Jim 123

If your car has still to go through the IVA Test, and you go for side skin fixings, perhaps check the Test Manual. There is something in there about angles of visibility. Which might be affected by obscuration from the front wheels in some positions.

I placed self adhesive foam strip (the stuff that the bonnet sits on around the nose cone) with the sticky side fixed to the mating surface of the repeaters. You can then trim the foam around the repeater. This fills the gaps quite nicely. Be careful not to over tighten the repeater fixings, as you can craze the fibre glass where the repeater makes contact with the wings.

Has anybody mentioned to check the positioning of your wings on the lowered stays when on full lock and before things get sticky. Just as a check to make sure nothing touches the side skins.

Tom if you are replacing the existing wing stays and if you don't have side repeaters it sounds like unsticking the wings from the stays can be done on a bench. This would make the Stanley Knife option possible as I'd guess you don't want to stress the wings and risk crazing the fibre glass which could happen with a saw. Are you considering removing the stays and wings intact, and working from the bench. Re the new stays, I'm a fan of BigHead fixings mainly as it makes future serviceability of the wings a no brainer.

Matt if you go for BigHeads check that they ship you the 15mm version. For Sikaflex 292i marine adhesive gets my vote.

Jonathan, I just clicked on your link in #2. I never thought of searching club postings using Google. Really good!

100 PSI is about 7 Bar, and if Tony has 55K on his car this may be typical for the Duratec engine. Does anybody know at what pressure the PRV is specified to open at? 5 Bar is the PRV Ford convention that I have stuck in my head,

It looks like the part of the wing beneath the tail lights is sitting forward of the rear panel. Is there any damage to the wing / fixings inside the wheel arch? Might be worth looking to see where the fracture terminates i.e. into the wiring hole for the lights or all the way across the wing as this may have a bearing on repair ability. Are you looking to do the patch up yourself ?

The area in your photo looks very much like it can be repaired without being visible from outside the car. You can test the visual limits for yourself quite easily before you decide which way to go. From your photo it looks (and it's probably my cr*p eyesight), like the issue may have origins in poor paint preparation in the past. It looks to me like driver side chassis longitudinal is not coated in original black powdercoat, and the coating of that longitudinal is lifting at the same points (or are these pieces of masking tape on the longitudinal vertical face?). Might be worth clarifying this so that others can give you their steer on best repair process.

If Derek from CC hasn't yet come up with a puff of smoke, here are a few stupid thoughts from me............ probably of no help whatsoever. On my Sigma kit, when you switch the ignition on, the oil pressure gauge needle comes to life and positions off the needle stop. The temp gauge remains on the stop. Your car seems to be doing the opposite. Are the factory installed gauges in their correct holes and not cross wired behind the dash? Unlikely but if nobody asks etc. etc. What happens at your gauges if you disconnect the Temp Sender at the submarine? Ditto the Oil Pressure Sender at the push pull that connects the sender lead to the engine loom?

The fuel guage takes an age to move off the stop and with low fuel it may be working OK. With the water temp guage, does it go to 80 straight after the immobiliser flicks off, or do you get the 80 reading when the engine fires? Does the oil pressure guage show any movement at all if you blip the throttle gently?

A real milestone, camera at the ready! Re next step of putting the oil in, you've probably planned this, but just to mention to check you are getting oil pressure when cranking the engine and with the inertia switch triggered to negate start up. Best of luck.

Andrew if you need the track setting this is given in the build manual towards the back. Stu's point about checking the similarity of threads each side is well made. Are your track rod ends both the originals and identical. Re your comment about having replaced the rack, if you have changed the rack, the steering col U/J would have been disconnected and refitted on the rack splines.

3 degrees sounds like it is possibly the alignment of the splines on the bottom of your steering column that sits into the U/J with the rack. If your car is running straight on an uncambered road, I'd try the following. Roll the car back and forward with no steering input to get the road wheels running true. Then slacken and remove the locking bolt that holds the splined end of the steering column into the U/J. Gently ease the column out of the splines by pulling the steering wheel rearwards. Reinsert the column with the steering wheel cantered. Refit the bolt and locking nut and tighten all back together.

Matt, Are you getting quite firm resistance on the handbrake lever after 2 clicks? Might just be cable adjustment. The S3 and SV have different cable routings behind the handbrake lever which may be worth a recheck on your installation. Have you securely cable tied the handbrake cables to the appropriate fixings on the diff and chassis yet, as this has a bearing on residual slack in the mechanism? Have you tried rotating one of the rear hubs and manually actuating the park brake lever on the calliper to see if things bite. Once the system is filled and bled the pistons will settle the pads closer to the brake rotors.

Have a look at POR 15 Automotive Bed Liner and see if it's what you are looking for.

I don't have clamshells so have no idea how common this rock damage problem is. I did have a look at a conventional rear wing recently, and found that an assumed road rock attack was something else. Do each of your star cracks show stress lines emanating radially from clear centre point? If the stress lines are more of a mosaic type pattern that may be something other than impact damage. Also, you may want to get a good magnifying glass and look at the centre of any star cracks from the top side. If the cracks have been caused by something being dropped from the top down you should be able to see that.

Hi John, I had a look at the IVA Bible again after your post. My brain now hurts! But from my (possibly flawed) re-reading, it seems that IVA rules carry a pretty convoluted description covering many situations. However, I think the guts of this test for a Seven, is that the car centre point has to be located 60 meters away from a wall. On the wall there should be a rectangle marked out. The rectangle goes from the floor, up to the height of the rear view interior mirror. The rectangle is also 20 meters wide. If the examiner sees any obstruction to his mirror-view of the rectangle on the wall that is 60 meters behind him, it's a fail. I haven't tried to validate this from my driver seat as the car is locked and covered up, but my gut tells me that a clear view of something so far back, even with the FIA Bar, may not be a problem. Perhaps CC have encountered a very short IVA examiner, in which case I'd pop in a driver seat booster cushion to give a pass : )

Hi John, my car went through the IVA 1st time in Bristol. If you are not aware, the IVA Inspection Manual Section 8 gives details of the test criteria. There is a PDF available on line.

My 7 with diagonal bars passed the IVA.

Is there any consensus that we should be agreed on finding and delivering a series of solutions to ensure that all paying Club Members can participate in Track Days? My car is FIA compliant. However it does not sit comfortably with me that the many Members who have Standard Roll Bars are denied participation in Club Track Days. Or, is a solutions-focussed mentality not part of our culture? (Absolutely no dig intended to anyone re this last point, but I believe the question needs airing).

Christine from my perspective I would like to thank you for taking the time to proactively share what is happening with the Roll Bar Study particularly the middle paragraph of your posting #99. Perhaps your example can be seen as a learning point for the future. I am quite sure that had your explanation been volunteered to Members at an earlier stage, then AndrewB would not have felt it necessary to open this whole topic with a new posting. It would certainly have avoided the subject running to 11 pages.

I don’t think any of us dispute that Track Days carry increased risk. My personal frustration around this topic is centred on the fact that there is a Club rule about Standard Roll Bars on Track Days. This rule legislates to preclude a very large number of Members from enjoying the full benefit of their subscription. For me that is simply not fair unless there are good evidence based reasons. Maybe I’m thick, but I believe the starting point should be to factually establish if the Standard Caterham Roll Bar vehicle installation, is, or is not, fit for purpose in Track Days. Correct me please, but it appears that (all?) other Track Day Organisers, Caterham Cars, and insurers, do not have an issue with the Caterham Standard Roll Bar performance. I don’t think anybody would try to speculate that the FIA Bar is not more robust, but that does not confer that the Standard Bar is inadequate. If I may share the following. I have an FIA Bar, so the Club Track Day ruling does not affect me. However during my recent kit build I found myself in a number of depth discussions with CC in Dartford specifically relating to my FIA Roll Bar. CC were great, and I was clearly told I could attend any Track Day with the Standard Bar. However I was advised of one exception. I would not be able to go to a L7C Track Day without an FIA Bar. To try and move towards evidenced fact, rather than anecdote, this is why I asked in #63 if : “CC issue cautionary warnings or disclaimers about using their Standard Roll Bar installation on Track Days?"

And the helmet paint is unscratched.

A valid point Stephen and hopefully this has already been taken up. I'd say that with safety critical things like Standard level roll bar design; I would be surprised if CC have not trashed a car or two conducting physical roll over crash testing, to validate their design before production release. This would be standard procedure, although I doubt if they will share the crash test lab data and footage. The attached link is a video of a Seven on a roll, with a Standard Roll Bar doing it's job: Maybe this was Graham's MacD's way of circumventing test lab fees to validate the Standard rollover capability : )