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turboeric

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Everything posted by turboeric

  1. A product that achieves more or less the same end less expensively is Dual Durometer padding
  2. You raise an excellent point. I'd never want to go back to the kind of specific outputs that were possible with carbs and dizzies (at least in emissions legal trim). In many ways, we're in a golden age of horsepower, while the engines are longer lasting and less tempermental than they've ever been. All the chassis nannies, on the other hand, I could do without. That said, I am including ABS on the Westfield.
  3. I'd better spend more time in the garage nailing the Westie together.
  4. I think that we need to remember that a lot of the young folks regard the fact that everything is computer controlled to be a bonus - it's what they understand. I've had the experience of rejetting a set of Webers on a friends's 1969 BMW 2002 race car in the paddock, and having a group of 20 something racers wondering what the heck we were doing. They expect something where you can go to a computer interface and explicitly set parameters, rather than the pretty inexact "fiddle and try" approach to mechanical systems. I completely agree that most modern cars are boring, isolating, fat and dull. But the problem is our demand that we be endlessly protected from our own stupidity and sloth, without having to participate actively. Until that attitude dies, we'll be given rolling bank vaults. Or, we'll build Sevens.....
  5. True story - my Dad, a retired elementary school teacher, was going to his doc for a prostate exam. He was a little miffed to learn that his doctor was away, and that there was a locum instead. He was a little more alarmed to learn the locum was a woman. He went into the exam room and realized the locum was a woman he'd taught in grade 6! To his credit, he went through with the exam anyway.
  6. The Joke didn't win - the other cars were just scared off by its appalling ugliness.
  7. I'll be glad when this drifting nonsense dies out. Although it was drifters who provided me with the donor for my Westfield...
  8. Given that the trike is a recreation of ancient technology, the motor seems appropriate. It comes as close to approximating the JAP motors on the original Moggies as any engine you could source today. Yes, it's a primitive lump, but I suspect that's part of the point.
  9. Thanks for the inspiration. The Westfield I'm building is orange and I was planning black wheels. Now that's certain.
  10. Knox Mountain Park, Kelowna, British Columbia http://www.knoxmtnhillclimb.ca/
  11. Cool - although I thought a 7 was already a 5/8 scale car!
  12. I vividly remember being at a vintage weekend at the old Westwood circuit near Vancouver, where an Elite and a Mustang Shelby 350 were having at it in the pouring rain. The Shelby was all thunder and wide tires, while the Elite's skinny bicycle tires made short work of the streaming wet track. Lap after lap they passed and repassed each other, the Mustang thundering past on the straights and the Lotus out-braking and out-cornering the Shelby. Epic!
  13. turboeric

    Mr Plod

    I once got pulled over on a gorgeous, twisting, deserted rural road with an 80 km/h speed limit. Plod: I clocked you at 110. That's going to be a charge of excessive speed. Me: I thought excessive started at 40 over the limit. Plod silently counts to 4 on his fingers, turns on his heel and returns to his car without a word. Comes back with a regular speeding ticket. Much cheaper and fewer penalty points. Made me smile despite the ticket.
  14. Ejector seat! :hurray:
  15. No. It's living 400 km from the nearest big city and 25 km from any town at all.
  16. I had one of those, back when the dinosaurs roamed the cooling earth. Given the high powered, always-on radar of the day, it was pretty close to immunity, if you weren't an idiot. You'd get warning from miles away. Currently I have an Escort 9500 also, which is excellent. The ability to lock out falses is really nice and it does find traps in the locked out locations. We don't have much laser around here, so it is good protection. My experience with laser is that if they shoot you, you're dead.
  17. Shhhhh. My wife will want me to install one!
  18. No direct experience, but I know from playing with my son's RX7 that a rotary will destroy any muffler that isn't stuffed with stainless. Glass pack type mufflers will have a life span measured in blocks. I'd try looking at Burns Stainless.
  19. Of course drag racing has nothing whatsoever to do with what Lotus is about. An Exige S wouldn't have done any better.
  20. Glad you had fun John. That's a lot of the attraction of these cars, and is in many ways the same appeal as Lotuses have always had - speed by finesse rather than brute force. I vividly remember a vintage race at Westwood (near Vancouver, B.C.) in the early 80's watching a Lotus 11 and a Shelby GR350 going at it hammer and tongs in the pouring rain. The rain negated the Shelby's horsepower advantage, and the Lotus's skinny tires were perfect for the wet pavement. The passed and repassed each other lap after lap - it was probably the best racing I've ever seen. The brilliance (and the weakness) of the Miata is that it was engineered into a package that could be used everyday like an ordinary car. It dulls the experience a bit, but I suspect that unless you've experienced an Elise or a 7, that it's a pretty vivid experience. Now imagine a Miata with 200+ hp......
  21. I have a Miata, and had an Outback wagon, and I like women. I guess I'm a lesbian too!:devil:
  22. I also have a 92 Sunburst Yellow Miata with many modifications. It only dynos 219 at the rear wheels. I'm building a Westfield SEiW with a 99 Miata donor. I've only owned 1 Miata (2 I guess, counting the donor). The best part of owning a turbo Miata is surprising people with much more expensive (and supposedly faster) cars. They look so startled!
  23. I've run my Miata without them for 6 years - no issues.
  24. A friend and I spent half a day in the pouring rain by the side of the road troubleshooting a Dodge truck that was out of gas, while the gas gauge showed 1/3 tank. Tank had a big dent in it that prevented the float from going below 1/3! :ack: Miserable day.
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