supersportsp

I would suggest considering not looking at Caterham for Ford options directly. Zetec and Duratec short-blocks can be had for very little money. It is all the somewhat bespoke bits on them that get them into the 200+ HP levels that make them start to get expensive. Honda is about your only other option for putting out well over 200 hp in a normally aspirated four without galactic levels of spending.

Mercedes, BMW, Renault, Honda, Toyota, and Lotus all survived teams folding. Granted, all but Lotus had very deep pockets. Caterham is a tiny company with a tiny valuation. The primary value is in the brand name and its association with very fun dedicated drivers cars. Some monied enthusiast could always buy the assets of the road car company. I wouldn't worry about the F1 team folding and its impact on Caterham. I would worry about AirAsia's financial status and the wealth of Tony Fernandes causing short term pain to the road car company.

I think the better question is how did you get your car to weigh so much? My S3 with clamshells, Prisoners, heater, full weather gear, leather interior, full windshield was 1280 lbs with about 2/3 tank.

http://www.autoblog.com/2011/10/13/dyson-racing-to-distribute-caterham-lola-sp-300-r-in-u-s/ Interesting: "Intriguingly, the factory opted not to go with Caterham USA, the company that imports and distributes all manner of Sevens across these United States, but gave the SP/300.R contract to Dyson Racing." Clarified further down: "So why Dyson over Caterham USA? The SP/300.R is built around a Lola chassis, and few have the kind of experience with Lola that Dyson Racing does." Still seems odd that you wouldn't order it via Caterham USA and have Dyson do the set-up and delivery.

Are these yours, or are you posting someone's CL ad? Very interested in these for my Caterham, but I would need to figure out precise fits (bolt/offset etc.).

Simple project for you. Swap your front wheels. The directional tread is backwards...

More info: http://www.pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyId=24406

I see that Caterham's carbon clear coat is about as sun resistant as Ducati's carbon clear coat from the mid-90's. It took mythical efforts to keep the carbon on my 900 SS/SP shiny.

Wish this had been on the market a couple of years ago when I bought my car. This seems like a great deal for a nice package.

Gracias, I will order one up. Seems like it is idiot proof enough for me. I am sure I will cause some chain reaction though and my whole system will fail the first time I step on the brakes.

What about '09's? Not a good vintage for cleansed wiring? I imagine like any Se7en, it depends who built it.

Wow, all of this wiring talk has turned me off to Birkin's in the future. I hate working on electrical things. I have been going to add a third brake light to my Caterham for three years now, but I just don't want to deal with inevitable electrical issue I create for myself in the process.

For a while is an understatement. This car has been advertised for years. I think it was available right after I bought my car...three years ago. It does look nice though.

If I am upgrading to serious power, this is where I am going. http://www.h1v8.com/page/page/1821906.htm http://www.h1v8.com/i/7%20install/top_engine_bay1.jpg

It was listed on Ebay last week and didn't sell. Didn't see what the top bid was, but if it was going to hit anywhere near this number it would already have the $15k initial bid. He would probably do better with it if he took the interior back to stock and sold the roll-cage and other major racy bits separately.

They are great most of the time, especially on a car like a Se7en. However, they can also bite you in the ass. Short Summary: Car is very fast on Avon ZZR r-comps. Don't leave crap in your trunk at a track day. A few weeks back I did another track day at Pacific GP. It is our rather big, local kart track. But they do lapping days, drift events, time attacks and super moto events there as well. It is pretty fun, relatively low risk as you never hit triple digits and very, very turny. Nearly a mile in length. http://www.pacificgp.com/images/stories/trackmaps/PGPAerialMap.png I was out on the new 13" wheel and Avon ZZR set-up that I bought from Karl. No other mods from the last time I was there. With my 15" Prisoner wheel and Toyo T1-R combo, I was running in the high 1:17s to low 1:18s. I knew the car had way more in it, it was just that I didn't have the grip. S2000's on R-comps were running 1:15s and a well driven Exige S260 on R-comps was dropping in the low 1:14s. The first session out I was immediately made aware that my car was in a new league. I was easily in the low 1:15s in the first session without even trying. The grip was a huge difference, especially in the rear, which seemed to be a weak point with the T1-Rs. Where as I could drift the rear with ease on the Toyo's, I couldn't break the rear end loose at all with the Avons. Session 2 had me dipping into the low 1:14s as I got more confident in the tires and just how hard I could push them. Still could do no better than a very subtle drift of the rear, even on the fastest corner at what seemed to be full throttle. By now I had apparently impressed the guy running the track that day and he wanted to put a transponder on the car to get accurate lap times. I obliged as I didn't have a lap timer set-up as I got there late. Session 3 I decided to really see what these new tires could do. The corner speeds I was hitting were pretty stellar. I was comfortably into the 1:13s in this session and started to actually be able to break traction at the rear. The grip was awesome. Even on 180 degree turns I could almost be at full throttle at the apex and just hold on from there (my car has a 180hp Zetec). I had to recalibrate braking points and what I thought was acceptable entry speed. I was also going too hard in some areas and driving a little ham fisted. Very fun, but not necessarily fast. I had heard some knocking/thunking in this session coming from the back of the car, but I thought it was just the diff trying to cope with the massively increased loads from the grip. It was only occurring under maximum cornering which seemed to jive with that hypothesis. Session 4 I decided to smooth it out, drive more precisely and focus on hitting apexs and getting the braking maximized. Again, I heard the thunking, which was a bit distracting, but I was having so much fun I didn't care. The car was ripping. I came in and checked with the scoring system and I had done a 1:12.75. That put me on par with a super charged Ariel Atom on R-comps and just behind a 350+ hp turbo Miata with huge wings and a 400+ hp turbo S2000 also with huge wings. I was elated with the new pace. Then, I pulled into my little pit area to load up my stuff and head home. I opened the rear cover to load up my tool kit and other stuff and it hit me. The source of my thunking noise became readily apparent. Even though I had removed my spare to save some weight for the outing, I had brought my little Caterham jack kit just in case I needed to use it at the track. Even though I swear I had checked several times that the trunk area was empty, my jack kit had avoided detection. The little, but heavy, lug wrench had gotten out of the kit bag and cause all sorts of havoc with the paper thin aluminum in the trunk. Luckily, most of it was confined to the areas hidden by the wheel wells, but the left rear corner took some real abuse, and was quite visible on the outside of the car. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/tgodbout/Caterhamdamage.jpg So, now I have to figure out if it is repairable. Luckily it didn't actually pierce the aluminum. I might see if my paintless dent guy (whom is very good) can take it on, but I will at a minimum need to repaint this area as it has flaked off. Has anyone taken dents out of their aluminum successfully? If so, how did you do it?

Watch it online. I did in medium and it didn't even buffer. Karl's rollbar looks like a bridge support. That thing is massive.

Is that red car a real Caterham?

Hah! Sounds like you have never driven a Caterham. My heater works 24/7/365, whether I want heat or not. In fact I block off my heater inlet for most of the year to cut down on the warm air coming into the cockpit. I think I have used my heater three times. Without a top on, it isn't going to keep you warm and cozy regardless. It will keep your feet and lower body warm-ish, but the engine does a pretty good job of that anyway.

I just put the Hawk HPS pads on the Saabaru. Not totally enamored with them yet, but they are still kind of seasoning in. Initial bite seems to be good. I ran Greenstuff's on my old GTI and liked them. I would wait for some experienced AutoX guys to chime in. Since they don't really get to warm up the brakes before a run, there is probably some good solutions they have come up with.

I was looking at the Caterham site to see what they offer for uprated pads. Not totally clear, but it looks like they are Pagid RS-14s. However, after checking out the Pagid UK site, these looked interesting and fitting for what you are after. http://www.pagid-brake-pads.co.uk/products/rs15-grey-ceramic-based.php "RS15 also offers a very high level of cold bite, something that is uncommon with high friction level compounds."

Great demonstration of the fantastic aero handicap we have. The Evo struggles to keep up at anything below 80 mph, then basically has to coast behind the Seven at anything above 90 mph. The proverbial brick wall lies somewhere around 85 it would appear. It would be interesting to see how much higher up you could move the wall with an aero screen, half doors and a tonneau cover.

I don't care about his F1 team, I only care about Caterham. I don't think that Heikki or Jarno are pay drivers, at least they haven't been in the past. They could be now. Fernandes has pretty deep pockets, so I have some confidence that their immediate success or failure in F1 won't have much impact on the road cars. Cool shot below. Note the colors of the background. Nicely done photographer(s)! http://www.evo.co.uk/images/front_picture_library_UK/dir_875/car_photo_437890_25.jpg

And graphics!! I agree though, a little steep. Perhaps if they flew you to Dartford and hosted you and all it might be worth it. Q&A with Fernandes on the deal. http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/90957

There is not nearly as much space when I am running the 15" wheels. The 13" with the ZZR's is about 1.3" less in diameter. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v715/tgodbout/IMG_6486.jpg?t=1303832771 We were joking that my whole wheel and tire would probably fit inside the front wheel of one of the 458 Italia's on hand.