CarYenta

I'll never know for sure, but I had been playing so much with the suspension I think I left something loose, the car snap oversteered faster than I could ever imagine and I couldn't catch it. Either way it's entirely my fault, not the concrete wall's fault. Wasn't even speeding! Frame is bent, cracked front and rear, all cross beams have a bend in them. Drivetrain, cooling, supercharger, interior is perfect other than the LSD probably. Bruce quoted a new frame. Hagerty Fixed Price has me covered, thank goodness! I've spent so long on this car I can't fathom putting it back together again and then crashing 600 more miles down the road. If I lived by the caterham factory, that would be a different story.

I am! Took about 2 months to recover the bruised ribs but made it out. The Schroth belts were ace and I didn't hit my head on the roll cage, thank you lowered floors.

Welp, this is sadly the end of my Caterham road, 650 miles in. If anyone wants to buy my brand new with box, never installed MCS custom 3-ways with long enough reservoir dry breaks to reach the cabin interior, let me know! I have schematics, details, and contacts at MCS who invested a lot of time to get it right. I am most bummed about not being able to try those out. Will post all the aftermarket things on marketplace in the near future. Watch copart for a great deal. Back to my Miata

MCS has arrived! They're beautiful. The knobs are so high quality I feel like I should stretch before twisting them lol. Unfortunately, the car had an off so I cannot install them until that is sorted out. More on that later 😭 Here's a front and a rear

Drove the car around more with the new camber. It's a bigger difference than I initially realized, there is way way more front end grip! Steering is heavier since there's more contact patch I presume, but the grip is huge.

Oh wow thank you! I'm glad I asked, I didn't realize that was sticking out in the engine bay right there, was already installed in my roller so haven't futzed with it yet.

20260329_105043_exported_stabilized_1774827969703~2.mp4 Test drive to get the alignment straight and ended up being snowed upon by flowers With -2-2.25 degrees front camber instead of -4, the car still corners great but if you come in hot where you'd expect understeer, the dynamic is now grippier progressive and less sudden loss of everything. The car wants to turn a bit less, however. It feels more stable on the highway which I prefer. With the MCS 250 lb springs this should be about correct I think. Far less crazy looking now^^ Now if only I could find where this ridiculous rattle is coming from. It seems nearest to the heater core. Unfortunately the heater core is riveted in with some fancy type of maybe rivet. Are these required to be drilled out to remove I assume? Can regular old rivets go in their place?

Got it, wow! Wish I had those this morning.

Oh neat! Removable bolt is nice. Maybe I don't understand fully still, the rose joint part (this is the tapered part I assume you described?) still needs to be broken away from the upright?

I don't understand, those appear to also require removal from the upper wishbone and need to be rotated 360 degrees just the same to move inward or outward? Maybe you mean to say the thread pitch is 1/2 that of stock? I like that the upper portion has a place to keep the spherical bearing from rotating, that would save some putzing with an open end wrench and allow a socket to tighten. Does Bruce stock these?

$4500 is an incredible deal if you don't want to wrench it yourself. I spent several hundreds of hours faffing around getting mine up and running. There's a lot of specific 620 things that aren't in the manual.

That might be for tax? Fear not, Bruce will know! Mine was shipped in a shared container with another, so engine + car in one box. I paid about $8335 for shipping plus $733 in tax.

Decided to reduce the ridiculous front camber today. Measured to be -4 degrees approximately each side. "This won't take long", I thought. I then looked at how the upper wishbone track end works to adjust camber and went, "oh nooooo no no no no no. No no no. Why????" Existential screams in the garage. "Ok, I've done many ball joints before, this car is new, should just fall right out". Several hours later after I gave up with my engine hoist idea (don't ask), I decided to read through many cryptic descriptions of ball joint removal on caterhams and other cars for inspiration beyond the hammer. Here's what I came up with (something it seems everyone else also comes up with) 1) Put nut back on the end of the ball joint to be about flush with the stud. 2) Wedge something in there which just barely barely fits 3) loosen nut to push down on the thing wedged in there 4) wonder if the wedged thing will fly off straight into your face and go find safety glasses 5) wonder how hard you should twist the nut before it deforms 6) hit the side of the track end again for good measure 7) decide to crank harder 8) clap to yourself when it pops off since you're so brilliant as a mechanic 9) record the other side so the Internet can high five you 10) find out your arm is shakier than Zimbabwean currency when reviewing the footage ^^ wedge was a hex socket, 2-1/8" long. I gave the camber track ends 6 complete turns each side. Unloaded (no weight of me in car), the drivers side (right hand drive) has about 2/16" extra distance between upper tire side wall (about 20 inches high off the ground from vertical) compared to the passenger side. When loaded with my weight, the driver side loses 1/16" and the passenger side gains 1/16" so the camber is equalized. Each 360 degrees of the track end changes about 1/32" of length. The final front camber is now about -2.15 degrees according to napkin math which should feel pretty different I'm guessing. Toe went from zero to about 1-3/32 toe in from the camber adjustment. Set it back to 1/32" toe in when weighted. Before and after:

That makes it around 110k pre-tax for the 620S SV I put together last year. Having the built-in shipping and tariffs is very nice to eliminate unknowns, but I'm more into it being spicy. Nonetheless, given prices of things these days, that's pretty reasonable in my opinion for a new car. Porsche prices went up about $20k-50k in the 911 range, so this seems to track with market rates. I like the new colors and tartan designs on the leather seats.

It is outboard front suspension for both S and R 620. CSR are the only ones with inboard front and IRS.