Benton

Aeroscreen plus eye/ear protection, and depending on how much you value it, head protection for best overall experience,though be prepared for the car to be filled up by road detritus

Personally given your short ownership of the car I'd insist when you take it back to Crawley for the clutch issues they thoroughly check out your reported fuelling issues (they have Easimap) and insist they properly road test the car (yes I know this should have been done prior to your purchase but for some reason it appears not to!) If you can add further evidence like a clearly sooty spark plug then all the better. If the cars under warranty then it's their responsibility to sort it rather than you having to chase around / incur any additional expense. If you're then not happy with the Crawley result (get the TADTS response) then rather then spending the money on an Easimap lead, then as you suggest let PGM carry out a full reality check on the current state of the car. Looking at PGMs upgrades/service offerings, they obviously offer a number of tried and tested alternative solutions for better tuning / cooling control / chassis setup etc. which in the longer term should give you an overall better car, some of which I admit I'm quite tempted by. However (and I don't think I'm doing PGM a disservice here) these upgrades aren't free at the end of day, and some of the PGM modifications offered potentially could affect your Caterham's existing warranty (if you're bothered about this) which of course you'd have to verify. Hope you get the car sorted soon whatever route you end up taking.

Unfortunately you cannot always rely on Caterham's fuel gauge accuracy, even though mines been "recalibrated" by Caterham when it reads halfway into the red section there's still at least a usable 5 litres left in the tank (not including the approx 5litres that is unusable due to the tank shape/fuel pump pickup position.) The only accurate way of calculating mpg is by brimming the tank, drive, note mileage and re-brimming. Aerobod (James) has far more experience in these matters than me but if we're starting a sweepstake I'll put my money on a duff lambda sensor for starters. You need to get somebody to hook the car up to a copy of the diagnostic software Easimap to show what the various sensors are doing. The throttle is sensitive by nature but if the cars running right that shouldn't prevent you from pulling away easily without having to wildly slip the clutch or give it "loads of gas", or end up doing a kangaroo impression. If you think it's running excessively rich then an obvious quick check (though you could argue why you should be doing this with a car under warranty and less than a week of your ownership) is take a look at the state of one of the spark plugs for soot build up.

From experience the cold start/stalling is probably due to a combination of incorrect adjustment of throttle position sensor / failing lambda sensor, or less likely incorrect map set up. How does the car run on part throttle when warmed up? If it's all set up OK you should be able to use fifth gear at revs less than 2000 rpm doing a constant speed and still be able to pull cleanly away with gentle pressure on the throttle. Also what's the fuel consumption like, does it seem to be running very rich? Again when set up correctly you can get 27/28 mpg under normal road use from my 620. Clutch s/b hydraulic not cable, sorry never had a problem with mine.

Many thanks for your information/suggestions. I'll certainly check out the resistor.

This has happened a couple of times now. First time I noticed I was stuck in a queue of traffic / hot day for about 10 minutes. Rev needle dropped showing less than actual revs otherwise car was running fine. When car was subsequently moving tachometer was responding slowly and still under reading. When I got home idle speed showing at about 200rpm. Switched off, immediately restarted engine needle now working fine! Shift lights still appeared to be registering correctly, regardless of tachometer reading. Since it was an easy thing to do I disconnected and reconnected the block connector on the back of the tachometer. A couple of days later.same thing happened again, though I hadn't been stuck in traffic. Been out a couple of times subsequently (albeit in cooler weather) and it's all appearing to be working perfectly and behaving itself. I figured signal from the sensor to the ecu must be OK otherwise the engine wouldn't be running right. Therefore must be either something in the connection between the ecu and the tachometer playing up, or the tachometer itself throwing a wobbly, though in either case it seems to be related to high ambient temperature. For the record the cars a 620R. Any similar experiences or thoughts? Also has anyone got a wiring diagram for a 620?, though I'm pretty sure the signal wire for the tachometer is white/black.

I'm fortunate also to have an Orange/Black stripe Caterham, we have good taste

And it's easy to catch the roll bar, and wear gloves!

Not a dash cam but I fitted a reversing camera in a obvious place, the bottom of my spoiler of my Exige. On several occasions I have noticed how the usual types come tearing up behind trying to hassle you, but then suddenly notice the camera and drop back, even though it's not even recording anything!

On the basis the overall noise level whilst driving a Caterham is already high (mechanical, exhaust, wind etc.) anyway if you don't already wear them then earplugs or headphones are recommended if you're driving for any length of time.

Friendly wave exchanged, I was in the Orange Exige (real Lotus ) going the other way.

Needed my shades to avoid the glare

Interesting, my former SV had, and current S3 has., the plastic/brass hinge/pin combination therefore swapping over was straightforward.

https://caterhamparts.co.uk/fittings/1282-hinge-sidescreen-single-piece-plastic-no-pin.html?search_query=Hinge&results=4 https://caterhamparts.co.uk/fittings/599-wind-protector-hinge.html?search_query=Pin&results=51 At least you can do one side!

Thanks for the suggestion

I've just swapped over lambda sensors since the previous one died. Now having recently acquired Easimap I've noticed I'm getting the above message appearing on a fairly regular basis in the Lambda "Long Term Adaptive Status" field as opposed to what I assume is the normal "OK” message. The "Short Term Lambda Control Status", "Lambda", "Oxygen A" readings all look OK, except when the individual log row shows the "I Store and Error Sign Mismatch" message in which case the default values for "Lambda" and "Oxygen A" are logged rather than their actual values. The car runs absolutely fine on the replacement sensor as opposed to drinking fuel/kangerooing with the previous "dead" sensor. Does anyone know the meaning/significance of the "I Store and Error Sign Mismatch" message, or is it just a hiccup in the communication/logging software?

if you don't drive like the Stig all the time on the road, if you haven't done already I'd take a look at the plugs to see if Sooty has taken up residence due to an underlying over fuelling problem.

Many thanks Pete

I know it's unlikely but if you don't ask..... Has anyone got a SBD Motorsport Easimap ODBC connection lead lying around they no longer require/use that I can purchase. Please PM me with details, many thanks.

The powder coating started falling away in chunks on my 2018 car headlamp rims in less than 2 years, closer examination/poking revealed that the powder coat hadn't apparently adhered properly in the first place to the rim so once water got underneath the end was nigh.

I was in a tin top coming the other way

As there isn't a lot of real estate windscreen IMO to look through in the first place, with my SV I used a suction mount with adjustable arm stuck to the dash next to the brake/hazard switches The phone "hovering" in front of the them, though still accessible and visible. For my S3 I prefer to use the same suction mount but attached to the fuse/relay cover, If I need to carry some long legged passengers! then I can easily attach to the dash as before but this has the disadvantage of slightly obscuring the fuel gauge (not that I trust it that much anyway ) An advantage of it being mounted lower down is that there is less temptation for a opportunist passerby thief to reach in and grab - not that I frequent such areas! I've noticed before there's a centre mount offered on EBay https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Caterham-Seven-7-Phone-Holder-Bracket-Brodit-Proclip-RAM-AMPS-mount-RHD-or-LHD-/293979086187?_trksid=p2349624.m46890.l49292 but it looks it'll compromise the instrument/forward view, specially with the current phones on steroids.

If the heaters like mine can you not just swivel and adjust the vent baffles to point away from the ignition switch?, it's still chilly this time of year

I'm assuming you haven't as I done more than once having fiddled with the heater whilst driving had the vent accidentally blowing hot air over the switch. I was surprised at how hot it got and how it retained the heat.