southwind25

in this great process, of trying to determine what direction to take..we as well looked at the cobra kit cars. some were actually very nice! well built, fast,,,but mary sorta had to speak up...when you own a Cobra, it seems as if perhaps your trying to make up for something? hehehe..big brutish cars..or is that british...not sure. as well..we will stick with our petite interests.. we have always subscribed to light and agile. recent developments..we have found a "7" that might very well work for us..and have the ability to keep the old beater ginetta g4 to still rebuild as time goes on. stay tuned.

where in the USA does someone find a T9? is there a substitute?

asking price? kansar@diebold.com

Awesome.. Fun,,,and this is what we are looking to find again..."fun"... not all stiff and strict about if the color is original or not, or who did the rebuild on your car..because the answer is pretty much yourself, not the local euro car rebuilder. Thanks everyone.. For what it's worth...we have come to 2 options. We were just made an offer to but a ginetta at a cant pass up price, but we also just got an offer for a perfect...we mean perfect birkin. If we get the ginetta, we would be putting a zetec engine in her.. ahhh,,such pleasant decisions...however if we DO get the ginetta..we would remain (if allowed) on this website here.. sadly theres only a remote handful of ginetta,s here and not much support like the USA.7's. and it's a stepsister of the lotus 7 anyways. Actually, in the UK, they compete on the track together. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy_wJezkOEI Point is..either way something is going to happen. here's the ginetta we are looking at.. http://www.usa7s.com/aspnetforum/upload/1658779032_DSCF0578.JPG would you guys throw us out for driving this to a "7" event?

The question was a general one... Yes the couple of "7" owners i have met..seem to get out and enjoy thier cars. They have been very friendly and extremely accomidating, true ambassadors of the marque. Perhaps i needed to survey this site a little closer, just trying to get a feel for things that much more..before we make a jump. I guess we are just looking to have some of the performance minded fun..we had years back when our healeys were still considered sportscars! It seems that term has gotten lost sometimes. road ralleys, track days, autocross events..road tours...who knows?

Question? What is out there for people that own 7's? let us define and explain the question a bit.... for 25 years..we have owned austin healeys,,back when people would pay you to pull them out of the weeds in the back yard. We were also always speed-event-ralley minded. sure the car shows are fun!! but we can only drink so many beers :cheers: while sitting and talking about what color was the original overspray on the fan belts. The A-H crowd has become mid 60's and retired CEO's, and the mindset has followed. on the other hand..we loved the fun road ralleys, the track days, the gathering at mid ohio for picnics. people even used to come watch the healey autocross..but thats all dead, or nearly so. All that remains is a few rich guys,,and a few people with sprites that most austin heleye people seem to be snobs torwards.. (but the sprite is actually an awesome little car!!) I have JUSt sold the big healey..a very classy looking..but heavy americanized cruizer. We never cared if ours had matching #'s or if the brake pads had the original decal..but it seems everyone does now. So asking again...what can we find out there if we own a "7"?

:thumbs: LOL..well, for the last 25 years, we have driven our vintage racing bugeye sprite and big healey in everything but snow..no windsheild, no heater, not 1 rubber bushing in the suspension. No muffler-silencer and with "gulp" lever shocks!! :rofl: ..both very spartan indeed,,,like a soap box derby car with an engine. they will rattle your fillings out of your teeth..but very fun on the track,,,not so much on the road. now..we want to find something that has the handling, (relative) performance, etc of the sprite...the ambiance of the big healey, yet we can drive it around without so much the fuss..maybe with better than 1955 era technology eh? the old A series engine can make some nice H.P. but at the complete price of drivability. sadly..we dont get to use the healeys often...and it's time to start driving again!

Once again, much thanks to the generosity and enthusiasm of a USA7 owner. Gary we apprciate your allowing us to spend time with you and your wonderful Birkin. What a awesome car indeed, and now we have 2 we can compare. Personally, we enjoyed the Birkin a little bit more than the Caterham. Both were indeed great cars!! To our eye the Birkin seemed just a little bit more well engineered, Certianly it had a little more room, though the seat in the caterham itself was more comfortable. My feet were not cramped and i had a little more torso-elbow room in the Birkin... only an 1/2 inch here or there..but it made a diffrence. Gary's car had the removable steering wheel, which made wearing the car ( you dont just climb in a lotus 7 you wear it like a tailored suit) a bit easier. We were surprised to enjoy the cycle fenders as much as we did. The heater worked awesome and though there seemed to be more wind buffeting in the birkin. Ok, the windsheild setup in the caterham was a little better..and maybe the top-hood when up would give a few more fractions of headroom. Both of the sidescreen's went on exactly the same and very easily. The handling of both was wonderful, The birkin was a bit more "twitchy" but we suspect that it was the way the alignment was set up more than attributed to the suspension design. Both cars felt VERY solid. The Birkin's Zetec powerplant with it's nicely set up Fuel Injection had a bit more torque than the Caterhams (and those 4 horns and red throttle bodies were very cool looking!)...but both were excellent, and very liveable! We were impressed by just how QUIET,,shhh,,both cars were. Both cars were very liveable, and deffinitly something we will consider..we liked the traditional looks of aluminum and GRP more than the westfield all GRP body, and we like the idea of the traditional 4 cylinder and overall size, more than the stalker.. But thats just us..We also see that there is a IRS birkin made.. We can easily see ourselves quickly putting some miles on one of these cars. They are very much what we are looking to find. of course we would need to make the rear tire mount into a picnic basket mount,,,but hey. From our perception, we wouldnt throw either car out of bed for a little oil on the bedsheets. Thanks Again gary, we appreciate your time.

Thanks for letting me know.. We plan on looking at a Birkin in beach city for some more comparison and ideas. we are currently also putting together the 1275 for the sprite...hope to get it done by the end of november..gotta get the healeys sold.

Would this be Craig Chima? what is LOG magazine?

As i am trying to understand it all.. theres the hardware..and the ecu-with it's software. there seems to be allot of ecu providers with diffrent software and tons of information on the ecu and software. But,,,it's the hardware that concerns me as well.. i would imagine if you dont have all the correct, or minimal pieces parts to hook up to...the ecu would have nothing to talk with and control. So without all the correct pieces to hook up to in the correct placement,,the ecu isnt going to do much good. actually..even though they are not as efficient.. i could always hook up a pretty set of webers jetted correctly... But i still need the correct sparky parts, and that seems to be a bit lacking info wise..

WOW..awesome site,,with great info and links..yeah it's all here. glad i got a new keg worth of great lakes ale...this is going to take some reading. thanks again everyone. no matter what i end up with, this has all been a treasure of information..

Being quiet niave..i am truly not sure of all i need. I am used to putting together vintage race cars with 50 year old technology. A simple SU or weber, and a dizzy distributor and it all works.. But the zetec can have either a weber carb OR better yet fuel injection..and something to make the spark plugs ..well..spark.. i guess i need to go back to cars 101.... :willy: But if i go to a junkyard and buy a zetec engine..it wont just run all by itself i know it will need fuel and spark. so i need more than just a control black box..i need all the fuel and sparky hardware as well.. So..it's as if someone would give you an engine with nothing on the outside of it... and i dont plan on sticking some 2" SU's on a zetec.. :_deadhorse: i will look through the site thus far.. this may take a few beers.:cheers:

sorry for my lack of knowlege...what is a r500?

Could someone point us in the correct direction? scenario: i have a t9 with custom bellhousing..i find a used zetec out of car "X".... I need to make the engine get gasoline and spark to run right? ok, who makes/ provides an engine management system for this setup? yes we realize caterham and other "7" kits might have their own that come with the kits or cars.. but is their someone out there who makes engine management sytems to make these ford engine-drivetrains work in kit cars? i have seen the quad4rods website..any other suggestions? we could fabricate any mounting we would need, thats not an issue. we have another opportunity knocking on our door and we would need this running drivetrain to become reality

Dear lotus owners.. i couldnt quiet find a little smiley icon to express my feelings but IF i had a choice at this point, i would probably own a new dare/ginetta g4 AND one of your awesome "modern" 7's as well...and STILL keep my bugeye sprite.. But...it's a budget thing!:willy: So the sprite must go.. and we are trying to rebody the old ginetta g4 we have. yeah..reality sucks.. and we suffer with the same ailment! ours is worse after adding in the sailboat.. We are self made broke.. :ack: for what it's worth though..we bid on the green zetec 7 on ebay

Mike and jen, thank you! We appreciate the time you spent with us, even to know how to correctly say "caterham" Your car is simply awesome, and we know we would want the zetec ford type drivetrain. We were impressed and Mary as well, enjoyed it more than she thought she would. The "ride" quality was allot better than anticipated, and it was much more solid than we expected as well. It is nice to see this level of enthusiasm and are glad to see you enjoy the car as much as you do. Since we plan on using whatever we end up with as much it was nice to talk to someone who uses their car instead of just looking at it in a garage. The caterham is a great option for us. we would have to buy some narrow shoes though! Roberty and Mary Kansa

Thank you, let us know when your back, and we will. Robert and Mary

Nelson's ledges..yes i know the course/track Thats the course where bob here took some of his first driving schools..in a pontiac fiero of all things. Yes we are familiar with the track, and yes i have a helmet.. brrr...cold time of the year though!! sounds fun, i might just take you up on that offer. Thanks for the info so far.. I work right in canton.. saw someone from the map in cleveland, with the zetec option we would consider.

Hello All, Robert and Mary kansa here from akron ohio. We are currently in the process of simplifying our stable, and are considering replacing a couple of our austin healeys with either a lotus 7 replica, or a dare ginetta g4. We currently also own a 1966 ginetta g4. We are looking to perhaps find someone local, to simply take a look at one of the lotus 7 replica's, see if it what we would consider investing effort-time and money into. They all look like great cars if proper attention is put into them. the Caterham. the westfield, the locost..etc. This is just to try and determin if a lotus 7 style is what would work best for us at all. We are ex-vintage racers, looking to get into something fast, light, fun, (sorta) easy to maintain. Something we can even take on a weekend trip, go on a road ralley or cruise in the summer a bit, and have fun at the local auto-x on occasion. The car would be a comprimise but we want something very usable and not something that's going to sit in the garage. We dont want to get into a miata, bmw m3, mr2, solctice etc...thats not us. anyone local would mind taking us for a drive?