Caterham 170 experience

  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...

TL;DR Mixed feelings Pictures courtesy of Deba Fotografie  After some minimal preparation, I reached Mettet around 8:20. Staff at the welcome table provided me with my car number and a ticket to get a driver wrist band after the briefing, they also guided me to the coffee corner with an assortment of breakfast pastries. I met a few friends and talked to a few other Seven enjoyers as well. House of Speed came up with trucks and trailers loaded with their pair of 420 race cars, a track-focused Lotus Elise and the raw carbon-fiber-finished Agile. When time came to go on track for the discovery laps, it appeared that my crash helmet was in way worse condition than I thought. Foam padding was turning into dust all around my face, jacket, in the car and in my eyes. Not a good start. Luckily, there's a motorcycle shop just at the entrance of the Mettet XP complex. I got there and got a new helmet. Not the cheapest I could get, but close to that. With my new gear, I finally reached the pi...

TL;DR  : Buckle up Yeah I know that I previously told that I wouldn't partake in any racing with my 170S, afraid of breaking the engine after the upgrades and all. We're 9000km later, and it proves to be as reliable as it has always been, with the engine temperature really kept under control and no sign of anything to worry about. So here we are. As I was hinting my friends at House of Speed yesterday that they didn't really have had a proper try with my car yet, they told me there would be a track day next week, and that it would be the best place to have a go. I knew there's usually one in October, but I hadn't seen or heard anything about that recently. The HoS newsletter was actually written already, and was sent soon after that talk . Twice a year, Belgians On Track  do schedule a track day at the Mettet circuit . It's not their only gig but the other one is in France, thus a bit further away. I've met one of the organizers a bunch of times already, an...

  TL;DR No corrosion allowed This story is some kind of follow-up to this one from last year.  In summary, I will always aim at getting rid of any sign of rust on my car. It has to look like it's fresh out of the factory. On the menu today : tail lights washers under the wheel arches : a pair of crusty flat washers and spring washer on each side.  I got myself a set of 260 stainless steel washers from China for 5€ or so. poppers screws on the boot cover : a strip of 4 rusty screws in plain sight. I got a bag of 50 screws for 2€. I've also replaced the stainless steel M5 allen bolts of the SPA mirrors with black ones, also in stainless steel. I should definitely share my 3D models for the custom base. As I got 52mm rubber o-rings in the same parcel as all those screws, I did fit one to the oil catch can , that showed signs of oil at the junction between the body and tank. At some point that week I also did replace the b lack nylon nut on the left sidescreen by a ge...

TL;DR Some like it hot I think I didn't cover the week-end in the Vosges and Black Forest at all but might have explained the cooling issue already.  Anyway, I got the car back on a Friday, and it was overheating a bit and dripping coolant from under the nose cone on the next day. What happened is that the cooling fan fuse had blown with the crash and was duly replaced and tested before I got the car back. That new fuse died rather quickly, which led the engine getting up to 105°C in some queues due to roadworks at the highest point of the Black Forest. Weather was not even great or remotely warm. The blown fuse resulted in some pressure buildup in the cooling system. Which should have been released by the 1.1 bar valve in the expansion tank cap. But is wasn't.  Instead, it was released from the hose connected to the top of the radiator, due to a faulty hose clamp. So here I was with a pair of commercial jetliner mechanics, a classic Mini specialist and a hot and ...