build diary

April 26, 2006:
This Birkin has a very well-made wooden dash.
It might not be as sexy as carbon fibre but it's a good material for a little sports car.
entry 1231
Jon built this nose cone - and all the rest of his bodywork - from scratch.
entry 1232
Four very different Locosts together.
Mine's hiding in the back because that's where the photographer wanted it.
entry 1233
A photo session for Kit Car.
entry 1234
Pretty car.
entry 1235
A tired tire.
It was worked pretty hard during the "skidpad" session as you can see from the wear, but it also seems to have developed a leak that was later traced to a nail.
entry 1236

April 27, 2006:
Video update.
Some video and audio of the Car and Driver sessions have been added to the video page.
entry 1237

Larry Webster, hard at work.
This is one of a bunch of videos I've just added from the Car and Driver test sessions, including some audio files.
entry 1238

May 1, 2006:
I found out last Thursday that the local Corvette club was holding an autocross.
The first time I took the Seven on an autox course was with this group, almost exactly a year ago. Since then I've done a little work and managed to get a little faster. I also pulled the nail out of the rear tire so it holds air now.

My first run was quick but messy and I proceeded to take big chunks of time out on every following one. I'd been afraid the course would favour 'Vettes as it had a couple of significant straights but it turned out that this wasn't a worry. My first run was 50.060 seconds. My fastest was a 46.620. The fastest Corvette? 51.450. Those straights got me up to 60 mph which is still in my full acceleration range. Now, if we'd been running up to 90 mph it would have been a different story! And a pretty odd autocross. It was a real pleasure running with the club. Despite my being an interloper - one who was rude enough to completely obliterate his hosts - they were very welcoming and ran a smooth event. It's a good group to run with and they now restrict "metal" cars to keep the numbers down. As it turned out, that wasn't a problem as there were only a dozen Corvettes and myself. The cornering ability of the Seven is what really impressed them while I got all excited by the noise of the Z-06 and C6 cars. Video of the fastest run is now online.

The car ran pretty well. I loaded my "high altitude" settings back into the ECU but the Texas gas in the tank still meant I had to pull out a bunch of fuel. Once I burn it off (sigh) I'll have to go back to my crappy Colorado gas setup.
entry 1239

May 2, 2006:
One of these things is not like the others.
The Seven goes to hang out with the big engine, big tire boys at a Corvette autocross. It's like a "where's Waldo?" puzzle. Hint, look for orange.
entry 1240
Two distinctly different ways of going fast.
A new C-6 Corvette and the Seven.
entry 1241

May 8, 2006:
When I was down in Texas, my car was misbehaving.
It was showing signs of a vacuum leak and more embarassingly, it would blow big clouds of smoke when I left from a stop. It was really looking like a car with no valve seals. But I knew that couldn't be it because it had been fine. Given what I was seeing on the O2 sensor, I spent my time trying to fix it with tuning.

Until I got back up to Colorado. Despite tweaking my fuel map to sort out the high-power gasoline, I still had the big cloud of smoke. When pulling the filter off (again) to check to see if there was a problem with the butterfly synchronisation, I noticed that the aft throttles were pretty oily. They get the PCV line so there's always going to be some, but this seemed excessive. I tried removing the line from the PCV valve and boom! No more vacuum leak and no more smoke. There's always going to be some air coming in through a PCV at idle but this certainly indicated a problem. I pulled the valve out and it was hollow! I can't explain that one. Maybe the vibration of the trip to Texas caused the end of the possibly 16-year-old valve to break off. Despite disassembling the baffles in the valve cover, I couldn't find the missing pieces. Reassembling with a good valve showed that all my problems were solved. Sigh. It's always a bit of a hassle when something like this happens, but it's really embarrassing when it happens during a test. The bad idle that Larry commented on wasn't my fault at all and it was just poor timing. Oh well, I guess there's always some sort of regret.
entry 1242

My hollow PCV valve on the left, a good one on the right.
How did this happen?
entry 1243

May 16, 2006:
The Seven is a happy little car right now.
There's an autocross coming up in a couple of weeks and my to-do list for the race is...empty. How cool is that? I could just pull out of the garage and go in to battle without any need for tweaking. Well, except to find out why the steering wheel appears to be off center. But that should be quick. Instead, I've been spending my time getting the Mini together. It's time for all the toy cars to get some outside time!
entry 1244

May 18, 2006:
I wandered over to Amazon to see how people are reacting to the book.
Amazing - there are 11 customer reviews! My Miata book, which is pretty well received and popular, has two. The Seven book is more polarizing. They're either five stars or one, depending on if the reviewer expected a step-by-step guide or not. The title of the book wasn't my choice and seems to have misled a few people. It's a shame, and I wish I could apologise to each of them. Still, most readers seem to have understood what I was trying to do and there seem to be a lot of happy customers out there. A big thanks to Alfred Racho who made me smile with his review!
entry 1245

May 23, 2006:
The offset steering was simply a steering wheel that was one spline off.
Strange, as there's a paint marking on the shaft that I use to ensure it goes on straight. I'm going to investigate this further. Still, the car's in good shape for the autocross this weekend. I don't actually have a whole lot to do to get ready. It feels wrong somehow.
entry 1246

May 30, 2006:
Well, the autocross never happened.
The organiser didn't get his act together and cancelled it about 18 hours before it was scheduled to start. I'm not going to be making any plans around this particular organisation anymore.

I spent most of the weekend just puttering around instead. The Seven went out for a brief drive so I could follow SUVs at a crawling pace on the local fun roads. Yesterday was spent on a massive cleaning binge to empty the garage out for the next project. More information coming soon!
entry 1247

June 5, 2006:
Race action!
After a lot of goading and insults to my manhood, I was convinced to go to the drag strip on Friday night. For a bit of fun, I decided to take the Mini instead of the Seven. Why? Because I'd only go slower in the Seven than the testing in Texas, and the sheer ludicrousness of it appealed to me. I'm probably going to take the Mini to the autocross this upcoming weekend as well, just because it's fun.

The real question is - why is the Mini only 150 lbs heavier than the Seven, despite being fitted with four seats, wind-up windows, a trunk, etc? My Seven is typical for a car of its type, weighing in right about the same as the non-Superlight Caterhams. It's not exactly porky. It's certainly something I ponder as I look at the two parked together in the garage. Perhaps the secret is the 10" wheels and 7.9" brakes on the little car...
entry 1248

June 15, 2006:
The Seven hasn't seen a lot of use in the past few weeks.
I'll take it out this weekend to play with it. There is a track day in mid-July, but I think it's time just for some nice roads. I need to travel about an hour out of town to check out a possible autocross facility and that just happens to be near some great roads. Sigh, it's tough.

There's a new project taking shape in the garage as well. My friend Eric and I have decided to take on the Targa Newfoundland. It's a major race and we're building a special car. You can see more at the team website: TargaMiata.com. By request, I've also added a list of my other projects on the other resources.
entry 1249

June 16, 2006:
After cleaning out the garage, I parked the Seven and the Mini side by side for the first time.
I didn't expect them to be so close in size! Here's how they match up.
Seven:
Wheelbase, 92"
Length, 128"
Height, 42.5"
Width, 65.5"

Mini:
Wheelbase, 80"
Length, 120"
Height, 53"
Width, 56.7"

Okay, so they're not THAT close. Never mind. But the Seven looks quite a bit bigger when viewed solo, and parked side by side they appear identical in length.
entry 1250

June 17, 2006:
The Mini and the Seven parked side by side.
This was the decision that I faced this morning when I had to drive to work.
entry 1251
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