Moving from 200bhp superlight to R500/620R

[ginger steve]

As the title suggests Im currently weighing up moving from a well endowed K series Superlight to a R500 or possibly a 620r. My car is immaculate having just had a full rebuild and the engine is very strong (200bhp DVA) but I do get a little frustrated at the bigger tracks (Spa in particular). My car is brilliant at Cadwell and Oulton but I'm feeling the need for a bit more oomph and would like to sample something different in terms of power delivery.

I would be interested to hear the thoughts of folks that have experience of similar spec cars! Clearly significant expense is involved but is it worth the jump when considering the bigger more open tracks?

[DCL]

Very much a personal preference, but I think many would say the Caterham's have a sweet spot around the 200 BHP mark. When you go beyond that, it gets more manic, but not necessarily that much quicker. Aerodynamics are what's holding the car back, and 50-100 BHP may not add as much as you might think. But if you've got an itch, go for it

[jeffw]

You'll not see the 160+MPH that an enclosed car (like my Phoenix or a Fury) will see without a lot more power than a 620R has. It will probable max out not much (10-15MPH) higher that your existing car does.

[k20erham]

hi the 620R tends to run out of revs before it hits the aero wall, really does depend on torque and gearing though. Oh and bolt the front wings on if you want to or can go over 150 as they get ripped off!!

[cwin]

ginger steve said:

As the title suggests Im currently weighing up moving from a well endowed K series Superlight to a R500 or possibly a 620r. My car is immaculate having just had a full rebuild and the engine is very strong (200bhp DVA) but I do get a little frustrated at the bigger tracks (Spa in particular). My car is brilliant at Cadwell and Oulton but I'm feeling the need for a bit more oomph and would like to sample something different in terms of power delivery.

I would be interested to hear the thoughts of folks that have experience of similar spec cars! Clearly significant expense is involved but is it worth the jump when considering the bigger more open tracks?

This is exactly what we did, but we took a slightly different route, our car also had a potent DVA k series engine in along with a Quaife dog box, it was immaculate and had some nice extras already fitted like bladed front and rear roll bars, nitron suspension ect,, we had a 315 bhp N/a 2.4 Duratec engine built by Paul Gardner race engines along with the new style Quaife sequential gearbox and had the engine swap done by Team Leo's who did a fantastic job.

I sold the K series engine and gearbox along with all the parts that were not needed, I drew back about £7500 which went along way to the conversion and new engine and gearbox.

The car has been faultless winning nearly all the 40 min races it has entered and was awesome around Spa running in the 2:36 on road legal tyres, data logger was showing 150mph in places. It is a lot quicker than a 620r for a fraction of the money, the power delivery is spot on and will pull from literally no revs all the way to 8500.

If your car is a minter give this some thought as I wouldn't have changed a thing on our car since it was built.

[fergus]

cwin said:

We had a 315 bhp N/a 2.4 Duratec engine built by Paul Gardner race engines

Hi. What's a ball park quote for this type of engine (inc. all ancilliaries)? Is £15k wide of the mark?

What sort of torque are you producing (and where)? I'd guess around 220 lb ft?

[cwin]

fergus said:

Hi. What's a ball park quote for this type of engine (inc. all ancilliaries)? Is £15k wide of the mark?

What sort of torque are you producing (and where)? I'd guess around 220 lb ft?

Good guess at the torque, it made more bhp on the engine dyno with a 4 into 1 but I already had the 4/2/1 exhaust made for the car,



Cost wise I think you would be better speaking direct to Paul Gardner about price, but I think a lot less than 15k more like 10k

Edited by cwin on Thursday 15th October 20:41