Initial Impressions of the CSR 260 Race Car.

[fatcat]

Initial Impressions of the CSR 260 Race Car. I’m no motoring journalist and I’m only barely competent as a clubman racer so feel free to take this review with a large pinch of salt and I apologise in advance for the poor grammar, etc. However I have raced various Caterhams (SV R500, SV R500 Evo, R400) for a couple of seasons so maybe some of my thoughts will be of interest. Before I get too old, I really want to race at some of the great circuits in Europe, Spa, Monza, those sort of places. The Eurocup series would be fine if only I could fit in the car. But I don’t. So for a couple of seasons I’ve done UK club racing in an SV and had great fun too, but a three hour endurance race at the Paul-Ricard circuit really whetted my appetite for more. So, when the CSR and the Masters series appeared on the horizon it was an opportunity I couldn’t miss. Note to my children: the debts that you’ll inherit will be quite manageable really. My CSR was built by Hyperion who arranged to meet me at Donington last Friday for my first drive. The plan was to get a day’s testing in before racing at Silverstone and Lydden. This would give the car a proper shakedown and allow me to get used to it before the start of the Masters in Germany. As they wheeled the car out of the truck into the sunshine it did look rather nice. Bright yellow with a mid-blue noseband, stripe and roll cage. It also looked very purposeful, almost shark-like, squatting low on the huge Avon radial slicks (7” at the front, 10” at the rear) . The guys fired it up – it started first touch of the button with no fuss and burbled away very smoothly. It may be a powerful engine but it is clearly less highly strung than the top end K series units. The engine is also quieter, less induction roar and less noise from the silencer – this car is likely to be fine for at least some of the “quiet” test/track days - unlike most race R400’s. On cam, the engine has quite a nice bass roar, deeper than a K, almost reminiscent of a big V8. Poke around a bit, inboard front suspension looks neat, engine looks vast, even in the bigger chassis - CSR has the same dimensions as the SV. That extra space means there is no need for a cut out in the bonnet for the airbox, It’s all neatly enclosed and I guess that helps to keep the induction noise down too. That sump looks pretty exposed – better avoid any high kerbs. Anyway, overalls and boots on and hop in through the top of the roll cage for a fitting. Thankfully the scruffy but comfy beanbag & gaffer tape seat from the SV slotted perfectly into the new chassis. Just like the SV, there is a bags of space for the driver which is great. I find R400’s are hideous in this respect. I only fit in them if the seating is completely removed. Then I get extensive bruising on my ribs from the transmission tunnel because there is no lateral support without a seat. The CSR has the familiar R400 style aluminium tonneau covering the passenger side -no passenger seat of course but it wouldn’t be hard to fit one if required, e.g. for an instructor perhaps, although the plumbed-in extinguisher bottle would have to be shifted. The car also has a fixed aluminium half door on the drivers side. It looked nice and new and shiny and very vulnerable to an elbow or something. However one test day and two race meetings later it remains undented – that extra space from the wider chassis is wonderful. Slightly less wonderful were the pedals. They were too close. No problem, you might think. Shift them out to the furthest setting on the adjustable pedalbox, you would say. Wrong. The pedalbox on the CSR has just a single pivot point. The pedals can be moved away by shortening the connecting rods but there is only limited adjustment available before you have to hacksaw the ends off the rods to achieve the required position. It’s not a big deal really but it doesn’t seem to be a step forward. Anyway pedals in roughly the right place, time to hit the track. Now I’ve never driven at Donington before and I’m in a new car so a few gentle laps are in order. The engine fired up sweetly, into first gear on the familiar Caterham six-speeder and off we go. Ooops, no we don’t. Stalled it in front of everyone, how embarrassing ! It may be a big engine, but it has a properly light flywheel. Also the clutch is a new hydraulic affair. It has a shorter throw than the K series cars I’ve driven and a little bit more care is needed to get the car off the line quickly. After four race starts, I still haven’t got it quite right but that says more about me than the car. It’s different and I need to practice. On the move, the clutch is good – quick, light and it showed no signs of slipping or anything nasty. Being hydraulic, it should all be pretty maintenance free – no more broken cables etc. Yippee ! However I gather that the slave cylinder is buried in the bell-housing somewhere so it will be an engine out job if that ever does require attention. I fired it up again and slipped out onto the circuit and cruised around for a couple of laps. The engine felt wonderfully torquey, almost lazy, quite different to the R400 or R500 engines which are far more frenetic. The other thing that immediately struck me was how smooth and planted the car felt despite my hamfisted attempts to find the lines and braking points. Most race Caterhams have a fairly hard set up but the CSR positively flowed round the track, yet it wasn’t soft and certainly didn’t roll at all. I’m no engineer but something pretty wonderful has been done here. I don’t know if it’s the springs, the dampers, the geometry, the new inboard & IRS setup, the chassis or what – but it works. Back into the pits for a quick spanner and vital fluids check and then out again. Time to give the engine a proper go. I went deliberately slowly round Coppice and dropped to second at the start of Starkeys Straight. Pause for a moment, deep breath, foot down. Helmet slammed back against the headrest as the Avons bit and the car just rocketed off, into third, into fourth, then fifth, the silencer letting out a muffled but meaty bellow like a bull with a hornet up its bum. Hairpin is now a bit too close, and I mentally prepare to run straight on down the GP loop. On the anchors hard and down through the box. Blimey that stopped quickly. Through the hairpin, back off a bit and take stock. Firstly, that engine kicks out a lot of power and torque, much more than an R400 or an R500. The R500 Evo engine is similar but delivers in a slightly different way as it revs to 8500 rather than 7500 where we’d set the change lights on the CSR. No shortage of go then. Secondly, the rear tyres really work. If I’d done the same trick in the SV R500 Evo, I’d have spun the rears with the old 8” crossply slicks. These new 10” radials just dug in and worked beautifully. Finally the brakes. Nice and firm, not too much travel and bags of feel. Subsequent tests showed no sign of fade either. Combined with the new Avons, they really do the business. The unexpected bit was how stable the car felt under heavy braking. My previous cars have all tended to squirm around under hard braking at high speed and have been easy to lock up, the CSR just felt nailed to the ground and really inspired confidence. A quick note on the new tyres - they seem to last as well as they grip. The old 6” front, 8” rear crossply slicks are good when new but they go off pretty quickly. The new radials give a much more consistent level of performance for longer. I’m not particularly hard on tyres, but one set did a half day shakedown at Snetterton, a full days testing at Donington, two qualifying stints and two races at Silverstone, and then two qualifying stints at Lydden. I changed them for the final races but there was still life in them. The old tyres would have been suffering by the end of the Donington testing. The day went on with more and more laps, getting a little faster as my confidence in car grew along with my knowledge of the circuit. All the early impressions were confirmed – great engine with tyres and brakes to match and amazingly supple, well-balanced handling. Turn in was good with very little tendency to understeer - I expect this will be even sharper when I get the proper nosecone. Mine has the top exit for the radiator airflow but not the winglets or small airdam under the nose. It’s also much easier to get the power down coming out of corners which I guess is due to the bigger tyres and the improved rear suspension. The SV R500 Evo would tend to snap out at the rear with too much power on exiting a corner; the CSR just tends to drift wider but remains balanced unless really provoked. Even then it is very controllable. Towards the end of the day I was really beginning to enjoy myself. Down the start/finish straight, brake for Redgate and drop to fourth, round Redgate, slightly late apex with a good helping of kerb. Drift out to the opposite curb, foot hard down. Bring the car back to the middle of the road, short shift up to fifth to give the car time to balance before sweeping down to the right around Hollywood. Bring her slowly across to the right by the second bit of curbing, let her straighten up and balance for a fraction before peeling off blind and plunging down and left towards the apex of the Craner curve. Just kiss the kerb at the apex, hold the turn and the car naturally runs out to the right and then back in to the left in time to brake, drop to fourth and sweep through the Old Hairpin. Yeeeehaaaa. And throughout the car felt beautifully stable and balanced, just letting me know I could have gone faster ! Can’t say I ever got Coppice remotely right though ! Too much yeehaa and not enough brains section. Towards the end of the day, I caught up with a Ginetta as we approached McLeans. Thought he might move over but he held his line with me on his tail. Then he braked and turned in far too early and cut across the grass on the inside of the curb and exited out across the track somewhat sideways in a cloud of dust. Ooooh dear, brake on the apex to try to keep clear. Not clever. Car slides off, skates across the gravel and stuffs the nose and left front into the tyre wall. Ginetta gets it back together and disappears off. Bollox that was stupid of me. It’s a test day not a race. No need to push up that close. Got out and looked at the car. Bit of gravel rash, some scuffing and scratches on the nose. Fronts wheels were not pointing in the same direction. Bollox. The car was trailered back to the pits where the Hyperion guys sucked their teeth, reminded me politely that I had been warned about no spares and then they set to work. Damage was less than I feared. The radiator was pushed in, the aluminium mounting plates having absorbed a lot of the impact. But they straightened out easily enough and the radiator itself was fine. I was worried that all the fancy inboard suspension would be twisted out of shape, but no, just about everything was fine. The track rod end on the left wheel was twisted but this is one of the very few front suspension parts that is common to the CSR and the R400 so the guys had a spare in the truck. The top wishbone looked OK but they were concerned that it might have been weakened so they magically arranged to get a replacement brought up from Caterham the next day in time for the races at Silverstone. Great people Hyperion, and great support from Caterham too. So, I can’t really pretend that I planned it that way, but I can report that as well as going extremely fast, the CSR is also a pretty tough bird when things go wrong. (You just don’t get reviews this thorough in the normal motoring press ! ) On to Saturday and its Silverstone for two races in the Peterborough meeting. Lots of sevens, lots of familiar faces and a chance to chew the fat with friends. First qualifying was pretty unimpressive as I was trying to learn the circuit – never done the National before. Thankfully there’s not much to learn. In the second qualifying I started to get it together but it very nearly went wrong in a very big way. The CSR is on the rev limiter in fifth at the braking point for Copse at the end of the start/finish straight. People always ask how fast are you going; on the road I know this, but on the track I haven’t a clue – I’m concerned with rpm not mph. Someone can probably work it out, but I guess flat in fifth is somewhere North of 130mph as the thing is geared to pull at least 155mph in sixth. Anyway, at this sort of speed you really don’t want to notice the sports car that you’ve been trying to slipstream suddenly lock its rear wheels and go into a violent spin right in front of you. Trust me on this, it really isn’t good. (On reflection, I can’t see what caused it, it was too sudden to be over-zealous braking. Maybe his gearbox broke and locked as he downshifted.) At moments like this you have three choices, go left which would be onto the grass and probably into the wall, go straight on at him and hope he isn’t still there when you arrive or go right and completely mess up the corner and almost certainly spin off. I went right and just missed him by a whisker. Swerving round him at that speed would unquestionably have spun any other car I’ve driven. The CSR wasn’t happy about it at all but it held on AND made it round the corner. That, gentle readers, has nothing to with driver ability, that is the measure of a really well balanced car with a great chassis. Got back to the pits at the end of the session. The Hyperion crew were all over me with gratitude. It didn’t twig for a moment, then they explained. They’d had a grandstand view from the pit wall and assumed they were about to watch their first CSR being reduced to a heap of small mangled components. So they were very grateful that I didn’t hit him. Believe me, they weren’t half as grateful as I was ! First race was a mixed grid, couple of sports cars, a few radicals, some sevens and a brace of tintops. I had a lowly grid position thanks to the poor first qualifying. Off we went, I didn’t make a good start but at least I didn’t stall it. Now I’m not much of a driver but this car is decently quick and after a few laps I’d got past all but one of the sevens. Had a good tussle with Ian Thompson in an R400 but it wasn’t really fair. Even if I made a mistake and he nipped up the inside somewhere, I could just drive up beside him on the back straight and claim the corner at the end. He could get a good tow off me on the straight but didn’t have the power to convert it into an overtaking chance – he would just drop back as soon as he dodged out of my slipstream. It was interesting that as long as he was in my slipstream, I couldn’t drag away from him on the straight. Yes I had a straight power advantage but the CSR is some 30kg heavier than an R400 and I’m probably 20kg heavier than Ian so the difference in power to weight ratios is not as marked as you might think. There was also a Hyabusa-engined seven that could just pull away from me on the straight but I had the edge on braking and cornering so I got past him. Up front in the battle of the sevens, an R500 was making the running but although quick in a straight line, his front tyres were shot and he was having to battle with increasing understeer and couldn’t carry any speed through the corners. It looked all too easy, with a class win there for the taking in the first race. Of course I should know better than to think like that. Round Becketts and onto the back straight, squeeze the throttle foot as the turn flattens out but the car bogged down. Bollox. Must have put it in fifth instead of third as I went into the corner. But no, my nice 2.3 four pot had converted itself into a 1.7 triple. Into the pits and lots of teeth sucking. A quick check with a temperature gun on the exhaust primaries showed that No 1 cylinder was not contributing anything to the party. Oh well that’s racing. Can’t really complain about a bit of bad luck – probably used up all my good luck earlier in the day. And besides, unluckiest driver in the race was Graham Booth in a standard chassis Duratec seven. He was going very well until his front right tyre went pop under braking at the end of the back straight. The car collapsed onto the rim which buckled, part of the chassis and front suspension got twisted out of shape and the whole thing buried itself in the gravel. Thankfully he was fine but the car will need a bit of work. After a lot of prodding and poking, my problem turned out to be simply a broken wire going into the connector on the coil. The loom is fairly tight and some of the wires are pulled back quite sharply from the coils without any strain-relief. The insulation hadn’t broken but the wire inside had. Tricky to find but easy to fix. Well done to Hyperion for sorting it in time for the next race. The second race was pretty much a re-run of the first but without Graham or the R500 and with some more sevens and a few additional sports cars to add to the fun. There was even a Stealth – looks a bit like a Le Mans Prototype car , enormous thing – I could make a year’s supply of tyres from just one of its rear slicks - and with an unsilenced V8 in the back it must be one of the most inappropriately named cars of all time. Anyway I had great fun dicing with a very determined Ian Thompson in his R400 and a slightly erratic Mallock. However tactically that was an error as it allowed a big Vauxhall engined seven to get clear. Instead of driving a tight line to keep Ian at bay, I should really have taken more of risk and made a break for it – without a tow down the back straight the R400 was never going to stay with the CSR and then I could have gone after the Vauxhall. No matter, it was all great fun and good experience. The Vauxhall was the first seven home, I got in second. To complete the total destruction of my credit card, Monday was spent at Lydden. The morning track day was soggy and it looked like I might get the chance to test the new Avon wets but the afternoon was bright and sunny. Now Lydden is a circuit that I know well so I was really looking forward to trying the CSR there. I went out in the first qualifying and found that I almost had to re-learn the circuit. I could leave the braking a little later, I could carry a touch more speed through the corners and I could get the power down earlier coming out of the corners. Something obviously went right as I got pole with a lap of 42.3 and no one else got within a second of that. The best I’ve ever done before was 42.95. The race didn’t go so well. I fluffed the start and ended up in fourth at the first corner and never really recovered. I didn’t drive particularly well. Also, the engine wasn’t quite pulling properly and stuttered slightly a couple of occasions, not exactly a misfire but not quite right. Maybe there was another problem with the loom, maybe there was a partially blocked jet or duff batch of petrol, or maybe I was just driving like a big girl’s blouse. Couldn’t put a finger on it, but I couldn’t match the earlier qualifying times by a country mile and came in third. At least I got to finish the race. Poor Louis Davidson came a cropper in his Radical coming down the hill. I didn’t see what happened; he reckoned he was punted off; the stewards said racing incident. Whatever the truth of it, his car was a bit of a mess but at least he was OK. One thing I noticed was that the overall gearing on the CSR must be slightly taller than the SV R500 Evo. In the latter, I could do the whole circuit with third and fourth gears. With the CSR, it was just worth dropping to second at a couple of corners. Which brings me neatly to the gearbox. A number of people, me included, have wondered if a six speed box is really required for an engine with this amount of torque. Well for racing the answer is yes. On the track, it pays to keep it spinning above 5000rpm. The shift lights are set for 7500 and I think the rev limiter cuts in at 7700rpm. (Its hard to be sure as the rev counter seems to work in little steps rather than going smoothly round, not sure if this is just a feature of my car or a more general issue.) Sure the engine pulls like a train from 3000rpm but if you want the very best, keep it at 5000rpm or higher. The six speed box fits perfectly with this. So, what’s my conclusion ? Well let’s digress for a moment. Why are race tracks full of R400’s but R500’s are quite rare ? Well the R500 costs more and the engine has a shorter rebuild interval, but is that the answer ? Only partly. The truth, I’m told, is that an R400 is pretty much as fast as an R500 round a race circuit. This was explained to me in terms of the match between the sub-systems of the car. The R400 slicks are a good match for the weight and power of the car, the chassis is a good match for the power too, the weight distribution is not bad and the suspension and brakes complete a balanced package. The sum is greater than the parts. The R500 has more power and is lighter so it is faster in a straight line but it isn’t quite such a well balanced match of elements. For example it has a greater tendency to understeer. In racing terms, the sum is not quite as great as the parts would imply. Back to the CSR. The car has a lot of good individual elements - the chassis is good, the suspension is excellent, the engine is great, the tyres are impressive but the key point is that they are all well matched and work in harmony to produce that balanced package, a car that is more than just the sum of its parts. This is a neat trick to pull off. Round a circuit, is it faster than an R400 ? Yup. Is it faster than an R500 ? Reckon so. Is it faster than an SV R500 Evo? Yes – and I now appreciate that I was running the SV with inadequate tyres. It would be interesting to see how it performed with the new Avons. Any bad points to the CSR ? Well, I worry about the sump but time will tell on that. The wiring loom could be improved and the lack of an adjustable pedalbox seems a shame but that doesn’t really amount to much, does it ? Do I like the CSR ? You bet. It’s an impressive piece of kit and I’m looking forward to racing it at some of those great European circuits before the credit card people start to notice. My only problem is it’s a better race car than I can fully exploit. I am just not as good as many of the other drivers in the series. Can someone sneak me a Duratec with 300 bhp – that just might give me the edge I need. Would the car handle the power, would it still be balanced ? I rather feel it would, the reserves are there. Regards fc Stop Press: My co-driver was out testing at Snett yesterday with a bunch of other CSR’s. He also reckoned the car wasn’t pulling properly and was a bit more persistent about it. (The problem here is that when a driver isn’t going particularly quickly and whinges on about the car not pulling properly but there is nothing obviously wrong, most people put it down to a fault with the nut behind the wheel.) Eventually he went out in a different car and was 2 secs quicker. Some serious diagnostics then followed and to cut a long story short, the catalytic converter (mandatory for European racing) had disintegrated and was partially blocking the exhaust system and so strangling the engine. Thank God for that. No I’m not delighted about the fault, but I was beginning to think that quick lap at Lydden was the result of an error in the timing system and that the car wasn’t as fast as I thought and that I couldn’t drive either. (The latter’s probably true, but you know what I mean). Please disregard my comments about needing 2nd gear at Lydden and that a minimum of 5000rpm is required to really motor – both are now suspect. Edited by - fatcat on 6 May 2005 12:26:55

[caterhamnut]

FC - what a brilliant write up - thanks for taking the time to put down your thoughts

Have you got any pictures, or can Hyperion take a few for you - if so, I think you should send this to Tony for Low Flying - most of us are interested in reading anything about this new car, and is it good to read about a 'racers' experiences on track, both good and bad.

Thanks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PS - can I have a go please 😬

 

Big update!

here

80,000miles in 3 years plus

[smithj41]

 

South Yorkshire Se7ens

[BarryT]

Ahhhh, so that explains why you seemed to be getting slower through the day at Lydden The first qualifying time was pretty damn quick.

 

Good look in the Masters.

 

Barry

[rgrigsby]

Sounds like a fantastic car Nigel, it would be very interseting to compare with mine but sadly I'm not going to be on track this year ☹️

 

Rob G

www.SpeedySeven.com

[stevefoster]

Excellent FC.

 

 

Hants (North) and Berkshire Area club site here

My racing info site

here

 

 

 

[Steve Cragg]

FC - Superb write up Great to hear about experiences like this, and in so much detail - even if it does make me feel just a little jealous

 

Thanks

 

Steve

Superlight #63

[Mike Bees]

Ditto everything Steve Cragg says

 

Mike

[oldbutnotslow]

I arrived at Snetterton yesterday afternoon, much to early for the evening track day so caught the tail end of the CSR's flying down the pit straight. They looked quick and I mean quick and sound quite wonderful.

I asked if they would like to leave one for me to play with but no joy there. ☹️

 

What an awesome bit of kit *thumbup*

 

 

Grant

 

Black and stone chip.

Engine now run in

here

[david nelson]

thanks for this,realy good.

 

makes me want one.

 

 

David

[Graham Perry]

Please, Please can this be published in low flying as I am sure there are other members who would like to read about the new car

[Archie Procter]

Agree, this should go into Low Flying, great prose as ever Nigel

 

Andrew

 

PS. Write-up on my grads car: It goes sideways and squeals a lot 😬

 

My very quick and ready to go track car is for sale here

[Paul Gibb]

Better than Barker in Evo!!

Great stuff FC.

Congrats,

Paul

 

L7 FUN

[Jason Plato]

Great write up , realy captures your thoughts and feelings

 

Please keep us updated with future drives abd developments