During a reasonably long and fitting homage to Lancia (Fulvia, Montecarlo, 037 and Delta) on Top Gear last night “The Stig” was given a Hawk HF3000 (that is the Alfa V6 based one) replica to drive around the track.
It sounds fantastic but the bucking and diving under braking looks really scary! Hawk are not the only maker of replicas as I found out when I did some research a couple years ago.
Oh they also mentioned the Beta and the HPE in the full episode.
Carver Carver One
I never thought I would see one of these little one seater cars running around largely due to their obscene price tag (£27k+), but the other day in Auckland I did. This was a photo I quickly snapped of it on Victoria Street outside the Sky Tower.
This little car has been loved by reviewers for its ability to be driven like a car but still give you the fun of banking into turns like a motorcycle. Some day I hope to take one for a test drive and experience it for myself.
Visit the official website for more info and take a look on Youtube for video reviews of which there are many.
Lancia Fulvia HF
I spotted this wonderful Italian rally car whilst I was on our Honeymoon and visiting Amsterdam. I am a big fan of the Lancia rally cars including the Fulvia pictured here, Stratos, 037, Delta S4 and Delta HF Integrale.
Vauxhall Astra
For those you who possess an Astra from 1990-1998 the following hints might prove useful. I bought a set of two vented rotors and four brake pads for about £40 on ebay so they are reasonably cheap.
Removing the calliper from the calliper carrier requires a 7mm allen key and to remove the calliper carrier from the hub you will need a 10mm allen key.
To make it easier you will need to remove the calliper from the carrier first and then drop the carrier off. The calliper bolts are hidden behind a rubber grommit so they are nicely protected from the elements and corrosion the bolts for the carrier however can be quite tough to shift because they are exposed so I recommend using an allen socket on the end of a breakers bar to get it moving.
The calliper is held in place with a wire spring type fitting kit. This is easy to remove with a screw driver and some leverage and just as easy to fit back up once the pads are changed and the calliper & its carrier are refitted to the car.
A philips head screw driver will have the rotor retaining screw out and then it is simply a matter of reversing the process.
If you are just changing the pads then you should remember to have the rotor/disc surface machined flat again.
There is nothing complicated with a fairly simple single piston calliper so it should not be any problem for someone with any experience of brake maintenance.
Say you have a development environment setup using SQL Server 2005 Express Edition and your customer has a SQL Server 2000 database accessible only via ODBC and you can only run a DB import via a script. How would you do it? Easy you might think just run msdbdump.exe on the command line, well this isn’t MySQL so you are not so fortunate.
Backing up your DB is easy with SQL Server using the following commands:
But this just gives you a binary file that can be restored if you have access privileges to the live database for restoring. If you are in a shared hosting environment or one where the paranoid admins won’t give you remote desktop access and the only access you have is to run a PHP script to import the data and schema via SQL you will need to export the DB to T-SQL format.
Microsoft have a little program to perform this very function: Microsoft SQL Server Database Publishing Wizard 1.1 It is difficult to find on the web so I aim to save you the time I spent hunting for it. When you run the wizard make sure to set:
It does seem to chew on the cud for quite some time so grab a beverage.
Now for the PHP portion of the process. So you have uploaded your lovely T-SQL dump file to a PHP accessible location on your webserver and now you are wondering how to get into your DB via ODBC. Well you will need a PHP script like the one I have supplied below.
A couple of the complexities to be aware of before you continue. It seems that the T-SQL dump file comes out as UTF16 and we need it in UTF8 so you will need to convert it to UTF8 before you can import. I used a neat little function available from Modular.org for this purpose. This may or may not meet your needs. If you need a more accurate conversion method then I recommend you start your search with the PHP module/function mbstring . T-SQL contains reference and keywords that ODBC/MS SQL cannot understand. I have included some regex to strip these out.
My script is by no means perfect or factored down so feel free to make suggestions or improvements.
Ever since I first saw Phill Eather’s Lancia Stratos at the Targa Tasmania race event when I was a kid I have wanted a one. They have classic styling that has not dated at all, well not much for a car of its age. Most of its competitors are all but forgotten. Yes Bertone did a wonderful job on the coachwork for Lancia’s rally monster. Despite not having any money I have been looking into the Stratos replica options. There are two companies involved in the production of these wonderful cars: Hawk Kit Cars (UK) and Napiersport (UK).
Hawk seem to have sold the most kits of the two and they produce the most accurate replica of the Stratos, panels may even be used on an original Stratos! But some of the complexities and irritations of the orginal Stratos have been copied verbatim into the Hawk design. Napiersport have taken a different approach, keep the looks but improve upon comfort and ease of setup with a better suspension geometry. The Corse (Napiersport’s replica) has however been produced by many owners over the years and I would be a litte cautious to pay in full before I have received the car kit from them in its totallity.
Phill Eather’s Genuine Stratos
The Australian and New Zealand Lancia Stratos and Stratos Replica Register
