460hp Lotus Exige V6

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Tickle

4,881 posts

203 months

Saturday 7th July 2018
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As always great photos!

Car is looking good too. You not tempted to whip the roof off while over in Spain?


GFWilliams

Original Poster:

4,941 posts

206 months

Saturday 7th July 2018
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Tickle said:
As always great photos!

Car is looking good too. You not tempted to whip the roof off while over in Spain?
I've had the roof off a few times, but during the day it's too hot to have the roof off as I burn to a crisp. The hard to insulates a lot better than the black soft top, plus I think it looks a lot better, which is nice for photos!

Having said that, early in the morning or around sunset time, it's perfect driving a mountain road, or along the coast with the roof off.

I should add, at the moment I have a trackday quiet exhaust on the car, so it's not exactly an inspiring noise. I'm hoping to get a new custom exhaust built in the next month which will be quite unique in the way it sounds biggrin

GFWilliams

Original Poster:

4,941 posts

206 months

Saturday 11th August 2018
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Yesterday my new lights arrived from Greg's Race Parts. I'm super impressed with how good quality these are, easily OEM quality IMO and the functionality is spot on. These are a new version called "GT" lights, which feature a new design, which I absolutely love.

To address the elephant in the room, I used to have a set of lights from T********** and I was extremely disappointed with the quality of the lights. The LEDs failed repeatedly and the last set caused the car to go into limp mode. My new lights aren't even comparable, they really are another level when it comes to quality.



Lights Off:


Side Lights On:


Indicator On:


Reverse On:


A side view last night which shows the shape of them nicely:


For those wondering about spec, I have the European Elise/Exige spec, which is smoked lenses, amber indicators and reverse light.

shirt

22,508 posts

200 months

Saturday 11th August 2018
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They do look great and that wing looks damn fantastic.

I asked for vids on the fb post but that is comprehensive, but how do the brake lights function - running lights just brighter? Also, are those smoked or clear? Just had my elise back panel painted gloss black and those look perfect.

GFWilliams

Original Poster:

4,941 posts

206 months

Saturday 11th August 2018
quotequote all
shirt said:
They do look great and that wing looks damn fantastic.

I asked for vids on the fb post but that is comprehensive, but how do the brake lights function - running lights just brighter? Also, are those smoked or clear? Just had my elise back panel painted gloss black and those look perfect.
The running lights are fairly dim, they're similar to the brightness of the stock lights, so you don't really see them much if it's bright sunlight. As it gets darker they're bright enough to see the car no problem.

The brake lights are much brighter and very clear.

These lights are the smoked lights with amber indicators and white reverse lights.

shirt

22,508 posts

200 months

Saturday 11th August 2018
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But is the brake just the same rings, which go brighter once you apply the brake like, e.g, a mustang?

sc0tt

18,032 posts

200 months

Saturday 11th August 2018
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Stunning car.

The mountain road you speak of is exceptional and only one I have ever felt sick driving up in a hyundai i10. hehe

Enjoy your new home. Jealous.

GFWilliams

Original Poster:

4,941 posts

206 months

Saturday 11th August 2018
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shirt said:
But is the brake just the same rings, which go brighter once you apply the brake like, e.g, a mustang?
Yes, brake lights are all 4 rings lit up brighter. I'm happy with how bright they are. If they weren't bright enough I wouldn't drive the car with them.

shirt

22,508 posts

200 months

Saturday 11th August 2018
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Great, thanks!

Tickle

4,881 posts

203 months

Sunday 12th August 2018
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New lights look good quality, the latest light clusters on the 410 and 430 are a step back in the looks department.

Spoiler looks great to with the colour coded end-plates.

Bright Halo

2,951 posts

234 months

Sunday 12th August 2018
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Spoiler looks spot on with the yellow end plates.

Those rear lights look like some sort of liquid glowing red hot. Superb.

MrVert

4,394 posts

238 months

Monday 13th August 2018
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This has to be the best looking modern Lotus around today...great job OP....looks really special!!!! smokin

GFWilliams

Original Poster:

4,941 posts

206 months

Saturday 1st September 2018
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Time to introduce my new car! It's a Caterham 7 Sigma 150, 6 speed gearbox, LSD, Carbon dash, Shift Lights, 13" Apollo Wheels with ZZS tyres, Wide track suspension with adjustable height dampers.

Some of you may recall that I used to own this actual car and sold it at the beginning of 2017. It came up for sale again and I just had to have it, so thanks to Oracle Finance, a deal is now done and I own it again. I also bought a new plate to match the Exige plate...













So I've been out enjoying the car, already doing a load of miles, just having fun. The car needed a bit of a service, so I've balanced the throttle bodies, replaced the spark plugs, changed the oil, flushed and replaced the coolant, greased things up, and generally got it running really nice.

Plans for the car aren't quite as extreme as with the Lotus, my first priority is to pay off the finance as quick as I can, before I start modifying it.

I guess what people will be interested in is how it compares to the Lotus? The Lotus is quite significantly quicker and also has more grip, but doesn't have as much feel, and it feels a bit numbed down compared to the Caterham. The Caterham isn't that fast, and when you overtake you need so much more space, which takes some getting used to. In reality, the Lotus is better than the Caterham in almost every way, but somehow the little Caterham wins on fun factor, with a brilliant feeling of steering from the rear as you accelerate out of corners. I think the Caterham will be even better for some setup work, it's following the bumps in the road a lot more than I feel it should.

One thing I did to the Caterham straight away was add the "JustAddLightness" LED rear lights. I feel being seen in a Caterham is challenging at the best of times, so adding this helps with that and hopefully reduces the chances of someone driving into the back of me. I had a bad experience where someone in an Audi nearly smashed into the back of me on the A3 and decided to order them straight away.

GFWilliams

Original Poster:

4,941 posts

206 months

Saturday 13th October 2018
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Time for a bit of a post trackday report...

It was at Abingdon which is an airfield near Oxford. The track is laid out using cones, and is a fairly fun layout, although a bit "safe and easy" compared to a "proper track" like Brands or Silverstone. Due to the very changeable weather, the track in the morning was changing almost every lap. I decided to drive the Caterham for most of the day and then do a couple of sessions in the afternoon in the Lotus when it was due to dry up.

I'll first report on the Caterham. In the wet, the car is quite twitchy, which makes it quite exciting to drive. I think it's too twitchy though as it doesn't really inspire confidence. The car needs some setup work which DPR Racing will do at some stage before it next goes on track. In the morning, the Caterham was comfortably the fastest car on track, although this was quite a lot due to me and my mate not being afraid to push on in wet conditions. The car has a slight misfire issue due to the spark plugs (I think) and felt a tiny bit down on power compared to usual, but just felt quite slow on the straights. It's actually pretty frustrating on a trackday when you don't have the power to easily get past people, but can corner so much quicker. In the afternoon, the track dried out and we did a couple of sessions in the Caterham and it was like a totally different car. The level of grip was super impressive and it was very well stuck. No sliding about and inspired a lot of confidence, but was a much more similar pace to a load of other cars on track in the dry.

I then decided to do a few sessions in the Lotus. Now I knew that the Lotus would be faster, but I didn't realise quite how much faster... After driving the Caterham all day up to that point, I had to really re learn how to drive the Lotus on track as it really requires a different driving style. To start with, it's carrying an extra 10-15mph into almost all the corners, so you need to scrub off a lot more speed. Baring in mind the straights aren't very long at the track, that's a big difference! Then the car requires a very different braking technique. In the Caterham I was braking in a straight line, then coming off the brakes to get it turned in. In the Lotus I needed to brake hard to begin with, then ease them off right upto the apex of the corner before getting onto the power. I'm normally pretty comfortable in the Lotus, but it took me a bit of time to get used to this again. I think also that my Nankang NS2-Rs front tyres have gone off a bit as the car didn't seem to turn in as well as usual. Having said all those excuses, the car was just crazy how capable it is. I was passing all the other cars as if they were standing still. In fact, on a few occasions I found myself approaching other cars so quick it nearly caught me out as the speed difference was massive. Que a bit of a telling off from the Marshalls... Strange getting a telling off that's not about drifting!

Overall, it was a really enjoyable day, although in future I know it's pointless bringing the Exige on airfield days. I'll stick to Caterham on little tracks, and Exige on the big, proper, tracks! Really happy with the noise testing on the Exige coming out at 90db, that means I can book trackdays next year at almost any track without worries. I now have the debate of which tyres I should run at Silverstone next month. I think Michelin Cup 2s are my favourite tyre I've run so far.


Podie

46,630 posts

274 months

Saturday 13th October 2018
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Lovely, just lovely cloud9

OzzyR1

5,701 posts

231 months

Monday 15th October 2018
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Somehow managed not to see this thread before, what a beautiful car, the interior changes have completely transformed it from the original.

Photography just stunning.

DanG355

526 posts

200 months

Monday 15th October 2018
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Just read this thread from start to finish - what a great project!

OEM+ feel to the car and improved in every area. The interior is very well thought out and it’s the little touches together that make it great.

I’d love to do something similar to a Cayman S of around 2005-2007 at some point - I’m a little large for an Elise plus I’ve got a 986 at the moment and learnt lots about Porsche from working on that plus it would be cheaper to purchase and easier to work on myself than an Elise based car (from what I have seen by Elise owners on Readers Cars threads).

Great work OP.

Turbojuice

598 posts

88 months

Tuesday 16th October 2018
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Absolutely stunning car. Always been a big fan of Lotus cars and it's great to see that you're really enjoying that yellow beast and using it as it was supposed to be used! biggrin

I've got to say as well that your photography skills are something else. As someone who hasn't long been trying photography it would be great if you could share some tips on how you get such incredible shots, though i can imagine it's probably just a case of trial and error.

Smitters

3,995 posts

156 months

Wednesday 17th October 2018
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GFWilliams said:
It's been a while, time for a little update!

Lets start with the interior, here is a photo of how it was when I bought the car:


The finished interior is so much nicer, and having a little (removable) subwoofer hidden in the passenger footwell has meant that the car is much more tolerable on long journeys.
Just dipping back in to very belatedly say bravo. It seems like your view of how an interior should be on such a car matches mine. I have an S1 and my intention is to keep it for a long time, so although I can't romp through the jobs, I intend on making the interior the place it could and should have been. An example is the delightful Vauxhall indicator stalks - nothing fundamentally wrong with the way they work, but they could look so much better, so I intend on making my own carbon arms and, because mines yellow, inscribing and infilling the icons in yellow. It'll be a work in progress but images like this are motivational.

stew-STR160

8,006 posts

237 months

Wednesday 17th October 2018
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Damn the photography here is insanely good! I already love the Exige shape, but my word, the scenery, the lighting, everything...just beautiful.