Miker7

I had my eyes on my late father's Suffolk Colt..... But he gave it to my cousin who made it into a go kart..... Then discovered it didn't have enough HP to push his daughter 😢

I thought the general rain expert recommendations where for rain expert 3s and you can only buy rain expert 5s now.

Do you have 5s? If so how do the 5s compare to the 3s?

3 hours ago, ECR said:

You also avoid the “oh sh*t “ moment when you realise that you’ve forgotten to plug the rear of the gearbox and are now paddling in gearbox oil

🤣

You mean "oh good, I've been meaning to do a gearbox oil change at some point"

Depending on required grip levels, I Believe you'll struggle to find something gripping in 13 x 185 x 70. If you do, please let us know. Most grippy tyres at 60 profile at this size.

Have played around making something similar for an eBay purchased LED bar (that I've still not finished) I'd like to say this is a bloody good deal.

I fitted the 82 degree stat this winter - because that seemed the general wisdom. I don't drive like I've stolen it. When it was 10 to 15 degrees outside my temperature seemed 'cold' but I've learned the gauge displays 10 ish degrees colder than the ECU sensor. that difference would put it more like 80 degrees.

How are you measuring temperature & is their any other difference to rule out eg faster speeds abroad?

I could be interested in the type 9 - is it a V6 box for a xflow / k series? (Not sigma)

jeepers thats more than i'd anticipated paying - is that with springs as well?

Where is your rear de-dion shock mounting (i'm making an assumption you've got de-dion) and how did that affect your rear shock?

Just now, graearea said:

how're you housing it all?

if you need something 3d printed I can help (this isn't me trying to get paid, just is an interesting project)

J

I'll be 3d printing something myself. Currently looking at a 3 piece print for a front face with cut outs for the LEDs with overhang to shade it. Middle "body" with an overhang that mirrors the front to give a degree of water resistance & greater area to glue and finally a rear section that fits into the middle body. The base is angled at about 3 degrees which i think matches the scuttle directly over the steering column. Have an initial quick drawing in fusion but haven't done a test print yet. Have LED's stuck to a bit of card with bluetac currently whilst coding.

I'd love to have oil temperature & started with the idea that I'd display oil, water, volts and air temp on the status display. As I don't have oil I figured air and volts aren't that important so i'm just using water and seeing that as an acceptable second best.

I did wonder if below 75 i should be more cautious hence the open question. The current approach uses the same curve with just an amended start point. If i do 5k rpm as flashing lights that means the start would be 2.8k rpm which seems a little low. Guess I need to add a "low temp" curve.

I've been playing around building some shift lights, that has had a bit of scope creep whilst on the test bench.

Currently its got 15 leds in a curve that light up from either side towards the middle from green to amber to red, when all are lit the lot flash red. Beneath that its got 8 'status' leds. Each LED can be any colour within RGB to represent its status. Originally i was hoping to pull all sorts from the ECU and have one status per LED. However the data my 02 K Series supplies via odb2 is more limited than i'd hoped. The status LEDs now display / flash for the indicator on each side of the car (via seperate wiring) and display the water temperature from flashing blue, to blue, green, amber, red and finally flashing red.

So the questions,

What water temperatures would you consider to be very cold, cold, normal, warm, hot and very hot on a K series? How much would you have the temperature affect the rpm to limit damage?

EG

below 50 = Very Cold   RPM lights start at 3000 and flash red at 5200 (hoepfully the fact the lights are coming on and the temperature status is blue would prompt you to change up)

below 75 = Cold RPM lights start at 4000 and flash red at 6200

below 90 = Normal RPM lights start at 5000 and flash red at 7200

below 97 = warm RPM lights start at 4500 and flash red at 6800

below 104 = hot RPM lights start at 4000 and flash red at 6200

above 104 = Very hot RPM lights start at 3000 and flash red at 5200

The lowering of the revs at high temperatures is to try to limit the heat generated and let the cooling have a chance to pull the temperature back whilst coolant is flowing so you don't get localised heat spots. With me lighting up LEDS equally from side to side this means each LED is 300 revs in the setup above, with flash 100rpm after the last LED is lit.

As I said at the start i've got a little carried away on the test bench 😁

(replaced links with this from my 2002 manual)

12 hours ago, JP said:

I would hope not, but my Users guide for the Rover K-series is very specific in that, if it's a Supersport it requires >=98RON and not lower.  I've never seen E10 that is higher than 95.  E5 only at the higher RON IME.  It suggests all engines other than a BDR or a Rover Supersport can run on 95.

Where is this & is it certain (ie not Caterham just claiming this for marketing)? I've got a k series roadsport that was upgraded to supersport by Caterham for a previous owner & then someone had it remapped by kmaps. I've not seen this so have been buying 95Ron (only 1.5 tank fulls so far). As I've still got a tank full i'd rather not put it to the lawnmower as it will take years to get through it.

(edited to add) googling on here seems to suggest Caterham recommended it for track days but normal driving was ok on 95RON.

Sounds like you had exactly the same conversation I had with Matt. I love the fact he doesn't do hard sell - try and see what you think. Many companies / people wouldn't be that generous with their time or easy going about selling a service.

Please keep me updated on what you buy. I'm interested in updating the shocks but currently having to target other things first. 

Let me know if you manage to have a conversation with Matt that is less than 30 minutes ........ perhaps its just me but he's generous with his time, get a cup of tea ready before calling him.

I've ordered one which in theory is 420mm wide and should be the legal minimum for my plate, using the legal font and having the legalese in the bottom right corner. Slightly concerned they've not asked to see any evidence that I own the plate I'm buying. Photos will be incoming for once its delivered.

7 minutes ago, Mark Rowe said:

I used https://www.platesforcars.co.uk/ and purchased their 330mm x 89mm selecting UK Legal and Legal Details

Thats interesting as legally the plate letter needs to be 79mm tall and the gap above and below the letter is 11mm making the minimum height 101mm.

INF104 (publishing.service.gov.uk)

Appreciate i'm being overly cautious, i just want a plate thats approx. the width of the original caterham plate i'm taking off.

Ok, they all seem to be full of show (illegal) plates. I'm specifically after a legal plate that is as small as legally possible which i've calculated to be around 420mm or a little larger like my current plate at 440mm (7 digit current style number plate)

My searches all turned up stick on plates - feel like a right numpty now. Thank you.

I need a new number plate. I'd like to replace like for like or a little smaller. The current rigid plastic plate is 440mm wide. From reading the gov website i think i can go as small as 420mm and be legal.

Are their any number plate suppliers that you'd recommend? I've done lots of googling and they seem to claim "smaller" but not say how small or say smaller is around 470mm.

Is their any reason if i could get the BS code and their post code onto the middle of the plate I couldn't just trim one down with a hacksaw and file?

(nb cheap is also good, i'm tighter than dogs bum in a vets).

Whats a 'cheese style' MTB cable?

I found something recently on making your own throttle cable in here. It was about 5 to 10 pounds.

Clutch cable will be more difficult due to the higher forces. I assume it's a standard part so you just need to find the car it's from (and let me know) otherwise speedy cables can probably make one but that won't be cheap.

Does it really make much difference which roll bar you have?

(I recently changed to an fia roll bar so this doesn't fit)