pethier

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.

Moved my big-block 496cid Suburban on to my older daughter and bought a Ford F-150 3.5L twin-turbo. Tows my enclosed trailer effortlessly and get 20 MPG whilst deadheading.

Four years old sounds to me OK for the road. I have run Yokohama A052 tires on both Elise and Seven for both street and autocross. For *light* sports cars, I can't think of a better tire. I did NOT put the Yokos on my Cayman because it is a porker at just over 3000 pounds and has McPherson struts all around. I burned up a set of Bridgestone RE71RS tires on that lump in two years, and have a fresh set of the same tires in my shop ready to bolt onto the Cayman for use until I get my Seven back from its engine swap. I'm taking the Cayman to the Porsche Parade in OK and considering driving it there on the Bridgestones.

I think the guy who originally bought my car liked the Prisoner Special Edition, but also liked the Cosworth RS, so ordered it painted Ford Moonstone Blue, which I kept on the aluminum parts. So is it possible the LSD on my car is a Cosworth RS unit? So your Seven originally had a Sierra LSD diff. Why did you make the changes? Increased horsepower over time? Unlikely I will build power past 200 on the Zetec/T9 combo I got from Steve's Birkin.

Graham, Did the Sierra cars in England come with LSD? I have been told that the diff in my de Dion 1700 Super Sprint is from a Ford Sierra. If I remember, I can shoot pix on Sunday. I was told that the car came from Caterham to a UK buyer as a Complete Kit. I was also told my car has a plate-type LSD, which seems to be true. I was wondering if Caterham: bought both open and LSD diffs from Ford or Ford's supplier? or bought Sierra open diffs and Caterham themselves installed LSD units for buyers who had checked that option? Let me know if this needs its own thread. I tend to cause thread-drift...

Duane Johnson, the one who built a single-seater out of SAAB parts, had a VW gas heater in his Datsun 1600 roadster.

No choice on that in Minnesota. Studded tires are illegal for road use.

Just curious: Why is there a wheel cover sitting on the engine?

Check the Cam Angle Sensor. It is at the back of the left camshaft. If it leaks oil, it is a cheap fix. A simple trick when buying used Miata cars is to check this and when you have oil on your fingers, make face and offer a lowball price. See my pix on Flickr. Important step: Scribe the housing before you move anything. https://www.flickr.com/photos/pethier/albums/72157594256422537 These pictures have over 10,000 views and folks are still looking at them today. One other thing that likes to go wrong is the clutch slave cylinder. Easy replacement. Hint: Even though there is a bleeder, you don't need to bleed it. Just sit in the driver seat and keep pumping the clutch pedal like a mad fool and it will eventually bleed itself.

15 in a day would be very-light. People who were not trying to get a lot of runs would get that. When my club runs a practice day we run cars for 6 hours. Entrants under 70 years old are required to work for two one-hours shifts. Entrants 70 and older are not required to work shifts. There are no run groups. There are no classes. There are no breaks for changeovers; cars run continuously. Usually we are at a community college with a police/trucking training area. At that site we run two courses. In the morning you sign up for two shifts, perhaps 11 to noon and 2 to 3, for a particular station. You are expected to be on-time. Some jobs need doing outside the running hours and signing up for one of those can count for one of your two hours. You can skip out on work altogether if you bring with you a qualified non-entrant to work your shifts. And of course if you have been on this planet for 7 decades you need not work at all. During your non-work shifts you can do whatever you want (well, you can't drink alcohol). Drive your car. Drive the three cars you arranged to have onsite. Drive someone else's car with their permission. Go into town and get lunch. Ride in a car. (You don't have to be an entrant to ride. Anyone 18 or over, or 16 and over with a permission form signed by a parent/guardian can ride in cars and/or work the course.) At these two-course events, you just get in line to run either course you like. When you complete the course you can look at your time on the display box and get in line for either course you like or drive back to the paddock. If something happens that would normally trigger a rerun, we don't care. You will get lots of runs and there is no need to keep track of how many you get. Workers don't call in cone hits. The radios are for safety issues. If a driver goes 4 wheels off the pavement, that is called in and the driver gets a warning from an official. If it happens again, they are passenger-only for the rest of the day and they still must work their shifts. Timers are set up on each course. If one of the timers gets out of sync, we don't stop running. Somebody will fix it. Meantime, you get to choose whether it is worth it to you to wait in a longer line to see a working clock. The temporarily clock-less course will likely have no waiting at all. Our next practice event will be at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. I expect we will have one course. I believe we will still be able to autocross our brains out. I know that when I was at a one-course event like this at Miller Park I got all the runs I needed and also rode in my Elise while national-champion Adam Barber drove.

The real payoff is finding an autocross practice day. Like how does 50 runs sound?

I'm an autocross instructor. When I got the 1979 1600 I took it to an autocross with the Dunlops. I grabbed my buddy Dave out of the instructor pool to give me some serious instruction. Fat chance. He laughed hysterically throughout the run and thanked me for the entertainment. It was LOT of fun, but the clock was not impressed.

That tire on the green Caterham wheel is a Dunlop. They were hard as rocks. I bought 7 x 15 Panasport wheels for autocross. The Panasports didn't make it to the present owner of the car.

I'm with you there. Back when I had my Europa, I tacked together an exhaust system, then unbolted it and brought it to a shop. The owner there would have one of his guys weld small jobs for me if I would bring pop for his crew. I actually gave away my welder to a great guy in my autocross club.