Caterham 170 experience

TL;DR Part three, I think I went to Munich and picked-up the wheels on December 21st, and had been looking for a way to re-bore the centers since then. Center badges were ready since January. Following my mechanic's advice, I did contact a reputable machining shop in the area; short story is that they didn't want to do the job. So much for their Facebook page that shows a video of a full wheel on the lathe, with the tyre and all, while they cut a diamond lip. Luck has it that a close friend, owner a small CNC that we built together 3 years ago, was referred to an old acquaintance of his as a the guy to call for information about where to find some raw material. That friend of a friend (JF) is equipped with some serious machinery, of which a "small" industrial CNC that weighs 2.8 tons. More importantly, he would gladly do the job. On March 18th I went unannounced to the tyre shop near the office, and they kindly removed the tyres from the rims, offering to keep the r...

TL;DR 5GHz WiFi and 4K recording A year later, I'm still conviced that the dash cam is a must-have on the Caterham.  The GKU D600 has never let me down. But transfer of recorded videos is sometimes painfully slow, especially since you cannot swap to any other app on the phone and really have to watch the progress all along. As the PRO version was on special on Amazon, as snagged one for the same price as the D600 last year. It's basically the same with those extra features : 5 GHz WiFi supposed to be 4 times faster (it is...) 4K recording from the front unit even when the rear (full HD) rear camera is connected better night sensitivity, although the D600 is a good performer already GPS position and speed useless 1.47" LCD display same everything otherwise (added on September 30th 2025) awful sound from the microphone compared to the D600  Sadly, the adhesive base is not compatible between the two models. My idea of swapping the sliding part of the hinge was really m...

TL;DR Good enough     Those were a long time coming as I did 3D print a first prototype when I first installed the winter wheels over a year ago now.   This time I took the time to properly measure the centre hole of the Citroën C1 / Peugeot 107 steel wheels, and did modify the design with a 54.8mm diameter for the external part of the clips.   They fit quite well and securely. All that's required is to insert them very straight as any tilt won't let the 2 last clips enter the centre bore. Front ones cover the castellated nuts, and I chose to have flat caps on the back. On Caterham 160/165, the four of them are protruding. And they are not compatible with those Peugeot/Citroën wheels as far as I know.   The material of choice was black PETG, printed with 0.32mm layers.  A kit of 45mm aluminium hub cap badges was procured from Aliexpress (3.50€ for the set of 4, P&P included). They came in just after the Image Wheels were installed , so they'll wait for...

TL;DR Weather was good Like last year, the first 'official' event of the season was the track day organized at Spa-Francorchamps . We Love Curves and House of Speed  sharing a box with their customers on that open pitlane day , where 80 cars would be allowed to run freely from 9 to 12 then 13 to 18 (that's 8 hours total). We had our usual healthy breakfast (read fatty and salty)  and left home just after 10am. We reached Spa-Francorchamps 40 minutes later, and were allowed to enter the paddock area with the Caterham. I think we drove there with the half-hood on. Weather data report a minimum of 10°C that day, with a maximum of 17.5°C. The track was still a bit wet from the early morning but drying rather quickly. A pair of HoS Caterhams (the yellow 340R SV and the new racing 420R one) and a pair of Agile SCX were on demonstration. HoS prospects and customers could have a lap or two as a passenger, or sometimes as a pilot. We stayed in the box and at the starting line wall...

TL;DR ILKR7J8 and Nengun for the win End of the saga that started on Halloween , as I began looking for spark plugs between Oct 31st and Nov 1st while on holiday in Normandy. With a tow truck involved on Feb 16th due to fouled new Denso plugs installed just the day before. I finally opted to buy from JDM specialist Nengun Performance , direct from Japan. The order was placed on Feb 21st, the package dispatched on Feb 28th and delivered to me on March 10th. As detailed previously, the set of 6 spark plugs cost me roughly the same as a set of 3 from the local Suzuki dealer. With the car having just reached 28 000 km, it was reasonable enough to proceed with the replacement without delay. The original plugs were showing their mileage, mostly on the ground electrode. Use of a telescopic magnet is advised to lower the plugs in their openings. Both spark plugs and coils were torqued to their specified rates. Now a full month and 1500km later, all I can say is that they just work, the fouli...

TL;DR moving a washer from one side to the other   It had been a few months that I knew the rear axle was not perfectly aligned, with the right wheel flush with the wing, and the left one a bit more on the inside. A quick look in the assembly guide confirmed that there are just a pair of bolts attaching the "A frame" to the chassis, with washers on each side to center the axle. Checking my car revealed that the same number of washers was placed either side of said 'A frame'. When I got the car back from fitting the Quaife differential, it was not improved : the right wheel was now protruding sligthly. It seemed that this was constrained by the alignment of the diff and propeller shaft in the chassis, with little wiggle room. On top of that, I discovered that when driving alone, I could hear rather hard impacts on the chassis. It didn't take long to see that the axle was "interfering" with the spaceframe (banging hard on it, actually). To adjust, all I ...

TL;DR who would have thought ? Exactly one year ago, on March 8th, I was just two weeks in when I discovered that my left tail light was filled with water. You can read about it here. By February 22nd 2025, the unit that had been replaced under manufacturer warranty was also filled with water. So I drilled it to let it drain naturally, with the idea that it would last longer dry than sealed. A pair of 2mm holes were drilled in the transparent red part at the bottom of each tail light, taking care not to reach anything inside. As I thought it was very likely that the water came from the back of the LED units rather than the sides or the front, I went on and ordered 32mm silicone rubber caps to plug the ginormous 32mm opening hidden behind each tail light. Sure, such large holes are required in order to get the rather large connectors go from the exterior of the wings to the inside. But leaving those openings just above the rear wheels is probably not a great piece of engineering. With...

TL;DR rinse and repeat  📝 There are only 3.1 liters of coolant, not 5. What ? Why ?  Read this first   So, that was supposed to be a nice winter project. The first try at the end of January in a dark evening with freezing temperatures was not really successful as I wasn't able to get the 5 liters of coolant out of the system. Only 3 liters came out. I decided that putting the original fluid back and and topping-up with pink coolant until better days was the best option. As this week-end of early March 2025 was already granting us with 20°C, it seemed like a good opportunity to try again.  This time I did preheat the engine with a short drive to the next village and back, I came in with the infrared thermometer showing 87.5°C on each side of the radiator. The OBDII bluetooth dongle was used to monitor the temperature reported by the ECU, it's overestimating the reading by 7°C, as already suspected. Not many tools are required for the operation, a large flat screwdri...