Klasik-69

This is why the 7 has such a limited top speed. Mine at 202 hp may hit 125. I hear some can hit close to 140 but probably need 300 hp to do it. By the way, a conventional school bus has a lower cd of around .56 or just ahead of the Hummer. If I remember correctly, Colin Chapman came out with an aero body for the 7 chassis around 1959 that covered the front wheels and extended to the rear wheels....not sure what came of it. Apparently he realized the one shortcoming of the design. Personally, I wouldn't change anything.........well maybe the wiring.

Darn IPad screws with my typing, meant to say " I'm NOT sure about these things"

I'm sure about these things.....are all other R500's RHD ? I see pictures of the R500 on the USA web site & I'm pretty sure it's a LHD, maybe not an SVC ? Congratulations by the way, awesome car even considering the cost.

I've got wires that go nowhere, I've got connectors everywhere going nowhere, but worst of all is the fact that power is distributed to switches prior to going to a fuse. Maybe in England the constant rain helps put out the electrical fires !

PROBLEM SOLVED !!!!!!!!!!!! HURRRRRRRRRRRRAYYYYYYYYYY !! Good old Pectel T2 said CAM sensor ....................WRONG. Thanks to Jon @ Caterham USA, he told me the engine will run without a cam sensor but won't run without a CRANK sensor. He was right, the crank sensor went bad. I put in a new one, and barely a touch of the starter, the magic sound of my Zetec came to life. Life is good when the motor runs. Now, I can finish tuning this thing. Many thanks to Croc and Boxologist for trying to help me out. A very BIG THANK YOU to Jon who again came to my rescue. Mike

While you're looking under the dash and see that mess of wires, consider the fact that some of these are wired in the "British" way, not sure if your is but mine sure is. That means the 12 VDC power goes to the switch first, then by wire to the fuse, then to the source. That is a very good way to have a home built BBQ under your dash. Coupled with the Lucas Electrical quality control system, it's a wonder they don't have a fire extinguisher directly coupled to the system's electrical system. If it wasn't such a PIA, I would rewire the whole thing like it should be. I could understand doing this in the 60's but 50 years later, :banghead:

Yes the motor cranks and cranks but doesn't fire. As I said previously, fuel pressure is fine, goes right up to 45 psi and stays there. Oil pressure climbs as you crank as well. I put a spark checker in line with #1 plug and saw nothing, which is what I suspected. What made me suspicious that it was more than just spark problem is the lack of smell of fuel so I knew the injectors weren't getting pulsed either. I was sure it was ECU related. The ECU said it wasn't reading the CAM sensor so I changed that but that didn't fix anything. Jon at Caterham has been giving me some clues and it appears he may have been dead on. He said the car will run without the cam sensor but won't run without a crank sensor. Well I just removed the crank sensor and its bad, won't read anything. I've ordered a new one and will try again when I get it. This thing is not going to whip my butt. If I've finally discovered the problem, this will actually be one lucky Friday the 13th for me.

Everything on the car seems to work to include lights, turn signals, brake lights, etc. Engine wise; -fuel pump fires up and pressure is as it should be -ECU has 12 vdc power going to pin as designated by Pectel -I have checked for continuity from ECU to all four injectors and both sides of the coil - Battery is hooked up correctly with the + on the + side - ECU was indicating no CAM signal so I replaced the CAM sensor and further checked the continuity between the CAM sensor and the correct ECU pin - reading ignition 12 vdc on both sides of the split coil going back to the ECU - crank sensor doesn't seem to be pulsing but I'm not sure how much of a pulse this thing generates. I read it at various ohm settings and checked voltage to see if its a voltage variation.......no sensation either way - verified that both ECU ground and sensor grounds are proper -pushed in every pin at the 26 pin AMP connector and verified continuity between AMP connector and inside the ECU connections - have power going to the ECU everywhere indicated by Pectel but they're not exactly a fountain of information. As you said Croc, European sites have a lot more info on these than anything state side. I'll look up the links you sent. I will pursue this thing and will make it work, hopefully before I die of old age.

I'm hoping that someone out there might be able to share a wiring schematic for a 2004 Caterham R300 with 2.0L Zetec DOHC engine and Pectel T2 ECU. I have the assembly book the original owner/builder got from Caterham but the wiring schematics in the back are not for what I have. Right now my car is dead, won't start, and I need to see if I have a harness or a ECU issue. Thanks to anyone who can help.

I put a catch can on mine just for good practice, no emissions or inspections here in Florida. As Canadian 7 stated, its easy to drain the catch can every once in a while and it does serve the purpose. I have a sintered bronze filter on the top of mine but if I wanted a complete closed loop, I would just remove the filter and install a plug.

I use the Motul RBF which has pretty good dry and wet temperature ratings yet is still affordable at about $16/pint. The more serious racers use the Castrol SRF racing brake fluid, and at around $75/quart, it's a serious investment. As the previous post stated, the ATE Blue or Gold are very popular fluids for the lighter cars and autoX. I think their rating is a bit less than the others but so is the price, and unless you are doing some very serious and long track events, may not need more. Generally speaking, any track events less than 30 minutes and less than 140 mph won't test the brake flluid's capacity to prevent a boil over. However, no worse feeling than coming into a corner at full speed and having the brake pedal bottom out..............makes you get very religious very quickly.

I'm running -2.8 on the front with Hoosier R6 205 50 R15 front & rear. Rear is stock De dion rear axle set up for SCCA TT events. I don't think this is the best set up however, maybe too much neg camber on the front drags down top speed with little cornering gain. Perhaps others with more 7 track time can chime in & give their opinion. Good luck.

Now back to the fuel pump issues. Come to find out my injectors are incorrect. Pectel runs high impedance injectors only and mine are Lucas 2.5 ohm 320 cc (30 lb) units. Also, my engine was set up to run at 60 psi by those who gave it birth. So I adjusted the pressure down to 45 psi and replaced the injectors with 42 lb high impedance Bosch injectors and will have to remap the ECU. No big deal since it was all wrong anyway. When you're looking for a fuel pump, keep the pressure requirements in mind. You should have a wide choice of fuel pumps for the 3 bar (45 psi) settings, very few with the 60 psi capability. If you have to remap the injector times (millisecond pulses), you could easily just increase all of them across the board by the percentage of change in your initial pressure, then get Tom (1turbofocus) to hook up to your computer and do a dial in for the fine adjustment.

You guys are tough. Good thing about hitting a moose in a 7 is you won't be walking around with a limp afterwards, you'll be dead on impact. They'd have to dig the moose out of 7 to find you, if they find you. Glad to hear you guys don't have potholes. I was in Fairbanks in August 2006 doing the land tour down to Denali followed by a ride down to Anchorage. Rains caused a landslide on the rails, then followed by a landslide on the road down to Anchorage. We got a ride on an old school bus back to Fairbanks and we hit every pot hole on the way. One time I thought the driver missed one so he stopped, backed up, and hit it just for good measure. I know there weren't any springs on that bus, axle welded to the frame for good measure.

That would make that bio-fuel, woudln't it ???:bigear: Didn't find any Kodiak Bear dung in there too, did you ? Ok, all kidding aside, how user friendly is it owning a Caterham or Lotus in Alaska ...........you have potholes bigger than the car, and well, the temperature isn't exactly conducive to driving around in a convertible, never mind the rain and wind, or attacks from hungry grizzlies who eat bigger food than the car you're in. You guys are tough !

The injectors are Lucas 320 cc type, 4 of them, which should be ample. Being a novice (read that ignorant), I enlisted Tom's help (1turbofocus), the most knowledgeable person I know on these engines. If I didn't know better, I'd bet he designed the motor for Ford. So this week, we will hook up my desk top computer to the car, have Tom wired in on the computer, and let him adjust as he sees fit. I tried to hook up my lap top but it doesn't have a serial port and after an incredible number of tries with a serial-USB adapter and numerous drivers, the lap top refuses to communicate with Comm Port 4 or 5, and insists on using Comm Port 15 which the Pectel doesn't link to. I should take a picture of the rolling table I built for the desktop computer to hook up to the car, it would give you guys a big laugh and likely get me the clown of the year award. Hey, whatever works. Hey, just saw the cute little lexicon on the side bar, :deadhorse:that's me trying to adjust my Pectel. Which then results in :banghead:

I didn't mean to interfere or dispute your post, I was just saying mine was different and his may also be different. Believe me, I know very little of the technical details of these cars and the many variants, but I'm learning every day thanks to this site and its many very knowledgeable members. Right now I'm trying to learn the Pectel T2 system to figure out exactly how to fix a lean condition on the upper rpm. It may take me a while, and a few wasted dyno runs but I will dial in this car properly hopefully before gasoline engines become outlawed.

Not mine, and its a 2004 Zetec 202 HP built by Jon @ Caterham USA. It uses the TWM/Borla ITB's with Lucas low impedance injectors and has the TWM regulator on the fuel rail between #3 & #4 with a return line to the tank. Pressure is high at 60 psi and is set up to work at this level. I'm not sure how many variations there are of this motor or how the FI setups vary depending on HP version. I know very little about Caterhams but I do know mine.

My Zetec with TWM ITB's has the fuel pressure set at 60 psi and I suspect the tuning was done at that pressure. I tried lowering it down to 50 psi and the idle got really rough and the engine developed a flat spot coming off the line. Cranked it back up to 60 psi and the issues went away. You may want to look at ECU set up file, if you have one, to see what the fuel pressure is set up for. If you put a fuel pump with a max capability of 3 bars (3 x 14.7 psi), you may be too low for current set up. Again, it depends on how the tuning on your motor was done. I was able to access the setup on my Pectel T2 ECU and read the setup notes on the current loaded maps. It said 60 psi. Yours may be diferent. Check first before ordering a pump which may not be quite what you need.

I just got through checking the wiring schematic of Megasquirt and Pectel and it would appear I am wrong about my assumption on the 12 volt power source. On one, power goes to a relay which feeds the ECU which then distributes to needs. Sounds like it may be a bad connection......hard to find until it goes bad completely.

I see you are using an ignition only control ECU and you are apparently losing the 12 power source to the coil pack. I'm not sure but I believe the ignition switch circuit powers up the coil pack vs. the ECU. The ECU triggers the coil pack. Look over your wiring schematic to see if that is the case. Years ago on another car, I had starting issues. On the "run" position, power was supplied to the ignition but on the "start" position, the power dropped off. If I quickly let go of the "start" position and drop into the "run" position, the car would start and run. Otherwise, I could crank until the battery died. Good luck.

Hardly a novel idea, and how is this guy getting a patent on this mirror. My 2010 Ford F150 with trailer package has the telescoping mirrors and each side has two different mirrors. The upper one is a standard somewhat flat but not completely flat. The lower one is a convex mirror that shows anything to the side of my truck, like possibly a small little itty bitty car like a Caterham 7!!! All of my bigger trucks have dual mirrors as well, been around for as many years as I have. What is patentable about this ?

They are but they're not cheap. I got a quote for a 290 HP Cosworth 2.5L engine at $19K without harness or electronics. With harness and electronics, add another $3.5K depending on which system chosen. Their cheapest motor was around $11K if I remember correctly. Very very good motors but at a price not many will or could pay.

Yep, I was thinking just like you so I pulled the plugs to see. They show lean running, no fouling or deposits. They were very slightly pale white but darn near what I call perfect in color. However, keep in mind that this car spends a lot more time on the track than on the street, so the appearance of the plugs will reflect more WOT at higher revs. Since I heard about the high rpm failures of the stock oil pumps, I've been keeping it below 7000 rpm just to be safe until I get the new pump. And of course now with a lean AFR, even more reason to err on the side of caution.

Your friend in Austria could easily look up motors on ebay located in the USA. He could also request a shipping quote from those yards that ship on a crate. I would think it would be expensive but if that's the only source for a motor, what's the choice. Ford sells a race prepped 2.0 Liter engine for $5,200 less ECU or harness.