive a manual transmission, some of them own automatic Miatas, does that make them gay? If/when my left knee gives out and cannot be repaired again, I will have an automatic Miata. I am not gay. The only really good Miata mechanic in our area has one and although he lives in Boulder, he is definitely not gay. We did have one gay couple in the club many years ago but their car had a manual transmission. I recall reading somewhere that more gays drive BMWs than Miatas. If you have a BMW in your garage does that make you gay? Generalizations are generally wrong. :smash:

Very impressive effort on the part of Lotus, I hope it works out and they put it into production. I think Chapman would be proud of where his company is headed these days.

Note that the list is titled "EVO magazines top 100 drivers cars". Not top 100 performers. It implies to me that "rewarding to drive" is the criteria, not all out performance figures, otherwise the Veyron would be at the top of the list along with the Gumpert and a few others. BTW, "Miata" is an old German word for Reward. Also of interest is that the Miata they chose is the 1.6 liter model with all of 116 hp at the crankshaft not the later, (relatively) higher HP models. I tend to agree with this as the early 1.6 motors were sweeter engines than the 1.8's. They love to rev. A well driven 1.6 Miata will show its tail lights to many a high powered sports car on a twisty road or tight track. BTDT. The Miata does have a reputation as a Chick Car although far more men have purchased them than women. My Miata has this engraved on one of the air vents: At 15psi this ain't no chick car. The other one has the classic: Sit down, shut up, strap in and hang on. One ride in this car has made a believer out of many a scoffer.

:bs: