What's the best sounding Caterham?

[Painter38]

Is one accepted to sound better than other?

[k20erham]

Hi,

I'm very bias but mine has the K20 Honda, with Sadev and Geartronics.
10,000 rpm, flat shift, Jenvey throttle bodies, BTB ex "no Cat", way better than the motorbike engined sound, and I've not had the pleasure of the V6 Levante but the Vids make it sound too manic and harsh, I hate the sound of a Duratec!

[Trackdayguy]

260 CSR

[BertBert]

1600 crossflow

[Turn7]

A good K on RBTB's sounds pretty good....

I dont dislike my Sigma tbh, it comes on quite sharp at the top of the rev range.

I do think D/tecs are a bit boring tho.

[ForzaGilles]

R500K

[blackmamba]

As said above, a well tuned K series on RBTB and with a free flowing exhaust sounds amazing - think R300/400/500. Monster induction roar, good scream at the top end and plenty of pops and bangs from the exhaust.

[Roblot]

Just a quick one.I think it is hard to beat the sound of an old Lotus ( Caterham) 7 with a ported twin cam and running on twin Webers with open stacks. The induction noise coupled with the exhaust is fantastic, In fact I think the induction noise is more satisfying than the exhaust noise which is dominant on some of the newer sevens.

[Equus]

BDA, surely?

[BertBert]

With a risk of thread drift, that makes me wonder how different the twincam and the BDA will sound, and then actually how different they were as engines? Lots of differences (different block, cam belt versus cam chain for example), but quite close or miles apart?

[Kenty in Weardale]

I suspect every single owner thinks that theirs is the best sounding 7 and that a definitive answer will never come; a bit like music, one persons sublime noise is earache to another

[Equus]

BertBert said:

With a risk of thread drift, that makes me wonder how different the twincam and the BDA will sound, and then actually how different they were as engines? Lots of differences (different block, cam belt versus cam chain for example), but quite close or miles apart?

Big difference is 16 valves versus 8, of course, so very different flow characteristics through the head.

16 valve engines tend to be more linear in their power delivery (and less 'torquey' at low revs) - the increased curtain area around the valves means they're less tolerant of large valve overlaps at low RPM - so they do breath quite a bit differently, and sound different as a result.

But (freaks excepted - with apologies to 160 owners) we're mainly talking about nat. asp. inline 4 cylinder crossflow engines with any Caterham, so there's not going to be a huge difference in how they sound.

[Eric Mc]

BertBert said:

1600 crossflow

End of debate - but I am biased.

I quite like some of the bike engined versions though.