Future seven owner looking for some info

[Anonymous]

Greetings!

Total seven newbie here....but for the past 3 years or so I've been on a journey to seven ownership. I think they are wonderful cars and are able to give the driver a most undiluted and pure driving experience.

I've pretty much scoured the net for as much information as I can find. I'm a regular lurker on blatchat as well as the wscc (westfield club). The only thing I haven't done is the hands on experience.

Actually, I saw my first seven in Pasadena. I was lucky enough to meet Mr. Magnus Feuer and his SV at the Concours held at the Pasadena Art Center. He filled me in on the process of building the car and which engines are the best for the US program. Back then he was thinking about starting this club....I'm glad to see it up and running! =)

I'm hoping to get some help from you seven owners in my quest to finally own one and was wondering if there were any meets or demo days to check these cars out in person. Unfortunately, I'm unable to build one for myself as I am lacking the time/space so I'm definitely in the market for a preowned seven. If anyone has any info on any, it would be greatly appreciated!

Anyhow, thanks for listening to this newbie. I look forward to meeting some of you soon!

Francis Monroy

[Touge Seven]

Oops

As a testament to my newbieness, I had mistakenly used the subject of my last post as my user name.... :oops:

Francis

[magnusfeuer]

Francis,

I do remember you from that day. As fate would have it, my wife is now attending to Art Center as a graphic design student. She saw the school for the first time during the car show and fell in love with it immediately. Six months later she was accepted.

We've been planning demo days for a while, but the response has been poor. If you (plus possible friends) can get down to Costa Mesa, OC, I'd be happy to show you my car and answer questions. If there are several of you, I think I can arrange a shop that we can be in.

Test drives are included.

I can probably also help you inspect a used Seven, should you find one.

If you just want to drop by, I usually show up on the Laguna Beach car show every Saturday. See the front page of www.californiacaterhamclub.com for more info.

Mail me at [email protected]

/Magnus F.

[slomove]

Hi Francis, if you happen to live close to the Pasadena area please feel free to come along for a chat or a drive around the neighborhood (however, I will be travelling 2/14 to 2/21). I went through the same experience last year at that time and ended up buying a used Seven. If you are interested please send me an e-mail to [email protected]

BTW, even if you buy any kind of Seven as a complete car you should expect doing some maintenance/upgrades yourself soon. It's just not like buying e.g. a BMW and getting it tuned up at the dealership every 10k miles.

Gert

[Touge Seven]

Thanks!

Thanks for the replys guys!

Wow Magnus, I'm surprised that you remembered me. It seemed like so long ago. I just remember how beautiful your Seven was...I had to restrain myself so that I wouldn't get drool all over the bonnet :)

Actually, a few of my friends have been asking me about my future plans RE: a Seven so I'm pretty sure they will be interested in checking them out with me. I'll send you an e-mail and hopefully we can set something up. I was also thinking of dropping by the Laguna Beach car show. Does that go on every Saturday?

Gert, I live in Monrovia so I'm actually pretty close to Pasadena. I'd love to check out your Birkin sometime soon! Maybe when you return from your trip, we can set something up. I'd definitely appreciate it!

Oh yea, I am already anticipating doing maintenance/upgrades. To me, that's actually part of the fun of owning a performance car. I used to own a tuned Subaru Impreza (not the hidious USDM WRX, but a 2K 2.5RS) that I actively autocrossed with so I'm no stranger to wielding the spanners.

I look forward to meeting with you guys to get some advice. At this point, I feel like I have SO many options (engines, preowned, whether or not to get a Caterham/Birkin, etc) that I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed. I have some basics in mind but I think I still need to do some more research.

On a final note, what have you guys heard about Rocky Mountain Sports Cars? They have a few preowned Sevens on their site and I was checking out the 98 Superlight they had listed. Also, I've been looking at the Birkin rollers that they have on wirewheel.com. Any thoughts?

Thanks again,

Francis

[magnusfeuer]

Francis,

I'll be at the Laguna Beach show tomorrow between 07:00 and something like 10:30. There is also a blat in Riverside on Sunday if you want to join us as a passenger.

If you and your friends want a demo, I have access to a shop with a lift and tools, so that we can get down and dirty with the car. Drop me an email with the dates that suits you, and we'll take it from there.

Rocky Mountain Motorsports is actually the same thing as Caterham USA, the U.S. distributor. They are, in other words, a well-known dealer.

Please note that you will not be able to register your car as smog excempt during 2004 since the 500 assigned certificates are almost gone already.

/Magnus F.

[Sean-og]

There are 65 certificates left for 2004 as of this morning. If you get a seven sometime in the next week or so, you may have a shot... or maybe not, depending on how long it takes to get the number assigned from the DMV (motto: Now faster than both the INS and the Mexican postal service!).
Source: http://www.dmv.ca.gov/vr/spcns.htm

[magnusfeuer]

They should redo the program with the following two changes:

1. Up the number to 10000 or something like that so that we do not have to time our registration to the first four weeks of every year.

2. Enforce standard tailpipe emission rules for cars passing the program.

This means that we can still build and register out kit cars as today, with the only change being that when we go to our smog referee, we'll have to fulfill the same basic emission requirements as any new car.

That would make the environmentalists and us happy.

Since the Caterhams are delivered with a catalytic converter with dual holes for lambda probes, it shouldn't be to hard to get your ECU (stock or otherwise) to get the engine to run clean using a closed loop scheme.

We would also not have to worry about the OBD-II bus, stupid extra sensors such as the gas tank pressure thingy (whatever it is used for), gas tank ventilation filters (mine has mysteriously disappeared), routing the crank case ventilation back to the intake and a million other add-ons.

Comments?

/Magnus F.

[Steve Stephens]

changes in SB100

Magnus,
I rather like the prospect of not having to ever take my Caterham in to be smogged so hope SB100 stays the way it is in that respect. And I can put up with timing my buying one to coincide with January so as to be certain of getting it registered. In fact, today I met with Rich Kamp to go over a preliminary order and get an idea of what I want so I will have a car by next Jan. Looks like a Superlight with SVT engine. Will put up another post soon as I can sure use some help and suggestions to order the options I want. It's time, finally! for my Seven. I drove Rich's new Superlight today and it's really sweet. Can't wait, but will have to, to get my car.
Steve

[slomove]

Emissions

Magnus, I would not bet on that. Maybe with bog standard intake and Ford ECU. But with TBs, different cams, etc. I suspect you would be out of luck (I am by no means an expert, though). Just reading about the pain and suffering for the emissions test on Blatchat makes me think it must be even tougher under California regulations.

My Zetec with Webers would probably knock out the emissions test equipment just driving by the test station :oops:

Gert