supersportsp

That is an interesting question. Caterham does (or at least did) own the rights to the Seven name. I assume they would be none too pleased with this development. Something like the 340R was close in concept, but definitely different enough in execution for Caterham to not get impacted.

I have been lucky to get to drive a fairly large quantity of high end sports cars with high end names that can attract a lot of attention. But, nothing I have driven has attracted this much POSITIVE attention. People love them, and little kids go wild for my car (probably due to its scale friendliness). There never seems to be the negative Ferrari envy glances or the another Porsche jackass eye rolls when out cruising around in the car. Just lots of smiles, waves and thumbs up gestures.

There is nothing Caterham about this car. Body, suspension, etc.

Are you planning on wearing a helmet on the street? If not, a full cage will certainly not be friendly to you in even a minor incident. Soft head hitting hard cage equals bad things...

rnr, What you using for the data and display on the in-car? That is pretty sweet.

If you already have a wheel tire set for the track, I wouldn't bother with an R compound tire. JohnCH has R compounds on his Westfield and has told me of cooler days when he has trouble getting heat into the tires on the street. The RA1 is a great and grippy tire, but it is an R compound. I have the Toyo T1R which were selected after many hours of research about weight and grip. I too am getting a track wheel/tire set-up, so I selected these for maximum street enjoyment. Until I had them on the track a few weeks ago, I had put about 900 miles on them and they still looked like they just popped out of the mold. 1500 lbs cars don't wear down tires very quickly. I have been quite happy with them on the street, but the track day left me wanting more ultimate grip.

Exactly. I had the pile-ups on my car when i bought the car and they were bad. Grip isn't just for performance, it is also for safety. You will be able to stop many yards shorter with a grippy pair of summer tires vs some all season's. If you aren't planning on using the car in cold conditions, I don't see any reason for not using a summer tire.

I agree with Kitcat. I don't think you need R compound tires for street use, but I certainly would prefer something with some more grip than an all season. I put Toyo T1Rs on my car because they were the stickiest and lightest tires I could find relative to Avon CR500's. They are quite a bit lighter (well over a pound per corner) than any of the R compound rubber I looked at, but pretty aggressive in the grip department.

I have heard similar recounts actually. When Dennis Palatov was building his Atom with the Hartley H1 V8, he spent a good chunk of time fiddling with the suspension. Not only did he create his own uprights for the car to address that weakness, but he also 'corrected' the suspension from being regressive to progressive. Info is here in several of the posts. http://www.dpcars.net/atom/am.htm It would be interesting to take an Atom chassis and have someone like Lotus re-engineer the suspension. Maybe even one of the smaller race car manufacturers like Reynard/Lola. I think there is a lot of potential for improvement. I am shocked at how much smaller your Caterham looks relative to the Atoms. I was chalking it up to a wide angle lens. Is that not the case?

Weight distribution doesn't tell you where the engine is located though. You could make a 911 50/50 if you wanted. Plenty of front engine cars have achieved 50/50 weight balance. The Atom has all of its engine in front of the rear wheels. I think the headers are about the only thing that would break the vertical plane of the rear axles.

So, here is a question sparked by MoPho's response. I have never thought of an Atom as being rear engined like a 911. To me, it is a mid-engine car, with the engine being in front of the rear wheels. But, it is very close to the rear wheels compared to say a traditional 'supercar' that we think of as mid-engined like an F430. Rear-engined cars to me are things like bugs, 911s, Corvairs, Hillman Imps etc. Many of the newer front-engined cars of high performance varieties have taken to calling themselves front-mid-engined. Cars like the 599 GTB etc, where the front mounted motor is clearly behind the front wheels.

This is what I was thinking as well. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but my car was also biased towards the rear without me in it. Add in my 200 lbs and I am adding over 14% of the cars weight to right in front of the rear axle. The other thing to consider is high speed stability. I am not familiar with any standard Se7en design that doesn't have lift on the front of the car. Moving more weight to the rear is only going to make the car even lighter on the front end at higher speeds. Not exactly a desirable trait on these cars.

Right John is. I just dug up my FW400 brochure I got when they were new. It uses a Hewland LD200 5-speed unit. I even have the gear ratios if anyone is interested. http://www.jandjracingltd.com/images/Hewland/LD200PartsLocator/LD200Pic.jpg

I guess my first question would be why? One of the primary reasons a transaxle is utilized is to help with weight distribution and a car where much of the weight would otherwise be up front. In a Se7en, your butt is weight distribution as you sit right in front of the rear axle. So, you are adding more weight to the rear of the car which, judging by your weight is not needed. I would think packaging would also be a challenge as you would need to totally re-engineer any current Se7en based frame in order to do this or to start from scratch.

Interested in the AVO's and maybe one or more sets of the springs. I sent you a PM.

8500 rpm is max power, red line is not quoted. My Ducati 900 SS/SP made max power about 7500. That was a 2 valve air cooled motor though. It could rev higher, you just didn't need to. Torque is why I think this motor would be interesting, in that it actually has some. Plus, being an inline six it should be smooth as silk (and sound great).

Any time I am in the car for more than running some errands around town, I put in ear plugs. Sitting about three feet from the exhaust outlet is not good for long-term hearing health

Flat plane crank. How about an inline six out of the upcoming BMW K1600 bikes? http://www.motorcycle.com/manufacturer/bmw/bmw-unveils-new-6cylinder-k1600gt-and-gtl-89729.html "160 horsepower at approximately 7500 rpm with a maximum torque rating of 129 ft-lbs reached at 5000 rpm. Impressively, BMW claims 70% of maximum torque is available at just 1500 rpm."

If I was going to have 100 more of anything, it would be 100 lbs of downforce (instead of lift) on the front end at speed. And I would rather have too much road holding and brakes...

I talked with Ben at Caterham USA about this subject for a while yesterday. Ben is mentioned in the article that was posted back a few pages as part of the Caterham team at a wind tunnel trying to make improvements. The biggest positive change Ben said they were able to make was getting the floor as sealed up as possible, with getting some sort of chin spoiler and something to seal up the area under the engine as the biggest game changers. The best cycle fenders were the CSR style which they added some louvers to on the back surface which helped things quite a bit. These all helped either significantly reduce lift or add a little downforce without increasing drag. Ben said he spent a good deal of time trying to do something about rear wings area, but nothing really worked to deal with the stalled out air behind the car. Donkervoort has probably been doing the most with aero improvements of any of the Se7en producers. For example, the D8 GT. http://www.donkervoort.nl/images/cars/D8GT/1.jpg http://www.donkervoort.nl/cars/d8gt.htm

You might want to check out Inteface Flor as an option. Carpet tiles with a rubber base that would likely stick fairly well to the aluminum. You can cut to fit very easily. http://www.interfaceflor.com/

550 hp in a Se7en is absurd. I can have trouble getting on the gas out of turn with 175 hp.

I have seen this car before. Surprising they went through so much effort to make it aero yet left the barn wall-like stock windshield in place.

I was just going to post this here. Seems to be a fair price, since this is asking and you could probably get it for less. Looks to be well sorted and taken care of.

A kart track you say? That is what I said as well. But, then I read about it and saw some images and it sounded like the perfect place for my first track outing in the car. .82 miles long, 30 ft. wide, 800' front straight and $75 for three hours of running...