After a year and about 3000 miles in standard form, the car was taken off the road, and a full race tuned, dry sumped, Vauxhall 2.0 litre 16v XE engine was installed. This engine was formerly used to good effect in a sprint and speed hill climb Caterham 7 by Paul a couple of seasons earlier, and had been modified by SB Developments, Vauxhall tuning specialists, and set up on a dyno, where it showed peak power of 245bhp at 7750 rpm [flywheel figure], but more importantly giving a broad spread of torque between 130 lb ft at 3000rpm to 181 lb ft at 6750rpm. At this stage a close ratio gearbox and a ZF plate type limited slip differential were also fitted to get all this power onto the tarmac.  The gearbox, whilst still based on the original 5 speed unit, was modified by Brian Hill of BGH Geartec, who specialise in upgrading gearboxes for fast road and race cars.  The effect is to change the normal low first gear, to give longer gearing, improve lubrication, especially at fast cruising speeds and to improve the change quality, the box is also fitted with a "quick change" gearlever.  As can be imagined, this amount of power in a car weighing less than 740 kgs gives more than adequate performance.

In the right conditions, the 0- 60 sprint can be accomplished in about 4 seconds, going on to a top speed in the region of 150mph[or more]!  Roadholding is also of racetrack quality, being a direct development of the famous Caterham 7, known as “a racer for the road,” designed and built originally by Colin Chapman as the Lotus 7, before being bought by Caterham Cars, since when the car has been continually updated and modernized.

This car is great fun to drive, being completely fuss free and tractable at low speeds, but with the acceleration and cornering power of a Supercar. A specially developed stainless steel exhaust system with tuned length primary and secondary pipes and a bespoke triple silencer system, takes care of the noise, with a measured FIA decibel rating of 98, [measured 1 metre from the exhaust pipe at an engine speed of 4500rpm], which gives quite restful cruising at 70mph, a mere half of its potential speed. 

This car has been to the workshops of Cars & Car Conversions magazine for an at “The Clinic” feature, in which resident technical editor, Dave [The Rave] Walker, put it through the full gamut of tests for competition cars where it showed that further work was needed on suspension alignment, shock absorbers and braking, all of which have now been done, finishing with a full, flat floor corner weight and suspension alignment setup in the autumn of 2001. His suggestions have been acted upon with subsequent improvements in road holding and braking. Power was shown to be down a little on the original dyno sheet, taken when the engine was first built, and is now a still fairly startling 219 bhp, measured at the flywheel, which shows that the engine is due for a mapping session of the ECU on a rolling road in the near future, to bring it back up to its full potential of 245bhp. This particular car was also featured in an article in “Which Kit” in 1999, when the editor was most impressed with the quality and integrity of the design and considered it to be one of the best cars of its’ kind on the market, whilst the December 2001 issue of Kit Car also featured it in a 4 page article, commenting on how impressive  was, as well as giving a full history of the car and it's competition career. 

My brother (Simon) acquired the car in October 2002 and further updates will be provided as we need them!