Caterham Tuning Tips and Modifications

Maximise your Caterhams driving pleasure

Caterham car tuning tips and advice. We have a wide range of tuning articles covering all models of Caterham from small classic Caterhams, bike engines models right up to track day set up race spec models. Following our tuning tips you will avoid many of the common mistakes and actually achieve the car setup you desire. Please join the forum for model specific questions and answers and to meet other owners and see what modifications they have done.

TorqueCars started providing Caterham modification help, car track day setup and car tweak suggestions and advice and tips back in 2003 and have grown from strength to strength with a fast growing membership of all types of cars including many, Caterham owners. We are currently one of the fastest growing car tuning clubs around and certainly one of the friendliest. In 2007 we also organised our first full car show.

Our Caterham comprehensive modification articles on tuning and styling are kept upto date so for the very latest Caterham modification,track day setup and tweak suggestions and advice, tips and pointers please check back regularly – we aim to cover in more detail the superlight, R300,R400 and R500 which are already great track day cars and not very expensive to run and the latest evolution of the Caterham – the CSR and SP/300R. We strongly recommend that you join our Caterham forums and swap modification ideas with like minded Caterham owners in the modification forums.

If you have a Caterham project underway we would love to hear about it, the Gallery section in the forum contains some interesting projects. Scroll down the page to see our latest tuning articles for your Caterham.

We wish people would stop using stage to describe a tuning option or plan but while they do we’ll define here what we mean and expect when we talk about the term.

We get asked so much about this that we wanted to spell out what we mean and most car modders mean when talking about stage 1, 2 or 3 remaps and mods. We look at the various stages of remap available and the mods that would work best on stage 1, 2 and 3 upgrades. Each level of remap carries risks and drawbacks so we will outline them here.

One popular modification done to cars is replacing the wheels. We will look at the types of wheel available, the pros and cons of each and look at the implications of fitting different size wheels.

We will be challenging the concept of wider wheels giving more grip and looking at the effect a larger rim size has on a cars performance.

This phenomenon known as brake fade can be quite unexpected and lethal and I would hazard a guess that 1 in 4 cars are likely to experience brake fade to some degree. Brake fade manifests itself by a spongy feel on the pedal and little or no braking force. Do not confuse brake fade with bad brakes or a mechanical fault as it applies to brake systems in relatively good condition.

The array of available automotive engines continues to grow, we shall look at the main types of engines looking at how they have evolved over time.
The gradual evolution of the automotive engine marches on and we discuss the major developments and innovations in engine technology and fuel types such as Petrol, diesel, LPG hydrogen and electric power.

Todays featured car tuning articles

Can 'Diesel' Really Be Part of Our Vocabulary? "2007 – The Year Of The Diesel Hot Hatch" Looking forward to a new year always requires a look back at the trends that developed last year. What was cutting edge in the automotive industry in the first 6 months of 2006 is bound to be main […]

Fitting a strut brace and performance benefits "Strut your funky stuff" Think of a car like a shoebox with no lid. It will flex as you twist it and this is not good for handling. Whilst the roof of the car affords a lot of rigidity there is still scope for flexing under cornering and […]

Under bonnet temperatures are one of the biggest performance killers around.

Quite simply, you want your engine to be sucking in cold air as this carries more oxygen and will allow you to burn more fuel.

The exhaust system is one of the contributors to under bonnet temperatures. You can therefore lag the exhaust to help prevent this heat soak into the engine bay.