R500

[EvoDunc]

Hi Guys

 

Only recently got my R500 and posted on here a few weeks ago about the hopping and kangarooing. Anyway, general concensus was it needed a remap so took it to Steve Greenald yesterday. Good guy and he confirmed good car. However, when I took it out I was still hopping all over the place so Steve took it for a run, his verdict??.....all OK. He took me as a passenger and it seems you have to drive these things in a high gear at low seeds. I have only been used to an R400 on the track so never experienced this before........first road going Caterham (and I choose an R500!!). Do you guys have this???.......comments appreciated.

[Gambo]

Never driven a R5 before, but after talking to Chris Gale, who had a r5 evo, He said got a bit fud up of driving round with at least 3500 on the clock to keep it smooth in traffic. It's a race tuned engine, so it'll need afew revs.

edited to add, His car had not been remapped.

RED 2.0 HPC 230BHP

 

Edited by - Gambo on 11 Apr 2007 10:30:54

[Jason Plato]

*rolleyes*what a load of nonsense - the cams are relativly mild 1227 grinds, the roller barrels if setup properly work ok on other models .

 

There is no reason why a modern ecu cannot run at low / partial throttle openings without this behaviour in my opinion - my engines on throttle bodies have never suffered this at similar performance levels when setup with Emerald at Emerlads rollers......

 

Its interesting to note that the chap in Scotland also said the same about Steve Greenalds setup of his engine - and steve apparentlky insisted that there was no poor running

 

 

[Rob Walker]

My R500 spec k would happly run in 6th gear at 1500 rpm and pull clean to the rev limiter and there was no " hopping and kangarooing "

[Mark Piper]

I own an R500 and it exhibits just this behaviour. I had a 200 bhp K with MBE which did the same thing. I swapped for an Emerald and Dave rolling-roaded the car too - the result was a broader spread of torque and the "hopping" disappeared.

 

I believe that both Mark Durrant and Peter Trueman have had their R500s remapped by Steve and this has eradicated the hopping and broadened the torque curve and improved the general driveability no end. Furthermore they have seen increases in bhp too.

 

Dunc, so are you saying that his remap hasn't improved the hopping at all?...does the car feel any different in any way post-remap - I only ask as I have been considering using him to remap my car.

[Mark Durrant]

Duncan

 

Your welcome to come and have a drive of my R500 to do a back to back comparison as my car pulls very smoothly from low revs. I am in Horsham and will be around most evenings this week but not at the weekend as I am off to Cadwell Park for the first sprint.

 

Dave J

 

The problem the owner from Scotland had with his Duratec was the engine dying when quickly applying full throttle not kangarooing and this was thought to be due to cam timing.

 

Mark D

Comp Sec

 

[neil.cavanagh]

reading the orginal post and this comment:

"it seems you have to drive these things in a high gear at low speed" is it that the car will pootle along happily in 6th at 30mph (ie low revs) but if you try and do 30mph in 2nd or 3rd it kangaroos around?

 

If so then what it could be is simply your foot bouncing on and off the throttle... I can get this in me weedy 140bhp SV. THe car reacts so quickly to small throttle inputs that you can get a position where the car lunges forward, boucning your foot off the throttle, which then makes the car slow very quickly, which bounces your foot back onto the throttle... which makes car lunge forwards boucing your foot off the pedal... etc etc...

[Peter T]

You might have a high ratio pedal fitted?

Is the cable free and not binding?

Is you accelerator pedal greased and not sticking?

A couple of things to check first before blaming the mapping.

My engine still jiggers slightly but it is a thousand times better now it has been mapped by Steve Greenald.

It really is an art to apply light throttle and you soon become use to it, it is something that the R500 engine with roller barrels suffers from, after all no one complains of how fast it goes do they?

People always seem to highlight the worst things.

 

R500 260 BHP Mango Madness CAR NO-37

[dannylt]

It's clearly subjective. Given how many people have been happy with the Steve's work (including myself) then I would be inclined to go with what they think? Obviously if you can have a go in someone else's car that's even better.

[Peter T]

PS, if you want a try in mine you are welcome.

 

R500 260 BHP Mango Madness CAR NO-37

[Dannyboy]

Is this an open invite Pete??? 😬 😬 😬

 

I'll be round in 2 hours if it is

 

Dannyboy

 

[dannylt]

Oi - he was replying to me 😬

[Dickie Normuss]

Can I jump on the Peter T test drive bandwagon? 😬

 

VX HPC - Loud and proud here

Watch out, whatever hits the fan will not be distributed evenly

[k80rum]

I was able to turn my normally well-mannered VHPD into a bag-full of kangaroos by unchecking the fueling on over-run setting for my Emerald map. It reduced popping and banging (which being quite sad I liked ) but turned the throttle into an on/off switch. I couldn't wait to get home to set it back.

 

Steve G's among the best in his field and it certainly sounds as though the car's as well set up as it will ever be. Maybe it will have a different character from the R400 or maybe it's a lighter or sticking cable reacting more violently to throttle foot (although I'd have thought Steve'd notice that when he drove it). The kangarooing couldn't be clutch-related I suppose - definitely engine?

 

As an aside, my clutch is noticeably heavy. Apparently (noticeable to other caterham drivers at least - it's always been that way and never caused a problem so I never even noticed it) - i guess some things must be subjective.

 

If you can get a drive of another R500 for a back-to-back comparison it'd be a quick and easy test to rule out subjectiveness and get a third opinion

 

Oh, and if the kangarooing gets too much, I'll happily swap for my VHPD which is currently out of the car and ready to be exchanged 😬

 

Best of luck with it

 

Edited by - k80rum on 11 Apr 2007 15:59:25

[John Howe]

I have not such problem with my engine that can be assoicated with the wild life of Australia

 

JH

Deliveries by Saffron, the yellow 230bhp Sausage delivery machine

[EvoDunc]

Definately not moaning about Steves mapping. He drove the car after the session and demonstrated to me that it needed to be in a higher gear than I was using when trundling along slowly. Before the R500, I had never driven a Caterham on the road (only tracked an R400) so It`s down to me. By the way, graph shows 243 bhp at 8594. Also, car was with Mick Attree today for a couple of bits (good guy, totally recommend him). He drove it and loved it. Said it was one of the best cars he had ever driven!!.........just proves It`s me!!!

 

Mark................your name cropped up a few times both with Steve and Mick. I`d love to come over but difficult this week. Perhaps in a week or so??? Thanks for the offer.

 

Edited by - EvoDunc on 11 Apr 2007 16:36:30

[Mark Durrant]

Duncan

 

Mark................your name cropped up a few times both with Steve and Mick

All good I hope 😶‍🌫️ and drop an email to my profile if and when you want to pop over

 

Mark D

Comp Sec

 

[Peter T]

That is why you supplied so many biscuits then Mark.

 

R500 260 BHP Mango Madness CAR NO-37

[EvoDunc]

Mark, yep....all good.

 

Just an aside, I can see the "quote" button but how do you use it??

[mic]

As Graham says, I drove the car today and it was totally different to how I remember my R500. Graham's car is much smoother lower down and has much less shunt/hopping than my old 500 had. It pulled smoothly in any gear, really nice car.

 

 

Mick

 

Edited by - mic on 11 Apr 2007 17:06:20

[dannylt]

Said it was one of the best cars he had ever driven

 

You surely left something off what Mick said there, like "for a K-series"?! 😬

 

[mvh]

Duncun, i've recently bought a R400 ex-racer which i use on the road as well as track and i found that it kangarood alot which was due to my foot boucing on the throttle. I have my peddle set very sensistive and i found the answer is to drive in a higher gear. Both 7's i have had, had a tiny bit of slack in the peddle which i took up, but i think if i left it the jumping wouldn't be so bad?

[irrotational]

duncan, clicking the quote button sets the first "html tag" this tells the page that everything after it will be a quote...clicking the button again sets the close tag so everything after that goes back to normal text...

 

llike this you see

 

and then it goes back to normal...

 

click on the edit button above my post to see the quote tags in action...

 

---

this is a local sig for local people!

[EvoDunc]

Aha!!!..............thanks irrotational. So, you have to retype the quote. I thought it would be like SELOC where you just click on the "quote" button attached to the post to which you are referring and it gives you that text.