Mankee

Hello. I was wondering if anyone can ID the brand, compound, pad shape etc. of these pads for some early Caterham/AP 4-pots, around 1999 vintage, please? Also, an idea of their worth? Cheers! Photos: https://www.dropbox.com/s/fyv34fo3uuo6c0i/4pots_1.jpeg?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/6l31qyldi3185u2/4pots_2.jpeg?dl=0

The 16/53 fronts are ideal for 6J rims and are becoming a bit thin on the ground. Do you know how old they are? 23/57 rears are, as you rightly say, bloody enormous. They'd suit a 10J wheel I reckon, as they swamp even 8J anthracites. How much are you after for them and I'll put some feelers out for you? I use 20/54 rears and 16/53 fronts.

I've got a single 7x13" Minilite-style wheel if that's of any help? Can't remember the exact make of it.

So how did it go yesterday? A few Caterhams there but I didn't get much of a chance to speak to many as we were hidden in the garages right at the end. And I was replumbing my cooling system in the morning.

http://www.paceproducts.co.uk/pumps-and-dry-sumps/ From £1457.12 plus VAT. Plus tank, oil lines, fittings etc. CycleSi went Pace with Brise kidney tank a year or so ago I think. Worth a message to him.

Now that Caterham have some dry sump pans back in stock (maybe?), they may be able to put together a new Caterham/Titan system for you again. You have the option of using a belltank or an external tank in front of the passenger's feet like Ian and Steve's setups or Superwhite283 has a Brise kidney tank just in front of the engine. I have a Pace system (didn't buy it new but came with my engine) and am very happy with it. All the systems have their pros and cons, in terms of cost, packaging and support, but they should all perform as well as each other to do the jobs of moving oil storage out of the sump and stop oil surge.

As well as ride height, consider front toe in and also raising the steering rack. Toe in can help with stability and raising the steering rack can help prevent bump steer.

I pretty much started with what you currently have: ~150bhp, ITBs, decent exhaust, mappable management. I went to ~200bhp by keeping the induction, exhaust and ECU and slapping the lot onto an eBay VVC 160 engine. Bottom end was untouched as it had the VVC 160 pistons and all the money was spent on the head: porting (~£500-£600) and binning the VVC bits (can't remember exactly how much; DVA will advise depending on if you want springs and caps, another set of verniers etc.). Plus a few hundred quid on mapping. The beauty is that you'll still have your complete existing engine and map to fall back on if anything happens to the new engine. The problem is finding complete, good VVC 160 engines as a starting point nowadays. They seem to be getting very rare now.

See you at Bedford! We'll be pitched up in some of the garages with mine, a blue R400, a black Westfield and an E46.

If this hasn't gone, can I call dibs on it for a club member who can't post at the moment, please. Thanks!

I bought a used set of NTR1s for my widetrack pre-96 chassis and they fitted straight on with no major issues. You're not fitting narrow track damper lengths to a widetrack are you? I can't measure the damper lengths as I'm away from my car at the moment. From memory, I think it may be in the region of 440 mm, the same as a post-96 narrow track Bilstein.

A 5-speeder is in the the region of 190 mm (7 and a half inches), so I would imagine a 6-speeder for a K is similar.

I'll send you a thermostat housing, Darren. Does the bummed engine not have one?

Monday 15th August is the one I'm aiming for.

Consider the mod of moving the oil temp probe from the oil tank to one of the spare ports in the oil filter house, under the alternator, for a reading of the temperature of the oil entering the engine. I'm no longer wet sump but I have two oil temp probes, one in the oil tank (much larger capacity than an Apollo) and one in the oil filter housing. I've found that there can 15-20 degrees difference between the two, with the oil in the tank being the hotter. With serious track thrashing, 100 degrees in the tank could "only" be just above 80 degrees at the filter housing. No idea why such a big difference or how accurate the gauges and senders are. Just observations with a dry sumped engine. Do check your oil level as revilla says though. PS. Bedford next month? Seeing if my engine is going to be noise-friendly or not.

One of the Caterham guys in my group has engine issues and a day at Rockingham on Monday is looking pretty unlikely, so I'm trying to shift his space for him. We've got a garage or two so you can hang out with us. We don't smell. Much. Price is £150 and details are as below: http://opentrack.co.uk/epages/8f6001fa-6391-406b-b2c4-02ec9ed70325.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/8f6001fa-6391-406b-b2c4-02ec9ed70325/Categories/Rockingham

Get some fellow 7ers round for tea, beers and laughs. It's easily doable by yourself of course, especially with a racer that's built with ease of engine and gearbox removal and refit in mind, but it is more fun with friends, except when you start tripping over and robbing tools from each other. Back to more practical points. A load leveller is extremely useful. I left the Apollo lines plumbed into the sandwich plate when I had one and had to take the engine out. Have a tray to catch the gearbox oil coming out of the tail when the prop drops out. Remember to disconnect the speedo drive from the box and the oil pressure line if you have a mechanical gauge and/or remote T-piece.

May be as simple as replacing the ignition warning lamp bulb will fix the issue. That'd be my first port of call before starting to probe wiring.

Comma SX75W/90. It comes in GL4 and GL5. I think it's the GL4 version needed for Type 9s.

That's sad that parts from the Far East are sub-standard for our British cars. I've just heard from another club member about brand new expensive calipers from Caterham leaking straight out of the box. Unfortunately, I don't have a spare hub at all. The reason I was forced to upgrade to the later hubs with bigger bearings and larger stub axles was because I had a stub axle break on me at nearly 100mph, which was a bloody terrifying experience. I hope you get things sorted out. If you can upgrade, I'd urge you to do so, for peace of mind.

What are you doing to those poor thermostat housings, Ian?!

I know the sort of hub you mean, the "early" early sort. I had the same type that uses a felt oil seal on my '96 car before I was forced to upgrade. Do they look like these, on the far right? https://www.dropbox.com/s/zh3iwlia981hoev/NewBits.jpg?dl=0

Do you use Ford PCD wheels? If so, there are two sorts of front hub, one with small bearings and the "upgrade" hub with bigger bearings and stub axles. Both are apparently in stock at Caterham: http://caterhamparts.co.uk/product.php?id_product=116 http://caterhamparts.co.uk/product.php?id_product=3400 PS. Odd that Redline are difficult to get hold of at the moment.

Sounds like the plumbing is fine. Yes, I think a PRRT reacts to pressure, which is why the stats have different springs as well as temperature ratings. Don't quote me on that! The pictures at the bottom of this link show how a PRRT behaves at different temperatures: http://web.tiscali.it/elise_s1/ Is it possible you have a duff stat?

Same PRRT setup as me then, Chris. Antonio's original map was fan on at 90 degrees and off at 85 degrees, which we thought was too low, so it's now on at 95 degrees and off at 93 degrees. That probably is a touch low still, but I've not fiddled with it for now. Maybe 99 on and 97 off is perfectly adequate. What rad do you use? I'm using a triple-pass Caterham rad (for now) and, touch wood, temperatures seem under control according to the gauge when in motion and using big revs, which spins the water pump quicker, maintains pressure in the cooling circuit and keeps the PRRT open. I must admit that the K-series cooling circuit seems a total mystery to me, how people with very similar setups can see such different behaviour. Bit like the old wet sump foam argument. If it works fine, just as it did when it was installed in Antonio's car, I'm going to leave it well alone. Have you got a picture of how your PRRT is installed? If you want me to bung that knock-off QED remnote stat stuff in the post to you for a play, let me know. I think I'd up the cooling fan threshold to start with, check that the PRRT is plumbed in correctly and then maybe consider a bigger rad. Good luck! Good results by the way. More to come of course.