athens7

The air cooled Type I motor is a simple product, with good parts availability. It is better to have a mechanic who has some experience with this type of motor. There are some endemic traps to avoid; the Bosch 009 distributor doesn't hold time well, tending to over-advance, which can lead to cooking a cylinder head (personal experience). Replacing with a Mallory with special spring settings is a good investment. Vintage spyders tend to use the 911 cooling fan shroud; a pretty, but less effective way to cool the engine in a mid-mount application. Jake Raby's DTM shroud is best. This is an important consideration, because the #3 cylinder is prone to hotter temperatures than the others, and it is easy enough to cook a Type I motor. Lastly, the throttle linkage for the dual Webers is crap; there is an excellent thread on spyderclub on how to fix this problem. Until that is done, it is much more difficult to keep the carbs synchronized. As to handling, I can only speak to my car. The 550 was designed with swing arms in back, 110-135 hp, and 4 inch tires. My car had the same suspension, 185 hp, and 6 inch tires. Where the original car tended to slide, the reproductions grip and then let go. The car takes an understeering set into a corner, then switches to oversteer. Trailing throttle oversteer is always a concern. The closest contemporary equivalent in my opinion would be a Lotus Elise, as owners with whom I've spoken say it transitions similarly. If you plan on any competitive use, I would think the Vintage would be much better, as it has some transverse hoops in the frame that hold the body in place. The Beck is just a ladder frame with the body attached by machine screws. If I had autocrossed my spyder like I do my 7, I think it would have fallen apart in a year.

OK, how much time have you got? I owned Beck 550 #789 for 4 years before I bought my 7. Here's the short version: I coveted 2 cars (that I could possibly afford) in my adult life, a 550 spyder repro and a Caterham 7. The Beck was the more affordable of the 2 at $30k loaded in 2003 vs. $40k+ for the 7, so that's where I started. After 4 years, I sold the spyder and bought my Caterham. Almost 3 years later, I am still very happy with my car, feeling I improved my driving environment and capabilities significantly. If I had owned the 7 first and traded it for the Beck, I would be FURIOUS now. The 7 is a better car in every way (the spyder sure was pretty, though). If you want to learn more about all things 550 spyder, go to http://www.spyderclub.com, where you will find an active, engaged group with lots of good advice and expertise. Also, this is where you'll find the best used car marketplace. There are 4 manufacturers of spyders at this time: Vintage, Thunder Ranch, Special Edition, and Stuttgart Spyders. The Beck Spyder no longer exisits under that name, but the Beck is based on bodies and frames from Chamonix (a Brazilian company) and is sold through Carey Hines at Special Edition (good folks). All of these spyders are purpose built, mid engine cars, NOT new bodies on beetle pans. All use torsion bar front and swing axle rear suspensions, except the Vintage, which uses trailing arms and coil over shocks in the rear. All are fiberglass bodies on ladder frames. There is one company that builds an aluminum spyder, but they are expensive and I know nothing about them, or even if they have built their first customer car yet. Vintage offers the Subaru engine option, otherwise a VW Type I 4 cylinder with dual Weber 44IDF carbs is standard. CB Performance builds a nice 2165 CC unit that puts out a (purported) 185 HP. Jake Raby builds a righteous Type 4 motor (Porsche 914), but it's $$$$. Generally, the Vintage is the most meticulously built, but many people find dealing with Greg Leach (Vintage's owner) very difficult and frustrating. All of these cars require significant fettling, as they make a good seven feel like it came off the assembly line at Stuttgart! Buying advice-buy used, from an owner with great records and a penchant for upgrades. My car was much better when I sold it than it was when I bought it new in 2003. For cosmetic upgrades, find Russ Rodriguez at Fibersteel (great guy!). Safety-makes a 7 look like an S Class Mercedes-Benz (just so you know). There, 4 years of anal retentive experience in one post! BUY ANOTHER SEVEN.

AMAZING exhibit! Porsche 550-01, 2 Pebble Beach Best of Show winners, a 250 GT SWB Competizione, a Mercedes 540K to die for... AND only a 2 block walk to Tamarind Seed Thai Bistro!

I can attest that cycle wings do a great job of allowing debris into the cockpit, aided mightily by sticky tires!

I think your car is a good bit louder than mine. My car is usually 77-80 db on throttle in 2nd gear, as measured by the Atlanta Region SCCA sound police. The SoloPro school uses a shorter course, like the Evo school, but our courses were much more technical than the one shown in your video, and the course changes 4 times during the day. We could only walk the first course; the rest we saw on diagrams. The idea was to force us to look ahead for the course, as opposed to memorizing it. Certain elements were visually confusing, requiring us to again look ahead, as well as to think about racing lines instead of cones. Class size is up to 12 students with 2 instructors, however our last class was 6 students.

The videos played best for me on 720p. I like the helmet cam: it provides an unflinching critique of whether or not you're looking far enough ahead (always a problem for me)! You did a good job looking to the hard left turn right after the start. How did you like the Evo school? I have been to two SoloPro schools and am interested in how they compare.

+1 All my experiences with McM-C have been completely satisfactory.

I find the Toyo R1R to be a very good wet weather tire, based on the VERY wet SoloPro school I attended today. Very good grip, both off the line with 2000 rpm standing starts (needs 3000 rpm in the dry), and in transient maneuvers. Breaks away progressively, and easy to catch. The tires also handled standing water on course without hydroplaning or snatching the wheel out of my hand.

That brings back: a) some embarrassing memories, and b) a profound sense of relief that camera phones, flip cameras, and pocket video cameras had not yet been invented when I was in college!

I guess I just don't understand the idea of a 2 owner, 23 year old car with 1800 miles on it. My car is by no means a daily driver, but it's hard to imagine not finding a little time to go for a ride now and then. Then there's the whole "cars don't like to sit" issue. One would believe that every seal, hose, and gasket on the car would be rotted. That said, there likely aren't many Caterhams for sale at that price with 1800 miles on the odometer! I just saw RubberBanjo's posts-this was not meant as disparagement to the car or it's owner. Please don't delete me, Mazda!

Isn't a 1450 lb S3 Superlight kind of like Kate Moss with a pot belly?

I've noticed my car's shift into 3rd, up or down, can be balky at times (more when cold). Also, on occasion the shift into first from neutral can be balky. No grinding, no feeling of teeth, just a stop before the gear is engaged. I have had the top cover removed to install a fill/check plug. Is there any adjustment in the shifter mechanism or cover that might affect this issue?

Has anyone else seen the cover car from March's Caterham Life? It has an interesting set of mirrors that don't seem available from Caterham UK (it's also a very pretty shade of blue that also looks custom). The mirrors certainly mount differently than any others I've seen. http://www.caterham.co.uk/assets/html/news_download.html

McMaster-Carr have a number of u-bolts available, with work load limits up to 5000 lbs. (and more). How about one of M-C's bolts with plates similar to the ones in the relevant pictures?

Martin- Thanks for the offer. One of the appeals of the u-bolt is that the driveshaft doesn't have to come out. I have a local fabricator looking into this; I'll post any build options, if anyone is interested.

I'm absolutely a prospect for the one we can't get! I like the install; neat and clean with no holes. Perhaps I can find someone locally to do this based on the pictures.

That's a big reason I got rid of my Beck Spyder and got a Caterham-it's a tough little car!

CaterhamSVT, how do the power curves look across the rev range? Every SVT powered Caterham's dyno chart that I have seen has a dip in the power and torque curves around 3000 rpm. The tuners and owners with whom I've spoken believe it is due to an airflow restriction caused by the exhaust. Did you find such a dip and, if so, what did your tuner have to say about it? Also, was your car dyno'ed on a Dynojet dyno, or another type?

I installed a set of Toyo R1Rs. We bent the wing stays very slightly to accommodate the tires, something I found to be a simple matter, as noted earlier in this thread. The tires are UTQG 140 AA A, so street legal and not requiring race mods to run in D Modified (prop shroud, external cut off, etc.). I have been warned that the tires will wear fairly quickly for street use on most cars, but most cars are a lot heavier than 1420 lbs. I drive about 4000 miles per year, plus about 15 autocross events. If I have to put on a new set each year, it seems a fair price to pay in terms of cost to compete. I have put a couple of hundred miles on the tires and run one autocross so far, and the tires are great! They ride softer than the Avons on the highway, with a slightly higher tendency to react to road crown as well as a little more jiggle in the wheel on uneven road surfaces. These traits are only noticable with hands off the wheel, and they do not cause the car to react uncomfortably in normal driving. As an autocross tire, they transform the car: turn in is dramatically sharper, and the back end just sticks. Previously, the car was very easy to overdrive, oversteering on throttle and brake, but also capable of plowing as the front end lost grip. Now you just point and the car goes there, and lateral grip is very high. In my first event on these tires, with no practice, I won my class by almost 3 seconds against a CRX running 255 series DOT slicks, and was fast modified in any class (including beating an E Mod Cobra with a 500 hp turbo V8 and Ecsta V710s). On a 60 degree day, the tires never got above 90 degrees F, and the pyrometer I used showed a 5 degree spread from edge to edge at 21 psi (I run 18 psi on the road), with sidewall roll over just barely on the vertical side of the tread edge. I don't know that these would be the best choice as a road only tire due to the softness of the compund, but for my purposes I am very pleased.

Rob, Saturdays are work days for me. Sunday is the only day I could make an event. I miss a lot of neat stuff due to work-but, then again, work is what got me my car!

If you want to autocross your car, the next Atlanta Region SCCA event is Sunday March 28th at the Turner Field Green Lot. Our class will run in the morning if you want to run D Modified. If you are new to autocross, ARSCCA has an excellent novice program that runs in the afternoon. Registration information is available at http://www.soloatlanta.com http://www.MotorsportReg.com Welcome!

:hurray:

I am generally a student of the "buy the most expensive solution possible" school. It's not necessarily the best school, but it has pretty diplomas. I recently replaced my front hoses with Samco Sport silicone hoses from Merlin Motorsports. I am pleased with the price and quality, as well as Merlin's service. What type of radiator do you have? More specifically, what is the diameter of the radiator fittings? If you have a standard Caterham USA set up, you have black plastic pipes that connect both the top and bottom driver's side hoses from the radiator to the thermostat housing and engine. Those are 35 mm outside diameter. I have the Caterham triple pass aluminum radiator, which has 32 mm o.d. piping. The cooling submarine (Caterham's phrase) connecting the 2 bottom front hoses is 32 mm o.d. I was unable to find replacement hoses for the originals from Caterham UK. Darren Phillips, who knows virtually everything about any Caterham, said they had no experience with our motors in the UK. Ben at Caterham USA said their replacements were generic pieces, from several different sources. Samco makes universal racing hoses in a variety of sizes, and I found 90 degree reducer elbows and 90 degree constant diameter elbows to fit the car (RE90 35-32 and RE90 32). The tricky front hose is the top driver's side hose (see picture). I wound up using a Samco 35-32 reducer elbow, an alloy connector, and a length of Nissan radiator hose with a bend in it for the half that connects to the black tube (I can get you the Nissan part number if you want it). A big problem with my original hoses was they were all 35 mm, tightened down with hose clamps to fit the 32 mm radiator outlets-a guaranteed way to prematurely wear the hoses! The new solution is much better, but I have also been told Samco will custom make hoses, so one could also send them the old top hose and get a custom replacement, if one had a couple of months to spare...

I'm due for new tires before autocross season starts. I want to fit tires that are streetable, but as aggressive as possible. My choice was a set of Toyo R1Rs, which are one of the very few types available in 205/45R16 like the original Avon ZZ3s. When I went to have them installed, I found they were too wide, and rubbed against the wing stays (I had been warned that this was a likely possibility). Another choice is the Bridgestone RE-11, but I fear the same problem will exist with them. I am told most of these types of tires are bigger/softer than sized as a way to shade competition rules. A 5 mm spacer would allow the tires to clear the wing stays, but it looks like they will then contact the outer lip of the cycle wing. I would prefer to avoid the extra expense of new wheels, and I cannot use a tire with a UTQG less than 140 (R comps) without making a number of other modifications to the car to remain legal, so Advan A08s or Toyo R888s are out. Can anyone recommend a tire/size to fit my wheels? If I must go to a 15" wheel, what are some good choices for light weight? Is the Caterham 15" wheel any good, or am I better off with an Enkei or other aftermarket wheel?