Bones - a dual-duty Birkin S3

[Silber]

One of the many things I love about my wife is that she participates in the "gotta drive cars fast" thing that I've got going on. I got to spend the day with my two little girls, and my better half got to take the 7 out to Utah Motorsports Campus to participate in the annual Utah SCCA Oktoberfast auto-x. The mountains aren't quite as pretty this time of year, but provide a nice backdrop to the track located near Tooele, Utah.

 

 

[32eachtime]

10 hours ago, Silber said:

One of the many things I love about my wife is that she participates in the "gotta drive cars fast" thing that I've got going on. I got to spend the day with my two little girls, and my better half got to take the 7 out to Utah Motorsports Campus to participate in the annual Utah SCCA Oktoberfast auto-x. The mountains aren't quite as pretty this time of year, but provide a nice backdrop to the track located near Tooele, Utah.

 

 

How did she finish? Looks smooth!

[Silber]

6 hours ago, 32eachtime said:

How did she finish? Looks smooth!

Admittedly not as well as she would like, towards the bottom of the timing sheet instead of the top. We took a bit of hiatus from autocross when we started our family, and she is still getting used to the 7 compared to the Miatas we drove before (this was her first SCCA autocross with it), so we are working on building the speed back in. The emphasis this time out was on having fun and being safe, and without me there in the passenger seat tempting her with "MORE GAS" "BRAKE LATER" "GO FASTER!", she erred on the conservative side.

 

But she can put down some good times. This was her in my D-Prepared Miata back in the day:

 

[32eachtime]

25 minutes ago, Silber said:

Admittedly not as well as she would like, towards the bottom of the timing sheet instead of the top. We took a bit of hiatus from autocross when we started our family, and she is still getting used to the 7 compared to the Miatas we drove before (this was her first SCCA autocross with it), so we are working on building the speed back in. The emphasis this time out was on having fun and being safe, and without me there in the passenger seat tempting her with "MORE GAS" "BRAKE LATER" "GO FASTER!", she erred on the conservative side.

 

But she can put down some good times. This was her in my D-Prepared Miata back in the day:

 

Nicely done! I’m near the Iowa Region group that has had several SCCA Nationals participants. There has been quite a lot of success in DM and EM as well as other classes.

Continued success with your Caterham!

[Silber]

Overdue for an update.

 

Spent a bunch of time working on the cooling system, which you can read about in this thread. Long story short, the car runs a little hotter than I would like, but the cooling system seems to be operating correctly.

 

Once that was sorted, it was time to get the suspension dialed in and some new tires (finally!). A friend of mine offered to help me do a string alignment at his shop and mount my new tires, so I loaded up to drive a couple of counties over to where he lives.

 

 

 

I saw at least one person taking a video of me driving down the interstate like this 

 

 

 

 

We were able to fairly easily get the specs I wanted.

 

 

 

End result! Decided to go with -2.0 degrees of camber in the front, -1.6 degrees in the rear, and zero toe all around. As mentioned in an earlier post, the intention with these specs is to try and dial out the understeer. Initial drives show little change on turn-in characteristics, but the front end has more grip once the suspension is loaded in a corner. I'll need to take it to an autocross to really tell, and I'm excited about the new tires as well. I went with Kumho V730s, 205/50r15 front and rear. I love the nearly semi-slick look, and I think they will be much better than the Bridgestones from 2018.

 

[Silber]

My friend's shop was home to some lovely cars. I only took pictures of the two that were in the shop, but in addition to the Bugeye Sprite and 914 below, there was also another Bugeye, a first gen Camaro, a Nissan Skyline GTR R32, and a nice E36 M3 sedan. 

 

[Silber]

I also participated yesterday and today in a two-day charity car show in the town I live in. Last year I had to choose between the Utah British Field Day event and this one, but to my benefit British Field Day is next weekend so I will be able to attend both. Mostly classic American cars, but I had a nice neighboring Austin Mini and a Midget a couple of cars down that brought a British vibe to our side of the show.

 

 

Imagine what it would be like if all cars were about this size, instead of the 8000 lb behemoths that are commonplace nowadays.

[Silber]

Due for an update.

 

Had a fun time at the British Field Day in Salt Lake City. Two Caterhams there in addition to my Birkin.

 

 

 

 

 

I helped set up the "Race Course" with a good friend and experienced autocrosser to allow a course that flowed a lot better than last year, the main requirement was we needed to keep the average speed below 25 mph. I had the fastest time of the day by the end, narrowly jumping ahead of my friend in his Bugeye Sprite according to the "old man timing system" that was a gentleman doing the stopwatch on his phone. I calculated the average speed of my fast time to be 21.03 mph. Mission accomplished!

 

 

 

 

[Silber]

I was driving the car quite a bit during the summer, even daily driving it for a couple weeks when our old Jeep Cherokee had a catastrophic water pump failure. It was fun parking it up next to the typical monster trucks people around here usually drive.

 

 

But, the summer did not end without any problems. I was out at a local university for work when I went to start the car and drive back to the office, but the car did something like "chugga, chugga, clunk," and then I had no starter. I tried bump starting it and jump starting it, but neither worked. Hot, flustered, and a bit embarrassed as most of my coworkers were there, I decided to utilize roadside assistance and get the car home where I could diagnose the problem without pressure.

 

 

I let the car sit for about a month as life with a young family keeps me busy, but finally had the chance to try and diagnose the problem. The symptoms were no starter and no fuel pump, which prompted me to look at all the fuses. Checked every one of them and all was good, but when I happened to turn the headlight switch on with the ignition on, I heard a buzzing coming from the fuse box. The culprit? The ignition relay. The parts store didn't have a comparable replacement, but I could hijack the relay for the heated windscreen, swapped it over, and boom, everything working and engine started right up.

 

 

I'm so glad it was an easy fix, and happy that it was also fairly painless to diagnose. Could have done it in the parking lot at the university, but alas, you live and you learn.

 

I'm looking forward to a bunch of drives before they salt the roads here and enjoying the nice fall weather.