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I'd rather drive an SUV than a sports car with a top

Since day 1 of starting the engine I've never been happy with the amount of exhaust noise. No real surprise, what else could I expect using a 4" diameter, short, straight through fart can. But it was polished stainless, compact and looked nice. I stopped by to visit a local 7 owner. His is Miata based. We got to talking about exhausts and had a little sound comparison. His was, hands down, so much better.

I'm tired of having to soft pedal it in town so I went for the same Magnaflow as his. It's 6" in diameter and closer to the road but it's perfect. Nice mellow sound and when you er maximize the mechanical perameters of the engine it still produces an acceptable amount of sound.


My intention was to have my wife stand to the side of a speed bump and monitor if the muffler was about to hit it or not. But I ended up going over a speed hump without any testing and I didn't hit it. I have 3 3/4" of clearance.

All in all, it doesn't look as nice as the other muffler but being able to accelerate without having to soft pedal it is so much nicer.

Ron

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They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. By the time you finish the car it'll feel like you've done it on your knees.

True to my Scottish heritage, I can burn under a 40W light bulb. The Bikini top on my 7 also reduces buffeting a fair bit, and keeps me from spontaneously combusting.

I have some Lexan wind wings, but have never fitted them.

On a related note - 4AGE's are LOUD engines. Not sure why. Just darn loud. I like that muffler - I may get one (maybe longer?) for 7#2.

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The Lethal Locost
The Lethal Locost 2 - Even More Lethalerer

My Seven has a 4AGE also, and it is a LOUD engine. I’m using a 32” long glass pack, which is just about the longest muffler that you can package along the side of a standard book size body. It does a fair job of cutting the nose at low RPMs, while cruising through town, but it is still to loud above 4000 RPM. I’m sure the longer length muffler helps, but probably the only good solution is a real BIG muffler.
Another bikini top driver with a tanned LH arm Dave W

Actually I think having a Bikini top could be really handy for longer trips, say, for example, umm, a trip to Kelowna for a 7 meet How subtle is that? Yeah, wind in the hair is nice, incineration isn't.

My engine history is completely unknown. On tearing down other engines I'd noticed how caked with carbon the throttle assemblies were and I had no idea if this engine was putting out a lot of blow-by gases or not. So I wanted to put a catch can on the breather hose to avoid having the throttle body get caked with deposits. I've seen the commercial ones but they looked like overkill. I've seen the super lite alloy one on the Lethal Locost, it's endorsed by Coke, but I wanted to capture the blow-by so that I could see how bad it was. So I took a tin candy can and put two simple hose barbs on it and filled it with cotton batting. I put about 60 miles on it and opened it up.

For a probably high mileage engine there isn't as much deposit as I thought there might be. Still, over time, it would add up and start to foul things. So maybe I'll just paint it silver and leave it in place.

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They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. By the time you finish the car it'll feel like you've done it on your knees.

You may be mistaken. I have no catch can on the Lethal Locost. I initially piped the crank case into the OEM intake piping, but once I went to ITB's, I just use a wee K&N filter and let the oil dribble down the side of the engine. I go through much less oil this way than I did before. No matter. New engine in the wings....

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The Lethal Locost
The Lethal Locost 2 - Even More Lethalerer

Ron
You might want to put a screen mesh in the can to reduce the chance of the cotton from being sucked up into the tube and blocking it. I have a catch can on my 4AGE. It is made from an old steel brake fuild can that has a taper top. Mounting the can up-side down, I brazed the inlet tube into the side at an angle so it directs the air flow around the outer wall of the can to help force the fuild against the wall surface and drain to the bottom. The outlet tube extends about 1/2 of the way down into the bottom of the inverted can. The can is mounted under the intake manifold using a couple of the engine threaded enbossments. later I did add a drain valve and tube to the botton of the can to extend below the frame, because it is a little difficult to drain it with only about an inch cleanance to the bottom frame tube. I actually get very little blow-by fuild out of the catch can between my yearly oil changes, less the an oz. on a rebuilt motor with about 18,000 miles. I really think it takes a lot of miles to build up any gunk on the 4AGE throttle plate. I can't see any build up with the current milage. I might have a picture if you are interested.
Dave W

Good day! Where can I buy the wings.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbjV0SHh ... 4DD126786F

Curtis Unlimited, 5990 Greenwood Hts., Kneeland, CA, USA 95549; 707-443-8523; email, curtisunlimited@aol.com They don't have a website. Many other builders have used their parts. Nice people but sometimes hard to reach.

Took the car on a run up the Sea to Sky Hwy. today with 3 other 7s. Fantastic, ocean, blue sky, sun, snow still on the peaks and a beautiful smooth twisty road, it doensn't get any better

First run of any length for the side curtains; a solid 5 on the captrometer and the wife is much more willing to go on longer drives with them.

New muffler; huge improvement, love the mellow lower pitch and much easier on the ears. Only negative is that it's so much quieter that I'm hearing some vibration noises that I couldn't hear before with the loud muffler. They'll drive me nuts until I isolate them.

Never measured gas milage before. Did today; filled before I left, at Squamish and when I reached home. About 40 mpg (imp). Much better than I expected. Gives me more range than I thought I had, great!

All in all, a very good 7 day

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They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. By the time you finish the car it'll feel like you've done it on your knees.

Wow! two years since my last post, how time flies when you're having fun.

This is my forth year of having the car on the road. Overall, car makers should be so lucky to have their cars so trouble free. Zero issues The old GTS engine that I never expected to use still keeps going and going, while the one I rebuilt sits, still waiting to be used.

Today was a blat up the Sea-to-Sky highway to meet up with a group of mostly Caterham owners from the UK who shipped their cars to Calgary and have driven them here on their way to Victoria on Vancouver Island. The cars will then be shipped back to the UK.

Their outing was called the "Grizzly Bear Blat". One of the cars had a very close encounter with a bear which resulted in a fragmented nose cone, wrinkled hood and broken head lights. The bear sustained some damage but walked away. Repairs to the seven required copious use of duct tape. Red Green would be proud.

For the miata fans, nice example of a turbo. Signature is from Emerson Fittipaldi.

Loved the "butt extractor". The person has a broken rotator cuff and can't get out of the car. The winch hoists the seat bottom up so that he can get out easily. Quite clever.

And finally, a shot of my car after 4 years on the road at the ferry terminal in Horseshoe Bay. It's held up really well, still gets the crowds looking at it and waving and has more than paid back all the 3 years of head bashing it took to make it.

Oh, and it's probably time to move my log to the completed ones.

Ron
Still driving with a big smile

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They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. By the time you finish the car it'll feel like you've done it on your knees.

Hi Ron!
Good to hear from you again. The car still looks great! Sounds like it's running great too. Testament to your good work. Enjoy! But do drop back in as time allows and show us some more cool pictures!

JDK

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JD, father of Quinn, Son of a... Build Log
Quinn the Slotus:Ford 302 Powered, Mallock-Inspired, Tube Frame, Hillclimb Special
"Gonzo and friends: Last night must have been quite a night. Camelot moments, mechanical marvels, Rustoleum launches, flying squirrels, fru-fru tea cuppers, V8 envy, Ensure catch cans -- and it wasn't even a full moon." -- SeattleTom

Ron Who.... oh yeh.

Just kidding great to see you are still around Ron, kind of missed some of you old timers,

Al

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Super Seven 3.4

OK, OK, don't flame me for posting too much.

Wow, another 5 years has gone by. The car's doing well, haven't had to do anything to it since it was completed. Completely trouble free. Still enjoy driving it as much as ever and it still gets all sorts of reactions from folks. The number of folks that want to take selfies with the car is amazing. Sometimes I give them a cheap thrill and let them sit in the car and have their photo taken. Small deal but they leave with huge smiles.

My optimism 5 years ago that the Magnaflow muffler would really quiet the car down was a little misplaced. It's much better than the original fart can but still a little on the loud side. So I'm trying out a small catalytic converter, the kind with the honeycomb core. Static tests sound good but I'll have to road test it to know for sure if it's an improvement.

Always wanted a tonneau cover and my wife helped me out. Unfortunately the vinyl isn't slightly stretchy like the boot cover, which turned out perfectly. But I'll put a couple of more snaps on it to smarten it up. Can't wait to try it out. It's been a long time since I've driven a sports car with a tonneau cover.

Ron

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They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. By the time you finish the car it'll feel like you've done it on your knees.

I know that blue turbo Miata Caterham - it's Skip Cannon's old car! Great little Seven. It was always quick around the local tracks here in Colorado.

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My Haynes/Miata build: http://locostusa.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=3774

Exactly!! I offer that all the time. Wifey doesn't even get excited when she comes out of a store into the parking lot to find me taking pics of a couple of teenage girls sitting in the 7 (with their phones of course).
I firmly believe in sharing, promoting goodwill, and great thrills (with the 7 I mean)

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Perry

'If man built it, man can fix it'
"No one ever told me I couldn't do it."
"If you can't build it safe, don't build it."

Perry's Locost Super Che7enette Build
Perry's TBird Based 5.0L Super 7 L.S.O
Perry's S10 Super 7 The 3rd
Perry's 4th Build The Topolino 500 (Little Mouse) Altered
Perry's 5th Build the Super Slant 6 Super 7
Perry's Final Build the 1929 Mercedes Gazelle

LOL! If there was a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" emoji, I'd be using one now!

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Scratch building, at continental-drift speed, a custom McSoreley-design framed, dual-Weber 45DCOE carburated, Zetec-engined, ridiculously fast money pit.

http://zetec7.webs.com/