A clean and a carbon aeroscreen

With the weather looking great for a blat today, and 900 miles on the clock I thought it'd be a good idea to give the car a pre-blat clean, and to have a go at sticking the aeroscreen on.

I'd ordered myself a new jack as I wanted one with a rubberised pad, so that I wouldn't scratch the chassis tubes when jacking the car.  Done a fair bit of research, and decided on an Arcan 2 tonne trolley jack, that I got off ebay link here if you want to get yourself one.

So I got to get the car jacked up and got ready to work...

Ready for cleaning and an aero screen

Firstly off with the wheels.

Arcan 2 tonne trolley jack in action

With the wheels off I took a picture so you could see how grubby they were.  Lots of brake dust.

Caterham R500 13 inch wheel

I rinsed the wheels down with a hose and then applied the wheel cleaner I use for my daily driver - it's called 'bilberry' which is a pink colour and smells like berries (very nice) but, aside from the aesthetics it's absolutely superb stuff.  I usually use it neat, however, it can be diluted up to 10 times, and is available to buy from cleanyourcar.co.uk by clicking this link.

Bilberry wheel cleaner getting to work.

After leaving the bilberry cleaner to get to work (about 5 minutes) I used these 'wheel woolies' which are like a very soft foam / bristle, and are really good at getting into the wheel nut holes and into any crevices in your alloys.  They are expensive, but make cleaning up your alloys a real joy.  You can get them from theultimatefinish.co.uk by following this link.

Wheel woolies great for cleaning your wheels.

The wheels were then dried using a micro fibre cloth, and I decided to apply some Gtechniq C5 Wheel armour - which is a product that bonds to your wheels to stop brake dust and dirt sticking to them.  One application lasts about a year, but the product is quite expensive for something you don't really see any immediate difference with after application.  However, I've used it on the wheels of my daily driver and they are much easier to clean now, and don't get anywhere near as dirty, so in my opinion the product is money well spent.  Available from cleanyourcar.co.uk by clicking this link.

Gtechniq C5 wheel armour.

With the wheel armour applied I cleaned up the inside of the arches, wishbones, and body work bits, then refitted the wheel.  As you can see from the picture below the wheels came out like new - I guess that's to be expected considering I've only done 900 miles!

Caterham R500 13 inch wheel refitted to car after cleaning and Gtechniq C5 wheel armour being applied.

Next job - carbon aeroscreen fitting.  Needless to say I'd been bugged by quite a few 'aeroscreen warriors' about why I'm still running a windscreen and so on, so decided to bite the bullet and get the aeroscreen on to see what it was like.  I was really interested to see what (if any) difference there was in acceleration and braking, and at least I'd get my mates off my case!

Windscreen allen bolts removed.

During the build I'd fitted (with the help of my friend Andy) some bullet connectors for the heated windscreen, which made the removal process much faster.  It was literally a case of pulling off the windscreen wipers, disconnecting the heated windscreen, removing all four allen bolts and then simply (and carefully) lifting the screen off the car.

Windscreen and 12v master switch removed.

Fitting the aeroscreen was dead easy too.  Simply put it in place, and refit the allen bolts.  The 12v master switch shroud isn't a great fit, so I'll double check I've done it right, but it seems correct to me.

Carbon Aeroscreen and 12v master switch refitted.

Next up, and slightly more tricky was finding the right drilling holes for the mirrors.  I'd noticed that I hadn't had any bolts for the centre mirror, so elected to continue and just fit the side mirrors.  I thought it best to put a piece of masking tape on the aeroscreen, the faff around for a bit deciding on what the best location was.

Masking tape on aeroscreen marked ready for drilling.

Once I'd decided the best location, I marked the tape up with a paint marker, checked and checked again before I drilled through the screen and took to the drill.  Using a metal drill bit (as these are quite blunt they don't seem to crack or stress the carbon fibre) I drilled through the screen and fitted the first mirror.  I think the supplied bolts are a little too long for my liking, so I'll see if there are some shorter ones around.

Drivers side mirror fitted to aeroscreen.

I repeated the process for the passenger side mirror, making sure it lined up with the drivers side mirror.

Passenger side mirror fitted to aeroscreen.

With the aeroscreen and mirrors fitted it was onto the removal of tar, flies and other road grime on the car.  Having used a clay bar on my daily driver, I thought this was the best solution to remove the grime without having to use a solvent based tar remover.  It worked perfect, removed all the flies, tar and grime without a snag.

Autoglym clay bar and rapid detailer lubricant spray.

The car was then rinsed and I checked for any stone chips. With the car being very well protected by the stone chip protection film, the paint work is pretty much in perfect order.  However (shock horror)  I found a chip!!

My first stone chip!

Having preempted numerous stone chips, the last time I was at my local porsche centre I picked up a touch up stick (as the car has been painted in Porsche Riviera Blue 39e).

Porsche Riviera Blue 39e touch up stick.

A quick dab of the touch up paint and the mark was gone.

Chip covered with touch up stick paint.

With the stone chip covered, the car was finished and ready for blatting.

Freshly cleaned Caterham R500 with newly fitted carbon aeroscreen.

So went out for a quick blat, that turned into  a three hour blat!  The aeroscreen makes such a difference to the acceleration it is unbelievable.  As I have an R500 I thought the difference wouldn't be that great, but it's massive.  I can now see what everyone was saying about the aeroscreen - I genuinely can't see the 'old windscreen' ever going back on the car.

Got back quite late, watched Hamilton win the F1 - an altogether awesome 'car' day.

The First Track Day - Curborough Sprint Course

During the ordering process, and the build stage, I'd managed to gain contact with Nigel Pugh - he is on his second R500, and was one of the other (two?) people to build an R500 Duratec (he built his a fair while ago, and now has a factory built R500 in the F1 colours)....  We'd been speaking online for quite a while and we agreed it would be good to meet up, and what better place at a track day?  Curborough Sprint Course was the venue.

So we'd booked the date a couple of months ago, and having only received the car back less than two weeks ago - the pressure had been me on to get it up to the 500 mile run in point... I've been out in it a lot (as you'd expect) and in actual fact I'd driven it every day since I got it, until the weather forecast looked like rain (after a week or so), so I took my other car to the office (a 997 Carrera 2S)... Turns out that going from a weeks worth of R500 driving back to the 911 was somewhat of a shock - the 911 felt absolutely massive, as though the steering was really light and very wallowy in comparison... Now, I'm not saying the 911 is a bad car - not by any stretch, but it just goes to compliment how excellent the R500 is to drive.

Anyway - too much digressing...
The car hit the 500 miles on M6 on the way up to meet Nigel - so it was run in..!  Happy days, and time to give it the full beans at the track...  We arrived at the circuit around 11am and Nigel being a bit of a regular round Curborough, had the lap record... Needless to say, there was only one thing on my agenda for the day!

My Caterham R500 at Curborough Sprint Course

In the queue for a run - Nigel Pugh's R500 in front of supercharged Z4M

So the day started with a couple of slow(ish) runs... Then I got bombarded with 'can I have a passenger ride?' which I obliged with for a while, but then wanted to get my laptimes down, so got to the stage where I had to tell people 'yes... later'  Anyway... the times gradually came down, and down and in the end - the lap record was mine!  1:20.3..! Well happy, and about 1.5 secs quicker than Nigel's old record - what added to the sweetness was it was my first track day in the R500, and also my first time at Curborough.  The event was run by a chap called Dan and his team - a link to their site is here http://www.sprintandtrackday.co.uk and I'd highly recommend a visit when they're running the event, as it was a really good day (especially if you have an R500 :-))

I think this is the lap record video, and the only reason I say 'think' is that there are a lot of videos from the day, and I'm pretty sure this is the right one:-

A short while after setting the lap record a guy came up to me (who I took for a passenger ride earlier in the day) and said... "Can you take my girlfriend's mum out for a passenger ride?" I was like.. "erm... yeah I guess so, so long as I can video her" that was agreed, and here is the video - which I think is absolutely hilarious:-

And to finish it off, here is the collection of todays onboard videos... Hope you enjoy them half as much as I did:-

Carbon Rear Light Blocks and Clear Indicator Fitting

During the long days, weeks and months between Caterham collecting the car and eventually getting it back to me, I decided to buy a couple of upgrades to keep me 'into' the process... I ended up buying a pair of carbon headlights, rear light blocks, reverse and fog light blocks, hand brake lever and tax disc holder.

Caterham Carbon upgrades.

There was an issue with the headlights - basically they arrived quite badly scratched, so I sent them back to the manufacturers (in Germany) and asked them to re-lacquer them to an acceptable standard.

Caterham Carbon Headlight Bowls - with some of the scratches highlighted.

They came back, and initially I was happy with the new finish - BUT, in the daylight, they still looked  a little scratched and dull plus there were visible differences between the colour of them and the front cycle wings.  I took them to a local carbon manufacturer, and he suggested there wasn't enough lacquer on them which is why they looked the way they did, and recommended a local body shop to add lacquer.  Needless to say they are now at the body shop being lacquered, before I finally fit them.

Onto the bits I could do...
Last night (Monday) I decided I to fit the clear indicators, and whilst I as at it thought I may as well fit the carbon rear light blocks I'd purchased too.

First job was nice and simple... Clear front indicator kit.
Basically the instructions are - unscrew the existing indicator lenses, remove bulb, replace with orange bulb, then replace indicator lenses with clear ones... Easy!

Clear Indicator Kit Ready for Fitting.

As I had the scales out to discover the weight saving of the carbon bits versus the original parts, I thought I'd weigh the standard indicators against the clear ones to see if there was a difference in weight.

Standard Caterham Indicator Lenses with Bulb - weighing in at a massive 32g.

Caterham Clear Front Indicator Kit - Surprisingly lighter than the standard part at 26g.

So the before pic:-

Caterham R500 Front with standard indicators illuminated.

And the after pic - now all of 12 grammes lighter too:-

Caterham R500 Front with clear indicator kit fitted and illuminated.

Next job was to fit the rear clear indicator kit and carbon light blocks.  The picture below is of the rear end with standard indicators and light blocks..

Caterham R500 with standard rear indicators and light blocks.

Starting off with the carbon reverse light and clear indicator kit for the fog light.

Caterham Carbon Reverse Light and Fog Light Mounts.

The standard mounts were fairly easy to remove.  Unscrew the indicator cover, then remove the reflector... I found that when removing the reflector the positive wire was very loosely fitted which ended up breaking off, which wasn't a great problem as the cable needed cutting to get the connectors through the central hole.  Then simply remove the screws holding the mounts in place.

Indicator blocks removed and weighed in at 66g each.

Standard Caterham reverse light mount - 66 grammes in weight.

Picture of carbon blocks below weighing in at 42 grammes each.  The manufacturer's website states that they are a diminutive 48 grammes each - which sounds amazing, but in actual fact it's only a 24 gramme saving per unit (total saving 48 grammes) and for £100 I don't really think it's money well spent in terms of weight saving, but hey they look cool - which is what I really wanted them for, so I'm happy.

Carbon Caterham reverse light mount - 42 grammes in weight.

I noticed that the offside mount wasn't quite horizontal, and fiddled around with it thinking that the mount was wrong, but it turns out the nuts in the bodywork are slightly wonky, so out with the dremel to open up the mounting holes and then it fitted great.  I then threaded the cut cables back through the central hole of the carbon mounts, and then screwed the mounts in place.  Once in place I soldered the two cables together then applied heat shrink tubing (approx 3mm heat shrink diameter).

Carbon mount in place with wiring threaded through, soldered and heat shrunk ready for fitting to the reflector.

As the brass eyelet was extremely weakly fitted to the bullet connector, I took a trip down to Maplin to buy some tiny screws to screw the eyelet and cable into position.

Tiny screws and nuts for tightly securing the eyelet connector.

Eyelet connector securely fastened to reflector / bulb mount.

Then it was a case of sliding the reflector over the long hex bolts inside the mount, then fitting the bulb, lens and screwing it into position.

Reverse light completed, now onto the fog light - which is the same process.

Caterham Carbon Reverse Light Mount.

Next up - Carbon Rear Light Blocks.  I thought these would be straight forward, but they're a bit of a faff due to the connection block - so this is what I done.  I'm not saying mine is the right way (or the wrong way) but it seemed to make the most sense to do it this way...

Firstly I removed the standard indicator cover and loosened the rubber light block.

Indicator cover removed and rubber light block loosened.

It's worth noting that the P21/5W stamp is always positioned closer to the centre of the car - the picture above is of the nearside, and the picture below is of the offside and as you can see the offside is the same unit, just mounted upside down.

Caterham offside rear light block with cover removed.

Next stage is to remove the grommet from the bodywork inside the rear arch and disconnect the connection block.

Rubber grommet removed showing light connection block.

Once the connection block is disconnected everything pulls through the holes quite easily.  I then removed the black plastic sheath covering the indicator wiring.

Rear light block removed, with plastic sheath removed exposing indicator wiring.

I then cut the wiring about two to three inches from the connection block end - this is to enable you to remove the metal bulb unit from the rubber block and then to be able to thread the wiring back through the carbon block.

Metal bulb mount removed from rubber block and wires cut ready for soldering back together.

I then decided to line things up as a dry fit, and I noticed the foam strip wasn't really positioned well.

Carbon rear light blocks with original poorly fitted foam strip.

It seemed like a good idea to redo the foam strip, so I removed it with some methylated spirits on kitchen roll and a bit of elbow grease.

Carbon rear light block with foam strip removed.

I couldn't find any foam tape that was about 2mm wide, so I carefully cut my existing foam strip, and then fitted that - which I think was worthwhile.

With my hand cut foam strip applied.

So this bit is IMPORTANT... Make sure you thread the wiring through the light block, add the relevant heat shrink tubing (3mm for small cables and 10mm for black longer section) as otherwise you'll end up soldering it all together and either not having the heat shrink in place to shrink, or worse still (like I found out) not having the carbon light block attached which is extremely irritating after you've soldered the lot together - trust me..!

Indicator wiring, soldered, with heat shrink and threaded through carbon rear light block.

Its's worth mentioning that there are two green cables, but they're easy to identify as one has a blue line in it.

The finished assembly ready for lights, weather proofing and fitting.

Next job was to fit the new bulbs.  The orange one goes to the outside (indicator) and the LED one in the mount next to the P21/5W badge - the picture below is of the nearside unit.

With orange indicator and LED brake / light.

Then I applied a small amount of silicone in the wiring hole to minimise any water ingress with the next stage being to fit it all back together, which is basically a reverse of taking them off.  

Wiring hole with silicone to minimise any water ingress.

Before refitting, I weighed both rubber and carbon light block units to see if the manufacturers claims were true... Their claim was a weight saving of 269 grammes each which isn't entirely true as can be seen below, but they are 200 grammes lighter (each) than the rubber blocks which is a 400 gramme saving for the two.  Added to the weight saving of the reverse light, fog light and clear front indicators I've shaved off nearly half a kilo and added plenty more carbon loveliness, so overall I'm happy with the upgrades.

Caterham rubber indicator unit weighing in at 442 grammes.

Carbon indicator unit nearly half the weight at 248 grammes.

Here's a close up shot of the fitted carbon indicator block with clear lenses - I think they look really good.

Carbon rear indicator block with clear lenses fitted.

And some before and after shots of the lights in action.

Carbon rear indicator and lighting mounts fitted to Caterham R500.

Standard rear indicators illuminated.

Clear rear indicators illuminated.

Standard rear lights including fog light illuminated.

Clear rear lights including fog light illuminated.

So that's it for the upgrades for now.  I'm hoping to get the carbon headlight bowls back middle next of next week and will do a post about fitting those as and when.  

In the meantime I hope the weather stays good for plenty of evening blats and on Thursday (19th June) I'm off to Curborough Sprint Course, for my first track event - I hope it stays dry!