CSR engine long-term maintenance / refresh

[David Brown]

Thanks Blue, note my posting was the last one on the tread you linked too. I asked how many were Superlights but didn't get an answer. We're yours, I don't recall?

[David aka Blue7]

No mine were all full fat 

It is probably difficult to define the superlight, I recall meeting up with one guy at House of Bruar, his car was superlight but when he arrived at Bruar his new CSR had a windscreen and a heater.  I certainly increased the weight of mine when I fitted the GT seats, which are much heavier than the standard CC Seats but we both had back pains after a long run with the CC seats which is not the case with the GT seats.

There used to be a CSR Owners website but I think it got hacked and I can no longer find it.  I wonder if Stephan is including the new CSR in his archive.  What still puzzles me is how Mike is building a CSR and yet CSR's are not listed on the CC website?  I seem to recall the are now called 485's and not available in the UK? CC  seem to refer to it as their EU range but one is going to Bruce in Australia.

[David Brown]

I think the performance of the CSR 260 was "adequate " whether Superlight or not. Don't think the carbon fibre wings contributed to much except bragging rights. LSD may make a difference but could be specced anyway, and same with 5sd/6sp gearbox. Not sure if you had the fancy dampers, the make of which I can't remember. Can't recall any other differences. 

[Croc]

 

I have a document from when I first got my CSR Superlight that described the differences between the regular CSR and Superlight.  Superlight dropped the windscreen and heater, added carbon wings, trackday rollbar, carbon aeroscreen and carbon Tillett seats.  Came standard with LSD and special Multimatic dampers that were supposedly an upgrade over the standard (Bilstein?) dampers.  I seem to recall a black trim package was also added as standard.  

But then you could "spoil" it by adding windscreen, heater, regular S-type seats, etc.   

The CSR chassis remains on  the order list for certain non-UK markets.  It is a homologated car for European and Australian markets as a 485.  Australian cars got ADR approval on the back of the European cars.  Its always been available in the USA but not shown publicly anywhere - you have to know it is there to order or be told by your US dealer who will go the extra yards with the factory to order one.  I believe they only sell it now in the USA as a CSR200 as the Cosworth Duratec for the CSR260 is no longer offered.   I think my new chassis is technically a CSR200 but I will have "slightly" more power since I went silly.     I get the impression that they have problems meeting the production volumes needed if the UK market is included so easiest to limit the markets it is made available for.  

 

 

 

[David aka Blue7]

Mike, I just checked your profile, I see you are NYC so CC will sell you a CSR 

I didn't choose different dampers, I don't think they were an option in 2008.  I do recall the aerofoil wishbones priced at £600 that I didn't choose.  As  a matter of interest, here is the 2008 spec sheet, which I hope is readable, sometimes images get reduced in size when you post .  Editted to say if you right click the image and select open image in new tab, it should display full size.,

 

[Croc]

Yes I am in NYC and yes Caterham agreed to sell a CSR to me after some dealer persuasion.  

Yes - I have a sheet like that but it is slightly different which I will assume comes from UK to US market differences.

The Multimatic dampers were not an option but were just fitted for the Superlight.  I remember asking the dealer at the time what the difference was and being told it was "probably only a marketing wan%"!    

I did select aerofoil wishbones - $1200 in 2010.  Don't recall what I paid this go around for that upgrade?

 

 

 

[sjmmarsh]

 I am over 50k miles now on my CSR260 and have had no problems with the engine. This includes 7 seasons of sprinting and 20-ish track days. When the car was remapped by the two Steves after 20k miles it was still producing 260 bhp.

Steve

[BenF]

Thanks for all the feedback, was travelling the last week and not really on here.

Alan's comment about oil use: 5 litres per 1000 miles seems very high!  Sounds like it is particularly important to keep an eye on this.

[David Brown]

Mine was about half that, or less. Just needed to keep an eye on it. 

[Alan Reeves]

oooops, shows  .5 ltr,   not clear, apologies, so

It used to use around" half a litre per thousand "

A

[David Brown]

I had a persistent slight weep at the back of the sump plate which was resolved when I had the engine out by replacing the O rings on the oil feed flow and return pipes from the bell tank to the bottom of the "sump".