Sabbot

The Caterham 21 wasn't exactly a masterpiece of modern design but it was prettier than the "startled lotus 11 wannabe"

My wife seems to find the seven just the right size to carry her latest knitting projects to her friends.

Sorry for the delay in posting the pictures, business travel got in the way. Attached should be 3 views of the pipercross filter and backplate as attached to 45DCOEs on a BDA head.

I purchased a pipercross foam filter from burton power in the UK to solve an issue with the K&N filters not fitting (~3/8 too far forward) after swaping from a X-flow to a BDA head. The pipercross works fine and arrived in just a few days. Item marker 3 on the following link. http://www.burtonpower.com/catalogue-2013/cat-2013-page-83.html

Taking stock of colors of the cars I've owned over the years I feel very mixed up.... 5 red 1 orange 4 yellow (one of which had black "zebra" stripes for added giggles) 4 blue (one of which I repainted white) and includes current caterham which just happens to have a yellow nose band. 1 silver 1 green 2 white 2 black

So I just got around to looking at the paperwork for the trackdaze event at NJMP and noticed that the tech inspection should be completed before the event by a "inspector familiar with the car". With the exception of the NJ emissions inspection all the work on the car has been done by me - anybody know if trackdaze will allow self inspection and sign off for the event?

If it dries up by Sunday count me in, the car needs a decent run to check the mysterious disappearing and reappearing oil pressure before NJMP later in the month.

Thanks for all of the suggestions. I would love to report that I fixed the problem AND I know what was wrong but for the time being I can only say that the problem is fixed but have no real idea how. I removed, dismantled and cleaned the pump and removed and checked the gauge. Reinstalled everything and added fresh oil and now have oil pressure. Fingers crossed it stays that way...

The preamble to this plea for suggestions is that I recently installed a 1600cc dry sump, titan 5 port oil pump, BDA with "dyno time" on it. I have been running the car around on short trips for a month or so without any issues apart from the fact that I've been gradually dialing the oil pressure back to get about 70psi cold (it started with more than 100psi at 1500rpm). I parked up my Caterham a couple of weeks ago and I'm pretty sure it had oil pressure and no knocks. Last week I went to start and while it still had no knocks it didn't have any oil pressure according to the almost new VDO the capillary gauge. I ran it for about 10 seconds and switched it off. I checked the oil level in the 1.5 gallon tank and it was below the level of the pump pressure feed. Ah ha problem solved - just add oil …or so I thought, I added oil and still no oil pressure so I killed the engine after 5 seconds. I figured it was either the pump or the gauge. I decided to drain the oil and see if any metal debris came out with the oil – thankfully not but I did notice that a lot (more than ½ gallon) of oil came out of the sump (seemed like the scavenger side of the pump wasn't pulling oil out of the sump). Anyway I added a gallon of oil back into the tank and tried again still no pressure. I have just pulled the pump off expecting to see a sheared shaft or at least a sheered woodruff key on either the scavenge or pressure side of the pump but there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with it, it's all nice and clean and would support the "dyno time" claim for the engine. I also checked the gauge and it is fine (reads 20psi with the help of a bicycle pump). Any suggestions (with the exception of refit the nice reliable crossflow) would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Stewart

Any thouhts on good insurance companies to bundle coverage across several low annual mileage classic vehicles? I currently have my Caterham S3 insured with Hagerty and have had no issues but also no claims. I noticed that Chubb insure classic vehicles and wondered if anybody had any recommendations for companies offering agreed value policies on bunch of low annual mileage vehicles - in this case the Caterham, a 1970 Elan S4 and a Triumph Bonneville.

I bought my Caterham from a previous owner in Connecticut; it was registered as a 1967 Lotus Seven. Not quite sure how the original owner did it but all of the paperwork checked out and facilitated reasonably easy registration in NJ.

As a follow up to the “Major organ transplant” thread, the X-flow to BDA conversions seems to have been successful. My S3 runs again and took its first trip around the neighborhood accompanied by a new soundtrack of belt whine and induction grunts. Getting the an alternator to fit was a real PITA, the ford festiva 50A unit is small enough but has to be fitted perfectly to clear #1 exhaust primary and the steering column and leave enough space to tension the 27” belt. After 4 test fits and fabricating a new mount it now fits and hopefully won’t fry on the double wrapped header (thanks for all of the previous suggestions on ceramic caoting but I decided to wrap the headers to keep the alternator as cool as posible, but lost an all important 3/16 of an inch of free space - yup it's that tight) Fuel delivery to the twin 45’s is now by way of a low pressure Facet pump mounted above the rear axle beside the tank. All of the dry sump bits and pieces seem to fit and the only current issue is that somewhere during the conversion the feed for the oil pressure gauge seems to have sprung a small leak. After getting the car running on the K&N filters and test driving it with the hood off I found out that the hood didn’t quite clear the filters (the carbs on the BDA head sit about ½ inch forward of the Xflow and this is enough to foul the hood cut out. Rather than modify the hood I ordered a foam pipercross filter and backing plate from Burton Power in the UK. Huge kudos and a bit of a plug for Burton – I ordered the filter and a few other parts at 11:45 EDT (4:45GMT) on Monday and the parcel arrived at my door 2 days later with only a $30 delivery charge, which was more than offset by not having to pay the dreaded UK 20% sales tax. The only remaining issues are to fix the oil leak and get a more powerful battery. The venerable 330CCA Husky Garden tractor (small and inexpressive) battery that happily spun the X flow over for 2 years isn’t quite up to the task of turning over the BDA. I’m thinking either the Oddessy PC680 or PC925 but suggestions would be appreciated.

I can't claim it's pretty, but it is functional: Multiple uses including toy transporter (Caterham and elan), log hauler and moving house remodeling supplies. Single axle (3500lb) steel 11'x6' trailer with pressure treated wood boards. It weighs ~600lbs empty which means I can pull the Caterham with my 4 motion VW Passat and the elan with my wife's Honda Pilot. The nose of the Caterham fits neatly through the gap in the front and the tires rest ( and get tied down to ) the front steel work. Obviously there is a problem if you lose a tire or wheel on a single axle trailer but I wanted a small and relatively light trailer to be able to move it easily around the yard. When It’s perfectly stable at highway speeds and I've done a 1000miles with the elan on the back across some of the biggest potholes that I've seen in Canada and the US and it was fine. The only two issues that I have with it is a) if it rains some water manages to get under the Caterham tonneau cover and b) because it sits on fairly tall wheels and tires it’s a little tricky loading the Caterham without the exhaust hitting the ramps

Count me in for NJMP. The car is almost back together after a few weeks of wrestling with the alternator. Are there any plans for a sevens outing to Lime Rock? – I’m looking for an excuse to visit the track

I sent Greg a short email to express interest, learn more and gently highlight that the LWT website is a bit bereft of pictures of the ultimate lightweight track car (lots of pictures of nice Elises, but not many sevens). He was gracious enough to suggest that if I had any track pictures, with the copyright, for my seven he would consider posting them. Unfortunately all of the pictures that I have of my car are from others who kindly sent me copies so I don’t have the copyright. So if you own any good pictures of your lightweight track star that you would like Greg (or Bill) to consider send them a note and see what they think.

After nearly a year of procrastination I finally got around to starting to swap the 1700cc crossflow to a 1640cc BDA. I couldn't find a lot of information on the web regarding exactly how this should be done so will add some comments on some of the critical steps, such as modifying the bulkhead to accept the dry sump tank, remote filter positioning etc. At the very least if the whole operation goes horribly wrong and the “patient” dies this should serve as a guide on how not to do this. Parts required: 1x slightly used, but otherwise sound BDA 2x 45DCOEWeber Carbs 1x 3"x 13" extra-wide oil cooler - from JEGS Assortment of AN fittings and hoses and plugs (Note: titan pumps require 1/2"BSP to -10AN or -12AN fttings) 1x 12x24" flexible adhesive heat shield - from JEGS 1x BDA top radiator hose - from Sevens and Elans 1x BDA / dry sump right hand engine mount - from Sevens and Elans 1x electric 2-3psi electric fuel pump - from Summit Racing 1x 1.5 gallon dry sump tank (in hindsight I should have gone with a slightly smaller tank but with the bulkhead / footwell modifications it should fit) - from Dave Bean Engineering 4 into 1, 3 bolt head BDA exhaust primaries and collector - from Sevens and Elans 1x remote oil filter - from Dave Bean Engineering 1x 1 quart aluminum catch tank (with all the other shiny parts it seemed a shame to run the breather into a plastic soda bottle). - from JEGS 1 distributor and Aldon ignitor hall effect pick up - from Burton Power (UK) Step 1 Securely suspend a 1 ton capacity chain hoist from the garage ceiling…..then swing on it a few times to check and see that it is really securely attached. Drain the coolant, unbolt the engine from the gearbox and remove all ancillaries except the carbs.Thread lifting strap around the engine and gently lift……then gently lift again until you figure out which earth strap you forgot to undo that still holding the engine in the frame, disconnect and lift out. Sit back have a beer and congratulate yourself on what a good idea it was to buy a chain hoist and removing the old lump in about an hour and a half without dropping it on the car or bringing down the garage roof. Step 2 Measure about 6 times prior to cutting once to figure out how to modify the bulk head / foot well to give enough room to fit the dry sump tank. The bulkhead of the passenger foot well is inclined forward at about 25 degrees so to give an extra 4 inches of space I cut mine to be perpendicular to the floor. I scratched my head for a while on how to cut the old bulkhead so as not to have to patch metal into it after the cut. The finaI solution was to grind the heads or tails off all of the pop rivets that hold the front of the bulkhead to the side plates. Then I scored across the top of the foot well with a sharp Stanley knife a few times before using the knife to neatly cut the top sheet - I was going to use cut off saw but the knife works rather well - so much so that I used the same method to trim all of the other sheets. Make a few more bends and cuts and poprivet everything back together including some strengthening pieces to mount the tank to Step 3 Drop the BDA into the hole that the crossflow came out of; not too much to tell on this one.. The new right hand engine mount from cleared the scavenger pickup on the dry sump oil pump and mated perfectly with the chassis pickup points. The top of the BDA clears the hood by ~1/8" so a a bit of fettling will be required to stop rattles abd rubs. More to follow on alternator fitting, hoses, exhausts etc but that will have to wait until the garage warms to above 14oF.

Thanks to all for the suggestions, I'm assuming most of the coatings are external, does anybody know if it's practical to coat a new stainless steel system internally?

Past(cars and bikes) 1980 Suzuki x1, 49cc's of raw coolness (at 16 I thought so) 1967 Triumph Spitfire mk III, more rust than metal and terrified the driving test examiner into giving me driving licence 1974 Triumph Spitfire mk IV, Pristine when i bought it, not so after a few years of autocross. 1962 Triumph Spitfire mk I, first full restoration 1972 mini, first introduction to front wheel drive Self designed and built Alfa Romeo "boxer" single seat mid engined special: turned out to be a bigger drain on a student's beer fund than I thought but learnt all about Ackermann angles, roll centers and polar moments of inertia. Honda XL 125; It went from A to B come rain or shine and helped rebuild the beer fund 1979 Kawasaki z400, Sort of surprizing I survived to continue the list 1980 ford fiesta 1600 1985 Fiat uno turbo; An entertaining introduction to torque steering and turbo lag 1979 Fiat X19: Painted with yellow and black zebra stripes to hide the rust 1981 Alfa Romeo, Alfasud 1300: their was a good reason that the workshop manual highly recommended changing the handbrake cable if you ever had to remove the engine... 1971 Ginetta G15: A hillman imp in pretty fiberglass clothes, but hugely good fun after getting used to little on no feel from the steering 1965 Triumph Spitfire mk III: A triumph of ignorance - I really should have known better 1982 Sylva striker 1300cc: A lotus 7 that shrunk in the wash, incredible chassis but the live axle rear had more a constant desire to swap ends in the wet Susuki gsx550:Finally found the limits of both adhesion and talent- this was almost a farewell to motorbikes and essential parts on my anatomy 1967 Lotus Elan s3: Started out as box of bits that finally served our wedding car Citroen ZX 2.0L 16v - I never did figure out how the variable length inlet manifold worked but it did go quite well Citroen ZX diesel hatchback - couldn't kill it after quarter of a million miles Citroen ZX diesel turbo station wagon - 40mpg and would cruise all day at 80mph – you have to love European diesels. Sylva striker 1600cc Dunell zetec: More power equaled more fun in the dry and more underwear changes in the wet Honda cbr600: Figured my riding talent hadn't improved since the gsx but bike handling and tire technology had. Audi A6 station wagon: Determined to find 4wd alternative to a SUV for upstate NY winters Present 1967 Lotus Elan s3 fixed head: Still waiting to be put back together after years storage in UK 1972 Lotus Elan plus 2: another one in storage in UK, not as cool as the baby elan but a lot more capable 1998 Caterham 1700cc Supersprint in the middle of major organ transplant - midswap to a BDA but more of that later 1970 Lotus Elan s4 drophead - promised my wife I would rebuild it in time for the summer, but forgot to mention which summer 2007 Honda Pilot: I still don't really like SUVs but the kids have friends and 7 seats and a DVD player come in handy every now and again 2002 VW Passat 4 motion - its tow rating is half that of the pilot but it stops twice as quickly with the Caterham on the back. Future wish list Late 50's lotus elite Lotus 49: (I can dream) Early 70's Ferrari 246 gt Dino Landrover series 2 lightweight aiportable Riley mph Ariel Atom or Radical Ducati 748

I'm just about to install shiny new exhaust primaries as part of an engine swap and want to get rid of the asbestos wrap that I used on the last system to keep under hood temperatures partially under control. Does anybody have experience of ceramic coating and if so does it work well enough to prevent the cylinder number 1 primary from frying the alternator (I have 1/8' clearance between the two parts). Also any recommendations for companies in NJ or Eastern PA that could do a decent job of the coating would be appreciated? Thanks

I have a very similar 1700 supersport and my votes would be safety then handling then power. Full cage or at least a well braced tall hoop would be top of my list. The chances of rolling a seven are low but have a look at what the rear hoop "supports" mount onto and then decide if you want to run without a forward facing petty bar support. Decent boiling point brake fluid and good pads are cheap and easy, it's certainly possible to get fade on the original calipers but you have to try quite hard or have old / water contaminated fluid. I don't have a LSD but after constantly running out of traction in a tight 180 degree turn at NJMP thunderbolt last year I would suggest adding and would be interested if any of the members have experience of LSDs that work well with Caterhams. On the handling front I looked at Croc's videos of my car and although it didn't feel like rolled a lot it certainly seems lean quite a bit more than is ideal so you might consider a rear antiroll bar. On the power side of things if you are still running the Kent 234 cam you could consider the 244 cam. It works better at the top end with little loss of tractability while pottering about. If you change the cam you might want to think about swapping out the dizzy. My original distributer was fairly well worn but when I recently swapped to a matched advance (FL303) distributor from Burton power it transformed the pick up and added a little bit on the top end.

is it my imagination or is the new "stalker" starting to look a lot like an old "striker"?

Thanks for all of the suggestions; one of the other members suggested he has a spare that he could sell to me so I'll probably go down that route. I actually have a spare from an elan (which is a lot like the MGB / triumph unit) but it is too big (long) to fit front of the exhaust pipe on the caterham. There is no clearance or adjustment on caterham between the head, the steering column and #1 exhaust. I had to take the water pump pully off just to slacken the drive belt. I would like to get a little Denso-type alternator to get some room to adjust the belt tension but I'll settle for a working standard size unit, Closer inspection of the web pictures highlighted Locost 7018 is correct - the Festiva lump looks more like a CVH motor, the kent was used in European Fiesta's and most everything else that Ford made in the 70's and 80s in the UK.

If the gauge on mine is to believed it runs up to 80oC then the fan kicks in. I once accidentally had it running at 2500rpm at a standstill to balance the carbs with the otter switch accidentally disconnected (fan off) and it boiled over with the gauge reading around 120oC - which seems about right for the pressurized system.

It's rare that you hear a crossflow owner complain of having too much power but it seems that my S3 has developed just such a problem; the alternator has just started producing 18volts. Despite the exhaust being wrapped I'm pretty sure that the regulator has been fried due to its close proximity to the #1 exhaust primary. I thought that the alternator from an 88' Festiva might work as it is a kent engine but unfortunately the mounting lugs are different. I also couldn't see any alternators from Pegasus, Summit or BAT that looked like they might fit. Can anybody recommend a good rebuild service in North / Central NJ or alternatively a small alternator that will fit? Thanks.

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