JohnCh

Good thread on bonnet and nose cone solutions below. For my bonnet, I'm using wooden arms on folding shelf brackets that store flat against the wall when not in use.

There is a big difference in driving dynamics between the 15" and 13". Even going from 14" to 13" on my old Westfield was eye opening. Unless you have ride height issues or are simply unwilling to live with the limited tire options for the smaller wheel, get the 13".

@gde31ff I was surprised that car went for so little. Provided there are no nasty surprises, it appears you got a great deal with plenty of upgrade potential. Don't forget to start a build thread when you begin digging into it.

Soft Bits makes great products, but for various reasons, their supply and communication process can be quite leisurely -- sadly, the communication issue is a common refrain with many of the UK vendors who support our hobby. My Long Nose Shower Cap took over three months from order to shipment. My best advice when working with any small UK vendor is to be persistent with email and supplement with phone call attempts. Eventually one of those will get through and generate a response. If you do give up on Soft Bits, check with Caterham to make sure they don't have a half hood in stock. The website isn't always accurate from that perspective. Also, call some of the US dealers. Josh at Rocky Mountain and Bruce at Beachman Racing both stock a fair number of parts. One of them may just have a half hood in their inventory.

Sometimes I really love AI.

Looks great @hahuang65 I'm moving this thread into the 3D printing forum to keep posts on that subject together.

Another vote for the Schroth ASM FE. An additional benefit is they allow you to not only get the lap adjustment buckle quite close to the cam lock -- helpful if you have the composite seats -- but you can configure the lap belts as either pull up or pull down. I like pull down on the driver's side because it positions the excess belt material off my lap and I rarely need to adjust them. However, for the passenger side I like the pull up configuration, since I usually have to belt in newbies, and it's much easier to do that from outside the car with the pull up orientation than trying to explain to them how to do it themselves with the pull down style.

For what it's worth, the 123 works great and is comparatively very quick and easy to install. The 3D ignition setup requires a trigger wheel on the crank pulley, a CPS with a bracket to fit the Kent block, a plug for the removed distributor, a coil pack, a bracket to affix the coil pack, a TPS with bracket that works with DCOEs, and then wiring everything together. In theory most of those installation parts are available in the UK, but I ran into some significant issues sourcing some of them and ultimately ended up making quite a few myself and outsourcing the crank and trigger wheel to a local shop to weld and true on a lathe. Hopefully it will all work.

@stevehello, please see the help guides, which cover how to use various aspects of the forum, including how to reply: https://usa7s.net/ips/articles.html/forum-help-guides/ If you have any questions or run into any issues, send me a PM and I'll try to assist (and yes, the help guides also cover how to send PMs )

My condolences. It doesn't get any better the further you get into it. I also drew the line on replacing the ECU with an Emerald for similar reasons. Wiring issues are common enough on new builds that I was concerned I'd be chasing an issue I thought I caused, which was really a fault of the factory harness. As much as I dislike the MBE, I don't regret that decision, but like I said, I have a feeling I will eventually regret leaving the LSD untouched.

I strongly considered doing this with my car, but ultimately decided I didn't want to have the opportunity for finger pointing by Caterham if the remaining innards of the diff had any issues. When it comes time to replace mine, I am sure I will rue that earlier decision.

The Nodiz is replacing a 123 Ignition in the removed Stromberg engine. Unfortunately, that doesn't do logging, so you would need something dedicated. The data logging on the Nodiz is straightforward. ME makes several ECUs for injected cars, and use the same software across the board, which includes data logging. The big difference with the Nodiz is that a relatively recent update removed the native AFR logging functionality. Previously you could input the calibration chart that correlated output voltage to specific AFR values, and it would store the latter for the data logs. Now, it just logs the voltage. Apparently, the logs are easily exported to Excel and the conversion can be done there. Sadly, I'm probably at least a month away from trying that out.

Thanks for starting this and getting permission from Keith to post the docs. I'll add those to the Library later this week. I joined Keith's forum a couple of months ago and have been casually monitoring the email discussions, but I've been waiting to really dig into this topic until the new engine is finally installed in the Elan. I agree about adding a WBO2 sensor and have already wired in an AEM X-series and a Nodiz 3D ignition module from Motorsport Electronics. The data logging function will allow me to log rpm, throttle position, and AFR (actually the AEM voltage output, which I then need to convert into AFR). I'm hoping this should make things a little easier since it removes the guesswork of where and when it's rich or lean, and by how much.

Caterham's tolerances can make boot floor removal an arduous task on some cars. Count yourself lucky if you got yours out so quickly. As for any detriment to crash worthiness or structural rigidity, I'll defer to a mechanical engineer, but I struggle to see how the floor as fitted -- even after cutting in two -- will make a meaningful difference. It's not exactly a properly stressed panel given it's held in place by just seven #10 sheet metal screws fitted into holes with loose tolerances. I imagine any impact causing sufficient damage to the frame where that panel will help, will easily pop those screws out of the frame, rendering it a piece of floating honeycomb. That may still offer some piercing protection for the tank from above, but the fact it's now two pieces vs. one seems unlikely to make a difference in anything other than an edge case.

When you have the honeycomb removed, cut it into two pieces before refitting. That changes this process from a frustrating headache to a few minutes with a screwdriver the next time the floor needs to come out. Short write up of how I did mine here:

@williamwashere make sure you start a build thread. It becomes an invaluable resource down the road when performing repairs or maintenance and you either want to refresh your memory on how you tackled something or see a photo of what that area looked like when freshly assembled.

The end of an era. Hopefully CatKong will pass its final shakedown runs this summer and make it home to NJMP this year.

My feelings on this thread can best be summarized by this emoji:

@pethier, here's a practical guideline you can apply in the future. If your car was listed on Bring a Trailer, would they apply the "project" descriptor to it, or would it be considered a (completed) car? If the former, it goes in the Build forum, if the latter -- even if you are in a permanent upgrade cycle -- then it belongs here.

Morgan's username here and on CCC was Mopho. This link will take you to all his USA7s posts, and this link will take you to all his posts on CCC. I did find the thread where the car was tuned on Bisimoto's dyno: https://www.californiacaterhamclub.com/forum/caterham/events/1400-dyno-time. He picked up quite a bit of power that day.

I think it's Al's/Morgan's old car. If so, lots of history here and on the old CCC site.

Hmm... Perhaps that's why his car developed rust in that area?

I thought your car looked familiar. Was a former owner's name Morgan? If so, I can point you to some history on the car that you may not know about.

Do you know if you have a Pipercross or ITG? I've had to source my Pipercross sausage filters directly from them in the UK, but Pegasus in the US can supply the ITG filters.

MK also offer the Miata donor version set up to take the Honda K20 or K24 engines for those who want high horsepower without forced induction.