Automoda

You know I'm not totally sure that closing off the space around the radiator is going to help. I know modern cars have a lot of plastic that looks like it is funelling air into the radiator, but I've read some stuff that makes me think that its not doing what one would assume its doing. In another forum someone posted an article by a guy that was trained in fluid dynamics/aerodynamics. The discussion was about all these "Ram Air" and "Cowl induction" hood scoops. The guy basically said that you cant 'shove' air into an opening via scooping until you reach about 460mph. Apparently gasses do not behave in an intuitive way. The article stated that it doesnt matter how the scoop is oriented in relation to the air flow until you start hitting that critical speed. In short, scoops are for looks since you could just have a hole, or the scoop could face backwards or sideways or whatever. That leads me to believe that as long as the radiator is more or less directly behind the nose opening, you're going to get enough air. Blocking off the space around it may or may not do anything (Other than reduce the flow of cool air into the engine bay), but I would think the fan is more of an issue. My Birkin had no shroud around the fan as it came from the factory, and the fan sat a few inches behind the radiator surface. I built a fiberglass shroud for it (which fits everything snugly) and now I have zero overheating problems (And some air definitely can get around the sides of the radiator). http://herb.linkrealms.com/lotus/fan_side_a.jpg Id think the fan should be able to run enough air to cool the engine even while driving around (perhaps not racing though). Anyhow I'm no expert but I'm just saying that blocking off the sides of the radiator is probably not going to end up being the real cause of your troubles.

I cant believe it. The proportions are so well preserved. It doesnt look dwarfish at all.

My car has a sticker on it as the VIN number. Despite all of the hoops one has to jump through to title a car like this, it does not accomplish the job of positively identifying the car forever. I could scratch the sticker off in 1 minute and re-apply through the whole title process and title it over and over again. The frame has a home-made looking frame number on it, but apparently they dont care to call it a vin, so it is not recorded anywhere in the paperwork. If Birkin had made a more realistic identifier than B1RK1N1234 like A2FF2CB1RK66A9AV2 it would have saved me 500 dollars in the registration process because it would have had an acceptable VIN. Even so, it would take me a trip to Harbor Freight to pick up a set of lettering stamps and a few seconds with the mig welder to replace that frame number. These cars are NOT safe from being stolen and re-registered. Nor are they safe from someone re-titling them at a whim (Regardless of what the overlords think about it). Just sayin. Fortunately mine is titled as a 1965 Lotus Seven. The boss lady wanted it as a 2009 (when it was finished) but I pointed to 2 places in the law that said it could be titled as a 1965 and explained how that helped the resale value. The desk people saw the law and relented. Remember! Government is never your friend!

Back in 1996 I brought my '87 Fiero in to the dealer to have them tighten a bolt in the steering column (it steered tight but the column itself floated around in your lap). The standard GM column that the Fiero used was a monkey puzzle that was too tricky for me to disassemble just to get to the bolt (I can do it now). In fact, that car had almost no unique parts at all other than the dash cluster and plastic body parts (which never broke anyhow). The dealer told me that the mechanics refused to work on Fieros. This is a Pontiac dealership... Refusing to work on a dirt common Pontiac product. I swore never to own a Pontiac again. I talked to someone that had a Mini Cooper which had fallen while being offloaded and got drowned in the ocean for a few hours. It was purchased cheap and rehabbed. When the guy went to buy a replacement for some engine part (I dont remember what). Mini would not sell it to him. His VIN number had been black listed and they absolutely refused to sell him the part at any price. I guess they are in business to make money for dealers, period. No dealer, no service. I'm very wary of cars now because I'm convinced that they are designed to make money at the service desk, not the point sale. They have 12 computers stuck in the wiring harness spread throughout the car to ensure that no ordinary guy can figure out what is going on. Further, the computers and even small parts like electric window motors are encoded with serial numbers to "prevent theft".... or more likely prevent you from buying a part from a junk yard and fixing a problem without the dealer. I wonder what happens when more of these car companies fold and you can no longer get your spare parts from a dealer and junk yard parts wont work. And what about when your VW's turbo dies at 16,000 miles and they want 10K to replace it? (On a car that was only double that when bought new) Who's budget can survive that? My cars are all old and use generic, common parts. I'm going to keep it that way. I have zero interest in buying something in a show room right now. My next projects are my 51 Willy's Jeepster and 66 chop-top VW Bug.

... and we find out that it was purchased by a guy that thought it was a dune buggy. We'll hear stories of how awesome the sandy rooster tails it makes are now that the fenders have been cut off and paddle tires added. )

My dad drove the one with the roof when he was a kid in Iowa. He loved it. He had to rebuild the transmission a few times, but apparently it was pretty simple. The poor thing got T-boned by a young mexican lady. "But I used my turn signal" she said, completely misunderstanding the powers of the turn signal to move cars out of her way. Later he saw it in the junk yard. The candy paint he'd put on it had crazed. Lacquer was too thick I guess. He and his friend were hurt but nothing permanent. To this day he loves to see nice examples of the MGA. I think I must have inherited the British sports car gene. And I have to say I would LOVE to have one of those. Congrats!

Yeah but those cost about as much as real 3-piece Kodiaks. Beautiful wheels though. I am a believer in putting some nice wheels on these cars when you can afford it. On a seven its not money wasted-- It is money wasted on so many cars I see these days though.

Cars are difficult to model. I've tried. There are technical reasons that make them so hard to get right and I've never discovered how to get past the problems. People that can do it are specialists, in my opinion. I've never played a driving game that made me feel like the car was handling the way a real car does. 3rd person guarantees the feel is wrong, and without using 3D goggles or something you're not going to get the right feel in 1st person. Then there's the feel of Gforces that guide your cornering so much in real life. Plus the car games make the cars unreasonably crash-resistant.

The problem is that it doesn't look all that aero. Know what I mean? I didn't see them testing it in a wind tunnel or anything. I get that fluid dynamics of gasses is rather counter-intuitive but I just dont see how that thing is going to cut through the air a whole lot better than a seven. I do get what they were trying to do. I see the smaller 7ish nose in there, surrounded by a shell. I think I would rather have gone with a seven that had a longer nose cone and indy-car style aero.

Its true that the car is flat black to look cool but in fact the color is camouflage. On top of that, the shape makes it hard to be next to and not hit. However I think the green car hit it because he was about to spin anyhow. Look at the front wheel just as he hits the Delta. Its turned well away in the opposite direction. I'm going to call this 'just bad racing luck". Also the delta looks like it tends to roll easily as powderbrake suggests. This would have been much less dramatic if the green car had hit another 4 wheeled car. BMW Racer-- I know you hate the car but you have to admit its the fastest thing on the scene. Its just that its new technology and approach have created something thats not fit for bumper-to-bumper racing. I have a recumbent bicycle and its similar. Easily faster than other bikes but I dont participate in pace lines because of the crash danger (Pace lines are dumb anyhow and cause a ton of the worst kinds of crashes on bicycles). I'm not sure what kind of event the Delta should participate in. SCCA Solo or something. I'd like to see them continue to develop the idea. Caster wheels on the top side and corners would probably be quite an improvement.

I got to drive a Ferrari and an Audi A8 once, and they both had paddle shifters. I never could really get used to the idea. I expect shifting to take time and to always (unless I'm lucky) have some slight mismatch between trans and engine speed. I expect it and frankly I consider it feedback. These cars that can shift instantly and smoothly-- I felt like I may as well find the "automatic" button since in the end the human element becomes an imperfect link in the chain. (After that we can talk about getting rid of the steering wheel and the brake pedal etc in the future)

It has a steel body and a steel inner body. Ok so the way to do this right would be to replace the steel with aluminum. But if you didnt have the time for that.... It would have been so much faster to media-blast that thing. Worth a few bags of material and a cheap sand blaster. I'm a little concerned that he's covering up a lot of rust. Even if it looks good he's in for trouble in a few years. However, I'll be honest, the car was such a basket case that its very nice to see someone took the time to get it back on the road and looking nice again. Bravo.

I have a hiking and pack goat group and it has a picture of a mountain biker on it now. It took me 30 minutes to figure out that to change the picture, I have to be in admin mode and hover over the picture to bring up a popup promt to change the pic. I'd gone to another car club group to post about a car show and I see that mountain bike and I thought that I was on one of those domain-squatting filler sites. Somehow I got stuck in this infinite loop of logging in every time I tried to do something. I stumbled on the message section (which seems like it would be the whole point of a group) and left my message. It worked.

I'll be in the Sports Car category which is usually near the big cement grain silo/bathroom/playground area. There are usually a few British cars there and some Cobras. The cobras cant decide if they're sports cars or muscle cars since you see them in both areas. You know what. I have emails for a few of the guys that have sevens. I think I'll email them and see if we can get more than one or two 7s for the show.

What part of Utah do you live in? I'm in Bluffdale and my Birkin is also a 2003. There's another Birkin owned by my friend Lee in Farmington (2001). He has a friend with a Caterham somewhere nearby. There's a couple guys in Herriman working on some home builts. There is a guy in Park City with an older Cat... and someone had a... I think it was a blue Stalker somewhere. I know there's another Cat owned by a collector somewhere and another one that has low mounted headlights that shows up at the British car show in the spring. You should go to the Peach Days car show in Brigham City on the 7th. Its the biggest show in Utah and I'm going, and hoping to get Lee to bring his. Its a free show and always has the best collection of cars. I especially love the 20s and early 30s section.

Ah man! I didnt know you'd sold your Birkin I dont need the belt squeal kit, but I do need a tire squealing kit. It just keeps happening. Usually when I take off, stop, or turn.

http://herb.linkrealms.com/Audi_R8_Birkin_1.jpg I had a chance to borrow an Audi for a few hours.... and I had to get the picture.

As I remember-- last year a lady driver was killed in a freak Caterham accident in the UK. Seems like it hit something with the top of the cockpit or something like that, and it wasnt fully caged.

His name is Crayola and he's a Caique. Thats pronounced "Kai-eek". The Nazis tried to wipe them out so they're somewhat rare today. There are several slight variations, two of which have been imported to the USA. The white-bellied Caique doesnt have the black cap and has a bone colored beak and legs. This is the black headed or "Orthodox" Caique. In Brazil there is one more type that has green pantaloons and a yellow tail instead of orange pantaloons and a green tail. They're very smart birds. If you give him coins and a piggy bank, he'll have the coins in the bank within a few minutes.

http://herb.linkrealms.com/brackets.jpg Here is an early version of the brackets I'm using now sitting next to a stock part. I welded some bar stock that I had heated with a torch and curved around the perimeter. I stuck it to the original bracket instead of custom metal like my current build (Since I needed to relocate the fender a little). I'm pretty sure this is bullet proof though. Not sure about the threaded socket. That could get cracks around where it is mounted. My new ones have very nice welds holding it in so its not a problem. I think this is a case where Birkin sought to follow in the steps of Chapman and add lightness. But there is just too much abuse on the metal for the amount of lightness Birkin went for. I've thought that the ideal would be a CNC cut piece of hard aluminum. Someone with connections and skills with CNC could make... dollars. Entire dollars producing these!

Birkin brackets break. I had one break and I had it welded. But then I decided to put some kodiak wheels on it and RA1 tires. Suddenly there was no way that the cycle fenders would fit anymore. So I made some new brackets-- the part that runs along the underside of the fiberglass and plugs into the posts that stick up. Here's what I did: Machined a cylinder that fits into the post that sticks up from the hub. Drill and tap it. Then I got a strip of steel (hardware store) that wasnt crazy thick but reasonably sturdy. I bent it to match the shape of the old bracket (plus a little height for the clearance changes I needed). Once I had it so the fender would mount the way I wanted, I got some steel bar stock and, using a torch, heated it up and bent it blacksmith style to follow the outer edge of the steel strip. It looped around the edges and turned out pretty nice. Weld the strip to the bar stock in a solid manner and paint it with POR15 or something. Yeah, I know. Its a pain in the ass but I guarantee I've got the sturdiest brackets a Birkin ever had! Also I have my old ones still--and dont want em anymore. One broke and was rewelded. They'll both break again. But if you need brackets to get by in a pinch, PM me. Pay shipping and they're yours... if I can dig them up.

http://herb.linkrealms.com/addoil.gif Caption contest-- Lets hear your best ones!

That was well made and fun to watch.

Now that was a fun video. The driftmeister.