JohnCh

Thanks for the feedback. Your example is for Xenforo, however, we are on Invision so the capability and available plug-ins don't necessarily apply. Currently the main page is set to the forum view as that's the primary reason the site exists. That may change in the future if we spin up the club aspect again, and if it does, it will focus on highlighting all content and membership benefits, not just the galleries. Specific to showing random photos, the current native option for the Galleries page does not work well and tends to draw from a very small group of the same photos. i.e. not very random. Invision hints that this might be fixed with the new release. If it is, I will investigate enabling it when we do that upgrade this summer. Although there may be a third-party plug-in that works well, the more plug-ins we have, the more potential for bugs and issues when doing future upgrades. That's an acceptable risk when it's a for-profit forum run by people who do this for a living and have the time and skillset to troubleshoot quickly and effectively. That's not the case here. For now, we are optimizing on keeping the forum working well and current. -John

I don't follow the gif argument since it is intended as a single user feature. A rating feature only has value if a number of people are supplying the ratings. If only two people rate a topic and both have an issue with it or the thread starter, and give it a 2, does that mean it's a bad thread and people should skip it? Unfortunately, the forum software only shows the rating average, not the number of ratings supporting the number. It's a poor implementation for decision making. The reason this question is even being raised is because your thread on your engine issues only had a 3.5 star rating even though the consensus from posts in the thread is that's it's been worthwhile reading. There may be a sub forum setting for the rating feature that isn't turned on for the help section. -John

The forum software comes with a topic rating feature at the top right of each thread that allows a viewer to rate the thread on a scale of 1-5 stars. A quick count of the last 60 posts in the General and Technical Forums, shows only 3 threads have a rating. Because it is used so infrequently, it's likely true that those threads with ratings are based on input from a very small group of users. This means a single low rating, whether intentional or inadvertent, will dramatically effect the rating. Also, the sample size is too small to have any real value. Personally I don't see the benefit of a rating system in a forum like ours which only has a handful of new threads each day, so my preference is to turn it off, but before I do, I thought I'd let folks weigh in via the polling option. -John

I just gave him a 5 which bumped it by about 1/2 star ( @Vovchandr where do I send the PayPal request?). This tells me very few people have rated it thus far, so if someone hovers over the stars to see if it will show more detail like Amazon has trained us to expect, and accidentally clicks over the first or second star while doing so, we'll see swings like this. The only way to avoid this is by disabling the feature. Personally, I don't see much value in a thread rating on a forum like this and a quick count shows only 3 of the last 30 threads in the General forum have been rated -- interestingly two of those were started by @Vovchandr. Hmm... I don't think disabling it will be missed. I'll start a poll late to get input. Now back to Vlad's possessed engine. -John

@Vovchandr I think what @Croc means is: -John

@Vovchandryou won't know what you need to replace until you start taking things apart. This is particularly true in your case given the history of various engine-related maladies. Based on your comment that you are a few weeks away from pulling the head, I'd start thinking long and hard about your budget and determine if you approach this experience simply as a painful repair, or as an upgrade opportunity. If it's more than the head gasket, things can spiral out of control pretty quickly if you let them, so good to apply some rigor up front to define your desired end state and how much you are willing to deplete your kids' college fund to get there. Also, remember that if you make any performance changes -- and swapping to a higher flowing head is a performance change -- you will need to remap the ECU. Given the Pectel is pretty old and requires a version of Windows that is literally from last century, I'd give serious consideration to getting something more modern as part of this experience. -John

Well that progressed quickly! Sounds like you will end up with a beast! -John

After nearly 15 years on this forum, I guess I was bound to guess correctly eventually Glad you got it sorted and hope Murphy gives you a wide berth going forward. -John

@Crocyou can -- and likely will -- try harder than that! Yesterday when looking at the map, I discovered the lean condition down low was user error. Somehow when building out the map last year, I accidentally left the cells in that rpm range at load site 15 (full throttle) untouched from my previous map. Adjusting to a tiny bit richer than the corresponding cells at load site 14 as with the rest of the rpm range should sort that out. -John

@Angelo, that's one hell of a sales strategy! Anyone want to write the ad for my Westfield next summer? Glad to see this car has stayed in the community. -John

Welcome UglyFast (great name BTW!). In addition to Twitter/IG, do a build thread here. Great way to get help along the way from people who have been there/done that/ have the scars to prove it. Any more details on the 2002? Is that a 32/36 Weber? -John

I believe Westfield ceased iRacer production quite some time ago (it was released in 2013). However, I did hear rumors within the last two years they are working on an electric road car. Given the 2030 edict in the UK, I don't expect Westfield, Caterham, Morgan, and other UK-based fun car manufacturers have much of a choice. -John

Is this the answer to the question "who bought Angelo's car?" If so, congrats! -John

Revisiting this thread after nearly 10 months because the car finally made it to the dyno today! The shop, Vintage Racing Motors, focuses on building, restoring, and maintaining vintage race cars, including some very, very high dollar stuff. As a result of this work, they frequently put the same engine on both the engine and chassis dynos so have a pretty good feel about parasitic losses with their specific Dynojet. Byron felt 18% was correct for my car. It may be right, it may be wrong, but interestingly, using that number results in nearly the same output I expected to hit given my exhaust, which is sized for my older 210hp engine. That system should cap out at about 225hp. Peak number at the wheels today was 184hp which converts to 224hp using an 18% loss. More importantly, the curve looked great. Yes, there is some torque to pick up below 3500rpm by richening the mixture, but it's minor. The power curve is billiard flat from 7000-8000rpm, showing there is still some upside at the top. Might be the exhaust, might also be the 45mm TBs are a little small. Cam timing could also help in that range, but would come at the expense of the bottom end. Regardless there is some headroom available for future upgrades that don't involve opening the engine. I'm happy and finally feel confident to really drive the snot out it. The red line is where we started, the blue is where we finished. It's hard to read the rpm scale at the bottom, but the run spanned 2000-8000rpm. On the way home I was behind a Tesla 3 Dual Motor whose driver decided to show off shortly after the light turned green. He then tried it again as we merged onto the freeway. I don't think the result of either event was what he expected while driving his invincible Tesla -John

It's a great topic for the article section. I'll work with @Croc to get something up in the near future and collectively we can update over time. -John

Nearly 6 weeks after placing my deposit, I have a build slot from Caterham: the week of February 6th. Add in manufacturing and shipping times, it sounds like a late April delivery provided everything goes smoothly. Given they usually don't for me , more likely sometime in May. The plan is to start ordering various parts over the summer and assemble the engine in the second half of December. Much earlier than needed, but I generally take that time off from work and it ensures plenty of buffer in case things don't go as planned (see earlier comment). -John

My guess is there is no power interruption, but it's good to rule out things that are dead simple to check. Assuming power remains steady, I'd be inclined to focus on what's been mentioned by others and add some related things: When checking the CPS for tightness, make sure the gap is within spec Examine the trigger wheel and make sure no teeth were damaged when removing/installing the engine With the engine running, jiggle the connectors on the CPS loom to mirror vibration. It's possible a wire or connector was damaged when removing the engine. It won't hurt to jiggle other parts of the engine loom for the same reason. If none of that works, and it's easy to get to your ECU, you might want to detach it from the car while it's running, hold it in your hand and see if it still cuts out. With an old ECU there is always the possibility of a micro break within the circuit board that opens from heat and/or severe vibration. Given the sudden onset of this after an engine removal, this does seem a stretch unless you somehow managed to damage it during that process, but..well, Murphy's Law. -John

When the engine cuts out, does power to the rest of the car remain on or flicker? -John

@cemaykan check out this thread on CatKong, which you may have seen at Bruce's shop. -John

Sorry about the cone incident, but glad to hear the car met expectations. Great video! -John

I can share my opinion as someone who has owned Westfields for 20 years and who recently put down a deposit on a new Caterham. I think there are a few things at play. Westfield, for reasons I've never quite understood, has never gained a strong foothold in the US. Elsewhere that's not the case. According to Westfield they've sold 13k cars since '83, which isn't too far behind Caterham. If you visit both the Caterham and Westfield club forums in the UK, you will see the latter has a very substantial and active user base, and like Caterham, has had a race series for many, many years. In the US, there are very few of us. Fewer cars means less awareness and brand enthusiasm, which in turn impacts resale value. Westfield does place more of the onus for quality on the builder than does Caterham, which also plays into resale value, however, I'm not sure that is a big percentage hit on cars in the UK. Yes, a used Westfield is less expensive there than a similar spec Caterham, but so too is a new one. Regarding build quality, I've seen some Westfields that were noticeably inferior to a Caterham, and others that were their equal. Lastly, higher spec, well-built Westfields rarely come up for sale here. Most of them seem to come from the mid to late '90s, and build quality back then was more...variable. My initial car was built by the US distributor at that time for magazine tests (he liked to build the cars), and let's just say I was not impressed; magic marker cut marks were visible on the body, interior panels weren't installed as per the build manual, alignment was not done well, etc. My current car is at a completely different level, but as some here can attest, I'm anal and picky -John

You mentioned in the Tillett thread that you spoke to someone who worked for your car's former owner. Have you asked him if the car had similar issues back then? I wonder if you are simply having bad luck or if you are chasing old issues. -John

This raises the question if the gauge failed due to age/vibration or if something wonky happened with your fuel pressure to pop the seal? Have you been monitoring that during your diagnostic sessions? -John

There is a lot of information not currently on the site that may have been asked elsewhere or proactively answered on a blog. if we started a thread with pointer information for each of those, we would blow up the site. It's better to let people ask the questions when they have them, then those who know the answer, or who have a pointer, can provide it at that time. This ensures we get additional context that may not be addressed in that linked content. Alternatively if someone ran into an issue, figured it out on their own or found the information on their own, when they post to proactively share the information, they can provide context for the links. -John

Welcome @jzleach! Are you planning a new build or a pre-owned Caterham? If the latter, there are a couple of nice cars currently listed in the for sale section and if you haven't seen it, @Croc updates the thread below each weekend with cars listed elsewhere. -John