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You don't need those rubber blocks on wide tires. I stopped using them long ago because they were a right pain on my lowered Elise. You can test the theory by leaving them off on one wheel. If the strap is placed correctly, it's not going anywhere. If it is placed incorrectly, I don't think the blocks are are going to help much. It probably does not matter, but I tend to have the parking brake on and the car in neutral. I use the space behind the car to stack up my race ramps and use a 1" ratchet strap from one E-track to the other to hold them in place. They weigh almost nothing. Ignore the D-rings. The car needs to move on its suspension. A Caterham does not offer much in the way of good places to hook tiedowns: That's what is so good about using the tires. I have a short strip of E-track about shoulder height on the side wall of the trailer near each corner of the car. About 6 slots: three for a tire strap and 3 for whatever else is hanging around. Since I run my ratchets ahead of the car, I generally only disconnect the after clip of the three on the front straps and leave the assemblies lying on the trailer floor while I am driving the car. When the trailer is used for something else, I hang the front straps on the wall E-tracks. With all three clips fastened, the mass of the straps themself is unlikely to cause any trouble. Don't just clip two; you don't want that idler roller swinging around when you are towing an empty trailer. If you need to put the car in the trailer and don't have time to tie it down right then, take one of the straps and put it in the driver footwell of the truck so you you don't come back later and drive the rig away.

Thanks everyone for you commets and advice so far. Made some more progress today. New tongue weight scale came in, and it wasn’t accurate at all either. These things are junk. It would weigh the tongue weight at ~200-300 lbs which just didn’t seem right. I decided to just strap the car down and drive to a CAT scale and get real weights. truck steer axle: 2800lbs rear axle: 2240lbs trailer axle: 0lbs truck + trailer steer axle: 2560lbs rear axle: 3020lbs trailer axle: 3100lbs So the loaded trailer was 3650, and tongue weight with where I happened to place the car, was 540lbs, pretty much sport on 15%. That also gives me about 100+ pounds more payload than I thought I would have which is great. I can probably move the car back a foot and gain even more payload if I ever needed it. Strapping the car down was... interesting. I am new to ratchet straps, etrack, etc. I put it all together and wasn’t 100% confident on how tight the straps need to be or where to place them. I just cranked away until it was not that easy to do more. I checked after a few miles and the straps didn’t move or loosen, so must have been okay? Here are a bunch of photos of the car strapped. Does it seem okay or should I change anything? Should I leave the car in gear with the ebrake on? I do have drings I can certain use in addition to the over the tire straps if that would be a good idea as well. The truck with the trailer loaded with the car drove fine, albeit I was not on a high way and only was going between 30-55mph. You can certainly tell the trailer has more weight with the car loaded though. Its much more sluggish in every area.

Don't think much of the terrain tires on my F-150. The Michelin all-weather LT tires on my Suburban 2500 were much better. On the F-150, I keep the tires at 80 PSI all the time and use the sway-snubber.

The pulley is swappable I assume? Mine has a 4 groove flat and the one I’ve found that looks like it will work is a V groove. I’ve had to do that before with other cars and it was a straightforward swap, just needed an impact to get the nut off.

Took the Cat to get an alignment today expecting it would be bad after raising it so much. It was kinda bad with -1.2* camber and 0.45* of toe-out up front, 5* caster. Rear was -1.5* camber and 0.1 toe-in. To help eliminate understeer I asked them to set the front to -2 camber, 0 toe. Went for a quick blat and it feels better, but it still understeers when pushed hard enough. I’m going to shim it to try and get 6 or 6.5 caster and try again. Next step might be trying to stiffen the rear roll bar but I would rather not because likely that the tires have some blame in this. At any rate, I’m loving this thing .

I'm in the same boat with my Pectels. I'm getting a feeling that it will be easier to just sort out pectel as is instead undertaking a swap even though I have a wiring harness and new ECU already. If there was a Pectel to Omex adapter that would be convenient. I'm also in same boat of not having knock sensor and not having wideband wired. Data logging is still a struggle too

Can i reach out if this is still available?

BFH seems to have done its job, The front stay is longer and bends easier. Although I was shocked at the amount of persuasion it needed. I think the front stay is good (may have to revisit if I get the Hoosier 195s). The rear stay (on the front fender) is shorter to the cross brace so harder to bend. I think i created some clearance but might have to improve this some more.

Yeah rewiring whole thing would obviously be much more work. In my case I wideband O2 and a knock sensor would be the only wiring additions.

Here's a discussion from the UK forum... https://www.caterhamlotus7.club/forums/topic/262969-k-series-alternator-1400-supersport-1992-ecu2/ Try looking for a 55A Lucas A127 and replacements for the A127 that have the same mounting and pulley as yours. You also could use it as an opportunity to put a modern smaller/lighter denso style one on it but you'd have to work out mounting. Scott

Thanks looking for the ones with headrests like the Tillett B6.

Oh wow that looks handy! That being said, my friend was just installing grommets on a tarp and couldn't use a hammer so he used a plier clamp with the normal tool and ... Seems pretty similar without buying a new tool* *assuming you've done any cabinet work recently and bought that style of clamp The FLIR gun does sound handy as the next step after an IR thermometer. I bought one with the laser pointer AND a contact probe so I could do two jobs with one tool. Very recommended when I was chasing cooling system gremlins.

Check for an alternator repair shop.

The one that came off is a Magneti Marelli 54022458 A127-55. I’ve located a few that might work but if anyone has already done the leg work and has a source or a part number I’d sure appreciate it. 1992 Supersprint with 1400 k-series https://www.classic-spares.com/product/rac057-lucas-a127-55-amp-alternator/ https://www.ebay.com/itm/173634751119

Not going funny but rather sincere. The tool for snaps was expensive but made any job on the Cat that required them a breeze Also Thermal infrared (Flir) gun is quite useful for car and home use.

I was seeing if anyone had started some threads on cool handy tools (I'll do that soon) and found this instead. Sure is an oldie but it it's worth a bump!

I've often wondered about this route in abstract, as a Pectel T2 dying is going to (likely) be an extended amount of downtime locating a replacement. Not that it's happened to me, but it's on my mind. Of course, switching ECUs and having to re-tune from scratch would also be an extended downtime (for me, anyway), even if it was "plug and play" with a harness. Either way would seem to beat re-wiring the whole thing though! I try not to think about it too much.

Very nice. I have been considering one of those. Scott

You could reach out to https://www.stmotorsport.net/product-page/obd-diagnostic-connector-female-mbe-ecu-comms-motorsport-rally-race and ask about the MBE plug you need and if they could do a harness or partial harness and you could just wire it to Haltech (or other) standalone ECU plugs. You need the MBE ecu plug and a pinout list for the MBE. Haltech sell plug and pin kits for all of their current gen ECUs and all of the pinouts for the ECUs are available on their site. Depending on features you want, a Haltech 750 or 1500 might be enough. You would likely want to add a WB o2 and that will add some complexity to the install but make tuning at home and auto tuning with the Haltech a reality for you. Do a youtube search on Haltech autotune and you'll see what I mean. https://youtu.be/b_ly9YZodxw?si=3HahDUoV28-c9klw There are lots of resources for DIY tuning and wiring if you want to learn a new skill. There are active Haltech FB groups and lots of folks on those groups who run speed and wiring shops in North America that could help if you don't want to do it yourself. OR, like you say, just buy an unlocked MBE and it will save you much of the wiring hassle and you just need to find someone to tune it. You could likely find someone to provide you a good base map to start from. You might ask yourself as well what you'd gain and is it worth it. if you don't have drivability issues now it might not be worth the spend from a performance perspective. Scott

420R SV on BaT: https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2023-caterham-seven-420r/

I have a locked MBE ECU in my 2008 Sigma 150. The tune on the 150s was never great from caterham. I have two options I can order and unlock unit from the UK and try to find someone here to tune it in Canada or get it tuned remotely from the UK. The other option is to do something like a haltech and just create an adapter between the caterham harness and the haltech. I would prefer not to cut the existing wires in case of next owner wants to go back to the stock ECU for whatever reason down the road. Has anyone had anybody create an adapter? I might give it a go myself but I don't have patience for wiring. Doesn't even need to be haltech anything that is common in the North America market would suffice.

Piling onto this comment, another place where people go wrong -- including Caterham -- is the sensor mounting orientation. Sensor manufacturers recommend positioning it at least 10 degrees above horizontal to minimize the condensation pooling on the tip.

Looks like the one in my green Birkin. More about that later. What I think are Bosch numbers in the USA are: Bosch Starter - New - SR7559N Bosch Starter - Remanufactured - SR7559X After success with getting a new starter in the (Birkinized) Caterham, today I install a starter in the green Birkin. These two starters are marketed as different brands with different part numbers. They appear to have been remanufactured in the same place in Mexico. More details after I get this second one in and tested.

This is a common misconception about oxygen sensors and gauges. Oxygen sensors don't read AFR, they read Lambda. Lambda doesn't change with the type of fuel, and Lambda 1 is always stoichiometric regardless of fuel. The gauge converts the Lambda reading to AFR based on a user configurable setting which is a multiplier of stoich AFR * Lambda. By default this setting tends to be 14.7AFR = Lambda 1 for the gasoline scale we are used to. As a result, an engine idling with an AFR reading of 14.7 but running E85 doesn't actually have a 14.7:1 ratio in the exhaust, but instead 9.8:1 . The sensor is reading Lambda=1 (9.8:1 for E85), but the gauge has converted it to the gasoline scale. This of course changes if you modify the scale in your gauge. @Mudder The AEM X series gauges are good and reliable. Install the oxygen sensor behind the collector of your 4-1 header. It's also a good idea to wire the controller in such a way that it doesn't heat the sensor until the engine is running to prevent condensation from damaging the sensor.

I just found another folder with photos of a Birkin starter. Not sure how I missed this before.