ScottR400D

I’d be thinking about why it’s like that too. My car is 9 yo and doesn’t have anything like that. All I’ve ever done is keep dry, wipe over with WD and put Helicopter tape on the forward looking surfaces. 
This is last year: The white dots on the wing support are the edge of the HT  

5 hours ago, Nigel B said:

Hi Peter!

You’d have hoped they’d have sorted out an appropriate replacement by now. I suppose the key thing is to ensure there’s no tension transferred to the outlet pipe (or is it the inlet pipe?).

 I hope you’re doing well. 👍

Not too bad Nigel. Had a few health things but hopefully getting there. 
Haven't used 7 this year yet. Came to it in spring to find a rear leaky damper so I’ve got a set of Nitrons being fitted just now, flat floor,  MOT etc 
Hopefully back in a couple of days or so but not sure when I’ll be able to drive it but my son will be having it away to Silverstone if I can’t!  To be fair he paid for the Nitrons so I can’t complain!

I hope you’re well? 

CWP noise is down to the CWP nothing to do with the LSD, it’s just set wrong. 
Yes theoretically the LSD shouldn’t make a noise in a straight line but the slightest cornering will have it protesting. Mine certainly made all sorts of noises going ostensibly straight. But then in hindsight I think mine was basically FUBAR at just 4/5k miles. 
In contrast I can’t detect any LSD noise from the Tracsport. I get the CWP overrun chatter which most of us do but no CWP whine or any other noise from the diff. 


. 

Hi Nigel. The top hose they use was designed for the original radiator set up as you and I have, I think. 
For that set up it fitted well,  now it’s a poor fit all round. 
I’ve seen several efforts to get it to fit with cable ties etc.  

As long as you have a Titan LSD in there, which being a 420R I assume you have (you’ve avoided confirming every time I’ve asked) you’re never going to get even reasonable ‘NVH’. 
The thing is the diff is bolted pretty solidly to the chassis. From it emanates all sorts of grunting, harshness and vibration. The engine and box are pretty closely coupled too so there’s little chance of refinement of any level. 
The angular alignment is a complete red herring flashed about to distract from the real issues. 
I've driven and experienced several 7s with the Titan diff and of course the Tracsport which was my final resolution. I never found one that was acceptable in terms of noise and harshness until the Tracsport was fitted. 
 

In all honesty I’d get someone who really knows what they’re doing to sort this. Just guessing rarely works out. 

1 hour ago, Ainsley said:

So you were not missing the spacer then, but the gearbox mount was bent ?

I'm not sure how you can move the gearbox, its not like the holes in the chassis, mount or gearbox are slotted.

 

I think you can occasionally lever it against the mounts and tighten up and hope it stays. As you imply though, something will be stressed. 
 

I’m still far from convinced it’s relevant. 

9 hours ago, Rex said:

My sump used to scrape and occasionally the car  would bottom out. I got coil-overs for  the front and cranked them as high as they would go. No more scraping-no more bottoming out.

That sounds a logical way to go………….. 

Fair enough. I hope this is warranty stuff? 

So no enlightenment from HWM? 

Almost 10 years since they stopped recommending butchering the chassis yet they still haven’t sorted the fasteners……..

Still waiting for HWMs words of wisdom. 
 

25 minutes ago, AlastairA said:

Apologies for my lack of clarity - it was the following that I was referring to and I was just suggesting to the OP that it might be worth checking it is fitted:

 

• ChrisC
• Member
• • 2.3k

 

Posted November 30, 2021

I have it in writing from CC, it was added for clearance between the chassis and the gearbox.  If you think that statement through, that means clearance is marginal without it, something that's been known for some time.  Given the price and how easy it is to fit, for me it's a no brainier, on any pre 2021 5 speed Mazda boxed car, especially if your working on the car in that area.

That said, the reason it dramatically reduced my cars noise wasn't because of clearance, it was because it altered the prop working angle slightly, which combined with a faulty front UJ meant a reduction in noise and vibration.  Ultimately my car was only fixed of vibration and unexplainable noises with a prop replacement.  
 

As Chris implies above - clearance between the chassis and gearbox is marginal without the spacer.

And as he says the clearance or lack of wasn’t the issue. 

55 minutes ago, AlastairA said:

I was thinking of ChrisC's comments here:

 

As Chris implies, alignment wasn’t the issue. His prop was failing. 
If you research the alignment issue you’ll see it needs to be far more out of line than  a 7 would ever be. 

32 minutes ago, AlastairA said:

There is a spacer used between the gearbox and the gearbox mount on currrent kits. My understanding is that the spacer was introduced to get better angular alignment from the gearbox output shaft to the differential. Might it be worth checking whether this is fitted?

There was/is a spacer that does something but not what you allude to. Not much can be done about engine/box alignment, the front of the engine needs to be down to clear the hood. 
In any case any angular misalignment is negligible. It’s a red herring.
 

Do we have any words of wisdom from HWM? 

16 minutes ago, Matt420R said:

Indeed. When you look at what the they are probably sourcing them for, I think there is considerable profiteering going on in this space. 

https://www.aliexpress.com/w/wholesale-5.75"-LED-Headlight-.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.search.0

 

Par for the course for some. 

1 hour ago, GulfSeven said:

£23 each is insane! JAL and Sevens and Classics charge £380 for their top of the range ones*. £120-£180 for their cheaper ones. What's the catch?

* We'll ignore Caterham's prices (nearly twice the JAL price for the exact same unit).

Perhaps it’s not the £23 that’s ‘insane’?

9 minutes ago, prisoner7 said:

Scott - I did search for information about this before I posted this question. Unfortunately for me, I'm in the US and won't have access to CC's PBC. Thank you - all of you, for your inputs.

I wasn’t replying to you actually. I think all you need to know is that they’re not always well set up from the factory, CC will just make excuses but they can be fixed. I’m afraid in the USA you’ll have even less support than we get. The PBC wouldn’t help as shown above. 

If it gets set up properly by someone who knows what they’re doing and cares it will be fine. Just hoping it will get better doesn’t work. 

I'm not sure I’ve ever read so many posts going over things we’ve discussed so many times over so many years. 

You clearly haven’t spotted the elephant in the room yet…….

Not until the car’s set up properly often. Been like that for years.  My ‘15 car was like that till I had RBTBs fitted and mapping done. 

I think you’ll find the answer is yes.  Shouldn’t be like that but they very often are. 

2 hours ago, JAL73 said:

It’s going in to HWM tmrw and they are aware of the issue, will report back if they have any success in reseating it to avoid contact with the tunnel walls and checking the engine and diff incline angles. 

Surely Caterham have not engineered the width of the inside of the transmission tunnel to be less than or equal to the width of the widest section of the gearbox. I appreciate the tolerances maybe very fine but I’d hope it’s possible to seat the gearbox so that the only NVH transfer point to the chassis is via the gearbox mount. 

I’d love to hear what HWM have to say. 
 

Caterham didn’t change the chassis when the Mazda box began to be used. Just like when they changed the radiators, diffs and anything else. Engineered? 🤔
 

By the way, back in 2020 I asked one of CC’s ‘experts’ to confirm that the Duratec sloped forward to clear the hood. His answer? “I have no idea”  

As I asked, do you have a Titan LSD? Sintered plates? You’ll never enjoy low levels of NVH with that if so.

A final comment. The accumulated knowledge and experience in these pages will outweigh that of HWM by orders of magnitude. I would be wary of how much time I wasted.    

1 minute ago, Drakman said:

This is a good view of what happens with out of alignment tail shafts and velocity.

 

Yes that's in the ‘21 thread. 

24 minutes ago, JAL73 said:

Im about to go on a road trip hence my renewed focus on NVH...

I was talking to Ollie at R&R Transmission about NVH and he said that the relationship between incline of the engine and the incline of the diff can stress the UJs on the propshaft and cause NVH to be transmitted from the engine to the diff. That sounds plausible but no idea how to test whether my car suffers from that particular ailment. Vibrating elements touching the transmission tunnel also seem highly plausible but not sure if this can be avoided with Duratec/ Mazda applicaiton given the tunnel width.   

That’s yet more old news. The Duratec does cant down at the front to clear the hood. About 1.8 degrees. 
But the diffs also point downwards by a similar amount. As long as the output of the box and input of the diff are parallel there no problem. 

When we investigated this closely a few years ago the ‘out of parallel’ amount was negligible. 

What Ollie has told you isn’t true. But it’s a good excuse for the noisy as sin LSD. 
Search for a thread from ‘21, called PROP SHAFT ALIGNMENT AND VELOCITY

I’m assuming you guys have LSDs? If not then it’s probably as good as it gets. If you do then look no further.  

On 26/04/2024 at 08:59, Jonathan Kay said:

Yes, this was stated in the recent online meeting with, IIRC a date.

Jonathan

There was a post in here recently where a customer’s car was on stop because they had no engines. 
Caterham say a lot of stuff, it’s not always true. 
Time will tell.