Well, the Lotus started yesterday and today, which is good. I guess. I wish the damned thing would make up its mind. Hopefully Thunderhill in two weeks will make it or break it with the Braille battery.

I put a Braille battery in my Exige about five weeks ago. I've kept a Battery Tender JR. on it at all times since then while it's parked in my garage as I typically drive it every couple of weeks. The tender's light is always solid green.

Three weeks ago, when I took the car on a three day road trip to take a class at Infineon, I had trouble starting it the morning of the second day and had to be push started twice on the third day. I was driving at least 30 miles each day on that trip back and forth from the hotel, so the car wasn't just sitting.

After the trip to Infineon, the car sat until today when it wouldn't start. It had accessory power, but the starter wouldn't even crank. It had been on the tender (with a solid green light) up until 45 seconds prior to starting it. I put the stock battery in for the hell of it and got the same result, but it had been sitting on the floor of my garage the whole time so it could have drained.

I put the Braille back in, spun up the Mustang and jumped the Exige, which started right up. I let it idle for a minute or two, shut it down and tried to start it again. It did, on the first crank. I tried one more time and it again started on the first crank.

Keep on rooting for those aliens:

SPACE.com -- Water Found in Extrasolar Planet's Atmosphere: "Astronomers have detected water in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system for the first time.

The finding, to be detailed in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal, confirms previous theories that say water vapor should be present in the atmospheres of nearly all the known extrasolar planets. Even hot Jupiters, gaseous planets that orbit closer to their stars than Mercury to our Sun, are thought to have water."

To celebrate four years with Google (already??), I'm taking unpaid leave for the months of May and June. We're going to do some traveling and I've lined up six track days during the remainder of the time:

05/11 Thunderhill w/ Trackmasters
05/17 Thunderhill w/ Hooked on Driving
05/26 Reno-Fernley w/ Trackmasters
06/05 Thunderhill w/ Golden Gate Lotus Club
06/29 Thunderhill w/ Hooked on Driving

My $god, the Mustang started!

It moved ten feet under it's own power!

Miracles can happen!!

Quick recap: the tune is finally right on the car, but I haven't been driving for a couple reasons. One, I have a Lotus. Duh. Two, the fourth gear syncros are going and I want the car to still have a tranny when I sell it. So the 'Stang has been a lump in the garage for a long, long time. I killed the battery within a few months and put a new one in with a tender on it. See, I learn new things all the time... But then I discovered that the threads on one of the bolts on the battery box were ripped up and I couldn't get the nut back on. And so the car sat two months more because I was too lazy to properly secure the battery. Well, I fixed that tonight.

So how not to wire a battery box:

1. Use cable with red insulation for both positive and negative.
   
2. Drool all over the negative cable with a black magic marker. Don't make it look good or uniform or even cover the cable 360 degrees around or anything.
   
3. Wrap up the connection with the clamp on the positive cable with 3" of black electrical tape. Don't bother doing this on the negative side.
   
4. Don't label either cable.
   

Needless to say, I didn't think to keep careful track of the cables while swapping the batteries. I mean, hey, all my other cars are sane and have black for negative and red for positive. Hilarity. I love guessing when electricity is involved. Thanks guys.