Graham King

The rings were replaced by BOSS when they did the seals as when checked them they said they were out of tolerance so whilst they had the engine with them they replaced them anyway. I don’t know for certain but I’d be pretty confident that they did hone the liners again as they are very experienced at rebuilding engines in general and have done a number of k-series. RJ, I’ll have a word with my local friendly garage to see if they have the relevant equipment. Doesn’t a compression test check the seal of the rings?

Hi Paul, it was run in on mineral oil for approx 500 miles, I know there are differing opinions on how to run an engine in, I did mine gently, increasing the max revs after each 100 miles starting at 3000 for the first 100 miles.

Rj, thanks for the reply, I’ve heard of leak down tests, they appear to be a compression test in reverse. If I had one done, what would it tell me? Is it something my local garage would be able to do or is it more specialist? Cheers Graham

Folks, any help appreciated here as I’ve done almost everything I can think of to diagnose this and before I embark on an expensive route to resolve I want to see if there is anything else I can do. I have a 1999 Superlight with a 1.8K VHPD that was originally built for by DVA approx 8-10 years ago. It has BP285H cams, forged pistons and a ported VHPD head. About 4 years ago I had the valve stem seals replaced as they were leaking oil, at the same time the piston rings were replaced. This work was done by BOSS Racing (as they are fairly local to me). The engine has always run really well and continues to do so. But it has always had a liking for oil but recently this has got to the stage that I need to do something about it. As an example I took the car down to Le Mans last year, a return journey of approx 750 miles, for that journey the engine required approx 1.5L of oil. I have checked everything that I can easily check, the spark plugs are nice and clean (when I had the valve seals replaced the plugs were oily), there are no leaks, there is no visible smoke on start up or whilst running. I’ve done a compression test and all cylinders are similar at 240 so they look good. One other point to note is that the oil itself is pretty black when checked on the dipstick, I remember in the past having trouble reading a level on the dipstick. I’ve read a lot (prob too much) about glazed bores causing this type of issue, is there anyway I can rule this in or out, bore scope maybe? Has anyone got any ideas of any further checks I can do myself or any ideas as to what else may be causing it before I have to hand it over to one of the experts? Appreciate any thoughts. Many Thanks. Graham.

Thanks for the responses folks, the plugs are prob about 5 years old, mileage approx 1000-1500 per year so say 6000 miles in that time. I will double check but I usually set the gap to 0.8mm. The injectors would certainly be the original so most likely same age as car (19 years). Good idea about cleaning the injectors Geoff, I can certainly give that a go. I have a recollection about reading a post a short while ago about the standard fuel pump not being sufficient for a highly tuned engine, the car was originally a standard 1.8SS Superlight so will have the standard pump I imagine. It was just how the got progressively leaner from 1 to 4 that made me wonder. Graham

Hi 7WoW, sorry should have made it clearer, the engine was built approx 8 years ago, was fully mapped by the 2 Steves, it runs really well, I’m just concerned, having seen the plugs, that it is running lean on some cylinders. But not sure how it can on some and appear ok on others. Cheers Graham.

Folks, appreciate an opinion please, I’ve just swapped over the spark plugs on my car (DVA tuned, 1.8K, approx 210BHP), no reason other than thought they were due replacement, so no problems. I’ve included below a couple of photos of the ones I took out, I have a couple of questions. The photos show the spark plugs in the order they were removed from engine (4,3,2,1 from left to right) with 1 being the cylinder from closest to the bulkhead. I was expecting to see all as a nice even light brown colour but whilst No 1 looks as I was expecting, 2,3,4 get progressively lighter and No 4 is almost white in colour. Nos 3 & 4 also seem to have a degree of cracking on the tips and seats. I’m trying to understand why I’d get the colour variation across the plugs, it seems to follow the fuel supply so as it gets further away from the feed they get progressively lighter. Also is the cracking and brown staining that is visible on the plug body a sign of the plugs overheating? Any views appreciated. Many Thanks. Graham.

Just found the original thread https://www.lotus7.club/forum/sale/lowered-headlamp-brackets-new-batch-now-stock?page=5 Made by 7 Wonders of The World Graham.

Nick, the headlamp brackets on your car were fitted by me and made by someone on this forum, I can’t remember who actually made them now unfortunately. The connectors would have been replaced at that time. I fitted them to my Superlight as well. I actually prefer them but each to their own and understand their non-standard. I find they don’t move around nearly as much as the old ones. Graham.

NIck, you have a Private Message. Graham

Toby, I’ve always measured the level on my k-series with the engine running, I do however have an Apollo which will obviously cause a higher reading after switch off. I don’t think the difference is worrying, as soon as you turn off, the oil in the system will start to drain back into the sump. I fill mine to the upper level on the dipstick with the system running, I’ve not had any problems using that method. Graham.

David, assuming you mean the anthracites that Caterham used to sell then yes they’re a direct swap. On the R500 they would have fitted 6” fronts and 8” rears, but that was down to the power of the R500. Unless you have 200BHP+ then you don’t need 8” although some fit for aesthetic purposes. Caterham don’t sell the anthracites any more so you’ll need to look out secondhand. I have the Apollo wheels on my k-series (6” front & 8” rear) they fit fine, but I did have to have the rear drop link turned the other way round as it fouled the 8” wheels, would have had no problem with 6” rears. Graham.

Definitely got TPMS, metal valve stems and can monitor the tyre pressure as Chris states above. Have to admit I haven’t gone an actually checked the readings as it hasn’t complained. I’ll take a look at it tomorrow, I know what I set the pressures to so if they’re showing the correct ones then happy days. Cheers all.

Folks, just a quick update on this. Following this I also visited STS (national tyre fitter), they also repeated the same thing that I couldn’t swap the wheels from front to rear without upsetting the TPMS. So once the freezing weather had subsided a bit I did it myself. I made sure the pressures in each tyre were adjusted accordingly then took it out for approx 10 mile drive. I can report no issues whatsoever, didn’t even require a rest of the TPMS. So presumably the sensor in the wheel simply talks to the sensor (ABS?) on each corner to let it know what pressure it has so I guess the intelligence is in the ABS sensor not the tyre sensor. Appreciate all the advice above, Jim & Geoff you were correct and 2 national tyre chains were wrong. Thanks. Graham.

Jim, thanks for your response as well. You describe what I expected to happen tbh. I will get the wheels swapped over and see what happens. I will report back on here. Geoff, just re-reading your post, will I also need to change the wheels to fit non run flats or did you simply do this out of preference? I understand that run flats have a different inner rim on the wheel to ensure the tyre doesn’t come off the wheel if it does go flat but had assumed I could fit ordinary tyres to these wheels. Cheers both. Graham.

Geoff, thanks for the response. I think what they were saying was that each TPM has a code on it, the computer therefore knows which monitor is on which wheel so knows what the tyre pressure should be. You could swap side to side as the pressure would be the same but swapping back to front where the pressures are different would cause it to trip. I had always assumed that resetting the system effectively told it what the correct pressures should be for each TPM. You seem to be confirming this. Your comments regarding replacement tyres are interesting, I too dislike the runflats, absolutely ruin the ride. I wanted to swap these back to front to wear out the set and then look to replace with normal tyres. I haven’t looked around that much yet at possible replacements but will certainly look at your suggestions although it does seem 204/45*17 isn’t that common a size, 215/40 is much more common. I think I’ll just swap the wheels over and see what happens. Many Thanks. Graham

Folks, wonder if anyone can advise here. My wife has a 2015 Mini Cooper (latest model line), this has runflats and TPMS fitted. I took car into local garage the other day as wanted them to swap front and rear wheels over in order to even out the wear. They said they couldn’t do them as it would upset the TPMS as they are coded to the actual wheel they are on and that the computer would need reprogramming. I get why this is the case but had assumed that the reset process recalibrated it all properly. Does anyone know if this is actually the case, I am trying to avoid having to continually buy 2 new fronts. My plan was to actually ditch the runflats all together at some point as I really don’t like them. Cheers. Graham

Thanks Tim & Piers, the garage I use is about 4 miles away, I’ll run it round to them tomorrow and leave it with them. The multi-meter I’m using is actually fairly new, I could test it on another car I guess and make sure it’s working ok. I’ll give that a go and report back. Graham

Thanks Jonathan, you’ve confirmed what I suspected, as far as I can tell there are no broken wires, certainly not visible. Looks like a visit to local garage tomorrow then. Happy Xmas all. Graham.

Folks, bit of advice from those more in the know than me on car electrical systems. This is on a tin top not the 7, went out to car this morning, car starts fine but alternator/battery warning light is permanently on. I’ve measured the voltage across the battery with engine turned off, it’s approx 14.5v, the started car and voltage started to rise, up to about 15.5v, the turned the car off and the voltage still continued to rise, up to about 16.1v. Something clearly isn’t right, I expected to see that the battery wasn’t charging so expected to see the voltage dropping but if anything it appears to be overcharging. Am I missing something or is this just another type of alternator failure, the battery appears to be fairly new and the battery indicator is showing fully charged. Thanks for any advice Graham

Agree with Richard, not all were dry sumped, looked at some that were not. I’d be after one that was ds if I were looking as almost impossible to get hold of DS kits now to fit.

Thompster, mine did exactly the same on a track day at Brands, whether all the damage was done there I'll never know. My best hypothesis as to why it happened was several high speed missed gear changes that resulted in the clutch being engaged under power at high rpm that put too much torque through it. Does your car have a lot of power/torque? Graham

I have an 1800K Superlight, now 210BHP, I replaced the standard rad and fan with a Radtec rad and a 11" Spal fan, also supplied by Radtec as I used to get overheating problems in stationary or slow traffic on hot days. No problem with temps now in traffic, as Jonathon implies if anything it tends to overcool if using the car on a cooler day, but that sounds like not a problem in your case. Graham

Adam, the Toyo R888R (R888 replacements) are the same, looks odd when first on the car. Graham

Will, I always remove the fuel pump fuse to do this, you can remove the spark plugs as well if you want to be ultra careful. Graham