Ben Fung

So seems we're sold out on this and I was too late to the game I've contacted the office to put myself on the waiting list but if anyone isn't able to make it or thinking of canceling I'd be happy to take your place (I'd obviously pay the entry fee). Cheers, Ben

Hi Simon - I'm interested. YHBM

thank you all for your help, a trip to halfords and £20 later i have a temp switch up and running keeping it well the 80's even in traffic. Will fix the issue when I am home next week. Thank you all for your help and kind offers, what an incredible community to now be a part of :-) Thanks to Ben too for his log on

thanks mav. Hopefully it won't come to that but its a very kind offer

Dam, the sender isn't on the radiator! Looking round the cooling system i can see two connectors on a pipe under the thermostat housing. I would guess that one is the temp sensor for the stack dash and the other is sender for the fan. One connector is with spade connectors and the other is a more substantial plastic one. Does anybody know which is which or if I am complexly off the the mark.

Thank you all for your help, will have a go at shorting the sender today and if the fan kicks in will rig a wire to get me home. Will keep you al posted on the progress.

Will head to halfords in the morning and pick up a multimeter to diagnose the problem. Great idea about running a temp wire to the fan! I could definitely do that to get me home :-) any idea on amp for inline fuse ?

Hi Jonathan, No i don't but will pick one up tomorrow. I figure it must be a fuse/relay or blown fan but still concerned.

Hi all, I have just bought an R500 Duratec and whilst my Lotus Seven Club membership comes through (its in the post) Ben has kindly let me use his log on to gain some "fairly" urgent assistance. The car is absolutely amazing and I will place the standard new owner post with pics in due time but for now I have a bit off an issue I could do with some assistance/advice on. Essentially the fan is not coming on, so in traffic or standstill after a blat the water temp is rising to the high 90's/100degrees at which point i am turning the engine off. I have checked all the connections and they seem fine and referred to the manual for the fuse/relay but it seems a little allusive. Have also checked all the fuses and none have blown. The reason for it being "fairly" urgent is i am in Anglesey atm and live in Surrey and its highly likely that my 5 hr drive home I am going to encounter my fair bit of traffic. Any advise would be really welcome. Chris

Hi Garry - YHBM and fingers crossed that this finally resolves my speedo woes too!

Hey Guys, Posting an ad for a mate who is upgrading to an R500 but is raising some additional funds for the purchase. So he's selling his beloved Tiger Supercat, I've seen the detail he's gone to and have worked with him so can vouch for his attention to detail. There are some amazing and horrendous examples of this marque out there and his is definitely the former. The ad on Pistonheads is here If you know anyone who may be looking please point them in the direction of the ad. Oh and I'm sure that in unusual combination of someone with an R500 to get rid of he'll gladly PX 😬 Cheers, Ben

Hi Martin - YHBM re the wings.

Thanks for arranging these Andy! I'd like a set of the brackets too please - YHBM

Hi David, Got your BM. You can have first dibs on the 15s but unfortunately as my only set obtaining the 13s is a pre-requisite for me. Thanks for the offer of your 16s as an intermediary but I'd rather just make a one off switch to the 13s. I'll keep you posted on my search for the 13s in the meantime. Cheers, Ben

As the title suggests. I'm looking to switch over to 13" wheels. I'm not too fussed about condition providing they're straight and structurally sound (with or without tyres). Happy to get the refurbished if needed. I'll be getting rid of my 15" wheels (also Caterham Anthracite) once I get a set of 13" so happy to either purchase the wheels or trade them with mine. My wheels are in good condition and have a newish set of CR500's on it having done about 1500 road miles on them. Let me know if you're planning on getting rid of a set or are looking to trade for 15's. Cheers, Ben

Hi Merrick, Can I get in early and reserve a slot (plus guest driver) with Andy here or is it first to come see you on the morning of the 19th Otherwise I'm all paid up and form sent off today. First track day since the cars visit to the Two Steve's, can't wait seriously looking forward to it, fingers crossed visibility in the morning is better than last year. Edited by - Ben Fung on 28 Apr 2014 23:56:58

Firstly, thanks everyone who helped with their knowledge and advice on this. Here's a long overdue update on which decision I took for the upgrade and hopefully it'll help anyone else who's considering going down this route. Having spoken to various folks who have done their upgrades, PGM, DPR, the two Steve's, consulting the info from the helpful BCers on this thread and searching the archives I decided to go down the route of the Jenvey TBs instead of the roller barrel's. In short - the part throttle driveability was what swayed me in the end. I'm sure roller barrels are a great upgrade but given the feedback from the various people and resources the Jenvey route was the correct option for me given my primarily road based usage with a few track days interspersed here and there. So with that decision begun my first significant winter upgrade. Parts ordered and arrived as a Christmas gift as a set of the DTH 45mm Jenveys from Raceline along with the underslung throttle linkage. I believe some other crafty individuals have fabricated their linkages but I can freely admit that I'm not at that level of ability. As for the upgrade process itself, here goes.... I started with draining the coolant so I could get at the bolts securing the plenum and its supporting strut, this was easy enough as was removing the plenum. Changing over the injectors was also simple - removing the fuel rail the injectors came out too. Replace with the new ones as a straight swap into the rail and bolt back on. Bolted on the TB's and found that the alternator belt tensioner top mounting had to be shortened as the mounting bolt fouled the spindle end of the throttle body. The mounting needed to be shortened by 10mm but that was easy enough with a hacksaw and a little elbow grease. With the TB's and linkage installed I shortened the existing throttle cable and attached a new trunion to the end of the cable to secure it in the linkage. Once the TBs were in place the holes for the filter backplate were drilled out using the v.accurate template kindly provided by AdamQ (cheers mate, for taking that headache away) on his blog which is definitely worth a read. A 45mm hole saw did the job nicely for the inlets and a few holes for the MAP sensor added and mounting bolts drilled out too. The new injectors use a different connector than the existing ones and the sub-loom was purchased from CC. Figuring out which wires went to which injectors on the existing setup before cutting away the existing plugs meant it was just matching up the existing wires in the main loom to the correct holes in a new 6-pin econoseal plug to connecting to the new sub loom. The new TPS was connected by again mapping out which pin matched the pin on the existing TPS using a multimeter and a new 3-pin plug attached to the loom with the pins in the right place. On cutting bonnets - now this was one of the main reasons that slowed my decision to upgrade as I was never sure about the cutout/filter look nor looking forward to the task of cutting the bonnet. Well in hindsight I shouldn't have been so concerned as the task was easy with the right tools - I cannot speak highly enough of the drill attached nibbler tool! Also the cut out look has actually grown on me. I used some cardboard as a faux bonnet and slowly widened the hole until I was happy. Once that was fine I taped up the real bonnet and used the faux bonnet hole as my template to mark out where I needed to cut. Did I remember to say I 🥰 my nibbler attachment for my drill?! That thing really is the dogs whats-its, the nibbler made the job of cutting the bonnet so much quicker and tidier (I tested various tools on scrap Al), using a clamped piece of wood to the bonnet to use as a guide the two straight lines were perfectly cut with no burrs, no paint damage and a lovely finish (just needed some wet n dry) in under 5 minutes. The curves were cut free hand and fine tuned with some hand files. All in all a snug fit and I'm very happy with it. 😬 Coolant back in, bonnet back on and next stop a mapping session with the two Steve's at Track 'n' Road Performance. More updates, pics and the final result to follow...

Thanks for the responses guys. I passed on the offers seems he's not keen on an SV so that rules out Keechy's CSR and Grubbster's R500. The one coming soon at Sevens and Classics looks to be a k-series so he's still on te lookout if anything comes up

Posting on behalf of a mate. He's looking for his next car, mixed road and track use. Seems there aren't many R400/500's in the used market at the moment so he wanted to check if any of the BC members were looking to offload their pride n joy. Ideally after an R500 but think he might consider an R400. In terms of options he's not too picky as he's quite happy working on the car to get it to his ideal spec but naturally the more the merrier. He quite the polisher - the state of my very lightly dusted well driven car often 'offends his being' 😬 - so condition will be a key consideration for him. BM me to get in contact with him if you're looking to sell your car or know someone else who is planning to. Cheers, Ben Edited by - Ben fung on 4 Apr 2014 11:24:48

Yeah did the same out of al sheet by creating a template with some cardboard, then cut the al sheet to shape leaving a small overlap one the inboard side of the covers so I could rivnut them the foot well and screw the covers in place but still be removable. Sprayed the trap with waxoyl, put the covers on, held in place via the rivnuts then sealed with silicone. Job done! I ended up covering the footwells with heat shielding later so made a mod to it by cutting a hole in the covers that could be closed with some grommets but still allow access with a spray tube to top up the waxoyl. Hope that last bit makes sense.

Blue Injectors - 248.1 cc/min Thanks for the link Paul. Looks like I'll be needing new ones.

Was looking into the flow rates of the injectors particularly these Blue Injectors and these Green Injectors Does anyone happen to know their respective flow rates? I haven't had much luck finding the flow rates online, the model number for the blue ones are 3M6G-BA (Ford part no) but no idea what the model number for the green ones are. Was trying to figure out if I need new injectors to go with a potential TB upgrade from the current plenum on a Duratec R400 which comes with the blue injectors. I've spoken with Steve at Track n Road who advised moving up to something that can deliver around 330cc and I wasn't sure if the blue ones are up to the job or not.

Neil - YHBM

Thanks for all the info guys! Martin - got your BM cheers for those tips. I'm now having to reconsider the RB option now but a fun dilemma no less. Adam - your blog on the Duratec conversion is an informative, hilarious and educational read. Aside from the RB's or TB's did you need to replace the fuel rail, fuel regulators or injectors? The throttle linkages go without saying but wondered what other bits I'll need. Not sure what the standard R400 injectors are but perhaps someone else with a better knowledge may be able to she'd some light on if they're up to the job.

Seems the well of will power to resist upgraditis has run dry and I'm thinking of upgrading from the CC plenum to a set of Jenvey TB's. But I did have some questions for anybody out there who has made the conversion or was considering and decided for something else. Noise - Will the increase put me at risk on the circuit noise tests? (car is to date a standard Duratec R400) Alternatives - I did consider the CC RB's but at double the cost figured I'd go with the Jenvey's, but are there any others I should be considering? Bonnet Holes - Is there a configuration I can run without having to cut a hole in the S3 bonnet? I'm not concerned with the look of a cutout just concerned (v.concerned) about making a dogs breakfast of the cutout. ECU - As I understand it the standard MBE unti from CC is locked, how did you get it unlocked and remapped or did you get a new ECU? Installation - Are there any gotchas that I should be aware of? eg. linkages that require modification, different bolt hole sizes (sorry making stuff up but I hoping you guys get the jist) Or is it a simple bolt on then take to be remapped procedure?