pethier

I probably should look into headlights. My headlights are patterned for use in a country where they drive on the left side of the road.

I am lucky to have a computer-professional son-in-law who dabbles in 3D printing. He printed an ABS spacer for my steering-wheel release mechanism.

Seals for injectors are coming from Marren in Oxford CT. Turns out that Steve built his own Fuel Rail. He got Marren to make injectors. I phoned them Friday and they identified them as 24 lb/hr injectors they made. They are sending me seals and O-rings for far less than the Suzuki dealer charges for stock ones.

It's fine. Cut and print. Speaking of printing, I'm thinking of printing a cockamamie tattoo for the back of my hand and wearing it to the Lotus Owners Gathering this fall.

It's legible to me. Never gave it a second thought.

Ah! That makes sense in a certain twisted way.

I like it. Simple. Direct. Not favoring or dissing any particular brand of Sevenish cars. Has the complete-enough URL.

Because the source is wrong. Elans came two ways: Knock-ons: Not the splines that Rudge wheels used, but pin-drive, as you well know. I know that with steel wheels you can see the pins poking through. I am told that one must be careful when offering up an alloy wheel which has blind holes. If the wheel slips you can drive the pins through the hub. I don't know for sure if that is really a problem or just a thing Lotusphiles like to repeat. I do not know if the dimensions of the Elan pin-drive setup is the same that MG used on the MGA Twin Cam (and the pushrod-engined "Deluxe" cars they made to use up the parts when they stopped making the Twin Cam). Conventional wheel studs: Four stud-and-nut on a 3-3/4-inch circle. Same as Europa. The Lotus 47, which looks a lot like a Europa, had knock-on alloy wheels. When I had a Europa, I got four old Spitfire wheels from a guy in Minnesota Triumphs. I used them with crap tires to hold up the car in the garage over the winter. I drove the car on 13x6 BWA Sportstar wheels. I sold that car to a Triumph guy in Mahomet IL. One thing that attracted him was the wheels: He had had those on a GT6.

Lotus Europa. Triumph Spitfire. Triumph GT6. Triumph TR7. Triumph TR8. Lotus 7. Lotus Elan. Lotus Plus 2.

What, they don't have instructors at track events in England? Its not as if Richard Hammond can't afford to buy two sets of harnesses.

That still does not answer my question. Why two different harnesses on the same car purchased new?

Still don't know why the harnesses in the Caterham do not match.

I think the Yokohama A052 is the perfect tire for a Seven. My current Seven has the 6.5x15 Prisoner wheels. The stock tire size from Caterham is 195/50-15 and the Yokos come in that size. The A052 tires will stick from the jump at any temperature I plan to drive my Seven in. I think they are ideal for a Seven for both road and autocross. Now the Yokos are available in 185/55-14. I just advised a guy with a Honda Beat to ditch the Falkens that rub on his Beat and get the 185/55-14 Yokos. They will stick better, even if they are smaller and they will not rub on his car. He is in the same autocross class as I, but I have no interest in keeping him slower.

Pardon my ignorance, What is a Fidanza flywheel?

We installed the Accusump adaptor and filter after the engine was in-place. No tribble attall. I know how to do the aluminum. I also know that I won't be very good at it. I'm happy to let the guy who has been doing this kind of thing for decades do it. I did find him. He stopped by Chez Ethier today on his way to someplace else. We were not comfortable putting it in his open truck, so I will bring it to his shop south of The Cities.

Pix so far are at [flickr.com/photos/pethier/albums/72177720326088078] More is in the Flickr album than is in this build thread. Some photos there have roll-over notes.

The bracket I made for the air horns. I reused the mounting holes for the oil cooler. With modern oils for the Zetec and no plans for long racing or track sessions, an oil cooler does not seem appropriate. The filter mount will instead supply an Accusump. When I get around to it, I plan to replace the copper tubing with aluminum tubing.

The most important thing about full synthetic seems to be not what's in it, but what's NOT in it, especially for turbocharged vehicles.

John has the pressure tank in. I have decided that the air-horn pump has got to go. The horns are going to move forward. Electrons are faster than air, and I want as little delay as possible when I drop my right little finger on that toggle switch. I have asked John to move the horn pump to the bracket that has held up the now-redundant plastic coolant-overflow tank. I came home tonight and fabbed up what I hope to be the setup for the horns to live where the oil-cooler used to; forward of the radiator. Now is when the push-button replacements for the 4 nose-cone Dzus fasterners on which I worked so hard will pay off. I expect to have the nose cone off and on several times whilst I fit that assembly. Here's where the air pump is going, in place of the old plastic coolant overflow tank.

This detail from my LOG43 Concours panorama, compared to my hood-fitting picture IMG_8171, brings home how the Zetec engine sits farther back in the chassis than the 1700 Super Sprint engine did. Both the Weber 40DCOE and Hayabusa systems center on the intake ports. Yet the shifter seems to land in the same place as before. This might mean we will not have to modify the driveshaft.

We did a test fit with the hood. It won't go on like it used to. There is some parallax in this photo. We were sure the front and back of the hood were lined up with the nose cone and the scuttle respectively. The right side of the hood is stretched closer to the camera than the car body, held out by being blocked by an air horn. I'm fine with nibbling out the hole on the other side of the car for exhaust, but the opening in the hood is nicely rolled and I don't want to wreck it. By leaving the front part of the opening alone, and extending the opening rearward, we could get the symmetry back and assure a large opening to make it easier to remove and refit the hood. I need to come up with someone who works wonders with light aluminum.

It seemed sensible to refresh the Hayabusa injectors, so I took them to the Suzuki dealer in Cambridge, just 6 miles north of Brian's Isanti shop. Cambridge, settled by Yankees from New England, is the county seat of Isanti County.

New oil catch tank is planned to live in the location of its plastic predecessor.

I took it upon myself to make and install the covers for the holes left by the removal of the recirculating heater. John made a steel mount to match the contours of the Contour pressurized coolant expansion tank. Next to it is the pump for the air horns.