Graham Hutton

I got 28 litres in mine the other day at the bottom of the red bit and that is as low as I have risked going before!!

It's very interesting. I also much prefer my car with a relatively stiff rear ARB. My Core 1 setup transformed the front massively but it took a bit of playing around to to get the rear to feel better. I actually ended up making some massive changes to the damper settings to make sure I could feel the difference and ended up settling on a setting which is about 75% of the way to the hardest setting. I found the most annoying bumps were those long duration ones like the dips you sometimes get on dual carriageways. The compression at speed took ages on a soft setting and was over much quicker and more comfortably with a stiffer setting. Not what I expected at all but to be honest, I am very happy with it now both on the road and the track.

Yep, go right ahead and enjoy the IVA experience, I thought it was fun. It's like giving birth......... but much more painful 🙂

I had Simon at Meteor sort me out with some CORE 1 way adjustables with softer springs and digressive pistons and it is brilliant on the road and trackways. BUT whilst this made a decent improvement over my original Bilsteins, the first proper flat floor setup that I did after I had driven it for a couple of months completely transformed things. It was spectacularly better, more compliant, less skittish, less bump steer etc etc. So if you haven't had it setup like that first, I would strongly advise doing so before deciding whether to spend out on new kit.

Yes, I had to strip the pedal box off but somehow I had managed to get my lights adjusted correctly at home!!! My experience on the V5 was that it took 9 weeks of which every day was sunny!!!!!

Ainsley, my mods were combination of 3 things. Bending the aluminium brackets either side that hold the radiator mounts to ensure the front flange was absolutely parallel to the radiator. Slotting the holes in those brackets to allow the bobbins to better line up with the radiator holes. Using washers behind two of the bobbins so that all 4 bolts pinched up equally. Last thing to note is that if you go for a radtec radiator, they site further forward so the top hose needs to be a it longer. If I was building a new car now, I'd genuinely stick the caterham radiator up for sale and go straight for the radtec.

Ha! I'm sure you'll smash it out of the park Ainsley. You seem to be taking a lot of care.

Yes, no doors and mirrors on windscreen stanchions. I was chuffed that the only thing Williams found to do on my PBC was to add a single cable tie to the end of the throttle cable where it joins the inlet manifold. I still have no idea why either, it seems completely pointless. Oh, and they lent me the collapsible steering column too.

Yes to both. I got my car insured from when the kit arrived. It is a cheaper premium during the build which steps up when the IVA was passed.

The sequence is important Ainsley, you want to start with the longest runs from the master cylinder and work back towards it. If you have the big brakes, don't forget there is a bleed nipple on the inside and outside. The recommendation is to do the inside nipple first so that all bubbles are eliminated up to that point before before moving on to the outside one. This seemed to work well for me anyhow 🙂

Yes, you can definitely drive to the IVA. I throughly enjoyed doing so as it was a beautiful day and the journey home was even better.....and a bit longer 😉 I would say it is helpful to bed the brakes in properly on the way. I think that helped as my handbrake was still a little bit marginal at the time of the test. You also need to turn up with nearly full fuel in the car I seem to recall. I found a fuel station a few miles out of my way so I could enjoy the journey!!

I use the Sealey one and it seems great.

What a brilliant little app! Will try it next time I'm out in the Caterham. Thanks

My kit was delivered in 2020 but my reg was 1/4/21. I only wish the DVLA would also recognise how low impact our caterhams are and stop charging us so much for road tax!

Sorry to hear that John. Looking for parts seemed to be a recurring theme for me too. I was adamant that they had only given me one of the carbon rear wing protectors until it tuned up packed in between the two rubber floor mats in a completely different box to the other one!

I'm enjoying my motamec side mirrors on the aero screen but I need a carbon post mounted central mirror that matches...... and Motomec don't make one! Anyone know of one that looks very similar?

I have the exact same half hood on my SV and it is fine. To be honest, I don't really like driving with it on but it is a whole lot better than the full hood even in heavy rain. You have to kept that the swirl makes your left shoulder wet but otherwise it works OK and the floppiness is drowned out by the noise of the spray, the exhaust and the ends of the wiper blades hitting the leading edge of the hood! Top tip, make sure you trim the blade ends they miss it. Enjoy your build, it's looking good

Oh and another good reason for sorting this out is that the side on which your gearbox looks tight (passenger side by the looks of it) the gearbox fill plug is halfway up and it is a hard enough job to get to even with the gearbox in the centre. If you will be doing your own servicing, you'll find out what I mean 🙂

John, Mine is an SV and I had the same issue. The gearbox still touches the heat insulation on one side but is not in contact with the chassis. There are an awful lot of vibrations from the Mazda gearbox (particularly 4th gear on over run) which is well documented on here. It would be best if you could get it away from the chassis for this reason and so that the prop shaft is better aligned with the diff. I did it by loosening the engine mount bolts both on the engine and the chassis end and then putting a strop around the gearbox to help me centre it whilst laying underneath. Once I had the gearbox bolts finger tight, I went back and did the engine mounts up and it all worked out fine. Hope it goes OK for you too.

I have done my online application and it says mine will be given a class 1 sticker!!! Brill, I can go anywhere 🙂

Brilliant, thanks everyone!!

I am off to France in my Caterham in June and on another thread was very helpfully warned of the crit air sticker things you need in certain cities. The problem is that I can't seem to work out what one I need for my 2021 310R. I presume it must be to a pretty decent standard but does anybody know which? Thanks very much

Enjoy your build John. It is a pleasure. I also trimmed the full length of all the holes through the chassis skin as I think it looks better (personal opinion) It took a bit of cutting of the back section of the trim to get it past the tight bits. I also found that the holes in the skin for the steering rack were not quite in the right place and rubbed the rubber boots. Easy to grind a bit of the ally skin with the dremmel but worth checking before putting the trim on. Top tip is to WD40 the grinding stone otherwise the soft aluminium chokes it quickly. In terms of cardboard protection, I put some on the inside faces of the start of the transmission tunnel to help when sliding the gearbox down on engine install day. I have seen a few people who have torn the tunnel insulation and this helped avoid that mistake.......I made plenty of others though. No downside to sorting the front wishbones early except the wing stays will keep catching your legs! Have fun

I did the spiral of silicon sealant too and it has worked fine.

That IS a great idea! I keep thinking of building another one and a rebuild could be the perfect solution. II found the diff fairly easy too once I took the boot floor out. I used some pin punches in the bolt holes to get it suspended easily before taking one out at a time and bolting up. The headlights will be fine as long as you have 3 hands, each with 7 long fingers. They were a bit sniffy about the alignment of them at the IVA and it is not the easiest to adjust because when you undo the 22mm nut, everything just goes floppy. I marked the necessary alignment on the inside of my garage door with masking tape and set the beam pattern up. It passed the test, just!