Caterham 170 experience

As described in whatever previous post, an issue with the paint job led to some further delay in the repairs. This was not helped by the yearly holidays of every party involved, including me.  At some point in July the car was nearing completion, but the result in broad daylight was quite not up to expectations. The bonnet was clearly an other shade of yellow than the rest. We thought UV aging might have played a role in this, so we removed a black stripe from the original bonnet to confirm. It didn't. There was no difference at all.  The issue was honestly harder to spot with the artificial lightning of the House of Speed workshop. Long story short both bonnets were sent back to the paint shop which in turn sent the dented one to PPG for analysis. It came back to the car body shop with a written note that said "That's going to cost a lot". I have been shown the bill in their lab area : they had to prepare a batch of at least 800 ml of my colour, which is ...

TL;DR "High impact nylon", they sure can take a beating You already know them as they are the de-facto standard upgrade for the Caterham. From factory, KLY mirrors are fitted to the sidescreens (in EU that is), or modified and attached to the windscreen stanchions for IVA compliance in the UK. Those are just alright, not the best looking, but they do the job and keep their setting once tightened enough. A common gripe people have with those is the blurry vision they provide because of vibrations. My experience was no different. So I let the hype get the best of me and got a pair of "SPA" mirrors like everyone else. My provider of choice for that kind of motorsport-y stuff is Demon Tweeks . A pair of convex mirrors in black nylon did cost me 106 €. You can also get them in white, and the cheapest option have a flat mirror. There is also a very unreasonably-priced carbon fiber version (300€+ a piece), that I have seen in person on a car, and they age very poorly. The...

TL;DR Getting back to 100%  ❗ Disclaimer : this is nerd-supreme level of nerditude and most of that nonsense was part of my training in electronics and information technologies. Do not try this at home.  All of that happened one step at a time between September 5th and October 4th.  When the ECU was replaced by a SCS Delta 700S, a standard SCS configuration for a Caterham 160 of unknown vintage was used as a base. All was fine and nice as far as the actual engine management was concerned, this is really why you choose that kind of product in the first place. Integration to the chassis harness was less straightforward, and we were lacking the car electric diagram to tackle everything with confidence. I have since obtained the schematics for both the Caterham 170 and 160, that are actually quite similar. Areas for improvement were the calibration of the minor dashboard gauges (all of them), as well as the control of the fuel pump, temporarily fed a "10 times the RPM" puls...

TL;DR : adding performance and lightness   📜 Inspired by the mod seen last Summer on a Seven Sprint, a first aluminium air guide was built for my car when the engine was tuned. Over the two months I've been driving with it, OBDII data clearly showed an air intake temperature kept in check, very close to ambient. That first item did dissipate a fair share of the energy from the crash . It's bent but can be repaired, the plan is to send it to a friend that will use it on his Caterham 165. 🌡️ We have already driven over 2000km without an air guide in just the two weekends since I got the car back. Data showed intake temperatures in excess of 50°C, that's not ideal. That small experiment confirmed the added value of building a new one. With the usual goal of keeping things as light as technically possible, I decided to use carbon fiber and placed an order for three 1mm thick 200x400mm twill sheets. I copied the original build and got a pair of 500mm 20x20x...

TL;DR That's the third tail light on the left hand side Third time the charm, who knows... it all began after a whole 2 weeks and was replaced under manufacturer warranty .  And then again earlier this year , before the end of the one year purchase warranty. As we were placing a sizeable order to repair the front end after my close encounter of the wild kind , we made sure to add a replacement LED tail light to the list. I got the car back from my friends at House of Speed last Friday (Aug 29th) after rushing the body repair specialist a bit, and decided I would replace that tail light by myself. That's a very quick job once you've done it once or twice already. Anyway, as per my previous post on the subject used as a reference, the 5.5mm allen bit and a 8mm socket were used, this time with the micro-ratchet. No need to lift the car or remove the rear wheel. Nice and easy during a short break in business-casual outfit. In the meantime I had the opportunity to...