scannon

Morgan, What did you think of the car after you drove it? Skip

A friend living in Littleton had it worse that we did here. He is on the Ecostar system. A friend in Boulder on DirectTV had no problems at all. It was a decent day, I don't recall any rain, lightning or other atmospheric disturbances.

Tony V. sent an email to the USA7s mailing list with a link to the people and the house that fell into the creek. On this link is a button you can click to make a donation to a fund to help these good people out. You can use a credit card or paypal. Let's see if we as a group can help a fellow Se7en owner. Click to view the damage and access the donation button. Skip

John, I don't see a spec for Caster in the chart. Does the Westfield have a caster adjustment or do you adjust the rest and live with whatever caster results from the other adjustments? Skip

Take a look at picture 49 below, the steering rack boot and tie rod can be seen, its just that they are located behind the centerline of the wheels, not in front where the large holes in the panel would make you think they should be. The video shows them driving it so it is a runner and they claim it has passed all the tests and is licensed for the road, whether that makes it a finished car is still up for grabs.

I'm talking about the picture and sound quality, not Fox's version of how to do a race. I recorded it on a DirectTV DVR and the picture kept breaking up into large pixels while the sound had lots of weird noises and distortions of peoples words. Did anyone else experience this? There was a small amount on the last Fox F1 broadcast but nothing like this. I'm not having problems with other programs I record. I've set the DVR to record the Speed rebroadcast later in the week and will have a look at that to see if it has the same problems. Skip

The ebay ad says its not a track car and I think it would not be much of a street car either. No shield between your leg and the transmission for both driver and passenger and the vent holes in the top of the trans tunnel along with the openness of the tunnel in front of the transmission are going to make it extremely hot in there. The shifter looks like it might be a little weird to use bent over to the right as it is. It would make a great show car, but any Se7en gets lots of attention in a show.

I'd like to get a head count for the July 9th BBQ in Erie so anyone who will be on the tour and anyone else in the area that wants to stop by, send me a PM stating who you are and how many in your party. Let me know if you are a veggie or just don't like BBQ and I will have something appropriate for you. Skip

Wow, 166 hp for only $18k? Somebody got bent over. Maybe the $18k is the cumulative amount spent on the engine since it left the factory during its probable tour as a FF engine. It now has a second bid.

I agree on the 3" exhaust. Turbos love high flow exhaust systems. Corky Bell once told me the ideal turbo exhaust is an infinitely expanding megaphone. I have a 3" system that steps up from the 2 1/2" turbo outlet to 3" in two steps. Right after that the divorced wastegate pipe merges in and it exits the engine compartment. From there it flows through a 3" metal cat and 3" glasspack muffler. To get it under the car for a rear exit it spits into two 2" stock Caterham tailpipes. You could use oval piping instead of two smaller pipes.

I can contribute $42, where do we find another million contributors?

I received a copy of an email from Lotus disavowing any connection with the new F1 team. From the press release: "Group Lotus plc and its subsidiary Lotus Cars Limited, the manufacturer of the iconic Lotus Elise and global high technology engineering consultancy, are not connected or affiliated to, nor in any other way associated with the newly announced "Team Lotus" that has submitted an entry for the 2010 Formula 1 championship. Group Lotus plc will take all necessary steps to protect its name, reputation and brand image." I'm in agreement with Lotus, if there isn't any factory involvement, there should not be any use of the name. Skip

Here's a LINK to a spotter's guide for the race put out by Aston Martin. It's a 5+ MB pdf slide show with great pictures. Just left click to move to the next page, hold down the shift and click to go back. Unfortunately the text is so small and with the low contrast background my old eyes cannot read most of it but the pictures are pretty.

I bought a used '63 Corvette split window coupe in '68. It had a 327engine with 365 HP (engine was from a '65 Corvette), 4 speed and 4:11 posi diff. I loved that car, it handled better than anything else I had driven at the time. Fast forward to about 1985. I was selling a gray market '80 911SC and a doctor called and asked if I would be interested in taking a '63 split window Corvette with 53k miles in trade. Memories of the good times flooded my brain so we arranged to drive each others cars. What a let down, I climbed into the Vette and although it was in great shape, the handling, brakes (drums all around in '63) and acceleration were abysmal compared to the 911. It had the usual body creaks and groans and was very noisy. I never looked back. I drove a nicely restored '65 Corvette about 5 years ago and got pretty much the same impression.

Glen, It looks like you are getting close to the first drive. Looks great. Skip

Ran some errands today in the Caterham between storms, tornados, hail, rain, etc. We seem to have 4 - 5 tornados on a daily basis this year. Craziest June weather I can remember. Right now there is a mix of rain and hail coming down.

Cross posted from the Miata forum for your reading pleasure. ------------- From: Triple Nickel Sent: Thursday, June 04, 2009 9:34 PM Subject: (JSCAS ) Shuttle Carry Well, it's been 48 hours since I landed the 747 with the shuttle Atlantis on top and I am still buzzing from the experience. I have to say that my whole mind, body and soul went into the professional mode just before engine start in Mississippi, and stayed there, where it all needed to be, until well after the flight...in fact, I am not sure if it is all back to normal as I type this email. The experience was surreal. Seeing that "thing" on top of an already overly huge aircraft boggles my mind. The whole mission from takeoff to engine shutdown was unlike anything I had ever done. It was like a dream...someone else's dream. We took off from Columbus AFB on their 12,000 foot runway, of which I used 11,999 1/2 feet to get the wheels off the ground. We were at 3,500 feet left to go of the runway, throttles full power, nose wheels still hugging the ground, copilot calling out decision speeds, the weight of Atlantis now screaming through my fingers clinched tightly on the controls, tires heating up to their near maximum temperature from the speed and the weight, and not yet at rotation speed, the speed at which I would be pulling on the controls to get the nose to rise. I just could not wait, and I mean I COULD NOT WAIT, and started pulling early. If I had waited until rotation speed, we would not have rotated enough to get airborne by the end of the runway. So I pulled on the controls early and started our rotation to the takeoff attitude. The wheels finally lifted off as we passed over the stripe marking the end of the runway and my next hurdle (physically) was a line of trees 1,000 feet off the departure end of Runway 16. All I knew was we were flying and so I directed the gear to be retracted and the flaps to be moved from Flaps 20 to Flaps 10 as I pulled even harder on the controls. I must say, those trees were beginning to look a lot like those brushes in the drive through car washes so I pulled even harder yet! I think I saw a bird just fold its wings and fall out of a tree as if to say "Oh just take me". Okay, we cleared the trees, duh, but it was way too close for my laundry. As we started to actually climb, at only 100 feet per minute, I smelled something that reminded me of touring the Heineken Brewery in Europe...I said "is that a skunk I smell?" and the veterans of shuttle carrying looked at me and smiled and said "Tires"! I said "TIRES??? OURS???" They smiled and shook their heads as if to call their Captain an amateur...okay, at that point I was. The tires were so hot you could smell them in the cockpit. My mind could not get over, from this point on, that this was something I had never experienced. Where's your mom when you REALLY need her? The flight down to Florida was an eternity. We cruised at 250 knots indicated, giving us about 315 knots of ground speed at 15,000'. The miles didn't click by like I am use to them clicking by in a fighter jet at MACH .94. We were burning fuel at a rate of 40,000 pounds per hour or 130 pounds per mile, or one gallon every length of the fuselage. The vibration in the cockpit was mild, compared to down below and to the rear of the fuselage where it reminded me of that football game I had as a child where you turned it on and the players vibrated around the board. I felt like if I had plastic clips on my boots I could have vibrated to any spot in the fuselage I wanted to go without moving my legs...and the noise was deafening. The 747 flies with its nose 5 degrees up in the air to stay level, and when you bank, it feels like the shuttle is trying to say "hey, let's roll completely over on our back"..not a good thing I kept telling myself. SO I limited my bank angle to 15 degrees and even though a 180 degree course change took a full zip code to complete, it was the safe way to turn this monster. Airliners and even a flight of two F-16s deviated from their flight plans to catch a glimpse of us along the way. We dodged what was in reality very few clouds and storms, despite what everyone thought, and arrived in Florida with 51,000 pounds of fuel too much to land with. We can't land heavier than 600,000 pounds total weight and so we had to do something with that fuel. I had an idea...let's fly low and slow and show this beast off to all the taxpayers in Florida lucky enough to be outside on that Tuesday afternoon. So at Ormond Beach we let down to 1,000 feet above the ground/water and flew just east of the beach out over the water. Then, once we reached the NASA airspace of the Kennedy Space Center, we cut over to the Banana/Indian Rivers and flew down the middle of them to show the people of Titusville, Port St.Johns and Melbourne just what a 747 with a shuttle on it looked like. We stayed at 1,000 feet and since we were dragging our flaps at "Flaps 5", our speed was down to around 190 to 210 knots. We could see traffic stopping in the middle of roads to take a look. We heard later that a Little League Baseball game stop to look and everyone cheered as we became their 7th inning stretch. Oh say can you see... After reaching Vero Beach, we turned north to follow the coast line back up to the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF). There was not one person laying on the beach...they were all standing and waving! "What a sight" I thought...and figured they were thinking the same thing. All this time I was bugging the engineers, all three of them, to re-compute our fuel and tell me when it was time to land. They kept saying "Not yet Triple, keep showing this thing off" which was not a bad thing to be doing. However, all this time the thought that the landing, the muscling of this 600,000 pound beast, was getting closer and closer to my reality. I was pumped up! We got back to the SLF and were still 10,000 pounds too heavy to land so I said I was going to do a low approach over the SLF going the opposite direction of landing traffic that day. So at 300 feet, we flew down the runway, rocking our wings like a whale rolling on its side to say "hello" to the people looking on! One turn out of traffic and back to the runway to land...still 3,000 pounds over gross weight limit. But the engineers agreed that if the landing were smooth, there would be no problem. "Oh thanks guys, a little extra pressure is just what I needed!" So we landed at 603,000 pounds and very smoothly if I have to say so myself. The landing was so totally controlled and on speed, that it was fun. There were a few surprises that I dealt with, like the 747 falls like a rock with the orbiter on it if you pull the throttles off at the "normal" point in a landing and secondly, if you thought you could hold the nose off the ground after the mains touch down, think again...IT IS COMING DOWN!!! So I "flew it down" to the ground and saved what I have seen in videos of a nose slap after landing. Bob's video supports this! :8-) Then I turned on my phone after coming to a full stop only to find 50 bazillion emails and phone messages from all of you who were so super to be watching and cheering us on! What a treat, I can't thank y'all enough. For those who watched, you wondered why we sat there so long. Well, the shuttle had very hazardous chemicals on board and we had to be "sniffed" to determine if any had leaked or were leaking. They checked for Monomethylhydrazine (N2H4 for Charlie Hudson) and nitrogen tetroxide (N2O4). Even though we were "clean", it took way too long for them to tow us in to the mate-demate area. Sorry for those who stuck it out and even waited until we exited the jet. I am sure I will wake up in the middle of the night here soon, screaming and standing straight up dripping wet with sweat from the realization of what had happened. It was a thrill of a lifetime. Again I want to thank everyone for your interest and support. It felt good to bring Atlantis home in one piece after she had worked so hard getting to the Hubble Space Telescope and back. Triple Nickel NASA Pilot

Thanks Rich. I know the Lotus 7 club in the UK has made at least one trip to the Isle. I don't know if they are planning one for next year. I suggested to my friends that they rent a Caterham for at least that part of the trip. It appears that they are available for hire in many areas of the UK. I suspect they may be going to watch the bike TT and that driving/riding in a Se7en would be normal non-competitive driving over as much of the course as possible.

Some friends are headed to the Isle of Mann next year and have seen coverage of Caterhams running the course. I was asked to see if I could find a contact in England who might be able to provide some information on any Seven related events on the Isle of Mann. They are in hopes of getting a ride in a Se7en around the course. They are not Se7en owners (yet) but one of them plans on building one in the not too distant future. Thanks, Skip

Now all we need is to find some generous third party to buy the cars for us and we will all be happy.

For the record, I installed one of Bob's Mirrors for Sevens not too long after my last post on this in 2007. For awhile I kept the center and side mirrors on, then removed the side mirrors and a couple of months later removed the center mirror. The Mirrors For Sevens is the only mirror on my car now. It took awhile to get used to but I won't be going back to regular mirrors. I've driven it at night a few times and did not have a problem with glare from cars behind me. The mirror is so short, a slight tilt of the head will get the reflections out of your eyes. I sometimes wonder if I will get stopped by the police for not having side mirrors, I believe one on the driver side is required here in Colorado. "But officer, I actually have four mirrors on my car." Skip

Miata engines and transmissions are cheap, easy to work on and I think they will fit anywhere a Zetec will go. Lots of aftermarket go fast goodies available when the time arrives. Consider buying a good wrecked donor car from a salvage auction, pulling out what you need and then stripping the donor and selling the parts. I did that with my Miata powered Caterham and had a free low mileage engine and transmission and money to put back into the build budget. The bigger question is will the Elan chassis survive with a major HP and torque upgrade?

I'm thinking they are two different cars. The Manik car is definitely LHD while the WireWheel car appears to be RHD based on the position of the headrest and fairing behind the seats. One also has meatballs for racing numbers while the other does not. Of course, the meatballs could have been removed/added and the pictures inadvertently reversed. Whatever, I'd take either one of them. Skip

The main value for me for my membership fee is the reassurance that this forum will continue to exist. Anything else we get for our money is just gravy. Thanks to all the officers, incoming and outgoing and especially Mazda for making this forum what it is. Skip

After the local C&C it's off to the other end of the Denver metroplex, a drive of nearly 50 miles. It's a nice day and I'm driving the Caterham. About 75 cars at this one, mostly hot rods. Notable among the more exotic cars were two Ford GTs. I didn't any good pictures of this event. Next is HearseCon. It's a gathering of people who own and love hearses and ambulances. Most of these people were Goth oriented but all were very friendly and willing to talk about their hearses and pose with them. When I drove up one of the Hearse Babes (their term, not mine) asked if I was coming to their show and when I said yes, she said they had a row available for non-hearses and would I like to put my car there. I parked next to a 1948 Hudson convert. Lots of weird things to see, how about a complete BBQ grille installed in a coffin? Or the head guy's hearse with a working flamethrower on the roof along with bat wings and a big flame thing on the hood? I got a couple of the Hearse Babes and the head guy to pose with the Caterham