What you wish you knew before ordering your car?

[Exarkun1178]

Thanks for this. 
 

those turn pods keep coming up… 

 

 

[jmaz]

The pods aren't all that bad, I think.  It's just that the carbon fiber ones would look better with the CF wings and powder-coat black suspension. 

[Vovchandr]

Opt in for the CF pods. Minimal cost and much better experience and product. 

 

With that said I think 3rd party pods were better and I ended up ordering both and using 3rd party ones that were cheaper

 

Caterham switched to vertical pattern on almost all of its CF products which I personally hate

 

45 degree CF weave is much better looking and matches the rest of my parts

 

[williamwashere]

1 hour ago, Vovchandr said:

With that said I think 3rd party pods were better and I ended up ordering both and using 3rd party ones that were cheaper

Any recommendations @Vovchandr on 3rd party pods?

[Vovchandr]

1 hour ago, williamwashere said:

Any recommendations @Vovchandr on 3rd party pods?

 

DemonTweeks and Westermann are your options

 

I'd have to dig into receipts to see who I ordered from as I had orders from both

 

By the pictures on their sites now, DemonTweeks also appears to be 0 degree (I thought I bought from them)

 

https://www.demon-tweeks.com/uk/caterham-carbon-fibre-indicator-mounts-241853/

 

Westermann appears to be 45 degree (very pricy but I needed to order other stuff anyway so I did one big bulk order back in the day)

 

https://westermann-motorsport.com/en/produkte/indicator-pod-carbon

[Slonie]

I'm curious, does anyone know how much weight the carbon pods save?

 

I know there are perfectly good aesthetic reasons to do it if you have other carbon parts, but I have always been curiou.. The stock metal ones "look heavy" but I've never had them in hand off of the car.

[jmaz]

The standard black plastic pod section (just the black housing - not the lens or wiring) I've got weighs around 47 g (1.7 oz).  So, pretty minimal mass.

[hahuang65]

22 hours ago, Exarkun1178 said:

those turn pods keep coming up… 

Note that you can absolutely run without pods, if you end up getting an LED headlight with a turn signal built in.

 

Mine are halo lights that flash amber for turning.

 

I'm absolutely considering just taking out the pods for a cleaner look. Just laziness to redo/remove some of the wiring. 

 

One thing I'll say that is probably obvious but should be said anyway...is know yourself. 

 

For me and my personality I know that I would regret not getting something ONLY due to money, and so I kind of almost spared no expense on my build. I skipped all the carbon bits (cuz that's relatively easy to do later), but I opted for the 620 nosecone, the 620 dash, the higher cost paint... Anything with any remote chance I might regret not doing and would be difficult to do... I opted for. 

[Slonie]

6 hours ago, jmaz said:

The standard black plastic pod section (just the black housing - not the lens or wiring) I've got weighs around 47 g (1.7 oz).  So, pretty minimal mass.

 

Thanks! I'm just going to admit that I didn't realize the standard pods were plastic and not crinkle-coated metal... Fooled me! Given their light weight, I think I'll hold onto the OEM ones for now. On the other hand, what about a carbon headlight stay? 

[jmaz]

16 hours ago, hahuang65 said:

Note that you can absolutely run without pods, if you end up getting an LED headlight with a turn signal built in.

 

That's an interesting idea.  The revised wiring ought to be pretty straightforward.  If I stick with the standard pod approach in my build, maybe I'll add another extra wire to the wiring harness while I'm assembling the headlight+pod indicator unit and passing the wiring through the headlight brackets.  That wire could then just sit unused in the headlight bowl, but could be plugged into the Econoseal connector in place of the pod's power wire after connecting it the the LED headlight's turn signal connection.   Or the pod's red wire could be cut and routed into the headlight bowl directly but I'd want to leave it as-is in case I (or future owner) wanted to revert to the traditional pod+headlight look.  

[hahuang65]

19 minutes ago, jmaz said:

The revised wiring ought to be pretty straightforward. 

I haven't looked in a while so I could be totally forgetting important details, but my setup, I think it's as simple as disconnecting the wire from the pod light, removing the pods and then feeding that wire into my bowl and connecting it to the correct (currently un-connected) terminal on the LED.

 

My OCD that's preventing me from doing it is, I'd want to disconnect the connector from the harness, pull it out, re-bundle the turn signal wire with it and re-thread that through the suspension arms (which was a pain in the ass).

[williamwashere]

If I'm replacing my headlight bowls, I'm going whole hog into micro headlights and removing them entirely. https://kosonorthamerica.com/product/mini-led-headlight-series/

This is a new CSR I saw that did this (https://www.beachmanracing.com/inventory):

 

Would just have to figure out indicators...

[Vovchandr]

5 minutes ago, williamwashere said:

If I'm replacing my headlight bowls, I'm going whole hog into micro headlights and removing them entirely. https://kosonorthamerica.com/product/mini-led-headlight-series/

This is a new CSR I saw that did this (https://www.beachmanracing.com/inventory):

 

Would just have to figure out indicators...

 

This is like the Anti Christ to 7in high mount headlight people.

 

I personally like the layout of the headlight and pod, just didnt like the high mount or the 7in

[hahuang65]

@Vovchandr is right.

 

I also like the layout of the 5.75" headlight and the pod, from the front. The length of the pod and the side profile of it, I could take it or leave it.

 

I agree 7" are a little too large and the high mount look quite awkward.

 

The microlight is kinda interesting and it kinda "deletes" a light on the Caterham, making it look a little more streamlined.... but I personally would not run it.

Edited 14 hours ago by hahuang65

[Slonie]

44 minutes ago, Vovchandr said:

This is like the Anti Christ to 7in high mount headlight people.

 

It's funny because I usually hate tiny headlight conversions ala microlight, but those are so small they almost disappear and it just looks like a race car. Approve! (if the light output is good, in any case I'm sure it's better than the halogens that came on older cars).

 

But I do love my big goofy high-mount 7" lights. Low 5.75s look great too, but I'm not that eager to update my car.

 

For 2026, Caterham is offering body-colored headlights (and roll bars) as standard, so we can start whole new debates over those 

 

Edited 13 hours ago by Slonie

[hahuang65]

4 minutes ago, Slonie said:

For 2026, Caterham is offering body-colored headlights (and roll bars) as standard

 

For me the biggest deal here is "620 nosecone" as standard!!! WHAT! That's fantastic.

[williamwashere]

I haven't done the math comparing what I paid vs today's pricing, but that is a nice checklist of things I did pay extra for when I ordered mine.

[Vovchandr]

19 minutes ago, hahuang65 said:

 

For me the biggest deal here is "620 nosecone" as standard!!! WHAT! That's fantastic.

Mine has been sitting unpainted for a few years now. I at least think its call that I'll have an option of swapping back and forth between different styles (I have total 3 nosecones)

[hahuang65]

Just now, Vovchandr said:

option of swapping back and forth between different styles

Interesting... I may be mistaken, but in discussing with @empti who has the normal 420 nosecone, the mount points/hardware for the 420 and 620 were slightly different.

 

Which nosecones do you have? Are they 3 different styles?

[Vovchandr]

18 minutes ago, hahuang65 said:

Interesting... I may be mistaken, but in discussing with @empti who has the normal 420 nosecone, the mount points/hardware for the 420 and 620 were slightly different.

 

Which nosecones do you have? Are they 3 different styles?

 

I have two standard and one 620.

 

Yes mounting points are different, 620 needs L mounts on the vertical beam. I have not installed those yet.