Croc

Car is owned by Jeff who is a member on this forum. Relocated to the NYC area recently. Jeff was running with Tom, MichaelD and I on the Sunday session before our July track days on the Mon/Tues with SCDA. I also featured it in the videos I put together. You would like him Mike - he is fast! :rofl:

I like the concept of a small v8 in a light car however, the styling does me in. My preference was always the Sunbeam Tiger. Same concept just a better resolved styling treatment. Or even better a TR5 with an engine transplant. I suspect I would be massively disappointed in the handling and brakes today though

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/CSR/NJMP%2006252012/DSC_3805_edited-1.jpg http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/CSR/NJMP%2006252012/DSC_3806_edited-1.jpg http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/CSR/NJMP%2006252012/DSC_3807_edited-1.jpg http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/CSR/NJMP%2006252012/DSC_3814_edited-1.jpg

Taken at NJMP Lightning yesterday - nothing special just a track day. Definitely not Mopho quality but some here may enjoy them. http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/CSR/NJMP%2006252012/DSC_3779_edited-1.jpg http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/CSR/NJMP%2006252012/DSC_3795_edited-1.jpg http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/CSR/NJMP%2006252012/DSC_3798_edited-1.jpg http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a354/mjohnson555/seats/CSR/NJMP%2006252012/DSC_3801_edited-1.jpg

Mondo - My thoughts and wishes are with you at this rough time.

I have not got one for sale but I bought mine on Ebay UK through a seller "Barbarav1959" Fits well, delivered promptly and she was making other seven goodies including a roll bar mesh screen wind blocker. Softbits produced theirs later but it looks to be thicker nylon than what i have. If no one comes up with a solution then ordering through Softbits from the US works well - call them by phone rather than using the website (most important).

Thaanks for the photos Kiwi. I loved seeing the "P" plate on the seven! Do you get P plates too when you register your car and transfer your license? I just cannot imagine you getting slapped with the teenager night curfew rule. Also Surfers Paradise has changed a LOT since I was last there. My parents used to do the drive from Sydney with my sister and I as kids to Surfers for the summer vacation on the beach. Good stuff to see. Where did you end up in Brisbane?

Legal or not, I just do it myself in NJ and tell the guys that it is such a pain to fill that they may want to leave me to it otherwise they will get other customers yelling at them. Most are smart enough to realize that I am trying to help them out and they give way gracefully. Only once have I had a problem attendant and even then he learned pretty quickly that there is an art to doing it.....so he ended up giving it over to me and sulked off to his little hut.

She goes nice!!! :cooldude: I like that! By the second video you were dialed in well. I could see the impact of older tires with the front not wanting to turn in to apex at times and the rear sometimes getting twitchy but very nice. Great circuit too. More of a hp circuit which should disadvantage you on higher traffic days.

There are a few threads on blatchat where other people have the same issue - it is not unique to a CSR since the seats and their tracks are the same. The most common and cheapest UK solution is 1) as you point out followed by 2). I would not bother with 3) as it costs a lot and has the same effect as 1) and 2). If you do follow 2) make sure you put little grommets in to stop water splashing through on puddles.

I give Mazda 2 months before he has disassembled it in bits as a "next project"! :toetap05: :jester: Good to see you here - hope you are doing well Mazda?

Hi Klasik Its not Traqmate. At the time of purchase I looked at it and thought it was too expensive, the integrated camera option was not HD (I think it is now?) and it required fixed installation to a car. I wanted something flexible, accurate and could handle good quality video. So I looked at bike lap timers and now use this: http://racechronosystems.com/index.shtml Its dead easy to set and use. No driving around the circuit or playing with software to get a circuit to record. Easy to use with the touchscreen. With the included GPS logger, I bluetooth the logger and the touchscreen together and put the touchscreen in a fixed pocket on the car interior. There is a live timer screen but I do use it. I could always mount it on the dash if I want - suction mount, screws or superstrong velcro. It is very easy to switch around between cars. The GPS logger matchbox sized thing is mounted on the transmission tunnel with velcro. It can last an entire weekend before needing to recharge. Touchscreen unit batteries last all day without needing recharge. I export the data in a separate CSV spreadsheet for each individual session and import it and the GoPro video for the same session into RaceRender. I can have 4 videos and data and a separate audio track for synchronization - surprisingly easy to do once you understand the process. http://www.racerender.com/RR2/Features.html Once I have merged the data then I edit if I need to otherwise I just study it myself to work out where I have gone wrong again. I can usually see the tach and I have speed on screen which is my biggest clue for whether I am faster or slower through a corner. I also have actual lap times and splits by sector but I do not show that on video. I have also tried out the QStarz LTQ6000 which does the same stuff but is not intuitive with all the buttons and needs software to set the start/finish line (because I am not allowed to stop the car there during a session!). Some people may find it clunky with having to merge things afterwards but 2xGoPro HD2 (front and the other moves around from rear view, cockpit, wishbone, bedroom, etc) and a touchscreen pro with the bluetooth GPS logger is still cheaper than the comparable Traqmate and I think it is easier to use, less hassle to install and just as useful. If money was not an issue I would look past the Traqmate and go for the VBox Lite unit once they have released the new HD camera option (maybe they have now?). This has superb analysis software - the best I have tried out there for looking at car data, circuit and camera simultaneously. The big bonus is all of the data and video footage is synchonized automatically. For cameras it really is a toss up. I am very sure it is not your driving. GoPro is more expensive but has more accessories. I use mine underwater, on the track, skydiving, on the road, dodgy third world country travel, and now in aircraft so I can add lens filters, various mounts, etc to get great results. If you are less interested in the accessories then I would go for a Drift HD as for the same price as a GoPro HD2 you get the included wifi remote, same quality picture, external mic option, waterproof, inbuilt LCD screen for aiming. On a GoPro the wifi remote and LCD screen are extra and mutually exclusive. The wifi on the Gopro also chews through batteries at a rapid rate - something that I have not seen the Drift Hd do. The GoPro is much better protected - I have put mine on the lower front wishbones for track work and the case has taken some big hits. To stabilize your video footage you need to have the right mount and video setting. Try your Gopro on the highest frames per second with the highest resolution you can get with that. On the HD2 I can get 1080 30fps but that gives me rolling shutter effect on a track car. So dropping the setting to 960 48fps or even 720 60fps makes a steadier image and not much drop in resolution quality. For mounts I would forget what comes with the kits and order up a nice manfrotto mount with a rotating ball head: http://www.sevenspeed.co.uk/products/manfrotto-super-clamp-with-ball-and-socket-head Solid as a rock, versatile, super quick and easy to put on and take off and cheaper than the Gopro mounts. B&H has them for sale here: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/546356-REG/Manfrotto_035RL_035RL_Super_Clamp_with.html and http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/687361-REG/Oben_BD_0_BD_0_TABLE_TOP_BALL.html I would recommend taping the surface to be clamped with painter tape/or a thin rubber liner (to protect the surface) and putting a safety tether on. 1000 miles is a haul whether you travel north or south. Sadly I do not own a trailer (or even a vehicle with a tow hitch) as I am one of these people in NYC who lives with no parking space - so I drive to the circuit, run and spin around and then drive home (although I will fix that problem next year). It would be a haul to drive to Florida for me in the seven. I will say it is awesome fun running around with other sevens - I am very lucky to have a good group of drivers local to me!

What's a couple of cubic inches between friends? :cheers: It is interesting that my engine was originally ordered through the Cosworth CEO by a personal friend. It had some special treatments that are not in the standard Caterham 260 spec engine because of its unusual purchase channel. No idea what that counts for but I happily made a mess of my shorts once I realized the car became available through CAT USA and I could afford to have a midlife crisis without a woman to eff it up. I think Karl may have had a similar indecent experience when getting his motor. One day I will get it dynoed but for now I am happy and secure in the knowledge that I can lap Tom in a 20 minute session and monster most other cars And Kitcat, as for your spurious :jester: hp claims I would point out: 1) the 135hp Crossflow was a flywheel advertising claim and not a rear wheel claim as you dynoed it for 95hp. Allowing for drivetrain loss the numbers look to be within a more reasonably tolerance. 2) Dyno or no dyno, a 210hp Birkin is no longer a 210hp Birkin when the owner detonates it and has to replace it with a something of dubious provenance pulled out of some random 'chick car' or a "mommyobile" that had been trashed in a supermarket fight over a parking space! :hat:

275FWHP for me and 195FWHP for Tom makes me 41% more than Tom. How do I know this so well? Tom beat me up and won a bar room argument on hp one day when I accused him being much closer to me in the hp stakes. While i do not have a dyno sheet, I do have a Cosworth letter certifying they dynoed at 275hp at their UK facility. No reason to sue them yet... More food for thought - I have the same gearbox and diff ratios as Tom. He would get to the same speeds I am doing if he had a longer straight. And Tom is 'lighter in his loafers' around a track... :jester:

Youtube will ask you if you want it to fix shaky videos during the upload process. Unfortunately I find it makes the video worse! NJMP has the two tracks - Thunderbolt and Lightning. http://www.njmp.com/facility/track-maps.html In the video, Tom was running the Lightning circuit which is shorter but really quite fun because of the flowing nature. Momentum driving styles work well here. The other track, Thunderbolt is far more technical but is an interesting challenge for a seven as the first half is open and fast but the second half tightens up tremendously. So the big hp cars get away quickly but you reel them back quickly later on as they lurch through the slow bits. Assuming no traffic issues - On Lightning the front straight sees me top out around 125mph if I get a clear run on a cool day and about 105mph on the back straight. Drop that around 10-13mph on a hot day. This is from GPS logging data I collect. Speedo for my car reads 10mph faster but we all know how accurate that is! Assuming no traffic issues - For Thunderbolt, the front straight is about 135mph on a cool day with a clear run and about 110mph on the back straight. Hot days drop you back 10-15mph. With a passenger on a hot day takes you down 15-20mph. Now those speeds are for my car which has a third more hp than Tom. I have GPS data on a November day showing Tom getting to around 121mph area on the front straight of Thunderbolt. He struggles to about 115mph on a hot day. If you want to get a sense of the laps with some data then try these videos: Lightning - Traffic is a problem up to about 3 minutes then it clears out and MichaelD (with the be-winged seven in front) and I start having decent runs. Thunderbolt - Data logged footage of me following Kitcat on a nice clean lap staring 0.30: Come and join us next June when we have the sevens event. We could do with some more sevens who like going fast!

The digital audio recorder has to be sync'ed with the video in a post production editing process. It does not hook into the Gopro. I do not mind this since I sync the data from the Racechrono Touchscreen to the video anyway. Given your techy prowess I would not recommend this option and would recommend that you stay with a GoPro external mic solution (or other camera with an external mic - lots of other cheap ones on the market now plus I very much like the Drift HD that Tom uses because of its standard remote).

Not quite Karl - it is normally the red seven that does that. :rofl: Tom is way too polite to beat you up! :seeya:

I think it is great to see a small manufacturer doing well in a difficult economic climate and still having the guts to get out there and improve his product with IRS, widebody, paddle shift, different styling options, etc. This can only help make the product better and more successful. :cooldude: However, I will not be impressed with anyone who orders the automatic option! Colin Chapman would be doing 12000rpm in his grave with the concept of an automatic 'seven' replica or otherwise. :svengo:(although being a business person I know it expands the population of potential customers since most new drivers have no idea what to do with their stick shift ).

I thought the sound from the unpowered mic was ok but that I could get better. I back to back tested the Olympus and the AT powered one with two cameras on a track session and flipped back and forth listing to work out which one was better. The powered mic won - it was appreciably better (to my ears) and at $19.95 was not too expensive. I have experimented with a more expensive AT899 mono lapalier mic proving you get what you pay for as it produced some very good results - louder, less distortion. Next step is to try out a digital audio recorder to see if that makes any difference. The following video (watch in HD) has some a variety of sound samples you may be interested in: start to 1.35 - AT-899 lapalier mic mounted next to where the heater box is on a Caterham. Volume is (not surprisingly) notably louder in raw audio state from this location with whatever mic you use - I did not alter it in post production as I could not work out how to! I did duplicate the mono single track into a second 'stereo' track in post production. If I did not then you would only hear audio from the right speaker. at 2.05 to 3.15 - Kitcat is using the ATR3350 mounted in the boot box of the Birkin under the rear tonneau. The Birkin has a plastic boot box and so resonates differently to the Caterham boot area example listed further below. Another example of Kitcat with this mic in same position is at 8.25 to 9.20. at 8.57 - Steve in the green and ali crossflow is using my camera with just the inbuilt mic as I did not have a spare external mic for him - my fault. This will show others just how bad it is - you already know!. 10.00 to 11.19 - ATR 899 mounted in my Caterham boot under the rear tonneau. To compare the ATR3350 in a Caterham boot box under the rear tonneau you can look at: My older video with the Olympus mic on a GoPro was taken offline (as it was such a bad editing job!) so I cannot compare that. However, I have a Vio POV camera using the Olympus ME-15 example mounted in the Caterham boot under the rear tonneau at: It produces more static/clipping and distortion as if it cannot handle the audio range. The louder volume comes solely from the Vio POV cam as it processes audio better than a GoPro. Using the ME-15 on a GoPro I find it has lower volume than the Vio POV. So to sum up - for spirited blats on roads I think the Olympus mic works perfectly well if you shield it from wind as you prove in your nicely "arty" example. If you want to use it on track then it I think it fails in the far more demanding audio environment. This is where a powered mic in a GoPro has the advantages. Even then with powered mics - you get what you pay for. For $20 I think the ATR-3350 offers a pretty good balance.

Hi Martin - The Drivers Club does not allow passing in the corners like that. I think the driver was having brain fade at that moment, amply illustrated by the rapid rotation 1 second later. It is important to remember that just because a car in front points you by, does not mean you have to take it as Tom wisely showed. Next time you are over here maybe the 'Sarah Palin Fan Club' :jester: and I can get you out to the track for a day?

That is heavier than I expected. Must be the full cage - probably 100lbs in its own right? Aero does make progress slower going once you get over 100mph.

Conclusions after much trial and error, experimentation and consultation: - best sound comes from a digital audio recorder sync'ed to the video in afterwards editing. At least thats what Gopro have partly admitted to in some of their promotional videos. However this is a complication you will not want so.... - Since that is a lot of faffing then for the external mic you want a powered mic. - put a piece of electrical tape over the internal mic hole or silicone it to stop wind noise. I was a believer in this even before MoPho independently reached the same conclusion from his experimentations. For a cheap powered mic buy an Audio Technica ATR 3350. It is a lapalier type so you can run it around the car looking for the best position. It is the one I was using on your car in June. If the cord is not long enough then you can buy 3.5mm extension leads to get the mic forward and under the bonnet. If you want to run it under the dash then you will need a dead cat wind cover for the mic since I find you still get wind noise there.

Oh come on Mike...you have two sevens and an upmarket Porsche SUV thingy...you can afford to buy a nice new HD Hero 2 with the external mic port! :seeya: Being serious...just a little bit....I think your built in mic in your current Gopro is broken. You can send it back to Gopro for repairs as an alternative. Tom was using his Drift HD camera.

I was disappointed, F355's do not make the same impressive dust clouds than F458's do! :jester:

I'll say it can go quickly wrong - I am still on September 2! How did you get to September 27 so quickly? :willy_nilly: Mr Ferrari should know better than to wave at his 'adoring fans' (aka waving you past) while cresting that turn and getting back on the power! Good to see you got the sound to work well - just need to find a less windy spot now. I would also recommend dialing back to 720 60fps and checking your camera mount is fixed down tightly - the rolling shutter/waviness was making me ill.