ashyers

Bruce Springsteen comes to mind...but the Cadillac Ranch is not as close as I thought. Is it the lights????

"Merino wool! You can wear it for a week or a month and it never stinks!" I have to back Sander up on this, when he stopped by both Hilde and I remained conscious. If I knew then what I know now...:ack:

Don't forget your preferred driving apparel! I'm particularly curious how you dealt with the long stretches in the desert areas without getting fried.

Sander, Glad you have things sorted! You're making great time. Andy

Sander, Hilde and I are happy you were able to drop by and enjoy dinner with us. It was a pleasure to meet you and the stories of your trip were great! Hope the remainder of your journey is trouble free and the only adventures you have are self induced! Drive safe and stay in touch. Andy

Chrysler used a neat trick to set sensor gap, they applied a piece of paper to the end of the sensor and you installed it with the paper hitting one of the teeth and tightened the mounting hardware. This set the gap. Once the engine turned the paper was knocked off and you were good to go. Simple and accurate. Maybe this would help to set the spacing for your car????

Check the harness for any damage and check the pins to the ECU. Hopefully the ECU is programmed correctly for the trigger set up. Do you have the ability to access it?

SanderGA, I'm in Oakland, if you want to drop by on the way up to Sears Point for a bit of socially distanced grilling and a rest you're more than welcome. Andy

How far up the coast do you plan to go?

Dave, HOLY CRAP is that a bunch of tire!!!!!! I agree that outside rear is working ! That's a great photo, pretty informative about the setup's behavior. Per your advice I think I'll try this: Front toe: 0 to a RCH in, just enough to keep it on the "in" side of 0 so it doesn't dither. Front camber: I'll play with camber. Per my notes it changes .25deg/turn so I'll measure toe before and after camber changes and then figure out how many flats I need to add/subtract get the toe sorted out. * Disconnect RARB (edit, forgot!) Alignments I have covered. I'm to picky/cheap to shop it out and I've done a few. The toe bar setup you made looks like it works well. Where did you anchor it to the chassis? It's great that you don't need to pull the nose. Andy

Dave, I think johncg was having understeer issues. I've likely got driver issues! You and Croc's points about managing weight transfer on entry played out Sunday. I found I can brake much more aggressively and plant the nose of the car, it'll turn in. Lots of camber huh? How was braking and tramlining at 2.5deg? I drive the car quite a bit and have not run those settings so I'm curious. Next time I have it on the pad I'll have to record the # of turns to 1.5, 2, 2.25 and 2.5 so I can play at the autoX. Hopefully it won't foul up the toe too much. The total front toe works out to a hair over 1/8" (EDIT: .032", bad notes!?!?!?) in at the tire in the front. I could dial it to 0 easily enough and give it a try. Adjusting rear toe will involve some shimming, so that's a bit of a pain. Right now it's a hair less than 1/8" in total. RARB is easy, pull off and less weight! I really appreciate the feedback. It is helpful for determining a direction to go. Ultimately I'm not out for the fast time of the day, I just enjoy improving my driving and tinkering with the car. I guess I need to be careful of tuning to the old tires...I can't buy another set! Hopefully the balance will not change radically. Andy

Dave, Here's my notes from when we set it up: Front Toe: .18deg .17deg in (EDIT: .04deg in .04deg in, bad notes!?!?) Front Camber: -1.2deg Front Caster: 5.8deg 5.9deg Rear Thrust Angle: 0deg Rear Camber: -1.5deg Essentially just factory settings with a bit less toe and more measured caster. I say "measured" because we started with factory shims and then matched it side to side. I was not terribly worried about the reading as long as it was in the ballpark and matched. I played with the toe a bit since it was pretty goofy when I purchased the car and I wanted to find how it drove at a variety of settings. This worked well for normal driving. I have not felt the need to play with toe-out for the autoX. I will say too much toe-in makes these things miserable! Corner Weights, full tank, 1303lbs. LF 313, RF 318 LR 327, RR 345 FARB 5/8" RARB std. one hole from full soft TP 16psi. The car is an '03 SV. If you have any comments or suggestions I'm all ears. Andy

Dave and Clarko, You guys going to provide me with support if I order a set? They should work in light rain, right ! https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires.jsp?tireMake=Hoosier&tireModel=A7&partnum=045ZR6A7&vehicleSearch=false&fromCompare1=yes Must work on justification/rationalization strategy... Clarko says they'll last a year... Want maximum grip for safety... It doesn't really rain in N. California any more... They'll be quieter... There's more rubber to distribute the wear... Those "five-dash circumferentially oriented grooves" are tread... Andy

Wish I was at the point I could start blaming the car! Yesterday I managed to induce understeer, oversteer and at least one no-steer 4 wheel slide! I have found that the Caterham will tolerate more braking that I anticipated before it gets upset and that the speed of steering inputs is critical. When I get it right the car dances on the edge of traction well. I'm running factory alignment settings with just a hint of front toe in and equal front weights. Tires are 7 year old (I know...) 205/45-16 Toyo Proxes. Once I get consistent I'll get some new tires, seems they don't wear on the Caterham, not heavy enough... Sure is fun autocrossing these things. Andy

Dave, Is it possible the actuating rod on the new one is just a little longer? Maybe you're just at the limits of it's adjustment and not using it's full available travel from the slave. It looks like you could either play with the coupling nut, replace the current jam nut with a thin jam nut (or leave it off for test purposes) or cut additional threads on the actuating rod. Andy

David, I'm not familiar with the clutch layout on your car, but I have see similar issues if there's air in the system. You mentioned the "new" slave cylinder from your stash. Did you crack it open and inspect it? I had a battle with slave cylinders on my Midget due to substandard parts. They sort of sealed... Andy

Clarko, Check the voltage on the battery with no load. Should be 12.65v or above. Check the battery voltage while attempting to turn the engine over, should be 9.5v or above. Check the voltage drop though the power and ground to the starter. The drop should be You could try cranking it with one plug in, similar to doing a compression test, then add another and see where the tipping point of the system is. Andy

3M Super Weatherstrip Adhesive is pretty good stuff. Are you willing to drill small holes in the seat and use some large headed pop rivets? A combo of adhesive and mechanical fasteners may do the trick.

Spotted this this morning on CL: https://sfbay.craigslist.org/sby/cto/d/san-jose-2007-wcm-ultralite-s2k/7207735795.html

I agree with John, pull the engine. Unfortunately I suspect you're going to find some ugliness once you dig in and it will be much easier to deal with it when the engine is on the bench. Have you checked the cylinder with a borescope?

Brightonuk, You have a PM. Andy

Brightonuk, You're tempting me! What's required for inputs? The only instructions I could find online were in Italian. I have an older 967 MBE ECU. Andy

You may want to take the time to see where you're at before throwing $ at it. If you do end up making changes make sure you have your ride height dialed in. I don't know how sensitive the bump steer on a Caterham is, but it's possible you'll find what works at your "road" setting is not the hot ticket for your "track" setting.

Have you measured the current curves?

papak, You mentioned that it happens when accelerating out of a turn. Not when going straight? If so I'd be inclined to look at the limited slip. Is it possible you're getting some kind of stick/slip/stick/slip going on? I seem to recall you did a diff recently. Andy