Back in a Lotus - 2006 Exige S
Discussion
Went for Geo again today, mainly to correct the toe and ride heights after my messing around. I've done a few miles since fitting the riser plates and I've been pleasantly surprised, though trying hard to avoid confirmation bias. Since fitting them the car has felt less fidgety over bumps and on most road conditions it feels more planted through faster turns simply because the wheel isn't so active in my hands.
Back to my local haunt for this one.
Other than getting a socially distanced tan in the carpark there wasn't much to report, cup of tea and a few laps of the estate later and I had a car and print out.
Couple of surprises here, first the OSF camber reading. I specifically recall Dan@HPE saying that my camber was 'one shim out' on that corner so he took an extra shim out. It seems the TrackTorque equipment disagrees with that and the shim has been refitted again :lol: It would seem either TT or HPE have got a calibration issue somewhere, but I guess I need to hand in my race driver card as I can't tell the difference anyway
ops:
Front toe was always going to be a bit out, but wasn't expecting a discrepancy from side to side. I know Dan prefers a more neutral toe at the rear as he likes his cars to be a bit tail happy, seems TT have dialled some toe back in to stabilise it at that end.
Ultimately I know what to expect from this geo, TT have done my Elise and the original geo on my Exige with settings very similar to the above so not expecting fireworks, but good to know everything is back in line after my tinkering.
I paid my respects to Grandma while I was there
Car felt well on the way home, still feeling that the addition of the rack riser plates was well worth it. Car just feels like it's goading me on a bit through quicker corners now, a confidence I didn't have before.
Back to my AC/Blower issue for a moment, my AC worked flawlessly all the way there, approx 45mins of driving. On the way back the 'hot/cold' cycle seemed to return. As it happened I arrived home with the blowers on 'hot' so decided to have a quick peek inside again to see if I could catch the blend door in the act and sure enough it was sat on full hot despite the knob being on full cold. Once again I wiggled some wires about and the issue seemed to resolve itself... for a bit.
I disconnected the wiring harness for the actuator flap, quite difficult from above but got there in the end. The wires all look tidy enough and there's no sign of a pinched wire or loose connection but one of the connectors did have a bit of corrosion in it.
I gave it a good clean out and sprayed the connection on the loom with contact cleaner and hooked everything back up... no dice, in face the flap seems to stick more now than it 'unsticks' :lol: I'm fairly sure that the actuator or flap is not mechanically stuck, but the wiring inside could be questionable if it's taken on water in the past. Heck the issue could even be further up the loom somewhere, but trying to see that with the clam on just isn't going to happen.
Now that I know I can disconnect the wiring ok from the actuator from above, I may just buy a new actuator and hook it up (without attaching it to the heater box, because that's impossible with clam on) but I can at least see if a new actuator... actuates reliably and then just stick it on a shelf till the clam next comes off.
In the meantime, I may disconnect the wiring from the actuator completely and just fix it in the 50:50 position. In this position with the AC on, the air is nice and cool but not the coldest, but once the AC is switched off, a bit of warm air drifts through - so it should see me through the majority of conditions. Might also try it full cold, actually struggling to remember the last time I used the heater, and it's a 15min job to push the flap the other way if it gets to October and the car is still taxed etc.
Back to my local haunt for this one.
Other than getting a socially distanced tan in the carpark there wasn't much to report, cup of tea and a few laps of the estate later and I had a car and print out.
Couple of surprises here, first the OSF camber reading. I specifically recall Dan@HPE saying that my camber was 'one shim out' on that corner so he took an extra shim out. It seems the TrackTorque equipment disagrees with that and the shim has been refitted again :lol: It would seem either TT or HPE have got a calibration issue somewhere, but I guess I need to hand in my race driver card as I can't tell the difference anyway
ops: Front toe was always going to be a bit out, but wasn't expecting a discrepancy from side to side. I know Dan prefers a more neutral toe at the rear as he likes his cars to be a bit tail happy, seems TT have dialled some toe back in to stabilise it at that end.
Ultimately I know what to expect from this geo, TT have done my Elise and the original geo on my Exige with settings very similar to the above so not expecting fireworks, but good to know everything is back in line after my tinkering.
I paid my respects to Grandma while I was there
Car felt well on the way home, still feeling that the addition of the rack riser plates was well worth it. Car just feels like it's goading me on a bit through quicker corners now, a confidence I didn't have before.
Back to my AC/Blower issue for a moment, my AC worked flawlessly all the way there, approx 45mins of driving. On the way back the 'hot/cold' cycle seemed to return. As it happened I arrived home with the blowers on 'hot' so decided to have a quick peek inside again to see if I could catch the blend door in the act and sure enough it was sat on full hot despite the knob being on full cold. Once again I wiggled some wires about and the issue seemed to resolve itself... for a bit.
I disconnected the wiring harness for the actuator flap, quite difficult from above but got there in the end. The wires all look tidy enough and there's no sign of a pinched wire or loose connection but one of the connectors did have a bit of corrosion in it.
I gave it a good clean out and sprayed the connection on the loom with contact cleaner and hooked everything back up... no dice, in face the flap seems to stick more now than it 'unsticks' :lol: I'm fairly sure that the actuator or flap is not mechanically stuck, but the wiring inside could be questionable if it's taken on water in the past. Heck the issue could even be further up the loom somewhere, but trying to see that with the clam on just isn't going to happen.
Now that I know I can disconnect the wiring ok from the actuator from above, I may just buy a new actuator and hook it up (without attaching it to the heater box, because that's impossible with clam on) but I can at least see if a new actuator... actuates reliably and then just stick it on a shelf till the clam next comes off.
In the meantime, I may disconnect the wiring from the actuator completely and just fix it in the 50:50 position. In this position with the AC on, the air is nice and cool but not the coldest, but once the AC is switched off, a bit of warm air drifts through - so it should see me through the majority of conditions. Might also try it full cold, actually struggling to remember the last time I used the heater, and it's a 15min job to push the flap the other way if it gets to October and the car is still taxed etc.
Put a bit of time today for some Croft prep... which pretty much just consisted of washing the car 
Whilst messing around testing various things though I noticed a bit of undertray rattle whilst the car is idling/low RPM. Not overly concerned, I know with these diffusers/undertrays that just bolting them up in the wrong sequence can lead to reverberation I just planned to take it off, then refit it again.
I did however find an actual cause of a rattle, it seems the new 2bular cat has been touching the diffuser.
I could see looking through the NSR wheel arch that the cat body was sat flush with the diffuser. It is a bigger unit than the OEM cat that came off, but with it being an off the shelf part you'd expect no fitment issues like this so I initially just suspected an install issue from my end. I spoke to Jim @ 2bular who suggested the engine mounts may have some sag in them, which they could but I've got the Powerflex bush inserts in and they were practically mint when I inspected them last year so it feels unlikely.
I loosened off the donut join (the only place which can influence the position of the cat) and lightly jacked up my backbox, I maybe gained 1mm there when tightening back up again. I then refitted the diffuser with a couple of washers on the big M8 fixings which has bought me this much clearance:
There's not much in it, I could probably space it a bit more with some washers on the trailing edge M5 fixings but I'd rather not - it'll make diffuser removal/install a right ballache. Hopefully this is enough clearance, but I'd be eager to see some photos from other users of the system to compare?
Other than that I did a mod, since getting my fitted mats in the cockpit I just had them velcrod to the floor which was working OK until Blyton last time out, passenger mat made a bid for freedom and ended up dangerously close to my pedalbox on the driver side. As luck would have it a FB'er was flogging some of the aluminium carpet buttons for... well, buttons - so on they went today.
I've "hard wired" the heater blend flap into the cool position for my trackday (unplugged the actuator with it in the cold position) so not expecting any unexpected blasts of warm air... but we'll see what HVAC Jesus has planned for me. I am building up a plan of attack for the HVAC issue, will document it properly once I get started.
Whilst messing around testing various things though I noticed a bit of undertray rattle whilst the car is idling/low RPM. Not overly concerned, I know with these diffusers/undertrays that just bolting them up in the wrong sequence can lead to reverberation I just planned to take it off, then refit it again.
I did however find an actual cause of a rattle, it seems the new 2bular cat has been touching the diffuser.
I could see looking through the NSR wheel arch that the cat body was sat flush with the diffuser. It is a bigger unit than the OEM cat that came off, but with it being an off the shelf part you'd expect no fitment issues like this so I initially just suspected an install issue from my end. I spoke to Jim @ 2bular who suggested the engine mounts may have some sag in them, which they could but I've got the Powerflex bush inserts in and they were practically mint when I inspected them last year so it feels unlikely.
I loosened off the donut join (the only place which can influence the position of the cat) and lightly jacked up my backbox, I maybe gained 1mm there when tightening back up again. I then refitted the diffuser with a couple of washers on the big M8 fixings which has bought me this much clearance:
There's not much in it, I could probably space it a bit more with some washers on the trailing edge M5 fixings but I'd rather not - it'll make diffuser removal/install a right ballache. Hopefully this is enough clearance, but I'd be eager to see some photos from other users of the system to compare?
Other than that I did a mod, since getting my fitted mats in the cockpit I just had them velcrod to the floor which was working OK until Blyton last time out, passenger mat made a bid for freedom and ended up dangerously close to my pedalbox on the driver side. As luck would have it a FB'er was flogging some of the aluminium carpet buttons for... well, buttons - so on they went today.
I've "hard wired" the heater blend flap into the cool position for my trackday (unplugged the actuator with it in the cold position) so not expecting any unexpected blasts of warm air... but we'll see what HVAC Jesus has planned for me. I am building up a plan of attack for the HVAC issue, will document it properly once I get started.
Exhaust mystery apparently solved, turns out the rear engine mount has a slotted hole on it so the engine attitude can be altered slightly - found some pics including some from my old Elise which suggested it could/should be on the higher position.
Loosened off the engine mount tonight, jacked the engine up a smidge then retorqued - now plenty of clearance.
Loosened off the engine mount tonight, jacked the engine up a smidge then retorqued - now plenty of clearance.
CROFT UPDATE:
Once again trackday weather forecast was dire, it would be my fourth day in a row of pretty much 100% rain coverage expected during the day
Had a bit of rain on the way up the A1 but it wasn't heavy and there was a fair bit of warm breeze so I had hope that things would dry up quickly if the rain let up. (spoiler alert, it did!). On the drive up I gave myself a good talking to and committed to spending time on the wet track to really start learning the car in those conditions. I typically get really hyper sensitive to any kind of lateral movement in the car and end up driving as if I'm sat on top of the car rather than sitting in it, weird thing to explain - but it basically means I'm terrible when it gets wet.
Sighting laps were indeed wet, but after the third time around a dry line was already appearing. Despite the damp the circuit also seemed pretty grippy, especially 'off line'.
The first proper session was still quite damp, but critically the higher speed section of the 'esses' and barcroft had nice dry patches under the trees, I certainly wasn't fast in this session but I was leaning on the car in the damp bits and getting a feel for it, generally the car had loads of grip and the only time it really got unsettled was on the off-camber turn in point of Tower. Once pushing through the initial understeer on entry the car gripped up nicely and would rotate on demand, this really gave confidence that carried through the day.
I then had to stop channelling my inner Senna as by mid morning the track was completely dry
Just before lunch I had a couple of good sessions, I never felt like I carried enough speed at Croft in the past - it's one of the fastest local circuits around and I would previously fall into the trap of "stop/go" driving it like I was at Blyton for example, but most of the corners are quicker than they look and I started to really enjoy it.
I had my dampers set (from hard) 10 clicks at the front and 8 clicks at the rear, and never really got the feeling I needed to mess around with it once the track dried out. The front was biting nicely (unlike at Blyton) and the car would gently understeer through a corner if getting on the gas too quickly, just enough so that the car goads you on a bit as it feels 'safe', then the back would telegraph rotation through to you well in advance if you have a slight lift at the point you need the thing to turn - really good feeling.
One of the biggest improvements to the car since my last Croft outing was the brakes, even though the RS14s went some way towards spoiling my fun at Blyton due to vibration they came alive here and made the 115-120mph braking zones feel well under control. Barcroft particularly was a bit hairy when I came last year on RS4-2s because you're tempted into taking the corner at the best part of 100mph then you've got to get straightened up and on the anchors really quickly afterwards for Sunny In. With the RS14s it felt like I had all the time in the world to get slowed down, and if anything I was overbraking for it for much of the day.
With similar gains to braking made at the end of the pit straight and on entry to Tower, my peak speeds were 5-10mph up on my previous visits which is quite something.
Towards the end of the day I felt like the car was struggling a little bit on the faster stuff, turning in to the Jim Clark Esses started to feel a bit floaty but I think this was just tyre pressures creeping up. If anything I should have taken some time out here to play with my damper settings a bit - I could have gone much stiffer but as I was having so much fun I didn't want to waste time chasing my tail with settings. In hindsight I should have gone up to 8F/6R at least for one session to see how it felt in the faster stuff - With a few more minerals and a stiffer setup I think taking at least part of the Esses flat is within reach of my car which is pretty terrifying :mrgreen:
By far the weakest part of the track for me was the final hairpin for the start/finish straight. Spinning the inside rear was the order of the day and it just pegged me back so far against other cars that I was sharing track with. The V6's seem to have enough traction from the chunky rear tyres to pull away from me here and I followed an LSD furnished Elise for a couple of laps which had a similar advantage. Again I probably could have mitigated this through suspension tweaks, softening up at the rear perhaps but as that may have come at the cost of stability in the faster stuff I was happy to live with it. I used the hairpin as an excuse to have a bit of fun, some nice "one tyre fire" skids through there and an almost-spin mid afternoon allowed me to turn a negative into a bit of fun. On most of my video'd laps it's really messy through here, with a bit of discipline I could do it a bit quicker by just being patient.
During the final session the track suddenly got very moody, black rolling clouds on the horizon and some very keen wind made for a quiet track and some good laps to finish with. The wind was catching the car a fair bit through the Esses which was... fun, but in all the car finished really strong and I went home grinning like an idiot.
I've enjoyed all my visits to Croft circuit, but this was easily the best. I had that great feeling that the car was being pushed but still felt 'safe' all day long, and I've been able to identify many opportunities to go faster here next time I come. If every trackday felt like this I could probably make an attempt to justify how expensive it all is :mrgreen:
Can't wait to go back to Croft, shame it seems to be an annual event at best with Lotus on Track -but superb organisation/social distancing etc and great pricing for one of the country's best circuits!
Only got two videos uploaded so far, as a slight negative I did have gopro issues mid afternoon and lost some really good sessions - but hey ho.
Laps with some fellow NYLOC member cars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h51sUy2UsxM
Couple of clear laps in the final session:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVB39WDmz78
Once again trackday weather forecast was dire, it would be my fourth day in a row of pretty much 100% rain coverage expected during the day
Had a bit of rain on the way up the A1 but it wasn't heavy and there was a fair bit of warm breeze so I had hope that things would dry up quickly if the rain let up. (spoiler alert, it did!). On the drive up I gave myself a good talking to and committed to spending time on the wet track to really start learning the car in those conditions. I typically get really hyper sensitive to any kind of lateral movement in the car and end up driving as if I'm sat on top of the car rather than sitting in it, weird thing to explain - but it basically means I'm terrible when it gets wet.
Sighting laps were indeed wet, but after the third time around a dry line was already appearing. Despite the damp the circuit also seemed pretty grippy, especially 'off line'.
The first proper session was still quite damp, but critically the higher speed section of the 'esses' and barcroft had nice dry patches under the trees, I certainly wasn't fast in this session but I was leaning on the car in the damp bits and getting a feel for it, generally the car had loads of grip and the only time it really got unsettled was on the off-camber turn in point of Tower. Once pushing through the initial understeer on entry the car gripped up nicely and would rotate on demand, this really gave confidence that carried through the day.
I then had to stop channelling my inner Senna as by mid morning the track was completely dry
Just before lunch I had a couple of good sessions, I never felt like I carried enough speed at Croft in the past - it's one of the fastest local circuits around and I would previously fall into the trap of "stop/go" driving it like I was at Blyton for example, but most of the corners are quicker than they look and I started to really enjoy it.
I had my dampers set (from hard) 10 clicks at the front and 8 clicks at the rear, and never really got the feeling I needed to mess around with it once the track dried out. The front was biting nicely (unlike at Blyton) and the car would gently understeer through a corner if getting on the gas too quickly, just enough so that the car goads you on a bit as it feels 'safe', then the back would telegraph rotation through to you well in advance if you have a slight lift at the point you need the thing to turn - really good feeling.
One of the biggest improvements to the car since my last Croft outing was the brakes, even though the RS14s went some way towards spoiling my fun at Blyton due to vibration they came alive here and made the 115-120mph braking zones feel well under control. Barcroft particularly was a bit hairy when I came last year on RS4-2s because you're tempted into taking the corner at the best part of 100mph then you've got to get straightened up and on the anchors really quickly afterwards for Sunny In. With the RS14s it felt like I had all the time in the world to get slowed down, and if anything I was overbraking for it for much of the day.
With similar gains to braking made at the end of the pit straight and on entry to Tower, my peak speeds were 5-10mph up on my previous visits which is quite something.
Towards the end of the day I felt like the car was struggling a little bit on the faster stuff, turning in to the Jim Clark Esses started to feel a bit floaty but I think this was just tyre pressures creeping up. If anything I should have taken some time out here to play with my damper settings a bit - I could have gone much stiffer but as I was having so much fun I didn't want to waste time chasing my tail with settings. In hindsight I should have gone up to 8F/6R at least for one session to see how it felt in the faster stuff - With a few more minerals and a stiffer setup I think taking at least part of the Esses flat is within reach of my car which is pretty terrifying :mrgreen:
By far the weakest part of the track for me was the final hairpin for the start/finish straight. Spinning the inside rear was the order of the day and it just pegged me back so far against other cars that I was sharing track with. The V6's seem to have enough traction from the chunky rear tyres to pull away from me here and I followed an LSD furnished Elise for a couple of laps which had a similar advantage. Again I probably could have mitigated this through suspension tweaks, softening up at the rear perhaps but as that may have come at the cost of stability in the faster stuff I was happy to live with it. I used the hairpin as an excuse to have a bit of fun, some nice "one tyre fire" skids through there and an almost-spin mid afternoon allowed me to turn a negative into a bit of fun. On most of my video'd laps it's really messy through here, with a bit of discipline I could do it a bit quicker by just being patient.
During the final session the track suddenly got very moody, black rolling clouds on the horizon and some very keen wind made for a quiet track and some good laps to finish with. The wind was catching the car a fair bit through the Esses which was... fun, but in all the car finished really strong and I went home grinning like an idiot.
I've enjoyed all my visits to Croft circuit, but this was easily the best. I had that great feeling that the car was being pushed but still felt 'safe' all day long, and I've been able to identify many opportunities to go faster here next time I come. If every trackday felt like this I could probably make an attempt to justify how expensive it all is :mrgreen:
Can't wait to go back to Croft, shame it seems to be an annual event at best with Lotus on Track -but superb organisation/social distancing etc and great pricing for one of the country's best circuits!
Only got two videos uploaded so far, as a slight negative I did have gopro issues mid afternoon and lost some really good sessions - but hey ho.
Laps with some fellow NYLOC member cars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h51sUy2UsxM
Couple of clear laps in the final session:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVB39WDmz78
BLYTON UPDATE:
Finally a good weather forecast for a trackday! Car didn't get much attention since Croft, just a wash and a quick fluid/brake check.
Getting to the track was annoying, 2 miles from the entrance we had a road closure due to a railroad crossing issue so needed a 25minute diversion. grrr! Still arrived well and finally got to meet "internet fwend" and Exiges.com admin andybond.
I left the dampers in their 'Croft' settings of 10F/8R (from hard) as the car felt really well balanced at Croft - allowed me to push on in faster stuff with a safe feeling car beneath me, with the slight tradeoff of poor traction in the hairpin.
As soon as we did the sighting laps it was clear that I was piling on tyre pressure quicker than Croft. At Croft I was only dropping 1 or 2 PSI per session to keep them in the zone but in two consecutive sessions at Blyton I dropped a total of 11PSI to maintain my 30psi reference!
In the morning the front end of my car felt brilliant, seemed like it would do anything I asked of it but the rear was not quite so enthusiastic. The 90 left of Bishops was particularly lairy, even with moderate throttle through the turn the back was kicking out. I even had oversteer whilst accelerating through Lancaster, this is a corner that will extract understeer out of any car on the planet so to have the back squirming a bit round there was an eye opener!
At this point I should probably admit my rear tyres are done, they were just about road legal at the start of the day but they're finished now - measuring 0.6mm on the inside shoulders as of this morning. Ooops! I bought them part worn just over a year ago so they've done a few thousand miles and a good few trackdays, so can't grumble really.
To try and even up grip levels a bit I added a couple of clicks of stiffness at the front and only one click at the back. This would hopefully make the whole car stiffer through the quicker stuff but make the rear relatively softer to add a bit of traction. This worked a reasonable amount and made the car feel a bit safer for the rest of the day, but still the car wasn't at its best around Blyton. I think adding another click at the front would have helped further in hindsight.
Despite being off my ultimate pace (about 3 sec slower per lap from what I can tell on the footage I've got), the car felt FAST at certain points, certainly quicker than it's ever been on acceleration and coming into braking zones. The oversteer and pointy front end made the car a lot of fun, and made for very enjoyable laps even if not very tidy.
In the final session of the day I had a bit of an issue. I was driving a couple of laps in front a friend in his sprint prepped Octavia (absolute weapon btw!) and after letting him past and hoping to follow for a few laps, he had a bit of a mistake going into the ~95mph Port Froid and he clipped one of the white marker bails. This flicked up in the air just as I committed to the first part of the sequence which left me a split second choice to either continue with the turn and hope the bail bounced off-track, or take to the escape road. I went for the escape road which was guarded by some floppy cones. Doh!
The cones are spaced annoyingly just narrower than the width of an Exige, so by trying to fit through the gap I actually hit two of them... One straight on the front quarter of the clam and the other I just clipped with my OS arch (where the stonechip PPF is). In hindsight I should have just aimed for one right in the middle I think, let the numberplate take the pain but then the vulnerable grill would be in the firing line... tough one to call!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU8d1qeMToo
Initially the damage looked pretty bad, the black is just rubber transfer from the cone but the paint looked very scuffed too. Luckily this proved not to be the case, it was just smears of cement dust from a few fluid spills earlier in the day.
This really didn't spoil the day, we'd had some brilliant laps despite a fair bit of traffic and had learned a few more important lessons about the car and my new additions to it. No reliability issues and didn't even need to open my toolbox, so that can only be a success!
I drove home grinning like a fool, almost wearing my battle scar like a badge of honor. My worst case scenario was that I'd get the front end in for paint over winter, I've picked up a few stonechips anyway and have evidence of at least one pheasant strike so would have been a nice treat.
As it happens though, I cleaned the car this morning and all of the 'damage' simply wiped off with the aid of some tar remover. Didn't even need to do any buffing. Result!
The PPF marks are harder to lift, I don't know what Lotus used back in 2006 but it's bloody awful for cleaning. I have the same issue with rubber oil stains after a trackday, they wipe off the paint work with barely any effort but require hours of work to get off the PPF. Seriously considering ripping it off and just submitting to our stonechip overlords.
As for next steps, nothing booked now for a month or so - so will revert the dampers back to road settings and get some rear ZZRs ordered. I think my next trackday will be Blyton again (yeh yeh I know, ZZzzZzz but it seems like the only dates I have available are Blyton days at the moment and I've got store credit to spend!) so I'll pick up where I left off at 8/7 from hard and move to 7/7 if the rear is still a bit loose on the fresh rubber.
Finally a good weather forecast for a trackday! Car didn't get much attention since Croft, just a wash and a quick fluid/brake check.
Getting to the track was annoying, 2 miles from the entrance we had a road closure due to a railroad crossing issue so needed a 25minute diversion. grrr! Still arrived well and finally got to meet "internet fwend" and Exiges.com admin andybond.
I left the dampers in their 'Croft' settings of 10F/8R (from hard) as the car felt really well balanced at Croft - allowed me to push on in faster stuff with a safe feeling car beneath me, with the slight tradeoff of poor traction in the hairpin.
As soon as we did the sighting laps it was clear that I was piling on tyre pressure quicker than Croft. At Croft I was only dropping 1 or 2 PSI per session to keep them in the zone but in two consecutive sessions at Blyton I dropped a total of 11PSI to maintain my 30psi reference!
In the morning the front end of my car felt brilliant, seemed like it would do anything I asked of it but the rear was not quite so enthusiastic. The 90 left of Bishops was particularly lairy, even with moderate throttle through the turn the back was kicking out. I even had oversteer whilst accelerating through Lancaster, this is a corner that will extract understeer out of any car on the planet so to have the back squirming a bit round there was an eye opener!
At this point I should probably admit my rear tyres are done, they were just about road legal at the start of the day but they're finished now - measuring 0.6mm on the inside shoulders as of this morning. Ooops! I bought them part worn just over a year ago so they've done a few thousand miles and a good few trackdays, so can't grumble really.
To try and even up grip levels a bit I added a couple of clicks of stiffness at the front and only one click at the back. This would hopefully make the whole car stiffer through the quicker stuff but make the rear relatively softer to add a bit of traction. This worked a reasonable amount and made the car feel a bit safer for the rest of the day, but still the car wasn't at its best around Blyton. I think adding another click at the front would have helped further in hindsight.
Despite being off my ultimate pace (about 3 sec slower per lap from what I can tell on the footage I've got), the car felt FAST at certain points, certainly quicker than it's ever been on acceleration and coming into braking zones. The oversteer and pointy front end made the car a lot of fun, and made for very enjoyable laps even if not very tidy.
In the final session of the day I had a bit of an issue. I was driving a couple of laps in front a friend in his sprint prepped Octavia (absolute weapon btw!) and after letting him past and hoping to follow for a few laps, he had a bit of a mistake going into the ~95mph Port Froid and he clipped one of the white marker bails. This flicked up in the air just as I committed to the first part of the sequence which left me a split second choice to either continue with the turn and hope the bail bounced off-track, or take to the escape road. I went for the escape road which was guarded by some floppy cones. Doh!
The cones are spaced annoyingly just narrower than the width of an Exige, so by trying to fit through the gap I actually hit two of them... One straight on the front quarter of the clam and the other I just clipped with my OS arch (where the stonechip PPF is). In hindsight I should have just aimed for one right in the middle I think, let the numberplate take the pain but then the vulnerable grill would be in the firing line... tough one to call!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TU8d1qeMToo
Initially the damage looked pretty bad, the black is just rubber transfer from the cone but the paint looked very scuffed too. Luckily this proved not to be the case, it was just smears of cement dust from a few fluid spills earlier in the day.
This really didn't spoil the day, we'd had some brilliant laps despite a fair bit of traffic and had learned a few more important lessons about the car and my new additions to it. No reliability issues and didn't even need to open my toolbox, so that can only be a success!
I drove home grinning like a fool, almost wearing my battle scar like a badge of honor. My worst case scenario was that I'd get the front end in for paint over winter, I've picked up a few stonechips anyway and have evidence of at least one pheasant strike so would have been a nice treat.
As it happens though, I cleaned the car this morning and all of the 'damage' simply wiped off with the aid of some tar remover. Didn't even need to do any buffing. Result!
The PPF marks are harder to lift, I don't know what Lotus used back in 2006 but it's bloody awful for cleaning. I have the same issue with rubber oil stains after a trackday, they wipe off the paint work with barely any effort but require hours of work to get off the PPF. Seriously considering ripping it off and just submitting to our stonechip overlords.
As for next steps, nothing booked now for a month or so - so will revert the dampers back to road settings and get some rear ZZRs ordered. I think my next trackday will be Blyton again (yeh yeh I know, ZZzzZzz but it seems like the only dates I have available are Blyton days at the moment and I've got store credit to spend!) so I'll pick up where I left off at 8/7 from hard and move to 7/7 if the rear is still a bit loose on the fresh rubber.
Edited by Fonzey on Monday 13th July 09:30
shalmaneser said:
Just watched that video - that Skoda really is a weapon! The way it changes direction is pretty incredible. Is there a build thread for it?
I don't think there is, but check out @jackbooth13 in Instagram if you're on there. It's one of those cars that's clearly built as a track weapon, but has been executed with some class too - no cable ties and ductape holding it all together. If Skoda did a "Clubsport" Octavia then this would be it! I've had a slight gremlin recently which I don't think I recorded yet in the thread. Mainly because it was very infrequent and would only raise its head every few weeks (or even months) so didn't spend much time thinking about it, but the car seems to have an issue where periodically the engine will stall when cruising to a stop either in neutral or in gear with the clutch depressed. It seems to happen more often when the car is (very) warm and it seems to be ramping up in frequency over the last few weeks but that could be a fluke.
There's loads of info about this problem from the mid-00's with people going in for warranty claims for this and from what I can gather it was resolved by a reflash to later code on the ECU. Some months ago there was a slight suspicion that my car may have a 255 map on it (based on ambiguous part numbers and a throttle % opening readout from ODBII) and further reading suggests that the 255 map also had some gremlins with stalling at low speeds (which dealers subsequently resolved by sticking the 260 map on...)
Mechanically I guess an air leak could cause this, there is a Lotus TSB floating around suggesting pinched o-rings on the SC outlet adaptor (swan neck thing) could leak air but I'd expect CEL's and running issues if that was the case. Car pulls like a train so that seems unlikely, but I'll get some soapy water sprayed around to see what I can see.
I'll not invest too much time into this as I'm fairly certain I'll be going in for an EMU install soon - just finalising plans/details but it's worth logging just for the sake of continuity in the thread.
There's loads of info about this problem from the mid-00's with people going in for warranty claims for this and from what I can gather it was resolved by a reflash to later code on the ECU. Some months ago there was a slight suspicion that my car may have a 255 map on it (based on ambiguous part numbers and a throttle % opening readout from ODBII) and further reading suggests that the 255 map also had some gremlins with stalling at low speeds (which dealers subsequently resolved by sticking the 260 map on...)
Mechanically I guess an air leak could cause this, there is a Lotus TSB floating around suggesting pinched o-rings on the SC outlet adaptor (swan neck thing) could leak air but I'd expect CEL's and running issues if that was the case. Car pulls like a train so that seems unlikely, but I'll get some soapy water sprayed around to see what I can see.
I'll not invest too much time into this as I'm fairly certain I'll be going in for an EMU install soon - just finalising plans/details but it's worth logging just for the sake of continuity in the thread.
Back to the exciting topic of HVAC now that the trackday flurry is done with. Sorry wall of text inc.
As a reminder I've got an issue whereby my heater blend door will randomly move to the 'heat' position whilst I'm trying to enjoy the icy blast of working AC. It seems to be electrical but the root cause is still unknown, the flap isn't sticky - it's actively moving back to the heat position whilst the knob is set to cool.
After many research, I have a three phase plan which I've been working on in the odd late night garage session recently.
Phase1: Update the AC Thermostat
I don't believe this to be a contributing factor to my issues but apparently the early S2 cars have an issue with the old analogue temp probe that's used in the AC evap unit to prevent freezing. In effect it only flags for the AC unit to dip the clutch after the system has already frozen, so in certain (humid) conditions you can end up with your AC switching itself off every 20mins or so whilst it waits to thaw itself out. :lol: The fix for this came in around 2007/08 (I think?) and came in the form of a drop-in replacement for the thermostat unit.
The replacement is a digital unit, so required power - but I guess feeds back more granular information to the car to allow the AC to by cycled on/off more precisely and avoid that freezing over. Had I known about this relatively cheap and easy update back when I had the HVAC system on my bench I would have course done it then - but it's something I only learned about quite recently
I want to do this update for two reasons,
1- It replaces part of the wiring for the heater blend flap, so allows me to rule out a small link in the chain from being my problem
2- Once I implement Phase 3, any hope of having enough access to do it will be gone due to the extra gubbins I'll be adding so now is the time.
Phase2: Identify the root cause of my issue, or try.
Some of my options for Phase3 rely on the potentiometer control knob and wiring to be sound for them to be of value - so I need to rule them out as a potential problem. Even if the issue can't be easily fixed with the clam on, I just need to know what link in the chain is causing problems so it can be bypassed.
My hope is that the actuator itself is at fault (loose connection inside or something), it can't be swapped with the clam in place but I've got a spare for when that happens and it means I can leverage the rest of the wiring for Phase3.
Phase3: Implement a heater matrix bypass mod
Even if I find and fix the problem as part of Phase2, my research has led me to a solution which would improve even a fully working HVAC system. In short (as I've documented this at length elsewhere) the heater matrix in this car is always "active", so even when demanding cold air the system eventually heatsoaks and the potency of the AC gradually declines on longer trips. The solution here is to add a bypass valve in front of the heater matrix which can be controlled by one of a few different ways:
1- Use the factory temperature knob, but relies on this not being my problem in Phase2
2- Implement a new temperature knob and make it look as OEM as possible
3- Hide a rocker switch somewhere and have the bypass be independently controlled of the temperature knob.
Those are roughly listed in order of preference, but there's no point in going for option #1 if my temp knob is the root of all my issues anyway!!
If implemented, this would boost the effectiveness of the stock system but also to a certain extent would make my heater flap redundant - so if my root issue cannot be solved, I can at least have cooling and heating on demand.
Moving onto progress, I took delivery of the thermostat update kit a couple of weeks ago. This included a small wiring harness that would replace the power to the heater flap, as the new digital thermostat requires a power feed from it.
I also bought a bunch of plugs, pins and 22AWG wire so that I could make up a Y-adaptor for it. This will serve a dual purpose, first it will allow me to run a "troubleshooting" lead to the cockpit where I can hook up a multimeter and try to catch the heater flap red handed. Based on previous baseline readings from a a multimeter I know that the yellow control wire should be showing approx. 0.25V in the full cold position and the full 14.XV in the full hot position, with a linear scaling inbetween.
(stuff circled in blue is new stuff I've made/crimped, stuff circled in red was replaced by the thermostat kit)
If/when my flap next fails, I can check out the multimeter on my passenger seat and if the control voltage drops to zero or incorrectly spikes up to 14V then I know there's an issue in the wiring or control knob somewhere. If the voltage remains at 0.25V then I know the issue is with the actuator itself.
The second purpose for it is that I can use this as a control connection from the bypass valve once I fit it. I found a bypass kit intended for classic car retrofits that takes a 0-12V control wire feed so should work with the factory heater knob.
Since I was replacing a bunch of connectors, I chopped off the loom connector too in the car and re-pinned that in a fresh plug. The pins had small amounts of corrosion on them but nothing I'd expect to cause issues. Still, another link in the chain ruled out.
My next job was to install the new thermostat kit. The Lotus instructions claim that this is simply not possible on an Exige with the clam in place (Elise is doable just about), but based on my experience inside the front maintenance hatch I begged to differ - so took the job on anyway.
All that you need to do is retrieve the old temp probe from the HVAC box, it enters through a rubber grommet and just pulls out:
The new unit comes with a rivet and a 3M sticky pad, I intend to stick mine to the bulkhead as there's plenty of room down there. For now I just lobbed it in, then attached the wiring to the actuator (probably the hardest part of doing it with the clam on) and then connected the thermostat back to the factory wiring. The new temp probe threads in through the same grommet, then is cable tied to a bracket and is poked into the fins of the evaporator. It was pretty easy really, you can either be looking at what you need to do, or be doing it - you can't do both at once so it's lots of fiddling around blind, retrieving your hands and then planning your next move, repeat etc - but all doable.
I'm not too happy with the wiring though, it's all sort of lobbed in and this place is subject to occasional rain water/car wash water. I think I'll retrieve all my new plugs and just grease them up a bit and wrap the lot in bubble wrap or something just to keep the worst off.
With my new Y-Harness in place, I could then attach a 4-foot "diagnostics lead" that I made up and run that to the cockpit.
So now I can see in real time what the actual heater knob and wiring is up to. Happy days!
I've done a quick test run in the garage, and the AC is working a treat with the new thermostat in, but of course the heater flap is behaving so far so haven't been able to test out my rig!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNdtbxUWAxM
As a reminder I've got an issue whereby my heater blend door will randomly move to the 'heat' position whilst I'm trying to enjoy the icy blast of working AC. It seems to be electrical but the root cause is still unknown, the flap isn't sticky - it's actively moving back to the heat position whilst the knob is set to cool.
After many research, I have a three phase plan which I've been working on in the odd late night garage session recently.
Phase1: Update the AC Thermostat
I don't believe this to be a contributing factor to my issues but apparently the early S2 cars have an issue with the old analogue temp probe that's used in the AC evap unit to prevent freezing. In effect it only flags for the AC unit to dip the clutch after the system has already frozen, so in certain (humid) conditions you can end up with your AC switching itself off every 20mins or so whilst it waits to thaw itself out. :lol: The fix for this came in around 2007/08 (I think?) and came in the form of a drop-in replacement for the thermostat unit.
The replacement is a digital unit, so required power - but I guess feeds back more granular information to the car to allow the AC to by cycled on/off more precisely and avoid that freezing over. Had I known about this relatively cheap and easy update back when I had the HVAC system on my bench I would have course done it then - but it's something I only learned about quite recently
I want to do this update for two reasons,
1- It replaces part of the wiring for the heater blend flap, so allows me to rule out a small link in the chain from being my problem
2- Once I implement Phase 3, any hope of having enough access to do it will be gone due to the extra gubbins I'll be adding so now is the time.
Phase2: Identify the root cause of my issue, or try.
Some of my options for Phase3 rely on the potentiometer control knob and wiring to be sound for them to be of value - so I need to rule them out as a potential problem. Even if the issue can't be easily fixed with the clam on, I just need to know what link in the chain is causing problems so it can be bypassed.
My hope is that the actuator itself is at fault (loose connection inside or something), it can't be swapped with the clam in place but I've got a spare for when that happens and it means I can leverage the rest of the wiring for Phase3.
Phase3: Implement a heater matrix bypass mod
Even if I find and fix the problem as part of Phase2, my research has led me to a solution which would improve even a fully working HVAC system. In short (as I've documented this at length elsewhere) the heater matrix in this car is always "active", so even when demanding cold air the system eventually heatsoaks and the potency of the AC gradually declines on longer trips. The solution here is to add a bypass valve in front of the heater matrix which can be controlled by one of a few different ways:
1- Use the factory temperature knob, but relies on this not being my problem in Phase2
2- Implement a new temperature knob and make it look as OEM as possible
3- Hide a rocker switch somewhere and have the bypass be independently controlled of the temperature knob.
Those are roughly listed in order of preference, but there's no point in going for option #1 if my temp knob is the root of all my issues anyway!!
If implemented, this would boost the effectiveness of the stock system but also to a certain extent would make my heater flap redundant - so if my root issue cannot be solved, I can at least have cooling and heating on demand.
Moving onto progress, I took delivery of the thermostat update kit a couple of weeks ago. This included a small wiring harness that would replace the power to the heater flap, as the new digital thermostat requires a power feed from it.
I also bought a bunch of plugs, pins and 22AWG wire so that I could make up a Y-adaptor for it. This will serve a dual purpose, first it will allow me to run a "troubleshooting" lead to the cockpit where I can hook up a multimeter and try to catch the heater flap red handed. Based on previous baseline readings from a a multimeter I know that the yellow control wire should be showing approx. 0.25V in the full cold position and the full 14.XV in the full hot position, with a linear scaling inbetween.
(stuff circled in blue is new stuff I've made/crimped, stuff circled in red was replaced by the thermostat kit)
If/when my flap next fails, I can check out the multimeter on my passenger seat and if the control voltage drops to zero or incorrectly spikes up to 14V then I know there's an issue in the wiring or control knob somewhere. If the voltage remains at 0.25V then I know the issue is with the actuator itself.
The second purpose for it is that I can use this as a control connection from the bypass valve once I fit it. I found a bypass kit intended for classic car retrofits that takes a 0-12V control wire feed so should work with the factory heater knob.
Since I was replacing a bunch of connectors, I chopped off the loom connector too in the car and re-pinned that in a fresh plug. The pins had small amounts of corrosion on them but nothing I'd expect to cause issues. Still, another link in the chain ruled out.
My next job was to install the new thermostat kit. The Lotus instructions claim that this is simply not possible on an Exige with the clam in place (Elise is doable just about), but based on my experience inside the front maintenance hatch I begged to differ - so took the job on anyway.
All that you need to do is retrieve the old temp probe from the HVAC box, it enters through a rubber grommet and just pulls out:
The new unit comes with a rivet and a 3M sticky pad, I intend to stick mine to the bulkhead as there's plenty of room down there. For now I just lobbed it in, then attached the wiring to the actuator (probably the hardest part of doing it with the clam on) and then connected the thermostat back to the factory wiring. The new temp probe threads in through the same grommet, then is cable tied to a bracket and is poked into the fins of the evaporator. It was pretty easy really, you can either be looking at what you need to do, or be doing it - you can't do both at once so it's lots of fiddling around blind, retrieving your hands and then planning your next move, repeat etc - but all doable.
I'm not too happy with the wiring though, it's all sort of lobbed in and this place is subject to occasional rain water/car wash water. I think I'll retrieve all my new plugs and just grease them up a bit and wrap the lot in bubble wrap or something just to keep the worst off.
With my new Y-Harness in place, I could then attach a 4-foot "diagnostics lead" that I made up and run that to the cockpit.
So now I can see in real time what the actual heater knob and wiring is up to. Happy days!
I've done a quick test run in the garage, and the AC is working a treat with the new thermostat in, but of course the heater flap is behaving so far so haven't been able to test out my rig!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNdtbxUWAxM
I think I've got my first lead thanks to the test rig!
I've not been out in the car yet (rain!) but noticed when I was fidgeting around in the cockpit that if I banged the dashboard the multimeter report from the control wire would fluxuate...
I took this a bit further by popping the control panel off and then gave the wires at the back of the potentiometer a wiggle... et voila.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q23jw-ZDjSs&fe...
I'm pretty sure the voltage shouldn't be fluctuating so much like that. If I stick my phone into the access panel you can see the flap moving too.
https://youtu.be/fQrQc1_seAU?t=32
(this is the flap moving from cold to heat as the wire is fniggled)
This feels like a bit of a slam dunk here. Trying hard to not get excited!
I've taken the potentiometer knob out of the dash (along with the blower position one that it's soldered to) and got it on the bench.
There's a spare heater control panel on eBay currently so that's an option, but it's old and used and I've got no guarantees on it I guess. I imagine the potentiometers are available somewhere for pennies, but so far Google-fu is letting me down on the stamped part number - so more work needed before I can put a fix in.
It may just be the short length of wiring, or the quality of the solder to the board - so removing and refitting might be all it takes but if I can source a new knob I might aswell swap the lot out.
I've not been out in the car yet (rain!) but noticed when I was fidgeting around in the cockpit that if I banged the dashboard the multimeter report from the control wire would fluxuate...
I took this a bit further by popping the control panel off and then gave the wires at the back of the potentiometer a wiggle... et voila.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q23jw-ZDjSs&fe...
I'm pretty sure the voltage shouldn't be fluctuating so much like that. If I stick my phone into the access panel you can see the flap moving too.
https://youtu.be/fQrQc1_seAU?t=32
(this is the flap moving from cold to heat as the wire is fniggled)
This feels like a bit of a slam dunk here. Trying hard to not get excited!
I've taken the potentiometer knob out of the dash (along with the blower position one that it's soldered to) and got it on the bench.
There's a spare heater control panel on eBay currently so that's an option, but it's old and used and I've got no guarantees on it I guess. I imagine the potentiometers are available somewhere for pennies, but so far Google-fu is letting me down on the stamped part number - so more work needed before I can put a fix in.
It may just be the short length of wiring, or the quality of the solder to the board - so removing and refitting might be all it takes but if I can source a new knob I might aswell swap the lot out.
shalmaneser said:
Excellent work chasing down this issue! So satisfying figuring stuff like this out.
It's been a fun process, and a couple more skills added to the collection.Hopefully I've found the issue, was preparing to resolder the pot connections and when taking off the heatshrink I found this...
- disclaimer* there's half a chance that I broke that join myself whilst stripping off the heatshrink... but I'm kinda sure it was already loose inside there. The others are secure and snug but this one just fell straight out as soon as I stripped back the heatshrink.
If anyone knows Neil at Lotus I wouldn't mind a chat about the thoroughness of his testing.
Bit of progress today.
Sucked the old solder out first and removed the wires.
Pretty sure the wires are OK, but I've got some of the same gauge (but no pink, so brown will have to do ... ) so figured I'd swap it out anyway.
Re-soldered t'other end and got some new heatshrink on and we're ready for testing.
The verdict... I can no longer get the voltage to fluctuate when manipulating the new wires or the centre control panel, it sits rock steady at 0.22V (a bit lower than before, so maybe my wire is a different gauge after allops: ) but still within operating tolerance of the flap it seems. Full cold = full cold, full hot = full hot and half way between is half way between!
Needs a good road test before I declare success, but for now the signs are looking good. Will get the front of the car put back together then find an excuse to go for an icy cold drive.
Thanks for those who messaged me so far with troubleshooting tips/advice. Feel free to post in the thread in future so other people can learn from your input too :P
Sucked the old solder out first and removed the wires.
Pretty sure the wires are OK, but I've got some of the same gauge (but no pink, so brown will have to do ... ) so figured I'd swap it out anyway.
Re-soldered t'other end and got some new heatshrink on and we're ready for testing.
The verdict... I can no longer get the voltage to fluctuate when manipulating the new wires or the centre control panel, it sits rock steady at 0.22V (a bit lower than before, so maybe my wire is a different gauge after all
ops: ) but still within operating tolerance of the flap it seems. Full cold = full cold, full hot = full hot and half way between is half way between!Needs a good road test before I declare success, but for now the signs are looking good. Will get the front of the car put back together then find an excuse to go for an icy cold drive.
Thanks for those who messaged me so far with troubleshooting tips/advice. Feel free to post in the thread in future so other people can learn from your input too :P
OK A/C saga not quite done yet...! I've done a few miles this weekend and the flap has behaved impeccably so I think I'm OK to tick off that issue from the list. AC has also performed great too, so I had no reason to suspect further issues until...
Took my OSF arch liner off last night to inspect the post-Blyton scrubbing damage and refit some more roof tape. I found a small trace of oil/fluid on the top side of the arch liner... Initially scaring me to death that I'd sprung another oil cooler leak.
On closer inspection the fluid was definitely "oily" but not engine oil, it was unlikely to be coolant from the CC circuit as I'm running a very weak coolant mix in there so it's more watery than slicky - that could leave only the refrigerant PAG oil stuff from the A/C system.
I fired the car up and had a good poke around, and sure enough it seems I have a very small pin-prick leak in the new AC pipe that was made up over winter. You can just see it slightly bubbling when the compressor is running and weeping out the tiniest bit of oil. Obviously for the sake of the o-zone I won't use AC till I get it sorted.
I'm not too disappointed/shocked about this. Back in Winter we (myself and the mobile AC guy) weren't 100% happy with the pipe because the OEM one had a pressure relief valve in it, and in order to retain that valve we had to knock up a weird half hard/half flexible pipe that didn't fill us with confidence with regards to road vibrations etc.
I think we both expected the pipe to crack or a crimp to fail, not for the flexi part to gain a pinprick leak though
Since doing that, I've been chatting with another local chap who has gone through a similar process trying to replace his AC plumbing but he managed to obtain replacements from Lotus. The replacements came without the pressure relief valve, and after querying with Lotus the response was that the valve was deemed no longer necessary and "new" cars no longer come with it.
That would simplify the replacement considerably as we could just run a flexi pipe all the way, allowing for much neater routing and making room for the CC hoses/oil cooler lines etc to all exist in harmony. So that's the next job for the list, I swear though if this AC keeps causing my headaches it's ALL coming out!
Took my OSF arch liner off last night to inspect the post-Blyton scrubbing damage and refit some more roof tape. I found a small trace of oil/fluid on the top side of the arch liner... Initially scaring me to death that I'd sprung another oil cooler leak.
On closer inspection the fluid was definitely "oily" but not engine oil, it was unlikely to be coolant from the CC circuit as I'm running a very weak coolant mix in there so it's more watery than slicky - that could leave only the refrigerant PAG oil stuff from the A/C system.
I fired the car up and had a good poke around, and sure enough it seems I have a very small pin-prick leak in the new AC pipe that was made up over winter. You can just see it slightly bubbling when the compressor is running and weeping out the tiniest bit of oil. Obviously for the sake of the o-zone I won't use AC till I get it sorted.
I'm not too disappointed/shocked about this. Back in Winter we (myself and the mobile AC guy) weren't 100% happy with the pipe because the OEM one had a pressure relief valve in it, and in order to retain that valve we had to knock up a weird half hard/half flexible pipe that didn't fill us with confidence with regards to road vibrations etc.
I think we both expected the pipe to crack or a crimp to fail, not for the flexi part to gain a pinprick leak though
Since doing that, I've been chatting with another local chap who has gone through a similar process trying to replace his AC plumbing but he managed to obtain replacements from Lotus. The replacements came without the pressure relief valve, and after querying with Lotus the response was that the valve was deemed no longer necessary and "new" cars no longer come with it.That would simplify the replacement considerably as we could just run a flexi pipe all the way, allowing for much neater routing and making room for the CC hoses/oil cooler lines etc to all exist in harmony. So that's the next job for the list, I swear though if this AC keeps causing my headaches it's ALL coming out!
scottos said:
I was just about to say, i commend your efforts as this would have been my overbearing thought after about 1 minute of trying to sort the problem out 
It's one of those things, if you'd have told me back in November that adding a charge cooler would have a secondary cost of close to £500 and 20+ man hours to retain working A/C, I would have made a decision then to remove it all. As it's happened, all of that time/money has been incremental - the odd £50 here and there, the odd hour tinkering - so it's never felt like a big task or expense to keep it working. Also the more time I've spent on it, the more attached I've become to it's functionality. I'd like to think with this pipe replaced that I'll have a robust and reliable system, but there are still a fair few expensive/difficult parts left that could cause me pain. The dryer and evaporator are still original, had them both out of the car and back in during the CC install so maybe in hindsight I should have replaced them both, as neither are expensive. Then we've got the compressor on the engine, and the dreaded sill pipes. The sill pipes I could probably replace myself with flexies based on my experience working in that neck of the woods for CC plumbing, but it would be a lot of work.
One of the reasons I'm keen to put in the matrix bypass is that it should in theory boost the performance of the cold air blowers (without AC), and therefor negate some of the value of having AC in the first place. That might make the decision to remove an easier one.
Bit of non-AC talk for a bit. Woo.
After much deliberation I've gone ahead and booked myself in for the supply, install and mapping of an ECUMaster Black ECU with RRR Engineering.
Plan is to get this installed with a wideband lambda sensor and data logging addon (because I'm a massive geek) and see how my car performs. The goal isn't to go for silly power with this ECU, it's just to give me the visibility and piece of mind that the car is behaving properly - particularly since adding the full exhaust system I'm putting a lot of faith in the factory ECU's ability to adapt and keep things ticking along safely.
The main reason to get one is frankly that I just want one, when I was messing around with Subaru's the cost of entry for standalone ECUs was just astronomical but in recent years there have been some real disruptive products come to market at much lower price points. The EMU Black stood out because I have local mappers that I trust and have known for years that work with them day in day out, and they also happen to produce a legit plug n' play version for the 2ZZ.
I'm going to RRR rather than use my local mapper(s) for the initial install purely because they have the knowledge and experience working with Lotus platformed 2ZZs specifically - so I want to benefit from that experience for the initial mapping session, but knowing I can review any changes and tweaks to my setup in the future locally is a huge bonus.
It's a few weeks away yet, but already finding stuff to geek out on and get a bit excited with.
One of the downsides (if you can call it that) with switching to this ECU and a custom map is that my car will likely make a little more power/torque than it does currently - mainly due to the charge cooler and exhaust additions. I'm running 440cc injectors still which should keep things pegged back a little bit (550's would really untap the potential of my current hardware) but there's a real chance I'll be pushing my gearbox into the danger zone.
A recent thread on exiges.com got me thinking about this properly, I can't plead ignorance - I know the chances of a 3rd/4th or FD failure are going to increase exponentially beyond 260bhp so if/when that failure comes I can't really complain about it. If I get a catastrophic failure I shall just put my hands in my pockets and deal with it, but the big question is whether or not I should be doing anything proactively in the meantime.
Gearbox cooling is something I can look at as an unobtrusive way to maybe buy myself a trackday or two, or if nothing else it's not a sunk investment as it would be utilised for any future rebuilt box etc.
To start with I'd like to get a feel for how hot the gearbox runs whilst on track compared with road mileage, and see what sort of impact stint length has on it etc. I don't want to add another gauge to the interior as I don't want things to get crowded - but the new ECU gives me some alternative options. The plan is to add a temp probe to the drain plug of the gearbox, and wire that into the ECU once it's installed as an aux input.
I picked up an M18x1.5 to 1/8NPT sump plug adaptor which I *think* is the right thread for the gearbox... but won't know for sure until I drop the oil. Speaking of oil, this also arrived today.
This will allow me to log gearbox temps on my next trackday and analyse afterwards, I need to research this more but I may also be able to Bluetooth an ODB reader in too to read it real time.
Depending on what I find will depend on what happens next, I don't really know what temp is to be considered "too high" for this box/oil but if I come to that conclusion I will get an oil cooler rig planned and installed. I know [mention]seriouslylotus[/mention] used to have one listed on his website as a complete kit but it seems to be no longer available, though it shouldn't be hard to put a kit together with an electric pump.
Again something I need to research more, but the new ECU may even be able to start/stop the pump based on the oil temp on the auxiliary input - that would be pretty cool.
After much deliberation I've gone ahead and booked myself in for the supply, install and mapping of an ECUMaster Black ECU with RRR Engineering.
Plan is to get this installed with a wideband lambda sensor and data logging addon (because I'm a massive geek) and see how my car performs. The goal isn't to go for silly power with this ECU, it's just to give me the visibility and piece of mind that the car is behaving properly - particularly since adding the full exhaust system I'm putting a lot of faith in the factory ECU's ability to adapt and keep things ticking along safely.
The main reason to get one is frankly that I just want one, when I was messing around with Subaru's the cost of entry for standalone ECUs was just astronomical but in recent years there have been some real disruptive products come to market at much lower price points. The EMU Black stood out because I have local mappers that I trust and have known for years that work with them day in day out, and they also happen to produce a legit plug n' play version for the 2ZZ.
I'm going to RRR rather than use my local mapper(s) for the initial install purely because they have the knowledge and experience working with Lotus platformed 2ZZs specifically - so I want to benefit from that experience for the initial mapping session, but knowing I can review any changes and tweaks to my setup in the future locally is a huge bonus.
It's a few weeks away yet, but already finding stuff to geek out on and get a bit excited with.
One of the downsides (if you can call it that) with switching to this ECU and a custom map is that my car will likely make a little more power/torque than it does currently - mainly due to the charge cooler and exhaust additions. I'm running 440cc injectors still which should keep things pegged back a little bit (550's would really untap the potential of my current hardware) but there's a real chance I'll be pushing my gearbox into the danger zone.
A recent thread on exiges.com got me thinking about this properly, I can't plead ignorance - I know the chances of a 3rd/4th or FD failure are going to increase exponentially beyond 260bhp so if/when that failure comes I can't really complain about it. If I get a catastrophic failure I shall just put my hands in my pockets and deal with it, but the big question is whether or not I should be doing anything proactively in the meantime.
Gearbox cooling is something I can look at as an unobtrusive way to maybe buy myself a trackday or two, or if nothing else it's not a sunk investment as it would be utilised for any future rebuilt box etc.
To start with I'd like to get a feel for how hot the gearbox runs whilst on track compared with road mileage, and see what sort of impact stint length has on it etc. I don't want to add another gauge to the interior as I don't want things to get crowded - but the new ECU gives me some alternative options. The plan is to add a temp probe to the drain plug of the gearbox, and wire that into the ECU once it's installed as an aux input.
I picked up an M18x1.5 to 1/8NPT sump plug adaptor which I *think* is the right thread for the gearbox... but won't know for sure until I drop the oil. Speaking of oil, this also arrived today.
This will allow me to log gearbox temps on my next trackday and analyse afterwards, I need to research this more but I may also be able to Bluetooth an ODB reader in too to read it real time.
Depending on what I find will depend on what happens next, I don't really know what temp is to be considered "too high" for this box/oil but if I come to that conclusion I will get an oil cooler rig planned and installed. I know [mention]seriouslylotus[/mention] used to have one listed on his website as a complete kit but it seems to be no longer available, though it shouldn't be hard to put a kit together with an electric pump.
Again something I need to research more, but the new ECU may even be able to start/stop the pump based on the oil temp on the auxiliary input - that would be pretty cool.
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