RE: Caterham Seven Levante V8 | Spotted
Discussion
Andy665 said:
Having been privileged enough to own a 340bhp, 380 lb ft tq Westfield V8 and experiencing the savage performance I can only being to imagine how ferocious this is
Absolutely pointless but so wonderful
My Westfield SEight was a 4.3L, revved cleanly to 6500 and was savage. Needed super stickies to stop straight line wheel spin (sliding) in 3rd when overtaking. Just hillarious. Not a very interesting engine mind you.Absolutely pointless but so wonderful
RogerDodger said:
My Westfield SEight was a 4.3L, revved cleanly to 6500 and was savage. Needed super stickies to stop straight line wheel spin (sliding) in 3rd when overtaking. Just hillarious. Not a very interesting engine mind you.
Mine was a 5.1 litre, Jenvey throttle bodies, big valve heads, dry sumped etc, like yours revved cleanly to 6500, was a pussycat most of the time but I know I will never one a car as quick as that again.I doubt the Levante would be as tractable but the performance when its revved out must be stupendous
kambites said:
cheddar said:
230bhp per litre and NA?
How the hell do they do that?
It's supercharged, isn't it?How the hell do they do that?
https://racecarsdirect.com/Advert/Details/68609/rs...
Edited by Nerdherder on Sunday 4th August 17:39
Being old and not understanding crowdfunding, surely this sort of thing just needs to be bought as a PH car pool example for people to be scared for 20 minutes at a time rather than a life of not using it????
Put some PH stickers on it, be at the front gates. etc
Go on PH, put your money where your link is!
Has to be one of the most insane cars of all time
AlexiusG55 said:
MCBrowncoat said:
8000 rpm?Bike-based engine, remember- torque peak is at 8500, will rev to at least 10,000.
Monsieur Du Lard said:
The problem here lies on the fact that the car is so complex nobody wants to attempt to fix it if anything goes wrong. And you cannot get engine spares I would imagine.
What makes you think it's complex? That's certainly not a word I usually associated with Caterhams!Even the engine isn't particularly complex as such, although I agree parts supply might be an issue.
Edited by kambites on Sunday 4th August 18:42
MCBrowncoat said:
AlexiusG55 said:
It can't be, that would mean it revs to more than 18k rpm. And isn't kph, cause the scales don't match. Odd, can't figure it out!RoverP6B said:
Why on earth did they bother boosting it? Surely keeping it N/A at somewhere around 360bhp would have made it a lot more usable while still being as quick on-track in the hands of any mere mortal?
Things with crazy hp/ton ratios were a big deal around 2007-2009. There was this, the Caparo, the Tramontana, Radical trying to sell an SR8 as a road car, the SCC Aero, Lotus trying to sell an F1 based track car, dozens of New British Sportscars with LS1 V8s to the point where sniff petrol made a check list about them, and many other start ups that mysterious disappeared by then end of 2009.I had the pleasure of a pax ride in a car that preceded these (and other stuff during a memorable day) with RS...I was, at the time, looking at engine options for some upgradery on my 7 and the V8 ticked a lot of boxes.
It could spin its wheels in quite a few gears, and was incredibly quick to the point where I'm not sure I ever quite got used to the acceleration. It was a bit of a bizarre feeling - didn't feel "savage" per se, more like being teleported from one place to the next and not really fully understanding how you got there.
The gearbox was very noisy (straight cut gears IIRC) and wouldn't have been my choice tbh (though I'm not sure there were, at the time, very many options for the power).
The engineering was top notch on the engine. In very simplistic terms it's two bike inline 4s put together (I think possibly Yamaha? But could have been Suzuki/Kawasaki). But that's not to do the end product much justice tbh. It oozed quality and engineering integrity to me.
Cost of the engine was...significant. Enough so that I put it on the back burner and, eventually, life took over and consigned the idea to the bin for me. The plan was an S3 chassis, manual box and the supercharged engine (I believe you could get them without the supercharger).
The styling of the one in the article is very much not to my taste., but under the skin it very much is
RS is also a superb bloke of the highest order.
It could spin its wheels in quite a few gears, and was incredibly quick to the point where I'm not sure I ever quite got used to the acceleration. It was a bit of a bizarre feeling - didn't feel "savage" per se, more like being teleported from one place to the next and not really fully understanding how you got there.
The gearbox was very noisy (straight cut gears IIRC) and wouldn't have been my choice tbh (though I'm not sure there were, at the time, very many options for the power).
The engineering was top notch on the engine. In very simplistic terms it's two bike inline 4s put together (I think possibly Yamaha? But could have been Suzuki/Kawasaki). But that's not to do the end product much justice tbh. It oozed quality and engineering integrity to me.
Cost of the engine was...significant. Enough so that I put it on the back burner and, eventually, life took over and consigned the idea to the bin for me. The plan was an S3 chassis, manual box and the supercharged engine (I believe you could get them without the supercharger).
The styling of the one in the article is very much not to my taste., but under the skin it very much is
RS is also a superb bloke of the highest order.
kambites said:
Monsieur Du Lard said:
The problem here lies on the fact that the car is so complex nobody wants to attempt to fix it if anything goes wrong. And you cannot get engine spares I would imagine.
What makes you think it's complex? That's certainly not a word I usually associated with Caterhams!Even the engine isn't particularly complex as such, although I agree parts supply might be an issue.
Edited by kambites on Sunday 4th August 18:42
Monsieur Du Lard said:
I know this car and have had a very close look. I know all about pushing the envelope on Caterham development, Done it for 25 years.
So in what way is it complex? I'm not trying to be combative, I'm genuinely interested in how this differs from any other Caterham in terms of complexity. Obviously there's more bits in the engine than in a straight-four and tolerances will be finer and components stronger to deal with that sort of power and revs, but in terms of mechanical complexity what makes this different than any other QOHC supercharged V8? Does it have some kind of complex variable valve timing system or something?
ETA; I guess the gearbox is pretty complicated.
Edited by kambites on Monday 5th August 09:40
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