Mike Bees

No question, that's the best upgrade you can make. Your only likely commercial source of a secondhand one is Road & Race Transmissions (Phil Stewart) - 01959 525105. Mike

Cooo, and I thought you were touting for a downforce-inducing appendage... Mike

"seems to grip better". Hmmm, there'a another thread about this raging somewhere. Unless you quantify 'grip' and have a scientific way of measuring it then this is a meaningless statement. Mike

They're Sierra calipers - try a Ford garage? Mike

This is probably stating the bleedin' obvious, but you'll want to scavenge from the exhaust side of the head because the engine is canted over that way. One assumes that the pump will be on the inlet side of the engine, so some pipery required. Mike

Excuse me for changing the course of the thread, but: "a front pulley for the engine with a poly-vee for the alternator and a toothed (probably) for the oil pump (NOTE THAT THIS WILL PROBABLY BE A SOLID PULLEY WITH NO HARMONIC DAMPER - better ask them whether ordinary crankshafts will snap and flywheels fall off..." Why is a non-ordinary crankshaft not likely to snap/have it's flywheel fall off when the damper is removed? I'm still running the stock boat-anchor pulley with damper 'cos I'm a scaredy-cat. Mike

The one I bought (Sigma 700 IIRC) needs a magnet to trigger the sensor, so I don't think the disc bolts would do it. I araldited a small magnet to a wheel rim, removed a similarly-sized balance weight, and cable-tied the sensor to the (cycle) wing stay. Mike

The standard speedo is driven from a cable which is in turn driven by a speedo gear drive in the gearbox. There is plenty of scope for inaccuracy due in no small part to the wide combination of diff ratios & wheel/tyre combinations that people run. The bike speedos are dead accurate as long as they're accurately calibrated - they need to be told the rolling circumference of the wheel on which you've put the sensor. They see one pulse per turn of the wheel and they know the circumference, so it's just like putting some numbers into a calculator and wondering how accurate the answer will be. Mike

FWIW my earlyish K dry sump system doesn't have a spring-loaded tensioner on the belt, it has the same tensioning pulley as yours (I guess) but it's manually locked in a position of your choosing to give whatever you deem to be an appropriate belt tension. Mike

A Superlight is light because it doesn't have frills like windscreen, weather gear etc. Here's the list of weight savings which Caterham originally published when the Superlight was launched: leather adjustable seats +10.8 kg full windscreen + wipers +6.6 hood + full side screens +8.0 paint +2.5 spare wheel including carrier +11.5 tool kit (for above) +2.8 full carpet set +3.3 heater +3.9 tonneau +1.6 The above list doesn't mention the saving to be had from the ACB10s - they are considerably lighter than a steel-belted tyre. AFAIK the 13x6 Superlite wheels are ~4.5kg, so I'd guess that the R500 style wheels will save you about 1kg a corner. Mike

Not to mention time. Mike

I ran my 1600k in ~200bhp guise for a season, it was perfectly driveable. Forged pistons are a must, which means a bottom-end rebuild. Mike

Noisy (5 cars on the track at once) day the static limit is 105db at 3/4 max rpm. Quiet (10 cars on the track at once) day the static limit is 98db at 3/4 max rpm. I'm not sure what the drive-by limit is (think it's 101db on a noisy day), but it's complicated anyway because the installed monitoring system "averages" the noise out. Think of it as a bucket with a hole in it - you can pour stuff (noise) in at varying rates without overflowing the bucket, e.g. you can lob a whole load in quite quickly as long as you then trickle it in for a while afterwards. When the bucket overflows the bod in the local council office spots it on his display, gets into his little white van, drives to the circuit & closes it down. Sadly this is the price we have to pay for the Goodwood Revival Meeting. Mike

A few points: The gold-pumped Caterham K system does indeed return the oil/air mix at high velocity to the tank, but it blasts this mix a swirly arrangement which stops it from foaming up & blowing out into the catch tank (as long as you don't overfill). Prior to the swirly arrangement (technical term: conning tower) this was a big problem. ... I can't see any significance in the density of the oil vapour. ... Surely a *totally* sealed system would be bad, because any blow-by would cause a pressure build-up? ... My dry sump system is "protected" against belt loss by having a proximity detector in close proximity to the pulley on the scavenge pump. It generates a pulse every time a blade on the pulley goes past. A small circuit sees the pulses and keeps a lamp on the dash unlit unless it fails to see a pulse for a period of a second or more in which case it lights the lamp. Mike

I changed from the 8% rack to 22% and don't regret it at all. Any twitchiness is a function of the front end setup (too much toe-out really does it) rather than the rack gearing. Mike

I'm open to offers on a job lot of yellow bricks - no longer required due to opening of new bypass. Reg D.

I'm interested in that cow if it can jump over the moon. Mike

Or try there

Spatula idea.gifhead Edited by - Mike Bees on 1 Aug 2001 11:59:20

Chris - I remember reading *somewhere* that the race chassis are (or were at one post-96 time) indeed based on the pre-96 chassis. Things might have changed since then of course. Mike

Bear in mind that Caterham never produced a live axle 2-litre Vx-engined car (in very recent years the live axle Classic got a 1.6-litre Vx). This doesn't mean it's not a worthy car (hopefully it's not an Ital axle...) but it may affect it's value, e.g. it wouldn't be worth as much as a pukka Vx HPC. Mike

All the race chassis have the non-removeable diagonals etc. (including this year's Academy cars) so I suspect there is no basic difference between a Roadsport race and an SLR race chassis frame. Mike

The VHPD engine can't be lighter. If anything it'll be slightly heavier given that the inlet system isn't plastic. Add a kg or 2 more for the dry sump system too. Mike

Tony's obviously *very* thankful smile.gif Mike

The inappropriately-named "anti-cavitation" tank (it's actually an oil/air separator) doesn't perform the same function as a dry sump. It helps a bit under surge conditions, but doesn't completely prevent pressure loss. If you buy the whole dry sump kit from Caterham as a retro-fit then it's 1700ukp (probably plus VAT). I dare say you could do it a lot cheaper by sourcing an external dry sump tank instead of getting Caterham's fancy tank-in-bellhousing job. Another advantage of doing that would be that you won't have to take the engine out. Mike