RE: The R400: fast, and finally here
Discussion
TVRtim that sounds like a load of rubbish to me, what are you referring to? A number of the early C400 race engines had problems due to the sump being incorrectly machined and not conforming to the original design. Making statements like that is downright dangerous and can give people a totally incorrect impression. I remember people being paranoid that R500s always blew up because the internet rumour mill went into overdrive. Basically a couple of incidents got multiplied after different people heard the same story from different people.
dino ferrana said:
TVRtim that sounds like a load of rubbish to me, what are you referring to? A number of the early C400 race engines had problems due to the sump being incorrectly machined and not conforming to the original design. Making statements like that is downright dangerous and can give people a totally incorrect impression. I remember people being paranoid that R500s always blew up because the internet rumour mill went into overdrive. Basically a couple of incidents got multiplied after different people heard the same story from different people.
I think you're right there - my order's in and I'm not going to loose sleep over a basic and only v. mildly tweaked Mondeo engine, which normally luggs a heavy old barge around, going pop. Of course in the very unlikely event that it does there'll be a thing called a warranty anyway.
I expect Tim was refering to the CSR race cars which had a number of failiers - there are press releases on the race pages on the caterham cars homepage.Also there were gearbox "issues" and heat/radiator "challenges". There was a fair list of snags and problems ( before the Caterham fans get the guns out for tim ...........)
Race car issues are massively exacerbated by the fact the cars drive nose to tail the entire time (no air to radiator or to cool gearbox). You will never ever replicate that on a road or on a track day.
New R400 here: www.autocar.co.uk/VideosWallpapers/Videos.aspx
New R400 here: www.autocar.co.uk/VideosWallpapers/Videos.aspx
Pugsey said:
Bafty_Crastard said:
Have you noticed the near side rear wing is wrong for the Dury engine!! 
Bafty
? Explain. Thicko here! Bafty
I think what Bafty means is that the LH rear wing on the 'old' cars was cut away at the bottom for exhaust clearance, and CC are using the same mould for the Duratec/Sigma engines which have the exhaust on the driver's side.
Dave J said:
I expect Tim was refering to the CSR race cars which had a number of failiers - there are press releases on the race pages on the caterham cars homepage.Also there were gearbox "issues" and heat/radiator "challenges". There was a fair list of snags and problems ( before the Caterham fans get the guns out for tim ...........)
canam said:
Pugsey said:
Bafty_Crastard said:
Have you noticed the near side rear wing is wrong for the Dury engine!!
Bafty
? Explain. Thicko here! Bafty
I think what Bafty means is that the LH rear wing on the 'old' cars was cut away at the bottom for exhaust clearance, and CC are using the same mould for the Duratec/Sigma engines which have the exhaust on the driver's side.
Pugsey said:
subirg said:
Well, after months of debate and waiting around, it's time to put up or shut up! I'm off to Caterham on Saturday to spec mine up! Can't wait!
PLEASE can you ask them about that hideous rear wing? Happy to check this out. Are we talking about the near side wing (where the exhaust exits the car) or are we talking about the nearside rear wheelarch wing area?
subirg said:
Pugsey said:
subirg said:
Well, after months of debate and waiting around, it's time to put up or shut up! I'm off to Caterham on Saturday to spec mine up! Can't wait!
PLEASE can you ask them about that hideous rear wing? Happy to check this out. Are we talking about the near side wing (where the exhaust exits the car) or are we talking about the nearside rear wheelarch wing area?
You've lost me now!
The exhaust exits the engine compartment through the sideskin. We are talking about the GRP rear wheelarch, commonly referred to as a wing, in the area where a side exhaust terminates.
canam said:
subirg said:
Pugsey said:
subirg said:
Well, after months of debate and waiting around, it's time to put up or shut up! I'm off to Caterham on Saturday to spec mine up! Can't wait!
PLEASE can you ask them about that hideous rear wing? Happy to check this out. Are we talking about the near side wing (where the exhaust exits the car) or are we talking about the nearside rear wheelarch wing area?
You've lost me now!
The exhaust exits the engine compartment through the sideskin. We are talking about the GRP rear wheelarch, commonly referred to as a wing, in the area where a side exhaust terminates.
OK! Got it. Will have a look on Saturday and report back.
OK - here's the news post my trip to caterham to test out the new R400 yesterday.
Firstly - the staff at Caterham were very accomodating - I spent over 2.5hrs talking about the car, testing and defining spec. All very pleasant and a good example to other brands. At no time did I feel pressured into anything or forced into a particular spec or option.
The car I tested was the orange press car driven by Chris Harris for Autocar. It is pretty much a standard car aprt from having leather seats and a lowered floor. Given that the car has done over 1200miles of mostly track driving in its very brief life, the car felt in very good condition. I didn't get to test out max cornering or braking performance on the road, but the engine is great. A bit lumpy at low revs (i.e. 1300rpm), but above that its fine. Pulls very very well from almost any revs all the way to the red line. Acceleration is quite linear from about 3000 to the red line. Because of all the torque and how even it is across the rev range, this is a car that you can either leave in 6th and cruise, or stir the box and go bananas. Given the closely stacked ratios, when you do decide to go bananas, you need to stir the gears very rapidly! 0 - 120 comes up very quickly... and very noisily. Spearking of noise, a new R400 exhaust is putting out about 97DBA when new. After a few months, this rises to over 100DB, so a change of back box will be required to get under the noise limit at places like Bedford and Goodwood.
Ride was fine - firm, but not too skittish. The leather seats probably helped a bit on the road, but I'm happy that the race seats will be fine too.
The engine bay looks very tightly packed. There isn't a lot of room left to spare in there, but the installation looked neat and tidy. The concensus at Caterham is that a dry sump is not needed with the Duratec. The test cars don't have it, and it's not recommended or needed for track day work. Even slicks are meant to be ok with a wet sump.
Brakes felt a bit mushy - but the car did have the standard master cylinder and has just done a few hundred laps of the track... This is easily fixed with an uprated master cylinder and a good bleed of the system.
In terms of the bodywork question - I didn't spot any funny carry overs from the old K series cars. The exhaust exit on the LHS wasn't there anymore and the rear wing looked fine to me. I might have missed something, but the car didn't look like it was carrying K series bodywork issues, so even if 1 or 2 things have slipped through, I can live with them.
And so, after not alot of pondering, my order's finalised! Delivery is due in June. I've gone for the following spec:-
- Factory built car (at original price at the time I placed my order of £27.5k)
- 13" alloys
- Full screen and interchangeable deflector
- Stack dash
- Heater
- Race harnesses
- Compo race seats
- Track day roll bar
- Battery master switch
- Uprated master cylinder
- Lowered floor
- Paint
- A few other bits 'n' pieces (e.g. 12v power supply)...
I could go on and on, but I'll stop there for now. If you have an order in for an R400, or are thinking of buying one, you will not be disappointed - its ballistic!
Hope this is useful.
ps: the order form only lists a subset of the options available - you can have pretty much whatever you can think of... Also - as the 2.0 Duratec is so easily upgraded, look out for some official Caterham engine upgrades in the near future... Now that won't help the quest for a cure to upgraditis!
Firstly - the staff at Caterham were very accomodating - I spent over 2.5hrs talking about the car, testing and defining spec. All very pleasant and a good example to other brands. At no time did I feel pressured into anything or forced into a particular spec or option.
The car I tested was the orange press car driven by Chris Harris for Autocar. It is pretty much a standard car aprt from having leather seats and a lowered floor. Given that the car has done over 1200miles of mostly track driving in its very brief life, the car felt in very good condition. I didn't get to test out max cornering or braking performance on the road, but the engine is great. A bit lumpy at low revs (i.e. 1300rpm), but above that its fine. Pulls very very well from almost any revs all the way to the red line. Acceleration is quite linear from about 3000 to the red line. Because of all the torque and how even it is across the rev range, this is a car that you can either leave in 6th and cruise, or stir the box and go bananas. Given the closely stacked ratios, when you do decide to go bananas, you need to stir the gears very rapidly! 0 - 120 comes up very quickly... and very noisily. Spearking of noise, a new R400 exhaust is putting out about 97DBA when new. After a few months, this rises to over 100DB, so a change of back box will be required to get under the noise limit at places like Bedford and Goodwood.
Ride was fine - firm, but not too skittish. The leather seats probably helped a bit on the road, but I'm happy that the race seats will be fine too.
The engine bay looks very tightly packed. There isn't a lot of room left to spare in there, but the installation looked neat and tidy. The concensus at Caterham is that a dry sump is not needed with the Duratec. The test cars don't have it, and it's not recommended or needed for track day work. Even slicks are meant to be ok with a wet sump.
Brakes felt a bit mushy - but the car did have the standard master cylinder and has just done a few hundred laps of the track... This is easily fixed with an uprated master cylinder and a good bleed of the system.
In terms of the bodywork question - I didn't spot any funny carry overs from the old K series cars. The exhaust exit on the LHS wasn't there anymore and the rear wing looked fine to me. I might have missed something, but the car didn't look like it was carrying K series bodywork issues, so even if 1 or 2 things have slipped through, I can live with them.
And so, after not alot of pondering, my order's finalised! Delivery is due in June. I've gone for the following spec:-
- Factory built car (at original price at the time I placed my order of £27.5k)
- 13" alloys
- Full screen and interchangeable deflector
- Stack dash
- Heater
- Race harnesses
- Compo race seats
- Track day roll bar
- Battery master switch
- Uprated master cylinder
- Lowered floor
- Paint
- A few other bits 'n' pieces (e.g. 12v power supply)...
I could go on and on, but I'll stop there for now. If you have an order in for an R400, or are thinking of buying one, you will not be disappointed - its ballistic!
Hope this is useful.
ps: the order form only lists a subset of the options available - you can have pretty much whatever you can think of... Also - as the 2.0 Duratec is so easily upgraded, look out for some official Caterham engine upgrades in the near future... Now that won't help the quest for a cure to upgraditis!
subirg said:
so a change of back box will be required to get under the noise limit at places like Bedford and Goodwood.
Brakes felt a bit mushy - but the car did have the standard master cylinder and has just done a few hundred laps of the track... This is easily fixed with an uprated master cylinder and a good bleed of the system.
but the car didn't look like it was carrying K series bodywork issues
Brakes felt a bit mushy - but the car did have the standard master cylinder and has just done a few hundred laps of the track... This is easily fixed with an uprated master cylinder and a good bleed of the system.
but the car didn't look like it was carrying K series bodywork issues
Re back box - does it have a rear exit exhaust now?...on the side exit cars, there should be only one box - excluding the catalyst.
I cannot believe that the uprated master cylinder isn't standard on this car - that's crafty and very cheap
What K Series body issues were there?
The nearside rear wheel arch I guess is short of the main body bottom edge by about 50mm, from memory this was to allow the exhaust from the old Ford jobbie to route under the wheel arch to exist at the rear of the car. When the trend went side exit exhaust it still hid the “cut out” so looked ok
Now the cars have been modified for the Duratec engines, the skinny buggers can't be bothered altering the wheel arch moulds so bottom of wheel arch lines up with the edge of the chassis.
The more I look, the more it looks a duff job.
Bafty
Now the cars have been modified for the Duratec engines, the skinny buggers can't be bothered altering the wheel arch moulds so bottom of wheel arch lines up with the edge of the chassis.
The more I look, the more it looks a duff job.
Bafty
Edited by Bafty_Crastard on Monday 9th April 21:32
rubystone said:
subirg said:
so a change of back box will be required to get under the noise limit at places like Bedford and Goodwood.
Brakes felt a bit mushy - but the car did have the standard master cylinder and has just done a few hundred laps of the track... This is easily fixed with an uprated master cylinder and a good bleed of the system.
but the car didn't look like it was carrying K series bodywork issues
Brakes felt a bit mushy - but the car did have the standard master cylinder and has just done a few hundred laps of the track... This is easily fixed with an uprated master cylinder and a good bleed of the system.
but the car didn't look like it was carrying K series bodywork issues
Re back box - does it have a rear exit exhaust now?...on the side exit cars, there should be only one box - excluding the catalyst.
I cannot believe that the uprated master cylinder isn't standard on this car - that's crafty and very cheap
What K Series body issues were there?
By back box, I meant the one visible box behind the cat...
Re uprated master cylinder - fair point, but it isn't very expensive (relative to the cost of the rest of the car!)
Re bodywork issues - as I said, I'm fine with it, it may well be a compromise, but it looks ok to me. No idea why there's a fuss about it.
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