Caterham Gulf7 260
Date acquired: May 2007
Total kilometres: 7.932
Kilometres this month: 802
Costs this month: n/a
L/100 this month: 10.2L/100
Contact: www.motorsportme.com

I can't ever imagine tiring of the 260bhp Gulf-spec Caterham. It's immature I know but, in Dubai, Beach Road traffic-light victims are now tallying into triple digits; sports cars, supercars, and bikes. Not that I am counting, of course...We've had a few troublesome months recently- and a few visits to the workshop- due to a split water hose, and intermittent electrics, but now our yellow long-termer G7 260 is back on form. And I'm making the most of it. Astonishingly economic, outrageously unique and remarkably reliable- relatively speaking- this Bahrain-built British-engineered sports car is the wildest, quickest, lightest thing on the roads of Dubai at the moment, unless someone can prove otherwise. Please reader, please, buy one now- so I have someone/something, with a fighting chance, to challenge on Beach Road. Funny thing is, I'm surprised to learn I am the only mortal campaigning one of these crazy Caterhams, aside from one homebuilt hybrid track 260. It really is one of the only cars that I actually force on people as a sensible buy, even though it costs somewhere near $ 70,000.

The faces that people pull annoy me, but I guess convention dictates; for that much money you really should have doors, a windscreen, a roof, carpet and some air conditioning. The wing mirrors should also be the size of dinner plates, and made out of platinum too, right? But what you are paying for is less. And that 'less' will complete you! If I could take off the body panels, wheels- heavens, even the brakes- I would, if it meant I could somehow go quicker. I'd even pay more for this limited edition... But that's just me.

Jon Saxon

Caterham Super 7
Date acquired: May 2007
Total kilometres: 4.522
Kilometres this month: 722
Costs this month: $ 381
L/100 this month: 11.5L/100
Contact: www.gulf-sport.com

If a car weighs 500kg- less than most people's weekly shopping- and has race-bred double-wishbone suspension, set-up is critical for comfort and performance. So when Jon brought his Caterham Super 7 into the GulfSport workshop in Al Quoz, I could visually tell that it wasn't right! Things have to be pretty wrong to see misalignment by eye- I can tell you. Things were clearly not right.

Taking the car for a test drive highlighted some serious issues: the steering wheel was pointing to 2 o'clock when going forwards, the car would tramline better than any metro system and the whole car felt very nervous under any steering input; however steering feel was very vague.

As this was a standard 7, ride was good for fixed dampers and braking was impressive.

Back at the workshop I made a quick check of the tyre condition and pressures, which answered a number of concerns felt out on the road test. First thing to grab my attention was that the car is fitted with tyres that would suit a family saloon in a monsoon. I know Chris from Dunlop swears by these, running the same pattern and size on his yellow Lancia Integrale, but these huge tread blocks and a gaping tread pattern are far from really being ideal for Jon's Caterham. This would explain the steering vagueness.

To set a vehicle up perfectly, the surface that it is sitting on needs to be perfectly flat. I use racecar-adjustable corner platforms with racecar scales built into them; all of this levelled to the millimeter by a laser leveller. This allows the user to monitor corner weight changes whilst making set-up adjustments. This technique is used in all forms of high-level motorsport; it's time- and patience- consuming, as there is no 'perfect' set-up, so a best compromise is the realistic target.

So, armed with an alignment specification, which Jon sourced from the Caterham factory in the UK, I set about resurrecting the original settings.

The car needed to be filled with fuel, and driver ballast installed- to replicate the svelte driver that Jon is; I decided that 100kg was sufficient, yet evo snapper Alejandro recommended we hadn't enough barrels of ballast to replicate Jon's weight. While Jon and Alejandro bickered over physiques, I checked the ride height of the red 7. I say checked as the dampers are fixed height. Thankfully, they are very close to the factory settings- not bad for a golden oldie, I'd say.

Wheel camber (wheel lean) is critical in cornering behaviour and braking stability; too little and you get poor response, and maybe even positive camber on the loaded tyre (not good); too much and you could cook the inside edge of your tyres and coat the inside of your trousers when you brake hard for the first time. There's a sweet spot for every car.

When wheel cambers were checked, my guesses came back true: after reading 2.4 degrees negative camber on the front tyres. As a guide, our Radical racecars run -3.5 degrees on slicks, and the Caterham factory settings recommend -1 degree. There goes your tramlining, Jon.

Once the easy bits where over and done with I stopped for a bite to eat, before adjusting the front wheel camber... On Caterhams this is a long-winded nightmare, but this is where a lot of the improvement in cornering behaviour will come from.

The rear axle on most Caterhams is De-Dion- effectively a live axle without having the differential part of the unsprung mass. This means that the wheel camber and toe on the rear is fixed, and determined by the beam that the wheels are bolted to. Once the cambers are set, it's then time to set the toe (this is how much the front of the wheel is pointing inwards or outwards of the car when looked at from above). Before I set the toe, I suspected that the steering rack was not centred (this means that you can actually turn more in one direction than the other)- fine on ovals, not good on a road and track car. To my amazement, the steering rack was so far out that the wheel wings were touching the body when steering right!

I thought I had set up my measuring equipment wrong when I discovered that Jon's car had 5mm toe out on both front wheels. The factory setting is zero toe- this ensures responsive steering, less tyre overheating and less nervy handling under braking and cornering. Some 'big' cars run toe out (the front of the wheel pointing outwards from the car) on the front or the rear, to promote turn-in; with a Caterham it doesn't need any promotion as it has a super-quick steering rack and electric turn-in, due to lack of inertia.

So with all the Caterham factory settings applied: I road tested the car again. The improvements were obvious; the corrections applied so significant. The car is now no longer an unresponsive nervous wreck, which in the past has frightened Jon and any passenger that braved a shotgun ride, to become a clearly stable and dependable track tool.

On the road it is a completely different machine too. So all that is needed now are tyres suited and matched for a unique car like this, and then the delicate set-up changes will shine.

Dilan Talabani