fordy

1.6 ss with 6 spd 😬 the box is a joy, the revvy nature of the 1.6SS is a joy. Remember the standard superlight (1.6SS engine and 6 spd) is widely regarded as the best road seven and not without good reason. my last car was a 1.4 SS and the standard 5 spd is all wrong. I just built a 1.6SS/6 spd and its the perfect combo. Very pleased with the widetrack too. Much better turn in and high speed stability.

12.15ish - had an orange rollbar too.

these are factory filled in the US with a 5W-20 and a 5W-30 in Europe. Remember they are durability tested to extremes with these oils. But I guess most duratecs in Caterhams are running higher than stock power. I'd run a duratec on a good quality semi-synthetic ACEA A3 5W-40 myself. I think 50 grade oils are a bit too thick ( though probably would do no harm in a duratec) and they will lose you a bit of power. The decision to use Mobil 1 or not is a bit like the decision between a Mondeo and a 3 series Bimmer. They both do the same job, but somehow one of them makes you feel chipper. In every day use though one could be regarded as over egging the pudding somewhat for the job you require of it. Oil is no different. But if you must spend that bit extra to feel good about yourself, you wouldn't go wrong with any of the top tier brands.

i think chims clocks are made by Caerbont too. Have a word with them. here

caterham sell ones for that side of the apollo take off. Branded from Mocal which fits correctly

temporary supply issue with 1.4's i thought

not a bad idea, and the 1.4 can be upgraded (crank, rods, pistons, liners) to a 1.6 for racing at a later date. I suspect if you got minister to do it you'd get away with it. Grads club would welcome you with open arms and to be honest if you are on that much of a budget then you'd find a natural home there. Top racing club.

RA?

because they buy remanufactured gearboxes from Michel Cotts transmissions, and subtely, they are not reconditioned. Essentially cleaned up castings with new gubbins inside. Same with the diffs.

once you have your,+ve, -ve and signal feeds connected up there will be a seperate lead left that is used to set the shift points and configuration up. The procedure is a bit complex and involves you grounding that lead onto the chassis somewhere(you could route it through a dedicated switch) during the setup cycles. The tricky bit is setting up the revs steady and getting a good signal feed. I tried unsuccesfully to get a feed from the rev counter. If you don't get a set of instructions they are on datatools website here

diff oil is Ford EP90. I forget the p/n, but there is only one motorcraft EP90.

Dom, i'll send you some more info on my build in a while Q plate residuals are obviously worse, especially in the world of Caterhams (as lots of people like to pretend these are not kit cars and don't like the association a q-plate brings). So that immediately reduces your market. Also Caterham wouldn't buy it off you. So the saving has to be substantial up front to make it worth it. Saying that I don't really have a feel as to how much worse the residual is versus an equivalent current plate car but I figured in my case that the £8-9K differential was worth it. Its something worth thinking about though because much of the attraction of a Caterham is the strong residuals. Key is to get a really accurate picture of your build costs (i'll send you a copy of mine tomorrow). Academy cars, commonly move up to roadsports B (and with more mods to Roadsports A) then often into Supergrads or Megas later, so they are accepted. You'd need to check with the organisers and the regs what the engine spec must be etc.. but if you are starting with an academy spec race chassis you are most of the way there and it leaves your options open.

to Dom Evans..... I can't reply to your blatmail, you'll need to include your email address in your blatmail text so that I can reply to you. But to answer your second question. You can SVA any car, its just that if the components are not all new (one is allowed to be recon to "as new") then you'll get a q plate rather than a current plate when you register it. That either bothers you or it doesn't.....

not having tyre rack makes SVA a bit easier

best spec a race chassis as you say of you might want to go racing. ditch the spare wheel bracket anyway. Unnecessary weight, I just carry some tyre foam. Yes a 1.6 can be upgraded to a 1.8 easily enough. Also lots of good K's about as people in caterhams switch to duratec and elises switching to honda. Seen some bargains. My 5000mile ex-superlight K was a stunning bargain, a chap upgrading his superlight to duratec power! If you end up with a non-caterham K series don't forget to budget for all the other ancils you'll need, wet sump, bellhousing, flywheel, clutch, mods to block, starter, alternator, oil filter housing, water rail, crb, loom, hoses, cables etc..... Much better to look for an ex-caterham K series with all these bits present and correct.

probably all booked up for next year already though....

not sure you'd be eligble for supergrads or megagrads with a k car built from a starter kit. Best check with the organisers first unless you specced that car to exactly academy or roadsport B spec with their race chassis etc..... I just built a K series car from a starter kit. Easy peasy. Sourced real low mies diff/6 spd/ex-superlight engine all off blatchat. Also some other low risk bits and bobs, the rest all came from CC. mail me offline of you want a more detailed view. Was easy and SVA'd easily too. First few miles have shown the 6spd to be the best decision I made 😬

on the A129 this morning while stuck in a nasty queue, an '84 A reg, ali/orange seven. Brave man, roads were incredibly icy all over essex today 😳

Whats the difference between a standard rover HG and the Mike Satur one? Does the Mike Satur gasket facilitate a slightly different routing of coolant in the head?

Had a similar problem with mine last week. Is very tight. Couldn't work a solution. I;m going to slot my holes in the frame where it bolts so that I can jiggle it about. Just that the Steel frame is very hard and kills drill bits Be careful not to mount them too high because it makes it tricky to tuck the top flap under the hood. Another reason for me to slot the holes a bit. Got sore fingers trying to tuck the flap in with his cold weather!

exactly! I ended up at about 86xx I think. That was with a 6spd, 3.9 diff and 13" wheels with 205/60/13. I checked with a gear calc program that I should be at 4000rpm at 60mph in 4th. Checked with the back end on stands. Checked again by GPS on the road and passed SVA with no trouble.

have a look on Caerbonts website for the calibration tables to set the dipswitch on the back on a recent electronic speedo. A search on blatchat suggested a figure around 8000ish (can't remember exactly). Do a search. Generally 2 numbers are appropriate for most 7 wheel/tyre/gearbox/FD combinations.

spotted on PH here

just compare this price to that Caterham would look for (£20K+) in their showroom. Stunning value...

can you keep the standard discs with the Hispec ultralite?