build diary
<< | show individual entries | >>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
June 21, 2006: 
Okay, we know the two cars in front.
But what's that one lurking in the background? It's the Targa Miata.
entry 1252
June 26, 2006:
Car and Driver time.
The August issue of Car and Driver is starting to appear. Yes, in late June. Someone needs to buy those guys a calendar. Why do I mention this? Because it has a 6-page article in it on a certain sports car! Not just about mine of course, but about the Locost movement in general and four cars in detail. I'm pretty happy with how the writeup looks and I'm very happy with the photography. The best is the last one - the car in a full, tire-smoking slide right across the bottom of the page. Ahhh, my poor tires.
On a completely unrelated note, I calculated that if my Cadillac had the same specific output as the engine in the Seven, it would make about 750 hp.
entry 1253
June 27, 2006:
More thoughts on Car and Driver.
I've been thumbing through the article over and over again. There's been a big goofy smile on my face since I got it. Of course I'm happy! I remember being worried that Larry didn't understand my car on his brief time behind the wheel but when you read the article, it's obvious he did.
For those wondering about the price, that is the cost of the car as it sat in Texas at full retail and including a purchase price for the engine. My own costs were less. For example, the pedal assembly quoted at $350 included the pedals, master cylinders, residual pressure valves - and actually only cost $287 at retail instead of $350. When I think about it, I have no idea where I came up with the $350 number. It must have made sense at the time. I also assigned a cost to random parts that were sitting around my garage. I did not include the cost for parts I did not use, such as my original tie rods or fuel tank. It's tough coming up with an accounting for a project like this but I think the cost shown in the article is fair. I've said many times that it would cost about $7500 to duplicate my car with a few changes. Those changes get rid of expensive items such as the high-performance engine (listed as $1500 for C&D, because that's what I paid for it), the ECU (listed at $1400 or so) and paint (I paid $385 for the beautiful Lotus Chrome Orange). I've added a cost spreadsheet to my site to show how it all broke down for C&D.
I must admit I've never been called a "crafty ringer" before though.
entry 1254
June 28, 2006: 
If you see this magazine, buy it.
It has the story on Locosts that includes yours truly. There are also some great photos of the car in action.
entry 1255
June 29, 2006:
I've been hearing from a lot of people about the magazine article.
Thanks everyone! It's always good to see a note in the guestbook or get an email.
There's a comment in the article about how my car feels tighter than the others, and it's hypothesised that this is due to the frame. I think that does a disservice to Mark, Chris and Jon. All the frames are built to much the same design, with only slight variations for packaging reasons. I think the real difference is the result of the amount of time spent on the car dynamics. Chris and Mark's cars had only been running for an extremely short time before the test. It's not shown in the published pictures, but Mark's didn't even have any rear bodywork! Give them two years to work on their car setup and I expect those cars will feel pretty darn good as well. For example, I've changed brake pads, rotors, master cylinder sizes and brake bias since the first time my car turned a wheel. Had the test been done that first August weekend two years ago when it hit the track, the comments about the brakes would have been quite different. The same goes for other aspects of the car. The purchased frame gave me a head start on my build, but I don't think it necessarily made the final product any more effective.
So what's next for the little orange car? Well, there's a track day coming up on July 9th. Since the very first drive was on July 4th, 2004 I think it will be a good opportunity for celebration. Will I be able to take a bit of time off the track record again? Hard to say. It's going to be hot. I'll definitely enjoy myself, though. It's been too long since the car was used for anything more than driving around local roads.
entry 1256
June 30, 2006:
The guys at the magazine were kind enough to send along some digital photos.
The pictures are interesting on a few fronts. First, to see how a pro takes these shots. Second, to see the amount of tweakery used in order to turn an overcast Texas day into brilliant sunshine. And third, to see what someone else finds interesting about the car. I'm going to make high-quality prints of a couple of these, they're great shots. And of course, the big slide is my favourite. Hey, I paid for the tires, I might as well get some joy out of it.
entry 1257
July 1, 2006: 
A track shot of the car.
The car's in a really weird stance here. I'm just going to ignore it. Looking through these pictures, it's obvious that I have the ability to make a goofy face any time I'm behind the wheel.
entry 1258
A naked Seven in Texas.
entry 1259
Larry driving, me riding shotgun during the Texas photoshoot.
This is why I'll never make it as an extra - check out the doofus looking right at the camera.
entry 1260
Wheeeee!
The big slide. This is Larry Webster driving, although I did manage to get the car this crossed up a couple of times for the camera. His consistency was a lot better than mine - good thing, if he's being asked to do this sort of stuff on a regular basis!
There's also a large version of this picture available to download.
entry 1261
July 7, 2006:
Two years since the first drive, and it's time to hit the track again.
I'll spend some time tomorrow making sure the car is in good shape, but mostly it'll just be a matter of doing a quick nut-and-bolt. The temperatures are looking fairly reasonable and as long as the thunderstorms stay away it might be a good day for times.
Someone commented that I needed a faster steering rack. It certainly wouldn't hurt, although it's not going to be cheap unless I simply install a steering quickener. It's only on the autocross course that it seems necessary, and even then it's primarily in the slaloms. Something to think about, anyhow. It's always good to have a project!
entry 1262