Albert Donaldson

I have just done this. I fitted a JC50 filter instead of the scouse airbox. Its not a straight swap. New backplate required and indeed the fuel rail does not quite realign with the securing bolts. It took two attempts to get the holes for trumpets in an acceptable position to make it fit. I bought a blank filter plate, but screwed it up and had to make my own out of 2mm ali, not too difficult but time consuming. for the fuel rail I have secured it temporarily with tie wraps through the bolt holes until I think of something better. Can't tell you about any possible gains as I still need to put it on RR. This is with 90mm trumpets, note it is only possible to fit upside down so the tabs that hold on filter are a little awkward to say the least. Also had to move the cooling submarine right out to the chassis rail and tie the thermostat hose down to avoid contact. Clutch cable still contacts in front of pedal box...

Interesting, I have repeated suffered with this on both a 180bhp K and a 220bhp K. temperatures absolutely fine on start up and when racing, come into pits and temp just keeps on rising. At first I couldn't understand why the fan would not come on but discovered that the emerald does not actually control fan its done by sender in radiator. Eventually I just put a switch in to turn on fan manually, however does not seem to cure. I'm going to try the submarine to relocate and see what happens.

It displays 008786.

Interested, but would like to know the answer to below- Has anyone fitted this type of imperial cage to a metric chassis? Albert

Thank-you very much gentlemen, it is a 2007 metric chassis K-series. I believe speedo is compatible. I am going to try picking up on the propshaft with an led inductive speed sensor from merlin and try to utilise the original piece of harness, if this fails it will be the front wheel, as the toothed driveshaft is not fitted. Albert

Wondered if anybody had changed from gearbox speedo sensor to a wheel/propshaft speed sensor on a k-series and if so what was involved. thanks.

Try this link: http://arc.seloc.org/viewthread.php?tid=293765&page=2#pid5026592 Explains a bit about sleeving the oilway with aluminum tube as the original may be a source of oil/water contamination.

I've got a k-series standard caterham exhaust manifold available if you want.

I will have available in february a 1.6 K with ported head, oversize valves, 1320cams, piper followers caps and single springs, forged pistons. It has no sump and no cam cover. It made 171bhp at 8000rpm when conservatively mapped (lambda 1 throughout). It has been raced for 50hrs in my possesion with dry sump and jenveys. Oil and filter change every 10hrs. I also have available original ss exhaust with new cat and the original plenum with rover mems ecu. You can view the engine in action here, its now out of the car as another new build is on-going https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbNDorM2MsM. Would consider delivery to the english side of tunnel... Rgds Albert

Thanks Oily, all done now and in good shape....

Good afternoon, I'm presently in the final stages of putting together a new k-series engine and am looking for a little bit of guidance when putting the head and bottom end together for the first time. As I see it I have two options: 1)(preferred) set the cam timing on the head on the bench, assemble to bottom end with pistons at mid stroke, bring piston 1 up to TDC gently, check for valve piston contact if all ok fit timing belt and check cam timing again 2)Set the cams at safe position with old non vernier timing pulleys set pistons at 90 deg BTDC fit timing belt, bring no.1 up to TDC then swap the timing pulleys for the verniers and set cam timing. I'm fitting 1444 cams with omega pistons and have the feeling that there may be no safe position as in option 2. The other question I have is with regard to the engine management. I'm running an emerald with wasted spark and batched injection-presumably this means it is not possible to get the timing 360 deg out as fuel and spark are available whether on the compression stroke or exhaust stroke ie ultimately the opening and closing of the valves are determining whether a power stroke occurs or not? I had a bad experience in my youth with a ford transit where I managed to do exactly this and hole a piston- I don't want to repeat. Sanity check appreciated.

The duratec tank fits in front of a k series in metric chassis, its what I went for after scoring one on ebay for <200ukp.

Mine 2007 academy car had the same.

When it was still mounted my passenger seat sat on two strips of 4mm(h) x 35mm(w) aluminium that appeared to be bonded to the lowered floor, the bolts passed through the strip and the floor no deformation even after squeezing a 100kg passenger in and taking him round the track. Not directly to the floor though.

Screwdriver and hammer, old filter is junk anyway........

A dutch acquaintance of mine has just gone freestyle super wide and has imperial widetrack set available. Do you have a contact outside of blatchat that I could pass him as he is not on here.... Rgds Albert

I've never had a problem when removing the scavenge pump pick up side to drain the sump oil. The support bracket nuts that go through the sump have not yet caused leakage(probably because the dry sump should be under slight vacuum with the engine running,- stationary the oil in the head will make its way to the sump) Mine gets refreshed after every 10hrs of hard use. My dry sump pan from caterham came with a plug at the lowest point, I have never removed this as when I installed the steel plug into the aluminium sump the threads didn't quite "feel" right. I don't run a bellhousing system but a duratec tank for the external storage, Taking off the front connection which feeds the oem oil pump drains this. I am not anal about the remaining 200mls of oil that doesn't drain. If you have a mechanical oil pressure gauge attached at the oil filter take off and you disconnect it overnight you will also get (as well as the capilliary tube volume) an additional 200mls out of the oil system. I tend to leave mine draining overnight with the car level,. Rgds Albert

A question on ring gapping, I'm putting together a block with new liners, new omega 80mm pistons and rings. The ring gaps look a little tight to me can anyone advise if the below is a reasonable spec to aim for? Gap clearance top: 0.35/0.45mm 2nd: 0.45/0.50mm oil: 0.30/0.40mm Thanks Albert

found one thanks for looking and replying.

As in title for sierra 7" diff Thanks Albert

revilla, I just so happen to have both of these parts after a dry sump conversion. for you 40 UKP + postage from NL Rgds Albert

I made mine from a 2mm sheet of aluminium after baulking at the price, sprayed to match cage colour and held in place by couple of P clips and some tiger bond- total cost was about 30 euros and an afternoon of tinkering. From a distance looks ok from close up not so nice as the c/f expensive ones. You can see it in the photo.

I have the cam cover one laying on my desk if you want one-from a K-series, FOC.

Indeed it was something silly, mainly caused by trying to diagnose when tired with a torch at night. I hadn't noticed that the fuel pump fuse was blown. New one in and it started first time. Feeling a little embarassed but happy that I'll be able to race on Sunday. Thanks for the advice. Albert

Whilst toying with theidea of Li ion battery I decided to fit one. Put it in place and it was able to prime the fuel pump fire up the emerald turn the starter but not shift over the starter solenoid to engage the cog on the flywheel. Just too weak I thought. So I continued my prep work for the coming race weekend and then put the original battery back in (this battery has always started the car even after being left for a month) and currently has 12.8V. So tried to start again this time no fuel pump and no attempt to crank. Dash lights indicators etc all working. Emerald red light on. The alternator light on the speedo has a dim glow. The immobiliser disarms. (normally the car starts and runs whether I disarm or not so don't think this is the issue) Car is fitted with a brise starter. I also bypassed the inertia switch(I think by linking the two wires that go to it together) I'm now a bit stumped as to what to try next. Electrics are black magic to me. Suggestions appreciated-my next move is to double check all fuses and connections in case something is loose, but after that I'm lost. Thanks Albert