420r purchase...
Discussion
Booked in for a test drive on Wednesday. All being well finally going to take the plunge. Mainly for road use, occasional track day, any must have options, questions I should ask? Thinking I need the 6 speed, heater, shift lights, track day roll bar, weather gear. Lowered floor??
Opinions and experiences appreciated.
Opinions and experiences appreciated.
clarki said:
Booked in for a test drive on Wednesday. All being well finally going to take the plunge. Mainly for road use, occasional track day, any must have options, questions I should ask? Thinking I need the 6 speed, heater, shift lights, track day roll bar, weather gear. Lowered floor??
Opinions and experiences appreciated.
That would be my choice of options too, and yes lowered floors are a must.Opinions and experiences appreciated.
I am sure you have decided, but 13 inch rims and ZZrs has to be the way to go too.!
Also for me personally, I would not have a track car like a 420R without the four pot callipers, they should be included as standard , but they are not, and pricey at £650 to be added, but so worth it!
clarki said:
Booked in for a test drive on Wednesday. All being well finally going to take the plunge. Mainly for road use, occasional track day, any must have options, questions I should ask? Thinking I need the 6 speed, heater, shift lights, track day roll bar, weather gear. Lowered floor??
Opinions and experiences appreciated.
Nice one. Whatever you go for will be a hoot to drive. As for the options you have mentioned , I`d get all of those. When the weather is not playing ball and the roof is up and heater on , its a nice cozy place to sit.Opinions and experiences appreciated.
If you are able to negotiate then try and get a Caterham Drift experience thrown into the deal. A well worthwhile thing to do and a pleasant day drifting round someone elses car whilst learning all the time about car control.
Lowered floor is nice if you are a big lad and the 6 speed is great. The trackday rollbar is also nice to look at although I`m not convinced it would fair any better in a crash than the standard one.
Shift lights are great as the tacho in my car is obscured half the time with wrists , arms , steering wheel and the lights are right in your face. Can be a pain at night time or early morning as they are too bright but I simply move the pod they are in downwards a touch in the mounting and it helps.
Good luck
Far Cough said:
Nice one. Whatever you go for will be a hoot to drive. As for the options you have mentioned , I`d get all of those. When the weather is not playing ball and the roof is up and heater on , its a nice cozy place to sit.
If you are able to negotiate then try and get a Caterham Drift experience thrown into the deal. A well worthwhile thing to do and a pleasant day drifting round someone elses car whilst learning all the time about car control.
Lowered floor is nice if you are a big lad and the 6 speed is great. The trackday rollbar is also nice to look at although I`m not convinced it would fair any better in a crash than the standard one.
Shift lights are great as the tacho in my car is obscured half the time with wrists , arms , steering wheel and the lights are right in your face. Can be a pain at night time or early morning as they are too bright but I simply move the pod they are in downwards a touch in the mounting and it helps.
Good luck
Aces shift lights actually have a fully brightness display control, but most people don't realise it's there.If you are able to negotiate then try and get a Caterham Drift experience thrown into the deal. A well worthwhile thing to do and a pleasant day drifting round someone elses car whilst learning all the time about car control.
Lowered floor is nice if you are a big lad and the 6 speed is great. The trackday rollbar is also nice to look at although I`m not convinced it would fair any better in a crash than the standard one.
Shift lights are great as the tacho in my car is obscured half the time with wrists , arms , steering wheel and the lights are right in your face. Can be a pain at night time or early morning as they are too bright but I simply move the pod they are in downwards a touch in the mounting and it helps.
Good luck
The control unit is mounted under the dash on the firewall and the three green buttons give access to the brightness as well as profile options for shift patterns.
The amount of owners I have spoken too who do not know that options is there is about 95% don't k ow to 5% who do!
I have the full operations manual as pdf if you want to discover more!
Well damn me...I was driving mine last night and was again irritated as hell by the brightness of the shift lights. How easy are they to reconfigure? I don't need the silly green light telling me i am below 3500rpm - all I need is maybe green at 6k and all the rest at about 7400 (or whatever redline is supposed to be on a R400 Duratec).
coppice said:
Well damn me...I was driving mine last night and was again irritated as hell by the brightness of the shift lights. How easy are they to reconfigure? I don't need the silly green light telling me i am below 3500rpm - all I need is maybe green at 6k and all the rest at about 7400 (or whatever redline is supposed to be on a R400 Duratec).
As next post down shows it's easy to find the manuals on the aces website.But the default when the engine is running is to use the green buttons on the control unit for up and down which are brighter or darker, I don't recommend doing when driving thought it's actually quite hard to reach!
Also and other fact people don't realise is that the control,unit is actually attached to the bulkhead by the very strong industrial Velcro, so the control unit can be removed to see the lcd screen.
It's worth doing that if only once, just to reed a the screen and understand the menus!
Finally the guys at Adams are incredibly helpful if you email them to, they sent me a fantastic and detailed response when is asked how to set the smartmax peaks on my R500.
I knew about the control box but there isnt an automatic brightness as far as I could see so left it alone. Its quite simple to just knock the display to point downwards a bit at night. It seem to be the best solution for me anyway without having to change the setting everytime I drive it in the day or night.
I have a small push button on the dash above the start button that adjusts the brightness on my ACE lights. If the button is held down it gradually changes the brightness or a quick push turns them off completely. Not sure how easy it is to do 9 it just came like that and never looked under the dash) but assume it just plugs in to the control unit.
I didn't have this on my last Caterham and I its so much better then pointing the lights down.
I didn't have this on my last Caterham and I its so much better then pointing the lights down.
mike150 said:
You can download the manual for the ACES shift lights from the ACES website, I downloaded it so I knew what it did and how to change the brightness.
No disrespect , but do people even read these threads any more! The information and link to the aces info was posted about 5 posts previously!
Also what has happened to the OP, we have not heard any comments from him since his original post..
He me enjoyed he was having a test drive yesterday?.did it happen?.what did he think? Can we have an update for the OP please?
clarki said:
Booked in for a test drive on Wednesday. All being well finally going to take the plunge. Mainly for road use, occasional track day, any must have options, questions I should ask? Thinking I need the 6 speed, heater, shift lights, track day roll bar, weather gear. Lowered floor??
Opinions and experiences appreciated.
So did your order it then?Opinions and experiences appreciated.
We have been busy ordering Superlight Twenty models too, so I reckon CC must be busy!
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