1.4 K Series Upgrade Blues

[Mick Day]

Wow I’m famous! Everything Peter C has said is basically true. The 6 month old 1.6 engine was obtained from the breakers with 5k on the clock. James Whiting did the mechanics & made a superb job, unfortunately Southern Carburettors couldn’t match it with the electronics. We laboured for weeks whilst SC tried to puzzle out why the engine wouldn’t run over 2000 rpm. The Caterham 1.4 engine wiring is totally different to the 1.6, but shouldn’t be beyond a capable auto electrician, but it foxed SC. Then the crank broke (nothing to do with them) which necessitated a rebuild via QED (with grateful thanks to Peter for the new crank). The penny eventually dropped & SC fitted the correct coil (bloody idiots!). The car was returned to me without any rolling road testing; I think SC just wanted shot of it.

 

The high RPM misfire was only apparent on the track; hard acceleration at about 6500 in 5th & 6th but OK in 1st to 4th?? Car’s been back to GEMS, who’ve carried out minor tinkering, making the car more driveable ie improved idling, starting & running at WOT, but misfire now at 6500 only in 6th. Another “trick†the ECU plays is an unsteady tacho, which waves at me, plus more difficult cold starting as the ambient temperature drops. A local GEMologist will be helping further so I haven’t given up yet.

 

Incidentally Raceline & GEMS have a conversion for the Elise, which is backed by Lotus & I think works OK, so fingers crossed!!! Would I do the same again? No, with hindsight I would probably be down to Paul Harvey for a Blackbird conversion or building a new car. At the time we didn’t realise Caterham’s 1.4’s were all old run-out engines with wet liners; you live & learn. The guy Peter mentioned is Dave Wedge from DTM Consultants in Burcot, Oxfordshire. Back in December 1999 he would have built a 200 bhp 1.8K for £5500 plus VAT. Looking back this would have been a fantastic deal including dyno set up with any ECU I cared to supply.

 

Would JW do another conversion? Well you’d have to ask him that. He’s done one & knows the pitfalls & maybe would point you in the direction of others who have more experience with these conversions. Strange community we live in; there are quite a few people who have successfully carried out conversions but asking for the benefit of their experience is like getting blood from a stone. It’s as though they wanted us to experience the same birth pangs they went through. How does the car perform? Well not having results from a rolling road means I can’t give figures but it certainly has more poke. Having unravelled the fuel & ignition maps via GEMS incomprehensible software, it does reveal there is much more to come. Peter made this comment about the GEMS manual: “How very unintelligible. There I was supposing that the purpose of a manual was to convey information.†It says it all. Would I recommend a GEMS ECU? No. The Emerald has far better software, & it seems from Mike Bees experience, no high RPM misfires! Maybe Roger King would like to give an opinion on the high RPM misfire? Does he have experience, good or bad, with GEMS ECU’s?

 

Mick

[Anna Rexia]

And you lot criticise the mag !!!!!

[Mike Bees]

A friend & fellow competitor has a K-series engine built by someone mentioned in Mick's post. After 2 complete strip-down rebuilds this season to investigate why it blows steam out of the dry sump breather it turns out that it's got seriously low compression on #1 and #4. Maybe not something that you'd expect from a professional engine builder?

 

Mike

[CHRIS CLARK]

Stop beating around the bush Mike; name names!!! (I'll give you the name of a good solicitor!).

[Mick Day]

I get your drift Mike; maybe I did well to duck.

 

Edited by - Mick Day on 19 Sep 2000 23:21:15