Croc

There are two directions you can move to solve this - down or forward. I second the Tom's bead seat idea - that can get you an inch lower. Also moving to a tillet shell would get you lower. Lowered floors also takes 1-1.5 inches out. I am sure you have tried moving forward a notch so the forward option really does not work. I am 5'11 and tried the half head rest on standard seats in an S3 with FIA cage in November in the UK and found it was ok for me with helmet on. However I am a notch forward on the seats than your position from looking at the photos. I also tried a regular seat head rest and that was a no go with helmet as you discovered. Two other options: 1) Caterham used to sell a head rest/padded cradle that mounted directly to the roll bar not to the seat. I used to use one on my first Seven in vintage racing. I cannot see it online but it probably still exists 2) Caterham also sell FIA bar padding https://www.caterhamparts.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=3737&osCsid=e184e6aa1ad5ada016bd9ed5fa7b1c54

LOL - I actually took the mirrors and the washers and allen key to London with me a month or two back so I could find time at night to put the washers in. Then I discovered in a hotel room at midnight that some muppet before me had loctited the grub screw in there. Various experiments with heat treatment at home have failed to break it so far...

Excellent news - another Seven in the NY/Philly corridor that can come out and play! Definitely should come along to the Bruce Bowker Annual Milford Sevens Run in June/July.

Mike - I have a bagful of the pieces from Xflow7's excellent idea because I think you had to buy like 25 a go from McMaster Carr. Do you want me to pop some in an envelope and send them out to you? PM me your address and I will do it this weekend. Tom - Do you want the same washers/etc in the mail for the Spa mirrors? PM your address to me and I will make it happen. ... Or are you just angling for the carbon center mirror from my new aeroscreen kit? As you can see from my avatar Christmas came early and the box accidentally got opened ....I just could not resist!

Ooooh! Nice! Engine specs sound excellent. Did you spec it with the Birkin IRS?

Damn that looks nice. Its better than my commute in NYC suburbia. Is there a jealous smilie?

Have you thought about putting the wife outside for winter? She definitely would not smell any fumes then... :leaving:

Yep I heard that when I was at Caterham UK in November. They were pretty excited about having 6 kits go out at once.

I think they have made all episodes of the first series of Top Gear USA and no Caterham was in it (based on me being curious and researching on the internet). For the second series maybe? The problem with giving it to a car show like Top Gear is whether you (Caterham USA) would trust them to give you a fair review? Westfield UK did this on a UK TV show just recently and it was a major black eye to Westfield from a biased reviewer and a poorly prepped car as read on the Westfield Sports Car Club forum postings. Top Gear UK did a similar job on Lancia Stratos kits once.

That has to be the quickest 3 way sale set-up that I have seen on this forum. Jack even has the transmission out of the car waiting for Karl to decide to sell!

For those like me that thought Sea Foam was a decorating term in house paint, here is a link to their website and where you can buy their products from: http://www.seafoamsales.com/where-can-i-buy-sea-foam-products.html

Thank you - This is a very timely and useful post. I had heard ethanol was bad for engines and had always used the premium gas option to try an minimize the ethanol in the gas I was purchasing. Like MisterMike, I travel frequently and for extended periods and I had always figured adding Stabil was the solution for this and the winter lay up. While it is annoying to find out I am likely being ripped off for paying for premium gas I would rather know so I can find a new way to protect the car. My question goes back to your original post - what is Seafoam additive? I have never heard of it.

She looks really nicely done! You deserve credit for braving this cold weather in a Seven. I dont think I could have done it. Looking at the pictures with the top up on the car reminds me of that hilarious episode at Carlisle earlier this year of a few Seveners trying and sort of failing to get the top assembled on your old blue Rotus. From the looks of it, KillerBee's top is not much easier to handle. How is your back from climbing into the car with the top up?

The following gives another idea for aerodynamic tinkering - the front wings. Extracted from this article: http://www.insideline.com/caterham/csr/2005/european-first-drive-2005-caterham-csr.html Then again you may not want to go away from the clams - I do like that look and can understand some people preferring them.

Diffusers seem to be readily available for Sevens in the UK. Here is Fluke motorsports offerring: http://www.fluke-motorsport.co.uk/newImages/182_2.jpg http://www.fluke-motorsport.co.uk/carbon-fibre-multiplane-contoured-diffuser-p-182.html Fluke claims the following: I thought it was interesting that the diffuser has been mounted rearward to effectively lengthen the car for aerodynamic purposes. They also offer undertrays to fill in the open space: http://www.fluke-motorsport.co.uk/carbon-fibre-undertray-suitable-for-caterhams-p-179.html This is the claim, however I am not aware of any technical study that backs this up. Fluke does actively race so there may be some experience they have that justifies their product offerring. The only publicly available study about the aerodynamics of Sevens was the Caterham study when they were developing the CSR. There were 3 key modifications made to reduce lift: - winglets on the side of the nose - venting the airflow from the radiator up through the nose - moving the suspension inboard. This was posted somewhere on USA7s in the past and probably could be found by search.

I am in awe...given it is like dog years, that mileage in a Seven is extraordinary. As for the chip seal, I remember that road "surfacing" growing up in Australia. It was like having a gravel road for months until all the chips had worn away. Noisy stuff too.

Kiwi - Did I miss something but I thought you had a repaint recently to that really nice deep blue/purple?

That looks quite a neat solution. Clearly you spent a lot of time testing this - the end result was not one I would have intuited as the best but it must work best as shown by your datalogging results. How significant were the differences to the other CAI alternatives you experimented with - significant or minimal? Also what were you using for datalogging?

I settled on the Duratec Cosworth 260 with the Caterham 6 speed box. However I have the Cosworth Duratec catalog of goodies that you can buy to take that further: http://www.coordsport.com/attachments/cosworth-duratec-catalogue.pdf and so I am still dreaming as to what else I could do.... My common sense and budget have disappeared so I am easily swayed by wicked suggestions for upgrades. Sensible decision to do upgrade-itis first - that is my plan too - stops any further temptation and may actually be cheaper in the long run (so I falsely tell myself). As your car is an S3 chassis it is more worthy of being called an Executive Superlight. A CSR is an SV sumo chassis so I settled on Superfat to distinguish it from your lithe and svelte creation.

You call your car "Killerbee"? I love it! I run some Sumitomo sport tires at 18psi all round when I am in the car solo. If I have a passenger I bump the rears only up to 24psi otherwise the rear tends to be too firmly planted and I understeer badly. I would have thought a Rotus was lighter than 1500 pounds? Maybe more like 1300 pounds?

It will start as a CSR Superlight. Given the shocking weather in NYC today (sleet) and drinking the better part of a bottle of red wine I seem to have accidentally on purpose ticked every possible option box on top of that as I work to get a final parts/goodies list together for final factory order on Monday. It will even have self-cancelling indicators! So it will probably end up as a CSR Superfat.

My plan for winter is to build a new Se7en so I have no upgrades as such. However, I would like to shamelessly steal ideas from others here as I ponder the very long option list and try to work out what I want.... . On second thoughts why don't I just tick everything on the option list Clearly no Californian or Florida resident needs to chime in here - they have no winter that the rest of us have to deal with! I am just a jealous north easter...

I second Dean's LEO suggestion. I try to make all of the LEO events and usually drag a few other Sevens along. I have always had a great time with them and they are very welcoming of Sevens and car enthusiasts of all types - even porsche owners. Atwell Haines is a great guy and works hard to promote LEO.

Brilliant!:rofl:

Welcome to USA7s. These are the blogs I found useful as I went through the thought process a few years back and more recently as I was day dreaming: http://home.btconnect.com/gwiddicombe/kitcar/build.shtml http://www.biggles.net/build.html http://howardwright.typepad.com/howards_seven/ http://my.voyager.net/~quadrant19/ I am sure there are others but these were more comprehensive than most. I am not sure where you are located in the US but this may have a bearing on which direction you want to go because registration realities tend to intrude at the worst possible time. Ask plenty of questions here and use the search function as there is a lot of knowledge and experience on this site to tap into. Cheers