James A

Building my car was a lot of fun and driving it is even better! I use my car for autocross and track days. And now my 17 year old son is racing a Caterham in SCCA E Production, winning his first three races. I waited far too long to build mine, should have done it 20 years earlier! Better late than never. Awesome cars, I bought an Elise and only kept it six months as the 7 was so much more fun. Don't wait like I did, get one and enjoy.

If I bought it, I wouldn't have a garage. I'd have to live in the car.

Adam, yea Larry told me you tired to get him drunk with some Brazilian concoction he could not even pronounce but said was very good! Did he tell you about the yellow Caterham? Andrew is racing again on February 5 and 6 at MSR.

Oh no, Adam has reinforcements from the UK! Martin, stop by and see Jeff at British Auto Specialists in Ft. Worth he has sold a lot of people on this forum their Caterham(s).

Oh yea, look out Radical!

In an emission controlled county it is a big problem because you must pass an OBD II emission check on a 2002 car. To get out of the OBD check and have a tail pipe idle (gas sniff) test you need an exemption form the head of the Georgia EPD, at the time I got my exemption his name was Steve Laydon. It was a 4 month process to convince him my car was emission compliant but would not pass an OBD check as the engine and PCU came from a car with an automatic transmission. If you have an option MOVE TO A COUNTY THAT DOES NOT REQUIRE EMISSION TESTING FOR REGISTRATION!

Wow, what a set up! Very nice!

I was just sent a link to the CFM part and it is nice! and, comes with 1/2 threads on the outlet so I can hard tube or aeroquip the breather to the catch tank. I like the looks of the CFM part and may just give it a try. Jim

The modification worked very well, there was no oil carry over into the catch tank, I believe the modification allowed all of the oil to drain back into the block. The one issue remaining is that the catch tank vent I have is very small and causing some venting from the block to the cam cover and some oil coming out of the vent on the cam cover. I have never had any oil come out of the cam cover vent. I think the solution is simply to increase the vent size in the catch tank for the block, this will be easy as I will install larger vent with a filter on it. I will post some pictures of what I did as it seems to be the solution to oil carry over on hard right hand turns. Jim

This is not a very realistic virtual lap, they didn't run into each other!

After talking with a number of people and one person who races a Caterham in SCCA with a Zetec here is what I am going to do: - Replace PCV valve with 3/4 inch OD tubing (PCV will act as a check valve and not let oil drain back to the block) - Raise the catch tank as high as I can, in fact it is only about an inch under the bonnet now - Run 3/4 inch hose from the tubing I replaced the PCV with and run it vertically up to the catch tank. The oil that climbs out of the block will not be able to climb all the way up the hose to the catch tank inlet and with the PCV out the oil can run back into the block. I am taking the Caterham to the track this Saturday and autocrossing it Sunday, if this works out, I will take pictures of my set up. If it doesn't work out, back to the drawing board.

I considered blanking off the PCV port in the block but an concerned about pressurizing the block and cam cover and getting blow by through the dip stick. I could easily run the com cover vent to the catch tank and drain the catch tank back to the block. But again an concerned about some of the issues that Slomove brings up. Jim

Ok, a little bit of a long explanation; I have a Zetec Caterham, it has a 1998 Zetec. From day one on the track and autocross it smoked heavily in right hand turns, the cause being the PCV is on the left side of the engine and oil would climb the block and go though the PCV and oil separator and back into the intake. Athens7 installed a catch tank between the PCV and the intake to catch the oil and eliminate the smoking, great idea and I copied his design. So, yesterday I took the car to Motor Sport Ranch Houston and we were running clock wise so a lot of right hand sweepers and turns, good I can try out my catch tank. The great news is no smoking at all! The bad news is after 2 twenty minute sessions I had almost 1 quart of oil in the catch tank! Surely, this is not typical of the Zetec, so what is the solution? Who has a breather system that doesn't puck oil out like crazy? I just can't believe that everyone with a Zetec puts up with the smoke or putting a quart of oil in the engine every 40 minutes. Help!

look closely at the first two pictures, Photoshop??

Thank you Bob, I think your idea worked. So far no slipping.

I was bleeding the clutch on my Caterham 7, the bleed valve is on top of the bell housing and the hose slipped off and I pumped maybe 10 cc of brake fluid right down the bleed valve into the bell housing/clutch area. I can't quite see where is ran and I have not had the gearbox and engine apart yet so I don't know what is directly below the bleed valve. So, do I have an issue with where the brake fluid ran? Is it possible it got on the clutch disc or pressure plate? Man oh man am I unhappy with this little stunt!

thank you for the answers, I think I will cap the actual heater lines and leave the lower thermostat housing to submarine hose as I to think it may be a minimum flow line that is not necessarily part of the heater system.

I am going to remove the heater in my car as I have never used it. In the place of the heater I am going to fab a cold air intake that will shield the intake from the engine heat and use the bonnet louvers that previously were the heater air input. I know what I want to do except for one hose from the thermostat housing. My car has a 1998 Zetec engine with the Contour thermostat housing. My question is this; on the housing there is a hose out of the bottom of the housing that goes to the "submarine". If I eliminate the heater is this hose necessary or can this hose be plugged? Below is a cut and paste from an old thread that shows my system, I am talking about the hose shown on the diagram as Thermostat Bottom that goes back to the submarine.

I agree completely, WEAR HEARING PROTECTION! People laugh at me because I have a large box of foam ear plugs in the garage, but everyone who gets in the car gets a set. Anyone have custom fit hearing protection that can talk about its effectiveness?

Listen to Athens7 !

I owned both an Elise and 7 at the same time, now I could go into a lot of detail but suffice it to say, I sold the Elise. Still have the 7.

I am 6'-4" with a "generous" shoe size, I drove a standard Caterham and needed more leg room but definately needed the larger foot well. I really don't need the wider seats.

I agree, enjoy the holiday and ship the watches in January! Thank you for all of the work to get these!!!! Jim

Way to go! Love the Wienermobile. Enjoy

I think I can add a little to this as I owned both the Caterham SV and Elise with the sport suspension at the same time. I had one of the very early deposits on the Elise, November of 2001! I got the Elise in when the first batch of sport suspension cars came over it was one week before LOG 24 in Birmingham, what was that September of 2004? . While waiting for the Elise I built the SV in 2002. Now I sorted the SV out really well changed springs, corner weighted the car, etc. etc. I received the Elise and took it to an autocross right away, guess what, the SV was way quicker, not a little, a lot. In fact I took the SV to LOG 24 and at the autocross there were a number of Elises and 7s. I entered the autocross on my street tires (OK they were CR500s) and there wasn't an Elise within 3 seconds of me. So for autocross the Elise just didn't get it. So I took the Elise to Road Atlanta and while it was faster on the back straight overall the 7 handled much better and in fact was a lot more fun to drive. Bottom line, I sold the Elise after 6 months and moved on. As I tell people when they ask why I sold the Elise "It is a great car, in fact it is the second best car I have ever driven" or " the Elise is just too civilized for my tastes"