Building an R1 Powered Seven: March 2009

Building an R1 Powered Seven

A few years ago I got it in my head to build a kit car. After months of searching I came across the Locost concept. In short, quite a few amateur hobbiests around the world have built their own Lotus 7 inspired cars from scratch, following plans available on a variety of Internet sites and published in a book by Ron Champion.

I started gathering parts and finally began building the chassis in July '05. In August '10 the car was titled, licensed and is now street legal. The following blog captures the progress of the build and driving experiences after completion.

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Spagetti

On to the wiring. I decided to unwrap the entire R1 harness to make it easier to reposition components, cut, splice, etc. Not sure if it was the tangle of wires or the change in weather, but after about an hour working on the car I had a splitting headache...400mg of ibuprofen later and I was ready to start making sense of the mess.

Once I started laying things out, it really wasn't too bad. The hardest part will be cutting/splicing the wires once I figure out where to mount all the components.
I got the ECU, voltage regulator and starter relay mounted today.

Yesterday I finished running the coolant lines. I used 1" O.D. aluminum tube for the main supply and return extension, then some 5/8" O.D. and 9/32" O.D. annealed (easy bend) aluminum tubing for the smaller lines.

Last week I hooked up the paddle shifter. It works well but the way I mounted the cable end on the cockpit side causes the scuttle panel to flex. A brace should take care of that, need to add to the punch list...