James A

A couple of other cars running in the vintage race!

Our last EP Majors race we were 2nd to Matt Reynolds on Saturday but on Sunday we beat him, this was at Eagle's Canyon. Have fun and podium! Oh we spotted the trailer today but did not unload the Caterham as lots of rain is due today and tomorrow. We have a course walk tomorrow and practice Friday. Jim

When I owned a twin cam two different things did this to me and both were distributer related, vacuum advance issues and the other was the spring loaded rev limiter failing.

Hi Martin, yea we are really looking forward to it!

Good that you found one so easily, these things are getting scarce I looked for a while before a fellow racer got two spares diffs with an EP car he bought and was kind enough to sell me one! I and it rebuilt with an LSD and now have it as a spare, with all new components.

Oh good, a Corvette has entered, this will be a lot of fun. Yea, we get to run after the Indy cars on Sunday, avoid the crazy traffic and stick around and watch the Vintage cars! Oh and the long range forecast is for it to be wet, that is very good!

OK, there is a vintage car support race at the Houston Grand Prix and a Caterham 7 will be running in the "closed wheel" category. We have practice on Friday and qualifying on Saturday and are the final support race Sunday. You know you don't want to deal with the traffic so stick around and watch us battle Mustangs, Porsches, Fiats, Datsuns, and a Miata or two! And please come visit us in the Vintage Car paddock. Jim and Andrew

A number of people use a VCT eliminator on the cam and go to a more configurable set up. Tom Lesperance at Focus Power has the VCT eliminator part that will allow you to use a standard cam and update grind.

And if you don't know Tom, he has built Zetecs numbering in the hundreds, including race engines for a number of SCCA E Production cars. We are not allowed to run dry-sump or we would, so the Accusump saves us.

Every time we install the starter, if we don't get the exact right shim washers between it and the bell housing as it cam out with it does not engage. We can get a exact match replacement starter and it will not engage. More often than not we have to install, test, re-shim, re-test more than once to get it right. I have found that our cars to be very sensitive how the starter is shimmed.

I agree with the cooler and remote mount, mine came with a manifold block and I installed an Accusump also as we were wrecking engines on the race car prior to installing it. Haven't had an oil related incident on the car since installing the Accusump.

The one issue I have seen several time with these diffs is that when you remove the bearing housing (part 13 on the diagram) the threads can gall (it is aluminum on aluminum threads), and then you have a real issue. Use lots of penetrant go slow and good luck.

Wow, the new Caterham USA site is great news for Westfield!

I have replaced a number of freeze plugs with no issues, there are several good YouTube videos on this.

We had a very bad hop in left hand corners in the race car and found completely dead shock on the right side of the car. Added to that, the rear was over sprung relative to the front so it was a handful on left hand corners. Also check the alignment to insure the rear tires are tracking true with the fronts.

There is another reason you may be right Wayne, and that is I have always used a very high spring rate pressure plate with the 4 and 6 puck disc and that could be a big part of the abruptness. I've always found the "solid" disc to have much smoother engagement, but again that could be the associated pressure plate. Mike has some good info, Focus versus Contour, make sure you know what you are starting with! a 236 versus 224mm friction surface.

Bill, we have had an interesting time with clutches in the race car and street/autocross car. Lesson number 1, clutches that work are very specific to the car they are going in, don't order a clutch set up until you have the one out of your car and can see the part numbers. We have installed a couple of set ups that looked and measured the same as come out of the car and they did not work... Lesson 2, buy a very high quality set up if you want it to last, we have found ACT to be a good choice but there are others that are likely as good. For combined use go with a sprung, "street" disc, the four and six puck disc tend to be very abrupt and not much fun on the street. While you are in there, replace all the associated bearings including the pilot bearing. Are there any gearbox issues that should be addressed while you are doing this? I can tell you what ACT disc and pressure plate fit our cars but again, it is specific to the flywheel you have. Good luck and have fun!

Welcome to the Houston area, there are a lot of 7 derivative owner's in the area. Jim

Darn Brad, I need to bottom end SVT, now if you had a whole engine in good shape... I hope all is going well and you are having fun with the Boss 302!

Yes, buy one and start racing, I think you know Mike in Dallas there is also Paul who was racing the black and grey Caterham. Rick K. lives in the Dallas are so at least three Caterham 7 racers in your area. and three of us down here in the Houston area along with three Lotus 7 racers and huge group of autocross and DE owners! Jump in!

Andrew and I talked with him at impound, he was suffering the same issue as everyone on Sunday, a significant lack of grip, he was sliding around a lot and simply had to back off to keep the car on track. although it appeared to me his brakes were an issue from watching him brake in to turn 1.

Very nice meeting you and your son Martin! I will go ahead and post the Sunday race on YouTube and link it, but after Andrew passes the Mustang for 1st it is pretty boring. One thing you will notice is how over sprung we were for ECR. We had heard they repaved the worst parts of the track, well it was even worse than the last time we were there. And so, we were highly over sprung and it was very difficult driving for Andrew. Oh you will also see Andrew run out of gas on the cool down lap.

We have a GoPro video of both races, any idea of how to post them, I guess I could put them on YouTube. It's great to watch him pass that huge Mustang and drive away.

One more shot and I will shut up! Oh, he ran out of gas on the cool down lap and had to be towed in!!! That is keeping it light weight.

Shoe laces that match his car are an important part of racing, and worth at least a few tenths per lap!!!! It was dry for our race Saturday but rained on us in impound. Sunday it had dried, but there were damp spots on the track, but all of the rubber had been washed out of the asphalt so it was slick!