jimrankin

Tried to make a short video and post it on UTube but think I may have screwed it up. Anyway, it showed a link but I'm not sure how to put it on as that. So, here it what it showed to watch it. https:/youtu.be/WiJLZvmCwVk Any digital children out there who can help a hopeless analog man. Where the hell did I put that old super 8 camera?

I was up at Thunder Hill yesterday and another driver mentioned he had a V8 Miata coming soon. That should be a real eye opener for some of the Corvette and Porsche drivers LOL.

The old volkswagon "hourglass" motor mounts are really strong and small. I have been using one to support the muffler/catalytic converter on my S2K for several years. Male threaded post out each end so super easy to fit. There were used as mast base "universals" on some of my early sailboard rigs and never had one fail and that's saying something for the rough SF bay high wind rides it had to handle. I'll see if I can find a picture.

It was smoky all over the bay area when I left on Monday afternoon and I've been up by Thunderhill (Willows) and Oroville, about 140 miles north and you can still smell smoke if the winds right. Been above 100 since I got here and it feels like there is literally no moisture in the air. Had a sandwich for lunch and if you don't eat fast it goes from bread to toast in your hand LOL. If you saw my post in off topic about the drought with pictures of what was Lake McClure you will have an idea of the water (and fire) situation.

Please!! Someone in Northern California buy this before he puts it out on the regular car sites and it gets taken to some godforsaken flatland or snow encrusted state (really sorry if your in a flatland or snow encrusted state but this is "Gods Country" for 7's with major racetracks and autocross in every direction and costal mountain back roads if you know where to look) Besides, I'm fearing the loss of another competitive car I can judge my own driving by, selfish b-----d that I am. :driving:

Hope you had a great time and received a lot of attention with your 7. Used to go up when it was smaller (and I was younger) and there were a lot more hand built rods and vintage muscle cars. Got to be a really big event and hard to manage staying there once my friends moved and no place to stay and visit. Still a lot of fun and getting better again I hear but still a lot of "regular" cars with a set of 30" rims and low riders mixed in with the stuff you really want to look at.

Having competed with this car on track many times I can attest to its SPEED and HANDLING. Going to miss the real competition of having RNR at the tracks with his S2K but as he noted I don't get to see him at the less expensive "mid week" track days that often (the curse of the working people, jobs). Hope someone local gets to it first, hate see it leave the Bay Area and our local tracks.

Correcting myself, the ramp in the previous photo turns left, not right and then down, and down, and dooowwwnnnn....to more dirt. This photo of the bridge towers is without telephoto and also shot from "full" lake level. The other photo is one of many parking lots usually filled with vacationers cars and boat trailers this time of year but now with our stored houseboats. I think that the name of the houseboat on the far left is very apropos, it's "Just Add Water".

Was up at Lake McClure (the first lake out of Yosemite Valley on the Merced river) yesterday to check on my stored for the drought houseboat. Things are not looking good at the end of our third drought year but still better than it was when our seven year drought ended 20+ years ago. In the photo with the boat nearing the old Yosemite Railroad bridge supports there is still water at four of them, at the end of the pervious drought only two were still in the water. The other photo shows one of the launch ramps, I'm standing at the high water mark and the ramp goes around to the right and ends several hundred feet from where the water is now.

Really beautiful! Probably one of the last to get completed as there don't seem to be any more kits coming out of Texas. Hopefully the success of Stalker will lure another American made 7 kit car company to emerge.

I had to go out to look at the hat as I wasn't sure about the bill length. Turns out its only 1 1/2" long. With the ear protection on over the hat its stable to over 100 MPH, personally tested :driving:

I get too much turbulence for a standard baseball cap and have tried several options. If I'm driving only a short way I use a bandana but if it's a longer trip where I need more sun protection I use a baseball cap I modified by cutting the bill down to only about 2 1/2". Looks like the hats that they use when riding horses. it covers the area between my forehead and my sunglasses so no glare to the eyes and it does a pretty good job for protecting my nose and face without getting blown all over by the wind. It also looks pretty "normal" compared to a helmet. I have an O'Neil surf cap with short bill that is good for colder weather but becomes a bit uncomfortable if the least bit warm or on too long. The cut down bill baseball cap has been my favorite for quite some time.

The Golden Gate Lotus Club is holding an open track day at TH West in Willows CA on July 6th and (probably due to the odd date after the Holiday Weekend) only 29 cars have registered so far. This is a recent addition to the existing 3 mile track and is much more like Laguna Seca or Sonoma Sear Point than the original "East" TH track. A full field event would have 100 entries and four run groups. Right now there are 2 run groups, open passing and point by, so you will be on track 50% of the day if you can handle that much track time. Thunder Hill is not just pure adrenalized fun it's also one of the safest tracks you can run on with more than adequate run off and a professional track crew of turn workers and emergency crews. Blow off that extra day at work and get the best value of track time you are ever likely to see, $185.00 for more track time than you can handle.

The Golden Gate Lotus Club is holding a track day at Thunder Hill Raceway Park's West Track on Monday July 6th. Right now there are only 29 cars signed up and that's less than 30% of what the track normally has for a car count. Anyone wanting a great day of super time on track and an open field with some pretty good but casual drivers is advised to take an extra day off work and jump on this. The new "West" 2 mile track is a lower speed more technical track than the "East" 3 mile track but it features even better turns and lots of speed and elevation changes and the same great safety run offs that the West track is known for. Super for lower horsepower cars, no giant straight for those nasty expensive overpowered cars to catch up to you on. Check out the GGLC web page for details.

There are some "Gel" seat cushions made for wheelchairs that don't compress very much under normal seating weights but having pressed on them know they will deflect under load, in fact they will probably split one of the seams and spill out if loaded too much. Since it is a gel this will happen at a slow enough rate that the impact will be of less duration than the leak down. What makes these cushions good for our cars is the "cut out" that is supposed to be in the "back" works as a pass through for the lower strap on a 5 point belt system when it's installed towards the front. They come in different sizes and a youths seat size will fit in a typical racing seat. My wife is too short to see over the dash in the S2K without the added pad. The rest of the seat, side bolsters etc. seem to line up better when she is raised up, probably because the seats are designed around an "average height" body.

Hi John K. The driveshaft isn't moving in any direction other than rotation if everything is working correctly. The minor movement of the motor and the differential in their mounts are easily corrected by the sliding spicer shaft and universals. The problem is that the torque of both acceleration and downshifting are carried through the shaft and after a while these forces can create problems like fatigue and the backing off of fasteners, especially if the original cut and weld was a tiny bit off or out of balance. In an Ultralight it's a pain to remove the seats and console cover to get at the driveline for maintenance so I make sure that whenever I have the area open I check the fasteners and pump new grease through the joints. Other than the horsepower crazed Storker drivers on this forum most of us have fairly low torque motors so things like clutch and differential scatter covers aren't really too important. The driveshaft however can become a very efficient war hammer in a hurry if either end lets go so the slight extra weight of an HD shaft loop is well worth it. Things getting "loose" you can hear and feel but sudden shear of a part is all about the "here and now" with no chance to lift or pull over. That's when a really stout and well proportioned loop will save you and hopefully most of the car from serious damage.

I thought that the Speed Channel was gone, became a Fox Sports Channel. what provider still has it?

I found that the original loop was too large and would allow the shaft to inpact the tunnel walls and floor, including the fuel and electrical lines. I made a stouter and much less roomie one that I think will keep a failure at either end from doing too much damage.

Gotta love the idea that someone actually did that! (probably home schooled on a farm because I actually had neighbor's as a kid who did s--t like that and were proud of it) I'll bet his butt cheeks puckered ever time he faced oncoming traffic and thought about the "temporary fix" he probably drove on till it cracked. In the same vein, my high school best friend bought (from a farmer) a '55 ford with a 272 CuIn motor when he turned 16. It was a typical smog monster burning oil at a quart a tankfull, but as teens in the 60's we were used to that. When he saved up enough money to pull the motor for a rebuild we found that one of the main bearings had spun sometime in the past and the bearing shell had been replaced with a stiff thick piece of leather. The pan was the only thing on the motor that had ever been off and since it's gasket looked to have been in place for quite a while I guess the leather worked long enough to get some use out of the car and then sell it off to some dumb kid. Sure cheaper than a crank turn and new bearings so I guess that farmer was the smart one after all.

The discussion kind of went out at all angles from my original question, not that that isn't interesting and entertaining but back to the original question, producing a "kit Car" here. If a "kit Car" vehicle is already "built" by the company that is producing it the cost is going to be quite high and also the registration process in some cases is going to be more difficult. Colin Chapman sold the 7 as a kit not just to get around the value added tax but to make it a "cheap" starting point that was still doable by a handy person. The same should hold true of a modern kit. In our modern case the "kit" part can keep the manufacturer out of needing all of the testing and certification of being an actual Motor Vehicle Manufacturer. As much as buying "turn key" cars appeals to some people who don't have the place, or think they don't have the talent/tools to build a kit car it does blur the line between a manufactured car and a kit. Even though a complete car is probably the best bet for a producers overhead and profit target a healthy sale of kits is going to be needed to keep the government from looking at them too closely and to generate a base to petition the need for something like the California SB100 in other states. SB100 in California allows for 500 "kit/home made" cars each year to be registered under its rules. It took a legislator here not being able to register his own Cobra to get the bill introduced but that doesn't mean that an organized group from any state can't try to get something like it introduced in their own state. Basically the state DMV's are trying to keep "unsafe" vehicles off the road. Most of their thinking is biased towards preventing rebuilt totals and also decrepit junk (masquerading under "historic" and "antique" classifications) from being registered. The SB100 legislation was well written to keep this from happening so it didn't get kicked out by DMV or other protest. If you don't think that a "small" group of manufacturers can't manage some clout look at what the "off road" industry has done to change policy in several states about maximum bumper and light heights and modified suspensions. Those are a couple of things that I think are actually unsafe on the street (at least for the people they hit) and they got passed. I have to admit that a bit of what has been stated here by other posters is unfortunately cold hard fact and seems a harbinger of doom for the future growth of the industry, but, as we see it isn't dead yet and I think it can be best revitalized and grown by getting back to the roots of it all, inexpensive, exciting cars that put passion back into ownership.

Thanks Loren, I was wondering why you didn't do anything with the WCM program and now I know. I ran my own business for 30+ years and can agree with you on most of the points you brought up. I was signed to a couple of different unions and had all of the expenses you noted and a couple you didn't, worked an average of 60+ hours a week and didn't really make much more "per hour" most years as my union carpenters with their package. Just some more rambling on...... As for your comment about the WCM frames, dead on, mine is anything but straight. probably came out of the jig tweaked or the jig itself was tweaking a bit. I still think it's possible to successfully manufacture a 7 clone kit for market. Stalker has the big motor end covered and I agree that there isn't enough room for two in that game. I also think that they, or one of the other successful "kit car" (Cobra/Speedster etc.) companies could give Caterham more than a run for its money with a product like I mentioned previously. It doesn't make sense to put a small motor into a Stalker frame/suspension/brake package designed for 400HP. But it does make sense to use the existing frameworks of their business to piggyback the cost of overhead and utilize their trained labor and established vendors to add a second "complimentary" product to the existing line. I was always very aware of making my minimum gross needed to meet the percentage of fixed overhead cost. Any projects above that number became my profit makers, and at a good rate because they already had the majority of their overhead covered so its share was now became profit. Same for the car kits, the more that share the fixed overhead the less each unit has to finance. What we are missing here in the USA is a kit more along the lines of the original concept of an affordable really fun car. Still simple and light enough that a Miata drive train would make it feel anything but slow and with enough modern engineering to make it turn and stop. (IRS-disc brakes) An awful lot of what you need is available directly from existing suppliers. My biggest problem with the S2K is the really overweight outboard un-sprung parts of the suspension, front and rear, that were designed for cars twice the weight and in some cases engineered to jump ditches off road. Just those four carrier pieces being properly designed and supplied with the "new" lightweight car would put it way up in the handling comparisons without breaking the affordable barrier. A kit designed for the Miata engine/trans/differential and supplied with just the engineered and machined parts that even a skilled home fabricator wouldn't want to take on could still be sold out pretty affordably. The real labor intensive part of these cars is assembly and finish. Supply the difficult parts and provide a list of the parts that work and are available that a home builder can purchase later and you have a start point that gets the cars out there and allows them to get put together as time and money allows. This will also allow the end user to choose his own level of cost (cheap aluminum seat or expensive carbon fiber race seat : dual adjustable racing shocks or budget non adjustable. wheels, tires etc). I've been lucky enough and worked hard enough that I can afford just about anything I want (and now find out I don't want all that much, go figure) but that doesn't hold true for everyone, especially younger people who have to be careful where their money goes and be sure they are getting good value for it. Purchasing "turn key" or even "all parts supplied" kits is probably going to be out of the question but a project they can get into without passing their threshold may not be. It might just be that track days are kind of like stacking the deck as far as interest in 7's goes but there are lot of younger guys out there who really show a lot of interest in these cars. Many of them are tracking fairly expensive rides that are also their daily drivers and could probably be swayed into having a second fun toy or dedicated track vehicle if the cost wasn't too prohibitive. Especially since most of them know that writing off their primary ride at the track is going to put them in a real hurt where running something they could probably fix if it gets into a wall is a better option. Like I said, just wandering.

With all due respect to Loren at WCM, a helpful and generally nice guy, there isn't really anyone here in the USA/Canada currently actually producing a competitor to the Caterhams or other 7 clone cars being produced abroad. Don't get me wrong, Stalkers are great cars, especially for the money, but they are kind of over the top as far as being a cheap light weight fun toy. Even though producing anything in the US is a lot more difficult (Government, EPA, cost of labor and a score of other problems) than in some other countries it seems that with the prices I see for new 7 imports it should be possible. With the advent of computer aided design and CNC machining the development of a new product isn't quite the long and expensive trial and error process it once was. Since these cars (7's) were always meant to be sold as "kits" there aren't the same super costly government regulations, testing and standards that keep "new" stand alone manufacturers of mass produced cars from entering the fray. I wouldn't want to guess how much it cost Tesla to get through all that but having worked on their Palo Alto and Fremont facilities I can see why there aren't more start up "production cars" hitting the market. Hopefully Loren will someday put out more S2K kits, or even better, a Gen 2 lightweight with a cheaper and more available drive train. (Hey Loren, design it around a Miata engine (or BMW I-4) and have room built in for a turbo or supercharger add later. Can't get much more reliable or cheaper). Or now that V8 Stalkers are selling well it might be time for them to do something like an "entry level" but power/finish upgradeable later lightweight to get more people into the whole 7 clone driving experience without busting their wallets. If I weren't already 68 and retired after running my own business for 30+ years I'd probably give it a try, even while being here in California, the ultimate anti business, tax it if it moves or if it stationary, is alive or just died state.

Well, beyond all expectations of some reasonable resolution the BBC has actually sacked Jeremy Clarkson. No word yet on what they plan other than the are going with a "top Gear" show next season. I thought that JC might have rights to the shows name but evidently not. I can't see the show being the same with him gone, even though I personally don't like him all that much, it gave the show an interesting edge. As for the "new" show, "Well, how hard could it be"?

Just more rambling on...skip to next post if your in a hurry. ;-). At 68 I'm probably in the older 10-20% or so of the group and have been a car and motorcycle enthusiast since way before I had a drivers learning permit. I'm also the child that my mother always thought would never see 21 due to my very poor "risk assessment" record. Having collected several broken bones and enough stitching to start a quilt by the time I was out of high school she may have been pretty close to right. I'm not sure when it happened but it's true, age does bring a bit more caution, even if it doesn't always bring more wisdom. Somewhere along the way we all discover the point where we no longer "bounce" but 'break" when hitting the ground or something else hard. Then it's decision time about our risk assessment schedule of return. Do we want to give up what makes us the happiest? Or do we want to throw caution to the wind? Or can we find a happy medium? I still own a 1956 rigid frame HD "chopper" with a built shovel head and upgrades like disc brakes but I haven't ridden it in oh so many years. I loved it but after decades of driving on SF Bay Area freeways I started realizing that I was too far into the "break" part of my life and old enough to realize that "the car always wins no matter who was at fault". When I got the 7 I realized it had some of the same concerns as the bike but it was really on a different "risk" scale altogether. As has been noted, we are not going to "win" a head to head battle with a "regular" car or truck, but we are also not going to die or even get seriously hurt in a minor skirmish, unlike on the bike. I enjoy driving the 7 on the street, but also as has been noted by others I drive it VERY defensively, erring on the side of caution in all lane changes, passing, everything when around other cars. I find I still have this nearly insatiable "need for speed" but have gained enough wisdom to know that the street is not the place for it, unlike so many (not all young) others I see demonstrating their stupidity daily. Thank God (and capitalism) for the ever growing availability of HPDE and other on track events that allow us to go have great fun at high speed with a low risk. I have gained the wisdom to know that at 68 I'm not the sharp eyed and quick reflexed driver I was even at 50, much less at 30. I keep contemplating adding a full roll cage and a splitter to the 7 but then think that it would probably only make me more prone to overdriving my abilities to justify them ;-). On the other hand I did pick up a Necksgen device and arm restraints a few years back, see, risk analysis at work. I guess it all comes down to deciding what risk you can manage, keeping out, as much as possible, of situations you cant manage through no fault of your own and taking what precautions you can. If I lived in the country I'd still ride, but not here. If I find I'm becoming unsafe at something I'll quit. In the meantime I'm going for it!

I think Josh is looking for about $24K for a well sorted and good looking Ultralite with a low mileage drive train and some extra goodies. I know he was hoping to sell it "locally" to someone, especially an autocrosser who might get more use out of it then he was getting. I think it was posted on here already, or at least shown in a link on the "cars for sale" section. I had suggested to him that winter was not going to be the time to sell and to put it off till warmer weather. Some good ideas suggested. Unfortunately around silicon valley and Santa Cruz just about no one lets you put up flyers. Would be a great to have a flyer at Starbucks saying "Get some Adrenalin with you Caffeine, buy this 7".