ashaughnessy

just testing

I don't think you can buy a pedal box off the shelf from anywhere. I'd love one if you could. There was an article in low flying quite a while ago about fabricating your own. I don't have it anymore but I seem to recall it looked quite tough?? When I've looked at the pedal arrangement and considered how you'd make one, it seemed like starting in the wrong place because the layout of the pedals, brake master cylinder and clutch cable was all wrong to be able to fit a pedal box on. Anthony

Sounds very much like you have a totally flat battery, which could be either cause or symptom. Does the ignition warning light come on when the engine is turning over? I wonder if the ignition system isn't getting any power due to broken alternator or totally shafted battery? Actually, I don't know what the effect of a totally shafted battery combined with a fully functioning alternator but worth checking. Otherwise, the usual things - check you have a spark at the spark plugs, check the ignition timing, check the battery condition, check the voltage produced by the alternator. Anthony

What rev limit will you set?

I have no experience of painting aluminium whatsoever but in this month's low flying there are pictures of angus&tessa's car being painted from bare metal and the painters are roughing the surface to key it before applying the bottom coat. Anthony

I'd really recommend having a look at the brackets at the same time. Once when I checked mine, having been worried about how close the carbs were getting to the chassis tube, I found that they were holding on by a thread and the engine was about to fall out! I've heard other people say the brackets are prone to cracking. Whatever you do, I think I'd suggest changing one side at a time so the other keeps the engine in the right place while you're doing it. Anthony

So you've changed the cylinder head on your engine by replacing the original cylinder head with a head from another engine, which you had modified by converting to unleaded? Is your symptom a mis-fire or a flatspot? Where in the rev range is it? What did the rolling road operator do to sort this out? Did he do anything about the carburettor setup (chokes, jets, etc) ? I'm wondering if the problem is a flat spot due to poor carb setup, which would be quite likely if the new cylinder head has different characteristics from the old. How sure can you be that the new cylinder head is identical to the old one (apart from the unleaded conversion)? You could probably try one of those home-tune guys who come round with a big computerised engine analyser and check all your ignition and emissions, etc. That would tell you if you have an obvious problem, like a broken coil. Otherwise you might need to get it on the rolling road again, with a competent operator who knows how to setup the carbs and timing, and get it set up properly. Other obvious easy first checks you could do yourself are to check the static ignition timing, check the inside of the distributor for obvious problems (corrosion on the contacts, etc), check the valve clearances, plug gaps and condition, etc. Edit - I've just noticed in your original question you said the original head had big valves. Does the new head have the same big valves? This difference would probably cause less than perfect running if you don't change the fuelling to match. Depends on your accurate diagnosis of whether you've got a misfire or a flat spot which might make either ignition or fuelling more or less suspect. Anthony Edited by - ashaughnessy on 10 Aug 2006 17:13:45

As you're not getting any replies on this, perhaps you could detail what it is you've changed since it last ran well? I could imagine it being the advance curve or the carburettor setup. If you've made significant changes to the engine then either or both of these may need setting up properly on a rolling road. Anthony

Thanks Elie, The service kit comes with a 200 as standard, so I'll assume I've got that one. I don't want to do too much dismantling until I've bought the manual, and I want to order the manual at the same time as the service kit, which comes with the replacement needle valve, ..... etc Anthony

Thanks Ian, I'd seen that on the webcon web site. Unfortunately, it didn't help me. I'm still not sure how to get at the thing. If I take the fuel filter out will I see the needle valve directly underneath and will it screw out easily? Anthony

How do I find out what needle valve a pair of Weber 40DCOE carbs have? I want to buy a service kit and you can get a new needle valve with the kit but you need to know which one you currently have so you can ask for the right one. Is the needle valve one of the things you can just unscrew and pull out? If so, where is it? Thanks Anthony

Whether you call it a sealed system, header tank system, or whatever, I think the usual crossflow cooling system upgrade is using the parts described by Jorgen and Graham. The existing filler cap housing, just over the thermostat, is replaced by a fiesta part that is sealed (or perhaps more precisely, doesn't include a filler cap). A plastic tank is introduced as the highest point of the system (the bulkhead on my car). The plastic tank is connect to the water pump and also to the fiesta filler replacement piece via the narrow hose that unclefester mentions. I presume the purpose of this small bore hose is to allow bleeding of gas (air, vapour, whatever) from the fiesta thingy up into the header tank. Without this small bore pipe, the fiesta thingy would be a high point and would hold on to any gas. I'll leave it to Graham and Jorgen to supply the pictures as I don't have any. Anthony

I'm a bit confused. When you first ran the engine, did it have water in? When you say the previous owner had taken off the rad and not refilled, did you refill before starting the engine or did you start the engine, notice the overheating, then refill? When you say things like "pumps can lose blades if left without coolant" do you mean they simply fall off while the engine is not in use if they aren't covered in water??? Doesn't sound very likely Or are you saying you ran the engine without any water and this caused the blades to fall off? Anthony

All useful hints and tips but only a few of them are directly answering Marc's question. The fan shouldn't be on all the time and changing to a sealed system probably won't fix that. I'd like to know (like GT Tango) what the temperature gauge says. Typical overheating behaviour on my crossflow (before I changed to a sealed system) used to involve loss of water. This loss of water usually resulted in the fan running *less* because the water level dropped so that the fan sensor wasn't covered any more. I'd check things that could slow down but not totally prevent water circulation - duff water pump, radiator covered by a dead pigeon, clogged passageways. Could the thermostat be broken? Could it be the wrong spec thermostat? If the thermostat were opening up only partially it could prevent full flow of coolant. Anthony

Colin, when you say the coolant only expands by about 80cc when going from 20 to 80 degrees, what about the volume of the container that the water is in? I.e. the various passages in the engine block plus the radiator? Do they increase or decrease in volume as the engine block and radiator heat up? Also, I was once advised to leave an air gap below my crossflow's filler cap (when it had the "normal" caterham crossflow cooling arrangement, with an expansion tank). I don't know if this was good or bad advice but certainly relevant. Anthony Edited by - ashaughnessy on 24 Jul 2006 15:46:34

I've been wondering about this myself. Since replacing my 4-2-1 exhaust on my crossflow with the significantly bigger 4-1 race exhaust I'm wondering whether the battery is getting a lot hotter. There've been quite a few occasions recently when the battery has been initially hesitant at turning over. I was thinking of fitting a heat shield but perhaps I should think about putting the battery by the scuttle instead. Anthony

I don't think sooty plugs are a reliable indicator of much. If you've got oil coming out of the dipstick and filler cover, do you have an adequate (and working) crankcase breather arrangement? Anthony

Petrolhead said > "I would also say that 45s with a 244 is probably a waste" Thanks Petrolhead, you couldn't have told me this before I splashed out on a new set of 45s to go with my 244 cam? ☹️ Actually, I was trying to get the most out of a cooking engine so I think the 45s are probably worth it and the drivability at low revs and part throttle is excellent. McBreadhead - if you have a distributor, is the distributor controlling the timing with its mechanical advance mechanism? If so, you may well want to get the distributor rebuilt by someone like Aldon who will give it an advance curve that suits the engine spec. However, if you have an emerald then I presume the emerald is controlling the timing so maybe this isn't relevant. However you'd definitely want to get the emerald sorted and if your original rolling road couldn't do this then I don't see how they could do a proper job of setting up. Another thing worth thinking about - what about the cam timing? You might be able to adjust this to give better results as well. Anthony

There's no kind of sticker on my FIA-style roll bar (not full cage) and never has been and I never had any scrutineering trouble when I did 750MC racing a few years ago. Anthony

You haven't said much about how the spark is controlled. Do you have a distributor or is the ECU an all singing all dancing 3D mapped thingummy? Also, as someone else has said, 40DCOE carbs sounds small for your spec. I was advised to go for 45DCOEs (can't remember what choke size) to go with a 1700 engine with a 244 cam, a much more mild cam than yours. What about exhaust? I don't think you need to take it to a Caterham specialist, you need to take it to an engine specialist. This may sound unfair, but the way you tell things it sounds like you've taken a bunch of disparate components from disparate suppliers and thrown them together in the hope they'll work. I think you need to get someone to match your carbs, ignition and exhaust (and possibly cam timing as well) to the engine spec and then put it on the rolling road for final adjustment. If you can get one person to do all of it so much the better. It could also be something broken, though. Do you have any sensors (e.g. throttle position sensor) feeding the ECU? Whereabouts in the country are you? Then someone could recommend an engine fettler for you. Anthony

Uneven tyre pressures can certainly cause this. This is especially noticeable on the track when you set the pressures equal when the tyres are cold but the tyres warm up unevenly and the warm pressures are therefore unequal. If this happens you need to come in to the pits quickly from a hot lap and equalise the tyre pressures while all tyres are at their operating temperature. On the road, all you can really do is set the cold pressures. But there's probably loads of other possible reasons due to suspension setup etc. that are beyond my understanding. Anthony

My wife whines from the front end and pops and bangs from the rear end. Should I be worried?

I once had a very unpleasant noise from the transmission tunnel on hard cornering which turned out to be a knackered gearbox mounting allowing the propshaft front UJ to foul the tunnel. Replaced the gearbox mount and everything was fine. The noise wasn't a clunking - more high speed than that. This was on a four speed live axle car - don't know if more modern cars would suffer from this. Possibly worth checking both gearbox and engine mountings anyway if all else fails. Engine mounts are always worth a check after I found both of mine were cracked all the way through and the engine was about to drop onto the floor! Anthony

Joseph, I'd be interested in a report back on the refitting of the sump with new gasket. I think I may have a leaky sump gasket and it looks like a fiddly job to get the new gaskets on and properly seated while you're upside down under the car. Anthony

I recently had a caterham 4-1 side exit exhaust fitted to my crossflow. The car originally had a standard supersprint spec (135 bhp allegedly) and a 4-2-1 rear exit system. The engine has now been rebuilt with a 244 cam and revs to about 7000 safely. Expected power output was to be about 150 and expected peak power was to be at over 6500 rpm. So I asked about carbs and exhaust. The engine builders advice was to go for 45DCOE carbs (instead of 40DCOE) and to change the exhaust to the aforementioned caterham 4-1 side exit. He said he'd seen the caterham system before and it was just right for my spec of engine, with just the right header tube diameters. The end result was power output of almost exactly 150 bhp at I think 6850 RPM with what seems to me like good torque delivery and good responsiveness at low revs and a power curve that stays at a remarkably even gradient all the way up the rev range. I looked into a powerspeed exhaust but my engine builder was unsure due to the pipe diameters being slightly smaller than the caterham system. So I went with my engine builder's advice and bought the caterham system. Anthony