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I think TomC has had good experiences with Typhoon ECU’s

Just remember, I can only vouch for the original owner/operators, Bruce and Margaret, I have no real information other than what I posted above. Maybe stop in one day and scope it out. Bill S.

This is a much better engineering solution (vs just let the cable flying around). Thanks for sharing.

I personally would love to just own one...i just don't want it to occupy the garage floor space when I use it once every 3 years lol

I’m constantly vexed by the fact that I won’t touch Meta with a ten foot pole, and now it’s absorbed even the Craig’s List section of the internet. I can’t easily shop for a used one nearby. I’m a menace to my HOA because I demanded a non-Facebook group for the neighborhood. (I promise I’m not as much of a pain in the ass as that paragraph makes me sound like!) New one at Harbor Freight is $370. Maybe I could rent mine out for $50 a month to local builders when I’m done… I just don’t know if I have a long enough stretch of time to get it in over a weekend, and then believing I wouldn’t need it again.

It's certainly less anxiety if you own. You never know with a project how long you need or if something might go wrong. You could end up spending $300-$400 on a rental if something goes wrong.

I found mine (NAPA Evercraft) https://www.napaonline.com/en/p/BK_7761236 on Facebook Marketplace. I bought it for $250, still in its box. I figure I should be able to sell it for $100 or so, later on. Renting is certainly a reasonable option but having one of my own allows me to work at my own (slow) pace. I thought I'd be able to easily rent one from Autozone or O'Reilly's or the like, but when I checked, none of those places actually had any available to rent.

@williamwashere Yeah Sunbelt rentals. They have a very transport friendly one that fully disassembled into straight rods and beams pretty much. It fit in my wife's SUV. It's the one pictured on their site. They may however try to give you one that's not disassemble-able like they did with me. Just call and make sure the location you're going to has that one (if you need it to be disassembled). If you have a truck then it's not a problem. IIRC it was like $150 for the week. Quite affordable. What wasn't feasible was when I had to pull the engine and have it out for an indeterminate amount of time while I diagnosed my issue. Was also too lazy to rent it, and take it back and rent it again.

I had no idea this place existed. I may be taking my 7 there. It is relatively close.

Hi All, Alternator was purchased, not needed (my car has a different plug and setup). They do not accept returns as it was a special order. Link below: RAC676 Alternator Assembly, with Internal Fan

@hahuang65 did you rent one from someone nearby? I’m debating buying one vs renting one. None of my friends are cool enough to have one.

Yep. As I noted, 1-ton may have struggled to provide the necessary height. Lowering the chassis a lot might have worked but then it's hard to work under the car. Plus there's the concern of having a lot of weight potentially extending out past the ends of the hoist's legs. My hoist was on the higher-priced side, even as a Facebook Marketplace purchase, but the design, including the action of this hoist's hydraulics was very smooth, which helped with positioning. Another feature that's useful is to have the built-in T-handle on the frame. This helps with making slight adjustments to the lift's position and angle - important for getting the engine+trans in the right place

I had a 2 ton for my initial install that made it cake. I had a 1.5 ton when I had to pull the engine to crack open the transmission bell housing... Barely made clearance. It's the length of the arm and the height of the lift that was the issue. 2 ton is the clear choice here for no hiccups

Chassis protection and engine in I went whole hog on trying to protect the chassis, but I found that the transmission bell was so tight in the front of the tunnel that I had to remove all of the protection in that area. Mainly cardboard. In hindsight, it might have been better to just tape some plastic sheeting over the heat shielding in that area. As the blogs recommend, I'd also wrapped the entire transmission and gearbox in plastic. The install was easier than I expected. Blogs and guides suggest keeping all of the bolts loose (the engine-attached mounts, the rubber frame mounts, and transmission bracket), and then gradually shifting the assembly around until things line up. I had a really good helper who grasped the need to take work very slowly and carefully. It took us about 3 hours total, including final torquing of the bolts. The load leveler I've got is longer than most. That extra length gave me more leeway for adjusting the tilt of the assembly. The lift is a 2-ton version. I don't know if a 1-ton lift would have provided enough lifting height in this case. The only extra prep work I'd found necessary was to run a thread tap through the frame bolt holes at the rubber mount locations. In the end, everything was a very tight fit. How do people fit a Duratec into an S3?

I added an adel clamp attached to the battery tray bolt to help anchor the heater cable. I also wrapped some silicone tape around the portion of the heater valve, where it looked like it might rub against the back of the battery.

Engine prep I'd seen different recommendations about what peripherals to remove from the Sigma engine to make it easier to fit into the chassis (belt tensioner, alternator, starter). In my case, the only item I removed was the belt tensioner. That turned out to be enough. The combination of the engine hoist and the cart for the transmission worked out well. I'd considered just renting the hoist for the engine-install day, but I decided to buy a very lightly used one. I'm glad I did. I've now used it for multiple tasks in addition to the engine install, such as lifting the chassis out of its crate, repositioning in on the jack stands and assisting with the engine prep.

Upper ball joint removal When I installed the uprights, I'd forgotten to first assure that I had the same number of threads showing on both the RHS and LHS upper rod ends so that camber would be roughly in the right ball park. That meant that I had to pop the ball joint out of its socket. When searching for good ways to do that, folks mentioned using a tie rod fork, or hitting the socket with a hammer, or hitting the socket simultaneously with two hammers, or using a special tool, or using a combination of a bolt and nut to provide some upward force on the ball joint stud. I went with the latter option, as shown here. By turning the nut or bolt just slightly, it applied enough upward pressure to release the joint from its taper. Pretty easy.

What wheels-tires are you going with? As part of my drivetrain swap, I bought a set of 15x8 wheels that fit the Caterham. The Birkin and Caterham have different bolt circles. I just yesterday got the Birkin aligned and the take-off Yokos on. Double autocross weekend! Hope the weather is ok. If it's raining, I'll take the Cayman. Caterham mired in significant details just now.

Thank-you! I wish Jimmy had retained the mounts when he sold the X-flow that was originally in the car! Who knew it would be so difficult to find motor mounts?

In my shop, getting a perfect reading on each camber is iffy. Since the front camber on the Caterham is not adjustable anyway, I figured i could just check the total negative camber for both sides and divide by two. I zeroed the electronic gizmo that measures angles on the RF wheel. Then I brought the gizmo to the other side and read the difference. Bang on 5 degrees. Therefore, I surmised that Caterham were probably shooting for 2.5 degrees of negative camber. Got the front of the Birkin set to 2.5 degrees negative camber and zero toe. The caster is not adjustable, and measures 8 degrees. Dogtracking does not appear to be a problem: The thrust angle is -0.02 degrees. I'm not ready to buy new tires for these 7" wheels. I have 8" wheels for the Caterham, which will be a faster car when it's finished. I got the secondhand Yoko A052 205-15 tires mounted. These don't seem to have any flange-side voids, unlike the Prisoner wheels and the 8" wheels I have for the Caterham. If the weather cooperates, I'll take it around the cones this weekend. It appears that I can adjust the front swaybar without crawling on my belly like a reptile.

Good news! I contacted Greg Kuter from Time Machines Motorsports, the NY Caterham dealer, and I'm working through him... He's great to work with! --Bob Collum

This is a big help. With the control cable coming at the valve from the opposite side compared to a RHD car (and compared to the assembly guides), I'd been trying to decide if I needed to install the valve upside down in order to have the valve operate in the correct direction. It didn't occur to me to just have to cable loop back on itself to mimic the direction of a RHD setup.

For some reason, I have not been able to find them. I had no reason to pass them along, so they must be hiding somewhere in my attic, basement or shop. I will look again.

I was going on > The 22% “fast” steering rack was replaced with a new 8% rack and rod ends but I can't pretend to know what 22% and 8% mean in this context. Is the 22% rack faster or slower than the 8% rack? How do each of them compare to the standard rack on a Caterham?

Well, as it turns out, none of these things are true. Neither the assembly guide, nor the photos of your setup. My car was built for 3 point belts, but the builder/po decided to install 4 point harnesses instead. So, he drilled a hole for the inside harness, and re-used the outside seatbelt mounting point. The rollbar has a bolt behind the seatbelt mount that, might be 5/16, and it might be 3/8. I have a set of those amazon thread sizers, but they're absolutely useless in this situation. I bought some cheap rando hardware store bolts to figure out fit. Since I live near nothing, just waiting for them to show up. Oh the joy of old kit cars built by people that think they're engineers.