Mike Biddle

I,ve been looking at ways to improve the handling on my VX car, and some time ago I saw a W********D at a tuners workshop where the engine was being moved back in the chassis. The result was claimed to be good, and loking at my car the engine could be moved back by about 50MM. This would of course require the engine mounts to be changed or modified, the gearbox mount to be moved back, the prop shortened, and possibly some alteration to the tunnel cover. Any thoughts from the chassis experts?

Aves The platic valve is better because it does not stick as easily as the metal item, but if you found plastic swarf in the valve you might want to remove the sump and check that the foam baffle (if fitted) is not breaking up. If it is it could cause more damage to your engine by blocking oilways and restricting flow. MIKE.

My car is a left drive VX so the headers are very close to my feet, and high footwell temperatures are a major problem here where ambient temperatures can go to 50C. I have used exhaust wrap, and there was a big improvement, but it only lasted one season. I have now gone to internal and external ceramic coating of the headers which does the same job, looks much better and lasts a lot longer. I also had the rest of the system ceramic coated in a yellow colour to set of the BRG of the car. Looks great, and no more polishing!!!!!

Tim, forget polishing and get it ceramic coated. I will e-mail a picture of my car. MIKE.

Brent, sound level from the carbon can is bloody marvellous!, can't tell you what decibels or whatever, nobody cares about such mundane matters here. I can tell you that the exhaust note is quieter and a deeper tone than a comparable metal item, Much better all round when you also take into account the safety aspect as well, i.e, no burnt legs, particularly as i have to get in and out on that side. (left drive) MIKE.

Brent, I have a stainless BTB system including carbon silencer, and am very pleased with it after three years and around 12,000 kms of hard use. the only downside was having to polish it every month or so and I have solved that by having it ceramic coated, looks great and just gets washed along with the rest of the car to keep it that way. With hindsight i would have ordered the system unpolished and used the cash saved to have it ceramic coated. Titanium might also be a good way to go. i will e-mail you a picture. MIKE.

Arnie, mine "clatters" in neutral with the clutch engaged, but is quiet with the clutch disengaged. There is a noise as you engage the clutch and the plates start to contact, but it is a high pitched squealing/scraping, or metallic whistle. If thats what you have with the clutch disengaged perhaps you need to check that the spacing of the release bearing is correct, it may not be fully disengaged.

Arnie, I fitted the AP 5.5" clutch recently, and it's much easier to run a small hose out for bleediding purposes, mine terminates right next to the master cylinder for convenience. You may find that the pedal is very heavy and the clutch almost impossible to use in traffic. To get over this I fabricated a set of levers to actuate the master cylinder, which reduces the pedal effort and gives more pedal travel through the bite point. Its much easier to use now, if you have the same problem e-mail me and I'll send a picture. MIKE.

I had this problem on my VX car, and fitting an oil cooler did not help. A dry sump cured it. 75 to 80C should be fine, I heard that Honda spent megabucks to get their race engines to run at this temp.

You will have to cut the bonnet, so go for the 90MM trumpets. You are correct about carbs, one of the guys here had an upgrade to 200 BHP, and the (well known UK)engine tuner struggled to achieve it, with head work required in addition to the package originally quoted for. Having said that, it now runs very well, but not as well as my car with TB's, and he now regrets going with carbs. When he took it for it's annual test it failed by a long way on emissions and he had to fit different pilot jets on which it would barely run, in order to get it through. Injection is the way to Go.

Going to carbs will be the cheapest, but further upgrades will be more difficult, and increasingly unmanageable in terms of driveability. If you can afford it go for throttle bodies, they give better torque characteristics, smoother running, lower fuel consumption, and further upgrades are much easier, even up to fast arnie spec. It's suprising how quickly the thrill of extra power fades, leaving you with a desire for more. You can also try SBD as a source. MIKE.

Okay, the bgearbox is still harsh and noisy, but now that it,s not resonating through the chassis through the mounting it,s now acceptable, and the car accelerates so well it's worth it. Arnie, the danger with Camels is not being trodden on. If you hit one you usually take out the legs and the heavy body is then forced through your windscreen and crushes anything in the way. A lot of people have died this way, specially driving at night when they are very hard to see.

It's a dog box, and I think I,ve just solved the problem of the noise/vibration. The rear of the casing was still in contact with the lower steel cradle of the gearbox mount. I'll post again once I've tried it. Quaiffe knew the box was for a caterham but did not advise that a shorter lever was available. Marius, yes, the flywheeel/clutch came from steve, and there is a significant improvement in acceleration, but be aware that the clutch will be very heavy with very little travel between out and in if you just use the standard caterham pedal/master cylinder arrangement, assuming yours already has an hydraulic clutch, many left drive cars did. I just spent the last two days fabricating a set of levers to make the pedal lighter and give more travel, which also gives more "feel", making it much easier to use.

Took longer than I thought it would! Yes I did have to cut 12 MM off the input shaft and I did it with an angle grinder fitted with a cutting disc. I also had to modify the gearbox mounting because the new box has a deeper rear section to accomodate the sequential mechanism, and it fouled the front portion of the mount where there is another identical set of holes, assumedly for a different box? Anyway, removal of the front section allowed the new box to go in nicely. The standard gear lever is too long with the knob fitted because it fouls the dash on the downchange stroke,so i'm using it without the knob untill I can get the lever off again for modification which really needs to be done at a machine shop. This is no problem since the change is very light and a knob is only really necessary to make it look right. I also fitted a lightweight flywheel, (2.1KG)five inch AP lightwieght clutch, and concentric clutch slave cylinder operating directly on the clutch cover. The mounting point for the master cylinder operating rod was moved down on the clutch pedal to give a little more lverage and feel, but it's still far too heavy and fierce so I have to fabricate a lever system to immprove that. First impressions after two hours driving are; The upchanges are sweetness itself, and very fast, paticularly when accelerating hard. Dowchanges are more difficult to get right, the revs have to be accuratly matched to avoid a lot of "clonking". I think this will be be easier when I get the clutch operation right, and while more precision is required, I will enjoy the satisfaction of achieving it in what is after all a very demanding car anyway. The box is very, very noisy, in fact I think that there may be a problem with it. There is a lot of vibration and noise (enough for drivers of adjacent tin tops to notice)when cruising on a light throttle and on the overrun. I have never used a box with straight cut gears before, and I know they have a reputation for being noisy, but Im sure this is just too rough, any comments anyone? More at a later date.

Marius, I will be fitting the six speed from Quaife tomorrow in my VX car. It was ordered with the long shaft but I did not know about the possible requirement to trim 12MM off the shaft (thanks to Chelspeed). I will post the fitting details by friday, including any problems. Regards, MIKE.

Dave, sorry, my mistake, my car is left drive and the altenator is threfore mounted on the right side as veiwed from the cockpit. Your leak is certainly around the crank sensor, and as Alex says they do work loose from time to time. My only excuse is that I've been away for a long time and i get confused! Once again, apologies, MIKE

Dave, on my 96 VX the crank sensor is on the opposite side of the block. Sounds to me that you are looking at the oil pressure sender.

2.0L Vaux with throttle bodies, 224 BHP. It will achieve 220 KPH, and that is using the rev counter to calculate the speed, so a higher reading is required. Regards, Mike.

Thanks Anna, I've sent for their catalogue. Pierre, I had already looked at VDO, they don't have a suitable unit because 0-220 is not enough, and the 0-260 is too big at 100MM diameter, but thanks anyway for trying. My best regards to all, it's great to get some help when you are 3,000 miles away from all the action.

Stewart, the Stack tach timer is an excellent instrument and may be the answer, but since I have already fitted a good quality tacho, I will either have to remove it and be left with a dead speedo which does not match the other white gauges, or fit it in the speedo apeture and run two tacho's.....well it would be different I supose. Mark, thanks for the tip on "Greengauges", it's an excellent website and they should be able to supply me the gauge I want, If I can get the site to work for me. When I tried it last night it would not go to the "design" stage where you specify the instument. Unfortunately they cannot accept orders any other way. Marius, I don't want to go that route because it involves replacing the dash panel if you want a tidy job. I will post a full report on the gearbox, probably around the end of December. Thanks to all MIKE.

Will follow once I've installed it, but right now I have a problem with obtaining a speedometer. The new box does'nt have a speedo drive so an alternative arrangement is required, and I,m having problems locating a suitable item. The ideal solution would be an electronic item to replace the original with a pick up off the front wheel or dif flange. The problem is with the specification, it must read in KPH only to be legal here, up to at least 240, and preferably have a white face beacause I changed the other instruments in an attempt to compensate for my ageing eyeballs. I've tried all the usual retailers in UK, and searched the net without success, perhaps some of our continental friends can help, Marius?, Pierre?

I have my 2.0L vaux down to 570kgs at the moment, with spare wheel, and all fluids including half a tank of fuel, which, as keith points out amount to quite a bit of weight. Caterham quote 595KG assumedly without any fluids. Items shed/changed to achieve this were, in descending order of weight saving. 1. Set of image wheels shod with ACB 10's, 5KG per wheel lighter. 2. Junked original exhaust in favour of 4-2-1 system with carbon can. 3.windsreen off 4.heater out. 5. cycle wings replaced with carbon items. Theres not much more room for improvement without changing seats, and minor gains from carbon panels etc which I don't think are value for money.

Pierre, cost to sew in a leather panel was UAE Dirhams 350.00, which is around FF 750.00. Having said that, labour is very cheap here and I doubt you could achieve the same price in Europe. Regards.

Just to be different, I use castrol 10/60, it's around 25 pounds for 4 litres here. No complaints so far, but since you would'nt know untill you blew your engine I would always use the best quality avaible as a matter of course.

Pierre, I had a problem with my leather seat recently, the glue that holds the leather to the plastic panel at the back of the seat failed, and the plastic broke. The high temperatures and humidity here certainly contributed to the failiure but all the same I think that the design leaves something to be desired. I solved the problem by getting an upholsterer to remove the cover, sow in a leather rear panel and reassemble. The result was excellent, and I don't think it will break so easily again. Rgards.