build diary

May 25, 2007:
Eric was in town for the weekend and got to see the Seven for the first time.
He's been a cheerleader of the project since I first started talking about it years and years ago - we've known each other about a decade now. He's seen the entire process, from my "Lotus fever" every Canadian winter, to the decision to finally do something, to all of the various problems and solutions that have come up during the build and tuning. It was great to finally give him the chance for a ride.
entry 1370
It's fairly easy to tell that Eric enjoyed his ride!
This was just a quick blast around the block, although my "block" takes about 10 minutes and includes a couple of decent curves. It's always a little frustrating to me because it's nothing like driving the car on the track, but Eric was laughing like a loon when we returned.
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June 4, 2007:
It's autocross time again.
For the first time, I had another Seven to play with at the autox. The car - the FM Westfield demo car - is down on power compared to mine, doesn't have years of setup and Bill isn't much of an autocrosser. Doesn't matter, it's still fun to have someone to play with.

The course was a pretty good one. Not as fast as I'd like, but it's a narrow venue so there's not a lot of opportunity for high speed. There were three "turnarounds", cones that were basically the center of a 180 degree turn. This was a busy moment for me, as I was at maximum braking from the fastest part of the course, double-clutching down to first and (sometimes) pulling the handbrake. We all got 10-12 runs on the course, a hallmark of this particular race group.

Those with sharp eyes will notice that I'm running my old Falken Azenis tires. This is important.
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On the course, I just couldn't get the Seven to hook up well.
Temperatures were nice and warm, but I either had the front end sliding or the rear spinning - sometimes both, of course. There was a real problem getting the front to grip on turn in. I was running on the Falkens instead of my usual Toyo RA-1s because I just plain ran out of time when loading up for the event. I didn't think it would be a major problem. But the car just didn't feel precise and it was smearing all over the pavement. On one part of the course this was a riot as I let the car swing around a series of four cones. But for most of the turns, it was a frustration.

We had a great race going on for the fastest time of the day. A turbo Miata, a well set up and unbelievably fast 1.6 Miata, an S2000 and the Seven all traded back and forth for the crown. The odd thing is that I've run with that turbo Miata before, and when I was driving a supercharged Miata we were very closely matched. The Seven is faster than that supercharged Miata, so why were we so close now? Heck, why was he ahead of me?

I spent a lot of time grumbling and grousing about my tires, and no matter what I did I just couldn't quite catch the others. I was running at the back of our little pack and had resigned myself to the fact that I just wasn't going to catch them. The fastest time of the day was a 1:19.185 for the turbo Miata while my best for the Seven was 1:19.881.

Just for fun, at the end of the day, I hopped in the Westfield for a run. Right out of the starting gate, I found what I'd been missing. The car leapt forward with that urge I'd been expecting from my car, and diving into the first gate was a revelation. Here was the front end grip and accuracy I'd been hoping for. The car didn't have enough horsepower to light up the rear tires so I couldn't steer from the rear at all. I didn't have the right shoes for its smaller footwell so I was a bit concerned about hitting the brake pedal which made me more hesitant. When I pulled into the pits after my run, I thought there was going to be a mutiny. I'd set a time of 1:17.435, about 1.7 seconds faster than anyone else. And it was all thanks to a good set of tires.

The RA-1 isn't usually viewed as a good autocross tire because it doesn't heat up fast enough, while the Falken Azenis is put up on a pedestal as the almighty champion of all. I'm not a big fan of the Falkens - too heavy and too stiff for my taste - and this proved why. Sure, the dedicated Hoosier race slicks will outrun the Toyos but you can't drive them up to the track. I don't think the Seven is ever going to leave the garage on Falkens again. Since the suspension is set up for the Toyos that might be part of the problem of course.

Nobody else got that Westfield around the track faster than 1:21.605. So it's not all tires!
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June 5, 2007:
I mentioned Eric was in town last week, but I didn't mention why.
I got married. What sort of girl would marry me? The sort that thinks it's a good idea to use little Miata and Lotus models as cake toppers. Don't worry, we did have a real cake as well!
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Another picture from last weekend's autocross.
I like the sense of speed in this one.
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June 6, 2007:
There was one failure at the autocross.
Early in the day, the alternator stopped charging. It's always been a little slow to energize on startup. If I didn't give a bit of a throttle blip, it wouldn't light up. Well, the old one simply had enough. I spent the entire day - probably at least a dozen runs between myself and Bill - running the car off the battery. That little Odyssey is a tough little critter, it didn't show any signs of flagging at all.

I replaced the alternator with a new one last night and everything was much better. Okay, not new. Another junkyard alternator to replace the previous junkyard alternator.
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The Seven has a very high-end car cover.
I'm painting some parts for the Targa Miata in my "paint booth" (aka plastic sheeting hanging from the ceiling) so I have the other kids covered up. HVLP paint guns don't produce a lot of overspray and the plastic traps it all, but I'd be pretty upset with myself if I managed to get overspray on the Seven!
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This turbo Elise stopped by Flyin' Miata.
It's the first time I've seen Chrome Orange in the original application. You know what? It looks better on the Seven. Granted, I didn't get to see this car in the sunlight where the yellow pearl lights up, but it just didn't work as well as I'd expected. Perhaps a few more details like black wheels? It sure it eye-catching though!
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June 18, 2007:
It's setup time!
The FM Westfield is going to be heading for some magazine tests in a month. That means it's time to get into high gear sorting out the brakes and handling. The Seven will be the benchmark of course, and it's in large part to the Seven's abilities that the Westfield got invited to play with the magazines in the first place. So I'm going to be a little busy.
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June 27, 2007:
The Seven finally gets on the cover of a magazine!
Wired magazine?

Okay, I cheated. Wired had a special program where subscribers could get their picture on the cover of their issue, and I sent in a track shot. I think the fact that it's embedded in a "you are here" bubble is pretty funny - it's like they caught me speeding on a city street with a helmet on!
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This super-sexy race seat is a Westfield part.
I've been considering installing a pair in the Seven to drop myself further down in the car and to save a chunk of weight. And also because they look soo gooood!

They're skinny, though. And expensive. I barely fit inside and I'm not sure I want to drop that kind of dough on seats when I already have a set. But just look at them!
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June 28, 2007:
Well, the seats aren't going to work.
While the driver's seat fits nicely into my car, the passenger's side is much too small. It's probably just as well really. The price on those seats is eye-watering. And it's not as if there's little to do on the car.
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July 9, 2007:
No Seven fun for a while.
As part of trying to sort out the handling of the Westfield, the Seven's rear springs sorta got borrowed. Sigh.
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July 15, 2007:
Westfield development time.
I've been trying to apply everything I learned with the Seven to the Westfield. And I think it's working. The car is really coming together well. I've been at the racetrack a couple of times sorting things out, and on my first session in the "normal" direction, I pulled a 1:04.6. That's 1.3 seconds slower than my outright record! In a car with a (basically) stock 1.8, unfamiliar ergonomics (I'm still getting used to the pedals), no recent track time on my part and some sorting left to do. Outstanding! The car feels really good and has endless brakes, modeled after mine. I need to get mine to the track with good tires so we can do a back-to-back comparison, but I think Bill should be very happy with his Westie. One problem his car has that mine never did is cooling, although we were torture testing the car on purpose.

We're loading the Westfield up on my poor trailer and dragging it to Michigan so both Automobile and Car and Driver can have their way with it. I'll be on the road for over a week and kicking back in Ann Arbor during that time. Once I return, it's time to get the Seven back into shape (I want my springs back!) and then we'll have a lightweight car showdown!
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July 25, 2007:
I spent the past week in Michigan with the guys from Automobile Magazine and the FM Westfield.
I got a chance to see Larry Webster again as well, it's always fun catching up.

Automobile tested the Westfield for performance numbers, and the results are interesting. It turns out Car and Driver (and most other magazines) subtract a "rollout" correction factor, basically removing the time it takes for the car to move the first foot. I'm not sure why, perhaps it removes some of the variation between testers. Automobile does not.

The Westfield was fitted with a 1.8 Miata engine that was stock internally and I'm going to guess it's making about 110 at the wheels. That's down on my car, but it also should have more torque. The 0-60 time was a half second slower than my car. The braking was about 15' longer, probably due to different proportioning. Since the Westfield was tested on a proper skidpad on the Bosch testing grounds (as opposed to a small dusty parking lot at a Texas dragstrip), lateral acceleration was a very strong 1.15g. The interesting bit is the quarter mile, though. The elapsed time was a half second slower, but the trap speed was within a couple of mph. Meanwhile, my car was a full 2 seconds faster to 100 mph. That doesn't make much sense to me, but I'm not a drag racer.

There's a track day this weekend and I'm considering taking the Seven, but I think the recent push to get the Westfield finished and the 3000 mile road trip has me too tired. Besides, my rear springs are on the Westie and I'm not going to get them back until next week! But then it's time to get the Seven on the dyno and into top shape, it's going to be quite a battle for the lap record at the Open House this year. Not only will the Westfield be chasing, I'll have a turbocharged Caterham to deal with.
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July 30, 2007:
Trackday time!
We're having a company track day on Thursday - one of the perks of working at a place like Flyin' Miata, although I must admit that spending four days planting subliminal messages in the boss' brain while driving to Michigan and back probably didn't hurt. Of course, my idea of "subliminal" is "Hey Bill, we should have a company track day".

This will be the first chance for the Seven to truly chase the Westfield around the track. Well, it will be if I get my rear springs back and manage to finish painting the Targa Miata in time so I can get the Seven out of the garage. Some work lies ahead.
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August 1, 2007:
The springs are back!
Bill returned my springs after installing a truly drool-worthy set of Nitron shocks on the Westfield. He also handed over the Westie's original shocks - that's the black one. I'd heard they were made by GAZ and the construction certainly backs that up, but notice it has more travel both in extension and compression. Nice! I don't really have any droop travel right now thanks to the stiff rear springs and the ride height I'm running, so I figured I'd install these instead.

Alas, it was not to be. Turns out the bushings are sized for a metric bolt, or at least a smaller bolt than I used. Nuts!

The track day tomorrow should be fun, but I hope I can play for a significant period of time. One of my RA-1s took a lot of wear when I ran it on the track on a Miata and it's starting to cord on the edge. I really shouldn't take it out at all, but I'll monitor it closely. At least it's a slow track! Or I could just take the Mini instead, but that means I can't chase the Westfield...
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August 3, 2007:
Back at Grand Junction Motor Speedway for the first time in a year, other than a few laps testing the Westfield.
It was immediately obvious that the engine wasn't happy, so my coworker Jeremy laid his hands upon the ECU programming and sorted things out nicely. He's good like that.

On the track, it was fun. Since it was just the FM employees and a couple of invited guests, we ran closer together than we usually do on this track. Specifically, Bill and I spent some time chasing each other around in the Westfield and the Seven. I was tentative at first because I was concerned about the tire, but then eventually decided to just run hard anyhow. Bill and I had a ball - the cars were pretty well matched, his extra torque helping out of corners while my extra horsepower helped out on the straights. The biggest difference was the big guts corner, the downhill off camber decreasing radius "straight" that goes into a 180 degree hairpin. If you can manage to keep your foot down all the way - 148 hp running for the top of third gear before braking hard in a short chute for the hairpin, you can make up a lot of space on someone who's a bit more conservative. If you're going to feather the throttle or brake any earlier, you have to do it quite a bit earlier due to a sharp kink in the corner. It really tests your commitment, and it's the best part of the track. Bill wasn't quite as committed as I was and didn't have quite as much horsepower so this was a significant difference. Still, we did take turns playing leader and making big slidy mistakes to let the other guy through. Great fun! Unfortunately, the Seven was running hot. Every other car there other than the Westfield was as well, and we'd just finished a bunch of work on that car. The track is tough on cooling, being relatively slow, high altitude and lots of full throttle. But still, the Seven's never had trouble before and it wasn't that hot. I was getting whiffs of coolant on my first lap or two, making me wonder if the radiator cap was failing. On my last session, I noticed the alternator light came on as I cooled down - that's odd.

Popping the hood off revealed the reason - the alternator belt was gone! It also drives the water pump. Hmm, very odd. Was it slipping earlier, is that why I was running hot? But it never squealed at all. A mystery, and one that will take some extra investigation. I'll test the cap before the Open House and also check out a bit of play in one of the rear wheels. The Seven's been seeing almost exclusively hard running of late, and so it's time for some race car levels of maintenance.
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August 7, 2007:
I skipped an autocross this past weekend.
Well, I didn't skip it - I was running it - but the Seven stayed home. I want to find out why that belt disappeared before running the car too hard. The FM Open House is coming up in a bit over a week so I'll have to have the car ready for then.
And of course, the mutated rotary Fiat showed up. It would have been good to have another shot at head-to-head competition with him.
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August 9, 2007:
Time for some new shoes.
The last set of RA-1s lasted through a whole bunch of track time, the destructive and entertaining drift session with C&D, an Atom test and even some (gasp!) street driving. There was still some good life left in three of them, but with significant cord showing on one I decided it was time to buy another set. The water pump belt is back on and a few bolts have been tightened up in the suspension, so it's almost time to defend my lap record at the Open House! This year I'll be under attack from not only the usual turbo Miatas, but a turbo Caterham and a turbo Westfield. It's going to be tough to say the least.
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