aerobod - near CYYC

If you can undo the pan and move it forward about 5 or 6mm, use a couple of pieces of steel sheet about 1mm thick and put a 90 degree bend in each, place them either side of the gap and hold them in place with a block of wood and a jack, away from where the bolt is. Then use a 2mm or thinner cutting disc carefully inserted between the two bent pieces of steel that will be used as a guide and to protect the aluminium casting faces. It should then be easy to carefully cut through the sheared bolt. With the pan removed, you can then take it to a specialist for removal with a screw extractor, if you are not able to do it. The more space you can make by moving the pan forward, the more bolt shank you can leave to potentially just use mole grips or equivalent to remove the remains, as opposed to a screw extractor. in terms of the bolt characteristics, it is likely either a 10.9 or 12.9 bolt, as hex cap screws have to be fairly hard to resist rounding the hex socket. This means that a conventional high speed steel tool such as a twist drill or hacksaw blade will not cut it, as they will not be hard enough. Abrasive, tungsten or other none HSS blades or tools will be needed. If the bolt is M10 x 55mm, any fastener supply shop should be able to supply replacement bolts, I would personally use a pair of 12.9 replacements, which shouldn't cost more than a pound or so.

For the R400D, the MBE 992 ECU has the same pin-out as the 9A4 ECU.

MBE-MAP-KIT-3-CAN is also the correct cable and adapter for Duratecs (as well as Sigmas) using the MBE 992 or any other MBE ECU with CANbus.

Although my car is an R400, I can tell you that the Throttle 2 (as opposed to Throttle 1 which is used on a plenum system) and Baro Pressure errors are normal on my car (neither sensors present, so inputs are discounted). In terms of Oxygen Sensor 1, the standard Caterham map on the 992 ECU should use it, but the errors may only be produced before the timer has expired during warm up. I've also noticed a few other benign errors such as "bad missing tooth count" that seem to be logged when the engine is cranking. In my case, my car normally operates at an altitude between 1100 and 1900 metres, so the standard ECU map ignoring barometric pressure was very problematic, leading to a spark plug life of about 2500km (1500 miles), as lambdas ranged from 0.6 to 1.0 after warmup, instead of 0.85 to 1.0. This is due to the fact that baro pressure is defaulted to 1.04 bar in the standard map, whereas it is only 0.80 bar at 1900 metres, so the car will run 30% rich without barometric correction in open loop. To be able to alter the ECU parameters I have invested in an MBE 9A4 ECU, IAT sensor, baro sensor and Innovate LC-2 wideband sensor so that I can fine tune the engine in my environment.

The N987 MFG number plate seems to have been originally assigned in Brighton, which is only 50 miles from Farnham where the "previous keeper" shown on the V5 is from. Perhaps the car used a new chassis after an accident that merged the Belfast cars' parts into a new vehicle that DVLC issued a new registration for? The DVLC rule is that a car can't use a number plate that is newer than the age the car is deemed to be, so they must have deemed it to effectively be a 1995/96 or newer car for an "N" reg.

The mirror came from Mirrors for Sevens (http://www.mirrorsforsevens.com/), not cheap at US$120 plus shipping, but it is wider angle than the conventional centre mirror together with the door mirrors.

I use a small £5 lapel microphone I fitted with a foam cover and Velcro attaching to the tunnel side in the passenger footwell, here is a sample video of my R400 with standard exhaust:

What I use here in Canada is a company that specializes in difficult low profile tyre fitment using back mounting to avoid any wheel scuffing. Their typical clientele are car enthusiasts and all the employees are car enthusiasts themselves. Dismount of the old tyre, new valve and tyre mount with road-force balance cost $20 per wheel (about £12), they are happy to mount tyres from the Internet (in fact they will often suggest getting tyres from online suppliers if they aren't competitive themselves). I will never let a national tyre fitting place near any wheels that I don't want scratched.

I found the brighter Sylvania bulbs took the car from candlelight to oil light, but the reflectors are 1950s era and don't have the depth to match a modern projector headlight with a conventional bulb. Harley Davidson riders also have the same problem. I'm strongly contemplating the JW Speaker LED units, unfortunately about $1000 for a pair, but could be worth it, 5 3/4" units: http://www.jwspeaker.com/products/headlights/#product=500027 7" units: http://www.jwspeaker.com/products/headlights/#product=500492

This should apply to all Duratec engined 7s and I believe Sigma, too. The key is to having either an MBE 99x or 9Ax ECU that is CAN bus compatible, Caterhams typically will use the 992 most commonly or may have been upgraded to the fully pluggable 9A4. If in doubt, take a photo of the ECU and connector and contact SBD Motorsports for them to identify it (I found them to be quite responsive over email). 992 and 9A4 ECUs will use this connector, which has the OBD2 connector for the CAN bus connected on pins 8 and 9: http://www.sbdev.co.uk/Info_sheets/Wiring_Harness/LM9A4-OBD-COMMS%20Connection%20information.pdf This is the pin-out list http://www.sbdev.co.uk/Info_sheets/MBE/9A4-PinoutIssue%20F.pdf If for some reason the OBD2 port is not fitted, either Caterham or MBE have the adapter: http://www.caterhamparts.co.uk/product.php?id_product=2788 It is in the SBD MBE parts list as LM9A4-OBD-COMMS: http://www.sbdev.co.uk/Price_List/Duratec%20Price%20list.pdf

You basically need the MBE-MAP-KIT-3-CAN cable listed here: http://www.sbdev.co.uk/Engine_Management_Systems/ECU/Programming.htm I'm running the Easimap 6 software on an old Windows Vista Netbook at the moment for data acquisition and real time sensor info viewing, but have run it on a Windows XP laptop, too. From a data analysis perspective I normally transfer the data capture files to a Windows 8.1 virtual machine that runs in my Linux Fedora 21 desktop system, allowing faster analysis and viewing on a 23" screen. Any Windows machine able to run 32-bit mode with a standard USB port should work, but it may be better from a USB driver perspective to run XP, Vista or Windows 7. I followed the MBE instructions exactly and it worked first time: http://www.sbdev.co.uk/Engine_Management_Systems/ECU/Easimap6_Download.htm Check the location of the 16-pin CAN bus connector, on my 2012 R400D it was covered by a large round rubber cap below and under the edge of the dash against the top of the kick panel. As my car is left hand drive, this is on the left side of the car, I expect it will be on the right for UK cars. This connector is a standard OBD II compliant connector, but from a software perspective it only implements the CAN protocol, so any standard OBD software / app is unlikely to work (I tried a standard OBD II code reader, it saw the CAN protocol, but couldn't communicate). The data acquisition worked perfectly with the standard R400D MBE 992 ECU once I worked out that about 20 sensor inputs was about the maximum the laptop and USB link speed could handle without starting to miss data points (at one point I had about 120 parameters configured for data acquisition, even though some of them weren't reported by the 992, anyway). Basically you can set up multiple nice dashboards with about 20 dial or digital displays on your laptop and strap it in to the passenger seat, or take a "diagnostictitian" with you to look at the outputs in real time. One thing to bear in mind is that you need to save the diagnostic info to a file before switching display screen (if you configure multiple dashboards), otherwise all collected data is lost, as it does a collection reset (I've had several flat-out data acquisition runs that were perfect, that I lost the data capture from by forgetting this). After I worked out that the car didn't have altitude correction using the standard Caterham/MBE 992 ECU, I tried every combination of unlock code using a script that ran for 2 days, the ECU wouldn't unlock, so I think that it requires custom software beyond Easimap that only Caterham has to re-map it. Consequently I bought a new MBE 9A4 ECU and barometric sensor to allow the car to run much more optimally at my 1250 metre (4000 feet) or so altitude, the Caterham map default barometric pressure is 1040mBar, it is normally about 870mBar where I live, so the almost 20% over fuelling was destroying spark plugs every 3,000 kilometres or so!

A "H" rated or better winter tyre will stand up to use in higher temperatures without a problem, they are designed for sustained high speed use, so have to be able to withstand a very wide range of temperatures. You would have to go to a 15" wheel to get a "H" rated winter tyre, 175/55-15 or 195/50-15 would be suitable sizes that are available.

Assuming the wheel stud and wheel nut are matched in strength (i.e. 8.8 to 8.8 or 10.9 to 10.9), a standard nut will shear the stud before the thread fails. In the case of an M12x1.5 thread, a standard M12 nut is 10mm thick, leading to 10/1.5 threads of engagement, i.e. 6.5 turns to the nearest 1/2 turn. Assuming the thread isn't damaged, 6.5 turns of engagement should be enough to shear the stud under excessive tightening force as easily as any more threads of engagement could do. I know on our BMW 135i that the hub thickness is 10mm for the five M12x1.5 10.9 strength wheel bolts that are tightened to 120Nm (compared with 75Nm for the four Caterham wheel nuts), giving the same 6.5 turns of engagement.

If you have the pin out for the MEMS ECU and at least about 50mm of slack in the current loom to the ECU, it is fairly straightforward to re-pin to the MBE ECU 36-pin plug. I've changed and added pins on my 9A4, the most important things are to take your time and obtain the right crimping and stripping tools (I see Farmell have suitable crimpers) get some spare pins from MBE and practice a few crimps before doing the real loom.

If you have to re-pin for the 9A4 ECU and you don't currently have the 36-pin connector, you can purchase it and the separate pins from SBD. I found it imperative to use a proper ratcheting crimping tool if you have to change the pins, a 0.5-1.0 mm^2 open barrel crimper is needed, I purchased this one for the equivalent of £45 that has interchangeable jaws for all common crimp connections: http://www.princessauto.com/en/detail/7-pc-professional-quick-change-ratcheting-wire-terminal-crimper-kit/A-p8355331e I'm not sure if it is available in the UK, as the vendor is Canadian, but I'm sure an equivalent can be found. Here is the pinout info: http://www.sbdev.co.uk/Info_sheets/MBE/9A4-PinoutIssue%20F.pdf The connector that is needed (including pins) is the LM-36W (see the bottom of the page): http://www.sbdev.co.uk/Engine_Management_Systems/Fuel_Inject_Looms_Standard/Wiring_Looms_Standard.htm

BMW definitely moved to 16 & 18mm over 17 & 19mm sockets about 10 years ago, they now seem to be favouring spline sockets and bits instead of hex or torx ones for many bolts.

Here are the Avon specs for the CR500, a 6.5" to 8.5" rim is specified for a 205/55-13 tyre: http://www.avonmotorsport.com/road-legal/performance/cr500

There is a special Ford tool to remove that connector (and also another for the fuel pump to fuel tank clamp ring), but if you Google "ford fuel pipe removal tool", there are videos of various techniques that have been used to do that.

On my R400D I put a 1000ohm and 2000ohm resistor in parallel with the fuel gauge wires from the sender (giving 667ohms of parallel resistance to the sender unit). With this value the gauge gives both a slightly better indication of full and is on zero with 7 litres in the tank (which seems to be about the minimum to avoid fuel starvation at the track). Due to the sloping bottom of the tank, a completely different float position and design would be needed to get the gauge to read zero when fuel in the tank is also zero.

Quoting Nigel Fox: It's because acceleration due to gravity is 32 feet per second per second. Therefore if you cover 64 feet from a standing start in 2 seconds that averages out at 1g. Or in SI - 9.81m/s^2 acceleration for 2 seconds over 19.62m.

Quoting Roger Ford: Is that the ACES shift lights? If you have the full unit, you can adjust the brightness. Not sure if that feature is removed from the cut-down Caterham version. And is the green "Econometer" light also on the ACES? If so you can program the revs where that comes on too. My Caterham fit ACES unit is fully adjustable for brightness and shift point illumination from the control unit buried under the dash next to the heater valve control. Edited by - Aerobod on 5 Sep 2014 05:53:51

For a little lighter tyre than the R888, I can recommend the Dunlop Star Spec Z2, which is available on tirerack.com in 185/60-14 size (if you have clearance issues with the 205 wide R888s, which I know will rub the inner cycle stay on my R400 if I use 205/50-15 size). Currently I'm running a set in 195/50-15 size, they get heat in them much faster than the CR500s and seem to have comparable grip in Auto-x.

After 8,000km of use, the copper plated contacts in my switch were well eroded from arcing, the OEM switch is not well designed to take multiple amps of current.

As others have done, I fitted a relay to mine, dropped the current through the new brake light switch to 0.14A from 3.5A. The switch construction is such that the contacts won't last long with 3.5A arcing through the contacts. A few quid for a short bit of wire, some spade connectors and a relay. Half an hour to mount the relay with mounting tape on the ledge in the pedal box, make up a new short "Y" connector to connect the existing 12V spade to both the switch and power on the relay, then a short wire from the other side of the switch to the relay coil, a wire from the ground on the relay to a nearby body ground and plug the relay output to the existing brake lights spade connector. All fully reversible with no loom modifications. For me, no more risk of being re-ended on the track after I had been given a point-by from a Corvette driver, who then nearly ran into the back of me at the next corner due to my brake lights having just failed. He thought he could follow me around without braking, then nearly exited the track straight ahead due to very late braking.

Although they are expensive, this is the best mirror for our cars, in my opinion. It has a wider view than the normal mirror plus the standard door mirrors combined. It does have a rather restricted view when the roof is fitted though, as it is quite high: Mirrors for Sevens Edited by - Aerobod on 11 Jul 2014 05:44:11