R500 OR C400+Academy car?

[Walton]

Right - having now agreed a sale on my R400D I'm considering a 2nd hand manual R500D rather than new (seq too noisy for most tracks & road use IMO).

Question is: Caterham have got a mint Cosworth engined C400 with manual box putting out 250bhp, and a choice of Sigma engined ex-academy cars that together would cost the same money as the R500D!

I've taken a Sigma engined roadsport out and loved it on the road - and I could really do with fun at more sedate speeds. Would a mint academy car offer similar road fun?

How much better a proposition (if any) would the C400 be for track-days over the R500D (I'd also trailer the R500 to circuit with slicks/wets)?

What would you do?

Cheers

Rich

[Tango7]

Walton said:

I've taken a Sigma engined roadsport out and loved it on the road - and I could really do with fun at more sedate speeds. Would a mint academy car offer similar road fun?

How much better a proposition (if any) would the C400 be for track-days over the R500D (I'd also trailer the R500 to circuit with slicks/wets)?

What would you do?

Cheers

Rich

Nice choice. Yes to the Sigma on the road I think especially if you have the R400 to support it when you want to go faster. Not sure on the trackday part though as to whether the R400 would be better or equal to the R500. I enjoy using my Sigma Academy car on both road and track and with its unburstable engine and excellent balance and handling, it's a great track car on smaller technical circuits despite the lack of power. I'd wheel out the R400 for bigger circuits though. Definitely good to have two cars I think (or even more, come to think of it!) and to choose which suits you on the day...

[James.S]

Agree on the two cars over the one but the 400 looks a bit of an oddball. For that money you will find Official R400C race cars that will have the steering wheel on the right side and have the sequential box - a massive plus on this car if you don't want to be rebuilding the box every couple of hours.

Whats the story on the engine - is it a R400 cosworth or is it from a CSR?

[Walton]

Cheers. I don't know the story with the engine - the customer sourced it direct from Cosworth. Drivers side was requested on the left as it's cooler.

I admit it's a bit of an oddball - not eligible for the Caterham race series, and an awful shame not to have a seq box on a £25k tracktoy!