seabbot

Great photos and write up, made me quite nostalgic for my homeland...thanks

If I had remembered to switch on the external microphone the last time I was out I would have had the BD howl on video. Interestingly I put the GoPro on the back of my wife’s RAV4, with just it’s internal mic, while I captured some passing shots and it actually worked quite well (not much wind noise and picked up the Caterham passing at ~5000rpm). i have quicksilver’s Dyno sheets for the BD and it was 190 at the flywheel. it’s a dry sump without an accusump but the capillary oil pressure gauge has never indicated an issue cornering and I have a 20psi low oil pressure sensor wired to a very bright external warning light for track-day peace of mind.

Congrats on the purchase, I hope you have a huge amount of fun with it. To add to other suggestions of what to check / what can come loose: The Carb mounts on mine slackened off on one of the NJMP track days, but this is likely less of an issue with injection. It's also useful to check the rear Dedion "A" arm mounting bolts - I had one come slack, but thankfully it gives a usefully loud reminder "clunk" before falling off. I would also check alternator belt if you are going to be running it at higher revs than usual, not catastrophic if it fails but a bit annoying. Some of the other members have had overheating / coolant loss issues at track days, searching previous threads will link to the symptoms and cures.

Thanks Kitcat, The same seller has a couple of Caterhams for sale at the moment. I'm trying to get some time to finish up the video footage of mine before I advertise it. Ironically it's actually had a bit more use recently, having been out few times with my GoPro strapped to various parts of the car. The advertised BDR suggests it's a "detuned" BDA. I'm not quite sure what that is, I would classify mine as a bit warmer than Caterham's original "BDR" spec (I believe Caterham ran standard bottom ends on their original "BD" engines) and I'm intending to advertise mine at around $34k There is a useful resource for Cosworth history here https://historicmotorsportcentral.com/2014/04/16/the-cosworth-bd-engine/

Thanks to everybody for suggestions and comments and thanks to Escondidoron for posting the pictures of the Caterham in it’s natural, if somewhat unusual, setting of a damp SoCal day. I’ll get some more pictures taken and post on the for sale section in the near future.

Huge thanks for the compliments on the Caterham, to be honest it's not quite as pristine as when I bought it but it has served me (and occasionally Colleen) well. Also thanks for the suggestions on the Ford lumps, the original Crossflow and the BDA can be swapped in less than a day (yup - ask me why I know) so it wouldn't be too much of an issue to swap back to the crossflow. Also, thanks to Ron for posting pictures of the car during an extremely rare wet day in San Diego. It just happened to be a lotus marque day at a local "cars and coffee" so Colleen and I took the Elan (it finally got finished ) and the Caterham along to show off the cars in their "natural weather conditions". I've added a few more pictures to this post and will get all of the details together and take some more pictures over the weekend and post in the for sale section.http://www.usa7s.net/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=14063&stc=1http://www.usa7s.net/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=14064&stc=1http://www.usa7s.net/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=14067&stc=1http://www.usa7s.net/vb/attachment.php?attachmentid=14069&stc=1

First, hello to USA7 friends on the East coast, apologies for not being in touch since moving to SoCal and I hope you all have fun in July: For those of you that have not participated in the NJMP July event it’s a terrific few days with very nice people. Second, after much hemming and hawing I've decided to part with my 98' S3 Caterham. It doesn't get used enough, and following an injury a couple of years ago I really can't drive it as quickly as I would like (p.s. for those of you that I last saw at NMJP in 2016, I recovered well, but my right leg isn't quite as useful as it once was). The choice of Fords question in the title of this thread is really a poll of which "old-school" Ford engine do folks on the forum think is most interesting engine to sell the car with. The car is currently set up with a BGH Geartech close ratio box and Titan LSD and those won't change, but I do have a number of nicely set up engines sitting in my garage, any one of which could go with the car. Ford lumps to choose from: 1700cc Caterham supersprint wetsump, standard Caterham internals, kent 244 cam ~135bhp @ 6200rpm - original to the car and currently in the garage 1640cc Lotus wetsump twincam (stromberg head) standard internals ~115bhp @ 5900 rpm - currently in the garage 1740cc BDA drysump, built on a new Ford Motorsport block to a high road going spec., i.e. easily driveable on 93 octane and happy to run on 110, steel internals, balanced to 9000rpm etc. 190bhp @t 8600rpm - currently in the car Obviously there is a bit of cost and performance difference between the various lumps but I was wondering it there are any strong opinions on preferences when I come to sell the car. Cheers, Stewart