Chapter 7 with a Caterham SVT

[redursidae]

Yes I did mean Celsius. Roughly 96-98 Fahrenheit at the track yesterday.

 

Good to have confirmation on this, thanks. I'll run a 5w-40 first, and then a 50 if the pressure still drops too low.

 

Were your Zetecs dry-sump or wet-sump? Man that's kind of a bummer, as I was planning to do a couple of trackdays this year with the local group of Caterhams. Well, only one of the near tracks has long corners, while the others are more like a big autocross with straights. Think it'll be fine for the latter? At any rate, my Miata will continue to be the dedicated trackcar, and the Cat is more of the 4-wheel motorcycle for me.

 

The thermostat is either 90 or 95C, but I don't know for certain. I think the thermostat is working because on the street and for those first 4 sessions it stayed right at 90C, which is near the thermostat temperature. The fan is on a thermoswitch that runs at 90C, and shuts off at 84C. Those may not be the exact numbers but is close. I saw it printed on the switch when I did the radiator but failed to take a photo. But the fan does work, and it starts near the 80C mark on the gauge (which is why I know it reads low), and it was running the whole time at autocross. One thought I had was that there is no baffling between the radiator and the bodywork, so a lot of the air is going around it, and the fan may not be doing much. The new radiator also pushed the fan away compared to the original, which I have to imagine also reduces the efficiency of pulling air through it without baffling. But yes, I'll investigate further, and use the OBD scanner next time to check the real readings too.