Vovchandr

Building a Caterham 7.. in 7 minutes!

Delivering Curries in a Caterham 310R! | Ben and Jon Do Cars

Thats a good article and a clever comparison. Unlike most of the other cars as they to through their generation evolution they see many changes across the board. Size/styling/suspension/features and of course more power (#1 more desired aspect). It's hard to objectively compare new model vs the old because they are entirely different cars and typically more modern features and more power tends to favor the new generation as "improvement", even it it comes at a sacrifice of more weight and possibly worse handling. With Caterhams other than the 90's changes they stayed mostly the same and to this day you have a selection of power without many feature changes which allows a subjective comparison of whether the new high power motors in the same vehicle are actually better. This comparison is often found in the discussion forums where people actually debate whether 620R/S is too much power and the happy medium is 360/420 or older R500. This is similar to a debate that people have in the motorcycle world where for all intents and purposes all bikes are pretty similar, especially without the same brand and the two power options are either super fast and hardly usable (1000cc = 620R) or the more reasonable but still stilly fast 600's (420R for example). High power output is addictive but it is really on usable when we are talking about using it on streets where your average speed is 45mph on the average. Which is why a lot of people are drawn to slower machines with more character (Vtwins in general or Ducati's etc) There are some upgrades that are pretty universally regarded as better. Solid rear < dedion < IRS (arguably) Since our cars aren't much fun at high speeds and are aerodynamically l think we can all agree that the sweet spot is somewhere between 200-300hp

I've put Neoprene in my rear wings and haven't gotten around to doing it on the front wings yet. To me seemed like an easy/cheap/effective option. Granted I have carbon wings so spider cracks are less of a concern but the rock noise made me feel uneasy in general and this cuts down on that noise quite a bit Edit: that doesn't help with outside. PPF is about the only thing that can help there.

http://www.kitcardirect.co.uk/caterham.html ?

It appears this thing exist which I did not realize. Going on my shopping list $20 Will certainly be a nice compromise for how few I do but still better than doing it by hand https://www.ebay.com/itm/283114523865?epid=713051944&_trkparms=ispr%3D1&hash=item41eaf0ccd9:g:oLoAAOSw22FgG5Mc&amdata=enc%3AAQAGAAACkPYe5NmHp%2B2JMhMi7yxGiTJkPrKr5t53CooMSQt2orsSwcmzw5CLtzTE60FqHcnq2L7R8ANKa4o%2Fynd8VLOW22TGwIgXovCrJQflrU%2BWh87IqilSErZ7bglxb29BFsuqC589Yuhy1J0JMxqhQzI2Pj24wOPqE7lquEPX4%2FZFFR9LQ%2FEFoS7oioNj2o6lGiYB5dLtjgAym5XWfEG4GFfpvp49P%2BE5qFvfp5SShyiAh14hzdWM4MJG%2FVvIX13QNGfEYSq0R0qzAZodmsT6BTK3uyQHtazLowbJo3L6ZI8fXgGJb%2F7YJHNnGAQwS73DCyzWb9eVHGTCLP7cXw3%2FQCSOxFBuJZRqAGJhoP1ojL%2FOKrivxC0dwn7TZUUi9Dm%2BKI7FAtNR23Nvm5XHMKng5Ey3c9Ro0Vesln5kQooFooal%2FVwUcwGD4%2B8N6GRt46IfSx0NHmWIjJV2T2tRye3JuurwEAbjetBV6%2FhQSeVurt6HMCcGrHUXhsESnWDuJ0qdtmoW5Lf5lhRZfzq39vwbNsqLQP1LNQ60Xkn%2BFPPfdd4I6Epv6HpvlsM2sUratTtiA%2Fjdp78N3HkDLZ5Zv%2B9xGXSQHXrUlKfacjGbekkYrCMBdDW5B6ysh42Y3qJSPxx43PvFfkNuTSXn9tyT0u9P0AN6SOrKW7fPhY1M60wASsyt8s7X47uXyzIi4KDR9yCR4snMVYBic6I1YCy9Gc8f%2Bpm9p2eahiOZBb0A7VAexQfrhRXG4purgoMJo9%2Bc%2Bu3LDQpUYOhDiBCZVDCE%2BgnbGDfcQ%2B%2FhZZpzcoc%2BNvQH4GBTmMjP1OsprovchifTjk8QHdjF9qsRiLVQPNOqmUbmaHXQMHDEIK7Zqcijt9V3qG4rQCcb|ampid%3APL_CLK|clp%3A2334524

I'm not sure how many rivets you'll need to put in during the build but if the number is more than 5 I'd buy an electric rivet tool in a heart beat (Milwakee makes an 18v one). It will pay for itself many times over. Quick. Easy. No kickback. Perfect every time.

That's a very good question. I'd be curious to the answer myself. I think the Zetec "200hp" setup is very good but I wished they used SVT motors as base. It would be much more true to the spirit even if numbers werent too far apart. Also according to CC, most came with 5 speeds unless 6 speeds were specified. Mine actually came with a 5 speed that I still have and 6spd was swapped in from a donor track 7 that owner also had. If we had to throw a number at it, what do we think? 30 or less SLRs?

You messed up the quote a little However this is straight from CC horses mouth "I have records of plaques numbers for 127 SLRs. These do not include any USA SLRs, and in fact only 3 of the cars are RHD models: one each to Belgium, Jordan & Venezuela. The last issue is actually #129, as there is no record of issuance of numbers 7 or 52. Of the 127, 60 were supplied as complete kits and 67 were factory built. The kits had chassis numbers ending 2****, whilst the factory built examples had chassis numbers ending 3****." Looks like my memory was off and some were supplied as kits after all. Are you mixing up Superlight and SLR? #123 SLR is orange and RHD?

That's really cool! Somebody actually reads my threads hah. Love the Plaque. My original owner decided against having it on the car. Fun fact, American SLR's don't have a # assigned as they aren't a "true" SLR but rather an official replica. All SLR's were built in a pretty specific manner and assembled in the factory in UK as I recall and thats why they had a # assigned.

Only thing lost so far is my 620R intercooler from Norway. Been a month out, and 20 days coming from Chicago with no updates...

Small update. Posted on the Focus forums to see if they had any advice. One resonated with me, that potentially VCT on the exhaust cam which is suppositively defeated/deleted is what's throwing the cam alignment off. Didn't seem likely as the cam rear mark lined up with TDC but seemed plausible. Advice was to lock the cam and turn the gear to see if it rotates. I did that and after a little bit of pressure the cam gear started free spinning and the cam stayed in place. After freaking out that I broke something I saw that the bolt was lose and I was able to spin it out by hand. Cam gears aren't keyed on? Just held on by friction? Either way, I didnt resolve whether VCT is a factor bit I did completely throw off the position where the cam used to be. Intake is still uneffected but considering exhaust spun completely out of previous setup i'd have to recreate TDC setup and realign the exhaust to that in order to recreate the previous location of the offset intake cam. Small theory is that the exhaust cam vs intake is due to the bolt being somewhat lose to begin with? Maybe that caused a slip in timing. Might have even caused a head gasket fail. More parts on order and on the way, getting ready to commit over to getting the head off this weekend. Do not have a crank/cam timing wheel as I don't think I need it in the end. Plan is to reassemble everything, 0 the cams out and hopefully the car starts. If it runs half decent, try to get it down to a tuner before track day and get things straightened out. If need be, stuff can be adjusted with new adj cam gears.

I see the logic behind there being an unresolved temperature problem. True history of the car use prior to my ownership is unknown and if the headgasket was blown before my ownership it's not out of the realm of possibility that it saw high temperature events prior. At the time of purchase the car had no radiator fan wiring hooked up at all and would over heat very quickly if started. Not sure what capacity previous owner used it like that and for how long. My best guess at this point is get the head cleaned, get rid of most marks possible, reassemble and check in the future if new ones are forming. If there is any other advice as to what to look into in the meantime with head being off, I can look into that too.

Great shot! No cycle wings adds to the drama

I see what you mean. Didn’t see any obvious contact patch issues on the intake. did find this small blemish on exhaust on Cyl1

Gave WebCams a call today and it was mildly helpful but not resolute. They asked me if there was anything hand written or any obvious identifiers on the cam (their logo is hand written), and I told them no. Only somewhat unique thing I could see was 260E stamped on the back of the camshaft. She said she has something for that and confirmed that it would be intake only and send me a file on that. She also couldn't confirm anything with certainty but she said if there was a cutout in the back to match the other one then they should be zero'ed out in time of install and then adjusted from there and I could give them a call then with any further questions. So the desired certainty isn't there but it's something. As far as the plan to proceed I'm still pending a dial indicator but also do I need the timing degree wheel to dial in the current camshaft position? I see what you mean about uncertainty on the comment for the 5 degree adjustment as well. So far I still have no idea why my cam's don't match position wise. If both were adjusted 5 degrees they should both still match to each other. Unless I jumped timing? That's also quite unlikely. I'll figure out a way to find the slot angle before proceeding in case I have to recreate this current angle. Wasn't a head gasket fix supposed to be pretty straight forward?

Everything free spins and operates smoothly other than force needed varying slightly as if it's fighting compression and then release, I assume coming from the valve train springs as the plugs are out.

Top sorted car. Looks like you knew exactly what you wanted and build it as such. Lots of subtle mods that might not be obvious but make a big difference. JAL tails, carbon blocks and black bonnet latches in particular. I'm sure this will go well. Endless carbon parts make me giddy. also side note, jealous of everybody who gets those wheels to fit somehow

I think the light and reflections are playing tricks on you guys. There is no obvious or marring other than the broken ear me mentioned earlier. Everything appears more or less staining. Nothing I can catch with a finger nail The lobes are very shiny where they make contact and there are dull spots in the vicinity

This should be a sticky in FAQ in regards to 7's with Tillett seats.

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I see. For what it's worth the cams are smooth to finger/nail. Not sure if metal can be discolored without damage however.

McLaren 570 GT vs Caterham 620R LEGOCAT

Looks familiar @Brightonuk