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.

I really want to try adding a vent to the center console. I have two center consoles so I can run a bit of an experiment. I’ve done a tone of internet searches for vents, but haven’t found the right one. Back in the day I had a ‘94 Supra with nice round vents. I see Mercedes uses similar vents today. I’ve also found many RV cheap solutions, but nothing seems right. Can anyone give some ideas? Thanks, Daniel

Thanks for the feedback guys. A half good and some sort of adjustable block on the roll bar sounds like a winner. Venting the center near the back will remain on my mind. Given the amount of heat being pumped through I also think it’s a good idea to get it out. Daniel

For a few reasons I ended up driving my car without the center console in place (2013 caterham CSR). Ignoring the obvious aesthetic and comfort negatives, what became very obvious was the huge amount of heat being pumped out. At the time this was mostly annoying, but thinking back on the experience I realized that I didn’t recall so much buffeting. I drove the car with and without doors. Without doors I probably only got up around 50-60 which isn’t that high, but plenty high enough to notice buffeting. This got me thinking about the aerodynamics when air is allowed to vent out the center of the passenger compartment. I wonder if this could be a really good way to get high pressure air from the bottom of the car out and simultaneously add some pressure to the passenger compartment to reduce buffeting. So, before running down this rabbit hole I was wondering if anyone else had done this? As a side note, I do see grease from the universal joints on the drive shaft all around the tunnel. So, I wouldn’t suggest anyone try this on a fresh build as there is likely to be some grease being flung around. Cheers, Daniel

I had good luck with San Pedro in 2016/17 Daniel

I’m in Yorba Linda and happy to show others some boooost. Daniel

I did Califlorio in 2020 which was about 260mi one way (rally went one direction away from home). A buddy and I took two days to complete it. The rally was in November and just happened to be one of the few “bad” weather days in CA. We started with the hood on, but eventually braved some snow with it off. At one point we waited for the Miata and a C4 vette to put their tops on! The only failure so far (knock on wood), was the fuel feed connection at the fuel tank (out of pump). By complete fortune it happened the morning I was headed to my most wrench capable friend who happened to have the right fuel line clamp. 5min later no more dripping fuel. The other close-ish call was the steering shaft connection joint near the firewall coming a little lose. It basically shifted by about 10deg which was obviously concerning. That happened on Califlorio, found the root cause at the stop that night and fixed it. I suppose that means we did a little over 300mi in the first day (rally + drive to hotel). Oh, that reminds me, the battery went flat for that rally too. I had it on a tender and it fired up when we left home, but wouldn’t restart after breakfast with the group. Discovered that if I let the car sit more than 20-30 min then it would not restart. Spent the day getting jumps and then eventually discovered how easy it is to push start (with a friend). Had to do it in the hotel parking lot the next morning. Daniel

Update time! The peanut gallery is getting impatient.

Routing to the air filter or intake manifold are largely the same. OEM’s typically do both (mandatory in forced induction cars where manifold pressure exceeds crankcase pressure). I passed with the air filter routing only and the inspector did check it carefully. I can’t speak to what the inspector will do, but I would think that so long as you aren’t venting the crankcase to atmosphere they would pass you. If you are dry sump remember to run the tank to the filter. Daniel

It sounds like the situation has changed from my experience in 2018-19 when I registered mine. That said, here is my CA experience: - went to DMV with receipts for engine, trans, and kit. I also had my MSO which did not, to my knowledge, have anything related to spcns. With that info I paid registration and they gave me a list of info that I needed to get as well as my sb-100 number - the things I needed to provide were: 1) inspection by police, 2) inspection at certified BAR station (not normal, typically found at community colleges), and brake and light inspection. - put my unfinished car (engine and trans installed, but basically just the long block) on a trailer and took it to the police (with appointment). 30min later they gave me a form. - once the car was running I got a temp permit and drove to the BAR exam (with appointment). That was the moment my SB-100 was really approved as an spcns based on what the car looks like. The gentleman checked for pcv, checked my documents, and placed a sticker on the engine bay side of the fire wall. The shop had pictures of all sorts of interesting cars and he clearly knew what I wanted - went to brake and light inspection (basically a joke, the guy was convinced my brakes worked since I drove it there) - took all those documents back to the dmv and got my plates What I could imagine is that CA started treating Caterham as a manufacturer (which is actually fair since they do sell finished cars). However, that could also just be a consequence of misunderstanding after somebody tried to register with sb-100 with a fully assembled car from caterham. Somebody would need to push the main office (in Santa Barbara I think) to confirm. It’s that office that controls sb-100 numbers and has the power to reject from the start. Daniel

I have a dry sump and made it through the BAR in CA with PCV. The guy at the BAR specifically followed my setup to check that it was there. You can run a dry sump either way. People will run a closed system to creat a negative pressure in the crankcase, but you don’t have to. I just ran my valve cover to the dry sump tank and the tank to the air inlet. I’m interested to learn the differences between a new build and transfer from out of state for SB100. I built new and found the process reasonable. I’m sure other states are easier, but it’s pretty cool that CA of all states gives a path to run a kit car to 60’s emissions. This was a major driver for me to go kit car and sell my Supra. Daniel