TurboWood

Well, the feedback is that they don’t think they will fit the Caterham chassis. He thinks there is enough of a difference between the two, with the Caterham “door” being longer. So, any other ideas? He sounded open to making a new mold, but needs donor parts to play with. Daniel

I finally installed the air inlet duct I bought too long ago. Apparently a baby boy was the motivation I needed. Also, since my last update I did some more tuning on the engine and was able to resolve a few things that were bothering me. The idle never seemed to follow the tables, but was good enough to not be a big problem. However, the one really annoying thing that came with it was a crazy high (3-4k) cold start idle. It turns out I was using an AT calibration that caused both issues. Daniel

Thanks guys. I reached out to them to see if they had ever tried fitting them to a Caterham. I’ll report back what I find. Daniel

Hi, I am starting to think seriously about half doors and was looking at the options. Lately I’ve been driving with the full doors in place which is nice, but does remove some of the experience. What I’m concerned about with half doors is that they are all held in with snaps which seems like it would make getting in or out much more trouble. So, is there an obvious reason I couldn’t just cut the standard door such that I retain the hinge and “locking” mechanisms? I assume some stitching would be needed to close the cut, but is there something else I’m missing? Daniel

I just want to point out that Croc (and community) have kept this thread going for over 10yrs now with over 1 post/day on average. That is impressive. Daniel

Hi, I’m not sure how widely this applies, but I figured I would share. Ever since building my CSR I found the pedal spacing to be terrible. I could barely fit my shoe between clutch and brake, and this made heal/toe impossible. Frankly I don’t understand why Caterham would do this. My best guess is there is some regulation somewhere about the distance between brake and throttle pedals, but how could that apply to a kit? Anyway, my solution was to bend the brake pedal back to nearly straight. I believe Caterham sells straight pedals, but it was easier to source a factor pedal and bend it. I took my first drive with this over the weekend and it is definitely better. I’ll need some more time to perfect my shifting, but at least my right foot can finally reach both pedals. Daniel

Balance is important, but don’t forget about the polar moment of inertia. The battery in the engine bay is behind the front axle. In the trunk the battery would be behind the rear axle. I think that will make the car slower to change direction. Daniel

Thanks for the reply. Your comments match what I’ve read. The A052 warms up faster and wears more. I think this will work well for me because the rears were wearing about twice as fast as the fronts with the CR500’s. From what I’ve read the tread wear ratings are totally uncontrolled and basically at the discretion of the manufacturer. That is not a great system and I believe the CR500’s were rated as 20 which was the default for not rated. So, I figure the only way to know is to try. Daniel

Coming back to this as I finally changed the tires. I decided to try tires that are more widely available than Avons. Details below. The negative of this is I did have to use different front and rear compounds, but I don’t think it’s crazy. My wear rates on the rear are clearly higher than the front and the front tire I chose should be a little softer. The other change from the CR500’s was front tire size. I think this change was also true for Avon ZZS/R options. I was happily surprised that the bigger tire fit without modification to the fenders (albeit it’s close). I took my first blat around the canyons over the weekend and first impressions are positive. For sure the new rubber is doing a better job than worn out old CR500’s. That said, I wasn’t able to induce understeer (thankfully). The balance was quite neutral, but I did over cook a corner a bit and was braking more aggressively into the corner than I would have like. This did cause some rotation on the rear, but it was very manageable. So far so good, only thing left to do is put more miles on them! -245/40/15 bfg rival s1.5 -195/50/15 Yokohama a052 Daniel

Bringing to the top so Mike has to update us :)! Daniel

Ok, I’ve driven the car around with the vent a fair amount now. It’s definitely not as big of a benefit as no center console, but I do think there is some improvement. That said, I probably wouldn’t suggest other mimic this setup. A larger vent is really needed to make a worthwhile improvement. Daniel

Wow, good it’s great to see this information shared. I guess it’s time to look! Daniel

I’ve driven the car around a few times, but only short trips with the focus being on improving my tune. I haven’t had a chance to make a clean comparison of it open and closed (ideally with a passenger playing with it while I drive). That said, one of the trips I was driving around 60-65 with the doors off and wasn’t getting meaningful buffeting (vent open). I’ll try to convince my wife she needs to go for a ride ;). Daniel

It’s a ball valve meant for light aircraft. I spent way more time than I should have looking at vents before settling for this one. It has a nice feel, opens and closes with a turn. https://www.ebay.com/itm/193462649929?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=a5TtGP8MQn6&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=QzVVyFeGRe2&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY Daniel

Well, I did a thing. I’ll let everyone know how it goes.