Mike Bees

Those are the Caterham 6-speed ratios. The Quaife is similar IIRC. Mike

My comment was really saying that I whilst gluing on cycle wings is a good idea I suspect that gluing on flared wings (which Pierre says he has) is less so... Mike

I don't think I'd trust silicon to hold flared wings on... Mike

That sounds like a good compromise Stewart. 200lb rears sound horribly stiff for road (esp. bumpy!) use. A few years ago the Juno kit came with 150lb linear rears which would be rather more like it. I've recently switched from the standard progressive rears to linear 170lbs and wouldn't say that it's made any great improvement to the cars handling. For a mixture of road and track use I reckon the progressive rears are excellent. Mike

Caterham silencers don't have baffles, just a perforated through pipe and sound deadening material. Mike

A couple of questions spring to mind Graham. (1) Why not switch it off while you're in the queue to avoid it getting red hot(this seems too obvious, I know you're not daft!). (2) If your ECU has provision for temperature correction then it's easy to reduce the advance as the coolant temperature (or underbonnet air temperature) rises above what you consider to be the danger point. Mike

I'm *sure* that Quaife do a 5-speed 'box using a Type 9 casing that offers a 1:1 5th gear. And a 6-speed too. The sequential option is just that, an option at extra cost. Mike

If you're going to dry-sump then it's *much* cheaper to do it as part of the new car purchase (like just over half the price). 500ukp for the complete kit (pump & cradle , sump pan, belltankhousing, hoses, clutch lever arm et al) is a bargain. I don't see why it wouldn't fit a 1.4. Ground clearance under the K isn't terrific, almost certainly as bad or worse than the Vx. Mike

They can probably provide some 'proof' that at some point in time on some engine at some point of the rev range in a particular set of circumstances a 5bhp gain was recorded. But as Peter intimates, they're probably not what they're cracked up to be. I've seen the sums somewhere which show how much power the alternator is likely to soak up when you've got all your lights, heated screens, fans etc switched on and it's small enough not worry about. Mike

Dave Walker tested one on their Fiesta Stock Hatch a while back. I think he did publish the results in CCC. Sadly I can't remember whether the answer was 'bugger all' or '3 bhp'. Mike

A friend & fellow competitor has a K-series engine built by someone mentioned in Mick's post. After 2 complete strip-down rebuilds this season to investigate why it blows steam out of the dry sump breather it turns out that it's got seriously low compression on #1 and #4. Maybe not something that you'd expect from a professional engine builder? Mike

People have been trying to make this work for over a decade (perhaps several decades?). I'm sure they'll get it right eventually. Then it'll be goodbye & good riddance to the camshaft. Come to think of it how are do the 'air valves' that current F1 engines use actually work? Mike

Ford have withdrawn from the BTCC (for next year at least). There's a new all-alloy "Zetec" (where Zetec is just brand that they seem to like to stick on a range of totally different engines) coming out soon. There's also the 1.7 Zetec SE (the Yamaha-developed engine in the Puma) - surprising that there hasn't been more tuning effort gone into this yet, as soon as someone starts making some cams for it then I think it'll become a popular alternative to the K-series. Mike

Note that the 160 is also a K-series, so the question should be "VVC K-series is dead??". The story I heard was that Lotus were simply too late placing the order for the batch of VVC engines, so Rover couldn't supply them in the timescale. Hence they (Lotus) "replaced" the 111S with the 160. Mike

PeterC wrote "GEMS also have a history of problems with high rpm misfires which seem to be related to poor crank position sensing on the k-series. " Really? I thought it was just mine... Apart from some serious argy-bargy I had with their MD about them lying to me about what was included in the price (the upshot being that I ended up paying an extra 350ukp or so for stuff they told me was included), mine was always very poor at starting (I ran for nearly 2 seasons using a fan heater under the engine for early morning cold starts) plus the engine wouldn't blip cleanly from idle (no amount of map tweaking would cure these problems, even by GEMS themselves). It was assumed that these were characteristics of the engine, but when the plug-compatible M3D came along I translated my maps onto it, plugged it in, cranked it up and voila the problems were gone. I still revel in the ability to blip the throttle at idle without the engine spluttering & misfiring. GEMS did try to help, they had the car at their workshop for a week and concluded that the ECU was behaving. After I got it back it suffered from the high-rpm misfire that Peter has mentioned. No prizes for guessing which ECU I use now. Mike

I think that what Tony is looking for is someone to tranplant a standard 1.6 or 1.8K in place of his 1.4, in which case he wants to look for a Caterham specialist rather than an engine builder/tuner. Mike

Or an 1800... Mike

Yes... but where does it list the ratios available for Ford 'boxes? Mike

12k, Jesus, that's got to be the buy of the year. Another car to build huh - I saw a Honda S2000 engine/box/diff for sale in this week's MN (for 2.5k), wonder if I'm along the right lines... Mike

Given that most of the weight in the front is the engine, I jack under the chassis rail at the engine mount. Mike

I thought Quaife did? I also thought that the info was on their website but I can't find it there now. Mike

Jerry who? Mike

2,291ukp inc VAT on the CD-ROM, although some prices have gone up since it was published almost a year ago. Mike

And we *know* it's a hoax because.... there is no diesel version of the K-series. Mike

6-speed box is perfect (ratios-wise) for the 1.4KSS. Before I bought my first 7 I went to the Caterham showroom test-drove two 1.4KSS's, one with a 5-speed and one with a 6-speed. That convinced me that whatever the cost was the 6-speed was the way to go, it felt like a different car (OK if you want to be pedantic it *was* a different car smile.gif). Mike