Lennie

If you have an apollo then how long you wait gives you a different reading so checking between sessions on a track day is a bit hit and miss also even a standard car takes some time for the oil to drain, a vvc dipstick would also be different. My original thinking was one dipstick one method.

Freestyle completely unbiased opinion

Sorry 01892 540828

Bilbo give me a ring 01982 540828 and I will get a set off to you.

We do do a stiffer bar which the supergrad racers requested as they do not have lsd and run very stiff 'in Caterham terms' set ups. Price is the same £150. but if you buy one then would like to swop we will change them for you free of charge

Hope I can help with this. When I was at Caterham the original dipstick was a modified Rover, which we cut a notch in. When the Apollo came in I noticed that the oil in the sump was very low when the car was running so I recommend to Reg. who designed the Apollo that oil should be checked running i.e. when the Apollo is full. We then made the vvc, which had problems running bearings, but when checked running, the oil was ok, on investigation we found that the vvc dipstick was different to the standard k due to the amount of oil the head retains. I then decided that with all the different combinations that the simplest way was to check all engines the same way with or without Apollo, vvc or standard. So the correct way is: - Use a Caterham dipstick which are now bespoke to the sump, run the car and warm the oil and check when running, in practice you can check with the engine stopped as long as you do it immediately. Those with vvc may also want to rev the car as the head when running at reasonable revs seem to retain an awful lot of oil. The simple test is to check when cold and having not run and then running to see how much the level drops. The thinking being that the oil level should be correct when running, now the standard Rover stick allows for the drop but with a different sump and the fact some cars have Apollo’s I went for one dipstick to avoid confusion and one method for checking for the same reason. Judging from this thread that didn’t work.

Freestlye have a new de dion rolling chassis for sale. The car was a project we were involved in and is complete, painted and with leather seats. The car can come with gearbox and diff if required. The chassis is for injection BUT the exhaust hole is BDR. if any body thinks that they would be intrested give me or Gary a ring for all the details. 01892 540828 07946634021 Len, 07801749054 Gary. This is a great looking car just waiting for an engine.

You are getting older.Has it got LSD ?

If you undo the large lock nut on the rack, with a grub screw in the middle, underneath is a slide that fits on the back of the rack and controls the play between the rack and the pinion. If that part is metal that is the problem they were converted to plastic due to exactly this problem. Phone Caterham and I am sure they will send you one. To adjust the play when reassembling, screw the locknut to finger tight screw in the grub screw until there is no play then tighten the locknut this can be a bit trial and error as the grub screw goes in when the locknut is tightened. A good spanner that fits the large nut is one that removes rad fans on older cars or a adjustable.

Gary and I are selling our metallic Monte Carlo blue car. Spec is the latest EU3 1800 Supersport engine which has just been hand built using all new parts and is unrun. The pushrod suspension has been replaced with wide track but will come with a freestyle road track day handling kit which has adjustable dampers and roll bar. Rest of the spec is leather seats, five speed box and painted FIA roll bar and is in the condition you would expect of a car which has done less than 500 miles. Gary and I built the car with a great deal of care and attention to detail to demonstrate the new suspension. If you are aware of Garys fastidious nature then you know that the car will show all the experience of someone who built all the JPE's. The car is unregistered [we have been running on trade plates] so you will be the first registered owner which we will do and we will also deliver to any where in the country free. Price for fully built Freestyle equiped car with SVA and delivery? £21000 Which I make as a £4000 saving. Ring Len on 01892 540828 0r 07946 634021

Bet it's the steering column clamp in front of the scuttle,the pinch bolt wears the inner column. Try undoing it and moving up or down to a different posistion tighten the two bolts first using locktight and then the grub screw also using locktight.

Antony it is something we will look at. I suppose the route to go would be to get the post 96 up and running and then see how much can been taken over to fit other years. Forgot to mention that running the car without the nose cone and bonnet it is fascinating to see the set up working and how much the rockers and dampers move compared to a normal set up. I did suggest to Gary would could make perspex nose and bonnet, like the F40 but he said that they may have to wait. We did have some concerns, well I did, on how much heat would be generated in the shocks from the increase movement and the fact they are under the bonnet but there does not seem to be any problems, talking to AVO they also say that it will not be a problem. Another idea we had was to make the lower wishbones so that they run a nomal external set up but have wide track, top spherical joint all in the flat tube, this would allow, a later date,to uprate to the pushrod using the same wishbones. The problem then would be where to fix the roll bar, but I have an idea for that to.

Thanks Richard for the endorsements. To keep everyone up to date on how things are going: Testing has gone better than we could have hoped. The general ride, handling and steering is a definite improvement and more importantly, nothing creaks, groans or rattles and nothing has broken. Now, if I was Colin Chapman, we would make things lighter until they do break and then go back a bit. Unfortunately, I am not Chapman, so I think we will leave as is. The car is being stripped now and pushrods, support bars and Y-piece are off to Arch to be jigged and productionised. The pushrod itself I am very keen to get in aerofoil section; Gary, on the other hand, needs to calculate the stress as it is under a severe compression load. Probably the best guy to talk to is Bruce at Arch as he has such vast experience with all things suspension, so a decision on that is imminent. I have been using the car for a while now and growing more and more confident in it. The change of direction is simply sensational and the ride has not been compromised. What cars behind me think of the idiot in front driving with the nearside wheel in all the rough stuff on the outside of the road I dread to think and I am amazed that no-one has phoned the police to report me, but with the nearside wheel working very hard and the offside wheel having an easier time on the smooth part of the road, the car seems remarkably unaffected. The front springs that we are running have been calculated by Gary to represent the same as our normal handling set up but we may experiment a bit more when the productionised bits come through. We feel confident enough that the design is right and spring rates and damping values can be tweaked once all hardware is up and running. We still have an issue with the roll bar. Gary is quite keen to run without one but I think from a marketing point of view and adjustment point of view, we do need one. One of the main benefits of the suspension is the preload we can give to the spring dampers without compromising ride height and as discussed on a different thread, the replacement of the top ball joint with a spherical joint has transformed the steering. We are hoping to get some pictures of the car onto the site soon and also on the Freestyle website. If anyone has any questions give me a call - I will be only too happy to have a chat. My number is on the website.

If you are not going any faster Andy, Gary and I want to know why!

You can't mount Avo's up side down. the adjusters must be at the bottom. The Bilstiens can, but the only reason the racers did it was that the springs can be changed quicker by undoing the bolt on the lower wishbone and slide the spring off downwards.

And the winner is Peardrop. We are going to measure how much turning force the top ball joint takes to move. If peardrop gives me an address as soon as they are available I will get the package off to you. And t.f was I that drunk in France that I told you all our secrets

That is not the mod. But I will give the first package free to who ever can come up with the answer. One clue, it will help those with 22% racks more than the standard 8%.

Sorry did not answer all the questions we hope to have it all signed off in early March. But then Arch will need time to jig all the ancillary parts as only the wishbones have been done this is about two weeks to a month depending on work load, hopefully they wont have to many crash repairs on as the race season will not be in full swing. The rockers are all done on a cnc mill so the mods only involve changing the numbers. We have not get any pictures on the web because we are not sure how to do it, perhaps we could send some pictures to one of you computer literate people [Fred are you reading this] and they could get them on Blat Chat.

Just got back from the workshop. We are trying to get a track day soon so we can get some track miles on the car. So far the road miles have been fine, no crashing and banging, which with all the spherical joints is very encouraging. The handling seems fine we are trying to be subjective but the steering is a big improvement and the ride seems to be a lot more composed, we ran the car with no nose and bonnet to observe how much work the dampers are doing and they are certainly working a lot faster. The road is probably a better test than the track especially considering the state of the roads in Kent, compared to a smooth track. The steering mod should be relatively cheap and Gary and I are currently working out the best way to produce it. When I say working out don’t imagine wind tunnels, computer simulations and stress analysis, no we have a cup of tea and a donut and try to tear each idea apart then Gary tells me what we are going to do. Marius the chickens are fine, first egg was laid Friday.

As promised an update on how the pushrod suspended car is going.We have now put a few miles on it and so far nothing has broken and Gary is feeling pretty chuffed with himself. The ride on the road is a definite improvement with a unexpected bonus that the steering has been transformed. We know why but are keeping it to our self at the moment as we are looking at putting a conversion on a standard car. One benefit is we can at last put some preload on the springs without compromising the ride height we knew this would be the case but are amazed at the affect it has had. The roll bar is no longer preloaded which means that setting the corner weights is a much more straight forward affair and the car should react to left and right hand bends the same. It is not all plain sailing we do have some clearance problems with the rockers but this is due to the dampers fouling on full droop because AVO have changed the shockers slightly so it is just a matter of changing the rocker dimensions. Now to name drop we had the son of a mates mate who just happens to work for a leading F1 team down at the workshop, we were told in no uncertain terms that we must not mention the team, he stayed three hours and was very impressed with the chickens coming in and out but still gave us a lot of aero advice for the car so we have now got stacks to be getting on with. You will find out next season which team it is, it’s the one that’s front engined.

As you can see from the time of this posting, it has been a long day, but it all fits. Not too sure about whether it will fit pre-96 chassis but once we have got this up and running we do intend to look at other fitments. Anyway, "time for bed" said Zebedee.......

Just to let every body who has enquiried about our new suspension know that Arch delivered the first productionised wishbones at the Autosport show on Friday, they look fabulious [slightly biased view]. A big thanks to Bruce, Tim and John at Arch who are really helping with the project. We wanted to fit them on Saturday but had so many visitors to the work shop there was no point. As long as Blat chatters dont think we are using this post for advertising I will keep you up to date with developments, and remember if you want to see the car we are about 15 minutes from the factory and Dartford bridge and 5 minutes from Brands, give us a ring 07946 634021 just to make sure we are there and not road testing.

The new shocks are avalible for wide track standard both with or without spherical joints. We also have some new specially made spherical joint spacers to make fitting a doddle no more bits of old tube and packing washers. The dampers are abour one 30% lighter than the steel ones, but with the same damping . Sorry if this seems like an advert.

I have to put my hands up the shim kits do not exist as a production item yet. Gary and I have always paid a lot of attention to the rear of the car and have found that all cars are different from side to side and hence wrong in one way or another. Gary makes angled shims that adjust camber and toe in at fixed amounts to allow safe easy adjustment, they replace the thin alli between the tube and ear. It is not very good engineering practice to put bits of feeler gauge as most race teams do, and is not a time consuming trial and error job. They also mean you can allow for slightly bent tubes instead of replacing the whole thing. Unfortunately we have been unable to productionise the shims enough to make the project worthwhile. It has taught us a lesson though, when we had the brochure produced, because of the long lead time, we thought they would be up and running by the festival but it is not the case. We can only apologise but the project is on going and we have told, all the customers who have enquired about them, that we will get back to them.

Ring Lumenition, they are at the Elephant and Castle in London and are a really nice firm to deal with.