Caterham 170 experience

TL;DR nerd gotta nerd As a follow-up to the post about the ECU upgrade , I will detail some discoveries about the Caterham 170 and its electronics. This blog is above all my way of taking notes, in a more polished version than the scraps I store as Post-it ® notes in Google Keep. While the engine harness and its pin-out was compatible with the Caterham 160 (or easily adapted from it), the documentation provided by SCS Delta was not so effective with the chassis harness. I won't go into the details on who got which information in which order (or how), but here are my observations - and some just look bonkers. Except for the speedometer that gets its signal straight from the left rear wheel sensor, all the dashboard is managed by the tachometer. The tacho is the brain of the operation, receiving sensor data from the ECU via Canbus, it pilots all the other gauges by providing what I assume is an analog voltage : oil pressure, water temperature, fuel gauge. Connection of the shift li...

  TL;DR removing the old one was almost too easy   I was never too pleased to see that my engine cover badge was upside-down, compared to how the proper orientation felt like. In my eyes, the inclination and dip stick position made obvious that is was supposed to be read from the business side of things, where the turbo is. Personal feelings aside, all the Caterham 170 engines I've seen in the metal or on the internet have it installed that way. Adding to the injury, part of the lettering was already missing, and I don't think it was ever cleaned with WD40 or brake cleaner. While not specified to be a match for the Suzuki engine, the standard Sigma/Duratec badge sold on caterhamparts.co.uk is the part I was looking for. The advertised dimensions made for an easy check with the one the car.  "Badge dimensions are: 28mm x 143mm" .  So I got one at the same time as the diff, they were picked-up in person at the factory . I feared that removing the old badge would end...

  TL;DR +32bhp, about 140 €/bhp, worth every penny That project was a long time coming since I did contact MH7 on May 2nd to talk about the idea of tuning my engine a bit. I had recently met MH7 at HoS , and he was also present at the Spa-Francorchamps track day in March . For a while, the MH7 Engineering contact page did even show a picture of that event, with my Caterham parked just next to the MH7-branded trailer and the Raidillon in the background.  While flashing the OEM EFI ECU could certainly be done, it would be very fiddly and would require soldering thin wires to the circuit board. On top of that, it wouldn't offer the same kind of versatility an upgrade to a proper high performance engine management solution would provide. With the advice of SCS-Delta , the best solution would be to use their 700S in combination with a bigger turbo. The upgrade could even be done in two steps. Not willing to push anything too fast, expert advice was gathered, and we landed on the...

TL;DR if you order direct from Caterham, make it big When I got the Image Wheels , I knew they had been spec'ed without any badges on the hub caps. My intent was to find compatible official Caterham emblems or complete caps. On the front-facing side, centre bores are exactly 60mm in diameter. I wanted to source the hub caps used on the 13" Apollo and 15" Orcus wheels, but a they are too large. A quick check with the dealer confirmed the dimensions I found on a Japanese web shop (that mentions 63mm ). The next best thing is to retain the Image caps and find 50mm adhesive emblems to fit them. Caterham actually sell the stickers used on their 15" wheels , those are 50mm, and have the same design as the original Juno wheels of the 170. As I was not 100% confident that 50mm would really fit well, I did 3D-print a mock domed 50mm emblem, which did confirm that the fit was perfect before placing an order for the real things. At £6.90 a piece they're not che...