Spectre Seven

The three links are the the same length. The top link mount can be adjusted to increase antidive.

Got a little PR from the good folks at Canton Racing Products. Should be in an upcoming issue of Grassroots Motorsports Magazine or SportCar Magazine. Nice folks!

A lot of moons have past since I posted here an a LOT of changes to the car. We blew the apex seals on the old 12A rotary and I did a full refit with a 1.4L turbo GM motor mated to a T5 transmission with a aluminum flywheel and custom clutch. I did some aero improvements also. Now I'm going to change it again and set the car up for Time Trails with better aero using wings.

In reply to locofinn :

Nice work. I've always liked a Lotus 7 style car. But I wonder why everyone uses  such heavy Tubing?  
16 gauge?  The Jaguar XKE  uses 24 gauge that is brazed together. It's a 150 MPH car with a V12 engine that weighs 630 pounds. ( the iron block 6cylinder weighs 30 pounds more ) and yes it's been crash tested  to federal standards ) 

In reply to frenchyd :

Because the book frame was designed to be built by high school kids with little to no experience and most people can't weld particularity well (no offense to OP).  A booger E36 M3 weld on thicker material has a marginally better chance of holding than having blown holes in thinner material.  Brazing is awesome as it doesn't affect the parent material, but as most people will be welding things together with Mig, thicker material is preferable.  Plus the end cut tolerance and finish is much less critical when throwing a mig gun in the general vicinity, rather than needing perfectly mating parts to braze together.  It's one of those cases where reality kicks theory in the nuts as it's shoving it out the door, which will hit it on the way out.  

I recall following this build for years on Locost forums, so happy to see it finished.  I'll have to go back and catch up on the last few years over there.

To add a bit more to Adrian's answer, the weight difference of 16 ga vs thinner material is marginal when you start to look at the car as a whole.   

To be an anorak, the original Lotus 7 chassis were built from 18 ga with some 16 ga used in higher loaded areas (same with Elevens, from which the Seven evolved).  Some factory race cars were built with thinner tubing (20 ga), but from what has been written, they tended to break sooner that a "stock" chassis.  

In reply to RoddyMac17 :

You may be right, plus it might be easier to find the heavier gauge tubing.  Except I'm an Add lightness kind of guy.  
The less weight the better it accelerates, corners, and stops.  While aero at the speeds used on autocross tracks is really of marginal advantage compared to the weight it adds. Especially when you're talking about a brick like a Lotus 7.

    Then when you increase the distance you have to go with those wide tires, it's pretty hard to see a faster lap time.  

Well I'm back and changes keep happening. Latest iteration with an attempt at some aero improvements as I'm doing more TT. And track days. Also change my forum login due to hacking issues with my old email account. I'm still me, at least I think so.