Caterham to Radical Clubsport
Discussion
I presently own a Caterham VX1600. I have had it for a couple of years now and competed in a few sprints last year which I thoroughly enjoyed. This has led me to hanker towards something with slightly better performance and I have been impressed with the few Radical Clubsport 1100's I have seen. They seem like quite good value for money secondhand. It seems I could change my current car for one of these without having to shell out much more money, if any.
Has anybody on here made the change from road going Caterham to Clubsport. Is it possible/feasible to put a Clubsport on the road for a very occasional blat/test?
Where is the best places to pick up a used Clubsport. What spec should I look for and what could I expect to get for around the £7k to £10k mark. What performance can you expect from them.
Lots of questions! Any advice/opinions would be gratefully recieved.
Sinky.
Has anybody on here made the change from road going Caterham to Clubsport. Is it possible/feasible to put a Clubsport on the road for a very occasional blat/test?
Where is the best places to pick up a used Clubsport. What spec should I look for and what could I expect to get for around the £7k to £10k mark. What performance can you expect from them.
Lots of questions! Any advice/opinions would be gratefully recieved.
Sinky.
I don't think you can road register them because iirc
Budget of 7-10k will get you a Clubsport no probs, as with most second hand car look for history etc. Engines are the expensive bits so make sure it has had a recent-ish rebuild. They should be good for 20-25hours but can cost upto £2k to refreash depending what needs doing and who does it. Apart from that you'll need a trailer and a couple sets of tyres (slicks/wets). I've recently purchased one and I'm moving from a highly modifed Elise to it...not been on track yet but looking forward to it as the handling is supposed to be similar i.e. tail happy
Hope some that is of use.
Budget of 7-10k will get you a Clubsport no probs, as with most second hand car look for history etc. Engines are the expensive bits so make sure it has had a recent-ish rebuild. They should be good for 20-25hours but can cost upto £2k to refreash depending what needs doing and who does it. Apart from that you'll need a trailer and a couple sets of tyres (slicks/wets). I've recently purchased one and I'm moving from a highly modifed Elise to it...not been on track yet but looking forward to it as the handling is supposed to be similar i.e. tail happy
Hope some that is of use.
Have a look on www.fastroadandtrack.co.uk (there's a nice red one for sale) and also 2 for sale on www.racecarsdirect.com.
Happy hunting,
Myd
Happy hunting,
Myd
Even though I'm in the US, I have driven a Caterham on the track and currently own a Radical club/prosport.
They are totally different cars. The Caterham has poor ergonomics (relatively) and I found it hard to see over the front corners in tight turns but it had a fun throttle-steer hang it out sort of dynamic which was a TON of fun at the track. Wasn't thrilled by absolutely no side impact protection whatsoever but had a good time with it. The car I drove was neutral to oversteery (in a good way). It had a 200hp Ztec motor. In a way, it would be a tough call if I was only doing track days and not racing. The Caterham was a "car" and the Radical isn't and scraping off splitters and dealing with hugely expensive parts isn't necessarily worth the extra money if you're not competing. I'd definitely see if you can rent one and see if it's more "fun" than the Caterham.
The Radical is a race car and requires considerable "tuning" to make handle (step one, throw out every recommendation in the Radical manual) and has aero and is a much faster car on the track (driven properly). In some ways it's not as much "fun" because Prosport/Clubsports predomenantly understeer and it takes some "Radical" tuning to dial that out (MUCH MUCH MUCH stiffer springs than factory, softer damping than factory, 0 droop front suspension, longer springs with preload etc). That having been said, it's a pretty forgiving car and will allow you to do things that you could never do with other race cars (lift mid corner without immediately spinning etc).
Also, in my experience, my car was only 3 years old and had been extensively raced and required near total rebuilding...wheel bearings, rod ends, hardware, etc. These cars may have been "plug and play" originally but careful maintenance is required to "restore" one to being robust. Not to put you off it, any car that is that fast and is a pure race car will require a lot of checking and low tolerance for defective parts. Areas of attention are also the CV joints and axles...axles have a "limited" life (reputedly 2 years) and the CV joints need cleaning/regreasing fairly regularly to stay on top of joint failure. I've seen several failed CV joints (metal slag, loss of play) which had "bound up" but not broken and become loose. The chains aren't too big of an issue if you tension/aling them carefully and replace them about every 8-10 hours of running and lube them regularly.
you're welcome to poke around our Prosport/Clubsport forum to see what we're doing to try and give these cars some reasonable life.
[url]http://p097.ezboard.com/bsocalpeeps[/url]
They are totally different cars. The Caterham has poor ergonomics (relatively) and I found it hard to see over the front corners in tight turns but it had a fun throttle-steer hang it out sort of dynamic which was a TON of fun at the track. Wasn't thrilled by absolutely no side impact protection whatsoever but had a good time with it. The car I drove was neutral to oversteery (in a good way). It had a 200hp Ztec motor. In a way, it would be a tough call if I was only doing track days and not racing. The Caterham was a "car" and the Radical isn't and scraping off splitters and dealing with hugely expensive parts isn't necessarily worth the extra money if you're not competing. I'd definitely see if you can rent one and see if it's more "fun" than the Caterham.
The Radical is a race car and requires considerable "tuning" to make handle (step one, throw out every recommendation in the Radical manual) and has aero and is a much faster car on the track (driven properly). In some ways it's not as much "fun" because Prosport/Clubsports predomenantly understeer and it takes some "Radical" tuning to dial that out (MUCH MUCH MUCH stiffer springs than factory, softer damping than factory, 0 droop front suspension, longer springs with preload etc). That having been said, it's a pretty forgiving car and will allow you to do things that you could never do with other race cars (lift mid corner without immediately spinning etc).
Also, in my experience, my car was only 3 years old and had been extensively raced and required near total rebuilding...wheel bearings, rod ends, hardware, etc. These cars may have been "plug and play" originally but careful maintenance is required to "restore" one to being robust. Not to put you off it, any car that is that fast and is a pure race car will require a lot of checking and low tolerance for defective parts. Areas of attention are also the CV joints and axles...axles have a "limited" life (reputedly 2 years) and the CV joints need cleaning/regreasing fairly regularly to stay on top of joint failure. I've seen several failed CV joints (metal slag, loss of play) which had "bound up" but not broken and become loose. The chains aren't too big of an issue if you tension/aling them carefully and replace them about every 8-10 hours of running and lube them regularly.
you're welcome to poke around our Prosport/Clubsport forum to see what we're doing to try and give these cars some reasonable life.
[url]http://p097.ezboard.com/bsocalpeeps[/url]
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