Mike Bees

Which series are you going to do Ken? As Alex says, ACB10's are king but are not in List 1A which most roadgoing classes require. Soft is good on the hills! Mike

The AP LSD is independent of the diff ratio, so you could have either. I suspect you'll have a 3.92 since the 3.62 was mostly fitted to Superlights (6-speed 'box with 1:1 top). > I take it you use 4th gear as it's 1:1? Yes. Easy enough to scale it for 5th if you know what the ratio is (0.87 perhaps?). > And... do you know the maths for working it out? I put a spreadsheet together for it. The maths isn't rocket science - you can calculate the tyre diameter given that you know the wheel diameter and the sidewall height (sidewall being 60% of 185, not forgetting that there are 2 sidewalls making up the diameter). From that you can calculate the circumference etc. I'll email you the spreadsheet if you like. Cheers, Mike

185x60/13 presumably? In 4th gear (not top): 3.62 diff: 17.9mph/1krpm 3.92 diff: 16.5mph/1krpm This is assuming that a 185x60 A032R is exactly that - tyres often aren't exactly the size they are quoted at. Mike

The gold pump was part of a package of changes intended to solve the problems of the VHPD-engined race cars grenading their engines due to oil starvation. IIRC the total package was: * Gold scavenge pump (higher capacity than purple) * Revised pickup for scavenge pump * Bigger bore pipe from the pickup to the pump * Swirl tower (incorporating breather) for dry sump tank input * Tappet bucket feeds blanked off * Cylinder head sealed (only relevant on a non-plenum setup) I think it was generally understood that the problem stemmed from an excess abount of oil accumulating in the cylinder head, i.e. resulting in a lack of oil elsewhere. Maybe just the tappet bucket blanking would have been enough to solve it, I suspect that the package of changes was a sledgehammer attempt to solve the problem quickly. I ran my car for a year on the purple pump with no oil pressure problems. I think some of the 1.6K race cars ran the purple pump too, it was only when they started testing the VHPD that the problems occurred. If you do change to the gold pump then you must have the swirl tower fitted to the tank, without it it will chuck all the oil out of the filler on the tank - BTDT! The swirl tower does increase the effective capacity of the tank - separating the oil from the air as the oil/air mix is fired into the tank means you can get more oil in before it starts chucking it out of the breather. Mike Edited by - Mike Bees on 18 Dec 2000 10:34:31

Do you have a 6-speed box? If so then I'd save most of that money for when you succumb to the lure of engine upgrades. Rear ARB? I disconnect it for hillclimbs. You probably would do well to change the tyres. Bridgestone Potenza S-02 Pole Position are the current favourite, although only available in 15in and up. Bridgestone Potenza RE720 is similar and available in smaller sizes (see http://www.tyres-online.co.uk/tol_productdata/rpt_model.asp?model_id=212&man=Bridgestone). Mike

I'd find it hard to see how a pad material could warp a disc. The only reasons I would consider going to the reds would be (a) if the greens were getting too hot and falling apart, or (b) if I wanted to change the front/rear balance by putting different pads at each end. The greens don't need any heating up to work properly, the reds do supposedly. Mike

Since you're talking about the diagonal I assume you mean an FIA rollover bar rather than a cage? On later cars the diagonal bolts into a threaded bush in the chassis, the bush being concealed behind the aluminium skin by default. I don't know whether the Series 1 had provision for this, but I doubt it. The only bolt I've ever had come loose on my car has been the alternator tensioner. Having said that it is worth running a spanner over all the suspension mounting bolts from time to time. I've never seen adjustable rear wings. On later models they're simply bolted on. Suggest you take a rear wheel off and have a look. Mike

There is no simple bolt-on to 1.6K Supersport (or pretty much any other engine really) that will yield a substantial gain. A throttle body/ECU change will probably get you 10-15bhp, but it depends on just how simple you mean by simple. Mike PS - Hope your head gasket is holding up wink.gif

Mine gave 200bhp as 1.6 but that was before the head was fully ported. Now as a 1.7 with the head completely worked it's close to 240. If it was a 1.6 it would most likely give the same power but further up the rev range. Mike

You haven't got a mate who's a minger as well have you? Mike

Graham - DOT 5 is silicone based fluid. Generally not recommended for track or competition use (although I used it for 2 years with no probs). DOT 5.1 is the stuff to get, unless you want to spend a heap more money on AP600 and change it twice a year. Oddly I've had nothing but trouble with AP600, the rears keep boiling and I keep having to rebleed and add more fluid. It's been an expensive year for brake fluid. Other people (Peter for example) have had only joy with it, so I'm wondering if my problems are caused by remnants of the old DOT 5 stuff in the system. Sadly they don't mix, in fact AP600 doesn't mix with anything AFAIK so it's impossible to completely purge your system of whatever was in there before without dismantling everything. Mike

Rob - you do need to be reasonably competent to swap the cams. Any Haynes manual that describes the 16v K-series will tell you how to do this. Mike

I've got a reasonable amount of experience since mine has been incrementally upgraded over the last 3 years. "Best" way to go is an impossible thing to identify. It depends how much you want to spend, how dirty you want to get your hands, whether you want to take the cylinder head off and whether you want to rebuild the bottom end. Leaving the existing Supersport cams in place and the head untouched you should see a moderate increase in power by switching to throttle bodies (and a programmable ECU). Not a particularly good performance increase per pound at this stage, but you will then have the 'right' bits for the next stage which would be to remove the cylinder head to have it reworked. I would recommend the Jenvey direct-to-head bodies and the Emerald ECU as being the most cost-effective solutions. I don't believe there is much point in changing the (Supersport) cams without reworking the cylinder head. Or you can approach it from the other direction and get the head modified, leaving the plenum in place and putting the throttle bodies on the future upgrades list. This approach will also yield a reasonable power increase. Getting the head modified and fitting TB's does put you in a position where a more extreme cam will yield useful gains, although to go much further than the Supersport cam you will need to junk the hydraulic tappets and get solid ones which are expensive (300-400ukp plus fitting/shimming) but are a good idea for track work (all the race cars use solid tappets irrespective of cam profile). Once you get to 170+bhp you really need to think about replacing the pistons, which means a bottom end rebuild. Hope this helps. Feel free to email me if you have questions etc. Mike

>>>>I saw a DIY set today for about £1700. The set contained a Luminton (?) ECU, TB's, trumpets, fuel rails / lines, fuel regulator and bits and bobs.<<<< 1700 is an awful lot. If you've already got an injected K-series then you won't need extra fuel rails/lines/regulator/throttle pot etc. A much better bet is to look at the direct-to-head bodies that QED sell. Dave J's post regarding the QED bodies and Emerald ECU is spot-on. There are plenty of Emerald maps around for K-series in all sort so specs, so you wouldn't require a lengthy rolling road session to get it tweaked, a couple of hours or so should suffice. Mike

Thanks, I'll add those used parts places to my list. I regularly look in here and at racecar.co.uk, but that's about it. Eddie White used to have a big list of stuff at www.sevenesque.com, but that site is currently offline (well it's online but with a message saying it's offline). Mike

I was about to point you at this: http://www.racecar.co.uk/racecarparts/sale/messages/3662.html ... then I realised that's you too. Perhaps you could do yourself a good deal smile.gif Mike

Very similar, except that in addition the 1.8K SS uses a different fuel rail and pressure regulator (easy-peasy to change). Mike

I agree Graham, it looks like a horrible afterthought. I do wonder why it was changed. Mike

Yep, as Paul says it's changed - around 1996 I think as my '94 car had the bolt-through-the-DD-tube arrangement whilst the '97 one had the threaded-bush-welded-to-the-bottom-of-the-DD-tube arrangement. I discovered this when I couldn't find any bolts in the 1997 kit long enough to go through the DD tube - serves me right for assuming that I knew how it went together and not reading the manual. If you've got the later arrangement then check the welds on the DD tube every now and then - they've been known to peel off. Mike

Water won't get under there if it's done properly. It's standard practice to put a UV protective coating onto any composite part that's exposed, particularly in the marine environment - and there's no shortage of water there! Mike

The standard Bilsteins work just as well either way up (as do most shocks in fact). Mike

I wouldn't be surprised if the quoted 470kg didn't include much in the way of fluids... Mike

http://www.tillett.co.uk/ They won't sell you the Caterhame seats direct though... Mike

... and another few kg difference for the lightweight flywheel on the Superlight... It all adds up doesn't it? Mike

90kg is stretching it a bit. The Roadsport is currently quoted as 550kg, although 3 years ago ISTR that the bog standard 1.6K was quoted at 520kg. The Superlight was and still is quoted at 470kg. So somewhere in the 60-80kg range seems to be the difference. Differences quoted by Caterham when the Superlight was launched: 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 That's 51kg so far. ACB10s vs. regular steel-belted radials probably account for at least another 10kg, possibly more. The 6-speed 'box saves a a number of kg compared to the 5-speed, so we're up to 65-70kg difference already. I suspect that the total weight of all the GRP bits is only a few kg, so there isn't a big saving to be made there. It is true that the carbon bits on the R500 are different from those on the Superlight (or different from how they used to be) - as Graeme says the ones on the R500 are paper thin, you can flex the nosecone with the tip of a very weak little finger. Mike