redursidae

I strongly suggest a modern ECU tuned with a VE model and at the very least short term PID control of fueling. Judging by your screenshot, the Pectel is injection time based and pure Alpha-N? That’ll be rough to get consistent. Also is your TPS always at 10%? Because that’s a problem considering that’s your main sensor

Understood, and thank you. Will inspect the grounds.

Good to know. One of the original tail lights was working intermittently before, so I will start looking around there. Any idea if missing reverse and fog lights might have something to do with this? Yep, I did. The car already had an LED relay, and I also tried JAL's relay to be sure.

Good news! The fuel has stayed in the tank since the Autocross, and what was dripping didn’t smell like fuel, instead some sort of glue or residue in the underside of the aluminum shelf. Since cleaning the shelf and the tank as best I could this hasn’t returned As far as overall fuel smell, it is much better. I only smell the breather doing its job when I slosh the tank on a spirited drive and it subsides after some cruising. Decided to do an LED swap with tail lights and indicators from Just Add Lightness, and headlights from Summit Racing. The headlights leave a little bit to be desired in their beam pattern but it’s decent. The tail lights are good and bright as needed. The indicators have not worked well so far, and cause all the lights to panic! With only one indicator on, all of the car's light flash, including the gauge lights. If I turn the lights on, then the buzzer is constantly on and the indicator bulb is lit. That’s a first. I tried disconnecting the tachometer to test the theory that the telltale could be the cause, but no dice, and not really sure where to go from here. This issue only happens with the LED indicators installed. Here is a video of the behavior with only the right indicator on: Another interesting new quirk is that while driving with the lights on I can hear the buzzer and see the indicator bulb light up intermittently as I hit bumps. This is making me think there is a bad ground somewhere.

It’s always best to find a local tuner and use what they recommend. Aside from that, Haltechs do have a large number of tuners willing to support them. The 750 may be enough depending on how much IO you plan to use, but on today’s tech I would consider the Haltech S2 or a Link Monsoon/Xtreme G4X. Those have faster processors and internal datalogging. Maxx ECUs have also become very popular and are highly capable.

These are stickers. The PO put them on so I don’t know where he got them. My friends have used these before, and I got magnetic ones for the Miata here too: https://www.autocrossdigits.com/

Yesterday was the PCA Autocross and got to take the Caterham there. It was a lot of fun to play with the car. Finished 5th of 42 in raw times and 1st in class. My only complaint is that it has too much understeer from likely a combination of alignment and tires. I raised the ride height a fair amount and didn’t check the alignment after, and I kind of expected I wouldn’t like the tires from my past experience in the Miata. But it’s ok, because I had a blast. unfortunately there is still something dripping down the fuel tank, likely fuel. I wasn’t smelling fuel however, so I didn’t worry about it and haven’t had a chance to check. I’m waiting for a bead roller to arrive to finalize the cap/breather job and will take better pictures of that setup then. Met another new Caterham owner that happens to be another SVT. He intends to roadtrip with it. Seeing his car on 13s made me really want a set and also verified that clearance is a problem with the wet sump. He offered to let me borrow the wheels to test fit sometime so I’ll have to take him up on that.

Yes, will do. I haven't had a chance to drive the car yet, but this weekends autocross will be a good stress test.

Thank you @wdb . That does make sense regarding the other line at the tank being for a fuel return. The SVT doesn't have a return line or a pressure regulator*. Instead the pressure is controller by the ECU as a return-less system. *: The regulator on these systems tends to be inside the tank, but I haven't been in there or found information on it. Apparently it may not have one. I went ahead and looped the line as in John's picture. Hard to take a good picture, but the breather goes around and behind the tank up to the rollover valve, then over the filler and back down next to the tank. and capped the other line, but this doesn't feel like a permanent solution. It's a vacuum cap and I feel that's going to crack and leak. Open to suggestions as to what to use on this for a permanent fix. As a note it was definitely this other port above that was sending liquid fuel. When I removed the line it still had fuel in it, and tilting the line at the front of the car dropped more fuel out.

Thank you John! This is perfect. Then I'll go ahead and copy this system and cap the other port on the tank unless told otherwise.

My only guess as to how fuel could have made its way to the front is through slush when I last drove it, then maybe vacuum did something funny to start a siphon? But that's only a guess, I don't actually know. I filled the tank earlier this month to see how much it took and drove it to the nearest city, maybe some fuel made its way into the lines that day, but it certainly wasn't spilling over then. I agree about the tank ventilation and evap function. What's throwing me off is that my tank has two vents, one in the center and one at the filler neck. I don't know if it's ok to vent both with a rollover valve, or tee them together, or cap one while leaving the other one open.

Could you show me how yours is setup? No requirement where I live so I’m ok getting rid of it. But it’s my understanding that these came with this canister setup.

I came home yesterday to a strong smell of fuel in the house. Found the Cat spilling fuel from the EVAP canister at the front and had overflowed a catch can underneath the intake. The car had sat with half a tank of fuel since I last drove it the day prior, and the tank didn’t have pressure. This is the canister in the front corner. Hose marked is the one that was spilling fuel. There is a bottle down there that was full of fuel too. This hose in the tank is connected to the “purge tank” port in the canister. Is this the main tank’s breather? And the filler neck breather (?) is connected to the purge solenoid, which has a T going to the catch can that overflowed. It has the rollover valve near the wood pictured. Would appreciate any suggestions on what to do about this. It seems to me part of the problem is the filler breather is connected to the purge solenoid, which is normally closed, and has no connection to the engine. That’s probably a good thing in this moment as I think I would have found fuel in the manifold.

Thanks for sharing that. That verifies it is a variable system and does use cam period targets. You'll have to ask Haltech how that's supported in the firmware, and I'm very interested to know what they say about it.

Wow, now that's a very cool system I had not heard about before. Thanks. I haven't worked with these, but it is supposed to be a fully variable system, not a switched one, where one solenoid advances the period, and the other retards the period which is closer in control to a BMW S54 VANOS. From https://www.mgfcar.de/library/ENGINE_MANAGEMENT_SYSTEM_ MPi_VVC_MEMS_3.htm: That and other documents I read indicate it is variable, based on RPM and Load (either MAP or TPS). In Haltech you can select 2 solenoids for the Cam Control function, and wire them accordingly, but the part I'm not sure about is that usually these are cam phasing targets, but this VVC system is "cam period" targets? I don't know how Haltech would deal with that so you may be best asking their support line. Could you share a screenshot of the targets in the Emerald ECU?

The old hose had many small cracks. And the fixed hose installed. Much less odor after a drive although still found a wet spot at the bottom of the hose from hopefully a slightly loose clamp. We’ll see in the next drive. And in case I was feeling that the list of needs was getting shorter I found it needs new engine mounts and a fuel level sender gasket. are there any gotchas with replacing the engine mounts or will that be a straight forward process?

I'm curious what is unique about the K series VVC system? In the engines I've worked on this is normally a 2 pin solenoid, 12v on one, low side ECU control on the other, and PWM operated. How does the K series work?

Some details of the radiator replacement in case it helps others. Initially the car had this setup. Older K series radiator: there was a tee between the header tank and the radiator between the fan switch and upper radiator hose. The line goes to the back of the head to a plastic manifold where it joins the upper radiator hose. The new radiator was missing the provision for this tee portion, and with approval from Josh I deleted it and ran only the line from the back of the engine The next hurdle was mounting the fan. Josh indicated it seemed to have the older mounting solution, with short legs in the fan and I needed extensions and some new bolts and nylocs. Easy enough. the extensions look like so, and after cutting/filing the boss at the right side all fit together. Then used some M6x1.0 12mm long bolts with M6 nylocs to get it fastened. Need to go test drive this new setup but I don’t see why it would have any issue. Im expecting a replacement filler hose to arrive today to hopefully fix the fuel leak!

Thank you all for the comments and ear-candy! Officially it has an LSD by the "goose it and find out" method. I went out on a drive yesterday to test the fan install and make sure the coolant level was good. The fan extensions hadn't arrived, but because I wanted to take it to Cars and Coffee with friends today I ended up using zip-ties like it gets done on oil coolers. Held up well yesterday and today. Also no drama with the radiator, and the oil pressure has continued to hold up with the fresh Amsoil. But I did shake a few gremlins loose, and it seems to have a fuel leak near the tank. From what I can tell it seems to be the filler hose is cracked, so I'll work on that this week. Also found out the fuel pump is on the side of the tank? That's a first for me. Signed up for autocross on April 18th. By then I'm planning to re-adjust the ride-height to have the proper rake, verify the corner balance, do a bolt-check and fix that fuel leak. The car seems happy otherwise. @Austin David The CFO approves of my plans, but it has to wait due to the engine build in the Miata still taking place. I want to keep a fun car drivable as much as possible too. I've been sold on ITBs for a long time, and have owned an ITB car for a few years now, so yes it's only a matter of time on this one. Thanks for sharing the audio clips. I know videos rarely do justice to these induction noises at part throttle, but I do enjoy hearing the differences as the RPMs and throttle angles change. Noted on the CAN gauges. I run a CANChecked in the Miata's dash (replaces the dummy oil pressure gauge) that is feed by the Link G4X. I'm a big fan of it as well because it fits cleanly and shows all the information I need. Once a standalone gets installed it will go with a CAN gauge as well. That is glorious! Thanks for sharing. I missed out on these unfortunately. That's ok, I'll keep looking. Very nice! I've seen this video before and really enjoyed it. Cool to know you're around here. Is your steering as heavy as he says?

Just saw your build thread and went for a read. Very good information, thank you. Seems you were able to resolve all the issues with the ME and trigger issues? Any chance you could take a video of the sounds with the ITBs? For science of course. I will consider 8s in the rear, maybe with 215s instead of 245s. The biggest worry will be ground clearance for the wet sump, because the 13s will lower the car 1.7" if my math is mathing. The sump is merely 4" from the ground at the moment, and although I can raise it further I'm afraid of making the geometry worse.

HA no, not yet. I’m still building condidence with it. It did very well in some hairpins in that mountain drive, so that’s promising.

One more picture taken by my friend in our first blat together

Thank you all for the warm welcome and answering questions on my first post. I've learned much about the car thanks to your help and reading around the forum. The story with this Caterham started after a fantastic 2 day trip to Arroyo Seco Raceway in January where I met Josh from Rocky Mountain Caterham, Nathan Down, and 4 Caterham owners that were very welcoming to me hanging about. It was a very special weekend to say the least. After the trip I knew it was time for a se7en and the Chief Financial Officer didn't object too harshly to the idea. But wasn't sure how or when to make it happen. I was interested in MK Sportscars with Miata components because I know Miatas well and were within my budget, but a few days later I get a text: I went to look at it with friends, and seemed like the right fit. Much man math later, one car sold, and I was able to bring the Caterham home. It is a 2006 Caterham SV with the Ford Focus SVT engine. Has regular floors, adjustable Bilstein dampers, 15x6.5 wheels and 195/50/15 R888R tires, Raceline wet sump, and had 1335 miles on the odometer. I don't know where it was built or whether it has an LSD. The previous owner did not drive it on the road much and most of the 800-900 miles he put on it are track and autocross miles. It is well broken in I've spent the last month getting acquainted with the car, catching up on maintenance and definitely not plotting mods. Some items addressed so far have been to install the headlights, fix a couple of issues with the tail lights, a quick ride height adjustment, replaced the timing belt and a fresh oil change. The front ride height was too low before, at 130mm and 25mm rake. It's now 140mm front and still 25mm rake. More adjustments, an alignment and corner balancing are needed. The timing belt was original from 2002 and I did not feel comfortable driving with it, even though it looked ok. Also put fresh spark plugs to have a baseline. The plastic end-tanks in the radiator were leaking, so ordered a new aluminum radiator. A few "while I'm in there" happened and I swapped all the clamps for some without hose-eating slots and replaced a heater hose that was cracking too. Also found that my radiator fan has the shorter style mounts, and had to get new extensions. I'm currently waiting on the extensions to arrive so I can finish the job. Before the radiator job started, I did an oil change to Amsoil 5w-30, because the weekend prior I drove it through the mountains and oil pressure was right at 1bar at hot idle. A bit too low for my liking, and figured a fresh change would be a good starting point. The first drive on the new oil seemed promising but that was on a cooler day. I have driven the car 170 miles so far. The power and torque is awesome, and definitely the fastest car I've owned. The suspension feels better after the ride height adjustments but it is still a bit stiff. The exhaust sounds good and pops a lot on decel which is growing on me. Next thing is to keep driving it to shake out the gremlins, dial in the suspension, and do an autocross and trackday to find what to do next. But I do have a wishlist for once I have the Miata's engine finished: - 13 inch Apollo wheels + Nova tires (wet sump clearance is a concern though) - Soft Bits for Sevens Half Hood - Aero screen - New belts - Tillett seats - Trackday roll cage - Standalone ECU still to be decided (Leaning Haltech or Link G4X) - Borla Induction or AT Power ITBs But overall very happy, and glad to have finally joined the se7en community

Shop run to pick up coffee beans

Sorry to hear about your Miata :/ . I read through your thread when I was researching se7ens but didn’t remember that part. No apologies needed! I don’t mind taking Miata detours