scannon Posted May 2, 2007 Share Posted May 2, 2007 Went to the DMV this morning with paperwork in hand expecting to start the long process. To my amazement I walked out with plates for the Caterham! It's now LEGAL for the road. :hurray: I really expected this to be a weeks/months long ordeal. On Monday I trailered the car to the highway patrol for the VIN/roadability inspection which it passed with no problems. The inspector did make me start the engine to see if the exhaust was too loud. He thought it was very reasonable for the type of exhaust. He said that the last Caterham he had inspected had a Ford engine and while looking over the Miata engine and turbocharger he said this one ought to outrun the Ford. Now I can do the fine tuning of the Link ECU which requires time on the road or a dyno. Skip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slngsht Posted May 2, 2007 Share Posted May 2, 2007 Skip. That's awesome. congrats :party: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boxologist Posted May 2, 2007 Share Posted May 2, 2007 He said that the last Caterham he had inspected had a Ford engine and while looking over the Miata engine and turbocharger he said this one ought to outrun the Ford. Sorry Mazda, the above is great news. wish 5oh around here was so cool :crazy: Skip, congrats and we need more videos! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scannon Posted May 2, 2007 Author Share Posted May 2, 2007 Looks like my announcement was a bit premature. I was in the process of bolting the plates on the car for my first blat when the phone rang. It was the nice lady at the DMV telling me I had to return the plates and wait until the state has assigned me a conforming VIN and affix their VIN plate to my car. She was very apologetic and said it was their mistake. I thought it was too easy. :banghead: The registration had the Caterham VIN on it and I assumed they would issue a new registration once the new VIN was issued but in the meantime the car was legal for the street. She will try to get the state to expedite it, but the county and state don't always work well together. It could be two weeks to two months before I get the plates back. Skip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slngsht Posted May 2, 2007 Share Posted May 2, 2007 Damn, you should've said "Sorry, wrong number". This David Holloway :lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
locostv8 Posted May 2, 2007 Share Posted May 2, 2007 ...He said that the last Caterham he had inspected had a Ford engine and while looking over the Miata engine and turbocharger he said this one ought to outrun the Ford....Skip Depends entirely on WHICH Ford. :blueangel: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boxologist Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 as much as i like the lower economical ford block i have, i'll take a madza small displacement block over a similar sized block. the turbo setup that Skip is using is OLD turbo tech. if Flyin' Miata caught up and R&D'd the twin scroll designs, skip's car would be close to Mazda and R1's mayhem machines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xflow7 Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 Sorry to hear about the latest complication, but glad that it looks like you're close (process-wise, if not time-wise). :hurray: FWIW, when I registered my car in Ohio they also had to assign an Ohio VIN of some kind which took a couple of weeks and I had to take the car back in for them to affix the little stickers to the frame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 as much as i like the lower economical ford block i have, i'll take a madza small displacement block over a similar sized block. the turbo setup that Skip is using is OLD turbo tech. if Flyin' Miata caught up and R&D'd the twin scroll designs, skip's car would be close to Mazda and R1's mayhem machines. Despite the "old tech" Skip is using, he's limited by the strength of his engine internals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scannon Posted May 3, 2007 Author Share Posted May 3, 2007 Despite the "old tech" Skip is using, he's limited by the strength of his engine internals. Since the engine is an unmodified 1.8 liter junkyard engine with only a turbo and Link ECU, I can only get 240 -250 WRHP out of it and have it last. This engine should have in the neighborhood of 240 lb ft of torque to go with the HP. This should satisfy my inner G-force junkie for a year or two. Once I am used to this power level and my wallet has recovered, I will build one of Flyin Miata's 2.0 liter strokers with forged internals and head work. That should easily put it in the 320 - 350 RWHP range with similar torque. I think that will be sufficient and as far as I will take it. One person has taken the 2.0 stroker engine to 636 RWHP and 430 RWHP is not uncommon. I'm not planning on going there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boxologist Posted May 3, 2007 Share Posted May 3, 2007 its not how much power, it when its coming. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scannon Posted June 25, 2007 Author Share Posted June 25, 2007 :hurray: Finally got the plates today :hurray: The CHP attached the new assigned VIN tag and off I went to the county DMV. The same lady waited on me as before, this time she went over each and every one of the 15 or so pieces of paper in the packet, made several phone calls to make sure she was entering things correctly, took my check for $1,401 and handed me a set of plates. I told her I wasn't answering the telephone any more this week (a reference to her calling me as I was about the install the last set and requiring me to return them). My Caterham is now registered as a 2007 Cat, Model CV, even though it has a 12/03 build date and was listed as a 2004 on the MSO. I think it is done this time. The sad part about this is I can't drive the car today, I am waiting for a new throttle cable as the old one started sticking and holding the throttle open at the track Saturday. Oh well, a couple more days and I will be able to have a proper blat. :hurray: :cheers: :hurray: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deman USA Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 Paul and I finished the car on thursday the 20th, walked into the DMV with our Cetificate of Origin, and our invoice, walked out 20min later on thursday the 20th with our temp plates, (our SR27 paltes are being made) and temp title. Easy as 1,2,3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al N. Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 Sure, Dino, rub it in....I had a story similar to Skip's (though once I had the plates I got to keep them)! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scannon Posted June 25, 2007 Author Share Posted June 25, 2007 Paul and I finished the car on thursday the 20th, walked into the DMV with our Cetificate of Origin, and our invoice, walked out 20min later on thursday the 20th with our temp plates, (our SR27 paltes are being made) and temp title. Easy as 1,2,3. That hurts! My first trip to the DMV was like that... But I'm still not going to move from Colorado to Illinois. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slngsht Posted June 25, 2007 Share Posted June 25, 2007 hah... It took me 2 trips, but I walked out with historic tags :yesnod: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slngsht Posted June 27, 2007 Share Posted June 27, 2007 Skip, I missed your post where you said it's official. Congrats man! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scannon Posted June 27, 2007 Author Share Posted June 27, 2007 Skip, I missed your post where you said it's official. Congrats man! Thank you! Skip Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solder_guy Posted June 29, 2007 Share Posted June 29, 2007 Got new VIN plate (17 characters) made this past Monday. Called State Farm and told them that the VIN was wrong and to update it. Got the special form (Georgia form T-22B) by which an officer must certify inspection of the VIN and got that done this morning. Then I asked my wife to go to the DMV with me .. and we submitted the Bill of Sale (with new VIN), the T-22B, and request for special vanity plate .. and walked out with a temporary cardboard permit which is good for 90 days until the special plate arrives which will be ... TOPGEAR. I'm legal. (My first two choices were taken: SE7EN and SEVEN.) Rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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