Klasik-69

Yep, cheap mic but in the right place.........just lucky. It's sitting right above my feet clipped to a wire. You're right about sweepers favoring a nimble car. Heiki was there and smoked the field with a 1:35 or 1:36 but on Sunday his tranny got smoked on the first session. That is the only time I've been able to catch him. I towed 653 miles to get there so I feel for your 17 hour tow. I've run Barber before in my Z06 and feel very comfortable on this track but I'm also aware of its ability to humble you. My buddy flipped his VW Karman Ghia end over end on turn 12 on Saturday and totalled his car. Luckily he wasn't hurt. I did very well on the track with the 7, it handles so well and does everything I ask of it. There were two cars faster however, Heiki of course and the guy in the WRX STI who you see me pass near the end of the run passed me on Sunday and I wasn't able to catch him. On the straights, his car had much more power and acceleration than I did and it more than made up for the corners. I wish I had another 50 or 60 HP to run with the faster cars. On my bucket list is running at NJMP with you guys next year so you can show me how its done in a 7. I know you guys are faster and more experienced but I don't mind learning and think it would be a lot of fun. We had 3 lotus type cars at this event and we were all parked together in the paddock so we got a lot of attention from other drivers coming over to see who was passing them (Heiki). For those of you who may not be familiar with Heiki.............he has a locost 7 with a turbocharged Miata engine that puts out about 4 million horsepower. He is one of the nicest most pleasant individuals, very humble, very very smart, but about 3 cards short of a full deck when he gets out on a track. He will do stuff out there other sane people can't, or won't, definitely shouldn't, and he does it better than anyone I have ever seen. He buys Miata trannies by the bunches from junk yards because he knows they only last about 2 or 3 races, pays around $125 per tranny and doesn't mind pulling one out and stuffing another one in there. Funny guy with a great sense of humor, and one heck of a great driver.

Here is a video of my race at Barber this past weekend. The SCCA held both a TT (Timed Trials) event with a SARRC race for the club racing. It made for a good weekend although temps near 99 degrees and no breeze made it a tad bit uncomfortable. Turn up the volume when playing the video so you can hear the roar of the Zetec. I put an Olumpus ME-15 microphone under the cowling just above my feet and it worked the best for eliminating wind noise but yet picking up the exhaust notes. Camera is a GoPro Hero3. No data logging on this one, Race Chrono wouldn't cooperate. [/url] Mike

Good point, it may be exactly the case. I'm racing at Barber MS Park this coming weekend. That is a clockwise track with more RH turns so I can see if this is working out. I only wish I had previous lap times at that track with this car to compare. You can make the front wheel dynamically light by taking the spring tension down but it is surprising that you did it to such an extent that braking became an issue. I'm still on a learning curve with these cars so nothing surprises me that much. They are very light and as such, may exhibit some characteristics I'm just not familiar with. Most of you guys have been at it for many years whereas this is only my second.

Boy, that's impossible to read. sorry guys, I'll try puting in the actual spreadsheet, not sure if this will work, not too good with this kind of stuff; CORNER WEIGHTING.pdf I hope this is better.

Not sure if this will benefit anyone but I just got through corner weighting my car and thought I would share the progress and results with the forum. I posted a picture of the spreadsheet I did of the process and hope everyone can read it. First of all, the scales I used are the Proform brand and appear to be quite good but likely not quite as good as a set of Longacre scales. I put the car on my 2 post lift and set the scales down where the tires would ride squarely on the scales. I first made sure the floor was level in every direction, and luckily for me, the guys who did my concrete didn't have too many beers on my job. I didn't have to use any shims. The first set of readings is the car just the way I had it, no adjustments and all sway bars attached. The wheels on the car are 15X7 Enkei with Toyo T1R tires, all set with 20 psi. Gas tank is 90% full and all other liquids are at their required capacity. And the first reading is without a driver in the seat. Total weight came in at 1247 lbs, a bit more than I thought the car was. For the second set of readings, I set all the springs equally on the coilovers, and I sat in the car but without helmet on. The first or leftmost percentage column is the left side vehicle weight divided by the total weight. The next column is the rear weight divided by the total weight. The third column is the right front + the right rear weight divided by the total weight. The fourth column is the left front + right rear weight divided by the total weight. As you can see, these cars are heavy on the left side unless you're a leprichan on helium. There is no way to change that aspect, no matter what you do on the suspension, it remains the same. What is of utmost importance is the "wedge" effect or the cross weights, and more specifically, getting the cross weights to be less than 0.5% from the theoretical perfect 50%. You can also see the marginal but yet important effect of the sway bars connected. They do impact the corner weight cross weight percentages. The front sway bar doesn't have adjustable links (too bad) but the rear does and allows you to fine tune them AFTER you finish corner weighting. I first started to make changes on the left front springs, and as you can see, wasn't able to get the results I needed. I first compressed the spring by 0.125" which made cross weight percentages worse. I then went the other way but started to run out of compression threads on the shock and the effects of this would only lower a car already dangerously close to the ground under the engine pan. So I restored the spring to the orginal starting point and went on the right front spring and compressed it by 0.250" (tightenned the coilover). I also put the hood back on (about 6 lbs) and disconnected both the front and rear sway bars (yep, should have done that to begin with). As you can see, I am now within 0.03% of a perfect 50/50 cross weight differential percentage. You will notice that the total weights vary from session to session, and that is due to rounding off on each wheel. The scale will move back and forth on each wheel weight by 1 lb or so and I set the spreadsheet formulas to total the recorded wheel weight. Having a 2 post lift is a big help in doing this but you still have to settle the suspension after each up and down by rocking the car. Comments, critiques and suggestions are more than welcome.

I saw a while back (April 2013) your question on how deep should the harmonic balancer go onto the crankshaft. Not sure if this is too late but I pulled it out of my Corvette service manual on the 6.0L and is as shown below; I hope this shows. I scanned the page and converted the pdf file into a jpg file. Mike

I've never tried to do an alignment on the track after I had an incident at PBIR because of a wrong setup and a feeble attempt to fix it. $6500 later, my car was fixed. I used to see guys at PDX & HPDE events pull out the strings and fixtures, usually on Porsche 911's, and they were the typically the slowest guys on the track so what difference did an alignment do for them. At our SCCA events, both TT and Club Racing, you just don't see anyone doing the Home Depot alignments. It's either right or its wrong, but it is what it is and if you're not ready, too bad. I do admit that my laser sighting system is a bit low-tech and probably would be highlighted on a show like "Swamp People" or "Duck Dynasty" but it seems to be very accurate, although very time comsuming.

Simple, Yes. Accurate ????? Problem you are measuring over a very short distance, and worse yet, using a tape measure. If you have expensive tires, you may want to rethink this. That's why I made a metal frame from 1x1 square tubing that rides the lower 1/3 of the tire/wheel. I bought some small magnetic based laser levels from Lowes and shoot a laser from the frame forward about 15', then flip the lasers around and shoot a line to the back, again about 15' from the wheel. I measure the distance between lasers and see where I am with toe-in or toe out. I made adjustments, roll the car back and forth on the wheels to un-tension the tire from the surface and measure again. Tedious ? Yep. Accurate, EXTREMELY. I did this after ruining a $2000 set of Michelins on my Z06 and paying a shop $120 for a 4 wheel alignment only to be told by the butthole that I must have hit a curb. The nice thing about this setup is that it works for all cars, and once you log in what you're correct front toe dimension needs to be, you don't need to flip the lasers around between front and back as you did initially. Make sure you set camber and caster FIRST before toe. Make sure you're on level ground. I use my 4 post lift and let the runners level side to side. No need to worry about front and back. You can also use the same setup to check to see if your real wheels are tracking along the true center line by shooting a laser forward from the rear wheels and measuring the offset off the front axle and comparing. Ever see a car "crab" down the road ?

What is your clearance under the engine pan ? I'm at around 3 3/4" and haven't hit anything yet.

I run mine almost exclusively on tracks (SCCA & NASA) and have experimented a bit to see what works best. I first went agressive with -2.5 camber on the front running on the spec miata wheels/tires (205-50 15 Hoosier SM6 tires) and it did OK. I read a lot of stuff on the British sites about wheel alignment since they make these cars dance whereby we just dabble. I came to the conclusion that the guys who race and do so with some success don't run that much camber. So I backed mine off to -1.2 degrees and set the toe-in neutral. Also, I went back to the 13" wheels which made a huge difference. I was able to shave my previous track times a good bit with a drop of over 4 seconds at Talladega GPR and 5 seconds at Roebling. I saw the mention of RH vs LH track layouts and I don't think it plays very much either way, unless you have the skills of Massa or Hamilton from F1 and have the HP to match, I doubt that you would notice much either way. As you well know, the turns aren't a problem with a 7, you can outrun anyone in most anything there. The real bugger is the straights. And if you throw in some toe-out for faster turn in on the turns, you'll pay the price on the straights with more friction, and that is not where you want to sacrifice IMHO. Incidentally, the Caterham assembly guide mentions calling them for track setups. They have the alignment setup for street use. Mine is viable to either use and I'm not having any issues whatsoever. Could I be faster ? Yes, but the car is not the limiting factor.

Ok, you may want to ask if the shafts and bushings are available as service parts. If so, it has to be a whole lot cheaper than replacing the entire ITB unit. I know they sell the injectors separately as well as the fuel rail. Or you may want to ask if they have a rebuild service whereby you send them the entire ITB unit and they refurbish all needed items.

You're running the same ITB's I am and as stated, they are available from the Borla/TWM center in Kentucky. If you're keeping your old injectors, you can ask them for the unit w/o injectors. How do you wear out ITB's ?

Yes, I saw the reference to machining the top boss to 38 mm from the face. However, the tube was hitting the case about 3" below that. Incidentally, my upper boss appears to have been machined. For the life of me, I can't see how the rear suspension can compress enough to bring the de dion tube anywhere near the upper boss on the diff cover plate.

While messing around with the vent tube issue, I noticed that my de dion suspension tube has been hitting/rubbing the cover plate of the Sierra differential. In fact, it even broke off a piece of the reinforcing web about midway up the case cover, just above the fill plug. I asked Jon @ CaterhamUSA about this and he suggested I take a look at the Watts links and their bushings. According to the assembly manual, the front link is supposed to measure 475 mm (18.70") center to center, and the smaller rear link 244 mm (9.60") center to center. I measured from the outside and it appeared to be off so I took off all 4 links to accurately measure them. Front links were 18.5", rear links at 9.5". If any of you have any interference along the back of the differential, I would check the links, and as Jon pointed out also, the condition of the bushings. I bought my car from the original owner so I assumed he had the suspension correctly set up. Maybe he thought he did. I used center point punches through the holes to get an accurate reading on the center of the mount.

Thanks. I'll install the catch can. I'm going to put it in the storage area, easier to monitor & empty from there.

I noticed my Sierra Diff blowing some oil out of the upper vent hose, which is just resting against the upper aluminum panel at this time. I had never noticed any oil puddling or dripping until the other day when I took it around the block twice to test a new microphone placement in the engine compartment (a whole other issue in itself). When I got back in and backed up the gar in my shop, oil was coming out in small drips. At first I wasn't sure where the oil was coming out of. I put the car on the lift and ran it but nothing further came out. But when I looked up above the differential, I noticed wet oily areas on the right upper side from this time and likely other prior times too. I drained the oil from the differential and measured that I had 36 ounces of gear lube, which appears to be correct. No oil came out of the rear plug when I openned it up to stick my oil sucker in the diff. so I assume it wasn't over-filled. I have no issues with the differential, quiet as a church mouse and silky smooth. Has anyone else experienced this ? I was thinking of adding a vented catch can in the rear storage compartment and running a hose extension from the diff. vent hose. Necessary ? Don't know.

Beeseeingyou, I sent you a PM about the car. I want to buy the car. Take a look and let me know.

First of all, you have a beautiful car and your original asking price was very fair, never mind your reduced price. I thought about buying your car but I'm kind of overloaded right now with the restoration costs for my 69 Corvette. Even with that, I looked to see what I could scrape up and I didn't entertain an offer to you since it would be insulting. I understand you're moving away and can't take the car with you. Trying to rush in selling a car usually means you're going to take a hit to move it quickly. Wouldn't it make more sense to leave the car with a friend or relative to allow you to get full value for this car ? This car should sell easily for $24K, maybe more. The replacement cost is much higher. I only wish I was in a better position to make you a decent offer.

Mine did that originally. I found the right headlight/turn signal wiring harness had become cut/chaffed and was shorting out. There is a connector inside the front of the engine compartment for each side. You can easily isolate the headlight/ts harness from the car by disconnecting the connector, re-install the fuse and see if it holds OK. If it does, then you need to inspect the wiring near or inside the headlight. Mine was shorting out inside the headlight.

I looked at doing just that but mine don't seem to come apart other than in a destructive manner. Are yours rectangular type switches ?

I went through the same thing about three times before I narrowed it down to the hazzard switch. The turn signal circuit runs through the hazzard switch in a really wacky way (Lucas Electrical design). I pulled the hazzard switch through the dash with all the wires still attached and when I pulled and twisted on the switch, the circuit started working again. Try pushing in on the switch with a good deal of force, both on and off a few times and you'll likely see the switch come back to life. I was able to keep it working while waiting for a new hazzard switch from Jon @ Caterham USA. Now that I have the replacement switch, the old crappy one won't quit.

Like Dallasdude, I also use Motul RBF 600 and have used it on all my track cars. It runs around $16 to $19 a pint and since it is a DOT4, you can used it for your hydraulic clutch as well. Some guys use the ATE blue or gold and seem to like it too since it is cheaper. On the upper end of the price spectrum is Castrol RBF. Not sure what it's price is now but it used to be above $75/quart (ouch!) but it has the highest wet boiling point of all of them. For the lightweight nature of the 7 with so little braking needed, I think most fluids will do well enough. Some tracks like Sebring with 17 turns will make it earn its price.

Like a fool, I click on the link thinking this a new kind of car hauler, maybe a triple axle (extended trailer).......................did I miss the boat on this one :svengo:

You are right about the number of cars offered for sale vs. the quantity originally built. A good example is the 1970 Chevelle SS454 with either the LS5 or LS6 engine. Most of the time, the sellers get away with it. Usually buyers are so thrilled with the appearance of the car their emotions get in the way of their common sense. The thrill dies down pretty quickly when they find out they bought a fake or clone. As they say, buyer beware. However, as Kitcat stated, you can spend a fortune defending yourself from a slander or defamation of character law suit that is as valid as the car they were trying to pawn off. The question is: Do you feel morally obligated to blow the whistle on the charlatans or do you keep quiet to avoid the law suit ? I favor the former but the latter is unfortunately the one that prevails.....unless you're an attorney and can defend yourself adequately. Having said that, you can still warn others without naming names and pointing fingers, yet still make it clear who is trying to pull the scam.

Since Croc went to all this trouble for us, I thought I'd help a little by listing the mics and their prices; Opteka VM-100 with mount and hairy cover......$19.99 + shipping Audio Technica ATR-3350 Lavalier...................$19.91 + shipping Audio Technica PRO24CM Stereo with mount.....$61.22 (free shipping) Olympus ME-52W noice cancelling mic..............$26.94 + shipping All of these were from Amazon.com some were in short supply. And of course, the one that gave the best results is the most expensive of the group. I think it's the only one that records in stereo mode as well.