Mick Day

If you're using the standard head with hydraulic tappets & you're not intending to rev beyond 7600 rpm then standard bottom end will do. Caterham reckon OK to 8000 rpm. Fitting throttle bodies, warm cams, & using a programmable ECU will produce 155 ish BHP from 1.6k. Emerald ECU is flavour of the month. Next stage involves bigger valves & porting the head. Beyond this then invest in a stonger bottom end. If you do nothing else this W/E then please visit Dave Andrews web site: http://members.aol.com/DVAndrews Mick

I bought mine from somewhere I can't recommend for just over 1000 UKP. Used a mag called Car Parts & Accessories Mart. Six months old with 5k on the clock. The reason I can't recommend them is that they must have dropped the engine, somewhere in transit, as the crank broke during testing. As this was outside the 60 day warranty things got a little heated. So byer beware.

Tony wrote: "I predict that the general conversion to automatic gearboxes is a sign of social and moral decline" I disagree. A good auto gearbox allows a road driver in heavy traffic, ie SE UK, to concentrate on the road with both hands on the steering wheel. Ideally a button gearchange on the steering wheel is the way to go if you want to swap cogs.

Arnie My 6 speed leaked oil from new in 1996 & many returns to Caterham failed to stem the flow. Paul Harvey found the tail housing oil seal & bearing had failed necessitating a rebuild & new tail housing. Road & Race transmissions did the rebuild in 1998 & advised the car be jacked up as high as possible at the front to pre-lubricate the rear bearing. Now all the oil stays in the box. The theory is that whilst running in we are too careful & the tail housing bearing can run dry. Incidentaly Caterham wern't interested in helping with the finances as they didn't know who Paul Harvey was!!??

I don't live anywhere near Bracknell either nor anywhere near Breks!

I've used the easybleed & it works well if you're single handed or you can't find anybody daft enough to pump the pedal!

If you're running a lambda probe in your exhaust system leaded petrol will destroy it. Whether LRP will do the same I don't know' but at up to 200 UKP a throw I wouldn't risk it.

Nice to hear everything is OK. Following a session with Raceline's O2 logger (with grateful thanks to Nick Dinsmore) & further input from GEMS my car's ECU is performing much better. The high RPM misfire is all but gone & idle & starting have been improved. Mick

I get your drift Mike; maybe I did well to duck. Edited by - Mick Day on 19 Sep 2000 23:21:15

Wow I’m famous! Everything Peter C has said is basically true. The 6 month old 1.6 engine was obtained from the breakers with 5k on the clock. James Whiting did the mechanics & made a superb job, unfortunately Southern Carburettors couldn’t match it with the electronics. We laboured for weeks whilst SC tried to puzzle out why the engine wouldn’t run over 2000 rpm. The Caterham 1.4 engine wiring is totally different to the 1.6, but shouldn’t be beyond a capable auto electrician, but it foxed SC. Then the crank broke (nothing to do with them) which necessitated a rebuild via QED (with grateful thanks to Peter for the new crank). The penny eventually dropped & SC fitted the correct coil (bloody idiots!). The car was returned to me without any rolling road testing; I think SC just wanted shot of it. The high RPM misfire was only apparent on the track; hard acceleration at about 6500 in 5th & 6th but OK in 1st to 4th?? Car’s been back to GEMS, who’ve carried out minor tinkering, making the car more driveable ie improved idling, starting & running at WOT, but misfire now at 6500 only in 6th. Another “trick†the ECU plays is an unsteady tacho, which waves at me, plus more difficult cold starting as the ambient temperature drops. A local GEMologist will be helping further so I haven’t given up yet. Incidentally Raceline & GEMS have a conversion for the Elise, which is backed by Lotus & I think works OK, so fingers crossed!!! Would I do the same again? No, with hindsight I would probably be down to Paul Harvey for a Blackbird conversion or building a new car. At the time we didn’t realise Caterham’s 1.4’s were all old run-out engines with wet liners; you live & learn. The guy Peter mentioned is Dave Wedge from DTM Consultants in Burcot, Oxfordshire. Back in December 1999 he would have built a 200 bhp 1.8K for £5500 plus VAT. Looking back this would have been a fantastic deal including dyno set up with any ECU I cared to supply. Would JW do another conversion? Well you’d have to ask him that. He’s done one & knows the pitfalls & maybe would point you in the direction of others who have more experience with these conversions. Strange community we live in; there are quite a few people who have successfully carried out conversions but asking for the benefit of their experience is like getting blood from a stone. It’s as though they wanted us to experience the same birth pangs they went through. How does the car perform? Well not having results from a rolling road means I can’t give figures but it certainly has more poke. Having unravelled the fuel & ignition maps via GEMS incomprehensible software, it does reveal there is much more to come. Peter made this comment about the GEMS manual: “How very unintelligible. There I was supposing that the purpose of a manual was to convey information.†It says it all. Would I recommend a GEMS ECU? No. The Emerald has far better software, & it seems from Mike Bees experience, no high RPM misfires! Maybe Roger King would like to give an opinion on the high RPM misfire? Does he have experience, good or bad, with GEMS ECU’s? Mick