xflow7

Happy Holidays and New Year to everyone. Been really fun participating and seeing this community grow as well as meeting several of you at Lime Rock. Roll on 2008 and another year of blatting. :cheers:

According to here a couple of 13" sizes (185/60R13 and 205/60R13) of the Toyo R888 have finally made it to the US. Good news for anyone who's been dismayed at the relative lack of 13" sticky street tires availble here.

I'm not certain, but I believe this is a car I saw out in LA back in July while I was there for a wedding and there happened to be a car show in the parking lot (with 2 Sevens!). I recall it looking quite sharp. If it's the one I saw, it is a pity the owner has to sell it as I recall it took him something like 5 years to get it registered in CA after bringing it down from Canada (during which I am sure he never drove it on the road; even once )

Thanks for the suggestions. It was legal to drive to inspection in Ohio as well, but in NY it is explicitly not legal. Having said that, I did drive it to inspection last time. :leaving: My only hesitation with driving it again this time is weather/road salt related. The inner width of the tires was my biggest concern based on my recollections of the last time I looked at a U-Haul trailer. I will look into having it flat-bedded. I'll just have to do my best to put aside my bad memories of the last time I paid someone to transport my car. Oh, and not being able to figure out how to do a local car trailer rental sounds about right for U-Haul based on my past dealings with them. :banghead:

In the latest installment of my never-ending quest to get the NY DMV to once and for all accept my Seven, I am faced with having to take it in for VIN inspection (again!) on this Fri., the 21st. Given the weather, I fear I may have no real choice but to trailer it there; only problem being I don't have a trailer. An option I am considering is to attempt to use a UHaul car trailer, but they are obviously intended for considerably larger vehicles. So, has anyone attempted to use one in the past for a Caterham (non-SV)? I'm guessing I'd need to be creative to keep the break-over angle between ramps/bed sane, but am also curious about whether there are other trailer features that might snag sump, etc. Any insight? Thanks, Dave

Outstanding. And I can barely motivate myself to keep the Seven polished.

"Thank you for calling, Mr. Smith...Oh, I am sorry to hear your are experiencing problems. We will have a trained technician there on Monday between 1 and 5. Goodbye." :jester:

In addition, I can add the following: Coasted into driveway when voltage regulator gave up the ghost at the very end of a blat. (check) Spend an hour freaking out because the washer you've dropped near the Weber trumpets cannot be found and must have gone into the engine only to find upon a trip to the bathroom that it's managed to get stuck to the little magnet on your glasses for the sun-glasses insert. (check)

I was over in England this week for a couple of days and while riding in a cab in London somebody clipped our rear bumper trying to squeeze around in traffic. The driver in the other car looked over at us sheepishly then continued on. The best part is on the back of his car was emblazoned: "Learn to Drive" It was a driving instruction service! Our driver didn't even notice; I had to call up from the back "Hey, someone just hit your bumper." Trip was good, other than the fact that the weather was terrible so no Sevens spotted and no time to go visit the Caterham Mothership or any other sites (other than Stonehenge from the A303).

Peter and Valerie Wallage's book "Rebuilding and Tuning Ford's Kent Crossflow Engine" is a handy reference to keep around. It doesn't cover much beyond basic sorts of tuning, but has good information about things like differences between the uprated (711M) and earlier blocks. Another good source for parts/knowledge is Dave Bean Racing: http://www.davebean.com/ As previously mentioned, little oil leaks are pretty common. The sump gasket set is a royal PITA; if your sump doesn't leak then either the engine's run out of oil, or you've been blessed by a higher power and must swear a solemn oath never to forsake Him by removing the sump. Aside from that, they are great engines. Simple, robust, respectable (if not earth-shattering) power and the sounds and smells will make all the EFI Zetec guys jealous.

Another thing I noticed, at least among most of the early cars he passed is that he generally had a considerably earlier turn-in and made up gobs of time between turn in and apex. Car must have been set up really well to carry that much speed into the apex and still get rotated around to make the exit.

That was really well done. I loved: "Hey. Did you hear about Nancy Kerrigan?" :jester:

Some might say we already have that.

I wished I could have gotten out on Tuesday, but was way too busy at work this week. I did manage a nice blat up to Ithaca last Sunday, though. Beautiful and sunny out; just not particularly warm (low 40's). But bundled up and with side curtains, perfectly enjoyable. I did have the obligatory 15 minute delay at the gas station talking with an interested spectator. Drove into work one day the week before when it was ~28 when I left the house. No prob's staying mostly warm except for fingertips. Need to get some better gloves. Driving in the cold/winter really is fun; at least down to high 20's. The dense/dry air makes all the engine noises that much better and the waves, looks, etc. are always fun.

There's a useful list of many, many engine weights here: http://www.bacomatic.org/~dw/library/txt/engfyi.htm (believe it or not, this is not mine; different Dave Williams)

You gotta be kidding me. It kills me how f-ing talented some people are. :crazy:

With custom heat treat process

Nonsense. I experience it everytime my car hits a brick wall at 80mph.

It was originally Speedvision when it was founded back in ~1996, and it did have all kinds of cool off-the-wall stuff on. The Racing Network is actually the brainchild of Jim Liberatore who was head of Speed starting when Fox bought it in 2001 until 2005 or so when he was let go apparently because he wanted to reduce the amount of NASCAR programming and the brass wasn't having any of it. (memory refreshed by a visit to Wikipedia) He's apparently maintained that TRN would not be a Speedvision do-over, but I'm not sure if I've seen specifics about what he would do differently from a programming or business model. I agree with you that it will offer lots of worthwhile programming, and I hope it succeeds, but if I'm being honest, as much as I hate how NASCAR-centric Speed is, I wouldn't give it up for TRN and lose F1, etc. If they can get themselves carried alongside Speed, then great; I'm just skeptical as to whether that will happen.

The trouble I foresee for TRN is that I find it very unlikely that any major carriers are going to carry BOTH Speed and TRN (the execs won't see the value in licensing two dedicated motorsport channels). And as long as a significant number of F1, ALMS, CC races etc remain on Speed (and none of those are to the point in the US that they can be exclusively network-carried) I fear that most fans won't give up Speed to get TRN, even though they would like to have access to the niche motorsports available on TRN.

The one with the balloons? I agree. I was 96% with that one scored Incorrect.

1 Men's watch for me, please. :thumbs:

Great to hear Cameron is doing better. :thumbs: As for the cold air vent, just think of that as training for winter blatting.

Mazda, Very sorry to hear about this. It's frustrating when it feels like 3 steps forward, 2 steps back. Will be thinking of you and your family and hoping for a speedy recovery for you son. Dave

Technically. :jester: