scannon

http://www.vanityfair.com/style/features/2011/01/ralph-lauren-garage-201101?currentPage=1 After you read the article click on the link to see 20 of his cars in their "museum".

Have you let Ben know the engine is for sale? He may have a customer for one of the new cars who needs an engine.

http://www.unusuallocomotion.com/rubrique,unusual-locomotion,1056530.html

No time like the present to plant the seeds.

There are people who do have access to a satellite and those satellites can resolve the dimples on a golf ball from orbit.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/2MBBxU

So I look to my left and see a sleeping cat. She has sharp claws and teeth but I don't think she will be much of a threat to a zombie.

Two of them are available for Christmas at only $15,400 each plus overnight shipping from across the pond. The shipping should only add about another $5,000 or so to the total. I'm also wanting the Bugatti.

Thanks Tom, that just brightened up my evening and brought a smile to my face. Merry Christmas to all of you 7ers out there.

Santa Claus: An Engineer's Perspective I. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per house hold, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each. II. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house. Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second --- 3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour. III. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa himself. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them--- Santa would need 360,000 of them. This increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). IV. 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second creates enormous air resistance --- this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second, or right about the time Santa reached the fifth house on his trip. Not that it matters, however, since Santa, as a result of accelerating from a dead stop to 650 m.p.s. in .001 seconds, would be subjected to centrifugal forces of 17,500 g's. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,015 pounds of force, instantly crushing his bones and organs and reducing him to a quivering blob of pink goo. Therefore, if Santa did exist, he's dead now. ------------ NOTE: I did not verify the facts or the accuracy of the math. Merry Christmas

How much is this 300 HP lump going to cost? I'm guessing somewhere North of $15k. I tried to find the cost on Cosworth USA's website but no luck. Is the 300 hp figure at the crankshaft or rear wheels? How about torque figures? A dyno chart of HP and torque would be appreciated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/fashion/19lotus.html?_r=1&sq=&st=nyt&adxnnl=1&scp=1&adxnnlx=1293050345-SSQkNq9/+X/Fg4OgOwhzuw At the end of the article Danny Bahar, CEO of Lotus admits he doesn't even drive a Lotus!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/classiccars/8194036/Christmas-road-test-Packard-engined-Bentley.html An annoying advertisement will pop up about the time the video starts, just click the close box on the upper right.

Size really does matter http://htwins.net/scale/index.html

My Caterham has two U shaped aluminum channels riveted to the bottom of the car. The seat mounts with four bolts through the floor and the channels. Pretty simple.

http://www.b3ta.com/links/Favourable_Lie

http://g4tv.com/attackoftheshow/exclusives/64615/OFASTS-Gun-Apocalypse.html Scroll down for the video.

http://www.fark.com/cgi/vidplayer.pl?IDLink=5734912 Check out the clutch in the rear wheel hub.

Gert, I'm still up for most of the trip, I will probably join up in Thermopolis, Newcastle or Custer. I will most likely have to trailer the car most of the distance and would share driving time if someone wanted to fly out and take turns driving the truck/trailer and the Caterham. I did this last time when Mazda and his wife flew out to join us.

PITA = Pain in the Ass I think you meant PETA which stands for People Eating Tasty Animals. The video reminded me of an event in the late '60s. I was cruising down Main street with my GF and her obnoxious toy poodle. The dog was standing with his hind feet on her lap and both front feet on the window sill of my '63 Corvette split window. The dog saw its reflection in a store window, started barking and made a mighty leap towards it only to be caught short by its leash which was looped around the Hurst shift lever. I looked over at the store window just in time to see it hit the end of the leash and fall to the pavement where its rear feet were running really fast trying to keep up with the car. I was laughing so hard I almost hit the car in front of me. It took me awhile to get the car stopped The GF was not amused.

Funny GSXR Add

http://www.wimp.com/mphplane/

I hope that is not where Caterham is headed. IMHO it looks like a hodgepodge of styling clues looking for a theme and could be a recipe for disaster for Caterham.

How about a Miata with an LS3 engine? Flyin' Miata does an excellent conversion on your own Miata or can supply a turnkey car. I've seen several in various stages of construction and the workmanship is top notch. 480 HP with a net weight gain of less than 150 lb and a change in weight distribution of about 1%. And the drive train comes with a GM warranty. http://www.flyinmiata.com/V8/#