Mike Biddle

Steve, I have a full set, 8X22 approx half worn, plus 7X21 with about 100KM on them just to drive to the test station and back. My car now on CR500's I believe thet are the A24 compound you are looking for. They are at the 7 workshop, give chris a call and ask him about them. Drop me a mail if you are interested. Mike

Now he tells me!

Neil, AAT in Sharjah have a decent rolling road, but not sure about the operator. Would it not be possible to bring someone over for a weekend to do the mapping?

Harry, there was some fettling required because they mount in a different way to the standard calipers. The De Dion ears were removed, milled flat on the top surface and drilled/tapped to suit. You can get details from Chris at the 7 workshop. I also fitted the vented discs that are normaly used on Caterhams front big brake kit. Hi Spec say the handbrake acts on both sides of the caliper. Maybe that's why they got a patent. Mike. Edited by - Mike Biddle on 20 Feb 2006 14:00:58

I have these on my car, but can't comment yet because I need to get it back to Dubai first. I will post once I've tried them out. I also have Hi Specs on the front, and thet are very good. There were some very minor issues with delivery but overall I have found them to be very knowledgeable, helpfull, and I am happy with the product and service to date.

I made a two hour drive through torrential rain on USA 2005 with aereoscreen, no problem. Get motorcycle type oversuits, mine kept me bone dry. Would also advise half doors if you have cycle wings. Mike.

"surgery" to the tunnel just in front of the diff was required to fit the uprated prop to my car, but it was not major surgery, worth it to have peace of mind, and since it would not cost a great deal, probably worth considering if you are concerned. Mike.

Tony, that came from a couple of resonable sized chunks of gravel hitting me on the forehead when I had a full screen on the car. It only requires a rock thrown up by a truck on the right trajectory to give you a nasty whack, even with a full screen. Having said that I don't always wear a helmet even with the areoscreen, sometimes just a pair of wileys, but at the end of the day I would say that saftey is more important than image. Desmo, not on the USA tour, I didn't want to risk an injury that would ruin my holiday, or worse.

Desmo, I took part in USA 2005, so drove from Houston to San Francisco with an areoscreen. I wore a helmet at all times, but that's a good idea even in a car with a full screen. I am convinced I was more comfortable than others on the tour with full screens, some of whom suffered in the heat. I have driven 600 miles in a day with areoscreen, no problem.

Richard, re rim sizes, I have the paperwork from Image back in Dubai, will look it up when I get back next week. Mike.

Pete, the phone No I posted is wrong. The correct No is 07875866567.

The car will be on the Proshift stand. Pete, I will be there on Saturday, and you can reach me on my UK mobile No 0785866567. Look forward to meeting up again.

Pictures? Only about 500, unfortunately I don't know one end of a website from the back of the car so unable to do it myself. I do have an IT guy though, and when he gets back from his Christmass hols I'll get him to set something up. There are a lot of pictures on RST's site, www.rst-v8.com

Re sprints, it will be back in the summer, and I will do some sprints, have to see what matches my calendar, but advice noted, thanks Dave. Whether my piloting skills are up to getting the best out of it is another matter. Myles, it doesn't have the inboard setup yet. No ARB' s because thats what Gary advised, try it first, and I'm not about to ignore expert advice. Wasn't tha bad neil, only 91 in a 70, just cruising really. Lucky it wasn't too much faster though, thats jail time! Graham, I'll concede that point, and it's almost certainly my Caterham rebuild swansong. Nowhere else to go except the supercharged version due soon, and that would be just ridiculous in a seven. Alex, I have to say that both Chris and Russell set very high standards for themselves, and stick to them. There were a lot of occassions when even the smallest detail was reworked because they were not happy with it. I will post the stand at autosport tomorrow.

Original car was standard chassis, left drive, 1996 VX 2.0L injection. Where reference is made to right or left this is viewed from front of car. Chassis stripped and sent to Arch; New long front fitted to allow Freestyle inboard front suspension. New, stronger diagonal stiffeners at bottom of engine bay New, stronger diagonal stiffeners at top of engine bay, mounted and triangulated to transmission tunnel top. Diagonals are removable to allow engine removal. New engine mounts including torque brace at rear right of engine. Engine mounts and upper diagonal stiffeners share mounting points at the front. Diff mounting strengthened including vertical stiffeners between top and bottom mounts (first time Arch have done this) Spare wheel carrier removed. Chassis blasted and powder coated. Re skin except cockpit interior panels At 7 workshop/RST Chassis. Rear suspension/brakes. Complete new rear suspension including SV de-dion tube. Radius arms, Springs and shocks (AVO) from Freestyle. Currently no rear ARB New rear wheel bearings and standard calipers. I was going to use the Caterham big rear brake kit but was advised against it, and the car is currently at the 7 workshop to have the new Hi Spec two pot “handbrake” calipers fitted over 250 MM dia vented discs. (from Caterham’s front big brake kit) Front suspension/brakes/steering “Supa wide” front suspension from Freestyle. AVO shocks. Currently no front ARB New, later type stub axles Existing front brakes refitted. Hi Spec ultralite 4 racing calipers over 280MM solid discs, aluminium “Big “brake master cylinder The V8 is too wide to allow the standard steering layout, so a 90 degree bevel gearbox was made, and mounted in the right side (left drive) of X formed by the chassis just in front of the engine and directly above the rack. The steering rod comes forward from the pedal box horizontally to the bevel gear, and then down vertically to the rack. This works well, but has to be changed later to allow fitting of the freestyle inboard suspension, which it obstructs in its current position Body Rear diffuser from Freestyle Transmission tunnel minor mod to accommodate larger dia prop, and lined internally with heat barrier. Carbon interior panels including tunnel top from RIF Front and rear (extra wide) carbon wings from MOG. Aluminium spacers were manufactured to take the rear wings out 2” more to cover the tyres. 51/4” chrome headlights Bonnet mounted air scoop by Reverie. Cooling louvers in three panels let into bonnet behind air scoop. Arch could not press out the louvres because of the required proximity to the sides. Mesh front grill New custom wiring loom using lightweight Raychem wire, by DC Electronics. LED rear lights. Colour is aqua blue metallic from Chromepaint, expertly applied by TSK. Anybody looking for unusual colours/fancy paint, look at www.chromepaint.com Wheels/tyres Two new sets of wheels from Image Wheels, one for road, the other for track. All fronts 8” X 13”, road rears 9.5” X 13”, track rears 10.5” X 13” Road tyres: Avon CR500 205/55 R13 fronts, 245/50 R13 rears Track tyres will be Avon slicks . Cockpit Q/R steering colum with Momo suede wheel, RIF carbon dash panel with custom switch/gauge arrangement. Stack ST700SR combined rev counter/speedometer with shift lights + few other bells/whistles. Racelogic traction control Autocom wired in Gauges; Fuel level, water temp, and combined oil pressure/temp. Water temp and oil gauges are capillary tube, I don’t like/entirely trust electronic gauges. Big warning light for low oil press. Battery isolator switch, toggle ignition switch, starter button. Tillet carbon/Kevlar seats. RIF carbon aeroscreen Fire extinguisher. Power outlet. Engine/fuel system/exhausts/transmission 2.4 litre RST V8, 380HP @ 10,000 RPM 190FtLlbs torque @ 7000 RPM. 205 @ 9000 RPM. Rev limiter (sequential fuel) @10,200 RPM. RTD ECU. 400HP is available at higher RPM, but I can’t run that because of gearbox RPM restrictions. All figures are as stated by RST, I do not have any RR or dyno results as yet, but will post when I do. 10 Gallon fuel cell from Advanced fuel Systems. Bosch fuel pump located in tank with integral relief valve. (single fuel line to fuel rail, no return line to tank) Exhaust system by BTB, headers and collectors ceramic coated internally and externally, followed by “turbo blue” external coating. Silencers received the same treatment externally only. Coating by Ceramcoat. Turbo blue is a new coating rated at 1200C 2.5 KG flywheel, Superclutch 7.25” twin organic plate clutch, hydraulic central slave cylinder. A smaller than standard clutch master cylinder was fitted, (15MM bore) in order to reduce pedal effort, and increase travel and control. It works very well, very easy to drive in traffic. Quaife 6 speed sequential box with helical gears Custom larger diameter prop. (The standard one was considered not strong enough.) 3.92 Diff with Quaife ATB. Quaife assure me the ATB can take the power/torque. Custom radiator is actually two radiators in one, separated in the centre. Water exits the right hand cylinder head into the right side radiator element, exits right side and feeds to left cylinder block, then exits left head into left radiator element, and exits left side feeding into right side block. So the coolant runs in a “figure of eight” Monster cooling fan, 1100 cubic ft/min. Weight approx 500 KG’s. (with all fluids + 2.5 Imperial gallons of fuel, tonneau cover and a big box of spares including a spare radiator) This based on the fact that it was airfreighted to Houston for USA 2005, and the airwaybill showed an all up weight of 650 KG’s, but the BA guys in Houston told me that the standard pallet it was shipped on weighed 150KG. I will post an accurate weight when I get one. Performance? You gotta be in it to believe it! Cost? Don’t ask. Delivery? allow at least six months if you want one built, more if you do it yourself, which I would not recommend unless you are VERY knowledgeable, and highly skilled. I have not listed all parts used because there are just too many. Suffice it to say that tapart from the chassis,he only existing parts re used were the front brakes, front uprights, footwell air scoops and rear hubs. Many thanks to Chris and Russell for working so hard on the project. There were so many custom mods that I can’t remember them all, and it’s still not quite finished. Thanks also to excellent sub suppliers; Arch, Freestyle, Quaife, RIF, MOG, Image Wheels, Avon Tyres, Hi Spec, Advanced Fuel systems, Stack, Racelogic, Autocom, TSK, Chromepaint, Superclutch, Ceramcoat, and DC Electronics. Newsflash. The car will be on display at the Autosport show.

Peter (Carmichael) There is an RST V8 fitted with a supercharger on the bench in Russels workshop. It's just short of a few fittings to complete the build. Should be interesting, but probably a bit too interesting in a Seven.

I'm hoping to have it back in Dubai around the end of January Neil.

OK Dave, deal done, I will contact you offline when I am able to give time frames etc. For the public record, I don't have an axe to grind here, and I'm certainly not trying to sell you, or anybody else an engine. I would however value your personal opinion on the results of the decisions I have made in rebuilding the car into it's current incarnation. The offer is also open to any other intertested parties on the understanding that i will only consider those who I regard as having a valuable contribution to make.

Dave, (Edmands) mine will be going on Steves rollers at some point, don't quite know when yet, but I will post the results. I am also offering you a drive, would you like to try it on a drag strip, since you are the expert, and I'm sure would get much better times than me? The car should be back in Uk spring/early summer. Edited by - Mike Biddle on 12 Dec 2005 12:27:45

Mike, you probably could fit an RST V8 without the bonnet scoop, it would just require filtered air ducted in from somewhere else.

That's not normal, get it looked at right away.

Now that my car is capable of some very serious velocities which I fully intend to explore, I'm wondering if anything can be done to counter front end lift at high speed. How about a wing/aerofoil or whatever moulded around the upper or lower front wisbones? Or if movement of wishbones during suspension travel is a potential problem, something just behind them attached to the chassis? I know it would not get through an MOT in UK, but should not be a problem here. Any aerodynamics experts out there?

Assuming you want a left drive car your choice may be somewhat limited, but my personal advive would be to get the most powerfull one you can afford and take care while learning to drive it. You WILL get bitten by the upgrade bug, and if increasing the power is a problem, better get as much as you can in the first place and restrict future spending to all the other goodies like suspension, brakes, etc.

Peter, mine will be on Steves machine either during December or next spring. I will post the figures. Nick, 74KG including inlet mnifolds and altenator, but without starter.

Pressure releif valve sticking would generate the symptoms you describe. Running at high revs requires the valve to open further to bypass the incresed quantity oil from the pump. When revs decrease, the valve has to close a bit to maintain pressure with reduced flow, and if it doesn't then pressure will drop.