Slipper man

Thank God for BlatChat! I have just put my car together after replacing the HG. Reading this, I realise I didn't do the second 180 deg! Could have been very annoying at Cadwell...

I wouldn't be too paranoid - assuming you keep an eye on temperatures, it is unlikely to have done any damage to the engine. Despite what some people would have you believe, K-series engines are pretty robust - just think how many have been treated badly in Freelanders over long periods without trouble. As the others say though, the water is going somewhere and your heater control valve could well be the culprit. It doesn't sound like you check your coolant level very often, (I am also guilty of this!) it could be a pretty slow leak

That's what I was trying to do the link to. It's only the case that is aluminium - the tools are all of high quality

I always swear by this one (sorry, I don't know how to do a link: http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_productId_991745_langId_-1_categoryId_165572 They are often on sale for £100, which means £91 after the L7C discount. It has the advantage of enabling you to put it in the boot of the car when you go out too. It has virtually everything you will need. You do need to add a torque wrench and I upgraded the spanners with Halfords professional ring spanners, but that isn't essential as everything in the tool box is very high quality. Don't forget nitrile gloves, gaffer tape and cable ties - you will need them at some point!

I have had seven (good number!) Caterhams over 20 years and would echo the thought that fuses blowing has never been a problem. I have occasionally had the symptoms of one going, but it has always either been a relay coming loose, or a fuse shaking itself loose. As the others say, put a few spares in your tool kit to make you feel better - you will never use them!

Redline in Caterham and James Whiting in Ashford (the one near Heathrow, not Kent!) are both excellent

Leave them out. They just get in the way

Brake cleaner is the stuff. Works like magic, and can even get curry off your tie!

I had a similar problem, but my issue was a much more stupid one. The p;ug for the crank sensor is the same as another plug (it might have been the throttle pot - I can't remember). I got them the right way round. When I swapped them, like magic the car started.....

My R500 needs its silencer repacking. Where do you get it from?

SL91: they left the existing box in place and just added the new relay. very neat job though and didn't cost much either.

Take it to Redline in Caterham. They put on a relay which has permanently cured the problem. I am on my 5th starter now and was about to replace the current, when Redline suggested the cure. It has worked and I have probably wasted the other 4 starters! Whenever the car got hot it would fail to start. Today it was with the two Steves being remapped and got REALLY hot. Still started on the button every time!

Is there any way I could get a copy of the Minister guide? It would be very useful

Yes - Mick normally has them in stock at sensible prices

Ammo - they are the ramblings of an obsessed block. And absolutely fascinating to the types of anoraks (like me!) who read BlatChat. Keep the thoughts coming!

I am afraid I don't know how to place photos on BlatChat. I can send you pictures if you send me an email address

Oh by the way Tim - your assumptions for rebuild times are realistic but probably on the pessimistic side. And if I were using the car like that I am not sure I would expect anything very different from a 400 to be honest.

As Dave says, I have a rear silencer that I can put on in about 10 mins when needed that gets the car down to about 98db. I also have the Caterham air box that cuts the intake noise down massively. it originally had all the pipes described but they were a real pain, making access to the front of the car very hard, so I removed them. I couldn't tell the difference in power or noise levels without them Dave: I can't go this year either. Dates weren't great and I didn't like the mix of tracks as much as previous years. Agree about a Spa date in the Summer. Do you have any particular trip in mind?

Now, I wonder who I was thinking of, Dave, when talking about new slicks. I forgot to mention crazy nutcase drivers of R400's making a difference.... Are you off to Spain in a few weeks?

I have had an R500 from new in 2000 and my car has seen a lot of action over the years, including lots of track days, sprints and road use. Of the 18,000 miles it has done, about 10,000 have been on track. When i bought my car i agonised about whether to get an R400 instead, largely because i was terrified of the engine. There were so many stories about them at that time. Some were justified, because the early cars did have reliability issues. These arose for two reasons that i can recall. The first was the use of standard Rover big ends that failed at high revs. They were retro fitted with upgraded items FOC by Caterham and the problem went away. The second was that Minister were too optimistic about rev limits. The early cars were red lined at 9,200 RPM, although that was revised to 9,000 by the time most cars were made. That was too high because some harmonics developed that snapped crank shafts, so the limit was reduced to 8,600. From that point the cars I have known have been very reliable and it didn't affect the power output, which is only developed at 8,600 anyway. The rebuild interval is something that people get too worked up over. Caterham did originally say 3,000 track miles which freaked people out a bit, but that is A LOT of miles. To put in context, an engine builder told me that Swindons recommendation for a fast Vauxhall is 1,500 miles between rebuilds... No one knows how many miles they will do on the road, but those who know about these things say 20-30,000 road miles will be no problem. When my car was last rebuilt it had done 7,500 track miles (i.e. more than twice the recommended limit) and still ran as well as when new. It had been thrashed though and I felt it was prudent to bite the bullet and get a rebuild. The cost was about £1,000 for parts and the same again for labour. Next time, as the car is no longer doing 10 circuit days a year, I will just replace a valves and springs, which cost c£500 because I am sure the last rebuild involved throwing away a lot of perfectly good parts. Over 12 years, my car has been very cheap to run for a car of its staggering performance and has only twice not been running at the end of a track day (and I really don't know many people who have had such a good reliability record over that time). The first was my fault really. I did a DIY rebuild in 2003 and didn't know about getting things balanced. I was also not running the 8,600 limit because I knew I would be carefull. The ECU said I was doing 9,300 when the crank failed... The second failure was when a Barnby wheel failed. Don't EVER take a car on track with those wheels unless you like Russian roulette. The R400 is a great car and certainly is just about as fast as an R500. New slicks on an R400 will overcome the performance deficit compared with an R500 on used tyres. But. For me, the R500 is much more exciting. It feels and sounds much more like a racing car, and is much better equipped. It has things like the aero section wishbones as standard, magnesium dry sump tank and sump, lots of caron bits, Stack instrumentation Watts Linkage etc. many R400's will have some of this stuff, but it was only standard on the R500 when I bought mine. You will have a problem with noise levels though and I think an air box would be needed on either to get through a 100db test Hope all this helps. BM me if you want to talk off line My car has been

I remember it well Tom. To fit mine, I fitted the roll cage as far as I could. Arch removed the inner panels and inserted a bolt through mounting point in the roll cage and attached the sleeve from the inside. They then TIG welded it in place, checked that the bolt would unscrew and screw in again before attaching the inner trim panels again

DO NOT DRILL HOLES IN THE CHASSIS!!!! That isn't how the SLR cage is fixed - it would seriously impair the chassis strength. Some cars have the bushes already installed, some don't. Mine is a 2000 super light chassis and had the bushes at the front (which I used for the Petty strut on the passenger side) but not the ones near the drivers elbow. For some years I installed my cage using only the forward mounts on the basis that it was far better than the FIA bar. This year though I decided to do it properly and Arch braised the bushes in place for me. Only took about a couple of hours and you wouldn't know from the outside that it had been modified. Very easy job. I would use an SLR cage (again) because access is much easier, especially if you are tall (as I am guessing you are if you have a tall FIA bar)

It doesn't sound like we are talking about the same thing. The dipstick comes detached from the top and falls down into the conning tower, so that if the top comes unscrewed it can go missing. Causing you to have to borrow an old sensor from Gordon! They seem to have fixed that now though. You might have the new type that is OK. To stop it coming undone, try a second O ring. What are you doing with a K-series anyway? Have you finally seen the light?!

Puff - certainly not - it is a very useful spare!

Arnie That has been a constant problem with mine. I finally cored it by putting another o ring at the top. It should already have one (yours does I take it?) Ad another and it will be OK. The other problem is the dipstick coming of the screw in bit. The latest dip sticks seem to have this cured, but my first three failed