Dave Martin Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 Have had the car for 2 years and love it to bits, but.. am now looking to up the power. Very unfortunately, I am not a technical person at all, just clean, polish, admire and drive, so have to get the work done for me. I am looking at two options. 1. Caterham's advertised upgrade to a Supersport R 1800 to 160 bhp. 2. Local garage John Noble Motorsport upgrade with Lumenition EMS & Throttle Body Conversion to add 25bhp to 35bhp. Has anyone any advice on the best option, or any other options I should comsider. Any help will be much appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bertie Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 Nothing wrong with John Noble at all but take a look at www.DVApower.co.uk Exceptionaly well regarded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dino ferrana Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 Caterham Upgrade: Adds Power Adds value but costs more. John Noble and DVA: Adds Power lowers value and costs less. Go for the Cat upgrade and anyone would be willing to buy the car. With a non-factory upgraded car less people will be willing to buy it however good the tuners reputation is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bertie Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 Can't disagree at all, I suppose it depends on if you want to be able to trade it back to Caterham or not. Which makes me think, why not trade it in for a Superlight or SLR and you get all the other nice bits as well? Edited by - bertie on 17 Feb 2004 11:26:24 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jason Plato Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 Take the engine out , buy a used engine from the breakers , tune the doggies whatsits off it 😬 Then put your "spare" standard engine back in to sell Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dino ferrana Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 Even if you don't want to sell it back to Caterham less people will want a significantly non-standard car. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leadership Team SLR No.77 Posted February 17, 2004 Leadership Team Share Posted February 17, 2004 All the arguements for sticking to Caterham upgrades would be fine if they gave a good trade in value when you come to part with the car - it appears they don't - unless of course somebody can prove otherwise 🤔 Do as Dave Jackson says - build the engine you want and keep the other for a rainy day. Stu. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tom7 Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 I would wholeheartedly recommend DVA Power. Upgrades for every budget, first class reputation, I've not heard of and K engined owner (7 or Elise) be less than 100% satisifed, a real education, if you want to join in you can and a thoroughly nice bloke to deal with. Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sheds Moderator Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 DVA is very generous with info too - I rang him a few weeks back to talk about K series cam timing, verniers, offsets etc and although he doesn't know me from Adam he gave me the full tale, along with loads of tech info, free of charge, during the middle of the day when I am sure he has better things to do like build engines for paying customers. While it is true that CC won't accept a DVA car as a px, who cares? Anyone with any sense sells it here or in LowFlying and any buyer who knows about these things will recognise the quality of a decent engine builder's work, especially if the seller produces the receipt and a folder of technical bumf on all the new shiny parts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard_E Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 I documented my upgrade through DVA on a 1600 supersport. I was rather extreme and went to 190 bhp, still at 1600CC. If any body wants a copy drop me an email. Cheers, Rich. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard_E Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 Hi Dave, YHM. Rich. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard_E Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 Both Daves have email Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Support Team Shaun_E Posted February 17, 2004 Support Team Share Posted February 17, 2004 I think that most blatchatters assume that we are the biggest market for Seven's - the fact is we aren't. Therefore think carefully before upgrading about what you plan to do with the car. If you ever think you will need to sell it quickly or part ex with Caterham then the official upgrade route is the only way to go. If on the other hand you intend to keep the car forever and are unlikley to need to liquidate your assests 😳, then the DVA/John Noble route will undoubtedly offer better value and a more progressive upgrade path. There is a market for upgraded cars and the older the car is, the less important official upgrades become, but your DVA engined car will be worth less on the open market than a Supersport R engined car even though the performance may be similar. As I have now started making un-official mods (Laminova, Radtec radiator) I guess I'll end up going the DVA route but then I never want to sell the car 😬 Shaun Yellow SL #32 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve Campbell Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 I'm in the same boat as DM (had the car over 3 years and mechanical muppet .) Anyone like to comment on how different the ss would feel with an extra 20-25bhp re: the Caterham mod to 160bhp ? What about driveability for round town ? Is there a "threshhold" of adding bhp that you can feel / notice ? (ie add 10 bhp, you won't notice the difference) Going to 160bhp from the 1.6kss, what would that do to the 0-60 times (presume handling no change other than being more careful with the right foot) ? Ta, Steve Campbell P889 GRR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard_E Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 HI Steve. Below is an chunk of my article that describes how the car now feels. The car remains very drivable behaving like the supersport up to about 4500 rpm but it is louder and throatier. The throttle bodies give the car a much improved throttle response and add to the character. From 4500-6000 rpm the car becomes very much more responsive and the back end starts to squat down. From 6000-8200 rpm it goes like a scolded cat. This makes over taking very easy with the smallest gaps presenting opportunities. I recently attended a track day and the difference was very noticeable, the old car started to run out of breath from 7200 rpm up and it was not worth pushing any harder, now the revs keep rising all the way to 8000 rpm where the car is pulling very strongly. Hope this helps. Rich Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard_E Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 Hi Shaun, If you need to sell the car as std, Dave Jackson has the right idea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Support Team Shaun_E Posted February 17, 2004 Support Team Share Posted February 17, 2004 Richard - true enough if you have the ability to swap an engine quickly or a few hundred quid to have someone else do it. Not all Seven owners are mechanically able and for them the thought of "just swapping an engine" will not compute. When we offer advice on blatchat, we need to consider the circumstances of the person seeking the advice. I have learnt many things from this website and without it would probably not have been able to make the right decisions for me but, there has been much conflicting advice that I have sometimes had difficulty in resolving and if I had taken some of the advice at face value could have made expesnsive mistakes. The above is not meant to be a dig at anybody - just a reminder that there is a huge range of mechanical skill and finances amongst seven owners - and long may it reamin that way 😬 Regarding the Supersport R - it is significantly more powerful than a 1.6SS. I drove one for a few days while my 1.6 SS engined car was being serviced - do a search for my description made previously. Shaun Yellow SL #32 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Bowden Posted February 17, 2004 Share Posted February 17, 2004 I would echo what Shaun has said. I believe a major factor is, to decide what the upgrade for?...road, track, competition. May be of no relevance to your decision, but the "R" upgrade and any thought of R300 or R400 takes your engine to 1800 cc, a SL is 1600 yes I know you know that, but for any class structure in competition outside the club this could be a major factor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Martin Posted February 18, 2004 Author Share Posted February 18, 2004 Yes Shaun, you are right. Changing an engine for me would be like trying to do a crossword puzzle blind. All the comments have been most useful though and thanks to all for them. Don't know if I am any nearer a decision, but veering towards official route I guess. Any further thouhts welcome. Also as asked earlier, if anyone does know the 0-60 of a Supersport-R be grateful for that info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dino ferrana Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 You would probably be looking at low 4s 0-60 for a Supersport R. One of the critical factors for me if I was to go Supersport R is that you actually get quite a few new engine bits internally when you go to 1800. If you have done quite a few miles then this must be quite a bonus! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Sture Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 Dave I have a superlight which has more or less the John Noble conversion. Unfortunately for comparison purposes I have not driven a non-modified 1.6k ss (133bhp). The previous owner had the lumenition ems and throttle bodies fitted to the car but with the standard exhaust and no verniers the car (when I bought it) felt really gutless low down and gave around 143bhp. I suspect it was worse low down thatn a non-modified car. The addition of a competition exhaust (second hand) and verniers together with a rolling road setup (All this work carried out at John Noble) transformed the car into what it should have been all along - it pulls massively better between 3-5k revs than it did before. However, I don't know how it compares to a non-modified 1.6k ss. The rear end is more lively since the work was done due to the extra power lower down. The car now feels plenty fast enough for road use, although I;m not used to it yet - haven't been on track yet since the work was done. I have no worries about reselling the car - although my optimism may be misplaced. There are quite a lot of people who know about DVA, so it's not like he's an unknown, and I have never heard anyone say anything negative about buying from him. The 1800 conversion was never an option for me as I want to keep below 1700cc for competition purposes (not that I've done any competing in local events yet in the car - but I'm aiming to get round to it one day!) Whichever you do I expect you'll be delighted with the end result. N111AOW is now running as it should be! 159.1 bhp according to the rolling road print (and don't you miss out the 0.1 - very important that is!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Ferguson Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 Richard e, could u send me the info u have on your upgrade from dva plse my mail, mark7.lynn@btinternet.com, thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_thombs Posted February 18, 2004 Share Posted February 18, 2004 I have the Supersport-R upgrade and I'm based in Essex if anyone fancies a trip out ! (for demonstration purposes 😬) but I have had this on the car since I bought it so therefore can't comment on it beforehand. To answer the earlier question my 0-60 is the same as the R300 so 4.7ish Jon Ex Beaulieu no31 now Supersport R.. My Caterham Pics Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeilC Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 I recently bought a standard 1.6k SV (115bhp), though it was fun & quick and would be happy with the performance for at least a couple of years. Then I had the car serviced at Caterham and borrowed their converted loan car. Absolutely fantastic, so much more fun, sideways on command and sounded great. I now have to find the money from somewhere..... I will use the Caterham route due to the previously mentioned potential pitfalls of resale, but also because the service Caterham have given me (I bought the car privately at 9 months old) has been without fault. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_thombs Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 Neil C That happened to me - my 1.6Vx went in for a service and I then ended up buying their ex loan car......do it......do it....... Great fun 😬 Jon Ex Beaulieu no31 now Supersport R.. My Caterham Pics Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now