Mike Bees

The Caterham springs are progressive over a range rather than being dual-rate, so the more lard you put in the car the stiffer the effective rate gets (since more of the softer end goes coil-bound). Mike

Farndon have produced a number of different spec K-series cranks Bob, at least one of which was a tractor-weight variant IIRC. Mike

Quite a few people using Arrow rods, here. Mike

Ah, but whose is the Lola Ferrari...

Ok Mark. Just realised it can't be a Blue Book thing, none of the bike-engined single seaters have reverse (and I'm guessing the big 'uns don't either). Mike

Why is it being considered that a reverse gear be mandatory for class 6 (other than as a way to make life difficult for BEC devotees...)? Just curious. If I were building a bike-engined non-roadgoing car there's no way I'd faff about putting a reverse gear in it. Or is it an MSA thing? Mike

MikeE wrote I can't believe it's mounted rigidly enough to support any significant down force, I think it would just tear off at the fixings We're talking about reducing lift, not creating signficant downforce. And I suspect that the effect isn't purely at the nosecone itself but that the airflow changes brought by the chin spoiler affect more than just the nosecone. Probably. Personally I think that if you're going to stick wings on and/or change the profile of the car then you might as well change the car... Mike

Still looks too good to believe 😬 I'm tempted to buy one just because it's such a bargain, even though I have no use for it. Mike

1cc == 0.75g, so 310g/min is 413cc/min. £99 for a set of 4 new injectors is too good to believe, let alone with a fuel rail thrown in. Mike Edited by - Mike Bees on 18 Nov 2005 15:08:25

On the whole I think this is a better basis for scoring than a fixed-points system. A number of other championships run this system. The whole essence of speed events is that you are competing mostly against the clock. It's the best way of measuring every individuals performance irrespective of who and how many competitors turn up in each class. Of course you could still get classes where there are 'soft' records, but the L7C champs has become so competitive in the last 2 years that the leading cars in every class are damned well driven. But, I do think there is a problem with wet events. If the guys fighting for the championship tend to discard enough results for the wet ones not to matter, then wet-weather skills get discarded along with those results. OTOH I don't think adding a % to the bogey time for a declared 'wet weather' event works because it's quite possible that *some* people will get a dry run and hence score a huge bonus. FWIW I think it would be better to revert to the 20pts system if the track isn't completely dry for one whole timed run, or something. Needless to say this decision cannot be taken by a competitor for fear of there being something of a conflict of interest... Ideally the CoC should be briefed and charged with making the decision. You could compromise and score each class on the existing 20pts basis but score the overall championship on a bogey-time basis, but that would be complicated to score and might (though unlikely) end up with the overall champion not being a class winner. Mike

Slobber... A plus point for both the ali pulleys shown in Dave's pic and the Caterham steel one is that they gear down the alternator. My alternator is doubly geared down since I have the Caterham steel crank pulley and a large diameter dural pulley on the alternator. Still seems to charge OK. Mike

You only need a crank... Mike

1.8 has longer stroke, hence rods are shorter than on a 1.6. If you use the 1.8 rods with a 1.6 crank you'll get a very poor compression ratio! If you use 1.6 rods with a 1.8 crank than you'll bash the pistons into the head... Mike

I'm surprised it's cheaper to have a K16 head ported & revalved a to 200bhp spec. vs. simply acquiring a VVC head & blanking kit (or VHPD head which doesn't require a blanking kit) Unless you're doing the porting yourself of course! Mike

As Battered says, the 1.4KSS race cars were fitted with solids from the early days (after they trashed a number of heads running hydraulics). I would expect all the K-series race cars to run solids in the light of this, but maybe they don't? I'm pretty sure the KSports 1600 race cars (stock 1.6K in a Mallock-type chassis) run hydraulics, though I'm surprised they get away with it given Caterham's past experience. Mike

Is that Duncan Cowper's car you're referring to Grahame? Quite a fearsome machine and very well driven. Did he ever sell it? Mike

Yup, any problems with kickback, 'bit of a handful' etc. are likely to be setup related rather than rack-ratio-related. Mike

Oh lordy, I guess I've cooked my goose as far as any more cries for orthopaedic help go 😳 😬 Nicky - I've never seen any stock Bilsteins which aren't hard against the threaded/weld-on bush, so maybe there is some confusion over the pictures? Mike

I'd be a bit concerned about buckling the butterfly whilst rivetting it. Mike

At one time they were colour-coded. 8% were painted green and 22% were bare ali. There's a black one for sale on EBay here... Mike

A discussion on it bumped along for a while in the Racing Technology forum on on ten-tenths (www.ten-tenths.com). Mike

And who fits/fitted them like that! Mike

I'm confused now. Picture #6 is not a standard Bilstein. If anyone has dampers mounted in this extended-leverage fashion I suggest they do something about it immediately. I certainly would. Actually I don't think I'd have driven it at all... Mike

I can understand it if Mikey feels a bit hard done by on this, but it is worth pointing out that any event or series where the class breaks are on engine capacity has no leeway (unlike say a class where the rules specify e.g. 'up to 2 litre with a rebore allowance of 0.5mm'). So if the rules say up to 1600cc then that's what they are and that's the way of the world and not just the L7Club. The rules could be changed to specify e.g. "stock up to 1600cc engines with a maximum permissible rebore of +0.5mm" or something... Mike

Are you sure it's not leaking from the rear exhaust camshaft seal and running down the block until it finds it's way to the place where you think it originates? Mike