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A good thing to keep in mind is that on most types of pins, the rear "wings" on the pin are intended to grip the wire insulation and serve to anchor the pin, while the front wings should grip just bare wire. This helps when looking at how much insulation you want to strip off, and how you want to position the wire in the pin when the pin's being held by the crimping tool.

Sorry to take so long to get back to you about your engine mounts, do you still have them? I'd like to buy them, they might not fit exactly as found but could well serve once modified.

There is some good real estate under the steering column that I decided to put to good use. I used some brass heat-set inserts for threads. For everything outside the engine bay, I use PETG with carbon fiber. I highly recommend it. This area is a perfect fit for an Element Extinguisher. I realize these aren't as good as a bottle of novec 1230, but it will probably be sufficient for my needs.

I’m signed up for SLC in Sept., will be trailering car (Lotus or Caterham TBD) from Austin. I’ve enjoyed several LOG events over the years. The combined Golden Gate Lotus / LOG event should be great. Heading to the UK next week for Taffia Fish & Chip Run, on my must do list for years. Now retired, I’m determined to make NJMP in October. Cheers! Steve

Hi there. John C. just gave you the ability to message. Feel free to respond to the message I just sent you.

8 MPG? You may want to pull the dipstick and sniff for gas smell.

How can I contact you?

That's the only real thing I'm worried about. 5 gallon tank, no real problems there if somehow that were true. I'm used to getting 15mpg in my STI so no issues there either lol. That being said, pretty sure my friend was plowing at 100+ mph for a good portion of that 40 mile drive, maybe even half of it lol

My 420R with roller barrels (and Caterham tune) gets crap mileage. 70mph cruise doesn't even get 20mpg. I think around 15-18. Always been that way. That's with aeroscreen, no doors, sticky tires.

The substitution of a hex bolt in the Birkin upper location is not going to work. Taking taking a Dremel-type cutting disc to an 8mm Allen-key-type wrench was a great help in for the Birken middle location, but no help for the upper. On the Caterham, there was plenty of room to reach all the bolts with an 8mm driver mounted on a 3/8" ratchet handle.

He has a problematic Zetec that is getting horrid mileage. Someone with a 420 should be able to chime in with their typical street mpg. As proxies, my Westfield, with a taller (3.62 vs. 3.92) final drive returned ~25 mpg when it had 420 cams with ITBs, and about 1-2mpg worse after changing to more aggressive cams. Highway consumption when touring was much better. The 2.4L Duratec in my Caterham is pretty thirsty, barely breaking 20 mpg in normal (back roads/around town) street use. Something would need to be wrong for you to go through 5 gallons in just 40 miles of street use in a stock 420.

I have news. I stumbled into what looked like the right thing at O'Reilly and found one in stock, stuck it in my Caterham and it cranks. There was one review there and the vehicle shown in the review was a 2000 Ford Ranger, so I went through all the engine choices until I found the one that returned the model that I already know works. Surprise: It's not the Ranger four-banger. Ford part that was in Steve's driveline he sold me: F32U-1131-AA - search for 2000 Ford Ranger XLT - V6 - 3.0L 2986cc 182ci GAS MFI vin U - 2 valve OHV or 2000 Ford Ranger Sub-Model: XLT Engine: 6 Cylinders 3.0L Vulcan GAS =========== Confirmed works, cranked the Zetec in my "Birkin-equipped" Caterham: O'REILLY BesTest Starter - Remanufactured - V613177 =========== Probably works: - Ultima Starter - Remanufactured - R613177 - Ultima Select Starter - New - N613177 Part # N613177 Line: USL - Bosch Starter - New - SR7559N Part # SR7559N Line: BOS - Bosch Starter - Remanufactured - SR7559X Part # SR7559X Line: BOS - Duralast Remanufactured Starter DL3264S - TotalPro Remanufactured Starter T3218 Shop All TotalPro - Raw Power New Starter ES3218S Part #ES3218S - AC Delco Gold Starter 336-1113A - NAPA Starter - Reman - Standard Part #: RAY 2449308 - Starter - Remanufactured Denso at NAPA Part #: DEN 2805104

What is his fuel consumption? I went from thinking I had a full tank (5g by my definition at the time) to empty in like 40 miles .

Done properly you only need a tiny section of wire, enough for the forward crimp on the pin, so cutting and re-pinning should only lose ⅓" or so of the wire. In the picture you only need the wire between the green lines ... the section I've crossed out is surplus (my sloppy work, too much bare wire on all the pins!) and in fact occupies the space that the connector's internal catch needs to click into in order to retain the pin.

BTW all the suggestions above are assuming your car is running well and you aren't getting @Vovchandr-like fuel consumption.

Caterham doesn't offer smaller fuel tanks, so even if they somehow managed to install the slightly smaller S3 tank in your SV, you would still have 9.5 gallons less ~1.5 gallons the fuel pump can't reach. That doesn't mean the tank wasn't crushed, but you that would be pretty obvious from beneath the car. From the owner's manual: It seems there are only two possibilities: The way you checked earlier that the tank was full was done incorrectly, or you have an issue with the tank. Although it's a little tricky to do because of the flap and the curvature of the filler neck, you could make a curved dipstick out of thick single strand wire or thin rod to confirm the fuel level. I have done this before when troubleshooting, but it took several attempts to get an accurate reading. I found putting painter's tape on the rod was helpful to see the actual level. Another possibility is repeatedly tapping the front of the tank going from bottom to top to see if you note a change in the thud that delineates the transition from fuel to air. I've never tried this myself, so the difference may be too subtle to hear. If you do attempt it, avoid the middle of the tank where the baffle is located. If you think the tank should be nearly full and the dipstick or thump test shows about half, then you know the issue is with filling it. If not, then there could be a blockage, or possibly an issue with the baffle, which divides the fill side and pump side of the tank. The foolproof method to confirm the fuel level is to remove the floor and pull the fuel pump/sensor assembly and do a visual check. However, that isn't easy as an uncut floor can be very frustrating to remove, and you need a special tool to remove the fuel assembly's locking ring. Fortunately, that tool is readily available and isn't expensive. My boot floor is currently removed, so let me know if you need pictures of anything.

Yeah you're right about the difficulty of threading the wires with vs without the pins. I did it with the pins as that's how it came already from the factory. If I have the wire length, then cutting off and recrimping the pins should not be a big deal. I'll see how it is when the pins come in and I fix my loose one.. if they work well with my crimper I might just redo it. I should probably heatshrink the wires too (I didn't previously).

Quick experiment with some black self-fusing silicone tape .... seems like a clean black out solution? And I know from past usage, this stuff is completely weatherproof.

Yep, your blog's definitely a help. The level of detail (including obscure stuff such as the part numbers for the Econoseal pins) is spot-on, and there aren't many blogs on LHD cars. I also found that the 5 wires wrapped in flexible, tight heat shrink to be pretty easy to get through the bracket. Shouldn't be hard to re-do if desired.

JFYI for those who might be interested, I've started advertising the car outside of USA7's for $26K.

I used an online calculator to try get a close estimate to my new tank capacity. I think I got close... https://www.vcalc.com/wiki/volume-of-a-tapered-trough Tom

@hahuang65 I am not sure how easy it would be from underneath, but if you can get the length, width, and height, you can calculate the approximate volume. Gallons = (LxWxH)/231

Curious why you'd remove the regulator. If the mechanical pump is maintaining 2-3 psi, maybe there is no benefit?

@Origin7 happy to, but what measurements would you suggest?

Can you get some rough measurements and calculate the capacity (roughly)? Then you know if you can only put 5 gallons in a 10 gallon tank, you have a problem. I am not exactly sure what that problem would be, but it's a starting point.