JohnCh

9.5v sounds a little low. I know that the Emerald ECU requires a little more than 9v (don't recall the exact value) in order to operate. I wonder if you are hovering around or below the min mark for the 9A4? I'll try to check the voltages on my car later today to see if they differ substantially from what you reported.

I have that same battery in my car, and it has started a few times with no issues (new build and not yet driven). What voltage is Easimap showing before you crank and what about while you are cranking? Does that differ from multimeter readings at the battery? Is the engine block ground connection ok? Also, make sure the plug to the ECU is fully seated and verify the crank sensor connector pins are all fully seated within the plugs. I've seen the latter issue with a different sensor on a 420R engine loom cause some problems. -John

Yep, I don't think we'll see him again. I sent him a PM yesterday thanking him for his understanding the extra due diligence given the sensitivity of the content. As with Bruce's PM, it was read yesterday but no response or acknowledgment followed. Although there could be a valid reason for his actions (medical emergency, realized he forgot it was his wedding anniversary, alien abduction, etc.) it doesn't take that much effort to simply reply with a perfunctory "thanks" especially to Bruce who helped him out. -John

Great photos! Do you know what led the owner to disassemble the car when it was still relatively young? And not to derail the thread, but is that an Elan project I spot in the first photo? Thanks, John

Looking forward to following this! -John

Given the sensitive nature of the information, you may find people reluctant to share it with someone who joined USA7s specifically to make that request. Although you may be a legit Caterham owner with a verifiable online history elsewhere, we have no evidence that is the case. -John

My preferred shop can do the wheels at the end of next week. The plan is to drop them off Thursday and pick them up either the next day or Monday. My no-logo air filter saga continues. A few pointed conversations with Pegasus were required to go from the answer "ITG is prioritizing this" to receiving actual dates. It turns out ITG made the initial error and did a no-logo filter on a JC55S rather than the JC50S I ordered. Physically, the JC55 is 2.5" longer and a very tight squeeze. ITG has already produced the correct filter (good) but then put it on a slow boat across the Atlantic yesterday (bad). That's a 2+ week journey, plus time for Pegasus to receive, unpack, repack, and ship to me, which puts me at over 3 weeks before I can even begin to cut the bonnet. Given the trickle-down effect from this -- I need the filter before I can start driving the car, find and fix any subsequent issues, adjust the tune, schedule a dyno session to finalize the tune, etc. -- that extra 2+ week delay could really impact my plans this summer. Therefore, I decided to bite the bullet and have them send a logo filter today which will arrive in time for me to attempt the bonnet cutout next weekend. Once the no-logo filter arrives, I'll have a very low mileage ITG JC50S-125 for sale at a good price. Just in case anyone needs one. The order is in with Thundersport for a modified half hood that will work with the 3rd-brake light. I was initially told that specific brake light works with Caterham's weather gear, which I took that to mean the factory half hood as well. Bad move on my part. Once I saw how the half hood attaches, it was clear the brake light would prevent it from cinching down. Thundersport initially said they were unable to modify one to fit, but after asking if they could simply add a cutout for the light and stating I was fine if it wasn't quite as watertight in that area as normal, they agreed. Thundersport also makes the transmission tunnel covers for Caterham. When ordering my kit, I upgraded the standard faux carbon vinyl transmission tunnel cover to the black leather version from the Signature catalog and now need a matching piece of leather for my glove box. Thundersport has agreed to include that with my order, eliminating the need for me to visit various upholstery shops trying to find something with matching grain and color. -John

Thanks guys. The shop I normally use for my cars does road force balancing and are really thorough. I had considered using a different shop closer to home, but probably worth ensuring it's done right. The plan is to have both front wheels redone and I'll instruct them to rotate the tires as needed to minimize weight and optimize balance. In other news, still no word from Pegasus on air filter status despite calling when they opened this morning. I'll try again tomorrow. FedEx confirmed with Caterham that the seat runners and aero/windscreen quick change brackets are lost. To Caterham's credit, they sent out the replacement items first thing yesterday morning and they arrived here about an hour ago; 1 day arrival from the UK. Of course, the package looks like it was vigorously kicked around the FedEx facility, but fortunately nothing inside was fragile, so no damage despite their best efforts. -John

Hi @Rosteri I followed your earlier comment which is what led me to look specifically at that aspect on both the Caterham and Westfield. Thanks for that! Thanks for the tips on how to redo this without rebalancing, but this comment is why I'm considering it. My confidence in the quality of the initial job is not high.

I just took a look at the Westfield's 13" wheels -- also Caterham wheels BTW -- and it looks like the weights are slightly different than what either Caterham or Beachman's shop used. It could very easily be an optical illusion, but the both the weights and the foam appear to be a little thinner and you can see a comfortable triangular gap between each weight indicating they are conforming to the circumference. I just checked the other wheels on the Caterham. The rears both look fine, but the other front wheel...not so much. I'm no expert, but that doesn't look right to me. Looking at the weights from above, it appears the foam is stretched between the weights due to the tight circumference and potentially from forcing the weights into position, and that tension popped the middle section away from the rim. -John

Thanks, the tires arrive from Caterham mounted to the wheels, so this person only balanced them. Interestingly, although none of the tires follow the convention (yellow dot near the valve stem) and were clearly mounted randomly, the wheel with the missing weights was closest to correct. -John

The car drove and stopped under its own power on Saturday. However, with no air filter, it was only a 200' round trip drive up part of the driveway. The special order, no-logo ITG air filter ordered in mid-March was supposed to arrive in April or May. It arrived at Pegasus last week, but apparently it was the wrong filter. I'm waiting to hear back from them on next steps, but unless ITG can turn things around this week, it looks like I'll have Pegasus send the logo filter tomorrow or Wed. In the interim, I need to spend some time learning Easimap. As I've written before, this color is really hard to capture in photos, but this one is pretty close. You can really see the yellow highlights on curved surfaces: When preparing to lower the car from the stands, I found this under the driver's side front tire. I suspect it fell out of the rim while the wheel was tilted during the removal/installation process when attaching the front wings. Putting the weight back in place (the rectangular shaped area with no dust) there was clearance to the caliper. It was tight, and might not be sufficient for driving, but certainly not an issue for pushing it around. When the car arrived, there were weights on the bottom of the crate, so at least one wheel was affected, leading me to pay to have them all rebalanced. Given this happened again, there might be some coating on that wheel that interferers with strong adhesion. It's been suggested that I knocked it off when mounting the wheel, but I just don't see how I could have been that ham-fisted with such a light wheel and not notice it. Particularly given I've been removing 13" wheels with tight clearances to 4-pot calipers on the Westfield for many years without issue. Looking at the weights, I also don't see evidence that occurred. After 5 weeks, FedEx has finally determined my passenger side seat rails, and aeroscreen/windscreen quick-change retaining brackets are lost. I'm not sure when Caterham will send replacements. For now, the passenger seat will be fixed. Once the car has covered some miles, I'll pull the scuttle to finalize the wiring, affix the knee panels, make a panel to cover the back of the relocated fuse box, swap in those quick change retaining brackets, and fix the various issues that will inevitably arise as the shake down miles pile on. Other than those known items, the only things left are cutting a hole in the bonnet for the missing air filter (yes, scary), swapping over the adjustable runners on the passenger seat, installing the wipers (blades were missing from my kit) and pulling the tunnel cover to attach the glove box. None of those things will stop me from putting miles on the car. Now that the car is nearly done, I started to go through the leftover parts and throw away some boxes and packaging. The photo below shows what I found. Missing are the oil pressure gauge and ECU, both of which are with local USA7s members for troubleshooting purposes. At some point, most of this goes up for sale. -John

I just tried it, and it worked fine with no error message. If it happens again, please send me a PM so I can investigate further. Thanks, John

That's expected behavior. The Downloads section is locked down so we can ensure that we don't have duplicates, things are categorized appropriately, are appropriate for the site, and aren't egregious copyright violations. The process for submitting something is located at the top of that page: Thanks, John

Are you referring to attaching an Excel file to a post or were you trying to add it to the Downloads section? Thanks, John

See help topic here: I'm looking forward to hearing how the drive went today. Cheers, John

My guess is that someone who doesn't know how to use a fire extinguisher is going to walk up on the fire slowly rather than jump right on top of it like the person in the video. That behavior is exactly what Element recommends. If you are worried about your scenario, I would ignore the Element simply because it operates like a road flare rather than pulling a pin and squeezing a trigger. How many people know how to use a flare?

I read the instructions when I bought mine a couple of years ago. Seemed a small price to pay for the form factor If his review stated "here's what happens if you use the Element like you would intuitively use a traditional fire extinguisher" then his review would be useful. But as it stands, it's just a PSA for reading directions.

Cam break in happened at the end of last week; 20 minutes at >2000rpm. Prior to starting that procedure, I lowered the radiator fan switch-on speed in Easimap from 90F to below ambient to confirm it was working. I returned it to 90F, but that seems a little low for a Duratec. Is that the factory setting? The Check engine light came on again, but this time there was no information about the cause in Easimap. One possible reason was the air temperature. The display for that reading turned red at anything above 40C. Red seems bad, but 40C intake temps don't seem that extreme. That reading was also inaccurate. It was 80F outside, the bonnet was off and the sensor was sitting on the shelf in front of the scuttle. I can’t see the localized air temp more than 85-90F (29-32C). This will be another question to add to my list for SBD. The front wings are on and repeaters installed. I opted to use 3M Epoxy and followed Pokey's excellent writeup here. Of course, it they fly off at speed, that credit turns to liability When attempting to attach the repeater ground to the underside of the stay tube, it was a little bit of a struggle. Very tight and the screwdriver was beginning to slip. Not wanting to take a chance on stripping the head, I replaced them with hex head sheet metal screws that were shortened on the grinding wheel to avoid damaging the 12v+ wire that runs in the tube. It seemed a better approach and allowed me to safely torque the screw. I also discovered why the side light bulb in the driver's side headlight never worked. It arrived in the socket looking like this. Easy fix. My original plan was to hang the glove box above the tunnel cover from an under-scuttle shelf, but given all the wiring, I wasn't able to find a good location so I've decided to attach it directly to the tunnel cover. Aesthetically, I still want it to appear as if it's floating about 1/2" above the tunnel. Short legs through which the screws pass should do the trick and wont' be visible. Here are a couple of pictures of the first attempt. The whole thing will be covered by black leather that matches the tunnel cover and will hopefully blend in. I need to alter the dimensions just a bit for the final version but it's close. The air filter is still a week or two (or three?) away from arriving, but I hope to have the rest of the car ready for its maiden drive by the end of the weekend. -John

It's hard to take that result seriously since he didn't follow Element's instructions, and in fact did it exactly like they say to avoid. I can't link directly to that portion of their FAQ, so I'll post the relevant section below in its entirety: "Unlike a dry chemical extinguisher that combats a blaze by depositing a large amount of solid powder on the fire, an Element extinguisher fights a fire by releasing a gas. This gas attaches itself to the oxygen surrounding the fire robbing its ability to stick to the chain of combustion (without affecting ones ability to breath that oxygen). The goal is therefore to use the gas coming out the Element extinguisher to create a ‘cloud of containment’ around a fire. Creating a cloud that prevents any outside and un-attached oxygen from getting to the fire is essential and is the same strategy that should also be used with a Halon/Halotron or CO2 extinguisher. The two worst things you can do when fighting a fire with a gas extinguisher is to be too close or to rush the process. Being very close to a fire means that a cloud cannot be formed blocking any new oxygen that will continue to feed the flame. This is particularly problematic in an isolated pan situation where being too close will only chase the flames around. Rushing the process by moving the extinguisher around a lot also prevents a cloud from being formed and diminishes the performance of the extinguisher. The best technique is to take advantage of the long discharge time offered by the Element extinguisher and to approach a fire from a moderate distance progressively getting closer to its source. During the approach, move the extinguisher slowly around the fire always directing towards the center. This will contain the fire and allow the gas the ability to work. Tight areas with lots of pockets (like the engine bay of a car) brings out the strengths of the Element extinguisher as the gas, which is heavier than air, will fill all the voids not directly accessible; both putting out a fire and preventing a re-flash. "

Thanks, there are some impending updates that might fix it, but I haven't been able to set aside the necessary time to troubleshoot potential issues if things go wrong -- it's a big backend update. Hopefully I can get to it over the next week or two and can then open a ticket if GIPHY is still not working.

Thanks, it still shows as configured correctly in the admin panel, but it is a third-party service so they may have made some changes that are incompatible with our current software version or they could be having issues with their service. Any idea when it was last working? Thanks, John

Thanks! I'll take a look at this when meeting hell dies down.

Thanks @sf4018. Are you using the 9A9 or 9A4? I'm using the latter, and have CAN enabled for the 420R native outputs (ECT, RPM, and Battery) but the oil temp sensor isn't wired into the MBE so nothing to output. I just did a search and found that AEM makes a sensor that will work and includes a very detailed resistance to temperature chart. For $50, that might be the easiest path forward.