Cooling on Vx 1.6 (8 valve)

[AndreK]

There have been some threads recently on this topic. The early Vx classic cars were supplied without a thermostat. This is fine in terms of not overheating, but in the winter can lead to lack of heating (apologies to all those made of sterner stuff!). Also the engine needs to be at 85-90 deg. C to run at its most efficient.

In the build manual there was no diagram of the cooling system for this car, only the 2.0Vx model, at least in 'my' version. That car had a triple conning tower submarine pipe. Early Vx 1.6 cars had a single conning tower submarine pipe. Caterham (Simon Lambert) now specify the triple pipe for the Vx 1.6 to pick up connections from the heater, expansion tank, and rear cross pipe from the thermostat housing 'busbar'. This should enable the car to be run with a thermostat and no overhaeting, at least in the cooler months. It will be interesting to see what happens in the summer. The triple conning tower pipe is part number 72795