k80rum

😬 True... The whole idea could be construed as a little sacrilegious Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54

I was mulling over the car last night and it struck me that like all other Caterhams (so far as I know) it came with the original green and yellow round "Super 7" badge on the nose. Lovely as it is, it seems a little dated and out of place with the rest of the colour scheme. I notice however that Caterham do an alternative black enamel badge on the website for the princely sum of 26 pounds. ....However, you can buy the natty looking new wheel centre caps for about 2 pounds in something that looks like brushed metal (anyone know?) and you'd have a choice of 40mm or 50mm (which co-incidentally is the same diameter as the proper nose-badge) Do you reckon the wheel centre cap would make an alternative badge for the nosecone? From memory there isn't much of a radius on the badge, so a flat centre cap might be a suitable modern-looking alternative.. I'm such a tart Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54

Noticed in Evo a while ago that the technology is 'on-the-shelf' already to allow cars to run twin brake discs on a revised single calliper, thereby allowing smaller, lighter disks to be used. This in turn increases stopping power considerably and lessens fade/overheating, etc. There must be some trade-off, why has nobody done this before? I can't see whether it would be of any benefit on a car like a seven because disk size and car weight have never been much of an issue, but the technology is interesting. Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54

☹️ Sorry to hear that. I doubt that any hardware-adaptor would work because I think the Emerald Software looks for the COM port in the operating system - in which case it'd require a rewrite of the software to look at anything else. I think you may have to look at picking up an old laptop on ebay. The spec (and hence)wouldn't need to be too high though . Failing that it might be worth tapping Karl - Dave W told me that he has the Palm programming software and was going to write a version of the Emerald for that, to save lugging a laptop around the car. He might have started work on that... Sorry I can't be of more help, perhaps someone else can come up with a better answer... Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54 Edited by - k80rum on 20 Jun 2004 11:35:09

Black "Caterham Motorsport Weatherproof Jacket" sought in Large or (preferably) Extra-Large This is the jacket that is black with a Grey fleece lining - it has just been superceded by the Black & blue range. Cheers Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54

Black sounds a much better option Luke, I didn't realise they came in anything other than yellow. Thanks for that Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54

At the expense of confirming my status as a tart.... Has anyone else's nasty yellow plastic K-series oil filler cap got uncleanably grubby over time? It can't be just me that looks at it and thinks it's got to go. Has anyone replaced theirs with a saxo-dazza type billet ali job? Apart from anything else, it's in the tin-top idiot-proof colour scheme so the owner doesn't try and pour in petrol or something by accident. It's a bit patronising on a Caterham (although no doubt looks damned fine if your car's yellow too) 😬 Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54

It's almost certain that you'll need the cat back on to get through an MOT. You won't pass *legally* without it. Having said that, i've taken my de-catted car in for 2 MOTs so far and it's sailed past both times - the emissions were checked but nothing done about the reading. My car's on a private plate though, so the combination of no cat and a K reg may be enough to fool some stations... Seeing as it's only needed for a few minutes a year, i'd say put on the replacement collector and swap the cat back on at testing time. You'll may even be more likely to pass come MOT time because of less wear and tear on the cat. HTH Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54 Edited by - k80rum on 18 Jun 2004 13:33:16

Sorry Mav - I've got an end-of-project meal & p**s-up ☹️ Hopefully Dave can make it though - his car will have everything mine has and all the other goodies! Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54

FWIW - I have a tall FIA rollbar and in terms of fitting, it's identical - does tend to affect the aesthetics a little as the car looks *ever so slightly* out of proportion, by virtue of it being taller at the back. Small price to pay though for having a helmeted bonce below the rollbar. I moved from the leather seats to the carbon/kevlar Tillets and these, bolted direct to the floor gave a slight reduction in seated height although the leather seat squabs are pretty close to the floor anyway.. The feel was much snugger but beware if you aren't svelte of hip though - both larger hipped men and women can have difficulty sliding into Tillets (unless they've changed the design) once in though, they're usually okay Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54 Edited by - k80rum on 15 Jun 2004 14:44:44

no worries Andrew 😬 . I had a chat with Len about going superwidetrack at the front and doing the back later. He advised against it, so I went with the advice. I was offered the chance to upgrade the whole package to superwide track front and sv-wide rear for just the price difference between the two, (£1k) which I reckon sounds a great deal and is a fantastic piece of customer service - I simply return the front wishbones and hand over a grand, getting in return the superwidetrack front parts and the SV-rear. Hope the washing machine comes soon and you can spend the rest of the day blatting - it's always the same with flipping delivery services - you take the day off and can do nothing that involves being outside sprinting distance of the front door. Then they amble along at 5pm or worse still not at all! (grrr!) Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54 Edited by - k80rum on 14 Jun 2004 12:52:36

I remember reading a thread quite a while ago about restoring the 'blackness' of the dashboard switches. It involved cleaning them with Autoglym leather restorer. Well, my switches were looking decidedly grey after 5 years exposure to the elements and noticing said Autoglym product in the garage, I though i'd give it a go. I'm sure there are other tips that work just as well but this worked an absolute treat - the switches look like they did when I first bought the car. So a big *thumbup* to whoever suggested it - highly recommended if your switches are looking a little 'tired' 😬 Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54

Does anyone have a preferred method of getting these models 'off the line'? I must confess, the few times I've forsaken my clutch in the interests of experimentation it's always been done by feel and so i'd be interested to hear if anyone has what they feel is an optimum rev limit to use, whether they feather the throttle/slip or dump the clutch, etc, etc. I expect tyre choice will play a factor in whatever people do - I'm on CR500s and they certainly don't provide the same grip levels as the old ACB10's when they heat up. Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54

White spirit seemed to work very nicely on my 'screen. Not much help with the little flying critters who've expired on the bodywork tho. Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54

What's the score with the 'lowered floor' option that Caterham offers now? Can anyone explain how it's achieved and how much the floor is lowered by? Also, how easy would it appear to be, to retrofit..? Sorry for all the questions, but many thanks if you can provide answers, i'm just curious about it Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54

No worries Marty. Good luck. For wheel bearings ask/look for the grease marked 'LM' it'll be in a mug-sized tub - you may want to buy a small brush to apply it with unless you have one hanging about - it's sticky stuff! Yep, split pins should be available from lots of places - Halfords should stock a selection and you'll no doubt have to buy them in packs which is no bad thing. To get the old ones out you will need to use some pliers or a screwdriver to persuade the splayed 'legs' back together and then pull the pin out by the head - inserting the new one is a reversal of this procedure - just use a screwdriver or something to splay the ends once it's installed. It's best NEVER to re-use split pins in case they fail. All the best - hope that helps Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54

Hey Marty, It may well be the bearings, unless by some miracle the nut has managed to work it's way lose. Can you 'waggle' top and bottom of the wheel backwards and forwards when holding it at 12 o'clock and 6 o'clock? The best thing may be to remove the wheel and the grease-cap to check. There should be a castellated nut with a split pin going through it. if you remove the split pin and can turn the nut easily by hand it's where the problem most likely lies. It's quite easy to check the bearings at this point by pulling the outer ring out and inspecting the surfaces. I had a similar problem once (although by the sounds of it, not as pronounced) and the bearings themselves were fine. I just repacked with grease and tightened the nut up to *very* slightly over hand-tight, used a new split pin and all was well. It may be that for some reason or other, the nut needs tightening a little Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54

More K series maps added last night - including your update Gavin (cheers! - PS, this isn't your car that i took a shot of a few years ago is it? here, here) Graham: Nope, it's not just for K's - I intend to put any Emerald map on the list. So far, I've only been sent maps from K-owners, but I'll happily post any others I receive. Kevin: Sorry for the blatant copy of your page-style but it looked fab and I'd seen another webpage with same carbon-banner and date. I hope you don't mind too much, i linked to your page in return but I should have asked first.. Charles - many thanks for the kind offer , having a third mirror may well be a good idea anyway - I haven't bought a memorable domain so far and the page is difficult to find as it hasn't been indexed by Google yet, so the more places they're available the better. Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54 Edited by - k80rum on 11 Jun 2004 10:18:13

Helix seem to make these for the K series. Anyone know if they any lighter than the CC lightweight item? Couldn't find anything in the archives.. Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54 PS - Wonder how the crank sensor would work Edited by - k80rum on 11 Jun 2004 10:06:04

Or Arnie! 😳 Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54

I spoke to Karl at Emerald and he was happy for me to go ahead with the maps library and pleased that he'd been asked. So I took a few minutes last night to post what I had. It's still early days but i've added the first of the maps and as much detail as I have to hand. (another 3 to go up in the next few days) You can reach the maps by selecting it on the navigation bar on the left hand side of my site (see below) I'll revise and add to the table on an ongoing basis, as I receive or come across maps. If anyone has a map that doesn't appear on the table, just send them to me at k80rum@hotmail.co.uk and I'll make sure it's included. Dave21P: If you're kind offer to act as a mirror still stands, let me know if you need anything - I can stick the page contents onto CD and mail it to you or you can save the page offline and hack it about I guess. Once done, I'll set up a mirror link to the relevant area on your site (which was well worth the hours peek that i took ) Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54 Edited by - k80rum on 3 Jul 2004 11:44:47

In your considered opinion Peter, is moving away from the Watts linkage a worthwhile move, or are you an advocate of it (wasn't it introduced to control 'rear-wheel steering' movement?). I'd heard that Gary had a bias toward the radius-arm setup although i haven't heard the reason. I suppose there must be a line of thought that says it's no worse than the Watts setup, because whichever method Freestyle adopted had to involve fabrication to allow for installation Always curious to learn more.. 😬 Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54 Edited by - k80rum on 10 Jun 2004 08:51:10

The best consistent way i've found to bleed the system (non-heater K)is to get the front of the car up on ramps to ensure the bleed screw is the highest point, fill the expansion tank, remove the bleed screw and the coolant filler cap, seal the filler hole with my mouth and blow with an even pressure. Once the expansion tank is nearly empty or water starts emerging from the bleed vent, i retighten the bleed screw, top up the expansion tank and repeat the process as many times as necessary. With the car still up on ramps the engine is then run up with the bleed screw slackened slightly, until a steady stream of coolant emerges. The bleed screw is finally tightened and it's offf the ramps and a final top up of the expansion tank. It's worked a treat every time... so long as I remember to blow, rather than suck 😬 Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54 Edited by - k80rum on 9 Jun 2004 15:40:38

Thanks Petrolhead, Yes, so far as I understand it, the superwide front consists of longer replacement wishbones, trackrods and pushrods. Whereas the rear 'package' consists of the adjustable rear shocks, SV de-dion tube and SV driveshafts. I've yet to find out about the rear wings - presumably switching to an SV de-dion size rear track will leave the wheels sticking out of the side 'Carlos Fandango' style, in which case reaplcement rear wings would be required. Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54 Edited to say - beaten by Greg Edited by - k80rum on 9 Jun 2004 11:07:08

😬 😬 😬 Well if I hadn't already been won over by the fab engineering, the handling would have sealed it. I'm a convert!! Congratulations to Len and Gary on what Caterham should perhaps have adopted as the oem suspension system. Initially upon lowering the car to the floor, I had too little ground clearance for road use, Gary mentioned that favourable results had been obtained by giving the front springs more preload anyway, so I wound the platforms up by about half an inch to the end of the damper. The car was still sitting low - my usual 75mm under the sump was closer to 60mm. I decided to turn my attention to the pushrods, which were wound in to their shortest setting. It's now so easy to fine tune ride height with these - no more jacking the car up, simply twist the pushrods with both hands, move the car about to settle the suspension and check the height! Once I was satisfied that I had a decent height (I settled on 70mm because i now had the benefit of a rising-rate system) I locked the position with the pushrod nuts. The dampers are set to the '4 clicks from full soft' setting. I did a very quick check of the camber at 1.8 deg, checked the tyre pressures and left the front toe as was, so all my preliminary settings are very, very rough. I wanted to get the car out and do a shakedown test to bed everything in and confirm that the cooling system was behaving itself after the necessary bleed. It would be untruthful to say i explored how things have improved at or towards the limit - i went for an hours blat with the missus riding shotgun, gradually building confidence that nothing unexpected was going to happen. My initial impression was that front toe was closer to zero than before but once i adjusted to the different feel that gave I concentrated on the handling. The car is so obviously damping at the front now. It really was an eye opener, just how well the car coped with bumps and undulations. More bumps are fedback through the steering but I am putting this down to the fact that i'm running only one washer's worth of castor at the front at the moment (would that make sense?) The front suspension feels so much more like it's working in harmony with the car now - beforehand the front felt soft and mushy (with my std road springs) or stiff (with my race springs/thinner front ARB combo, which i switched too for less sump-grounding). Now the front of the car is transformed . There is also minimal (less) roll through corners - a trait that seems at odds with the fact that there is no longer a front ARB of any sort. The cornering ability is also quantifiably improved. I'm still running my CR500s for the road at the moment but the Freestyle pushrod system made the car feel like it had the ACB10s on - grip was improved with the result that the car could be flicked through familiar corners faster than before. As I say although I "pushed-on", I didn't try to explore where the new limit was or how the car reacted at it (for 2 reasons - one i wanted to spanner-check and retorque first, and secondly it'll be a fruitless exercise until i get the car set up more accurately). It seems amazing to think that there's more to come once it's fettled properly and the car hardly handled like a barge before, but the improvement is exactly what i'd hoped for. I'm definitely going to look at completing the upgrade by going super-wide track and SV rear over the winter now and I would urge anyone considering the system to go for it - you'll be in for a treat. Darren E K80RUM Superlight R #54 Edited by - k80rum on 9 Jun 2004 11:02:41