slomove

Hmm, that never crossed my mind until I met other Se7en drivers. Maybe I am the only sane person on this list. Waaaahaaaahaaaaahhaaa.

Mike, in my experience (and if you look at my worn sump guard you will find I have a lot of experience....) the are 2 reasons to have a belly pan under the engine: - rocks on the road (abundant here in the mountains). For that a front impact shield will help a lot as long as the rock is crunched. But if the front shield rides up the tumbling rock will make its way under the sump and can still do damage there. I find a belly pan can really help. I have some long, deep scoring marks under that pan. - speed bump solid type of obstacles: The belly pan helps sliding over that hump.

Any chance to get the new Seven delivered *to* California? Then you can come back in September and join Ross Robbins for his Hwy50 journey from San Francisco to the East Coast. Edited to say....yes, I am 95% sure to join for Monterey

Hi, not sure if you are still talking about my car or the Brit car with the double head lights. Anyway, if it is about mine, the mirrors are bullet mirrors that I got from a friend. But you can find places to get a pair for $50 or less. I made the tripod from 5/16 x 1/4 aluminum tube bent to shape with an M6 stainless threaded rod inside. That way, I can attach it to the body as well as the mirrors with simple M6 nuts. And yes, I made the headlight brackets from stainless tubing so that the cable is completely routed inside.

Before messing with the jets I would take the car to a dyno with wideband lambda equipment and get a baseline since you don't really know how good or bad it is right now. Otherwise you may be on the money and just make it worse. For that matter, when I still had Webers on the engine they performed pretty good from sea level to 7000 ft. The nice thing about carbs is that the Bernoulli Effect compensates automatically for most of the atmospheric pressure changes (what you got to do with electronics in an EFI system).

Well, it is a a few years old and crossflow powered. Recently a newer Birkin with modern power plant went for a less money as reported on another thread. To answer the question: It is worth what buyers want to pay in the current economy, i.e. maybe about right. Should be worth more, though

more info So, it looks like standing over the wire in the asphalt groove may give you better response than in the middle of the loop. Or you can attach a very large and massive aluminum skid plate to the the car. That would do it ;-) Gert

I also heard the magnets are snake oil but supposedly there are expensive devices with active electronics that pick up and manipulate the RF field of the loops. But, until I see it work I stay suspicious. I am not sure if the loops work on changes of inductance or changes of field losses by the eddie currents induced in the metal mass above. But I just can not see how a small stationary permanent magnet, no matter how strong, can be detected by such a loop.

I rarely agree with Tom but I think this is a good comparison. Maybe to add as Birkin specific: - with older models you have only the choice of a live axle or a life axle (can have LSD). But with a good suspension setup I don't really see a disadvantage. The new generation has IRS. - the wiring on Birkins before 2001 sucks. - very nice independent master cylinder setup with balance bar and separate fluid vessels. - aluminum radiators that don't require upgrades for racing with bigger engines - well made front suspension with aero tubing, excellent workmanship. Wide track available for reasonable money. - Birkins before 2002 (IIRC) have horrible stock seats. Newer ones are O.K. - the steering column is articulated and folds away if you happen to run into something solid - decent 4-pot Outlaw brakes on newer models. Older ones like mine have still large vented VW front brakes with ample stopping power.

I guess both are liked by their owners. If you are into the heritage/pedigree thing, buy a Caterham, if you want to save serious $ buy a Birkin (or some other reputable make). But whatever you are going to buy try to test drive as many different options as you can. At the end, any of the cars will probably be personalized by the owner and is only as good as you set it up. As a matter of policy we try to stay away here from slagging other folks' preferences.

Wow.....prices are really in the tank. I paid $3k more for a similar car in 2003. And that was a good deal back then.

I have been using various Garmins for years and it got me to your home just fine. I have mainly 2 uses: - I do multi-day vacation tour planning in detail on the PC and download the result on the GPS including hotels and other POIs. - I just keep it ready when I am traveling in other cities to find places without a city map and searching. I have had a few cases of incorrect addresses and many cases of incorrect business locations. Surely not perfect but I am also too cheap to buy the annual map updates. I never use the GPS locally or when just driving open roads. My memory or a look at a map are usually good enough for that. Gert

In 1903, the president of the Michigan Savings Bank advised Henry Ford’s lawyer not to invest in Ford Motor Company, saying, “The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty, a fad.” I found that quote somewhere on the 'net but I was not there to hear it back then. But it sounds credible, anyway. I mean, why try something new that is expensive, unproven and requires some sense of pioneer spirit (not to mention that it is noisy, slow, and smells worse than a horse). Obviously it took another 20 or 30 years for automobiles to really become practical, economical and replace horses and buggies. I suppose in similar time frame people will look at today's discussion and laugh about it. And there will still be people who like the old fashioned cars as a hobby and are willing to pay for it (like today for horses).

I have that on the painted surfaces and it is great for protection from scratches, insects and small flying rocks. But the rear fenders are hit frequently by bigger rocks and similar debris picked up by the front wheel. The tough ClearBra or like paint protection films (only 6-8 mils thick) will probably survive but such a rock can anyway smash a ding into the gel coat below. Gert

How about memorizing the pattern? ;-)

If unpolished it may be O.K. I put on new polished 40-mil 304-grade stainless sheets and after some 10k miles they did not look good anymore, especially on the passenger side where there is no exhaust can to shield from direct impact. The rocks leave a gazillion of small impact craters in the steel and with your thin sheets it may be worse. Also, the shields did not go around the curved edge of the fenders and I had some serious gel-coat damage there from larger rocks. After a re-paint I considered Rhinoliner or some equivalent but since I had some 1/16" adhesive rubber sheet sitting there I put that on. Works pretty good so far and no polishing, only wipe-off and with tire spray it even gets shiny Gert

Not a good idea. You will now receive email from the gay branch of their business and from Miata accessory suppliers as well. And you have hurt Skip's feelings again ;-)

I am definitely leaning more to a "progressive" agenda but I totally agree with Athens7. The political system is broken and both parties are more interested making the other unsuccessful no matter what the cost to the people. It is much easier (and the system supports it) to destroy others' efforts than to shine with own ideas. But I have little hope this will be fixed or even improved anytime soon. The daily deluge of spinformation and the corrupt money-buys-power culture makes this self-sustaining. So I guess we have to muddle through. That's O.K., could be worse.

I guess this will phase over on a supply/demand base. At the time the electric solutions are beginning to be feasible but still way too expensive while the petroleum fuel is still dirt cheap (kind of). Over the next years/decades the batteries will come down in price while the world wide oil demand still goes up with supply drying out. At some point it will be just cheaper to drive electric. The thing that bothers me while we are now at the oil mercy of the Middle East we will probably at the battery and electronics mercy of the Far East. This country just does not make things anymore and just buys all stuff abroad on credit. But even that problem will "go away" when the national credit card is maxed out.

With regret I have to cancel the plans for Arizona. Turns out the furlough days last year drained my Paid Time Off account too much (not to mention the checking account). Oh well, maybe next year. Gert

Can I have some of the snow, please? I am at Lake Tahoe for skiing and today it was raining at 8000 ft. Fortunately some old snow left over, so it is not a complete waste.

Ok, can see it now. But give me a few days I am on ski vacation and it is a bit cumbersome on the Iphone

Linky not worky

Thanks for nice words, guys :seeya: I have yet to see the turn signal at night myself. I looked up the brightest orange LED in 5mm dia. package that I could find but at 4,000 mcd they are still substantially less bright than e.g. the white ones at 18,000 mcd. That is maybe the reason the LED front turn signals are not really common yet on production cars. On the plus side the projector low beams have a sharp cut-off and should not interfere too much with the turn signal. But I am already upgrading the upgrade and will look into real HID retrofit kits for the H9 bulbs in the projectors For Dingo8: the shells are made from ABS on an FDM machine. It is not as strong as solid molded ABS (more like plywood) and a bit porous but surely waterproof. Actually I did use brass threaded inserts intended for wood. They needed some soldering iron help to mold into the ABS.

Finally I got these Hella projector modules installed. Daytime running lights, side marker lights and turn signals are integrated. This was one of the more frustrating projects. Making the shells was easy enough (I have access to a 3D-printer) but the painting and epoxy clear coating almost killed me (had to do over 3 times...). I am quite happy with the result, even if the cosmetic finish was eventually so so. http://lh6.ggpht.com/_242PlvPtVpE/Sza4Hv7FGTI/AAAAAAAABCM/uJF_Sy33yWQ/s1152/P1010648.JPG http://lh4.ggpht.com/_242PlvPtVpE/Sza4D_sum7I/AAAAAAAABCA/2mtyjj93ebI/s1024/P1010644.JPG More pictures here . Gert