Caterham 170 experience

TL;DR a lot of fun After two cold weeks of rain on frozen roads, any outing would mean soaking the Caterham in salt. We don't want any of that, so I jumped on the first chance of properly rinsed but dry roads one Wednesday evening after work to go for a quick 45-minutes drive. It was  just enough to keep the battery in good condition. Yes, I could have cut the master switch beforehand. I came back with really cold feet but had some good old fun. With the kids on vacation for 2 weeks, the original plan was to use it as my daily and take it to the office every day. Weather was so bad that they had to close the motorway near Francorchamps because of jackknifed tractor-trailers (on ice). Anyway, with the week-end came March showers. A bit of everything, with warmer rain. I don't know if I was craving driving so hard or what pushed me to see it that way, but it felt like a perfect day for one of my long drives around the Eifel and Rursee area. I left at around 9:15 and came ba...

TL;DR I'm really pissed this time Excuse my use of Greek letters, but What the Fυϲκ ! I just gave the car a quick power-wash after our Saturday blat to the Nürburging, and came back home to grazing sunlight that releaved strange brownish shadows behind the left-hand headlight. Looking closer, the bucket is rusty; all fυϲκed up with the paint cracked and lifting everywhere. With a car that's just 3 years old, "for the price" , this is just unacceptable. Options range from a £60 replacement that would most likely end up in the same state in a few years; to the 1000€ carbon fiber alternative from Wesmo. Or there's the obvious solution of spending hours cleaning, protecting and painting them to get them future-proof. My " perceived quality" (a strong focus at the top management at Caterham) has been never lower.   

TL;DR Pimpin' ain't easy Read part I   and part II for the full PIAA story. Even I think that a third post about those additional lights is a bit much. Yet again, the time spent 'researching' and fiddling with the adjustment make it worth my time writing it down. This whole blog could have been a collection of Post-It notes in Google Keep, all bullet points, sketches and figures. Anywho, as pleased as I was to transform my Seven into a light ball, it was too much and a plain nuisance to others if we're honest. Flooding the scenery up to the roof of houses with pissy yellow light wouldn't bring anything useful in actual fog either. The fact that the white drive beams were aiming too high was not as problematic, but the goal was for them to fill the black void left when the low beams turn off as the high beams are activated. I got a first check on the wall of the parking lot at work at the end of the day, with evidence recorded by the dashcam for later analy...

TL;DR The easy way, stealthy enough This is a follow-up from the previous post about adding PIAA LPW530 lights to my Caterham. Alignment is described at length here . With the car on hand, it took a whole 10 seconds and a wooden skewer to understand that the PIAAs wouldn't fit between the grille and the radiator. The space there is about 1 or 2 cm short. Change of plan then. I considered fitting a bracket down from the large nut where the headlight bowls and indicator pods are attached. It looked like a real chore of a project, and I didn't want to mess up with the headlights alignment. After much reflection, weighing various pros and cons, I went the easy way with a standard bracket made for that very purpose : a motorcycle clamp for 22-28mm tubes, made of cast aluminium. I was worried about adding unsuspended weight (~500g on each side) and about vibrations. I reckon that being about 1/3rd of the way out, it should be like 150g extra, which is close to what I've saved wi...

TL;DR Adding weight and complexity See them installed and in action here : part II    and finally part III about the alignment To quote Ben Jabituya in Short Circuit : "You know what many people are liking at night ? Headlights." Confession time. I'm one of those people he was talking about. Since the Vosges trip in August and the driving-mountain-roads-at-night-under-the-rain that came with it, I've been on the lookout for additional front lights for the 170. The issue comes from the void created near field when the main beams are switched on. With the original halogen headlights, you can hold the flasher button down to force both beams to illuminate at the same time. Replacement LED H4 bulbs didn't allow for that, but the illumination remained satisfactory. The proper LED headlights on the other hand alternate between two sharply defined beams that don't really crossover. The only Caterham with additional lights I know about is from Gilles in France. He l...

TL;DR : not the best afternoon Really happy with the MFD15 installed in October , it didn't take long to imagine a next step where the fuel gauge would also be replaced by a CAN one, and a final step that would see a custom base for my mobile phone holder take the space occupied by the coolant temperature dial. Since the last failure of the oxygen sensor, I came to like having the lambda value displayed at all times. That also helped justify getting a second MFD15. With all the discounts the end of year was likely to bring, I didn't rush the purchase. But as nothing came by mid-December, I placed an order from Sandtler24 before any hypothetical price increase in January. First things first, I prepared an image for the boot screen. This time with the House of Speed and Quaife logos. The new device was powered from its USB port, the boot image loaded, the firmware upgraded to the latest version, the TRI file (CAN messages definitions) uploaded as well as a backup of ...

TL;DR  stealth on a shelf My Ultralite wheels were actually configured with another car in mind. More precisely, they were supposed to be chef's kiss 👌 on a carbon fiber-clad Caterham 170R with a Nardo grey body. A real thing of beauty; a bit radical. The black perimeter bolts (20 per wheel) worked really well with that livery. On Firecracker yellow with black stripes, I did intent on having silver assembly hardware. It's a bit more subdued on a car that is already attracting a lot of attention. That to say those black bolts are bit much on my 170S. A good thing with split rims is that the fasteners can be replaced at will. A better thing yet is that the bolts aren't screwed in the wheels centers themselves, but rather on nuts behind the rim sections. Those allow for a visual inspection and can be re-torqued if needed. This is also way safer than threading straight in aluminium : failing threads can lead to wheels that split while driving or even explode when mo...

TL;DR a chunky boy  With my previous portable air compressor lost in action trying to get the Kia up to spec', I was is need of a decent replacement. For sure I tried the courtesy hose at the local gas station. It was either blocked by a car parked in that spot, or the compressor was turned off and I ended removing air from the car. After 18 months, the convenience of a battery-powered portable option would have been missed. My use ranged from regular re-inflation of our daily cars; dealing with the bicycles including fixing punctures; inflating a basketball or two... to dealing with an unexpected warning light on the road to Summer vacations. Related to the Caterham, I took the compressor along each time we ventured a bit further away than usual. For instance, I used it to lower the pressure once in the Vosges and Black Forest for maximum grip, then got the Seven back to prescribed pressure before the 500km trip back, for maximum efficiency on the motorway. In line w...

TL;DR  Sisyphus's Caterham Staring at the cover picture for the Lamba sensor blog post from the other day, I was surprised to discover that my turbo is missing a bolt that's supposed to keep it strongly attached to the cylinder head. Browsing my photo gallery, I could confirm it was in place and partially visible with the turbo fresh from its upgrade in January. I could also spot a closeup of the turbo from the blue factory demonstrator that showed there's a bolt where mine seems to be missing  (see below) .  Videos of of the R06A teardown mentioned here show that the Alto Works uses 2 bolts and 2 studs. I really lost one bolt then. The good thing is that I have no exhaust leak, no noise or traces of soot. Overall it's not a big deal : I'd rather lose a bolt than risk ripping the thread in the aluminium cylinder head. Looking for a spare, I mostly found M8 and M10 studs and nuts kits. I confirmed the size with an M8 nut I have in my drawer. As it threaded fine on ...

  TL;DR Fear not. Very interested and curious about the intricacies of the R06A engine that powers the Caterham 170, I stumbled upon a series of YouTube videos by 赤シルの休日 @akasil . In that series, our man Akashiru shows a complete engine rebuild  of the Suzuki Alto HA36S he plans to race. Beside those videos, he also got an interview with Izumori-san , president of OS Giken. Wondering about the differences between the K6A engine (the one from the Caterham 160/165 as far as we are concerned) and the newer R06A (in the 170), they inform us that emissions compliance and fuel economy were driving most of Suzuki's engineering decisions.  While the K6A is 'square' (bore=stroke), the R06A is a long stroke engine (smaller bore, longer stroke for the same displacement), giving more torque and helping with emissions and efficiency. This is overall better suited to use with a turbo.  Side note, the "longer" engine also explains the lower rev limit : 7000 RPM vs  8000 RPM f...

TL;DR Yet another consumable With the engine upgrade also came the upgrade to a wideband oxygen sensor. What's the difference you may ask. In simple terms, a narrowband sensor is only able to tell if the combustion is rich or lean, not really measuring how rich or lean it is. Its output will oscillate between two extreme voltage values close to 0 and 1 volt or so. With maybe a narrow band (hence the name) around 0.5 volt where it's able to work out a value when it's close to stoichiometric. A wide band one, on the other hand, is able to provide a reliable signal from 0.65 (lambda; rich) to over 10 (super lean). This allows for a finer tuning of the combustion by the ECU; that might aim at say 0.90 rather than 1.00 for high rpm and boost pressure. That strategy in itself limits the risk of knock and keeps the engine cool(er-ish). The first installed wideband sensor failed after maybe 2 or 3 weeks, leaving us stranded 100km from home . An extra month of erratic engine cut-of...

TL;DR winter wheels, part IV, or so Yay, this is the time of the year when Mariah Carey is gently thawing, soon ready to jingle all our day. Anyway, starting next week-end, it's going to be 4°C or less in the morning. It seems like a good time to put the snow wheels back on the car. For this third winter with the Caterham in only 18 months, I think I finally reach a proper clean look. It began with the immediate realization that the Avon ZT7 wouldn't cut it , followed by the stainless steel trims and  3D-printed caps before this stage of new additions. On the menu today : new(er) pair of steelies for the back, that I got last year I think new pair of Vredestein Snowtrac5 mounted on those metallic adhesive 45mm centre badges for the hub caps new set of M12x1.5 lug nuts from Amazon ( all about lug nuts here ) All four wheels are cleaned and brushed with dish soap, rinsed with the garden hose, let to dry under the afternoon sun.  They're made shiny with a good layer or carna...

  TL;DR Pumping the oil out from the top   With the car reaching 5000km since the last service, I was contemplating options for an impromptu oil change during our family holidays in Normandy.    The first thing that came to mind was to stop by some of those 'no-appointment-required' service stations like Midas or Speedy. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have liked the flat fee they would most likely have asked. Not unlike the disappointment about the 1 hour flat rate that was charged by House of Speed last time, to be honest. Come on, we're talking 2 liters of 5w30 oil.    I could also have gone to any local car dealership for an appointment. Where would the fun have been?    On the other hand, accessing the oil plug is a pain. It's rather close to the ground and I have to lift the whole car to drain the oil. That's just about OK at home, a chore really.   Wandering around the automotive aisle of a local grocery store gave me a better ...

TL;DR "Everything is computer" Now that the dashboard minor gauges are fully calibrated , how about getting rid of them ? 🤡 The rationale is that my phone holder hides the coolant temperature gauge, and that space is better used with Waze that shows me what the road looks like ahead, rather than having the sad old needle telling me all is fine. When in doubt about any engine parameter, I use a mini ELM27 dongle to display real time data on the phone ( read all about that here ). With the current technology, nothing should prevent the build of a OBD display with a 52mm gauge form factor. I was obviously not the first to have that kind of idea. 👨‍💻  BTI gauges and  gaugeART products were identified as the most likely candidates. Both of those were not available in continental EU and required some PC software or phone app (which is even worse) of unknown lifetime and compatibility. Moreover, BTI didn't answer my e-mail about the durability in an open cockpit. Weeks lat...