DaveStruve Posted August 10, 2014 Author Share Posted August 10, 2014 Beautiful car Dave. Congratulations. I like the Exige seats too. Do you happen to know if they have Probax padding? How do you like them? Are they comfortable? Do you think they'd be good for the track? All the best, Steve So I bought them used off a guy, and while they have the probax labels on them, the bladders were removed. Not that that matters though, as the location for the pump tube would be almost impossible to route to a usable position... at least in mine. As for comfort, I like them a lot, they have a decent amount of foam padding in them, and make for a nice ride. My last 2 rides were 90miles each and there wasn't any real issue of comfort related to the seat. I think they would be pretty good for track. I think they are will be good for track, they are solid, come from another proven track car, and are setup for 4 point harness and can easily be converted for 6. Mine already came this way. I used this setup for the exige belts to create solid sub belt mount point. http://www.sector111.com/parts/track/interior/sys.cfm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveStruve Posted August 10, 2014 Author Share Posted August 10, 2014 Took my son up to the Barber Motorsport Museum today, for the first time since I started my build. Got to say I've got a lot more of an appreciation of Chapman's early work after doing mine. It was nice to see how terrible the welds on the Type 12 chassis looked, gave me hope that mine might actually hold together http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p74/xcritic/Lotus%207/IMG_1490_zps26062a46.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p74/xcritic/Lotus%207/IMG_1492_zpse953b837.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p74/xcritic/Lotus%207/IMG_1495_zpsded66b2c.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
breezy7 Posted August 10, 2014 Share Posted August 10, 2014 The piece on the wall behind the blue seven is great! Nice work on your car Dave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveStruve Posted August 16, 2014 Author Share Posted August 16, 2014 Been making some tweaks to the car. If you have checked out the build log, you would have seen my engine looked like this. http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p74/xcritic/Lotus%207/IMG_1178_zpse2c632f4.jpg Well I had done this pretty early on before I knew what the color scheme would be for the car. So last week i decided I wanted to do something a little more fitting for the car. So I tracked done a valve cover for a early 90's Mercury Capri, with a bit of work these can give it a nice vintage look and since the used the motor from the miata they are almost a direct bolt on. I then proceeded to strip, clean, paint, and modify it to work with the miata. So here it is, its not perfect but pretty darn good. http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p74/xcritic/Lotus%207/IMG_1501_zps60e3090d.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p74/xcritic/Lotus%207/IMG_1505_zps6515e602.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p74/xcritic/Lotus%207/IMG_1507_zps81d02f31.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
breezy7 Posted August 17, 2014 Share Posted August 17, 2014 Dave: What is involved in fitting the valve cover to the Miata engine? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xcarguy Posted August 17, 2014 Share Posted August 17, 2014 I'll have to say . . . . once again . . . I've never seen a locost that looks so much like a factory build. :cheers: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveStruve Posted August 17, 2014 Author Share Posted August 17, 2014 Dave: What is involved in fitting the valve cover to the Miata engine? Not a ton. Mainly the 2 breather ports have to be adjusted. On the intake side, normally a pvc valve would be inserted into the cover. However the nipple on the new valve cover is further forward so you have to reroute it. In hindsight I should have drilled out the nipple and put a 90 degree fitting in place to simplify things. On the exhaust side the second nipple is on the backside of the cover directly in the way of the ignition coil packs. So that one I drilled out, then tapped the hole to take a 90 degree pipe fitting. Thats pretty much it, this cover only fits the 1.6 miata engine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
breezy7 Posted August 17, 2014 Share Posted August 17, 2014 Thanks Dave, that may a mod for my Miata this winter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scannon Posted August 17, 2014 Share Posted August 17, 2014 There are similar cam covers out there for the 1.8 Miata engines as well. I've seen what happens when a rock gets thrown up into the timing belt of a running engine, not pretty. But then the Miata engine is a non-interference engine so no immoral intercourse between valves and pistons and the attendant mayhem of interference engines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Hill Posted August 17, 2014 Share Posted August 17, 2014 Skip's info begs the question... Are Zetecs of the interference variety? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveStruve Posted August 17, 2014 Author Share Posted August 17, 2014 There are similar cam covers out there for the 1.8 Miata engines as well. I've seen what happens when a rock gets thrown up into the timing belt of a running engine, not pretty. But then the Miata engine is a non-interference engine so no immoral intercourse between valves and pistons and the attendant mayhem of interference engines. Did not think about that, would have to be one hell of a magic rock, but possible I suppose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveStruve Posted September 3, 2014 Author Share Posted September 3, 2014 It never ends. After months of searching I finally tracked down an off the shelf intercooler that would actually fit the 7. Its a tiny but thick thing from a Toyota MR2, but it fits. I totally lucked out and found an ebay store the same day from a guy that was unloading a bunch of lightly used carbon fiber oil cooler ducts. One of which fits nearly perfectly and has duel inlets. I did some initial recon and it will fit once I assemble some new piping. But since I'm intending to use the car for the next few weekends,I'll wait to install till I'm clear of everything. You can start to see how this will be configured, I think it will get enough air flow from the NACA ducts to work. At least shouldn't get worse. http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p74/xcritic/Lotus%207/F0AE5BCB-1F5A-420C-810F-99D1B22C9896_zpscjaujfo3.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p74/xcritic/Lotus%207/30B595B7-DD0C-4EB7-8DEC-42438C4A1DE1_zpsv0sf73or.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p74/xcritic/Lotus%207/DBFD343C-DF4E-412F-8119-AC53D1CBDDF5_zpswoioffyd.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveStruve Posted September 19, 2014 Author Share Posted September 19, 2014 Finished up the intercooler setup today. This thing just fit, and really is a cool setup. Now I just hope it works the way it was intended. Did a long drive this past weekend of about 200 miles and managed to cook the teflon coating off the supercharger. So it was time to do this install. http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p74/xcritic/Lotus%207/IMG_1519_zps06281427.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p74/xcritic/Lotus%207/IMG_1527_zpsf3eeb5fb.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p74/xcritic/Lotus%207/IMG_1525_zps24626bb1.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mondo Posted September 21, 2014 Share Posted September 21, 2014 That is really slick! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveStruve Posted October 6, 2014 Author Share Posted October 6, 2014 Just got back from the second dyno tune to adjust for the intercooler and it was a great success. Air temps were 100 degrees cooler that the previous tune. And because of that and finding a few areas that were leaking boost, I am now making 25 more hp and 10 torques to the wheels. Final numbers were 167hp 136ftlbs, there is still room to hit the 170's but the injectors are maxed out at this point. Blue lines are from a few months back. http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p74/xcritic/Lotus%207/lotus7_zps7abf4cb9.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveStruve Posted August 21, 2015 Author Share Posted August 21, 2015 So I completed my first track day in the car and did more or less a shakedown of it. Everything held up extremely well other than the cooling system. During my second session the engine started getting super hot... I mean really hot. I was seeing temps over 260 degrees, so at that point I shut it down and brought it in. Thankfully doesn't appear to be any head gasket damage, so I think I got lucky. So I have now been addressing that issue. I have ducted the radiator, will be switching to a water/ water wetter mix, and performing a coolant reroute on the miata motor. I regret not doing the coolant reroute before, because I did not leave myself much room to pull it off. With all that said, the car is very fast. So I'm happy. Video: This was from the very first session, so disregard the terrible driving. http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p74/xcritic/Lotus%207/amp_8_15_2_zpsc2i90mdt.jpg http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p74/xcritic/Lotus%207/amp_8_15_zpscrnun8ho.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TurboWood Posted August 22, 2015 Share Posted August 22, 2015 Very nice, congrats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveStruve Posted April 25, 2016 Author Share Posted April 25, 2016 SCCA TrackNight April 2016 AMP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveStruve Posted April 25, 2016 Author Share Posted April 25, 2016 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveStruve Posted April 25, 2016 Author Share Posted April 25, 2016 [video=youtube;O-8NpeqtTnc] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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