Caterham 7 Circuit Racer

[A30Racer]

As prompted by Nick Jones, this thread is to tell you about our old Caterham 7 ex-Caterham Graduate circuit racer. For those of you that don't know, this is a circuit racing series for mechanically fairly standard cars, so they compete on equal (ish) terms to keep the costs down. The racing is close and exciting (the cars have a hard life riding the tall kerbs & sometimes contacting each other & bits of the trackside furniture!). Our car was one of two cars left using the Vauxhall 1.6 8v motor. Although it has twin 40 dcoe carbs, it only makes about 100bhp. Sounds rubbish but it is still surprisingly nippy. The previous owner (at 78 years old!) had upgraded to a modern Ford Sigma powered one, as he was getting tired of being lapped.....

We bought the car last year in the middle of lockdown for a cheap price, as a dog-eared racer with no mot (not been on the road for 10 years). Collected on the monday and mot'd on the friday (the plus point of furlough). Our plan is to have some fun getting used to driving about ruffling the remainder of my hair on the road & some light hillclimb / sprint / trackday action. My partner has no competition experience, so hopefully this low-powered car will be a benevolent tutor for her. There are plans to improve and modify the car as time progresses if anyone is interested in the non-chequebook racer........

[Martin]

Great car. I always wanted to build a 7 like Kit car. I always buy a Kit Car Magazine Wien in UK.
But we do have a TÜV over here. No Chance.

You can Buy a Caterham which  is road legal, but at an eyewatering Price .

Cheers

Martin

[Radioactive Man]

So nearly bought a 7 back in the late 1990s, wish I had in hindsight but thats life.  That looks like a fun project.

[Nick Jones]

Looks ok in the pics 

As far the car goes, anything should be fairly peaceful after this kind of life

 

[JohnD]

Great, A30Racer!   You say it's MoTed, but you don't if it's to be a preformance road car or that you will race it?   Caterhams etc must be the nearest thing that is road legal to an open wheel race car, so thrilling either way!     If you do go racing, please keep us up to date?

And where will you race, if you do?   CSCC, that I race with in 'Swinging 60's' (!) series has a thriving series for all the Lotus 7 derivatives, 'Magnificent 7s': 

https://www.classicsportscarclub.co.uk/magnificent-sevens

[Mark]

Great car. Love Caterhams. Looked into building one in kit form 30 odd years ago, wish I had now.

[PeteStupps]

@A30Racer very nice - do you participate in the Graduate series yourself? There's a bloke at my work who's raced in the Classics class for years. Think he was planning this season to be his last, not sure. He runs a 1.6 on webers as well. 

[A30Racer]

This is the 3rd 7-type car that I've had the fortune to have. The first actual "real" one. I have watched the Caterham Grads & the racing looks very close and quite brutal on the cars. This looks a bit expensive for someone as financially mean as me, so we will stick with hillclimbs, sprints & trackdays for now. Also, means more than one driver can do the same event.

My current thinking is to keep it road legal and improve the running gear, while keeping the mods vaguely reversible. The existing engine is a bit of an oddity, in that it is the smallest of the Big Block Vauxhall engines (block has the same outside dimensions as the 1.8 and 2.0). I plan to take this out & swap it for a Small Block Vauxhall 16v. The 1600 can quite easily make over 200bhp which will be useful! There is also a weight advantage which will aid the cornering. Will try to keep up the updates
 

[Escadrille Ecosse]

Great little cars - little being the right word.

I like your plan of a hillclimb, sprint and trackday car. And that it's road legal

Look forward to more on this.

[Nick Jones]

53 minutes ago, A30Racer said:

This is the 3rd 7-type car that I've had the fortune to have.

Assume you are including “The Thing” in this? Sovereign cure for constipation in its “as acquired” form. V8 in a Dutton chassis.... what could possibly go wrong.....

[A30Racer]

This is the previous 7 type vehicle. The mighty Westfield 7 with Vauxhall Redtop power. 210bhp @ the wheels and soft slicks. 0-60 in under 3secs and about 125mph top speed. Not used on the road, but did a lot of hillclimbs all over the UK. A fast car!

[A30Racer]

This is the vehicle that Mr Jones is meaning. A disguised and modified Dutton chassis with a Rover v8 under the the bonnet. A good intro to this type of car and an absolute hoot on the road. You could overtake pretty much anything (& quite often did!). Had a narrowed Jaguar IRS with LSD so the drivetrain could handle all that was thrown at it. Good for wheelspin & doughnuts. 
It had to go when the Westfield was finished. I still miss it. 

[JohnD]

4 hours ago, A30Racer said:

 I have watched the Caterham Grads & the racing looks very close and quite brutal on the cars. This looks a bit expensive for someone as financially mean as me, so we will stick with hillclimbs, sprints & trackdays for now. Also, means more than one driver can do the same event.

My underline.

Ian,

Features of racing with CSCC are the 40 minute races, with obligatory pitstop.    Qualifying is 30 mins.    These mean that many cars have two drivers, who swap over halfway-ish.

Not trying to persuade you, but just so that you know!

John

[A30Racer]

Was musing about my Dutton V8 and then checked the DVLA website & noted that it hadn't been on the road since 2009. I sold the car in Elland, West Yorkshire around 1996/7. Reg number is LNP4X. Would be interested to know if anyone knows what happened to it?

[Nick Jones]

Would be interesting...... might have died of old age and neglect.  Might have crashed.......  Driver might have been banned...... 

[Escadrille Ecosse]

Or still sitting in low earth orbit!

[A30Racer]

Back to the Caterham...... we have a number of small but significant issues that need attending to prior to the first hillclimb (Wiscombe) on the 8th of may. These are as follows :

1) Silencer needs replacing as too loud (new one is waiting in the hall!)

2) The removable steering wheel assembly & column have play. This has entailed buying upper & lower column as some hero has managed to introduce a twist in the steering shaft of approx 40 degrees (it's powerful stuff this adrenaline!). The column bushes are getting done at the same time. 
 

3) The rear wheel bearings have some play in them. I removed the worst halfshaft (nearside) and found the nut on the end wasn't very tight and the inner bearing had spun on the hub. These are double bearing conversions built by Rakeway Engineering which look nicely made. Sadly the next batch of bits from the is on at least 8 weeks lead-time, so I plucked the two Dolomite shafts out of an old we bought for the diff. We pressed off the hubs last night on my chum's 20 tonne press (got to about 16 tonnes before they let go with a big bang!). New bearings fitted. Just awaiting gaskets etc, the ready for fitting. A retrograde step, but at least we can still get the car mobile again. 
Will update when more progress is made. 
Duncan

[Nick Jones]

Steering column twist is a bit scary! Impact damage at some point?  Would take ALOT of adrenaline to achieve that methinks!

The standard Dolly shafts and bearings should be fine for your immediate purposes.  They aren't noted for problems even in the 1850 Dolly though diffs aren't especially robust.  As you noted, the hubs can be troublesome.  Same arrangement as the swing axle cars.  Typically you need the special top hat puller to get them off without bending them though a big press is just as effective where available.  20 tonnes might not always be enough though.

Helpful of them to put arrows on the exhaust for you 

[JohnD]

Steering column twist is certainly scary, but breakage even more!  That was a factor that may have killed Ayrton Senna.

[A30Racer]

Some progress made this weekend on both project cars. On the Caterham, we managed to get the ns rear wheel bearing / halfshaft re-installed. Not checked the other side yet, due to space constraints in the garage (need to turn it round to get the other wheel off!). A new exhaust fitted, as the old one was getting a bit vocal and the new steering shaft / columb fitted too. The bushes in the steering column were a bundle of fun (Triumph stuff apparently). Test drove the car for a short journey and the initial signs seem very promising. The car is much more precise and a lot quieter / smoother. 

The speedo is still not working and the timing strut (for the upcoming hillclimb) has yet to be created. 
 

 

 

[Escadrille Ecosse]

Good progress there

[A30Racer]

We competed at the 500 Owners Wiscombe hillclimb yesterday and the little Caterham performed well. My partner, Victoria improved steadily through the day and the car came back undamaged, if a little moist! I was a bit rusty and missed out on the 3rd in class award by 2/10 of a sec. back next week for another go.

[Escadrille Ecosse]

That sounds like a very satisfactory first outing for the car I would say.

It's the 1/10s and 1/100s that are the hardest to win!

[Nick Jones]

Well done both! I note that the weather was especially foul in your honour......

Was it particularly slippery?

 

[A30Racer]

It was spectacularly slippery and showed up the limits of the Yoko A539 circuit racing control tyres! Luckily, the 100bhp was not too hard to control!