Kitcat

Pretty sizeable hunk of time to chop off! Wonder how much was pure power and how much new tires, wings etc? I once did a huge tire upgrade on my track prepped Miata and it was worth as much time as all of the other (very) expensive car changes put together (each abt 2-3 seconds per lap). Here is my data acquisition system FWIW: Watch Croc speed by, acquire the data that I am going slower than he is, try to catch up.....

So the engine turns over, just wont fire up?

Really flys under the radar with those colors:)!

I have heard that dealerships must commit to buying "X" # of Caterhams to sell and must also commit "X" dollars to a Caterham advertisement campaign. Seems like a serious effort is being made to morph from kitcar to turnkey with dealer support. If I were trying to build awareness of the Caterham brand, I would want to associate with Caterham's racing success and build on that. There is a thread here abt 4-5 Caterham SCCA racers in Texas. I'd want to know them. I'd talk about the street legal race car that the Caterham is. Friendly car mag reviews are worth their weight in gold. I'd want to associate myself with the USA7s East Coast get together. Lottsa Caterhams (and other se7ens), lottsa enthusiasm. I read on another car site that someone had witnessed us and said: "They have an almost religious devotion to the Caterham brand." My thot was:"You mean its not a religion?"

I think it was Paul's dad's Lowcost (they each had one).

One of the Lowcost builds a while back had a hardtop that was on tracks, so it wld glide back out of the way for egress. Pix are on this Forum somewhere.

I got my Zetec engined Cat back from my mechanic today after an extended stay. He said:"Man you have wires going everywhere that don't plug into anything". I said next time....

"Blat" was the sound early Lotus 7s made. The term became synonymous w/driving our cars. The big Caterham, et al, se7en site in UK is "Blat-Chat".

XCar: Congrats on 1000 posts! I never paid a lot of attention to lap times. Always felt it was turning driving into work (goals/objectives/action plans, etc). I am all for getting smoother, looking for a better line, balancing the car, raising my line of sight, etc, but being clock-conscious made it less fun, for me anyhow. And, always made it tempting to do something "manly" (aka stupid) to shave off a coupe tenths. Then I ended up over-driving, fighting the car, etc. The old slow-up-to-go-fast approach seemed to be easier to implement if I wasn't thinking abt the clock.

Question: Are you sharing the Lightning track that day with another track group, or is it exclusively LTW's? Thx!

Excellent results, congratulations! Must be the green shoelaces:). Driving a Caterham in the rain without its top in cold weather is towards the bottom of my favorite experiences. (I would have driven it right back onto the trailer:)).

The bug was a total handful, the Subie so much more stable. It was like the bug driver kept tricking it into staying on the road (barely). Switch drivers and I suspect the Sub comes out way ahead?

Xcarguy: The Uber-se7en, very fierce looking! Wld love to see a 1/4 mile time. Wonder if it wld be faster than the new McClaren time posted elsewhere here at 9.98?

Ahhh, I thot you meant it did 0-100-0 in 4.8. This I believe, after all 900+Hp. Outside of bragging rights, not sure what good it is. When I had a V8 BMW M3 I was constantly frustrated at so much (unusable) street performance capacity. Finally sold it. It was like being married to Scarlett Johansson but only getting lucky 1x a year!

No photo, but my Caterham has the usual instruments-but what I depend on at the track is the shift light that shines an image on my windscreen as I approach red-line, along w/red light (idiot light) that comes on when oil pressure is low. In the heat of track driving, it is hard for me to process much more than that.

I gotta express some slight scepticism at that McClaren #. Maybe a new Formula 1 MP4-29 race car (or maybe not). Or did they drive it into a brick wall when it hit 100 mph? Happy to be wrong, but seems totally unbelievable.

I think when this issue was raised in the past that it looked like Cat USA was selling maybe 8-12 units a year and the other dealers another 8-12, altogether, for a total of about 25 or so for the USA. That might be on the high side. We shall see what Superformance can do, but I think it will be hard to beat 25 units, given competition from Birkin and Stalker, both of which are a lot less $, and the highly focused nature of this "purist's" car.

My wife is 75% sure she wants to buy a Volt this Spring. Some folks here may have one (Lucky Dawg?). So anything owners or folks who have driven them like/dislike? Owners any regrets, about the purchase? It gets mediocre scores by Consumers Reports, but is loved by its owners. So...? My wife will use it primarily for errands around town. When we take trips it's in my Touareg. So it looks like she will rarely exceed its 30-40 mile range on electric.

L Dawg: Nice, will you be pulling it with your Volt:)?

They look huge! What size tire?

Chris: As you may know from my posts, my Birkin also went thru its engine very quickly (after abt 1100 miles). In my case it was oil starvation at a track day. Are you sure the injectors are your problem? Was your car built by TMW, as mine was? Also, the purchaser of my Birkin tore down the replacement junk-yard engine that I substituted and found rust and other issues. So be careful about what you substitute for your existing Duratec.

I suspect "best offer" means just that.

Skip: What front fender/cycle wing size do you run? I have a set of 195x50 15" R888s on Caterham wheels that don't remotely fit on the front of my Superlight(Too tall and too wide). They fit OK on the rear but my car runs CSR front fenders and they are tiny.

Ditto DavidL's comment. I ran my Birkin at 18 rear, 16 front, cold. That has worked well in my Caterhams also.

Thx Tom. Probably true, but my car also sported the upgraded, heavy duty (etc), rear hub assembly wh/nonetheless went bad and destroyed a lot of my rear drive train, including the unobtainable (for 7 long months) 1/2 shaft. So am trying to be proactive, ounce of protection, etc....(Must avoid the tire wall, must avoid the tire wall.....).