lapsedtheorist

Thanks @RogW, interesting that even though your car is only 2 years older than mine, you have a silver coloured fluid tank of some kind where my airbox is. A few follow-up questions, if I may:

(a) was the filter the original fitment, or is that a mod?

(b) anything of note regarding performance or maintenance with this filter, in your opinion?

(c) I'm curious to know what the silver coloured fluid tank is for

proplates have a wide range of sizes and whilst they mainly do show plates they do road legal ones too - when I raised an enquiry regarding dimensions they were really helpful and confirmed for me that fully road legal lettering for my plate fitted on a smaller width than standard, so maybe give them a try?

Thanks for the pic, it’s helpful. That’s quite a different layout to my Duratec, I think my air filter would be further away from the aperture in the bonnet.

Anyone done this on a Duratec?

Thanks for the insight @Andrew Bennett - any chance you could share a photo?

One of the bobbins underneath my airbox is already leaning over at quite an angle so it seems only a matter of time before that snaps.

I like the fact the existing airbox mainly pulls air from outside the car rather than within the engine bay, but am wondering if using a filter with more surface area would offset any losses from it no longer being a “cold” air intake.

I’ve recently run-in my 420R and am interested in the change of air filter to a cone. It sounds really interesting. How did it go for anyone who’s done this? Any things to be aware of when thinking about it?

I’m interested in doing this partly to claim some under bonnet space for storage (I don’t have a heater, so have a long space I could use nicely if the airbox wasn’t quite as big).

Mine went in “top down”, photo attached. I seem to recall they took a bit of pulling through with a plain nut before actually fitting the proper nut. I chose that way because I didn’t want to faff about with IVA questions.

There is a bit of space (finger width) under the main body of the seat base, from the curvature of the Tillets. It’s pretty firm as-is but I might see about a folded up towel or something to go under it, if anything to protect the Tillet seat a bit!

19 minutes ago, SteliosV said:

Love it! I'm assuming that this is for the elder child right now and that the belts can be tightened enough?

Yes, elder first, although the little one will most likely get a go up and down a little street at most if she wants (1st gear, walking pace, that sort of thing)!

Haven’t actually tried it with a child yet, but the belts seem to tighten down pretty well on the seat itself with not loads of extra space so I think it’ll be OK.

After much research and general dithering I’ve picked up a new Volvo children’s car seat today and it fits a treat in my 420R with Carbon Tillet seats.

For those who come along later looking for similar, this is the current link to Volvo Parts for this product…

https://www.volvoparts.tmsmotorgroup.co.uk/child-seat-booster-cushion--backrest-wool-fabric-forward-facing-group-23-genuine-volvo-23342-p.asp

For when that link breaks its specs are the following…!

Child Seat Booster Cushion & Backrest, Wool Fabric, Forward Facing, Group 2/3, Genuine Volvo

• Product Code:
  31470488, 31470519
• Weight:
  3.2kg

I’d like to add my tuppenceworth to the topic of having a proper flat floor / chassis set up done… I had similar experiences to you @JAL73 then had this tuning done by @Gemzoe and it’s really transformed the car. Sure, there’s more that probably can be done, but a chassis set up doesn’t have to be to “motorsport” settings in order to provide tangible benefits!

And mine outright failed on emissions in the first part of the IVA test but the examiner was OK with doing the test and the end and it sailed through with flying colours… the whole system has to be super hot to pass, just having the coolant fan running isn’t enough evidence of it being hot…

… and neither was singing the examiner’s sleeve on the first exhaust primary!!!

When I enquired about driving to the IVA test myself, my insurer advised that I was insured to drive there (unknown risk) and insured to drive back if I passed (known risk) but not insured to drive back if I failed (known bad risk)… I suggest it’s worth double checking!

In the end I came to an arrangement with Caterham Oakmere who moved the car around for me for a reasonable rate 🙂 I’m glad I did because my test was 21st December and the weather was much less than ideal!

I had the same issue with my build, just take off the shakeproof washer and do it up. For peace of mind, I actually switched nuts to a thin nyloc, which seems to be fine. Here’s a close-up from my build, which is the image I sent to Caterham for clarification on what to do.

One thing to bear in mind is that Caterham will shorten cables for you if you ask them as part of PBC. I had a particularly long +ve cable from the battery and they took a big chunk out of the length which was really helpful.

Cut off the blue wires nearest the gear lever, connect the green wires to the black connector ones nearest the engine. As I recall there was some faffing about with the connectors to make this work.

During my build, the Caterham engineers shared the following on this topic:

Quote

The blue ones are not used, so these can be cut off to make it a bit tidier. The green then go to the black ones for your reverse lights.

I’ve just built a 420R which has an S3 chassis and am curious to know whether individual throttle bodies akin to the above fit and work without cutting a hole in the bonnet?

If it helps any…

1) during my build I torqued the front suspension with the wishbones horizontal but not on the ground

2) for the rear hub nuts I needed to buy a 42mm socket, then used a 210Nm torque wrench to its limit one side (the right hand thread) and then gave an extra generous push with the breaker bar… and did the other side to roughly the same effort with the breaker bar

Caterham will sort out both as part of the free post-build-check; I gave them a list of about a dozen things I wanted them to check and all were included in the service, so it’s well worth doing I think.

6 hours ago, Brownmonster said:

Mounts look great, I have a set of them ready to install.

(On a side note) Is this the Arancio Argos colour? Whatever it is, it looks really neat with all that black aswell. Would it also suit a double white stripe do you think?

Yeah, mine’s Arancio Argos. Thanks for the compliment. Looks awesome IMO, sort of a burnt orange and something the white balance on phone cameras really seems to struggle with! It’s definitely orange in the real, and not red.

Dunno how well it would work with white - I suggest it might if you carried the white through the rest of the car (rollbar, windscreen surround, mirrors, etc, or maybe a chrome/white combo?!?)

@Ainsley they are SPA Formula mirrors in black, you can get them from a couple of places one of which is Merlin Motorsports https://www.merlinmotorsport.co.uk/p/spa-formula-caterham-mirror-black-right-hand-side-spa

I bought mine with convex lenses.

@R400svn thanks a lot for sorting all this, mine arrived today and are on the car now, looking awesome. Just under 200 miles on the odometer and really starting to look the part now. Lovin’ the supercar doors as well!

@PlastererPete those are DPR Motorsport nut conversions… https://parts.dpr-motorsport.com/contents/en-uk/p107

OK, the detail is useful. I'm not sure what I want right now (only done 35 miles in the car since I built it) so I'll pass on this thank you.

I'm interested in this... can you let me know the minimum width phone it'll accommodate? I have an iPhone 12 mini with a bumper case on it and I'm curious to know whether it'll fit. Also whether this can hold the phone in landscape orientation?

@R400svn Have you received enough interest to justify a batch being produced? If so, is there a rough guideline for when these are likely to be available? I've just got my kit through IVA (yay!) and replacing the stock mirrors is one of the key things on my list of stuff to do next (besides drive it ASAP, obvs)

Hi, I’ve just emailed you too as I’d like a set as well! Regards, Ben