pethier

I have a Birkin in Minnesota, and it's a storage problem because I just bought a CSR 260

OK. I will start that way.

Who is interested this tread concept? Or should I start individual topics for each question?

I just arrived back home in Minnesota after buying a CSR 260 in California and I have questions. Because the CSR 200 and CSR 260 are a bit different from other Caterham cars, I thought I would start this thread to attract input from USA7s members who own, or have knowledge about, these cars.

>a driver is a lot heavier than a 4 cylinder Ford engine Where does one find a sub-150-pound 4 cylinder Ford engine?

Well said. Trailer hitches are a hazard to pedestrian navigation in paddocks and car parks. Sidebar: I'm pretty sure my F-150 won't fit in my garage if the trailer hitch is installed.

i really don't have a lot of details. Steve wanted to make his Birkin an electric car. My only significant involvement in the project was to buy the gasoline stuff from the car. (in the process I found that it is possible to harm a Zetec engine from a Birkin in a Caterham in a way that was not possible when the engine was in the Birkin.) Steve's Birkin has a live axle, so one thing I can tell you is that Steve kept the driveshaft (propellor shaft, to our British friends) and has sited the electric motor in the front of the car. Steve has been working on this electric project for several years. The control system is highly-sophisticated. The object of the enterprise is autocross performance. Steve and fellow autocrosser Harold finally got the car to an autocross practice day just before I went to California. I have told Steve about USA7s. If he chooses to join us here you can ask him.

Just pulled this one out of my trailer fresh off the road from California.

I'm staying with this project.

Pictures today? Well, I'm still awake. I need to sell this one.

Caterham 1700 Super Sprint: The pushrod engine, cable-operated clutch, bellhousing, and Ford T9 5-speed has been removed. That drive package is slated to go in a USA7s member's Lotus 7. The Birkinazation process: Install drive package from a Birkin: Ford Zetec engine, larger clutch with hydraulic operation, alloy bellhousing, and Ford T-9 5-speed. Ford injection not used. Prior to my ownership, the Zetec ran side-draft Weber carbs, then Hayabusa injection. The Birkin that provided the driveline is now 100% electric.

I'm still planning to use four of the 8 x 15 wheels I have on my Birkinized Caterham. Doesn't sound improper to me.

Sounds good. A fabricator who will work with 3D objects like this is a rare find.

The lowered floors are a big plus for some folks. Definite minus (pun intended) for a man of my Chapmanesque stature

Does it shut off at a certain level?

I think I have found the trick to filling gasoline/petrol (hereafter "gas") into a Seven. It's not very useful on a cross-country trip, but if you are planning to drive your seven close to home (or close to your trailer), this could be the answer. The problems are: You can't tell how much gas is in the tank. The gas-station hose keeps shutting off, and you don't know which shutoff is the real one, so you get gas all over the back of your Seven and on your shoes. The gas station staff isn't all that happy, either. Get a couple of red plastic gas cans. The kind that do NOT have an air vent on a different location from the spout. The kind with a valve that is meant to be opened by allowing the weight of the can to open the valve when the little hook on the valve is allowed to press on the edge of fill port on lawnmower or the like. ( My lawnmower has a handy little shelf down inside the filler neck which allows the spout to go farther into the tank to reduce the gas from splashing out.) If the spout valve has a little nanny-lock that you need operate each time you want to open the valve, remove that with a pair of cutters. You need the valve to respond to your commands without interference. I picked five and two gallon sizes. Both can be filled at the gas station without a lot of drama. You can have multiple big cans in whatever size you can handle in their vertical-valve orientation. You really only need one small can. You want a small size that you can easily handle with the valve/spout in a horizontal orientation. Two gallons worked for me. Add a piece of hose to the spout. Make sure it has a good seal to the spout. The idea is to have the length from the valve-actuation to the end of the hose long enough so that when the valve is operated the end of the hose is all the way into the Seven's gas tank. Pick up the small can. Shove the hose into the car. This is not easy, as the hose wants to hang up on this and that. I have experimented with tapering the leading edge of the hose. Engage the hook on the edge of the car's gas port and push the tank forward to open the valve. The gas will glug into the tank. Periodically, the gas flow will glug to a halt as air from the tank backfills up the spout. If the can empties completely, raise the can and drain the hose into the car. Put the little can on the ground and refill it from the big can just as if it were a big lawnmower tank. Repeat the procedure. When the gas in the tank rises to the end of the hose, air can't get into the hose and gas stops flowing from the can. I'm calling this "vapor lock" whether that is the correct term or not. Let up the pressure on the can to close the valve. Withdraw the hose a few inches and raise the can so the gas in the hose drains into the car. Lower the can and carefully withdraw the now-dry hose from the car. The tricky part is knowing how long to make the hose. If you make the hose too long, you won't fill much of your tank. If you make the hose too short, you will have a gas mess again. Ideally, the vapor lock will occur when the tank is almost-full, but not yet into the car's large filler hose. I tried this method at home and at an autocross practice day and it seems to work. I still have not determined the ideal hose length, so I am erring on the side of "too long" instead of "gas-soaked Seven". You could do this at the gas station with just the little can, but you might not feel comfortable carrying a partly-full gas can in your Seven. (It is difficult to see the hose on one of the little cans in the truck photo.)

I wondered why Steve left the practice day before the 4:00 shutdown. People told me the Electro-Birkin had shut down midrun. I didn't notice at the time. Apparently several folks pushed the car onto Steve's trailer and he took it home. I saw Harold at the autocross this morning. Not wishing put him on the spot, I tried to ask a general question: ===== What's the status of the Electro-Birkin? "I wanted to go home and spend some time with my wife and family." A laudable action. How about the Electro-Birkin? "A problem with the proximity circuit." What kind of problem? "I had the sensor in my pocket." ===== Yes. It seems that as soon as Harold drove away, the car decided that the driver was out of range and shut down.

A few folks have asked me if the Birkin that gave it's gasoline guts for my Caterham has progressed on its electric journey. Steve made it to part of the MAC autocross practice day. Since he lives near the site and I heard he and co-conspiriter Harold were tying up some loose ends to get it to the event, I motored over there in the Caterham. I got a shot of it on the trailer. I didn't shoot it at the event, but I'm here to tell you Steve and some other folks got it around the course in a respectable time. I don't know how old those Avon hillclimb tires are...

Minnesota is a two-plate state, but Collector Class (20 years old) cars, AND cars old enough to eligible for Collector Class even if not registered that way, only need to display a rear plate. I may get away with not having a rear plate light on the Birken. Or do what I did with a former trailer; install the plate using mounting bolts incorporating directional LEDs. I think I even saw an MK Car so-equipped in one of their promo pix.

As long as a cop does not see you. /s

Those tires seem to have an aspect ratio from another era.

OK. The remanufactured starters I have work perfectly in the Birkinized Caterham. On the Birkin, they fit, they spin, but apparently do not engage the flywheel.

The center plaque is for finishing second out of the 8 entrants in Super Stock at the Glen Region Sports Car Club of America Solo event. The Elmira College Domes are the buildings on the grounds of an athletic facility near the town of Horseheads New York. Glen Region honored the presence of the Lotus Owners Gathering competitors in the naming of the autocross: Hethel, Norwich, Norfolk, England is the town where Lotus cars are made. Glen Region autocross results: <a href="http://www.glen-scca.org/Solo/2013/Results20130804.asp" rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.glen-scca.org/Solo/2013/Results20130804.asp</a> PAX results: <a href="http://www.glen-scca.org/Solo/2013/PAX20130804.asp" rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.glen-scca.org/Solo/2013/PAX20130804.asp</a> The mug and the hat combined are the trophy for finishing second in class in the LOG33 scoring for the autocross. The mugs were also used for the Concours, so the other side of the mug says "MY LOTUS IS PRETTIER THAN YOURS". Not really the case for me. I had not talked with Doc Bundy since the race in the streets of Minneapolis I covered some years back. I don't ask people for autographs, but someone (Brian V?) asked Doc to sign his hat and I figured "why not". I had the third-fastest time of the 60 cars entered. (I really don't count shifter-karts as cars.) an SM BMW snuck in-between Rob and me in our stock Elise cars. In the LOG33 results, Rob had FTD and I was second. Rob and Eric had brought both cars to LOG33. For the autocross, Rob drove the Elise. Eric drove the Lotus Cortina. Rob and Eric were in different classes in both the SCCA classing and the LOG classing. Someone at the event told me that Eric B and his wife are past Canadian Autoslalom Champions. Rob riding shotgun with Eric at that 2013 event: The Lotus Cortina was not set up for autocrossing. Beautiful historic car. Of course, Rob beat me again at LOG39 in 2019. Rob had designed the course on a smallish parking lot at Thompson Speedway (site of the first-ever SCCA driving event). The course looked like a Japanese gymkhana. At least I got to join the general laughter when Rob got lost while trying to show us that it was easy to follow.

Here is the car at the LOG39 track day. Do not know which of them is at the wheel. I met Rob at LOG33. More on that in the next post.

Does the green Elise belong to a guy named Rob? Nice double rainbow.