Mike Bees

OK Mr Universe. I can pick up my aluminium version with one hand 😬 Mike

But the top plate can be removed and replaced with a conning-tower version (as I did with my '97 version when I switched from the purple scavenge pump to the gold one). Mike

How much G force can you develop on grass 😬

Sorry Dave *eek* Graham Ford posted the information on Friday afternoon, but too late for you to get my response. I hope you've thawed out. Graham - I don't have any great plans other than to get the car out of the garage (it hasn't turned a wheel since October '03 ☹️). I'm going to revert to 13" wheels (hurrah) now that south-east area events allow 1B tyres (and get some 1B tyres obviously). Will do a few reasonably local events (Lydden, Goodwood, was hoping to do Hethel in May but it's been canned). Don't know if I'll get to any L7 club events, they're mostly over the other side of the country - if I was going to do a lot of hauling over there then I'd be doing the HSA or Midland Hillclimb champs. Longcross would be great, but currently the diff is out of the car waiting for ZF to pull their finger out and make some LSDs so it's difficult to know when I'll have the car back together. Going to be a bit busy doing other things (again) too - some friends/neighbours have just bought this here so we'll be doing some of the big races in that, and I'll continue to do some racing in this here. And while we're OT, aquatic picture of the week here 😬. Mike Mike

Thanks Graham. My 15" wheels will be going (still using the original 13" wingstays which have plenty of clearance with 205x50/15 tyres and whatever the offset is for Prisoner wheels - not that I've got Prisoners, but I believe the offsets are the same as my Dymags...). OK Dave, you can stand down your tape measure unless you've got some 7" jobbies hiding somewhere in your stockpile Mike

Doh! Just realised that I've got a pair of 8.5" rims (no centres) sitting in the garage, so I can measure those. Would still be interested in the 6.5", and whether to make a 7" front you'd go 0.5" up on the inner or the outer. Thanks! Mike

Does anyone one know the inner/outer rim part widths for the 'stock' 6.5" front and 8.5" rears, and also what inner/outer widths would be recommended for a 7" front? Mike

FWIW my ring gaps were considerably over spec (spec taken from Halfords Rover 216 manual...) - I spoke to Omega about it and they said "yeah". I'm finding it hard to believe that this is blow-by. Clutching at straws completely here, but do (some) oils have anti-foaming agents in them? If the answer is yes, then clutching onto the next straw - is it possible that the cheapy oil Nig is using *doesn't* have anti-foaming agent in it? Mike

On a more serious note, yup this arrangement is fine with me. Mike

"and sort Mike out later" 😳 😳 😳

The scavenge pump *must* 'overtake' the pressure pump, otherwise the sump will fill with oil and the tank will empty. Are you sure it's nothing to do with your baffle plate mods stopping the conning tower swirl arrangement from working properly? Mike

Near Colchester. I could arrange to collect from Luke. Mike

Yes, the hose which would supply the heater is the bypass. I don't *see* any good reason for removing the thermostat. If in race conditions it's always fully open then I guess removing it makes no difference (except for slower warm-up). I don't think the bypass provides any useful function if there is no 'stat. Probably best not to take my word as gospel on all this though. Mike

If Luke's happy then he & I will take the black/polished ones and split them between us. MIke Edited by - Mike Bees on 19 Feb 2005 14:23:04

FWIW I find that my conditioner doesn't charge my dry gel battery usefully, need to get a proper battery charger on to it. Mike

Sounds good to me Luke. I'm guessing these are the ones that Caterham supply? If they're OK with you then I'm in. Mike Edited by - Mike Bees on 18 Feb 2005 07:33:47

Anyone interested in splitting the black/polished set? I could do with just 2. Mike

Part of my rationale behind wanting a steel crank was that I wouldn't have to worry about it falling apart at > 8000rpm. Now I've got expensive steel crank & rods I worry far more about the financial effect of a catastrophic failure... Mike

Why would a thinner oil cause it to run hotter? I'm happy to go with any of 0w-40, 5w-40 or 5w-50, whatever Oilman recommends. Be interesting to hear his views on shelf life too. Mike

I'd say - possibly if your ports/cylinders/intakes/exhaust headers are badly matched (or deliberately different as the case may be). Probably talking about the last fraction of a % generally though. Sequential has less effect at WOT because you can't inject only while the valve is open anyway - you'd need massive injectors which wouldn't be good when fuel requirement is small. OTOH maybe with twin injectors... Mike

That's hardly normal behaviour though is it Dave? There must have been some other factor here other than the stock crank being too weak - unless it was a decidedly defective one. I knew someone who used the stock crank in a 1.6 rallycross Metro and used a rev limit of 8800, never broke a crank. Of course "never had a problem" doesn't mean "never will", but the SLR race cars use 8000rpm all day without snapping cranks. I was told that the MGF cup cars used a tugboat-sized Farndon steel crank, but that Caterham didn't want the cost of steel cranks. Mike

Emerald's website has a write-up of Dave Walker's findings on sequential injection. IIRC the biggest effect is that you need a bit less fuel to get the same AFR (esp. at lower revs & where you're not working the injectors for much of the cycle), hence better economy and better emissions. No surprises there then. Mike

I'm near Colchester too Weirdy, so maybe we could do a joint order from Oilman to save on delivery costs? Mike