Caterham sept

[viper blue]

Are the days of ford duratec and zetec coming to an end?

Enter stage right........ Renault

See article below.

www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/caterham-seven...

And further down on this article.

http://motortradesinsight.co.uk/article_page.asp?i...

For me, the duratec is a great engine. I guess you pay your money, and take your croissant.

Rob

Edited by viper blue on Sunday 24th March 17:15

[DCL]

As the article says, every engine has a lifespan and the Sigma and Duratec are probably past their peak production numbers by now. Plenty of life left in them yet but Renault make nice engines too so nothing to worry about.

[Gingerbread Man]

Makes sense if they are working together on one project, not to see if they can help each other out in other ways.

[downsman]

The Caterham CEO says in Low Fling this month that Duratec production has already finished and they have bought up a good stock of engines.

[viper blue]

Over the history of the seven, engine choices have been:-

Ford various including cross flows and twin cam
Cosworth (bda)
Vauxhall (hpc)
K series various evolutions
Ford sigma dura and cosworth
Now Renault

Plus the occasional BEC

I guess the days of dura and sigma zetec were coming to a close as the future is ecoboost.
Time rolls on.

[downsman]

I think an ultra lightweight 1 litre turbo would fit the essence of the Seven, but only if they can get throttle response good enough.

[sam919]

In essence with technology moving on as it does, a lighter more powerful maybe not conventional engine would be a innovative step forward. I look at the Duratec in my car and think that really it's far too big, bike engined stuff is far more 'caterham' in terms of size and peak power output, irrespective of where that power is in the rev range.
Surely if Caterham put some work on gearing and final drive this could play a part in allowing an engine with less torque i.e. a 1.0 turbo (or twin) to good use.

I'm looking forward to it, and lets face it Renault make the 2.0 used in the FR that gets thrashed all year round by kids, its good for 190 odd hp and its not stressed so 200-220 would be easy enough i would have thought by taking the rev's up a little.

The 3.5 V6 de-tuned world series engine would be a belter but probably not a fan with the tree huggers?

Then there are the road cars which im not up to sped on but the Megan trophy thing must have some decent power output and the Clio RS has a two litre with 200hp or so?! could all be very intersting