Introduction to Range of new 7’s
As of the 9th April 2002, Caterham have changed their model designations and introduced some detail spec changes which are still becoming fully understood.
The “old” range gave the purchaser more chance to “fiddle” with the options and juggle the spec to suit his/her budget but the new range is so much easier to understand and very carefully designed. In addition, prices have not gone up when you take into account the specifications.
The “Superlight” 1.6 133bhp and 1.8 140bhp options have gone, as has the 193bhp VHPD engined R version, replaced by the R300 and R400. The R500 remains.
The range looks like this, therefore….
Caterham build basically 5 cars:
· Classic (now De Dion, not Live axle as before. 1.4 K series)
· Roadsport (1.6K/1.8K and 160bhp 1.8K)
· R300 (1.8K 160bhp with roller barrels)
· R400 (1.8K VHPD but now with roller barrel throttles for 200bhp)
· R500 (same 230bhp as before)
Notice that the Super Blackbird motorcycle powered 7 is not here. This has now been dropped from the range and is unavailable new. There is a company called Blackbird Motorsport who are still able to build new ones, so if you fancy that then try www.blackbirdmotorsport.co.uk
Caterham Super Blackbird
Also notice that the Fireblade powered 7 is not listed either. James Whiting 7’s (http://www.jameswhiting.co.uk/) are building fireblade 7’s in conjunction with Caterham, so they’re the people to talk to if you are interested in one. Their dedicated Fireblade site is at http://www.caterhamfireblade.com/.
Specification Issues
One point is to be careful when massively specifying a car up. It is possible to add a whole host of expensive goodies to a Classic, but it is still a Classic when all said and done. A lot of fun, yes, but you might be better buying it in a more basic form and then upgrading the whole car later to a Roadsport, R300 or whatever. Note that everyone that tests the most basic Classic still comes away grinning like an idiot and that these are awesome value for money as they stand!
Aftermarket tuning does seem very attractive when you look at Caterham’s prices, and I certainly am an advocate of doing this, but be careful if you do want to part exchange your car later, because Caterham won’t touch a heavily modified car with a barge pole. Also, a Superlight R300 that has had £4000 spent on the engine might well have only cost a total of, say, £24000, and might be the same power (200bhp) as a Superlight R400, which cost £30000, but it is NOT a Superlight R400 and never will be, and this will be reflected in the resale value.
To illustrate this, a friend of mine from the Lotus 7 club had an immaculate HPC that he had spent a fortune on. He went to trade the car in at Caterham and was offered a good price, but “only if you take off all your expensive tuning parts and return it to standard!” Which he duly did - £5000 worth of goodies came off (and were sold separately for excellent money) – but the car was worth much more standard. Message? Keep your standard parts and modify the car like he did, in such a way that it can be put back to standard if needed!
If resale isn’t an issue, or even if it is but you are aware of the facts, then tuning is an essential part of owning a Caterham and as long as you are very careful you can get amazing results!
The Options
Be careful about the current standard specification. It is changing constantly and in my opinion the best thing you can do before you even discuss options with Caterham is to ring them and get them to fax through the current standard specification of the model you are looking at. The new 2002 brochures are apparently now available, as is the price list. Once you’ve got this it is easier to pick your options safe in the knowledge that you are up to date.
A good example of this is my own experience with the SLR – I specced a carbon aeroscreen but didn’t expect carbon fibre R500 mirrors. In the event it turns out SLR now has carbon mirrors as standard! Great – but what if I had sent the order off showing the mirrors as a paid option? Would I have been rung to say “Don’t worry – they’re standard!” Maybe.
No matter how hard you try, you absolutely will see someone elses car and think “Why have you got that part and I haven’t even though the cars are the same?” Chances are though that you’ll have something else they don’t – I suppose you could stretch the imagination and call it individuality!
The choices will be divided into sections, and some will necessarily be longer than others:
Engine
Options
Lightweight
Flywheel
Dry Sump
Gearbox
LSD
Widetrack
Uprated
Brakes
Wheels
and Tyres
Wing
Style
Colour
Trim
Seats
Heater
Screens
Stack
Instruments
Uprated
Master Cylinder
Carbon Sill Protectors
Engine
Options
You can actually order your car with no engine. Caterham will then delete £2600 from their price of a Superlight or Roadsport. Bear in mind that the fitting kit that comes with the engine is also deleted hence you’ll have to but the bellhousing, sump pan, mounts, clutch, exhaust etc and in my opinion this makes the saving marginal. Remember also that your chassis number will reflect the fact that your car was supplied as a basic rolling chassis – perhaps not so hot later on?
2001 Model Year (For Your Information only now)
Classic
The Classic comes with the Vauxhall 100bhp 1.6 8 valve motor. Highly tunable; loads of companies do power upgrades for this engine and they centre, quite obviously, on the cylinder head. Big valves, spiky cams and gas flowed ports with matched, tubular manifolds and bigger carbs would be the hallmarks of a conversion on one of these.
Caterham offer the £1255 1.8 Supersport as your only factory option, which gives more bottom end grunt and seems good value for the extra capacity and 120bhp that this brings.
Roadsport and Superlight
As standard, the K series engine is 115bhp in the Roadsport. The Superlight comes with the more aggressive Supersport cams and ECU to give 133bhp. This costs YOU £1000 built in to the price of your new Superlight. It is possible to erase this and take delivery of a new Superlight for £17950, leaving you free to do your own thing. This is only necessary where you want, for example, to fit throttle bodies and port the cylinder head, because this would necessitate an ECU change anyway so that the unit can be properly “mapped” to your modifications. The cams, too, would probably not be aggressive enough either in this case so you can see that the Supersport kit would not be desirable in this situation.
On the Superlight you can “swap” your standard Supersport kit for a 1.8L engine with 122bhp. This just gives you the longer stroke crank which increases the cylinder capacity of the unit and comes as totally standard from Rover. An excellent base to tune from, this, with an upper limit of about 185bhp at 7500rpm from the standard bottom end. Tuning to this level would cost you realistically from about £2500 in the aftermarket.
The VVC engine from the MGF is available as a £2845 option on Roadsport. Bear in mind that whilst this gives 160bhp in MGF trophy form, much more than this is not really on with the VVC valvegear and although the VVC head is ideal to tune from (it is essentially the same as the evil VHPD one but see the tuning page for info on this) this is a very expensive way to get one! Many magazines have remarked, however, how excellent an all round package the VVC is so I guess you’d have to weigh up the intended use of the car.
£6000 (yikes) buys you the VHPD package. Bear in mind that this was done before as a separate car, the “Superlight R”. Much more than just an engine package, this gives you a standard Watts link (extra suspension gizmo that improves stability), 4-2-1 exhaust and NOW R500 magnesium wheels as standard. Other standard fitments include the R500 carbon mirrors and wind deflector (? Well mine did ?)
The VHPD engine has been revised gradually by Rover and as far as I am aware is supplied to Caterham by PTP. It now sports a 17% stronger crank and rods than standard, the better designed big valve head, better throttle bodies and other subtle tweaks. As standard you get 190bhp. In 490kg’s. Very nice.
I decided on a Superlight R because it would have cost me nearly as much to tune it myself later but with no warranty and poorer resale value! And then – writing this later – I still ended up spending more money as upgrade-itus set in…….
Do be careful not to get “trousered” on certain options. I felt particularly stongly about the Apollo anti-cav tank option. The gist of it is that this is a £200 option. If you buy the VHPD package this comes standard in the package. Fine. If you then order a dry sump at £1100 you obviously don’t need the anti cav tank as well (but see the R500 section) so I think it is not right that Caterham tried to knock only £100 off the price rather than £200. I can see what they are doing: the £100 they are knocking off is roughly the cost of the tank to them and the £100 they wanted me to pay is part of a fixed revenue contribution each VHPD car has to make. Whatever, but I am not going to pay £100 for a tank I’m not damn well getting. On principle.
2002 Model Year changes….
All the K series are now branded “MG X Power” to reflect the Caterham/Rover relationship. Many people are surprised to see no Ford Duratec but of course it is now easy to see why not – Caterham have strengthened their bond with Rover for the long term. The engines remain essentially unchanged internally except for some uprated bearings used in the construction of the motor. They are apparently made from “indium” or something and are similar to those used in the R500 only.
Classic
Now a de-dion suspension, K series powered 105bhp 1400. This is absolutely awesome, because the tuning potential of this for only £13000 is unlimited: You’ve got the better suspension and a K motor which can easily become a 1.8 later as funds allow. This to me is the best news out of the 2002 changes!
Roadsport
Same as before but no “Supersport” option. Now as a 1.6 115bhp, 1.8 140bhp (was the Supersport) or 165bhp VVC from the MGF Trophy.
R300
Replaces the Superlight 1.6. Comes with a 165bhp 1800 K (X power, sorry!) which, madly(!), has the beautiful magnesium roller barrel throttle bodies from the R500 and an ECU to match. Has the previously optional anti cavitation oil tank too. The car has carbon front wings but sadly loses carbon nose and rear wings and its Limited Slip Differential. Now has lightweight 15” alloys instead of the 13” Superlights before.
R400
Replaces SLR. Now has Stack dash, dry sump, the 15” wheels as R300 and the induction changes as per the R300. Has the LSD and retains full carbon pack. Price has to jump a bit to cover these extra bits so you’ll end up with a more expensive car than on the SLR but the actual price per-se hasn’t increased; it’s just that you’re getting more previously optional kit as standard but not for free, if you see what I mean.
Notes on R300/400/SLR
Just as a point of note, and this is made strictly as an
observation, the comments from R300, 400 and 500 owners, along with us SLR
owners too (and remember the SLR was on MEMS management and the others run MBE),
are generally uncomplimentary towards the manners of the cars with regard to
the low speed running, cold starting and idling. My own SLR wouldn’t idle at
all and was intolerably lumpy in traffic from new. Since I knew they were all
like that I factored the cost of an Emerald programmable management system and
a couple of hours of Dave Walker’s time on the rollers in to the cost of the
car. My car now drives like a Fiesta 1100 around town and after some careful
cold start mapping by myself it also runs unaided from stone cold. I do believe
that Caterham are working hard to resolve these problems with the mapping, and
certainly the switch to MBE will help them in their quest.
R500 (unchanged)
£33950 buys the R500, as you know. You then have to pay to have it built because they won’t supply a kit R500 anymore. This makes it over 36K. The engine is rebuilt by Minister race engines to 230bhp. This involves the following:
· Magnesium inlet manifold and roller barrel throttles. (as R300 and R400 now, of course)
· VHPD head with even bigger and lighter flatback valves and uprated springs with solid lifters.
· Higer 11.5:1 compression ratio (!)
· Cosworth pistons and forged steel rods and crankshaft.
· MBE engine management. (which is now std on the R300 and 400, but see above for notes)
· 4 in to 1 race exhaust with TITANIUM silencer body. (This is definitely right now. It is TITANIUM!)
R500 Engine Bay
These features make the engine good for 9000 RPM maximum with a peak power figure developed at an incredible 8600 RPM !
The car has the dry sump as standard and you should push Caterham to include the Apollo anti cavitation oil tank as standard too. It is rumoured that this is now fitted at no extra cost but I have heard of people who have had to pay for it. In fairness this is really a belt and braces measure to keep the engine fed with nice pure oil all the time, even when holding maximum revs down the back straight at Paul Ricard (!!!!)
Just as a note, please don’t think the R500 motor is absolutely the LAST word in K series engines. There are STILL a few things that can be done to release even more power, as proven by Peter Carmichael’s 250 bhp (yep) Roger King built 7 !!!
To finish off the R500 section, although nothing to do with engines, the car has the following “Extra’s” too. I have put in brackets the price you need to pay to get these nice bits added to your non R500 car…. (prices are upgrade costs not the cost you will buy the part for separately)
· Aerofoil front wishbones (£500)
· Carbon fibre indicator shrouds (£45)
· Carbon fibre interior mirrors and carbon fibre wind deflector (£450)
· Kevlar Tillett seats (although bear in mind that the bases of these are still fibreglass…..) (£700)
· Black Powder coated interior panels (£350)
· Magnesium roadwheels with CR500 tyres (£1060)
· Magnesium dry sump pan (£500)
· Magnesium dry sump bellhousing (£1100)
· Stack instrument system (£1000)
· Magnesium rollerbarrel throttle bodies (£1600) – see pic
As you can see, some of these prices are worth it and some are not. You would, for example, never ever get back anything for having a Magnesium dry sump pan (and the weight saving over the already lightweight alloy one is literally grams!) but the Black Powder coating inside the car looks fantastic and saves the need for carpet sets to cover up the bare ali in the cockpit, which saves that dull look and protects from corrosion. It is up to you to decide how far you want to take it.
Lightweight
Flywheel
This is an £180 extra on the Roadsports and standard on everything else. This makes a big difference to the character of the engine, making it much more racy and free revving. Since the weight on the flywheel is rotating mass, say a kilo saved off here is equivalent to losing about 30 kilo’s off the weight of the car, although this depends on other factors like how far out the flywheel the weight has come from and is also more noticeable in lower gears. Nevertheless if ultimate performance is the brief this is a worthy accessory. It is obviously a chore to fit this later so I’d advise a purchase here…..(!)
As a note, the aftermarket lightweight flywheels available (QED do one) are not any cheaper than the Caterham price either.
I now know that the R500 uses a slightly lighter flywheel than even the SLR – although since it is the location of metal on the flywheel as well as the overall mass it is tricky to say what the difference is in real terms.
NEVER, EVER, be tempted to try to “modify” a flywheel yourself. The disintegration of a badly lightened flywheel could kill you or very seriously injure you. Buy new or use an ISO regulated machine shop with impeccable credentials.
Dry Sump
Covered to some extent above in the Engines section relating to the R500, the Caterham dry sump kit is a nice bit of kit with some technical limitations. It uses the standard oil pump for a start, which is not ideal, but has some neat touches like the tank built into the bellhousing, and the beautiful cast alloy sump pan. This kit is available later but again is a tinker to fit so if you are in to track days I would consider it carefully as a “from new” option. The main issue on the 7 is that the engine faces a different way to how the K was originally designed (think about the Elise, Metro, Exige, Rover 200 etc…all transverse) so that the oil handling is not ideally designed on a wet sump. Again, as with so many other Caterham related issues, this is a tough one to call because there is no definitive answer but I would say that based on experience and common sense that if you are planning to give the car a very hard time on the track and/or intend to go to serious levels of power later like say 170bhp plus then you’ve must give this a lot of thought. The Anti Cav tank is a sort of “halfway house” between a wet and dry sump and ensures that you do get a more reliable oil supply but it is not without its limitations.
Pace are building a new dry sump kit for the 7 which is rumoured to be better than the Caterham one. I know that Jonty Lyons (a Lotus 7 Club member) was talking about this kit, so it might be worth a look before you commit to the original equipment.
One area of note is that the standard installation has no way of telling the driver that the dry sump belt has snapped other than when the pistons come through the bonnet! I have seen nifty little warning systems done where a microswitch is placed in front of the belt and if it comes off a warning light comes on. I am developing a better solution to this problem which will bring an indicator on but also cut the ignition too. This should help to reduce the level of damage done to the motor in the event of a catastrophic belt failure!
Gearbox
The reconditioned 5 speed gearbox supplied as standard on Classic and Roadsport represents a £1500 saving over the Caterham designed 6 speeder, but I would definitely recommend the latter. The ratios on the five speed box are way too long and stop the car, especially the more modest powered derivatives, from being “on the boil” at the right times.
The six speed box was developed by Caterham at great expense in the early 90’s and is based around Ford mechnanicals. It is very strong and feels fantastic in use. I have heard of occasional problems with it but basically this is a superb unit and of course, much lighter than the five speed unit.
Limited Slip Differential
Again standard on Superlight R400 and R500, the LSD is a £675 addition to the rest. Its function is to assist the car in keeping drive as even as possible to the wheels, especially when one wheel loses grip. This results in less nervous handling and better grip and power transmission. Essential on the track for best performance.
The SL used to have the LSD as standard, and quite a few people are now moaning that it is wrong for it to have been dropped from the R300’s list of standard kit. Personally I think it really weird how this car has magnesium roller barrel throttle bodies but no LSD! (I suppose a very many more customers will tick the LSD box on the order form than would tick the £1600 magnesium roller barrel throttles box……….) (!)
As a note, Caterham do 2 ratio’s of axle – 3.62:1 and 3.92:1. The 3.92 diff (lower geared) is standard on the lower powered cars and the 3.62 is on the R3,4,500. There is much discussion about which is better. In a nutshell, the 3.92 diff will give you more acceleration than the 3.92 but shorter “legs” – Remember that the 6 speed 7 has a gear for every occasion anyway so I suggest leaving it as Caterham have done it unless you are very knowledgable and have a very good reason to alter the spec.
Wide Track
Exactly what it sounds like (!) This increases the front track at the car and rejigs the suspension geometry to improve stability and reduce bump steer. An evolution issue really, this. Annoying as a prospective because you know that it is actually not any more expensive to make but you have to pay extra. You are not going to be lost without it but again, on the track or very twisty roads the car feels more “planted”.
Now standard from R300 upwards
Uprated Front Brakes
Larger diameter discs, 4 pot calipers and bigger master cylinder. James Whiting (see above) does an Alcon brake kit slightly cheaper than the £580 that Caterham will charge you as an upgrade. The 7 does not really need these on the road. If you buy them, though, you are rewarded with awesome stopping power and they feel better than the standard ones hauling a Superlight down from 125mph! James Whiting makes the point that the uprated brakes are unnecessary on the Fireblade 7 because it is so light! He uses, instead, 2 pot alloy ones which are physically less heavy than Caterham’s 4 pot upgrade.
They also do 2 types of rear brake upgrade. The first retains the solid disc but adds uprated callipers which have to have a separate handbrake calliper (which is quite crappy but just about adequate). This is £500. They also do a vented disc setup for the back that bins the handbrake altogether and has some lurvely alloy callipers on there. This is just shy of £500. Don’t discount the rear brakes. They do a lot of work in a Caterham around a circuit, and certainly it is worth considering them as an upgrade. The race brake kit should not be fitted onto a brand new 7 with uprated AP front brakes until you’ve got hold of some Pagid pads for it; which at the time of writing are not available yet. This is because the bias will be wrong on the standard pads, causing premature rear lockup and scenery interface (!)
With regard to cross drilling discs, an interesting point was raised recently; one chap stated that he had done an experiment a while back where he cross drilled the brake disc on one side only of a car. He said that the car pulled to the drilled disc side under braking. This must indicate that drilled discs are more efficient than solid ones! The 7’s discs are not drilled even on the uprated rotors so I reckon this might be an extra little “tweak”! Looks good, too. The reasoning is that the pad is de-glazed and that any gases are allowed extra freedom to cool and move about.
Wheels and Tyres
According to the most veteran 7 drivers, the car handles better with 13” wheels. Also, the 13” wheels are lighter and we know the effect that rotating mass has, don’t we! Also, the wheels are unsprung weight so the lighter the wheel, the less “pulled about” the car will feel.
Up to power figures of about 170bhp the 6” wide Superlight wheels with the thinner tyres gives adequate traction and amazing driftability rather than outright grip. If you spec the magnesium wheels with these lower power figures you might want to consider asking for the narrower front wheels all the way around. These are 6.5” wide and still allow you to up the tyre sizes slightly from standard without going mad and spoiling that tail out action.
The magnesium 13” rims became standard on the very last SLR’s and now are a £1060 option on the other cars. I was disappointed to learn recently that these wheels are only 1.5kg each lighter than the standard alloy’s – which is less than I had expected having felt the relative weights of the wheels in person at the factory. I can tell you it felt more than that!!
For some reason, the R300 and R400 have 15” light alloy rims that wear spangly new 15” CR500 tyres. Cool. No idea about handling yet, though it has been extensively reported that 13” were superior in the past so why should 12 months make a difference? – As an update here the official line is that the 15” wheels have be specially manufactured for Caterham and are almost as light as the 13” wheel. Impressive stuff!
Bear in mind that if you want 13” you’ll be better speccing it from the start because the wings are different!
Tyres are difficult. The CR500’s are great tyres all round (and stunning in wet weather) but wear pretty quickly, ie 5000miles (and watch out on a dry trackday as they get HOT!) There are some nice cut slicks (ACB10’s) that Caterham do too but these make the car nervous in a straight line, although the outright grip is insane! You’ll have to reset your suspension to run ACB10’s too since they are a different type of tyre (crossply vs radial)
Yoko 032R’s appear to give a good compromise, with better dry grip than CR500’s; and they’re quite cheap!
My advice here is to call Caterham and go with their recommendation because the world of tyres is changing all the time.
Wing style
Most modern 7’s seem to have cycle wings. The flared wings are available at no extra cost. I have heard owners comment that they induce a certain amount of lift at higher speeds which leads to instability, so perhaps if ultimate performance is your goal you’d be better off not risking it unless you really want the look.
There is, evidently, still a big “clamshell wings” following, as was shown recently in a series of posts on the Lotus 7 Club site – absolutely loads of people were extolling the virtues of these so maybe go for it if you like ‘em!!
Here is a good overhead of a car with flared wings:
Notice the old style seats too? This is an approximately 1990 spec 1700 De-Dion Supersprint. 135bhp Caterham tuned crossflow. Stil a potent machine today and in good condition these are still fetching nearly ten grand (according to one reader maybe nearer £7000 is more accurate) !! STILL Not bad for a 12 year old car that only cost about 14 grand new !!! (STILL Try that with your BMW?)
Colour Options
If you are going to try and use the car in all weathers, and if it is to live outside, you must choose a painted car or be forever polishing the bare aluminium. Salt will pit the finish very badly and is pretty much permanent damage. One owner I heard of polishes his car every night, which I think is practically impossible. Caterham charge £695 for a “standard” paint finish. The colours here are:
1) Black
2) Red
3) Yellow
4) Green
These are the
standard colours and all are widely used. If you are buying a Superlight, you
get carbon fibre nose and front and rear wings so you may choose to leave these
unpainted.
£795 buys you
a “non standard” colour. This equates to any non metallic or pearl finish.
Popular good ones are the Audi RS blue, called Nogaro Blue (see below), the
Kawasaki Green motorbike colour, or something like Porsche Pastel Yellow. Very
nice!
£1200 buys you
metallic or pearl. (Used to be £1100) Obviously a nightmare to touch up but what
the heck, you only live once! I chose Mercedes 744 Brilliant Silver with bare
carbon nose and wings for my car because I really wanted bare Ali and this was
the closest I could get without polisher’s elbow! Because my Superlight R was
the final one, and because I opted for bare carbon nose and 4 wings, I managed
to negotiate metallic for £1000. I don’t think this is possible now, however.
If you absolutely MUST have bare Ali, and I admit it looks gorgeous, then Belgom Alu polish or a specialist aeronautical industry aluminium polish should be used and you must wash the car and carefully dry it before storage if you get any road salt onto the metal. Some owners use WD40 on the metal all the time but you lose the high shine and it looks a bit “dull” although I’m sure it protects very well. Perhaps use it on the non visible bits?
There is some stuff sold by motorcycle shops called “Vienna Lime powder” that you can use to wipe off the black residue created by polishing bare ali – this, apparently, makes the polishing much easier and quicker.
Trim
This refers, in £100 format, to two pieces of black carpet either side of the transmission tunnel, a piece of carpet on the rear bulkhead behind the seats and a pair of mats for the floor. This weighs about 5 kilos in total. The other 2 options were popular in the late eighties but I can’t see anyone spending two grand on leather everywhere?
With no trim specified, the car comes just with the leather transmission tunnel top in place, so that you can rest your arm comfortably. It also has the vinyl side trims at the inside of the side skins of the car, to cover the honeycomb stiffening used to improve crash protection.
As you may have noticed earlier, it is possible to have the interior ali of the car powder coated in black from new. This relieves the need for carpets and saves some weight as well as making your pockets lighter by £350! Looks great and stops the interior from corroding. Powder coat is, by the way, a £350 option under the engine bay too on all models except R300, R400 and R500, where it is standard.
Seats
Difficult this one. The leather, “S” type seats were designed in about 1994 and weigh nearly half as much as the ones that preceded them. (10kg with runners, apparently) They are very comfortable and when combined with the 4 point harness in the Superlights you are held in very well. There have been many comments praising the quality of the leather used.
Critisisms have been that the back of the seat can snap due to a lack of strength, although several L7CGB members have modified their seats to be stronger with little difficulty. In addition, I have heard some people say that you can easily slip down in the seat because they are not “bucketed” enough.
I would say as a compromise between comfort and performance these are excellent and great value at only £160 extra.
The composite seats supplied as standard now in the Superlight and Superlight VHPD are NOT the horrible low backed ones shown in the old 2001 brochure. They are now exactly the same as the Tillett high backed carbon ones in the R500 but are composite (fibreglass) instead. They are painted black and will scratch over time. At least one person I know of has had his seats painted bright yellow and had Armourfend put over the paint to prevent marks from appearing. It was, by all accounts, a very tough job presumably because the curvature of the seat makes the armourfend crease. I have no idea how he pulled it off but it looks great.
The R500 Tillet seats are carbon/Kevlar weave and look fantastic but are £700 more. They still have fibreglass bottoms and still come with 3kg’s worth of seat runners! Unless you are desperate for them or are buying an R500 then these will only save a couple of kilo’s. As an illustration, look carefully at the Blackbird picture at the top of this article and compare the seats with the Nogaro blue R500 ones. That yellowish hue costs you seven hundred notes, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do! (But for goodness sakes don’t tell the missus!)
A point worthy of note is that it is worth considering bolting your seats directly to the floor because as well as giving more headroom and less wind interference for taller drivers, it makes the car lighter and face it, nobody else needs to fit perfectly, eh? Also the seat mounting system used by Caterham is poor. Hopefully more on this at a later date.
As a final comment, be careful with highbacked seats if you plan to use a helmet because the seat back pushes your head forwards. I advise tilting the whole seat back further so your helmet doesn’t touch the back.
Heater
£195
Upside = warm.
Downside = heavier! (about 3kgs but I reckon about 5kgs more like with all the pipes etc…)
Screens
£415 buys you the full screen and wipers. This was the most difficult thing for me to choose on my car. I will aim to give as much information as possible to assist you here.
Decide first if you need a hood. Basically you need a hood if you are going to use the car for holidays, weekends away with the other half, going to work, picking up the hamster from the vets.
Don’t kid yourself that two of you can put helmets on and go to Wales for the weekend for a romantic time. It won’t happen.
If you need a hood you need a screen. End of choice.
If you decide you are going to use the car purely for fun, trackdays and hardcore motoring weekends with the boys then fair enough, you can get away with either a wind deflector or aeroscreens.
The full screen, when fitted, shields you from inbound rocks, birds, bees etc which is great. It also creates a lot of turbulence around the back of the screen which feels like it will rip off your head, which is not great. Also, the full screen acts like a huge airbrake which although gives improved deceleration from high speed really restricts top end and acceleration to a noticeable degree.
The wind deflector is available in 2 flavours: R500 carbon and Superlight Perspex. The R500 carbon one is flat and doesn’t do quite as good a job of throwing the wind over your head as the Perspex one which is moulded out of smoked Perspex. Caterham used to make a clear one but apparently they have stopped doing this now.
The new R300, R400 and R500 (and some of the very last SL and SLR’s) will come with the latest innovation which is a Superlight style deflector which wraps around the scuttle and uses the same mounts as a full screen. This makes the deflector interchangeable with a full windscreen in about 20 minutes. Of course if, like me, you have ordered the car with no screen from new you won’t have wipers but you could use Rain X on the glass to maximise water beading and how many times does it rain so much that you need these anyway?
Here is a pic of the new interchangeable screen – note that cars fitted with this as std benefit from having wiper holes, switches and wiring installed to quickly take a screen.
“Brooklands” aeroscreens are not offered on the pricelist but can be substituted at no cost and have the added advantage that they fit on the same scuttle mount as the full windscreen.
The “Brooklands” aeroscreen die hard’s reckon that they create the smoothest airflow and certainly they have the added advantage that when sat low in the car on no seat runners especially the line of sight is actually through the top of the aero. With the wind deflector this is not the case.
I have seen a seriously cool “speedster” look Westfield on a website which could probably be adopted into a Caterham modification but I don’t know anything about its performance. The picture below shows how they did it. Notice the wipers still present but massively cut down. I personally wouldn’t bother with them! Click the picture to go to the actual site and see it in higher resolution and bigger size.
Remember that if you specify a windscreen you must have wipers present and working along with a suitable washer jet system for your car to pass SVA. Therefore if you really don’t want the wipers you’ll be better off getting the new R3/4/500 carbon deflector and just bolting the screen on when you do long journeys. Hope it don’t rain!
Stack
Instrumentaion
An extra £1000 buys you the gorgeous Caterham branded Stack instrument system, thus doing away with all the old fashioned dials and giving the driver one focal point for vehicle information. This saves weight, looks great and if you want it you are realistically going to have to get it from new because it would be a pain of a job later.
This will now be standard fitment on R400 as well as R500. Note that although you can buy the product direct from Stack, it won’t be Caterham branded and will still cost you about £900 so it’s not really viable. In addition, some of the sensors on the engine must be changed to ones compatible with the Stack so it is trickier than it looks.
Uprated
Master Cylinder
Caterham will do you a larger diameter, alloy master cylinder for £80 which gives a firmer pedal.
Carbon
Sill Protectors
These are £35 and are exactly as they sound! You can buy stainless steel ones too!