Mike Bees

Weeeeeell, it seems that some of the top hillclimb boys use or have used and/or experimented with it and that it ain't specifically disallowed. So, unless anyone can find any reference to it in the Blue Book, it would seem to be allowed unless specifically banned by the event regulations. So I'll go and have a helping of hat pie. I'll save a slice for Dave, unless he can substantiate his claim Mike

Well I did use a smiley, probably should have put it a bit further up! Edited by - Mike Bees on 30 Sep 2005 16:42:43

Have you taken a spring off a damper and felt the relative weight of the 2 items? Certainly with the stock billies the damper weight feels insignificant compared to that of the spring. Ah, OK that was a rear damper where the spring is quite a bit longer (than a front). Mike

OK, so if the Blue Book doesn't mention tyre softeners and the series/event regs doesn't mention them, are they legal? And if not then why not? And if they are legal why doesn't everyone use them?

So he thinks I'm a cheat for pointing out that tyre-softeners are illegal? What a tw*t. I suppose if I were to stoop to his level then I'd say "All Westie owners are tw*ts" just because one of them might be, but fortunately I'm a bit brighter than that! Or maybe J has used a bit of journalistic licence 😬 Mike

As Oily says, we got some very worthwhile mid-range gains in torque on my 1.7K by converting the stock long 4-1 Caterham system to a 4-2-1 (using the 4-1 primaries and adding a 2-1 section on the back of it). The only downside to this is that you end up with a rather short silencer. 1.5" primaries were not holding my engine back - it made 239bhp in the spec. it was in at that time on the stock long 4-1. Changing the primaries to 1.75" made no measurable difference. Mike

I thought tyre softeners were illegal (MSA regs?). Can't find any mention of them in the tyre regs (part R) section of the Blue Book, but can't be a*sed to trawl through the rest of it. I'm sure that if it was legal everyone would be using it. Mike

www.nitron.co.uk They quote different part numbers for pre-96 and post-96 Steve, so I guess the answer is yes. The only danger with getting the bolt-through type is if you DD tube needs replacing - the holes have been deleted from the latest version. £945 for one-way adjustable. £1480 for two-way adjustable. £1880 for 3-way adjustable. All plus VAT. Mike

Snap 😬 Now if 5 people could each add 5 of their mates email addresses to the list, requesting a small number of collets to be sent to Peter, and to pass the message on to 5 of their mates etc., then by Xmas he'll be buried under a mountain of collets (and there won't be any left in the world for the rest of us). He can then open his very own EBay K-series Collets 'R' Us Shop. Mike

Obvious Dave, it's a right-handed circuit 😬

I've got some sitting here on my desk too... Mike

Or EBD here - they sold me a length of 2" perf. tube a long time back, and also made my 2.5" in/out silencer so they must have the stuff. Mike

I have a set of 15" Dymags in excellent condition, they're 6.5" and 7" wide. I don't know if they're exactly the ones you're looking for (I bought them direct from Dymag) and I'm not sure that I want to sell them (taking the loss would be hard!), but if you Blatmail me your email address then I could send you a picture to at least confirm if they're what you're looking for. Mike

Don't you mean wash the bonnet with the car removed 😬 Mike

195/50x15 will give you almost identical gearing to 205/60x13 which is a pretty common size. Vs. 195/45x15 it'll increase your ride height by about 8mm and your gearing by just under 3.5%. That's assuming the tyres in question are in practice exactly the dimensions that the profile rating would suggest, which is rarely the case... Mike

If it went down to 2 cylinders and then recovered quickly I'd say it's more likely to be in the plug leads/dizzy/plugs area. If you ECU gets sufficiently wet to affect it then it'd be more likely to just stop full stop IMO. Mike

The diffs are/can be pretty clonky. 6th gear is a direct drive (1:1 ratio) so it should be the quietest gear. Certainly mine isn't particularly noisy, although there does seem to be some variation from one box to another. Edited to add the 'particularly noisy'... Mike Edited by - Mike Bees on 23 Sep 2005 19:29:58

Have Caterham produced and sold a Hayabusa-engined car??? Mike

Snell SA 95 no good for competition use after the end of this year. Mike

Sadly I don't have an insurance policy which would pay out in the event that I was sued for negligent car maintenance, so suing myself isn't an option. Maybe I should consider taking out such cover for the future 😬 Mike

😳

I'd tap into the tacho feed, I'm not sure that any logger will cope with the 4-missing-from-36 pattern on the flywheel (nor actually be able to detect the signal from the sensor). Mike

Removed the pads this evening, mystery solved. 2 contributing factors: 1 The dimwit who wound the pistons back hadn't left them oriented so that the pip on the pad sits in one of the four recesses in the piston face. 2 The springs ends on the pad which slide along the two smooth faces inside the caliper were actually locating off the end of the faces along which they're supposed to slide, which meant they had to overcome a step before the top of the pad would move (inner pads on both sides of the car had this problem). Fixed by bending the springs slightly. My assertion that the only contact appeared to be in the middle of the contact area was wrong, it's in the middle/inner of the disc which is the bottom half of the pad. Mike Edited by - Mike Bees on 21 Sep 2005 23:52:01

Yup, the original question was "What offset do I need" - and the offset needed depends on the rim width. Not a great deal of help I admit, since I don't have the actual recommended offsets to hand! Mike

If you've got big (AP) fronts then it'll make the balance worse... What we all want is a nice 2-pot rear caliper with built-in handbrake. Mike