Rob Walker

6" will be plenty wide enough. As Robin posted 185/205 is a popular combination. Or ACB 10`s. If you go above 7" you run into problems with clearance on RARB if you run the standard offsets.

As the synth oils are manufactured from the same 30 SAE mineral base stock I can`t see any reason why the foam baffle should deteriorate by changing from a mineral to fully synth. Eurolite is synth based in any case and probably too high a quality of oil for running in process. I use Comma Lite for running in, then Eurolite, then fully synth only after 1200-1500 miles.

Rob, I presume the car is still under the 12 warrenty, perhaps this not the place to advertise how the car has been used.

I find it a little worrying that the Haynes book of lies quotes 120lb ft and the Lotus Elise 205 Nm for the crank pulley bolt torque. I wonder who is correct??

Tony, The crank pulley is only located by the clamping force of the bolt and a tiny ridge/protrusion on the crankshaft timing gear, this is again clamped by the same bolt but is located by sliding over two machined flat sections on the end of the crank. I should examine the crank timing gear and see if the ridge is present and if it is its simply a matter of retightening the crankshaft pully bolt. Before tightening I would check if you have the auto timing belt tensioner or the manual. If you have the auto ( Black Plastic one non adjustable) then simply re-torque the crank pulley bolt to 148 lbft. If you have the manual tensioner I would mark its position then slacken it off a tad then re-torque the crank pulley bolt then reset the belt tension. Next step is remove the spark plugs and wind the engine round and check that the cam timing is still correct ie, crank pulley set to 90DBTC both cam pulleys timing marks should align with each other and the mark on the rear of the belt cover. I certainly would not advise you to run it without checking the valve timing, and should you find that its slipped, I would advise you to have the head off and check for damage or a compression test at the very least. Rob

low milage Minister built 2lt VX sealed engine on 48 Webers 190 bhp ,dry sumped,Heavy duty 5speed SCCR box, Foam ATL bag tank, AP big brakes all round, ZF LSD, Ali Race Bilstiens all round. This is a tidy car not a beaten up example, bodywork is orange and the front and rear wings are Carbon Fibre. Ideal strong trackday car. £9950 ONO. Posted on behalf of Simon Taylor Tel 01633 214237 for more details, I am not shure what wheels/tyres are with the car. Rob

Should not get above 14v . If you apply some extra loading headlights, heated screen and this pulls the voltage down rapidly then you have no regulation 16v is far too high in any case, be carefull or your ECU and bulbs will be toast.

I had this problem and was convinced it was run out in my new ALcon vented front discs but on close examination the outer edge of the discs circumference was hitting the pad retaining clips in one high spot as the discs expanded under hard braking. Take the front wheels off and look closely at the edge of the disc for any shinney wittness marks, if you find any file down the edge of the retaining clips to give a mm of clearance. As regards runnout up to .010" max.

Nig, No the larger alternator pulley is not just to be able to fit the larger belt, its to provided a larger reduction in the alternators revs. The point to bear in mind is that if you reduce the alternator gearing too much it won`t charge at tick or when moving in traffic. The Caterham R500 is about right as the alternator will still charge at 1100 plus crank rpm`s

I have the Caterham on fitted cost £45 IIRC. The standard pulley will overload your alternator if you venture above 7800 as its drives the alternator 3 times per rev of the crank. The sting in the tail is the shorter belt costs a bomb and is difficult to source other than Caterham. Edited by - Rob walker on 4 Apr 2002 20:14:14

Foam backed carpet adhesive spray works a treat, spray it on the ali and on the back of the carpet wait a couple of minutes and it sticks well. if you want to remove it for any reason you can pull it of without spoiling the carpet. The adhesive can be cleaned of with cellulose thinners. Adhesive sprays are available from Wicks ,B&Q etc

Edited by - Rob walker on 3 Apr 2002 21:42:07

John. if you look under your boot floor you will see a one way valve in the tank vent line, This is a good place to break the line after the valve and just have a lenght of pipe venting out high into the os wheel arch. You can then junk the canister. The SLR has no canister.

Whoops Edited by - Rob walker on 3 Apr 2002 21:43:15

I think it has to be a full strip down as the chassis has to be inverted during the reskin/spray. TSK will strip for you and I think they charger around £200. To reskin the side panels and spray in a plain colour allow about £1200 to £1400. He does a superb job.

Yes I would treat the MBR rims carefully also. Mr Barnaby told me that he uses a harder aluminium for his rims so they may be a little stronger than the Superlites split rims. I found that they both cost roughly the same so I would go for the MBR if it was a straight choice.

I agree with Alex the SLR has an internal pump. It also has a gauze filter in front of it. The round canister bolted to the rear bulkhead is the main high pressure fuel filter. You will have to remove the fuel tank to replace the pump, be carefull not to overtighten the fuel pump flange fixings when you are putting it back or you will distort the end face of the tank. Its easy done only tigthen using the shaft of the screw driver or the tank will leak like a bad un.

The liners on the K`s do look flimsy but the facts are there have been very very few failures. Most of the reliablity problems associated with the K are due to the cooling and not bleeding all the air out of the system. lubrication is another as the engine is installed on an angle the engine suffers from oil retention in the head this is compounded by poor drainage back down to the sump. The oil pump also causes a lot of aeration of the oil. Reliablity is definately improving as more developement takes place, the Satur uprated head gasket is one example. Steel head dowels another.

Pierre, I presume you mean the ones on offer from Superlite wheels, well they are lighter than the same sized cast rims and can be bent if you curb your car, good news is the bent bit can be replaced. I visited the shop a couple of weeks ago and their rims looked very nice and well made. Not as light as the R500 MBR rims mind.

How do I know that the rears are boiling, because I bled them in the pits as soon as the peddle travel increased and only the rears bled out LOTS & LOTS of gas bubbles I went back on track five laps later same problem. The rear discs had also changed colour and all my braking effort had transfered to the fronts as the rears had glazed up. The rear brakes have not worked efficiently since the last track day despite deglazing the discs and refacing the pads Its my experience that once the pads get severely overheated they never work again properly. I am in little doub`t that fitting some 1155, 1177 or Pagid Blues would ensure that the pads do not glaze up and continue to bite into the disc giving consistant braking, the question is will this generate more heat than the softer pads that have glazed up and are clearly not biting into the discs. If so the fluid is still going to boil so therefore the only option would be to fit sime cool air ducting or spend lots of wonga on the uprated rears and dubious hand brake setup.

Paul, I think you may be right, the design of the claw caliper is flawed for high performance use in that the piston has a large flat face that is in full contact with the pads where as the race calipers have holow face presenting a very small contact area to the pad and thus very low heat transfer. This problem has only presented itself since I installed my 230 bhp K and removed the screen/ excess weight my entry speeds into the corners has significantly increased. I find Donnington hard on brakes with coppice, melbourne hairpin, goddards and redgate all being fairly tight corners following high speed straights. Asklepios, I can assure you that I am not the only person with this problem and my brakes are correctly assembled and not dragging.

Paul, I think you may be right, the design of the claw caliper is flawed for high performance use in that the piston has a large flat face that is in full contact with the pads where as the race calipers have holow face presenting a very small contact area to the pad and thus very low heat transfer. This problem has only presented itself since I installed my 230 bhp K and removed the screen/ excess weight my entry speeds into the corners has significantly increased. I find Donnington hard on brakes with coppice, melbourne hairpin, goddards and redgate all being fairly tight corners following high speed straights. Asklepios, I can assure you that I am not the only person with this problem and my brakes are correctly assembled and not dragging.

Carburet, IMO fitting the big master cylinder only treats the symptom and not the cause. I want to prevent the rear fluid from boiling not merely cover up the problem with the high capacity big master cylinder. I do not like the feel of the big master cylinder the peddle is like a rock and needs a lot of effort to brake hard. The other factor is that if the rear calpipers are over heating to the degree that fresh dot5.1 fluid is boiling then I must now worry about the state of the piston seals. Sorry just covering up the problem won`t do for me, I want my rear brakes to work and work efficiently giving a consistant front/rear balance and a working handbrake. Jon, See you at Cadwell is that the L7 day or slipstream or both ? We can discuss the problem further.

Carburet, IMO fitting the big master cylinder only treats the symptom and not the cause. I want to prevent the rear fluid from boiling not merely cover up the problem with the high capacity big master cylinder. I do not like the feel of the big master cylinder the peddle is like a rock and needs a lot of effort to brake hard. The other factor is that if the rear calpipers are over heating to the degree that fresh dot5.1 fluid is boiling then I must now worry about the state of the piston seals. Sorry just covering up the problem won`t do for me, I want my rear brakes to work and work efficiently giving a consistant front/rear balance and a working handbrake. Jon, See you at Cadwell is that the L7 day or slipstream or both ? We can discuss the problem further.

Yep I have the uprated AP fronts and the standard M/S. I think the advice regarding fitting higher temperature pads to the rear is to stop them glazing up and thus stop the overheating getting worse and leas`t the rears will be working and not putting all the bias towards the fronts. Edited by - Rob walker on 31 Mar 2002 20:06:53