JohnCh

The person with whom you spoke clearly isn't familiar with the R500. The engine makes peak power at 8500rpm, so recommending you swap to a 2.3L head to achieve 7500rpm is, um...bollocks. The heads have a casting number above the exhaust ports that can be used to identify which version you have, however, I'm pretty sure Caterham fitted a CNC-ported variant to the R500. Is the plan to do a full rebuild? The R500 uses the Kent DTEC35 cams. Rumor has it these are made to specifications developed by Raceline who then supplies them to Caterham. The valve springs should be the Kent VSK31. Pete at Raceline is a really good, helpful guy. If you can't get definitive answers from others, you could give him a call at the workshop number to discuss. They might also supply Caterham with the other engine internals and could get you what you need. https://www.raceline.co.uk/ -John

I thought the red "sleigh" was sufficient. -John

Did you say Christmas tree? Original Westfield back in 2002. Fortunately the trip back from the lot didn't require me to look to my right for any turns. -John

I take the Westfield to Costco whenever I want to refrain from purchasing things in industrial-sized quantities. Like Bruce, I also use it when picking up long items from Home Depot. The ultimate SUV... -John

Add the car in Carnation last year, and the Eastside is becoming the hotbed of Puget Sound. After almost 20 years of se7en ownership, I finally have some people nearby to play with! -John

Congratulations! Good see the car is staying local. I'm looking forward to reading your upcoming build thread (yes, that's a hint ) -John

Seat comfort is a personal thing. When you visit Bruce's shop, spend a fair amount of time sitting in the car to determine if they work for you. My car has Mog seats which are carbon fiber shells similar to Tillets, and although they look painful, they are very comfortable for my back. Over the years I've covered more that 12,000 miles on tours, with the longest day a little over 630 miles, and would never consider swapping them out for a more conventional seat. YMMV. -John

Congratulations, that's a screaming deal! People have paid more on BaT for older, crossflow-powered cars. Did the PPI reveal any undisclosed issues you need to address? -John

You don't waste any time! I know Beachman Racing (Caterham dealer in WA) partners with a shop that does high-end Duratec builds, and Birkin USA has a shop local to them in CO that does the same. Might be worth a call if you can't find anyone local who gives you confidence and you're willing to ship the engine cross country. Are you looking to refresh the engine, or just have the valve spring replaced? If the latter, I'd pull the head now to check the condition of the bores and ensure there is no need to tear apart the short block. If everything else looks fine, then I'd get recommendations for a good local shop that does heads (your local Miata Club chapter might be a good resource given those cars have used the Duratec since 2005) have them give it a once over and replace the springs. Installing the head and timing the cams requires a few specialized tools, but it's not that hard with the engine out. -John

The tooling bar sets cam timing to stock Ford specifications which differs from aftermarket cam timing, including those used in the R500. You will need a dial indicator to set it correctly. Personally, I would remove the engine. It's not that much harder than removing the head and it is much easier to reassemble and set cam timing with the engine out of the car. To get a sense of what's involved when installing the head and setting cam timing, check out the Cosworth CSR260 Build manual here. Note: their cam timing instructions are very specific to their cams and associated timing. This site shows a more generic approach: http://www.dubaipetrolheads.com/biggles/cams.html -John

I came across a gearing calculator that might interest some of you. It's not great for doing comparisons, but it does output a very nice visual that shows pertinent information in one view. https://www.blocklayer.com/rpm-gear.aspx -John

The Caterham will enjoy being exercised on E. Mercer Way I haven't connected with Tom in nearly 2 years. Good reminder to check in with him. -John

It looks like Gert hasn't been on the forum since last summer. Try sending him a PM which should trigger an email alert. If he doesn't get back to you, let me know and I'll see if I can put you in touch. -John

Good know we'll have another se7en in the Seattle area. Mdork are you on the Eastside or Seattle side of the lake? That yellow Caterham looks very familiar. By any chance is it Tom J's car? Thanks, John

This issue cropped up this morning for me in Edge but not Chrome, so messed around a bit. Given it worked fine in Edge using In Private browsing, I cleared the cookies (unsuccessful) then cleared the cache which corrected the issue. Give that a try if it happens to you. In the meantime, I'll connect with Mazda. I suspect this could be related to a recent Chromium update and either incompatibility with our older version of vbulletin, or the fact we don't have an SSL certificate. -John

KnifeySpoony, are you using the latest, Chromium-based version of Edge? If so, see this page. It looks like the same issue based on the screenshot linked from post #1. Post #2 has a possible fix, but something more elaborate is shared in post #6. Before trying either of those, I'd try FireFox on your PC to confirm it is a Chromium issue. -John

No issues on Win 10 w/Edge or Chrome on multiple PCs for me. Anyone else seeing this behavior? Thanks, John

Went on another blat today with Pokey. Roads were great, traffic wasn't too bad, but the car was not running well. Drivability at very light throttle openings wasn't great and was punctuated by frequent pops from the exhaust. Going up hills that required larger throttle openings seemed better, but part throttle acceleration felt a little blunted. I leaned on it a bit a couple of times to about 5k rpm and that felt closer to normal, but given the issues, I was afraid to really push the engine and experiment further. Unfortunately I broke the cardinal rule of blatting on a new engine and failed to bring my laptop, so couldn't diagnose any theories on the drive. After arriving home, however, the laptop revealed the problem: either the WBO2 sensor or controller had failed. The ECU was running in closed loop mode, meaning it was continually, and unsuccessfully, trying to lean AFR from the erroneous 9.0-9.2 readings to something more acceptable. Fortunately the closed loop mode prevents massive automatic fueling adjustments to avoid meltdown from just this scenario, so no harm. Flipping the ECU to open loop mode while I sort out the AEM has restored drivability. -John

Car sounds great and looked very stable. Did it live up to expectations? -John

This was just posted on the local Lotus Club list. 1.8L Zetec powered RHD Westfield with the ducted nose and Birkin seats. Interesting history as the kit was bought new in the UK in '98, came to the US unassembled with the original owner. Spent 12 years in storage, then current owner purchased and completed it in 2015. And I thought my projects took a long time. https://www.hemmings.com/auction/2016-westfield-other? -John

Are you only concerned with track days, or do you use the car on the street? If the latter, I'd wonder if increasing the diff ratio by that much would dull the fun? I did a quick search and found a couple of mentions of 0.80 ratio 5th gears available. That would give you a slightly taller gear than 4th with the 2.73 (146mph) and provide a far more reasonable gap on the upshift to 5th. 1.00 to 0.63 is enormous! -John

Ah, now I understand your user name! Congrats on the purchase. No pressure, but we love build threads on the forum and we're happy to help from afar -John

I believe the common way to do this with wasted spark Zetecs is to tap into the same 12v+ that feeds the coil pack. If that's the case, tracing that wire to the source might be pretty easy and fully contained under bonnet. Hope it's easy to find and easy to fix! -John

Assuming there are no other issues (cranks, has spark, fuel pump runs, etc) and you've confirmed no power to all injectors with a multimeter, I'd start by tracing the common 12v+ wire that feeds the injectors. It could be as simple as that wire was disconnected from the source, or there is corrosion or a break within the insulation. Hopefully it's not the DTA, but I've heard of ECUs in se7ens succumbing to vibration over time and breaking solder joints. -John

Congrats to you both! It looks like a very nice car with great equipment. -John