MikeE

I was part of the powerspeed bulk buy and am very happy with the quality and service However one word of caution. I had Powerspeed courier the exhaust to me and I fitted it myself (i.e it was built on a jig not on my car). I had problems with a down pipe touching a chassis rail. Anyway to cut a long story short Dave ended up making me a new down pipe and refitting the system for me. So my advice is to get Dave to fit the system for you (if practical) rather and get a jig made system.

...apparently they have to keep the emission records for 3 months. So if I get pulled up by the cops and they notice I don't have a Cat, check my MOT and then check the mot test station records they will be right in it if either they don't have them anymore or the records showed I failed Peter, not being dense 😳 but how do the mounts work? I can see there's a rubber 'cup' but the bolt seems to pass straight through it into the chassis rail and clamps the engine mounting braket firmly to the chassis rail 🤔 Do I need to order a pair from CC or can I get some locally? cheers, Mike.

I had to change my exhaust manifold over the weekend (in order to fit the cat for the MOT). I've now put the 4-2-1 back on again but there's a problem with the water rail fouling the chassis rail now. It was very close before but there was 5mm clearance. In changing the exhaust it's necessary to raise the engine to give enough clearance. To do this I just undid the two engine mounts and shifted it sideways by an inch or two on a trolley jack. In doing this is it possible to alter the alignment when you re-attach the engine mounts (I wouldn't have thought so)? Als the cross member has an indentation pressed into one side of it (for clearance purposes I presume), however this is in the wrong position being about 2 inches further back towards the bulk head. Is this the usual situation? Finally waht's the solution 🤔 🤔 🤔 🤔 Cheers, Mike

Powerspeed wil charge you <£500 all in including fitting I believe (at least they di for me at the beginning of the year)

Does that price include the tank and the bits from ThinkAutomotive?

I sure you can buy an R500 as a kit. The reason Caterham don't publicise it is they sell the Caterham as a 'fully managed product' or whatever the marketting terminology is for the matket sector they say the R500 appeals to. Anyway the simple answer is to phone them and ask.

Arnie, Yes I knew all that, the question is does Ron and his supplier 😬 I'll find out next week (when I meet A.N)

Gimp, Off topic I know but.......I noted your comment on SELOC about giving the VTEC Elises a run for their money. I'll be interested in knowing how you get on (when you get on track). I was at the SELOC Donnington meeting last month and was surprised ( ) to be passed by two Elise's - turns out later they were the VTEC kind so don't feel so bad now - especially as I didn't get overtaken by anyone at the SELOC bedford day in May (just a pitty my passenger decided to vomit all over the car, and me that day ) BTW In my experience, on track you will get understeer in slower corners, however the car really starts to show it's worth in medium to high speed corners

We've all seen this argument raging (on and off) for over a year now. I think it's time we had a little transparency here, we need some independent research into each of these competing products and in fact I've already started this process only last weekend. I have a friend whole works for a 'leading motorsport team' in my area (Hants/Surrey border, use your imagination 😬). Well I did him a favour last weekend and took him out for a blast in my Superlight (actually as an aside he was telling me about his boss (A.N.) who apparently has a 300bhp Elise ) and to return the favour he's giving me a guided tour of the factory. So I've asked him if it'll be possible to get some info on F1 grade carbon-fibre manufacturing. I'm obviously looking forward to the tour and particularly the opportunity of doing some research with said company and their CF supplier. I also plan to ask if they are interested in producing some low volume components for 7's and how much this would cost (should be interesting to find out how much 'the supplier' actually charges for a rear wing ) I'll let you all know the outcome when I do. Mike.

Simon, Most people have the anodised rims - I have the bare rims (I was told by CC this is because the original owner asked for colour coded centres - or something). Anyway last weekend I decided to start dismantleling them so I could polish the rims properly (following the damage caused by the road salt last winter). I went and bought one of these drill attachment polishing kits for £20 which contains two types of polishing wheels and a couple of types of polish (I got it from AHC in Farnham or Camberley). Anyway this has worked a treat and does take too long either (once you've dismantleled the wheels). If you don't want to dismantle but just want to clean by hand I'd recoment Autosol polish. Hope this helps cheers, Mike

Christian, So the other big questions is what power do you think you have now? i.e £/bhp ratio? Mike

Bill and Ammo, Thanks for the info Bill, who and where are AHC in Camberley? cheers, Mike.

Steve, I've tried that THREE times now 😳 (in fact Roy Booth fitted the first replacement for me and that fell out within 1 hour on track!). The solution is to either put a tack weld on it or put a split pin through it You don't have a spare one I could buy do you 🤔 ❗ 🤔 ❗ cheers, Mike

I've now lost 3 bungs (blanking plugs) in my secondary lambda sensor location in the collector on my exhaust (thack day abuse seems to shake them lose sooner or later). So I need to find another replacement and then this time I plan to drill a small whole through exhaust location and bung and put a split pin through it. Can anyone tell me the thread size and where I might get one of these blanking plugs? cheers, Mike.

I have the R500 two peice mag wheels with the POLISHED rims (not the usual anodized finish). Due to me using the car last feb and putting it back in the garage with road salt everywhere I need to get the rims re-polished. Yesterday I dismantled one of the wheels which takes some time as there are 16 bolts holding the rim to the centre. Anyhow I have the following questions: 1. Can I reuse the self locking (nylon lined) nuts again or should I replace them (to my knowledge this is the first time they've been dismantled). 2. I unscrewed the valve stem and now it's fallen inside the tyre How do I get it out and can I just re-insert it into the rim (will it self seal again) or do I need a new seal? 3. Any advise on who can re-polish the rims - I'm based in Fleet, Hampshire so would like someone local. 4. Once repolished what's the best way to protect them in future? 5. When re-attaching the rims what torque should I use on the 16 bolts? thanks in anticipation. Mike. Edited by - MikeE on 1 Sep 2003 10:11:48

Arnie, I presume you already know about these people: http://www.rage-extreme.com Some pretty outrageous colours to choose from there

Tillet have started to make a seat (for general use not dedicated to Caterham Cars Ltd) which is similar to the CC Tillet but a bit wider. I was taold by them last November that it wouldn't fit a standard Caterham but it would probably fit an SV. Give them a call as I'm sure it'll be very much cheaper than the marked up price Caterham are charging. Re. SV aeroscreen, I think a cheap solution would be to buy a standard JPE Perspex screen and simply cut it in half and then attach it to the scuttle. So OK you're going to have a 4 inch (?) gap in the aeroscreen behind the central mirror but so what? I think a JPE screen is 'only' £170 so it'll leave you several hundred £ for other upgrades (like CF central and wing mirrors )

Arnie, I'm looking to get a colour change on my SL and would like something pretty lurid if you don't mind me asking what do TSK charge for a respray in a dayglo colour (assuming I remove most of the bits and deliver a bare-ish tub to them)? cheers

Tim, interesting but I'm more interested in sourcing a used 'plug and play' K-series. You say you sourced a k from the same place, do they have any Caterham ready used k-series then (preferably a lightly used SLR engine for £1K )

It's much simpler than that. Don't laugh this really works, take the collector off and put clear bathroom silican sealant around the primaries, put the collector back on and remove most of the excess. Works a treat BTW Powerspeed advised me to do this, I'd never have believed it myself

I noticed the RaceCo advert in Low Flying this month mentions the Duratech conversion for 220bhp and 250bhp engines. It says to look at their website for details, however I can't see anything on there. Ammo, do you have any news for us yet?

V7, I presume you have a Superlight R and therefore have a CF nosecone anyway? If you do then you can simply remove the paint with nitromors, it worked a trat on my CF rear wings which were factory painted from new. cheers, Mike

Joachim, Is this the superlight or roadsport cage? If it's the superlight I'd like first refusal please. cheers, Mike.

Didn't Superlights (and SLRs) come with ACB10s as standard? I've got a 2000 SL and have been trying to identify the camber on the ears but can't see any markings. I run both CR500s for the road (it came R500 wheels/CR500s from new) and ACB10s (6") for the track. I've noticed the CR500s seem to be wearing on the OUTSIDE edge but the ACB10s seem to have an even wear pattern (actually they seem to be wearing more in the centre of the tyre). So what's the likely camber on my car?

I went on a trackday in May and had had my Superlight serviced by Caterham a few weeks before. After the trackday I noticed a lot of oil on the diff as it was dripping onto the floor. I was pretty worried that I'd wrecked a seal on the diff (as I had another trackday the next weekend) until I took the boot floor out and realised the TOP of the diff was covered in oil. I then realised it was coming from the breather so decided to extend this, when I removed the old one I could see that it was split (which wouldn't of helped). I added a longer length of pipe up into the boot and into a small plastic bottle (to act as a catch tank). I also checked the level, via the filler plug and found it was still over filled It looks to me like Caterham delivberately overfill the diff (to avoid oil surge problems?) and they probably do this via the breather pipe on the top of the diff. Anyway a bit of a ramble but I suppose what I'm saying is don't necessarily assume the worst, it could just be a simple issue. cheers, Mike