build diary

August 18, 2004:
The fan I'll use for designing a wind deflector.
Yes, it's taller than the Seven!
entry 593
In the parking lot at work.
The scary thing is that this Jeep is only average around here!
entry 594

August 19, 2004:
So I'm sitting at my desk at work and my boss Bill comes up and asks, "So, have you got the plate for your car yet? We need to do sound testing at the track at 6 tonight." You can imagine that I had the borrowed dealer plate on the car shortly after that!
So the Seven got an early workout. The track is actually a large-ish kart track so it's tight and well suited to small light cars. At least that's what I'd been told. I'd never driven it before.

How did it work? In short, I never expected the car to be this good, this early. Through a series of downhill S bends that involved some good berm hopping, the car swallowed up the bumps and the tail stayed faithfully on line despite my fairly ham-fisted driving. The suspension was obviously working well although it has a lot of lean. It was easy to break the rear end loose with power but the front was well planted. The brakes have a firm, firm pedal and I never really got on them too hard - I was a little tentative with such an unknown car of course! A couple of harder stops showed me that I had to add a little more front bias so I did that on the next straight :)

Noise? Well, the first session was a worst case scenario. The dB meter was set up halfway down the straight, right where I was reaching about 6500 rpm in 2nd. Yes, it's a slow track! The meter was on the left side of the track. Now think about where my exhaust points...Yes, I failed pretty badly. For a second session I popped on my diffuser tip. It's a bit low to the ground and scrapes on all right turns, but it dropped my sound level by 6 or 7 dB - that was enough to make me legal. A BIG thank you to Rodney at Scotty's for the help in setting that up.

There were a couple of problems with the car of course. My right rear brake caliper needs a rebuild as it's leaking slightly. A gasket on a water fitting started to drip a little and the car started to miss under load as time went on. The gasket was fixed this morning and I'll try a good set of coils to see if one of my junkyard units is bad. The most entertaining failure of the night was when my tachometer needle blew off! No, I don't have glass on the gauges yet. That was a bit of a problem but I have to laugh. Now if only I can find another set of needles! Oh, and I can also report that driving this car in the rain is not a terribly pleasant experience even with good wraparound glasses.
entry 595

The diffuser tip.
entry 596
The diffuser tip installed.
It looks goofy, yes. But I'd rather look goofy and be on the track than look cool and be confined to the pits! It pulls off easily.
entry 597
Going to play at the track in the company of the a 2.0 turbocharged Miata and one of the Ubercharger supercharger prototype cars.
Quite a convoy and certainly a quick bunch.
entry 598
Time for some fun - hitting the track for the first time.
I'm surprised you can't see the grin inside my helmet!
entry 599
Sure the exhaust is funny looking but who cares?
entry 600
Bill takes the Seven out for a few laps.
You can see the diffuser tip self-machining in this photo.
entry 601
Somehow the size difference doesn't seem as much as I expected!
entry 602

August 22, 2004:
It's been a hectic few days.
The Flyin' Miata Open House descended along with dozens of people who have apparently been following the Seven buildup. The car was a pretty big hit. Let's see if I can remember what happened...

On Thursday, I put the car on our dyno ("rolling road" for those in the UK) to see if we could find the missing power. Bill Cardell took a lot of time he really couldn't afford to try and solve the problem, but it kept on getting weaker. There appears to be a fuel delivery problem that gets worse with the heat. This meant that my engine was only putting out 107 hp at the wheels instead of the 130 it has achieved in the past. The next morning I popped in a new fuel filter and determined that the tank wasn't starting to pull vaccuum. The tach needle was found under the driver's seat and some glass was added to the gauges. I then headed to the track.

After the first session on the track, I was second fastest behind Bill! This filled me with much happiness. I was still feeling my way around and managed to cut a good chunk off my time as the day went on. I had a passenger every time I went out (of course!) and was having a complete blast as I tore around. The front was solidly planted and I could steer the rear at will. The car was more composed than the Miatas through the bumpy downhill chicane. Unfortunately, my fuel delivery problem started to come back to the point where I was only able to achieve a couple of good laps each (short) session. It was enough to give me the 4th fastest time of the day although a naturally aspirated Miata did manage to beat me despite a 1000 lb weight penalty. I don't care - there's no way the other drivers were having as much fun as I was. Even if I hadn't built the car I'd be grinning like an idiot but since it was the realisation of years of dreaming it was even better. The corner workers were giving me big thumbs up signs as I went by. I felt it necessary to give them some lurid tail slides on my cool-down lap in return. I think the kids call it "drifting" but it's what I always called "power oversteer"...

The next day I was working hard in our shop and didn't manage to get the Seven out on the road at all. It simply sat in the shop and was drooled upon. I did take a few folks out for test drives in our supercharged Miata and came back smelling like tire smoke for some reason. At the end of the day I jumped in the Seven and headed out to a Sonic drive-in restaurant where the Miata folks were gathering. On the way, something went awry in the electrical system and the headlights went out. For some reason the hazards decided to come on instead which was a pretty good fail-safe when I think about it. I frantically tried to fix the problem as the dusk got duskier but despite all the Lucas jokes from the bystanders I wasn't able to find the problem without tools. I had to quickly run the car home in shame. An embarassing end to a very good weekend.

We did manage to get a bit of video and sound from inside the car. Outside video will be coming soon. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go relax for a while.
entry 603

On the dyno, tring to find out what's happening to the power.
Bill Cardell runs the keyboard as Bill Bowser looks on.
entry 604
The once-pristine fenders of the Flyin' Miata "Track Dog" race car.
This is why I was concerned about protecting the fenders from rocks! That is also a Lotus paint colour, actually.
entry 605
On the track.
You'll notice the counter-steer - I'm having fun! Also notice the amount of mud on the car.
entry 606
Some spectators were surprised at how much the car rolled, others were suprised at how little.
entry 607
The approach road to the track was unpaved and it rained that morning.
That's a Seven that's getting USED.
entry 608
Video!
You can either listen to a 345 KB audio file in WAV format, a 175 KB audio file in MP4 format or watch a 1.6 MB video in Quicktime format. This is simply running through a couple of gears as recorded from the passenger's seat. Don't mind the wind noise - the camera was held outside the car.
entry 609

August 25, 2004:
I've been taking a few days off from the car as you might imagine.
It's been quite a sprint. At the moment, I need to solve the problems with the headlight circuit, an intermittent charging problem and of course the fuel delivery. Last Sunday I took the car out on the interstate and added the need for a wind deflector to my list - it's a little breezy at 80 mph! It's also quite stable which is a relief. The fuel problem started getting worse and worse to the point where the car would not start on Monday morning. That's fine, it made it through the Open House! I'll start by checking out the fuel pressure and working from there.

There are a couple of other builds starting up. As you might have spotted in the guestbook, Heikki Rinta-Koski is starting his buildup with more of a pure track focus. He has his own website up. Lester Seal is also documenting his track-based build. Lester's the one who managed to integrate the modified PPF into his car. Nice work!
entry 610

Geremy Kornreich sent me this photo of the Seven on the track - I'm exiting the last corner on to the front straight.
That exhaust tip sure sits low to the ground! This is from my first session and the tip was shorter by the end of the day.
entry 611

September 2, 2004:
Well, I was going to work on the car last weekend.
Thursday afternoon, I got a call asking if I could be an instructor at a track day at Laguna Seca on Saturday. So as you can imagine, I didn't get any work done on the Seven. Would you?

The source of the fuel probably is probably the foam in the fuel cell. There's no filter before the pump, so the pump is probably clogged with little foam bits. My friend Rick Weldon (who let me thrash his Miata mercilessly at Laguna) figured that one out and Steve at CMC also sent me an email with the same hypothesis. I just need to dig into the fuel system to find out for sure. I have a filter sitting right here, ready to be installed pre-pump. My mistake.

I do have some high quality video now, though! It's from the first time the car was really on the road in early August. The header was a little leaky, the transmission had no 2nd gear synchro - but the sounds are pretty cool!

One thing I discovered today on the Caterham website. My car is almost exactly the same weight as a 165 hp Caterham SV. That's the Caterham that is closest to my car in size and specification. I'm quite pleased about that.
entry 612

Video!
This one isn't too exciting but I'm putting it up anyhow. Start the car, drive away, crunch into second (no synchro on this gearbox, I forgot) and then see what the car looks like beside an Isuzu 4wd. 1.6 MB video in Quicktime. If you're short of time or bandwidth, the next video is better!
entry 613
More video!
Just a run through the gears. There's a running car next to the camera and the header collector is a little leaky - but it still sounds very cool! 1.1 MB video in Quicktime or 283 KB audio file in MP4 format. There's a big puff of dust from under the car when I shift. I'm not sure what this is - perhaps all the air that was going into the intake had to go somewhere when I closed the throttle. The only way out is under the car. It's not oil smoke.
entry 614
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