Rob Walker

Pfreeman, I suggest you ring Minister and ask if you should fit the 74C stat. If you have the 88c stat fitted it does not surprise me that you are seeing 100c as the 88C stat becomes fully open at 100C +/- 2C.

Roger, I think I will decline the offer to have a look at "Chris`s" tool. Im not that way inclined strictly a crumpet man!

Checked with Caterham the R500 is fitted with a 74C degree thermostat. The parts dept can supply or you can get one from your Rover dealer GTS 1102. Should you all go out and change your thermostats, probably not without expert advise. Sevens running with a standard K engine and cooling system, running with the MEMS ecu closed loop and a cat may be better sticking with the original fit 88C or going down to a 82C stat if the car is going to be thrashed around the track.

I find 121 Dba hard to believe. Is this measured without the silencer box fitted and at full rpm? Is his tool calibrated. Edited by - Rob walker on 8 Jun 2001 09:23:36

Dave its recomended practise to increase the lenght ot the rubber breather pipe and take it up higher into the wheel arch according to Phil Stewart. The Diff capacity is .7L BTW. Cornering too hard on those wood tyres your using, chance would be a fine thing!

Peter running my fan in reverse by accident on my Esprit increased running temperatures by 20C even at high speed. This situation occured when I fitted pattern made fans, I didn`t know they ran the opposite way.

I have just spoken to QED their 78C stat as per their catalogue is in fact 74C. They advised me that they also sell a remote Thermostat housing to get the stat away from the engine. Their recomendation for the Caterham was to fit the 82C.

Thanks Roger. Andy you can get 78C thermostats from QED and 82C stats are standard fit on dare I say it the Rover Diesel engines.

In the latest LF Minister suggest that 70-75C is the optimum operating temp under load and that they would not like to see 85-90C ever. Well the K is fitted with a 88C thermostat as standard which starts to open at 88C and is fully open at 100C. In practise I have seen over 90C water temp on my K on track days, I have noted similar temperatures on other members cars. Minister also suggest 100C is the ceiling limit for oil tank temperature, again I regularly exceed this. The question is are we all running our K`s too hot and is there a case for rushing out and fitted 78 or 82C thermostats or are Minister talking hot air?

Haynes 3399 covers 211,214,216,218&220 Dec 1995-1998.

Nig, I have had my six speed stripped inspected and upgraded today at Road & Race. Phil specified the cheapy Shell Helix which is a GL4 grade lub. The reason GL5 lubs are not suitable is that they are too slippy and will not allow the syncro rings to grip on the tapers causing poor gear selection. So get down to your nearest Shell Garage pronto, Phil seemed to think that it may be unavailable soon.

Peter, One would think so, but it does not seem to be that simple.

The Red one is a Vegantune . The engine has just been newly built for Kevin Ford by Protune. It is possible to modify a XF to take a twin cam head, my mate Tony Thorpe has just done this and is very happy with it.

The Red one is a Vegantune . The engine has just been newly built for Kevin Ford by Protune. It is possible to modify a XF to take a twin cam head, my mate Tony Thorpe has just done this and is very happy with it.

3 , 4 or 5 on top that is the question????????? I am currently waiting patiently for Jez Coates to clear this one up. Minister have confirmed that they build the R500 with the standard Rover bearing configuration namely 3 grooved top mains on 2,3&4 and 7 plain on all the rest. On examination of the crank this bearing configuration effectively blocks off the oil feeds from 1main to 1 BE and 5 main to 4 BE which has confused me. I have contacted Farndon who have confirmed that the crank design was to run with a continous oil feed throughout the crank. So it seems as if its a trade off oil feed against greater bearing surface area/load bearing capacity. Aren`t you glad you left all this to Roger King. The DKE crank I had made was not crossdrilled on either mains or crank pins. It had pin to main drillings and had a small groove machined around the mains to maintain oil feed to the big ends.

Peter the VP2 big end shells are only available in the one size Grade B. Glacier manufacuter -.010" and -.020" I understand. These are only in the standard plated material however. If you e-mail me off list I will give you full details of the crank DKE made for me. Caterham can supply you with a Farndon fully crossdrilled lightweight crank. This should present no installation problems as your block will only have been modded to take the tangs on the grooved shells. You will need to run 5 grooved on the top in any case. The Farndon crank is also 3Kg lighter than the DKE. Edited by - Rob walker on 23 May 2001 07:10:16

Roger/Peter, Has the crank survived ? Its a great pity that this has happened I for one was interested to know how your mains had lasted in view of running with grooved shells top and bottom. Obviously no sensible conclusion can be made now.

I know it sounds risky to route the oil pipes through the alternator belt but thats how its done and once you have secured them to the belt adjustment bracket with a couple of tiewraps it is very secure. The only problem I had with the kit was that it was necessary to trim off one of the lugs on the block with a file in oder that the oil pipes coming from the sandwich plate could be routed without stressing them. With the pipes stressed I could not get the sandwich plate to seal.

Peter I would have thought the rod will still be servicable. If you consider that on the R500 they run with interferance fit gudgeon pins as do many other high performance K`s. In fitting the gudgeon into the little end its one common method to heat the end of the rod to about 300C or when it starts to blue and then fit the pin whilst its expanded. I can see no reason why this is heating would be any different to your heat damage from the lack of lubrication. The rod will still be EN 24 and have retained its carbon content. This localised tempering may even prevent brittleness and cracking. Oh as you probably know the best method of fitting interferace fit gudgeon pins is to freeze them in liquid nitrogen and gently heat the little end with a hot air gun. Edited by - Rob walker on 19 May 2001 10:46:45

You have my sympathy Peter. I lost all the oil from my Esprit some years ago a stone had gone through the oil cooler on the motorway. I pulled off the road within seconds of noting the drop in oil pressure but it was too late 3 of the four big ends were run and examination of the crank revealed heat damage that was still visible after the regrind. On your rebuild I hope you are aware that upgraded Vandervell VP2 big end shells are available from Caterham.

Its normal for oil pressure to drop to around 2 bar at idle and should be around 4 bar at all other times. If its a hot day and your giving it some and oil temperature gets to 130C or above your oil pressure will go down .5-1bar across the range ie 1bar idle and 3 bar. If its lower than this it could be time to have a look at the be ends and main bearings. The big ends have recently been uprated to Vandervell VP2 lead indium and the mains remain Rover OE.

Tim, Ford LSD thats the ZF. Jack up the car and check the backlash by holding the flange where the prop connects and one of the wheels. There should be only be a tiny amount of backlash .010" is about right.

The only adjustment on the AP suretrack is the adjustment for backlash in mesh between the C&P. The ZF plate diff can be adjusted on preloading of the friction plates as well as backlash. A lot of backlash can cause a clunk when taking up drive and transmission shunt when moving slowly in a high gear. Phil Stewart of Road and Race will sort you out.

I have run with and with out the ball,the cooling system seems to function well in both cases. What you should bear in mind is that removal of the ball will result in a constant flow of coolant back to the top of the expasion bottle and this coolant should in fact be going through the head so removal of the ball must reduce the efficiency of the cooling system slightly. How much is the question it certainly is no advantage apart from releasing any trapped air. The expansion of coolant is another issue this is taken care of with the big pipe exiting the expasion tank underneath, this both tops up the system and allows for any expansion. So boys and girls free of your balls don`t drill um out it could be painfull.

2000 grade wet& dry used with WD40 then polish with wire wool and Autosol. try just the wire and Autosol first. you can get a mirror finish with these, the Wet and dry is only if its really oxidised