aerobod - near CYYC

I think it is multi-purpose, if you look at this URL it includes "r300-race", but the description is for "420R Race": https://caterhamparts.co.uk/radiators/6554-radiator-r300-race.html?search_query=radiator&results=66 They may have thought they are doing everyone a favour by shipping the more expensive "Race" version of radiator compared with the standard version with the separate oil cooler labelled as "Duratec and Sigma", but with "r400-road" in the URL: https://caterhamparts.co.uk/radiators/2798-radiator-r400-road-type.html?search_query=radiator&results=66 BTW, as others have stated, the quality control on the "Duratec and Sigma" radiator is not very good, mine as delivered from the factory has a slight weep too due to poor soldering between the tubes and bottom rail, one day I will do something about it, but it hasn't changed since I bought the car with 500km on it over 5 years ago.

The explaining - differential expansion of materials - various materials in the path where the cable runs and is clamped (plastic plenum, aluminium throttle body, steel cable, spiral steel outer cable with polymer coating). It may not be the same on all cars due to variation in config, but on my R400D the material differential expansion causes the inner throttle cable to tighten relative to the outer, when the engine bay temp goes from 15°C to 50°C or more.

With the radiator that John and I have fitted I have found that my R400D tends to overcool at higher speeds, even when being driven flat out on the track in 30°C temperatures, giving water temperatures in the 75°C range where 80°C to 85°C would be better, in my opinion. I’ve always assumed the 74°C thermostat is fitted, I may put the 82°C one in in the future. Where it struggles is idling in traffic in 35°C weather with the fan constantly on, but water temperature has never gone over 90°C, I don’t think the 420R will require any more cooling than a 360R or R300 when idling. I would send the photos of you problem areas to Caterham and/or point out all the issues and document them when they do the build check, ensuring that they are aware of what may be potential failure areas during your warranty period.

My radiator looks like Johns. I only have a larger single catch can hose that connects to the oil tank and a vented lid on the catch can. Shouldn't have to remove the catch can in normal circumstances, but if it does accumulate oil, you can use a pump to suck it out without taking the catch can out.

Yes, pull the clip out then rotate to lengthen or shorten the outer part of the cable. It will increase the slack, but you need just a slight amount to prevent the inner being too tight at idle for all temperature conditions under the bonnet. May require a bit of tweaking once the car is running.

I would adjust the cable at the throttle body to give 1 or 2mm of slack when the throttle is closed, as the cable will tighten a little when the engine compartment is hot and idle will increase if it pulls the throttle off the stop.

It may also help if the two mounting nuts through the chassis are loose, if the issue is getting the top bolt aligned in the hole.

If you have the mount off, I would try to carefully lift the engine a bit more to give yourself more clearance, you could refit the mount to the engine bracket while flexing the oil line against the front of the mount (assuming the 45/135 degree elbow is rotated to the optimum place, like in the photo I posted earlier), then lower the mount back into the chassis mounting holes. There are quite a few awkward jobs on this car, but they pale in comparison to modding other cars in my opinion - I've done a 350bhp Nissan 180SX with my son, now getting his Z06 Corvette up to 450-500bhp, various other JDM Subarus - all had expensive and frustrating modifications to do that challenged the will to continue, all were still less fun than the Caterham when complete. On the Corvette I recently spent 3 hours with a big mallet until my hands were blistered, teasing another 5 degrees of bend into a 6mm thick aluminium mounting plate so that we could get 3mm of clearance between the oil cooler and oversized anti-roll bar. Took 50 hours of work to disassemble the driveline from the body and upgrade the driveline components including 4 hours of that just working on one inaccessible bolt degree by degree. Then we got to "tow the car to the dump" when we had the driveline on the garage floor and the body in the air and saw the thumb sized hole in the bellhousing where the clutch had exploded with a previous owner - no replacement bellhousings available in scrap yards or new, but I broke out the MIG welder and we fixed it, ending up with a satisfying repair and the car now back on the road. Don't give up! It is worth it in the end!

I'm second owner, so didn't do the initial build, just modifications since.

Mine is an S3. Those AN connectors are a pain to get straight to start the thread, took me an hour to get one threaded on the oil cooler in my son's Corvette last week due to the restricted space. On my R400D, the 45 degree elbow is angled up from the horizontal at about 45 degrees to allow the pipe to clear the chassis rail and pass to the front of the engine mount. It may be easier to support the engine and remove the engine mount, giving more space to work, so you can get the thread on straight.

My dry sump connection uses a 45 degree elbow to put the pipe to the front of the engine mount and curving up against the side skin: The connection to the side of the tank also uses a 45 degree elbow that you can just see in this photo, where the pipe curves down from the side skin:

On my 2012 R400D the front dry sump connection has a 135 degree elbow that goes to the vertical connection on the right hand side of the oil cooler mounted in front of the radiator using a 90 degree elbow. The rear dry sump connection uses a 45 degree elbow into a connection in the bottom of the oil tank. The left side of the oil cooler is also a vertical connection using a 90 degree elbow that connects to the return on the top of the oil tank.

If you rotate the whole tube along it's axis by 90 degrees, then the fitting on the oil line should be facing forward as opposed to up, but I think what John is saying is that you will need to do this rotation at the engine end to achieve this.

Probably someone cut the connector off the heated windscreen to thread it through the grommet under the support. The other side may have a black wire dangling.

There isn’t a standard P&G TPS for the plenum (which I also have), would require some re-engineering,which I might have a go at next time I have a TPS failure, I have a multi-purpose bench lathe and milling head that I can knock up components on if I get motivated. I may take the plunge instead and put together a roller barrel setup using off-the-shelf Jenvey throttle bodies or a kit from SBD Motorsports, as the Caterham kit has a new ECU, which I don’t need as I have the upgraded 9A4 already.

Easimap 6 definitely runs in a virtual machine, I'm using VirtualBox on Linux (Fedora 27) with Windows 10 for it, but have run it on the WinXP virtual machine I also have, in the past. The cheap way of doing this was to re-use the WinXP licence I used to run on an old laptop (depends on how restrictive Microsoft made that licence originally as to whether it is locked to the original platform). The current virtual machine software is very good in terms of hardware emulation. I even have a copy of DOS 6.22 running an ancient 1990s version of AutoCAD that requires direct memory access running on VirtualBox v5, but the menu access is tricky as they focus and de-focus so rapidly, the software was never designed to run on such a fast platform.

A beautiful afternoon for my last drive of the year in the Caterham, with a great Chinook Arch - the bands of cloud and clear sky running parallel to the Rockies that often occurs over Calgary. Tomorrow it is time to store away the car until April, before they start throwing sand and gravel on the roads when it snows. A good autumn so far probably due to a building El Niño. Snow in the Rockies in the distance (ski resorts started opening last week), but still nice weather for Nov in the city. A

Glad you have found the problem SpeedPete. I'm strongly tempted to re-engineer the TPS wiring and sensor on my R400D, as I've typically had a sensor fail every 10,000km (likely from vibration) and one cheap no-name eBay sensor in only 500km. There are some aftermarket sensors from the likes of Penny and Giles that should be more robust, the only issue is the complete lack of space in that area to put in anything that is much bigger than the quite low profile Ford TPS.

Under full engine braking the 6 spd in my R400D will jump out of first gear, but always has done this and doesn’t seem to have changed in 30,000km. Reminds me of many old English gearboxes in MGs and Triumphs. I assume it is due to under-specified springs in the synchronizer hub detents.

A right-angle drill attachment is probably what you need: https://www.amazon.co.uk/slp/right-angle-drill-attachment/zbz9eyg632kw97f

With spirited use I get quite a bit of oil vapour vented on my R400D. I think one of the issues is the Duratec design with limited size of the oil scraper ring and thin piston rings in general, that was designed for a lower compression and rev limit than Caterham use, leading to more oil blow-by with high rev use, which ends up as vapour in the catch bottle. The three small holes in the top of the bottle seem to spew the vapour around the top wishbone hole in the bodywork, leaving a slight oily film that I wipe off on a periodic basis.

I would use a mounting bolt on the radiator side that has enough thread exposed through the bracket that is about 2mm less than the depth of the female thread in the bobbin, either by using a shorter bolt or cutting the existing bolt.

RJ’s suggestion on Lambda sensor and TPS are good, if possible get a cable from SBD Motorsports or borrow one and run Easimap to review sensor settings. There is no barometric input on the MBE 992 ECU that is likely the one you have with your Duratec, even if a barometric sensor is added it will show pressure values in Easimap, but the default Caterham map will not adjust for it’s input.

May be the throttle position sensor or the wiring to its connector giving up the ghost, especially if it is the plenum version as opposed to throttle bodies. Vibration of the sensor in the Caterham installation seems to be somewhat beyond what Ford anticipated. I've killed 3 sensors so far on my R400D in 30,000km and carry a spare with me. Normally starts with rough running and comes and goes until the engine won't run properly at all. You can see the voltage not changing smoothly as the throttle is opened and closed when using Easimap to view engine parameters.

Redline MT90 (which is 75w90) also works well, depending on how hot the car gets. For trackdays when the temperature was above 25°C I found the gearbox became noisy using MTL or with the standard 75w80. The gear change with MT90 does require some patience when ambient is near 0°C, until the gearbox has warmed up a bit.