Rob Walker

I concur on the silencer but I have run for two years without an airbox and have had no trouble and used Castle Coombe. I think the only tracks that are a problem are Goodwood, Bedford Autodrome and Thruxton.

Mark, DO NOT Unbolt the cam ladder as V7 SLR suggests. It is not necessary and unadvisable. To withdraw the seal you can carefully drill a small hole in the seal and insert a self tapping screw and use this to pull out the seal using a pair of plyers on the screw head. Or if your carefull a small screw driver to simply prize out the seal be carefull not to scratch the cam or it will leak again when you fit the new seal.

Keith replaced the camshaft oil seal.

Having run both 1.6 and 1.8 I would now go for a 1.6 as the engine is much smoother and more responsive. The reason being the stroke on the 1.6 is shorter and the crank is much lighter. The only area where the 1.8 wins is torque. Also if you eventually want to tune the engine the 1.6 bottom end is much less stressed, 200 bhp no problem.

Tony, I`ll take the exhaust system off you if your splitting the parts ????????/ Rob

Hi Marc, I have the pads spare after fitting uprated rear brakes. Ask any brake pad supplier, its not good practise to fit different pads front and rear, in particular a high friction pad like the Pagid which increases in coefficient of friction as it heats up. You could end up with completely the wrong front to rear brake bias when you least expect it. Rob

One set of Pagid RS 14 pads to fit the standard Caterham rear brakes. ( Seirra Girling Claw Calipers ) The pads have very little wear , new 13mm overall size 0.5mm wear now 12.5mm. Cost over £100 looking for £50 and could deliver to Llandow this weekend. Tel 0117 9239941.

No. The stock VHPD head flows well enough for the cams that you are currently using. You would only see any noticable gains if you were to fit hotter cams and a reprogrammable ECU. Unless you are seeking more than 220 bhp I would not bother porting the head, especially if its still under warrenty.

Graham you could be right, my memory isn`t the best.

Nig, IIRC the standard Caterham pads in the AP big fronts are Mintex 1122 which are a road pad, the stock rears are a Lucas road pad with similar performance to the 1122. I would expect these to have a cold coeffecient of 0.4 and fading away after 300C. The Pagid RS 14 pads are quite unique in having a high coeffiecent of friction when cold which rises when hot, they also do not eat your discs or wear out quickly. A very good Pad and not expensive when you factor how long they last. My only regret is that I did not find out about them before fitting uprated front brakes as I now think the standard fronts would have been more than up to the job with RS14 pads fitted.

Peter What you also have to consider when using RS14 compound is that the initial cold coefficient of friction is 0.45 and as the pads heat above 300C this rises up to .055 at 500C and is stable up to 700C. If you were to compare this with say Mintex 1144 they start of at 0.45 but only reduce in friction as they heat up. Therefore at full working temp the effect you are experiencing is inline with how the pads are designed to work. Rob

Cheesman products 01483 768188

If the mounting face for the pump is distorted through overtightening you will never get a good seal. Straighten the mounting face using a G clamp and two flat peices of steel. The when re fitting the pump only use the shaft of the screwdriver to tighten this will prevent you overtigthening. IMO this is a very badly designed mounting, I shudder to think what may happen in the event of a rear accident. Edited by - Rob walker on 15 Jun 2003 09:07:19

Polley recons the 13" will be in stock sometime September. He didn`t say what year.

Tom, Join the club. Since changing from a 16 bit Emerald to a 32 bit mine has never worked, Karl says there is no problem but it will not arm after installing the blipper code. Mine is also fitted to a 1.8K EU2. Rob

Sorry Nig I agree twaz abit strong. Variations in readings can be down to slack in the cam belt and the poor sloopy fit of the alignment key on the crank gear to the front pulley.

Nig , Looks to me that you should leave the cam timing to someone who knows what hes doing before you spoil your engine good and proper. You should have no problem in gettng the timing right with one DTI . Edited by - Rob walker on 13 Jun 2003 08:38:09

Remove the cam cover and check if any of the inlet cam lobes are hitting the ali cam carrier. IIRC you have installed 1227 cams. if so the head needs fettling to give clearance. If insufficient metal has been removed it may only contact when hot. Look for a shiny wittness mark or check with feeler gauges when hot.

I think its wrong to "sterio type " Farndon as makers of only lightweight cranks. They will make you a crank to your specification. If you want a fully counterweighted crank they will make you one. The crank they make for the Rover Cup is a heavier stiffer crank with more counterweight, its also cheaper then the lightweight crank.

As with all things its a trade off. The R500 crank is a lightweight fully crossdrilled EN40B steel billet crank with a particularly clever series of oil way drillings. This effectively ensures that there is a double oil feed to each big end IF GROOVED TOP MAIN SHELLS ARE FITTED on each main. Peters crank is a Doug Kiddie design it is a very heavy fully counterweighted EN40B steel billet crank. It has cross drilled mains on 2, 3 , 4, &5 but not crossdrilled on the big ends, it also has a groove ground into each main which will provided a similar oil feed to the R500 crank. I weighed this crank against a standard 1.8 cast crank and found it to be 3Kg heavier. There is no doubt that the Kiddie crank is stronger than its Farndon R500 stable mate but I for one see no point in all that extra inertia when the the Farndon crank has proved to be more than strong enough. After all we are building a race engine not a Tractor. Edited by - Rob walker on 7 Jun 2003 08:04:26

Peter stop slagging off the Farndon steel R500 crank there is nothing wrong with it. I have just stripped my engine after 9000 miles and found all the internals including the main and big end shells to be in perfect condition. The reason for the strip down was three failed OE flywheel bolts. I also have no liner to head fretting and use the original OE stretch bolts and oil rail. My liners are the same spec as yours. Your suggestion that the stock 1.8 cast crank is stronger than the R500 is just laughable. IMHO the main reason that R500 owners see wear in the bottom end is due to running with the crank main bearings wrongly configured. This results in the bottom end lubrication being lower performance than the original Rover design.

Dave I think you should mention that they are 13" diameter or readers will think they are 7"

It is a bit unrealistic to expect high fuel economy if you are not running with a Lambda probe/closed loop fueling. Also you can only expect high economy if you use a lot of constant throttle motoring, when the MEMS will optimise the fuelling on that contsant throttle setting. Edited by - Rob walker on 28 May 2003 10:09:43

Rob, 25-27 when driven hard you`ll be lucky, your obviously not driving that hard. On track you can expect less than 10 mpg.

Malc, Putting any more than 1L in via the cam cover filler on a dry sumped engine is asking for trouble as the there is very little capcity in the sump pan. Also if you do not put any oil directly into the bell tank then there will be no oil being fed to the oil pump, a sure way of knackering your engine.