Rob Walker

Rob, Offsets were researched when we were trying to put together the recent Ultralite Bulk purchase. Caterham and Mike Barnaby confrirmed that the 6" & 6.5" both had +18mm and the 8.5" +23mm. Now the tricky part is you can measure a dozen different wheels and get a different back depth on each. Backdepth is from the inner edge of the rim to the mounting flange and this is down to how the edge of the spun rim is finished. Also what you have to bear in mind is that as an example a 6" rim refers to the width of the tyre bead sealing faces and not the overall width of the rim which will be around 7" for a 6J wheel. Confused I hope not.

My Focus oil burner is labelled Duratorq TDdi

It is possible that you have the low ratio peddles on your chassis Simon. This compounded by a standard road friction material could give the lack of initial bite you describe. Much greater peddle effort is required over the standard M/C. 😬

Ammo, I don`t know I haven`t had to replace mine yet. Dave Jackson will know, hello Dave ar you there?

Ammo, The fire rings on the gasket are not designed to clamp to the flat section of the gasket when the head is torqued down. If you examine a new gasket there are compression stops of .050" at each and and the fire rings are .070". When you torque the head the head will only compress the fire rings until the stops are reached. This allows the block to expand longtitudally keeping the fire rings clamped between the head gasket face and the liners which again are designed to move. " too much IMO " my bespoke liners are a tighter fit into the block and thicker walled to reduce movement. It has been my experience that the poor location of the stock liners causes the fire rings to fret into the head gasket face up to .025" and metal be transfered from the head gasket face onto the fire ring. The Satur Gasket and steel dowels seems to have cured this. Dave Jackson has just striped his K and reported no head gasket face damage. However the gasket had failed on the rubber oil seal around the oil feed up through the head dowel. The latest Satur gasket has been redesigned to cure this problem.

I have found that K liner protrusion varies enormously from engine to engine. I have seen liners sitting below the top of the block and protruding .004" on the same engine. When I built my latest engine I had the block skimmed to give an even liner protrusion of .006" and fitted the Mike Satur Gasket together with steel head dowels and bespoke Liners. Touch wood alls still sound and the engine is pushing out a reliable 230Bhp.

Placing the Lambda sensor in one branch of the primaries is a less than ideal installation. It is far better to position the sensor at the collector where the exhaust gases from all 4 cylinders can be measured. The trade off is that the sensor requires hot exhaust gases in order to work efficiently IIRC around 600C so this necessitates its positioning as close to the engine as is possible. I would position it at the collector and remove it following mapping. The car will be static hopefully during mapping and as such the exhaust primaries will not have the cooling influence of passing air, gas tempertatures should therefore be maintained. Take a look at the manifolds produced by www.exhaustsbydesign.co.uk/ before making up your mind. Their 4;2;1 system has produces some very good results. tel 01280 847756 Edited by - Rob walker on 6 Sep 2002 09:19:01

Placing the Lambda sensor in one branch of the primaries is a less than ideal installation. It is far better to position the sensor at the collector where the exhaust gases from all 4 cylinders can be measured. The trade off is that the sensor requires hot exhaust gases in order to work efficiently IIRC around 600C so this necessitates its positioning as close to the engine as is possible. I would position it at the collector and remove it following mapping. The car will be static hopefully during mapping and as such the exhaust primaries will not have the cooling influence of passing air, gas tempertatures should therefore be maintained.

I would tend to agree with the Factory mmm....eh. Your choice of oil is not ideal Ford had a lot of trouble with the Type 9 and the fix was to use a special GL4 spec synthetic lubricant `Red` in colour and smelled a bit like cherry`s. Unfortunately this is no longer available and its Ford replacement is not as good. The oil of choice would be Red line MTL fully synth GL4 spec 75W/80. This will allow your syncro mesh to operate at optimum. Available from Demon Thieves or Miserable M/Sport Edited by - Rob walker on 5 Sep 2002 17:51:52

You could always buy an Emerald ECU and run with the immobilser function deactivated. I am shure if you trace out the function of the two relays in the vehicle multifuction unit it must be possible to bridge out the offending contacts and operate the ECU without the immobiliser circuit.

I am running a 230 BHP K with a 2" VX race silencer. 98dba at 4500 rpm. I would like to do some power runs with a bigger bore 4 2 1 system though !

Jim Beam, Sorry I gave you duff info the bonnet stripe is 140mm not 100mm as I posted earlier. The silver stripe is Peugeot grisfutura, I think thats how its spelt.

Arnie, I recently rebuilt a VX race car for a mate and the bag tank was secured with two metal bands that go around the tank , the bands have a bolt and nylock nut to tighten up on the tank and are welded to the chassis under the tank. The box that contains the bag is very flimsy and IMO would distort if clamped using the angle clamp. Cheers Rob Edited by - Rob walker on 23 Aug 2002 13:14:08

The 40th Anny stripe is 140mm wide and the stripe around the nose cone is 75mm, this follows the shape of the nose cone. There is no second silver stripe merely a 3mm stick on black stripe that covers the edge between the silver and the Ruby Red. Lovely colour scheme IMO. Edited by - Rob walker on 24 Aug 2002 16:57:53

The fault cannot be aimed at the MEMS unit , I run with a Emerald M3d and my engine runs on occasionally, I also have a manual fan switch fitted . Puzzled

You will have problems repairing the SLR rims as the spun rims are welded together. This was deemed necessary as the clamping bolts spacing was uneven , this led to problems so they welded the spun bits together. If you have a damaged rim suggest you contact Image who made the spun bits or K&N.

Thats strange Rob I know of at least two people that had the Princess Calipers fitted to their Live axle Sevens which I understood to have the Spitfire uprights, I am aware that there is a problem fitting these calipers to a cycle winged car . James Whiting does some special wingstays so that they can be fitted.

Motorway No. Its exactly what you don`t want. Running in requires varing revs/loads,low revs and gentle application of throttle in the first 100 then start using slightly more revs and throttle up to 500 miles change the oil then continue the process increasing the revs and load gradually without labouring the engine. Constant revs and load could such as motorway driving could glaze up the bores and prevent the engine ever bedding in properly. Having said all this modern bike engines and the like have their bores finished to a very high standard and the running in required should minamal.

Andrew I second Grahams advise, if the sensor is duff it won`t matter what you read its resistance with it will read incorrectly. I advise you also to check on the wiring connection to the temp sensor in the water rail and solder the spade connector on if possible. I have experienced silly readings and this was due to a high resistance crimped spade connector. See you at Oulton Rob

You can buy very similar stuff to Armorfend at the bikers shop Hein Gerick. They sell sheets more than enough to cover two rear wings for £16.99 they also have CF look material which is very durable.

The ZF or stock open diff should not leak oil. Sounds like you need to replace a seal or the back plate has not been sealed properly on assembley.

15W50 Mobil 1 Motor Sport is not the correct oil for your engine. This oil is the oil of choice for the R500 that runs with a steel crank and has greater clearances on both the main and big end shells. It also runs with solid cam followers. Why not run with Comma Syner-G or Halfords fully synth thats what Caterham recomend.

Mike I had my rear dampers overhauled/revalved by Prodrive in Banbury. One of the dampers felt softer than the other on rebound. The cost of this work was almost as much as a new pair of dampers and they still felt unmatched after the work had been completed, I would not go down this route again.

6.5" front and 8.5" rear both have ET23mm offset.

Its also worth knowing that Rover now advise that the rear crank seal be installed with a smear of a special black silicon sealant this ensures a better seal with the block and holds the seal in place. Obviously there has been a problem and hence this extra proceedure. Shame this advice was not contained in either my Rover Manual or the Haynes book of lies. Rob.