11Budlite

When I had my S2 chassis, I ended up swapping out the stock fixed steering column for a complete later Caterham steering column assy. That included the upper and lower steering columns and the clamp assy. This added some adjustability to the steering wheel position and a bit of a safety factor as well. You could get the Caterham quick release upper steering column instead of the stock upper column so you could remove the steering wheel. Not cheap though. I bought some 3/4" cromoly tubing and welded the spline section of my quick release to the upper end and machined the lower end to accept the clamp assy. I forget what the wall thickness was but it fit well with the lower column. It could be an option for you.

Yes, that water rail really cleaned up the coolant plumbing on my old Birkin.

Looks great!

That sucks, sorry to hear that. Glad you have a plan in place to get it fixed. I've spun off the track in the rain before, but thankfully there was plenty of runoff.

What happened?

I think the Birkins with a 17 digit VIN came in as a rolling chassis, whereas the cars with a 'BIY' prefix (build-it-yourself) were built from the different group kits described here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/so0hj3yk89xhqjpsd4wcq/ACoFhnVRUQrJh41aILMdWhQ?rlkey=t54k2j4iu7x15i2hpd0owu7uk&e=1&dl=0 I think my Birkin was stamped BIY1899 at the base of the roll bar as well.

I know he passed away about 10 years ago and he was only active on the yahoo.birkinowners site, but does anyone recall the aero/body mods that Folis Jones made to his old Birkin? I just ran across these photos of it in it's final iteration and it looks really interesting.

The value will depend a lot on the year, specs, and condition. My old 2001 Birkin had a stamped section on the left chassis tube in the engine compartment (circled in the attached photo). Mine was BIY1899 IIRC, so that would correspond to the 2001 model year. If it has the Toyota live axle then it's an older chassis before they went to IRS. Not sure of the year when that happened, but I think it was sometime around 2010. Also, if it was set up for the track there were all kind of mods that were available during the 2000-2010 time frame when I was building my car. Do you have any photos of the Birkin? That would help determine a reasonable asking price.

I'm signed up for both days. Hoping the weather will cooperate!

This Caterham sold on BaT on 7/15/26. If you click on the link above you can see the details.

Had a really fun time at Palmer this past weekend. Camped out Saturday night and was up bright and early with our little group of drivers to get ready for Sunday's event. There are five in our little group, including my son Matt who drives a turbo Exocet, our friend Tom who drives a Van Dieman GSXR 1000 Sports Racer, and daughter Lauren and S-I-L Andy who share a Honda K-powered Subaru BRZ. It was a nice surprise when @BlakeJ texted me and said he was going to do the Sunday event as well. My daughter had a hard crash in their original BRZ at Club Motorsports in June when her enthusiasm and NFS exceeded her skill and experience level. That was a very hard lesson for her, especially since they had just spent 6 months building it and had only done a couple track days since finishing it. But she responded in exactly the way I wanted her to. She couldn't wait to get back on track asap, and to start all over again focusing on the basics. But first we had to swap all the remaining good parts from the crashed car, plus a bunch of new parts, onto an even better condition BRZ with a blown motor. They had to spend almost all their free time as well as some help from the rest of us to get it done in time for yesterdays event. Thankfully it turned out even better than their first car, and they both had very successful and fun days. Blake got there Sunday morning and we had saved a spot for him and his trailer so he could hang out with us. This was Blake's first time at Palmer so I agreed to have him follow me in the first couple sessions to show him what I consider a decent line. It's always fun to be out on track with other Seven's and yesterday was no different. Had a lot of fun and I think for the whole day we only had to give one car a point-by. Since I knew Blake was quicker than me, on the 3rd session we agreed that I would point him by and then I would see how close I could stay with him. So much fun following another Seven and he even helped me refine my line going thru turns 11 & 12. Too bad no other Seven's showed up! My son Matt is very quick in his Exocet and is always competitive with much faster cars even though the aero drag is even worse than a Caterham. He has the suspension dialed in well and is running 9psi on a FM turbo kit. If you're looking for a relatively cheap track car with all the aftermarket, engine options, and used part availability of a Miata, all at a considerable weight advantage to a stock Miata, an Exocet could be a nice option. I think his weighs around #1640 even with the beefed up cage. Then there is Tom with his Van Dieman Sports Racer. Tom, Matt, and I picked it up in Green Bay last fall after seeing it advertised on ApexSpeed. It was originally a Pinto-powered Formula Continental but has gone thru two major revisions. More details here: https://www.apexspeed.com/forums/showthread.php?99945-Van-Diemen-P2-SOLD It was basically a bunch of good parts assembled together on a modified VD chassis but required a thorough prep job before it could go on track. He's had to fix, adjust, modify, fabricate, and setup many different things but it's been a fun project for him. He was in the 56-57.xx range at LRP when he still didn't have the clutch working properly. But on the last two track days he seems to have everything working reliably, and has done a 1:11.xx at Thompson and a 1:38.xx at Palmer yesterday. Still room for improvement as he works to get it dialed in. I'm not sure how you could go faster for cheaper. It has around 185hp, weighs #850-860 on our scales, and he shifts the 6-speed at 12,500 rpm. Gets about the same gas mileage as my 1.6L Sigma-powered Caterham and sounds wild too! Anyway, here are some photos from yesterday at Palmer although the Exocet photo is from Club in June:

Your car looks beautiful with a lot of nice options. What a memorable trip for you and your son, so cool!!

According to the Tony Weale book, the correct negative offset for S3 wheels up to 6" wide is 3/4" or 19mm. The negative offset could have been an error because doing a Google search shows offsets of positive 15 - 25. You might want to measure your wheels to determine what you have. This guide shows offsets of positive 15-25 as well: https://www.vtowheels.com/cars/lotus-7-1957-1973

I'll be at Palmer on Sunday 8/16 driving my Caterham. Our friend Tom will be there with his Van Dieman sports racer which is finally sorted and really quick. I can take passengers in the Caterham in case anyone wants to get a taste of the track. You just have to sign a waiver and have a helmet. Palmer is a really fun track with 14 corners and a lot of elevation change. Hope to see some other Sevens there!

Zetec Caterham Superlight on BaT: https://bringatrailer.com/listing/caterham-seven-6/?fbclid=IwY2xjawTm6mBwZG9mBWV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR4oK6Dagi7db2fQheiZafbmICCh-uv6pzRgwihwGbBQluF9-NU353pQuDiGXw_aem_RL9vdYwVL97bUT9diz9nJQ

Let us know how it goes Croc. Are these going to be available in the US?

Raceline says their dry sump kit measures the following: The Raceline Duratec dry sump kit measures 440mm in length x 310mm width and 50mm in height. Raceline says their wet sump kit measures: The Raceline Duratec aluminium wet sump pan kit is designed to run5 litres of oil while giving maximum ground clearance (approx 75mm from block face) I measured 77mm so you save between 25-27mm depending on which measurement you believe, so approximately 1 inch.

I just measured the wet sump depth at approximately 3" or 77mm.

I wonder if it already sold, or maybe the ad was just a teaser for the auction he mentioned previously? Here's the seller's profile with a photo of the Seven: https://www.facebook.com/donald.r.baker/photos

If you go to the seller's profile, he has the following info on the first Seven: 1959 Lotus Race Car - Historic Piece of Racing History! We are proud to offer this 1959 Lotus as part of an estate sale and are looking for someone to give this incredible piece of racing history a new home! This Lotus comes with documentation proving its racing history at the Pikes Peak Hill Climb in Colorado. A rare opportunity for collectors, racing enthusiasts, and anyone who appreciates vintage motorsports history. Included with this Lotus: Documents verifying its Pikes Peak racing history Helmet and jacket Picture of the car featured in a magazine Incredible piece of racing heritage Needs finishing Has extra parts Sold As Is Make your offer! Final day to submit offers: August 17, 2026 In-person viewing: August 14–15, 2026 COMMENT YOUR OFFER BELOW! For more information: (864) 710-3735 Don’t miss this opportunity to own a piece of racing history! This vehicle is being sold as part of an estate sale.

In case this helps, here's what the insides of a Caterham wet sump look like. The pickup tube is just loosely installed and it looks like the whole assy is pretty well designed. I'm sure it would be fine in a HPDE setting on 200TW tires, but if you ever wanted to upgrade to stickier tires it would be a lot easier to have a dry sump installed from the factory.

Thought I would throw in another sample with a photo. After following this thread I decided to remove the crappy wrap job and get my Lola header coated. Jet-Hot recommended the 2000 coating for my application and I ended up going with the 2037 bronze color. They were even able to fix a slight clearance issue between a couple of the primaries. It came out really well, but I've been fixing multiple oil leaks so I haven't had it back on track yet.

Geez, I hope not! The tires look like they could be from Coker: https://cokertire.com/tires/dunlop-sp-sport-aquajet-165hr13.html?srsltid=AfmBOopOEV-TAkf0_3bHdXDMh9caFG5fbnvepbBCKkzCya6UBiWDe_Yk

I haven't looked at it real closely but it looks like a very original Series 3, with mostly original parts. It looks to be SB2468 and obviously not a 948cc engine.