charlie_pank

Good luck finding a Yamaha GSXR! Ain't no substitute for cubes, Bubba! 'Aint no replacement for displacement' is the old saying that gets wheeled out when people start bragging about muscle cars. My assumption is that it harks from an age when titanium valves were a dream and nothing revved over 5k. What you need to bear in mind is that: a) It is the power of an engine which determines how fast it can accelerate a mass. (Provided you have the right gearing). b) The power output is directly proportional to the rate of fuel burned. Therefore there are 3 replacements for displacement which immediately spring to mind: 1. Assuming the same filling rate (which isn't true, of course), then if you spin a an engine of half the CC at twice the speed, you'll make the same HP 2. If you compress the air before it goes in, then there's more fuel and air to burn per CC 3. If you reduce the mass you have to move, then you don't need so much power for the same acceleration. We are still waiting for some quantitative evidence that your R1 is as fast as you keep claiming... Get a move on man! My heart is beating to a different rhythm at the moment, you'll just have to wait.

Has anyone done analysis of what is causing the failures? Is it a brittle failure or a plastic one? Without having seen one in the flesh I would expect it to be fatigue with the straw that broke the camel's back being a pothole or high-speed corner loading the suspension. From the pictures here it looks like it's a failure at, or very close to the weld, which to my (inexperienced, but interested) eye points to a manufacturing fault rather than a design fault. The heat involved in welding introduces stress to static components, which can drastically reduce their critical stress. I find it very hard to believe that a car manufacturer lacks the knowledge and skills to assess load-bearing characteristics vs. requirements of an alteration to a component as simple and vital as the rear-axle. Perhaps CC had intended the under-tube mounts to be welded with pre-heating, or stress relieved after welding and this was not done? If that's the case, I'd be a bit sceptical about the validity of repairing with ANOTHER weld as this is only likely to increase the internal stresses of the component... I'm currently on the last module of my (Mech) BEng: 'Fracture analysis' - can you tell? Edited by - charlie_pank on 27 Jun 2013 13:30:40

Quoting Fred Gassit: The "Super 7" guys over in Canada use a chain drive adaptor for their LHD Hayabusa Se7en. You can just see it on this pic: http://proxy.baremetal.com/super7cars.com/images/006_Engine_RS.JPG I think it basically moves the engine over to clear the steering column, but I guess something similar could help you with getting the prop alignment right and spinning the correct way, plus maybe incorporating reverse? One off engineering though! (=$$$ 😳) There must be some other reason for that, surely a more sensible solution would be to put a linkage in the steering column, rather than the transmission?

Quoting Fred Gassit: (And it's a bit weedy! ) I think you might be confusing a gearing issue with a power issue

Quoting Fred Gassit: Quoting charlie_pank: R1: 995cc, 180hp That would be a *Yamaha* R1, wouldn't it? Is there something wrong with that? You're not going to use the original engine, so why get picky about manufacturers? The hard work to get a bike engine in a car isn't down to manufacturer choice. If you wanted to swap my R1 for a blackbird, you'd have to make sure the input and output of the cooling system were the right diameters, do some fiddling with the loom and fabricate some engine mounts to make it fit. Oh and maybe make up throttle and clutch cables.

R1: 995cc, 180hp

Yes, there's definitely something wrong there. As I posted on another recent thread - this is not an engine specific thing, I used it to fill the bespoke system I built for my R1 engine, re-using a lot of the system that belonged to the original K that lived in the chassis. If this method works for a car-engined cooling system, converted to run with a bike-engine by someone who has never done the conversion before, then it will work for your, I mean your friend's sigma... If you really want to fill it well and eliminate all doubt: 1. Unbolt the expansion tank and suspend it from the ceiling above the engine bay 2. Drill a small bypass hole in the thermostat 3. Remove the radiator bleed screw 4. Switch the heater valve (if fitted) to open 5. Fill up via the expansion tank 6. Once the radiator is full to the top, put the bleed screw back in. 7. Keep filling up until you can't get any more coolant in. 8. Now, starting from the highest point, and with the heater valve open, loosen each hose clamp and wiggle the hose on its joint to let any air escape. Only stop, tighten and move onto the next one when no air, but only coolant comes out of the joint. Top up the expansion tank whenever necessary. 9. Once you've worked your way right around the engine, leave the expansion tank up in the air with the cap off (or maybe on, very loosely - to avoid boiling water shooting out!), run the engine up to temperature (where the thermostat opens), then switch off, allow to cool and top-up. 10. Repeat steps 8 and 9 until the coolant level in the expansion tank doesn't change after running the engine and allowing to cool.

If you really want to fill it well and eliminate all doubt: 1. Unbolt the expansion tank and suspend it from the ceiling above the engine bay 2. Drill a small bypass hole in the thermostat 3. Remove the radiator bleed screw 4. Switch the heater valve (if fitted) to open 5. Fill up via the expansion tank 6. Once the radiator is full to the top, put the bleed screw back in. 7. Keep filling up until you can't get any more coolant in. 8. Now, starting from the highest point, and with the heater valve open, loosen each hose clamp and wiggle the hose on its joint to let any air escape. Only stop, tighten and move onto the next one when no air, but only coolant comes out of the joint. Top up the expansion tank whenever necessary. 9. Once you've worked your way right around the engine, leave the expansion tank up in the air with the cap off (or maybe on, very loosely - to avoid boiling water shooting out!), run the engine up to temperature (where the thermostat opens), then switch off, allow to cool and top-up. 10. Repeat steps 8 and 9 until the coolant level in the expansion tank doesn't change after running the engine and allowing to cool.

For an awful lot of us we end up modifying and tuning a lot anyway. My own personal 2d's worth is to start with something (relatively) low-powered with upgrade potential and then go from there. It's a bit like motorbikes, until you've owned one for a while, you won't really know what you want in a 7 or why you want it and part of the pleasure for me has been the fact that my 7 has grown with me over the years...

I wouldn't worry about altering from 'standard' if I were you, unless you're relying on CC's support for your BEC . Can you shim the engine mounts to improve the angle?

Quoting RichardOlive: Quoting Rampmonkey: I change the oil on my motor EASILY every 500 miles, if not more often. I certainly carry out a drop after each track day. As a result, it tends to come out the same colour it goes in and to date I've never had an engine issue. That probably does more harm than good as when you start the engine up after an oil change it takes a few seconds for the oil pressure to build up potentially causing engine wear in the process. With the sort of miles you're doing it'll take a long time to do any noticeable damage but it still seems quite an anal thing to do and a waste of money to me. As long as you dispose of the used engine oil in a council recycling centre it'll end up being used as heating oil etc. so that's something for the Greens to celebrate! 😬 Richard. How is draining the oil out of the sump, pouring a new lot in from the top, then starting the engine any worse than stopping the engine, leaving it for a day so the oil drains down into the sump, then starting the engine?

You'd probably better fit a steering-wheel on the passenger side as well to keep it symmetrical...

The warm oil comes out faster and you get less of it staying in the sump than if you leave it cold.

There are lighter things out there too (they do tend to scream a bit though...) Another thing I'm curious about - how much would 225 hp from a N/A 1.6k cost compared to a forced-induction solution? Edited by - charlie_pank on 14 Jun 2013 13:43:08

Unless you're doing it for the love of the K, there must be cheaper & better ways to achieve similar numbers?

When I finished my R1 build with a 1:3.something diff it was sluggish off the line and I could drive at 80 in 1st gear. I swapped it out for a 3.62 which transformed the performance when moving off and accelerating and changed my 1st to 2nd upshift point to 60mph. If you don't think the diff ratio makes a difference, then why are there different ones available!?

Quoting Bob_r: Decrease your acceleration.......omg, must be about the same as replacing worn tyres with new ones Have you ever driven the same 7 with different diff ratios? To reduce the buziness at motorway speeds, he's going to reduce the engine speed at a given road-speed in every gear. The amount buziness is reduced by will directly correlate with the reduction in engine speed for a fixed road speed and thus a reduction in responsiveness. I simply do not understand taking a Caterham and then making adjustments to it to improve comfort levels on long motorway drives at the expense of performance... why not buy an M3 instead?

Quoting jingars: ...dropping my final drive from 3.92 to 3.62...[because it] is a bit buzzy on the motorway... Just to be clear about this: You're going to decrease your acceleration for the sake of motorway driving... in a 7?

Quoting classic1952: The bigger point here, as per the other thread, is that we pay anything from £20000 upwards for a high performance car with crap recon brakes from a 1980s Sierra. No mainstream manufacturer would get away with this, even on a car at half the price, so why should we accept it on a car that will be driven fairly hard most of the time and is, if anything far more reliant on a braking system that actually works, without being reduced to crawling under the car before every run to check for leaks! Caterham should be sourcing new parts from a more modern car or from one of the aftermarket/performance brake outlets, or make the uprated AP brakes standard fit. How is this situation going to change? If the car was like this from new then the original owner should not have accepted it from CC. If the problem developed while owned by the previous guy, you should have either negotiated a lower price because the brakes don't work or walked away. If the problem has developed during your ownership, then you're in the same boat as anyone else with a car that needs to have parts repaired/replaced on it.

You probably shouldn't mix different types of unknown coolant. How about just topping up with (soft, or pre-boiled) water?

Don't drive it anywhere! Jack the car up and put it on axle stands, remove the wheel and clean up the caliper, then get someone to press on the brake pedal while you watch the caliper for drips. If that doesn't pinpoint the leak, get them to operate the handbrake a few times. Perhaps try pressing their foot on the pedal while the handbrake is engaged?

If it has a hydraulic clutch, and it now needs bleeding where it didn't before, then you're going to need to find out how it lost fluid/gained air.

Is it coming out past the seals - in which case I'd suspect that the pistons need winding in, or the seals need replacing? Or is it coming out of the bottom where the handbrake mech enters the caliper body, in which case I guess the seal there needs replacing...

Where do you see the leaks from? I had a problem with the bleed nipple holes.

Now that is clutching at straws. Air is less soluble in water as temperature increases. here