Jaguar Club of Houston - Spring Slalom

Had a great time at the spring slalom.  It was held at the Houston Community College Police training facility on the East side of Houston.

The Lotus was awesome flying around the cones.  I didn't even hit any!

The facility had a skid pad too!  Fun practicing the reverse 180s

Shine and Show!

It was time to wax the new car and my son Graham was excited to try the clay bar.  So out came the Meguiar's kit and off he went. It came out super smooth!  I followed him with the wax.

It was all shined up and off to the March 2010 Houston Cars and Coffee Show we went.

This was the biggest show yet!  Lots of exotics and all types of cars.  I was parked between a ZR1 and NSX.

The Lotus looked great!

But this Kids custom made minature car was a big Hit!

The Lotus Elise did not come with a cup holder!

But it has one now!  I got a used Sector 111 - Darth Cup Holder from an eBay auction (half price).  It uses the area in the side cubby under the headlight switchs to secure in place with the aid of black friction creating sphere (racket  or squash ball).

This cup holder is somewhat in the way for a me when getting in and out, so it is easy to remove and store when not being used.

The problem is it came with such an ugly storage bag.  This bag looks like something to store SCUBA diving gear in.  Fluorescent too.

Not a problem for me.  Out comes the black canvas duck fabric and it gets hooped up on the Brother embroidering machine for a custom logo and then sewed together. 


Now I have a nice storage bag just for the Darth Cup Holder and I can throw it in the net behind the seats without listening to the aluminum cup holder vibrate against the plastic back panel.


Problem solved and it's a one of a kind!

Project Bass (updated)

Ok, it's another project. The Lotus Elise has a great exhaust note with the Stage II exhaust, but it is totally lacking in the car stereo department. So a little searching on craigslist and we have a 10" Alpine Type R Sub-woofer in a box that is way too big.

So it's time to get out the saw and cut it down.  Now that is a speaker box on a diet.





My son Graham gets in on the speaker building project.


He learns from the master







Now time to fit the huge speaker in the tiny box

It fits!

And it fits perfectly in the footwell on the Lotus Elise.
Now we need to wire up the Alpine Amp that came with it and find a way to mount it in the trunk.

The Amp is In! And it sounds great!!! Lots of bass. You can really feel it. Totally changes the sound of the whole system. Now I just need to upgrade the front speakers to some 5.25" JL Audio speakers to cover the mid bass and it should be about right.

Project: Paint Engine Covers

I found out painting plastic can be hard.  I also found out that brake cleaner will take off paint pretty well. (Thanks Dad)
My first attempt did not cover well so I stripped it off and repainted it.  This time I used Krylon Fusion paint for plastic.

Problem is it did not match my car so I was using it as a base coat or primer. 

I then sprayed the Valspar Yellow that did match and it went pretty well.

and finally I used a Paint pen to outline the letters.

I just need to put them on and maybe paint some black or green inside the Lotus emblem.

Painted logo Black! Done.

Making a license plate that fits

Some things just don't fit right on the Lotus Elise.  Like a front license plate.  Mine had a mount that scraped the driveway so I needed to fix this.  I removed the huge plate and found it left four 1/4" holes that needed covered. I took my wife's silhouette craft cutter and cut some letters and numbers in black vinyl and added them on top of reflective white vinyl.  Now it's a nice fit!

And it reflects light like a real plate.

Keeping the battery charged. I love Projects!

I have already experienced the dead battery problem.  My car often sets from Monday morning until about 3pm on Friday afternoon up on the lift in the garage.  During this time a battery can be drained by the demobilizer of the alarm system.  The original 3 year old battery of the car just gave up!  I got a new Interstate Battery installed and decided it was time to prevent the possibility of this happening again.  I looked at the Battery Tender and other brands and then found a small float charger at Harbor Freight on sale for $3.99.  That's cheap enough I will give it a try!

I hung it from the storage rack above my work bench and can plug it in when I unplug the lift after raising the car.  Then I pull a concealed two prong plug out of the back of the Lotus above the license plate and plug it in.  It looks like it will work great!

Easy $4 Lotus clock from Walmart

Walmart sells a $4 nine inch clock (6.5" dial) that can easily be made into a custom clock.  I removed the plastic cover and hands then printed a new clock dial on a sheet of photo paper.  Then I cut it out and inserted it over the old face.  I think it turned out nice.  I have this new clock face file as a PDF if anyone else would like it to make one, just send me your e-mail.

I feel like making stuff!

I like to make stuff.  Especially if I can design it on my computer.  So we had a Lotus Club party this past weekend and I needed to bring a gift.  I decided to make a cool lotus clock!  This is from a Walmart picture clock.($16.95)  Only I took it apart and cut a LOST lotus decal and put in the middle and added tire tread vinyl decals around the outside. (My wife got a new Silhouette SD craft cutter for Christmas and I love it!!)
Then I took pictures of different Lotus models and placed them in the photo circles.

My wife also needed to bring a gift so I designed some Lotus embroidery and I put it on a towel and throw blanket. I used our Brother embroidery machineand the PED layout software.  Both gifts were a big hit at the meeting.  I guess I'm just a crafty guy.

Welcome to my new Blog! Mike's Adventures and more!

Hi,

I'm Mike and this is my blog to tell the world about my adventures with cars, boats, motorcycles, home theaters and more.

You never know what will capture my attention next and I will pour all of my attention into. Just ask my wife. I think it drives her crazy.

The Lotus Elise has captured my attention.

I bought a used 2006 Elise. Actually, I won it on eBay! This thing is a blast!!!

It's an English built sports car withToyota engine and drive train.

 This is not my daily driver. So I had to come up with a way to fit it in the two car garage with the other two cars and my son's scooter.

Enter the Four post 8000 lb Lift. This thing was heavy and I had to borrow a work truck and trailer to get it home. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO UNLOAD ONE OF THESE BY YOURSELF. Two months later and my back still hurts.

But it does it's job well. Operates off standard wall outlet and lifts either my MINI or LOTUS to the top.

Of course I thought the whole plan through first!  I also drew it out in AutoCAD.  It was too close to not get it exact.  I had to change the antenna on my MINI to a short stubby on to get this all to fit.