peter clarke

Tile it, in white. Had mine for 12 Years and only one chip. Easy to clear, no maintenance, use white as you can see everthing, find what you have dropped and the light reflects nicely so you can see what you are doing!!

185 60 on front and 206 60 on rear. Both on 6" rims but could use 8" on rear. Also approx 15 mm rake. Flat floored.

Ran on 15" for a while then changed to 13". One of th best changes I have made. 021 good all round tire but prefer the Toyo 888 and really only use the S3 CATERHAM in the dry. Have not experienced any real ground clearance issues; just have to be a little careful sometimes. Using 225 front and 140 rear springs so does not bottom out.

Did the same as STM25 couple of weeks ago. Also Ford diff. Not alot of clearance but quite quick and easy.

Lived here in Europe almost longer than I can remember; the British press seem to be a weird lot. I have never had an issue with fuel, my 7 is 14 years old done about 60,000 and the tank is not corroded or leaky. Europe is a pretty normal place but does have great food wine and beer.

Had to think as it is a few years ago but I put the magnet on the output flange on the diff and made a small bracket which could be fitted to a bolt on the diff( not an assembly bolt). It is the upper front position of the diff, easy to get at from underneath or with the wheel off. Did not want wires running down any moving bits. It is nice and safe where it has been for about 5-6 years now.

Maybe the Nitrons were expensive but I found the Billies great for smoothish roads and track but terrible on secondary roads. The adjust height facility is essential. The adjustment of damping equally so. I put the Billies on for a while after I had used Nitrons and same conclusion. Softer back end and firmer damped front suits me. I like oversteer and you can make it work.

Use mine only on the road these days, and some of the Belgium roads are still wrough!! Went from standard to Billy's and found them great on the smooth roads but not on the poor ones. Went, in steps, from 175 to 250 on front and progressive to 200 on the rear. Not over happy on the road. Went to Nitrons with 250 and150 set to 18 clicks from hard and found big improvement on road use. This was in terms of "comfort" (well sort of) and feel of the car and response was improved. Then switched to Eibach 225 front 140 rear and settled on 14 clicks front and 18 clicks from hard on rear. Found this surprisingly further improved ride/feel. Would be tempted to have the Nitrons modified if possible but have not looked into that yet. Use 13 inch wheels R888, orange front rear arb first hole. Condition of Nitrons after 5 years is as new. Peter

Not a straight swap. Use the conveying stubs from the CATERHAM lights and file open the Oscars to fit. Blank the Oscar inlet with standard rubber disc. Took me about 4-5 hrs

Cibie Oscar H4, great

No, they were not fitted on the blat last year, did it a little after. Defence against the typical Belgium driver!!!??? I will not comment in writing! However when rapidly coming up from behind they do seem to move over a bit and presume it is the lights. As in the picture, that is what they see and it seems quite effective, much much better than headlights. Inner mounting is equivalent to an inverted P clip clamping on the bar annd bolted directly into the DRL. Outer is a to a rivnut, as you say into the headlamp bracket. Part weight is so small does not need anything very strong. Also this position is witin the legal requirements. Used the philips ones as small, neat and a complete package. As you say headlights consume a lot of power, I use a Varley red top 25, no issue so far after 4 years. Have more pictures or we can visit. Peter

Thanks for putting pictures on the site Giles,I do alot of photography but mainly for printing

Will try and take some tomorrow

Just back from holiday and saw this thread. Have used DLR for about a year, Philips ones. Don't understand the complecated glue bit, just made 2 aluminium strips for each to go round the horizontal head light bar and screwed them onto the back of the DLR where studs were in place. Painted the strips black so you do not see them and is very quick and neat. As said, they switch on and off automatically and are far more visable than headlights in the day. Guy at the quivalent of your MOT was full of approval.

Use the mike day method. Took me 30 minutes from start to finish including greasing the uj's and a quick check underneath. As in low flying write up. Simple

Weight is less than consuming a pint of beer and other people can see you, which is doubtful with CATERHAM headlights!!

I have used the Philips daytime LEDS, the small ones with 4 leds each. Mounted under headlights on 2 small brackets. Did this last year. Very easy, just follow the instuctions. Wiring can go either thru or tie wired under the headlight support tubing.

Correct, the 285 needs different valve springs otherwise you will get coil binding

use a smear od redline universal joint grease between piston and pad and on the vertial ends where pads slip into calliper. Find copper slip useless. Solved my squeelssss.

A very interesting subject, I have been both in private consultancy as well as business development management and project aquisition in global companies. Problem is just the same when you boil it down, the balance between getting the credibility by giving knowledge and then getting paid for it. The first part is not such an issue once you are known and respected in your field, but the change over to agree on payment is. Found that the technique of limiting the time/knowledge and then charging for more in depth information which would be refundable if the business or project went ahead usually worked well. Both sides were then clear on the deal and commited. If this technique did not work you knew pretty well there was no real interest. Yes I pay for certain information and always discuss at the begining how the deal works, but then I guess I am just used to dealing that way. Where that point is is really up to the person or business.

I had this set up when I bought my car with 6 speed box (great) and 15" prisoner wheels (disaster), have learnt alot since 1997!!!! Changed to 13" and what a joy, could use decent tyres and drop in unsprung weight made handling great. Changed to 3.62 dif. lsd, and then the speedo was only about 12% fast. With 3.9 and 13" 205x60 was at least 18% fast.

Geoff Probably you had no early replies as weather much too good to be stuck in front on a damn conputer, should bet out burning ubber. K series for road only these days, wide track, 13" with R888, Nitrons, 225 lb front 140lb rear (180BHP DVA 1600). Have used all sorts of springs and dampes, settled on above plus orange 12.8mm front, do not go stiffer for road, and 2nd from back hole arb. As others 15mm rake with driver on board. Nitrons set to approx 4 from full soft (R888 softer on road than 021's, not tried the Avons).

Interesting! Mine is a 1600K, 13" wheels, R888, Nitrons. Helps get some of the power down. Small wheels make quite a difference on the acceleration, the old 15 " were terrible. DVA modified head plus cold feed to manifold, light flywheel, forged pistons etc. Power somewhere around 175+ and torque bit over 130. (exact figures a waste of time as depends on the actual rolloing road, air tempature, etc, etc). Agree that 0-60 (100kph) is pretty much a waste of time to asses the power output on a Caterham, however my original as a 1600 supersport was about 5,6 seconds and now is approx 4,6. Always use same stretch of road and calibrated SPA unit plus conventional stopwatch. To me much more significant and much more useful is the 0-100mph (160kph). Original was approx 18 seconds and now is approx 12,5 seconds. However I can also see the difference if I have the 4 into 1 with cat exhaust or the 4-2-1 no cat. The latter is repeatedly a good 1/2 to 1 second faster as the torque spread is so much better and take off is much cleaner. Have seen as low as 11.5 on a good cold winters morning! Hope this helps Peter PJ

Angus, it is similar to the Large tank Andy makes. Looked at other "shapes" but this seemed the best. Compared to the removed S3 tank: both 80cm wide, 23cm back to front but S3 tank 24.5cm deep at front and 16.5cm deep at rear, New one 29cm at front and 23.5 at rear. The bottom ange of the new tank is much flatter, subtract the above and new tank is 4.5 cm deeper at front and 7 cm at rear. Had to drop the underneath tank supports on the car at the rear so tank was correctly positioned,(not sure if the LHD chassis with Swiss exhaust, cross mounted rear silencer, was different from standard at the rear, I know at that time chassis were not common for L and RHD).Also filler flange needs to be placed approx 3cm rearwards to line up with filler pipe and the flange to be only 2 cm high. Modifying the bottom tank location is very straight forward and it means the tank only sits 4.5cm higher than original. Rear ramp angle is fine and I covered the small amount of exposed part of lower rear of tank with strip os aluminium ,painted black in my case. You do not notice it. Yes you need to raise the floor over tank area, but it leaves nice dropped area for tools and esential spares in the old floor from tank to rear bullhead. Still leaves approx 22 cm of space from new floor to underneath torneau cover. Now means on touring can typically refill at 400 km intervals. If racing...well work it out! PJ

For your info Andy Wiltshire made me a special tank, gave him the dimensions I wanted and it worked out at 47 litres, so you can fill 40 litres as need approx 4-litres in the tank for pick up. Superb piece of work, shipped to me in Belgium at very reasonable cost. Fitted straight in, well almost anyway as made very small error. Loose very small amout of the boot space. PJ