escondidoron

I think that you may find the GAZ shocks at this price point to be quite a bit heavier. When I was shopping, the only units that I could find were steel bodies and about 2X as heavy. You may want to keep that in mind as keeping unsprung weight down has a significant impact on suspension control. Also, the QA1s are user rebuildable. It costs about $100 to get set up to do it yourself. Or they can be serviced by several authorized shops.

The threads should not be an issue. They hold up fine on dirt track cars. And the street and track use on the Seven are much more benign than that. All in pricing was about $700 delivered. For comparison, remember that the QA1s are 3-way adjustable, with separate adjustments for jounce, rebound and height/spring pre-load.

Good to read. Thanks for posting. I got a good look at a B-25J a couple of weeks ago at the Pima Air & Space Museum: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5227/5679002118_de22bd21e7_b.jpg http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5229/5679003058_6268472c91_b.jpg The planes are really interesting to see up close. Those old radials sound impressive by themselves. I can't really imagine what it would have been like to hear a whole squadron take off or fly by.

I have the 82 Series small body circle track shocks. I didn't consider any of the other QA1 series for a couple of reasons; 1, Large body outside diameter, and 2, Cost. I also was not interested in any adjustable shock that combined adjustment on jounce and rebound. I feel it is imperative to have individual control to get an effective setup in the end. Answers to your questions: 1) 4" travel in front and 6" travel in the rear. Since my Seven has pin mounting at the top of the shock an adapter was also purchased to convert from an upper eye mount (the standard QA1 configuration is eyes at both ends of the shocks). 2 & 3) I don't have sufficient miles on them at this point to make an accurate assessment of the wear of the rod ends vs a rubber bushing due to contamination. However I'm pretty serious about keeping the car clean. I have rod ends on the upper arms of the rear suspension for some time and those have held up well. So I don't anticipate any issues...so far at least. Also, the rod ends on the coil-overs don't contribute to any additional harshness in the suspension. I have them valved for relatively soft jounce and firm rebound. So they really absorb bumps nicely while still maintaining good wheel control.

I am using QA-1s on my '62 S2. They are light weight, rebuilbable and very reasonably priced. They are adjustable for both jounce and rebound. However the adjustment is not external. The adjustment is by way of changing the internal valves. But once the proper setting is established, no further adjustment is needed. The pic below compares the Lotus OEM Monroe coil overs and the aluminum QA-1s. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4109/5607556261_846c13503c_b.jpg

Hamburg is a great city to visit with fine dining, beautiful scenery and many wonderful museums. Two of the best, for the mechanically minded at least, are, 1, the Miniatur Wunderland, a fantastic model train, and now airport, facility, and 2, the Prototyp Museum, dedicated to mostly German built cars, especially Porsche and VW. I have visited both several times over the years. I heartily recommend them both as a great way to spend a long afternoon. http://www.miniatur-wunderland.com/ http://www.prototyp-hamburg.de/ Also, for those of a certain age, those who appreciate history or those with an appreciation of the significance of the Beatles in modern culture, a visit to the new (it opened just last year) Beatles museum, Beatlemania, is a must. The museum chronicles the history of the band with a significant collection of memorabilia and documentation, focusing on their time spent in Hamburg in the early 60s. http://www.beatlemania-hamburg.com/ All are worth a visit.

Did you learn anything about the S2?

Really dwarfed: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5096/5483904760_dbab58f590_b.jpg Morgan; Where was your pic taken? I didn't know that Acme Speed Shop had a store. I'd like to check it out.

While I appreciate the centiment, there is the Lotus Type 108 Pursuit Bike built by Lotus Engineering. Lotus built the type 108 in support of the 1992 U.K. Olympic cycling team. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lotus_108 and here: http://classic-web.archive.org/web/20060326231030/http://www.grouplotus.com/eng/track_record.php?section=17&page=25&id=13 Here's a pic of a type 110 Lotus Sport Bike: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1366/5112817914_2d1507087b_b.jpg Neither of these bikes should be confused with the Japanese built bikes marketed by the New York based bicycle marketing company (with no affilliiation to Group Lotus) back in the '80s & 90s, Lotus International.

My '62 Seven is RHD. The physical part of driving a RHD car isn't very difficult to get used to. Shifting with your left hand only takes a few miles to get confortable with. With my car's old Anglia gearbox, reverse is a lift, over to the left and back affair. That was a little bit harder to get used to. The main issue is safety. I don't do too much passing on two lane roads unless the terrain allows me to get a good look ahead. That usually isn't a problem around here in SoCal as the kind of roads that are fun to drive with the Seven also have enough turns and elevation changes that allow you to see around cars without having to peek into the left hand lane to see ahead. It's pretty weird to get used to vehicles, especially big trucks, right next to you on your right side in traffic. It gets very interesting to be along side an 18 wheeler in rush ohour traffic on the freeway. Those lug nuts on their wheels are just about at eye level. In general, for myself, I'm less concerned with the RHD aspect of safety in my Seven than I am about somebody crashing into me because they don't see me.

I'm pretty sure that there were no B-29 squadrons in the European theater. In late 1943 the Army Air Corps decided that the long range capability of the B-29 was better suited to the Pacific Theater. While the European theater had priority for bomber production thourghout the war in Europe, by the time the B-29 was finally ready, the air conflict there was slowing down. That is to say, the B-17s and B-24s had long range fighter cover and the Luftwaffe was fast losing its ability to counter the Allied bombers.

That looks like something worth trying on my '62 S2 (RHD). Where did you find it or what is it called (to use in Google to find one)?

Last fall I had the flu and lost 12 pounds. My wife reminds from time to time me that it was probably the most cost effective performance improvement that I would ever make on the Seven.

Not sure what the average car is like over there but aren't the South Africans the folks that built Ford Sieras (Merkur XR4s in the U.S.) with 302 V8s and they also presently build some of the nicest GT40 replicas around. And from what I've seen on the web and on TV (car shows on cable) the Kiwis seem to have a definite fondness for big V8 cars and American style hot rods similar to the Aussies.

This thread reminds me of a Jesse Alexander photograph in the office of an F1 driver's meeting. Present are Clark, both Hills, Ginther, Gurney, McLaren, Bonnier, Amon..... When people who look at the picture are able to recognize some of the faces I often ask them how many of the driver's pictured survived racing? Racing is a dangerous sport. It always has been a dangerous sport. Ernest Hemingway is reputed to have said that there are really only three sports: motor racing, mountain climbing and bull fighting; the rest of them are games. I read somewhere, back in the late 60s or early 70s, when safety was finally starting to become an effort in racing car design and sanctioning at Indy (and everywhere else for that matter), that something like 50 percent of the starters for the 500 up until about '65 had died in racing cars. And about half of the survivors received debilitating injuries. Take the top 10 finishers at Indy in 1955 for example: 1st Bob Swiekert - killed in a sprint car at Salem in '56 2 Tony Bettanhausen - killed while testing at Indy in '61 Paul Russo - survived racing (only to die while visiting Daytona for the 500 in '71) 3 Jimmy Davies - killed in a midget at Santa Fe Speedway in '66 4 Johnny Thompson - killed in a sprint car at Allentown in '60 5 Walt Faulkner - killed in a USAC stock car at Valejo in '56 Bill Homeier - survived. holds record for most laps completed by last place finisher in the 500 - 74 laps 6 Andy Linden - survived career ending brain damage from crash in '57 7 Al Herman - killed in a midget at West Haven in '60 8 Pat O'Connor - killed in 1st lap crash at Indy in '58 9 Jimmy Daywalt - survived racing 10 Pat Flaherty - survived racing So totaling up the stats from the top 10 of Indy '55, 7 out of 12 drivers died racing and one of the 5 survivors received debilitating injuries. 66% fatalities and/or debilitating injury rate is not a good record. Even after watching this video it makes you wonder how those guys rationalized their efforts. As illustrated in the videos things started looking up a little bit for drivers with crash helmets. Then came fire resistant driving suits, safety belts & harnesses, roll bars & cages, crash energy absorbing structures, fuel cells, onboard fire suppression, deformable steering columns, improved tire technology, career track safety personnel and equipment, helicopter trauma teams and improved track safety design. It all seems so fundamental now........

Well, the enginein your picture is a crossflow, but not a Ford Kent crossflow. The carb and exhaust on the engine in your picture are on opposite sides as compared to a Kent crossflow. The shape of the valve cover is too rectangular. Also, the exhaust ports are not evenly spaced on a Kent crossflow. The pic below from heperformance.com shows the Ford Kent crossflow layout, albeit with twin side drafts installed instead of a single down draft 2 barrel carb: http://www.heperformance.com/_images//1600cc_ford_crossflow_engine_makes_140hp.JPG

I wonder if the people on the ground were debriefed?

Sort of reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen's "My Homtown".

We went into town this morning for breakfast around 0800. A bunch of cars began to arrive for a fund raising event today, Sunday 27 February 2011. It was for the weekly cruise night held every Friday evening from April thru September. As we were eating in the side walk cafe this dwarf racer parked in front of our Seven. And you thought that Sevens are small! http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5172/5483905132_0dba60076b_b.jpg

I was in Austria last summer and an X-bow pulled into traffic behind me. It is really interesting to see one in a regular road traffic setting. Besides being low (even be Seven standards) they are quite wide. After we parked our car and were walking to the restaurant we came upon the X-bow as it was parallel parking. We got a chance to talk with the owner and sit in the car. I found the industrial aspect of it's design to be interesting. While I can't describe it as beautiful it is very well done. After seeing and sitting in both an Atom and the X-bow I'd prefer the X-bow from a comfort and finish perspective. However I still like the Seven better than either of them.

The Red Car by Don Standord.

The old Trabant factory in Zwickau was taken over by VW after the fall of the Wall. It is now closed as a factory and is a very neat museum. Historically the facility started out as a Horsch plant, then Trabants after the war and finally a VW plant until it closed in the late '90s. I have visited it a couple of times. I wonder if the Trabi in this diorama is the same one that was being fettled in the video? http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4065/4661447601_ec5fc97367_b.jpg They had some very interesting stuff down in the basement in the Trabant section. Care for a Trabant camping trailer? http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4032/4661439515_8c4723f6a9_b.jpg

Over the years I've seen both U-joints fail on drive shafts (although not both at the same time). On conventional cars, if the front joint fails it can get pretty messy if the end falls down and then gets caught in a pot hole. On our cars, as mentioned previously, because of the brake and fuel lines running through the tunnel, it can get ugly in a hurry if either of the joints fail. Not to mention the 3" diameter pipe spinning out of control next to your hip, contained only by a thin sheet of aluminum. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, MightyMike, gorgeous work on the Birkin tunnel.

I didn't know that the U.S. Virgin Islands were RHD. Seems like everyone there would be driving postal vehicles or Subarus.

Essentially all of the world including Europe is Left hand drive. The UK (England, Ireland & Scotland along with their territories and previous colonies like Hong Kong, Singapore etc. Australia, New Zealand and their influenced islands in the Caribbean) are right hand drive.