Back in a Lotus - 2006 Exige S
Discussion
Rick101 said:
I'm sure you'll see an improvement with harnesses. Superb for track, s
te on the road. Keep the inertia belts in.
Hope so, and yes I can quickly see them becoming annoying on the road!te on the road. Keep the inertia belts in.My concern with the "coexistence" kit is that it just involves longer bolts into what's already a pretty laughable fixing for such an important safety device... So I may end up simply adding/removing the harness hardware on demand as it's only a 5min job.
Fonzey said:
Hope so, and yes I can quickly see them becoming annoying on the road!
My concern with the "coexistence" kit is that it just involves longer bolts into what's already a pretty laughable fixing for such an important safety device... So I may end up simply adding/removing the harness hardware on demand as it's only a 5min job.
I used both in my old Elise, harnesses everyday looked cool but were a blag. Great when taking the nephew out, though. My concern with the "coexistence" kit is that it just involves longer bolts into what's already a pretty laughable fixing for such an important safety device... So I may end up simply adding/removing the harness hardware on demand as it's only a 5min job.
TRACKDAY UPDATE
Well both the car and myself survived, so the day can only be classified as a success!
There were some niggles however, so i'll go through the day in roughly chronological order and outline my plans afterwards.
Weather was heavy fog when I woke up, so it was a slow trundle to Blyton. I misjudged the journey and arrived far too early, but no harm done. A few miles from Blyton I came to a temporary traffic light for some construction, I had my first "on boost" pull of the day as the light went green and felt the car was maybe a little flat... nothing too drastic, but something niggled in the back of my head to say that wasn't as fast as it should be.
The fog was so thick at the circuit you couldn't see the track from the pits, so was expecting a delayed start but there was a miracle turnaround during the briefing and it was bright sun from that point forward. Happy days.
Approx. 35 cars booked on for the day so the circuit was quiet for most of it. I've attended a load of LoT days now so I'm fairly used to the usual audience, but special shout-out to SeriouslyDave and his 311 - absolute monster and had some real presence about it. Wish I got some pictures, but I'm sure we'll meet again...
I got on track for my first 'hot' session soon after the sighting laps and had a steady run around. My mind kept imagining this flat spot at around 6k rpm, not enough for me to jerk forward like with a proper misfire and not enough for my passenger(s) to notice, but I couldn't shake the feeling I was missing a bit of response.
After a couple of sessions I was just checking over fluid levels etc and I noticed an intercooler hose join was ever so slightly on an angle and not flush to the supercharger. I straightened this up and this brought the car back to life! The car felt much sharper and I was almost 10mph quicker coming into the bigger braking zones than I was before! In fact this change combined with dropping a passenger meant I was just rubbing the limiter in 4th at the end of the Lancaster straight, I've never been over 4th gear in any car around Blyton and I'm tantalisingly close in this!
Spot the difference
Mid morning I had my first and only real drama, I noticed the ABS light come on after a warm up lap so came straight back in to "reboot" the car and check for codes. Nothing shown, I went back out and decided to check the brakes with a bit of anger. Sure enough, a lap later I had a massive lockup going into the penultimate turn which luckily has the "Eastern Circuit" as a run-off zone, and I was well into that alternate layout before the car slowed down! In addition to this, the T/C kept kicking in with the car doing about 30mph in a straight line... problem.
Sheepishly coming back into the pits, feeling the eyes of every S1 ABS-less car burning into me we had a quick look around the car and it took a friend 30seconds to identify the problem.
The wheel speed sensor wiring had escaped its p-clips and the front nearside wheel had burned right through it. Thanks to Deggles' Jack and 3M tape this was bodged in a few minutes and was back on track without drama for the rest of the day.
As I started pushing on a bit, I was starting to become a little concerned with the brakes. I wasn't getting fade in my relatively short sessions, but they were just very inconsistent. Sometimes I was pulling up too soon, other times barely making the corner and in general they didn't feel great or confidence inspiring. I have a couple of theories, and will be exploring both.
1. With the harness in, I can't get my seating position right. Either my legs are comfortable or my arms are, not both. I feel like with my arms at the appropriate distance that my legs are too bunched up and I have real problems catching my knees/thighes on the steering shroud or the wheel itself. This had an impact on my braking because over the last few years I've bullied myself into rev matching on downshifts and I actually felt it was fairly adequate on my Elise. I told myself soon into the trackday at Blyton that I should just stop trying as it was messing up my braking all the time, but it's a difficult habit to shake.
2. The insides of my brake discs were very corroded when I bought the car. I cleaned them up a bit with wet/dry and I hoped/assumed a couple of trackday sessions would clean them up the rest of the way. It turns out, it didn't - and they still look pretty borked on the inside. Whether this would explain my issues or not, who knows - but there must certainly be room for improvement.
This is them when I first got the car...
And after the events of Saturday...
I was following a good friend in his ~240bhp VX220 Turbo and he has a pretty sorted brake setup with AP 4 pots and some 308mm floating discs and it really drove it home when I saw him comfortably braking way later than I was (and I was then only just making the apex!)
I didn't let it fluster me too much, I just made a much more conservative approach to braking for the rest of the day and concentrated on other areas - still had an absolute blast and gives me good room for improvement.
After the IC Hose fix the car pulled like a train all day long. There are lots of Exige S complaints about the factory intercooler positioning and airflow leading to massive heat soak and subsequently loss of power on track. Some stories of NA cars easily pulling away from an SC car after a couple of laps... hyperbole or not I'm not sure. My butt dyno didn't feel this happening but I was prepared for it, and as such I spent the day "logging" intake temps via my ODB reader. This will form an experiment that I'll be tickling away at over the summer, to give me something to do and maybe even make some performance improvements for not a lot of wonga.
You can see the temps here over a session, they don't get much higher during a session - but this could be because the IC is already heatsoaked. On the road tests I did prior to the trackday I struggled to get the IC temps above 40 degrees. The non-scientific touch test of the hot side and cool side of the intercooler suggested that the temp drop between each side is minimal, compared to the anecdotal evidence of my Subaru setup some years ago.
A few friends had asked on how I was missing the adjustable shocks that my Elise had. Honestly I'd not thought too much about it until they asked, but in hindsight I certainly felt the car was a little bit wayward through the fast Port Froid section compared to the Elise. I think I was maybe a touch slower through there in the Exige but more because the stiffer shocks feign confidence rather than provide extra grip, I think.
I had been running the car up till about 2pm with the traction control on, mainly because I wanted to lean on it and figure out where it was kicking in first before taking liberties without it. I found it kicking in a lot to be honest, it didn't feel too disruptive at first but because of how often I had it flashing away I was increasingly nervous of switching it off! Eventually after brave pill and a good talking to myself it came off... and the car was bloody brilliant.
I discovered the car had tonnes of grip and although switching the TC off probably slowed me down a bit, I think it's raised my ceiling considerably for improvement. Where the TC was previously kicking in, I was now getting just enough rotation at the rear to push me round and as a result I was understeering less. This is the single biggest difference between the Elise and Exige, as the Elise just didn't have the torque to achieve this. I think with a full day without TC I could honestly knock chunks of time off, and on the few occasions that the rear did let go, it was dead easy to collect it without dropping any momentum. The car still spins the inside wheel like the Elise did, but just more often. I think this is what engaged the TC more often than not.
The only other glitch of the day is that I seemed to have recorded most of my sessions in timelapse mode rather than video recording! I got the final clear session in whilst I was in smooth mode which is good, but I'm a bit disapointed I didn't get the huge lockup or my many half-moments that got rescued by the TC earlier in the day!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1nRQ3C68MI
The ride home was a bit butt clenching as a good friend had a clutch failure on his S1 Exige which we had managed to just about bodge (was a fluid leak) and get him rolling so I said I'd follow him home in case he got stuck. Problem is, my fuel level was critical and there's no way we wanted to risk Les pulling into a service station and putting unnecessary gear changes into the mix! So I hypermiled it about 20miles on the red light (which is a bloody lottery on these cars) and once we got to the M180 services I decided Les was bound to make it home, so I peeled off for a drop of fuel... which is all I could afford @ £1.52/litre!
Car home safe, I've had a quick post day inspection and can confirm that:
1) My Sump isn't leaking. YAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY, so relieved that it doesn't have to come off again.
2) Inside of my brake discs are (still) knackered.
Oh, and I fixed the ABS wiring properly.
So my immediate plans are:
1) Get the discs swapped, not sure what to yet. Some tempting options to go larger and space out the front caliper for some more stopping power or just save money, go OEM and compare.
- OEM Cheapest (£250ish for a full set)
- Budget Lightweight with Alloy Bells but OEM Size (£500ish for a full set)
- 295mm with alloy bells up front and 288mm rear (£900ish for a full set)
- 308mm with alloy bells up front and 288mm rear, allows for a maybe later addition of AP 4 pot calipers (£millions)
2) Look into options for either extending steering wheel reach (or reducing the reach, rather) to allow my legs to be comfortable. Either putting a spacer on the OEM wheel or going aftermarket, need to try some out.
3) Start sciencing with my intake temp data.
Well both the car and myself survived, so the day can only be classified as a success!
There were some niggles however, so i'll go through the day in roughly chronological order and outline my plans afterwards.
Weather was heavy fog when I woke up, so it was a slow trundle to Blyton. I misjudged the journey and arrived far too early, but no harm done. A few miles from Blyton I came to a temporary traffic light for some construction, I had my first "on boost" pull of the day as the light went green and felt the car was maybe a little flat... nothing too drastic, but something niggled in the back of my head to say that wasn't as fast as it should be.
The fog was so thick at the circuit you couldn't see the track from the pits, so was expecting a delayed start but there was a miracle turnaround during the briefing and it was bright sun from that point forward. Happy days.
Approx. 35 cars booked on for the day so the circuit was quiet for most of it. I've attended a load of LoT days now so I'm fairly used to the usual audience, but special shout-out to SeriouslyDave and his 311 - absolute monster and had some real presence about it. Wish I got some pictures, but I'm sure we'll meet again...
I got on track for my first 'hot' session soon after the sighting laps and had a steady run around. My mind kept imagining this flat spot at around 6k rpm, not enough for me to jerk forward like with a proper misfire and not enough for my passenger(s) to notice, but I couldn't shake the feeling I was missing a bit of response.
After a couple of sessions I was just checking over fluid levels etc and I noticed an intercooler hose join was ever so slightly on an angle and not flush to the supercharger. I straightened this up and this brought the car back to life! The car felt much sharper and I was almost 10mph quicker coming into the bigger braking zones than I was before! In fact this change combined with dropping a passenger meant I was just rubbing the limiter in 4th at the end of the Lancaster straight, I've never been over 4th gear in any car around Blyton and I'm tantalisingly close in this!
Spot the difference
Mid morning I had my first and only real drama, I noticed the ABS light come on after a warm up lap so came straight back in to "reboot" the car and check for codes. Nothing shown, I went back out and decided to check the brakes with a bit of anger. Sure enough, a lap later I had a massive lockup going into the penultimate turn which luckily has the "Eastern Circuit" as a run-off zone, and I was well into that alternate layout before the car slowed down! In addition to this, the T/C kept kicking in with the car doing about 30mph in a straight line... problem.
Sheepishly coming back into the pits, feeling the eyes of every S1 ABS-less car burning into me we had a quick look around the car and it took a friend 30seconds to identify the problem.
The wheel speed sensor wiring had escaped its p-clips and the front nearside wheel had burned right through it. Thanks to Deggles' Jack and 3M tape this was bodged in a few minutes and was back on track without drama for the rest of the day.
As I started pushing on a bit, I was starting to become a little concerned with the brakes. I wasn't getting fade in my relatively short sessions, but they were just very inconsistent. Sometimes I was pulling up too soon, other times barely making the corner and in general they didn't feel great or confidence inspiring. I have a couple of theories, and will be exploring both.
1. With the harness in, I can't get my seating position right. Either my legs are comfortable or my arms are, not both. I feel like with my arms at the appropriate distance that my legs are too bunched up and I have real problems catching my knees/thighes on the steering shroud or the wheel itself. This had an impact on my braking because over the last few years I've bullied myself into rev matching on downshifts and I actually felt it was fairly adequate on my Elise. I told myself soon into the trackday at Blyton that I should just stop trying as it was messing up my braking all the time, but it's a difficult habit to shake.
2. The insides of my brake discs were very corroded when I bought the car. I cleaned them up a bit with wet/dry and I hoped/assumed a couple of trackday sessions would clean them up the rest of the way. It turns out, it didn't - and they still look pretty borked on the inside. Whether this would explain my issues or not, who knows - but there must certainly be room for improvement.
This is them when I first got the car...
And after the events of Saturday...
I was following a good friend in his ~240bhp VX220 Turbo and he has a pretty sorted brake setup with AP 4 pots and some 308mm floating discs and it really drove it home when I saw him comfortably braking way later than I was (and I was then only just making the apex!)
I didn't let it fluster me too much, I just made a much more conservative approach to braking for the rest of the day and concentrated on other areas - still had an absolute blast and gives me good room for improvement.
After the IC Hose fix the car pulled like a train all day long. There are lots of Exige S complaints about the factory intercooler positioning and airflow leading to massive heat soak and subsequently loss of power on track. Some stories of NA cars easily pulling away from an SC car after a couple of laps... hyperbole or not I'm not sure. My butt dyno didn't feel this happening but I was prepared for it, and as such I spent the day "logging" intake temps via my ODB reader. This will form an experiment that I'll be tickling away at over the summer, to give me something to do and maybe even make some performance improvements for not a lot of wonga.
You can see the temps here over a session, they don't get much higher during a session - but this could be because the IC is already heatsoaked. On the road tests I did prior to the trackday I struggled to get the IC temps above 40 degrees. The non-scientific touch test of the hot side and cool side of the intercooler suggested that the temp drop between each side is minimal, compared to the anecdotal evidence of my Subaru setup some years ago.
A few friends had asked on how I was missing the adjustable shocks that my Elise had. Honestly I'd not thought too much about it until they asked, but in hindsight I certainly felt the car was a little bit wayward through the fast Port Froid section compared to the Elise. I think I was maybe a touch slower through there in the Exige but more because the stiffer shocks feign confidence rather than provide extra grip, I think.
I had been running the car up till about 2pm with the traction control on, mainly because I wanted to lean on it and figure out where it was kicking in first before taking liberties without it. I found it kicking in a lot to be honest, it didn't feel too disruptive at first but because of how often I had it flashing away I was increasingly nervous of switching it off! Eventually after brave pill and a good talking to myself it came off... and the car was bloody brilliant.
I discovered the car had tonnes of grip and although switching the TC off probably slowed me down a bit, I think it's raised my ceiling considerably for improvement. Where the TC was previously kicking in, I was now getting just enough rotation at the rear to push me round and as a result I was understeering less. This is the single biggest difference between the Elise and Exige, as the Elise just didn't have the torque to achieve this. I think with a full day without TC I could honestly knock chunks of time off, and on the few occasions that the rear did let go, it was dead easy to collect it without dropping any momentum. The car still spins the inside wheel like the Elise did, but just more often. I think this is what engaged the TC more often than not.
The only other glitch of the day is that I seemed to have recorded most of my sessions in timelapse mode rather than video recording! I got the final clear session in whilst I was in smooth mode which is good, but I'm a bit disapointed I didn't get the huge lockup or my many half-moments that got rescued by the TC earlier in the day!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1nRQ3C68MI
The ride home was a bit butt clenching as a good friend had a clutch failure on his S1 Exige which we had managed to just about bodge (was a fluid leak) and get him rolling so I said I'd follow him home in case he got stuck. Problem is, my fuel level was critical and there's no way we wanted to risk Les pulling into a service station and putting unnecessary gear changes into the mix! So I hypermiled it about 20miles on the red light (which is a bloody lottery on these cars) and once we got to the M180 services I decided Les was bound to make it home, so I peeled off for a drop of fuel... which is all I could afford @ £1.52/litre!
Car home safe, I've had a quick post day inspection and can confirm that:
1) My Sump isn't leaking. YAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY, so relieved that it doesn't have to come off again.
2) Inside of my brake discs are (still) knackered.
Oh, and I fixed the ABS wiring properly.
So my immediate plans are:
1) Get the discs swapped, not sure what to yet. Some tempting options to go larger and space out the front caliper for some more stopping power or just save money, go OEM and compare.
- OEM Cheapest (£250ish for a full set)
- Budget Lightweight with Alloy Bells but OEM Size (£500ish for a full set)
- 295mm with alloy bells up front and 288mm rear (£900ish for a full set)
- 308mm with alloy bells up front and 288mm rear, allows for a maybe later addition of AP 4 pot calipers (£millions)
2) Look into options for either extending steering wheel reach (or reducing the reach, rather) to allow my legs to be comfortable. Either putting a spacer on the OEM wheel or going aftermarket, need to try some out.
3) Start sciencing with my intake temp data.
Very nice write up Fonz, I enjoyed reading it. That looks like a hell of a lot of fun!
I’m sure that new front discs will improve the braking no end as the present ones look a tadge borked.
I don’t mean to teach my Granny/eggs but I’m just passing on advice given to me by a few respected mechanics about new discs and pads. It was to bed them in reasonably carefully at first to ensure they can perform at their peak after they have a few miles on them. Maybe they just thought I drive like a chav.
I’m sure that new front discs will improve the braking no end as the present ones look a tadge borked.
I don’t mean to teach my Granny/eggs but I’m just passing on advice given to me by a few respected mechanics about new discs and pads. It was to bed them in reasonably carefully at first to ensure they can perform at their peak after they have a few miles on them. Maybe they just thought I drive like a chav.
Great write up and interesting seeing the mods you're doing to the car!
Re the rear brakes - are the twin pistons or sliders? Are the sliders free as well as the pistons if so? It certainly doesn't look like they're working properly.
Have you thought about getting an IR camera for logging intake temps:
https://www.flir.co.uk/products/flir-one-gen-3/?pi...
Fairly spendy but a good tool to have around the house generally and a fun toy to play with on trackdays (tyre temps for example) and for DIY jobs.
Looking forward to your findings!
Re the rear brakes - are the twin pistons or sliders? Are the sliders free as well as the pistons if so? It certainly doesn't look like they're working properly.
Have you thought about getting an IR camera for logging intake temps:
https://www.flir.co.uk/products/flir-one-gen-3/?pi...
Fairly spendy but a good tool to have around the house generally and a fun toy to play with on trackdays (tyre temps for example) and for DIY jobs.
Looking forward to your findings!
Unbusy said:
Very nice write up Fonz, I enjoyed reading it. That looks like a hell of a lot of fun!
I’m sure that new front discs will improve the braking no end as the present ones look a tadge borked.
I don’t mean to teach my Granny/eggs but I’m just passing on advice given to me by a few respected mechanics about new discs and pads. It was to bed them in reasonably carefully at first to ensure they can perform at their peak after they have a few miles on them. Maybe they just thought I drive like a chav.
Thanks! I enjoy writing these (and reading them back later). Yep Pagid have a pretty good bedding in process somewhere which I always somewhat follow.I’m sure that new front discs will improve the braking no end as the present ones look a tadge borked.
I don’t mean to teach my Granny/eggs but I’m just passing on advice given to me by a few respected mechanics about new discs and pads. It was to bed them in reasonably carefully at first to ensure they can perform at their peak after they have a few miles on them. Maybe they just thought I drive like a chav.
The Crack Fox said:
Great car, and the honest and accurate write-up is appreciated. 
As above, glad you're enjoying it!shalmaneser said:
Great write up and interesting seeing the mods you're doing to the car!
Re the rear brakes - are the twin pistons or sliders? Are the sliders free as well as the pistons if so? It certainly doesn't look like they're working properly.
Have you thought about getting an IR camera for logging intake temps:
https://www.flir.co.uk/products/flir-one-gen-3/?pi...
Fairly spendy but a good tool to have around the house generally and a fun toy to play with on trackdays (tyre temps for example) and for DIY jobs.
Looking forward to your findings!
It's actually the front brakes that are worse which are 2-pot, but the rears are indeed sliders. After getting the car I checked caliper/piston movement rather early after seeing the inside of the discs and all seems well, I think the discs are just rotten through the material, probably after spending so much time between mileage in its' previous life.Re the rear brakes - are the twin pistons or sliders? Are the sliders free as well as the pistons if so? It certainly doesn't look like they're working properly.
Have you thought about getting an IR camera for logging intake temps:
https://www.flir.co.uk/products/flir-one-gen-3/?pi...
Fairly spendy but a good tool to have around the house generally and a fun toy to play with on trackdays (tyre temps for example) and for DIY jobs.
Looking forward to your findings!
I'm not quite hard core enough for an IR camera, but I do have one of those IR thermometer gun things that I really need to remember to take to my next trackday...!
Darryl H said:
Great write up Kyle.
All those little niggles help us know things have improved on the next track day
Looks like it was a great day and the car looks so at home!
Absolutely, I can handle niggles and it gives me something to progress with. The car was pretty untested really, very few miles over its life and a fairly sheltered up bringing too so I was a little nervous about giving it a pounding on track. All those little niggles help us know things have improved on the next track day
Looks like it was a great day and the car looks so at home!johnwilliams77 said:
Very enjoyable to read - thanks.
Glad you're enjoying!Small update for today, after much back and forth I've made a decision on my brake discs and I've gone cheap with OEM standard... or should I say, marginally better than OEM.
I had a good talk with two different independent specialists, and I'd rounded my options down to either:
a) OEM standard
b) Entry level OEM friction material with new machined bells
The cost of b) is double that of a), and I talked to a vendor that makes and sells both options under their own brand. I got a very honest response in that option b) would look nicer and would be marginally lighter, but ultimately would not provide any more stopping power than option a). If I stepped my budget up to big-boy floating bell setups then that's a different story, but I think that's a job for another day. Track season is still young, and I need to allow funds for other stuff to crop up throughout the year!
I slept on it, still kinda fancied the bling factor of option b) but eventually went with my head and got some OEM standard disks from SeriouslyLotus... however they are a slight improvement over the Lotus factory options as the cooling vanes are actually 'handed' unlike the Lotus ones which go round the same way on each corner... so should have a fractional cooling benefit I guess. If I later decide to go big-boy then at least I'm not sinking too much outlay this time around.
Getting rid of the rusted/pitted ones is going to be ace regardless, so looking forward to getting these bedded in.
A quick update:
I commented that my harness had compromised my seating position in that my legs felt too long when the steering wheel was at the appropriate distance, and that my knees often caught the wheel/shroud.
Solution at first appeared to be an aftermarket wheel that I could bring a bit closer with an aftermarket boss, but after checking through the options I found something that may give me a good reference point for change and is quite a bit cheaper than a new wheel...
It's an adaptor ring intended for a Lotus Motorsport wheel/boss kit, but by drilling out the threads in some of the holes and using longer bolts I can also use it to simply bring the wheel 30mm closer to me. So that's what I've done:
Before:
After:
In terms of the other cockpit ergonomics like stalks, 30mm seems to be about as much as you would want to go. Other people have gone even further by stacking this adaptor with a removable boss but at that point using your indicators/wipers is going to be pretty annoying.
I can now move the seat back to maximum clicks and still have a nice bend in my arms when resting them on top of the wheel, and knees are now well clear... so it's looking like a positive start.
If this is too close to me, I know all I need to do is sort/fabricate a thinner adaptor and if this is still too far away - I have options with aftermarket wheels and running with a slight dish etc.... so this is a good place to start.
I commented that my harness had compromised my seating position in that my legs felt too long when the steering wheel was at the appropriate distance, and that my knees often caught the wheel/shroud.
Solution at first appeared to be an aftermarket wheel that I could bring a bit closer with an aftermarket boss, but after checking through the options I found something that may give me a good reference point for change and is quite a bit cheaper than a new wheel...
It's an adaptor ring intended for a Lotus Motorsport wheel/boss kit, but by drilling out the threads in some of the holes and using longer bolts I can also use it to simply bring the wheel 30mm closer to me. So that's what I've done:
Before:
After:
In terms of the other cockpit ergonomics like stalks, 30mm seems to be about as much as you would want to go. Other people have gone even further by stacking this adaptor with a removable boss but at that point using your indicators/wipers is going to be pretty annoying.
I can now move the seat back to maximum clicks and still have a nice bend in my arms when resting them on top of the wheel, and knees are now well clear... so it's looking like a positive start.
If this is too close to me, I know all I need to do is sort/fabricate a thinner adaptor and if this is still too far away - I have options with aftermarket wheels and running with a slight dish etc.... so this is a good place to start.
Quick update as I got some new brake discs from Seriously Lotus last week.
As previously mentioned I was talked down from something a little more gucci and I'm happy with the decision. These are slightly better than OEM in that they actually have directional vanes now (Lotus shipped with all four discs orientated the same way, so in theory worse cooling on one side of the car than the other) and the hubs and vanes are painted on these ones which should keep the grott at bay for a short while.
As a reminder, this is why I'm replacing.
Inside of my front discs both looked like this shortly after I collected the car:
I did make attempts to clean them up with a sander and a drill to countersink the holes a bit, but no dice. Not even a day of Blyton got them cleaned up and this is how they looked after the day:
Inspection of the inside pads show that I've lost a lot of meat, and wasn't getting much/any pad transfer on the inside. I had to take even more meat back off the pads with a sander to make sure that they don't just muck up the new discs too so by delaying this I've easily cost myself a premature set of front pads, though the current ones should be good for the next couple of trackdays... I hope.
Discs on without drama, and set about doing some Pagid approved bedding in. Pad transfer seems even so far and the brakes are feeling pretty good, I need to jack the car up and make sure I'm getting some good transfer on the insides too just in the event that I'm not getting enough pressure on the inside pistons (they feel free enough by hand, so hopefully not).
As previously mentioned I was talked down from something a little more gucci and I'm happy with the decision. These are slightly better than OEM in that they actually have directional vanes now (Lotus shipped with all four discs orientated the same way, so in theory worse cooling on one side of the car than the other) and the hubs and vanes are painted on these ones which should keep the grott at bay for a short while.
As a reminder, this is why I'm replacing.
Inside of my front discs both looked like this shortly after I collected the car:
I did make attempts to clean them up with a sander and a drill to countersink the holes a bit, but no dice. Not even a day of Blyton got them cleaned up and this is how they looked after the day:
Inspection of the inside pads show that I've lost a lot of meat, and wasn't getting much/any pad transfer on the inside. I had to take even more meat back off the pads with a sander to make sure that they don't just muck up the new discs too so by delaying this I've easily cost myself a premature set of front pads, though the current ones should be good for the next couple of trackdays... I hope.
Discs on without drama, and set about doing some Pagid approved bedding in. Pad transfer seems even so far and the brakes are feeling pretty good, I need to jack the car up and make sure I'm getting some good transfer on the insides too just in the event that I'm not getting enough pressure on the inside pistons (they feel free enough by hand, so hopefully not).
Couple of small updates.
I might get my sequencing of events a bit wrong as it's been a few weeks.
First up, my car went back to the paint shop which originally prepared the car for sale. I'd noticed a couple of small bubbles in the paint pop up on the rear quarter. These aren't/weren't similar to the water ingress/osmosis bubbles that I've seen before on many fibreglass cars but seemed to be some contamination in the top or base coats. This was all covered under warrant considering the paintwork on that area of the car was only a few months old.
After collecting the car I had a weekend away with the Missus and we went up to Whitby in the Lotus. My Wife is about half way through a 9 month project of her own so was less enthusiastic about going in the Exige initially but as the weather came round the occasion got the better of her so off we went!
It turns out the boot aperture is slightly smaller on the Exige than it was on the Elise...
The Sunday of our trip was the day of the annual Easter Sunday Malton car meet facilitated by Specialist Cars in Malton. I try to do this every year, even though it's much of the same it's an excuse to catch up with friends and get hyped for the summer season of car related stuff. This year was unique in that I got to set off from Whitby in the early hours and enjoy some of the best roads in Yorkshire with zero traffic. It was bloody amazing, and easily the best road experience I've had in a car to date.
I won't say what my average speed was, but I was able to maintain it for probably 85% of the journey from leaving Whitby to hitting Pickering. Long, flowing and well sighted bends all the way along with some fantastic views.
Over this weekend my brakes got noisier and noisier up front, just chattering around in the calipers is a fairly standard arrangement for these cars but it was just getting worse and worse. I made a note to stick some extra anti-rattle buffers in when I got home. I also documented some irritating rattle coming from behind the passenger seat.
The following week it was the monthly NYLOC meet near York, so went up to that and managed to get the front of the car fairly well blasted by stonechips courtesy of the 'road dressing' that the council insist on putting down every year or so. It could have been worse, no broken glass/lights/etc and the chips I got were fairly easily blended in with my Chipex kit - but certainly a shame nonetheless. I always feel a bit more relaxed though after getting my first wave of stonechips, it seems the fear of getting them is greater than the feeling of actually having a stonechipped front end!!
It was particularly annoying as I had the car booked in at the end of April for a correction detail with a friend Dave at https://www.facebook.com/dtaylorcarcare/
In previous years I've generally used one of the May/Spring bank holiday weekends to do this myself on a new car - but this year I really couldn't be bothered. I would need to stock up on pads/product and then spend a long weekend doing it, so decided to outsource it. I'm glad I did
Dave did a really good job, will post some pictures in the next few days as I need to get the car out in the daylight for some proper shots. Obviously the car was clean most of the time anyway, but under the harsh garage lighting there were a couple of swirls that Dave sorted out - and the front end was a little bit messy with overspray from previous repairs (I guess) which has clayed up a treat.
Finally back round to the brakes, I had a look and decided that I was going to put some new pads in anyway. As an ongoing effect of my rusty brake discs at Blyton I think I'd also ruined a perfectly good set of pads. These are identical brand/model pads and the previous ones I would say were 75% "full" before Blyton, so the discs have certainly took their toll and I'd have to manually remove even more material to get them cleaned up properly. With a France trip and a couple of trackdays on the horizon I just decided to lob some new pads in now and keep these for emergency "get me home" pads in the toolkit.
Last job was to identify/fix the rattle and also took the opportunity to remove the inertia belt reel from the driver side as the 4point harness has grown on me, and I can see me tolerating the lack of seatbelt for the foreseeable future.
Bulkhead trim out and identified a Cobra branded component rattling around with a spent stickypad on the back. I restuck this to the bulkhead where it should go which happily cured the rattle. I put the bulkhead trim back in with some good bits of foam strip and used proper rivets on the speaker holders rather than the crappy plastic things which has cured a whole bunch of squeeks and rattles (for now), car is actually rather quiet now!
More updates to come, arguing with Yodel about the non-arrival of some parts and a few more tidy up jobs to do before France, and maybe another trackday.
I might get my sequencing of events a bit wrong as it's been a few weeks.
First up, my car went back to the paint shop which originally prepared the car for sale. I'd noticed a couple of small bubbles in the paint pop up on the rear quarter. These aren't/weren't similar to the water ingress/osmosis bubbles that I've seen before on many fibreglass cars but seemed to be some contamination in the top or base coats. This was all covered under warrant considering the paintwork on that area of the car was only a few months old.
After collecting the car I had a weekend away with the Missus and we went up to Whitby in the Lotus. My Wife is about half way through a 9 month project of her own so was less enthusiastic about going in the Exige initially but as the weather came round the occasion got the better of her so off we went!
It turns out the boot aperture is slightly smaller on the Exige than it was on the Elise...
The Sunday of our trip was the day of the annual Easter Sunday Malton car meet facilitated by Specialist Cars in Malton. I try to do this every year, even though it's much of the same it's an excuse to catch up with friends and get hyped for the summer season of car related stuff. This year was unique in that I got to set off from Whitby in the early hours and enjoy some of the best roads in Yorkshire with zero traffic. It was bloody amazing, and easily the best road experience I've had in a car to date.
I won't say what my average speed was, but I was able to maintain it for probably 85% of the journey from leaving Whitby to hitting Pickering. Long, flowing and well sighted bends all the way along with some fantastic views.
Over this weekend my brakes got noisier and noisier up front, just chattering around in the calipers is a fairly standard arrangement for these cars but it was just getting worse and worse. I made a note to stick some extra anti-rattle buffers in when I got home. I also documented some irritating rattle coming from behind the passenger seat.
The following week it was the monthly NYLOC meet near York, so went up to that and managed to get the front of the car fairly well blasted by stonechips courtesy of the 'road dressing' that the council insist on putting down every year or so. It could have been worse, no broken glass/lights/etc and the chips I got were fairly easily blended in with my Chipex kit - but certainly a shame nonetheless. I always feel a bit more relaxed though after getting my first wave of stonechips, it seems the fear of getting them is greater than the feeling of actually having a stonechipped front end!!
It was particularly annoying as I had the car booked in at the end of April for a correction detail with a friend Dave at https://www.facebook.com/dtaylorcarcare/
In previous years I've generally used one of the May/Spring bank holiday weekends to do this myself on a new car - but this year I really couldn't be bothered. I would need to stock up on pads/product and then spend a long weekend doing it, so decided to outsource it. I'm glad I did
Dave did a really good job, will post some pictures in the next few days as I need to get the car out in the daylight for some proper shots. Obviously the car was clean most of the time anyway, but under the harsh garage lighting there were a couple of swirls that Dave sorted out - and the front end was a little bit messy with overspray from previous repairs (I guess) which has clayed up a treat.
Finally back round to the brakes, I had a look and decided that I was going to put some new pads in anyway. As an ongoing effect of my rusty brake discs at Blyton I think I'd also ruined a perfectly good set of pads. These are identical brand/model pads and the previous ones I would say were 75% "full" before Blyton, so the discs have certainly took their toll and I'd have to manually remove even more material to get them cleaned up properly. With a France trip and a couple of trackdays on the horizon I just decided to lob some new pads in now and keep these for emergency "get me home" pads in the toolkit.
Last job was to identify/fix the rattle and also took the opportunity to remove the inertia belt reel from the driver side as the 4point harness has grown on me, and I can see me tolerating the lack of seatbelt for the foreseeable future.
Bulkhead trim out and identified a Cobra branded component rattling around with a spent stickypad on the back. I restuck this to the bulkhead where it should go which happily cured the rattle. I put the bulkhead trim back in with some good bits of foam strip and used proper rivets on the speaker holders rather than the crappy plastic things which has cured a whole bunch of squeeks and rattles (for now), car is actually rather quiet now!
More updates to come, arguing with Yodel about the non-arrival of some parts and a few more tidy up jobs to do before France, and maybe another trackday.
Update time.
Something I was aware of prior to buying the car was a documented weakness of the factory intercooler setup. By all accounts it receives poor airflow, absorbs heat from the engine and as a result on track sessions the cars are believed to not make their advertised power. There are some very dramatic suggestions that in some cases the cars can be outdragged by the NA versions after a few laps - but I'm sure that's just hyperbole!
The issues mainly are that despite the massive roof scoop, it tapers back to a tiny letterbox at the top of the engine bay and the airflow that it receives is hot air from the radiator anyway!
The established solution for this is to convert the air/air intercooler with a front mounted air/water radiator and charge cooler setup. It works well, in most cases bolting this on will give the car more power immediately and will run all day on track but it's expensive and a fairly big job to run the extra plumbing to the front of the car. I'm not ruling this out, and almost certainly will go down this route one day - but this update is about a DIY approach to mitigating the problem.
As I commented on my trackday post, I didn't feel any noticeable loss of power when the intake air temperatures went up but on a circuit which was pretty quiet, amongst cars that already have a huge gap in power (from 118bhp to 420+ !) and driving ability there aren't many reference points and I'm certainly not a good enough driver to use lap-time as a reference! What I do have though is a few data-sets taken from my ODBII reader logged into graphs during the day which will allow me to have a bit of fun with the car, do some tinkering and maybe make some improvements.
One example session is here:
Key points to note, the session stats with the IAT already at 40degrees and finishes closer to 30. This is evidence of the heat soaking between sessions, obviously. Heatshielding may help here, but I think something more useful would just be an extra 'warm up' lap to get some airflow through the core before getting on it.
Once the hotlaps start, the temperature of a pre-heat soaked intercooler range between 60 and 70 degrees at most points, spiking to 70 during the WOT sections of the laps. I don't know what this means in terms of ECU and timing, I've read suggestions on forums that the timing starts to pull back at temperatures above 50 but I have no evidence of this so it's just speculation. During the cooldown lap the temperature drops to 33ish fairly quickly as the car is still receiving airflow but not making any boost.
Ambient temps on the day were 12 degrees, and when I come back to re-test they will almost certainly (hopefully) be higher than that, so that needs to be considered. For reference I've logged a load of road mileage in which the temperature normally settles around 20 degrees and spikes to 40 under WOT. I've struggled to find any evidence of heatsoak during road mileage, and this suggests that the IC setup is perfectly fit for purpose if trackdays are avoided.
The plan is to rip off some work that quite a few forum members have done previously, so I can't take credit for inventing this. Reports are that it does go a reasonable way towards the impact of a charge cooler but will never be a like for like replacement. At 5% the cost, it has to be worth a look though.
The plan is to:
1- Fit a heatshield between the IC Core and the engine
2- Run some ducting from the sidepods into the existing intercooler shroud to get some more (cold) airflow through it
It all gets a bit DIY now, so purists and engineers look away now.
Intercooler off:
Template for heatshield:
500mmx250mm 0.8mm thick aluminium from B&Q:
Fitted the underside with some self adhesive heatshielding that's intended for the inside of motorbike bodywork to protect against manifolds/exhausts etc. Great stuff, used it before on previous projects. It's easy to apply, but hard to cut neatly - so makes my heatshield look a bit ragged by the edges:
(painted the top side too)
After a few trial fits, it looks like this:
Next up the ducting:
Some revotec parts:
Trimmed:
Test fitted:
Time to get brave with a holesaw:
The plastic for the shroud is already very delicate, cracks round the corners so I was half expecting to ruin this when taking a drill to it. It held up well though, and I later reinforced the cracked areas with tigerseal.
Some 64mm flange adaptors slotted in and sealed up:
...and some 64mm ducting. Really sturdy stuff with a coiled wire support internally, allows it to be easily routed in the engine bay but also stands up to being squashed and malformed.
Finally the fitted shots:
It looks fairly inconspicuous, can still access the dipstick and any other regular maintenance area in the engine bay.
The main potential downside is of course starving the engine bay of airflow, but there's still a good portion of the sidepod left open and with the NACA ducts on the undertray and open mesh top there's still plenty of flow through there. I will of course monitor water temps to make sure I've not traded one problem with another. The Lotus 211 format suggests that the side pods are free game for this purpose anyway, more on that later.
My intention is to run this setup at my next trackday and see how the IAT's look. If this makes negligible or no difference, I will report back as I haven't lost much other than a weekend of tinkering (which I enjoyed anyway) and this is all fairly easy to cap-off and remove if it causes problems. The reports I've read elsewhere look promising though, so would be nice to see a benefit to the effort.
Further changes I could/should make to bolster this are:
- Replace the sidepod mesh with something more open. This gives significant benefits in accordance with other peoples' testing as the current mesh is extremely tight. (I thought about a good back to back test for this could be whipping off the sidepods for a session on my next track day)
- Fit catch cans into the PCV circuit, reduce blow-by residue in the intercooler and maybe boost its performance
Further than that, aftermarket IC cores are available which boast higher efficiency but at that point you're spending a considerable amount towards a charge cooler setup. There is also a better version of what I've done above which is fitting the 211 Intercooler shroud. The 211 never came with a roof, so obviously no roof scoop so Lotus had to do their own version of this but as they used a custom shroud they could run much bigger hosing. Some members have done this to an Exige and got some fantastic results, apparently.
This has been a fun and inexpensive project! My expectations are pretty modest, already preparing for failure - so anything noticeable is a bonus!
Aside from that, I 'nearly' broke my locking wheel nut key. It slipped slightly and the outer shroud of it deformed. It feels like I'm walking on ice with it now so intended to replace the locking wheel nuts. As my other nuts were rusty and mining anyway I figured I'd just buy a set of 16 standard nuts in black and have done with it, but the Lotus parts' vendors wanted a decent wedge in return for it. I did some digging and found the wheelnut fitment to be shared with a load of BMW cars which opened up my options considerably. Bought 16 of these instead.
I considered a stud conversion, but couldn't find a setup to match my threads in the hub with a small enough nut head to fit in my wheels.
Finally I got the car out in the sun for some post-detailing shots.
Something I was aware of prior to buying the car was a documented weakness of the factory intercooler setup. By all accounts it receives poor airflow, absorbs heat from the engine and as a result on track sessions the cars are believed to not make their advertised power. There are some very dramatic suggestions that in some cases the cars can be outdragged by the NA versions after a few laps - but I'm sure that's just hyperbole!
The issues mainly are that despite the massive roof scoop, it tapers back to a tiny letterbox at the top of the engine bay and the airflow that it receives is hot air from the radiator anyway!
The established solution for this is to convert the air/air intercooler with a front mounted air/water radiator and charge cooler setup. It works well, in most cases bolting this on will give the car more power immediately and will run all day on track but it's expensive and a fairly big job to run the extra plumbing to the front of the car. I'm not ruling this out, and almost certainly will go down this route one day - but this update is about a DIY approach to mitigating the problem.
As I commented on my trackday post, I didn't feel any noticeable loss of power when the intake air temperatures went up but on a circuit which was pretty quiet, amongst cars that already have a huge gap in power (from 118bhp to 420+ !) and driving ability there aren't many reference points and I'm certainly not a good enough driver to use lap-time as a reference! What I do have though is a few data-sets taken from my ODBII reader logged into graphs during the day which will allow me to have a bit of fun with the car, do some tinkering and maybe make some improvements.
One example session is here:
Key points to note, the session stats with the IAT already at 40degrees and finishes closer to 30. This is evidence of the heat soaking between sessions, obviously. Heatshielding may help here, but I think something more useful would just be an extra 'warm up' lap to get some airflow through the core before getting on it.
Once the hotlaps start, the temperature of a pre-heat soaked intercooler range between 60 and 70 degrees at most points, spiking to 70 during the WOT sections of the laps. I don't know what this means in terms of ECU and timing, I've read suggestions on forums that the timing starts to pull back at temperatures above 50 but I have no evidence of this so it's just speculation. During the cooldown lap the temperature drops to 33ish fairly quickly as the car is still receiving airflow but not making any boost.
Ambient temps on the day were 12 degrees, and when I come back to re-test they will almost certainly (hopefully) be higher than that, so that needs to be considered. For reference I've logged a load of road mileage in which the temperature normally settles around 20 degrees and spikes to 40 under WOT. I've struggled to find any evidence of heatsoak during road mileage, and this suggests that the IC setup is perfectly fit for purpose if trackdays are avoided.
The plan is to rip off some work that quite a few forum members have done previously, so I can't take credit for inventing this. Reports are that it does go a reasonable way towards the impact of a charge cooler but will never be a like for like replacement. At 5% the cost, it has to be worth a look though.
The plan is to:
1- Fit a heatshield between the IC Core and the engine
2- Run some ducting from the sidepods into the existing intercooler shroud to get some more (cold) airflow through it
It all gets a bit DIY now, so purists and engineers look away now.
Intercooler off:
Template for heatshield:
500mmx250mm 0.8mm thick aluminium from B&Q:
Fitted the underside with some self adhesive heatshielding that's intended for the inside of motorbike bodywork to protect against manifolds/exhausts etc. Great stuff, used it before on previous projects. It's easy to apply, but hard to cut neatly - so makes my heatshield look a bit ragged by the edges:
(painted the top side too)
After a few trial fits, it looks like this:
Next up the ducting:
Some revotec parts:
Trimmed:
Test fitted:
Time to get brave with a holesaw:
The plastic for the shroud is already very delicate, cracks round the corners so I was half expecting to ruin this when taking a drill to it. It held up well though, and I later reinforced the cracked areas with tigerseal.
Some 64mm flange adaptors slotted in and sealed up:
...and some 64mm ducting. Really sturdy stuff with a coiled wire support internally, allows it to be easily routed in the engine bay but also stands up to being squashed and malformed.
Finally the fitted shots:
It looks fairly inconspicuous, can still access the dipstick and any other regular maintenance area in the engine bay.
The main potential downside is of course starving the engine bay of airflow, but there's still a good portion of the sidepod left open and with the NACA ducts on the undertray and open mesh top there's still plenty of flow through there. I will of course monitor water temps to make sure I've not traded one problem with another. The Lotus 211 format suggests that the side pods are free game for this purpose anyway, more on that later.
My intention is to run this setup at my next trackday and see how the IAT's look. If this makes negligible or no difference, I will report back as I haven't lost much other than a weekend of tinkering (which I enjoyed anyway) and this is all fairly easy to cap-off and remove if it causes problems. The reports I've read elsewhere look promising though, so would be nice to see a benefit to the effort.
Further changes I could/should make to bolster this are:
- Replace the sidepod mesh with something more open. This gives significant benefits in accordance with other peoples' testing as the current mesh is extremely tight. (I thought about a good back to back test for this could be whipping off the sidepods for a session on my next track day)
- Fit catch cans into the PCV circuit, reduce blow-by residue in the intercooler and maybe boost its performance
Further than that, aftermarket IC cores are available which boast higher efficiency but at that point you're spending a considerable amount towards a charge cooler setup. There is also a better version of what I've done above which is fitting the 211 Intercooler shroud. The 211 never came with a roof, so obviously no roof scoop so Lotus had to do their own version of this but as they used a custom shroud they could run much bigger hosing. Some members have done this to an Exige and got some fantastic results, apparently.
This has been a fun and inexpensive project! My expectations are pretty modest, already preparing for failure - so anything noticeable is a bonus!
Aside from that, I 'nearly' broke my locking wheel nut key. It slipped slightly and the outer shroud of it deformed. It feels like I'm walking on ice with it now so intended to replace the locking wheel nuts. As my other nuts were rusty and mining anyway I figured I'd just buy a set of 16 standard nuts in black and have done with it, but the Lotus parts' vendors wanted a decent wedge in return for it. I did some digging and found the wheelnut fitment to be shared with a load of BMW cars which opened up my options considerably. Bought 16 of these instead.
I considered a stud conversion, but couldn't find a setup to match my threads in the hub with a small enough nut head to fit in my wheels.
Finally I got the car out in the sun for some post-detailing shots.
France Update:
Last weekend I took the Exige to France with the North Yorkshire Lotus Owners Club (NYLOC) for a few days driving around and a trackday hosted by Lotus on Track at the Folembray Circuit.
Before setting off, I grabbed a new head unit from Halfords to give the missus something to listen to (this is a mechless jobby with bluetooth for Spotify etc).
It's pretty good actually, the Pioneer App for it is naff - but works natively with Android Auto which I had good experience with from my old Leon Cupra commuter. It's also a shade lighter, so race car points for that.
We took the Hull -> Zeebrugge ferry on Friday evening and met a bunch of the NYLOC'ers on the boat for beer. They had an exploratory route through Belgium planned for the Saturday but we decided to have the day in Bruges instead. Nice parking (nice wide spaces) at the Central Station and easy walk into town - for future reference, oh it only cost 3.50 for the day too.
Our accommodation was a couple of hours from Bruges and would be our hub for the weekend.
Somehow we avoided rain pretty much all weekend whilst on the road, but we got a few doses of it at the hotel... my window seals are really a bit naff.
Sunday was a castle day:
This was the first real test I've had of the A/C since getting the car. It was really quite warm but the A/C soldiered on, very pleased to have it but was having real soft-top envy all weekend!
Finally Folembray day, weather was dreadful at breakfast but had a miracle turn-around.
I didn't take any pictures at the circuit other than this one, had other things to be doing!
The circuit was great, it looks a bit lame on videos to be honest but there's a good bit of gradient on the fast section which always gives a bit of confidence, the hairpins had plenty of space for adventure so allowed for a bit of fun and only the 'house' section looked really scary due to the massive curbs and small tolerance for getting the line wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmJkQDy3LRU
The car was going great all day, the brake issues I had at Blyton were no more and I was driving with much more confidence once I started to learn the track. Still plenty of speed left in the car of course, but looking forward to be back on familiar turf to start pushing on.
I was keen to log some IAT data to test my new air ducts but I had technology issues most of the day, both GoPro and ODB reader causing me issues. I did however manage to log one session successfully.
The initial numbers look a little bit lacklustre but considering the difference in ambient temperature I think it's a positive start.
The most obvious differences are the gaps between the "stationary" temps and the "on track" temps between Blyton and Folembray. Because the ambient was so much higher I guess this minimised the difference - which bodes well I suppose for the performance of the setup. Because of the ODB issues I had, I didn't waste further time making some other comparisons and instead will make those in the next month or so when I do another UK trackday.
My intentions are:
- Run the car with the new ducts blanked off
- Run again in "Folembray Spec"
- Run a third time without the side scoops on (to remove the restrictive looking mesh)
The first two tests should help normalise against ambient temps if done on the same day, and the third test will tell me if it's worth going for a more open mesh on my sidepods.
I've still got other areas to explore such as the air/oil catch cans to clean up the IC internals too - that may come later in the year.
Aside from the numbers, the car felt great all day - I did some very long sessions (longest almost 30mins, a personal record) and the car never felt to be under performing significantly. I got to spend some time on track with a fellow NYLOC member who has a "proper" 260bhp Exige in the format of a 260 Cup. It's running the same power as I apparently am, but also some nice toys like CF inlaid into the clam, LSD, accusump, trick suspension, etc - however was running on road tyres compared to my ZZRs. It was a great benchmark for my straight line pace which seemed on the money.
In terms of handling, a few members commented on some understeer issues in a few places but I seem to have a very nosey car at the moment with no hints of understeer. The first sign of losing grip I get is usually the rear end coming round on entry or sometimes a bit of a squirm at the back on exit. I know that should be a good thing but I very clearly remember having a nice margin of understeer I could push through on my Elise that allowed me to push on a bit and then steer with the gas a bit if needed. The Exige certainly has more peak pace in its handling setup but feels a bit scarier in practise, so might see about some opinions on that front. The insides of my rears are now completely trashed too, so need some fresh rubber.
The only other problem to note is fuel consumption, I went through 2 full tanks on track culminating in a bit of fuel surge and ALMOST stopping on track about 90secs before the session ended. At the end of my penultimate session I was showing 25% fuel, but when trundling out of the pits for the finale I was showing 0% and the light was on... I should have stopped there, but I talked myself into the fuel gauge just being a bit too conservative...
Luckily borrowed a 5L can from a NYLOC member to get me to the fuel station! I think a 5L container of super will need to join me on trackdays now just to make sure I get home OK in the event my fuel gauge lures me into one more session.
The other NYLOC members took plenty of photos so i'll get some added to the thread when they appear. Also had Rich of Rich's Garage with us playing with some Drone Photography and video - so look him up on Facebook for some good content!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsRHq14xeeE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LrrebIITiw
Tuesday was a sightseeing day and ferry home. I'm terrible at sea, but had two really smooth crossings for which I'm grateful.
Thoroughly enjoyable weekend, juices are properly flowing though so need to line up some more track time ASAP.
Last weekend I took the Exige to France with the North Yorkshire Lotus Owners Club (NYLOC) for a few days driving around and a trackday hosted by Lotus on Track at the Folembray Circuit.
Before setting off, I grabbed a new head unit from Halfords to give the missus something to listen to (this is a mechless jobby with bluetooth for Spotify etc).
It's pretty good actually, the Pioneer App for it is naff - but works natively with Android Auto which I had good experience with from my old Leon Cupra commuter. It's also a shade lighter, so race car points for that.
We took the Hull -> Zeebrugge ferry on Friday evening and met a bunch of the NYLOC'ers on the boat for beer. They had an exploratory route through Belgium planned for the Saturday but we decided to have the day in Bruges instead. Nice parking (nice wide spaces) at the Central Station and easy walk into town - for future reference, oh it only cost 3.50 for the day too.
Our accommodation was a couple of hours from Bruges and would be our hub for the weekend.
Somehow we avoided rain pretty much all weekend whilst on the road, but we got a few doses of it at the hotel... my window seals are really a bit naff.
Sunday was a castle day:
This was the first real test I've had of the A/C since getting the car. It was really quite warm but the A/C soldiered on, very pleased to have it but was having real soft-top envy all weekend!
Finally Folembray day, weather was dreadful at breakfast but had a miracle turn-around.
I didn't take any pictures at the circuit other than this one, had other things to be doing!
The circuit was great, it looks a bit lame on videos to be honest but there's a good bit of gradient on the fast section which always gives a bit of confidence, the hairpins had plenty of space for adventure so allowed for a bit of fun and only the 'house' section looked really scary due to the massive curbs and small tolerance for getting the line wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmJkQDy3LRU
The car was going great all day, the brake issues I had at Blyton were no more and I was driving with much more confidence once I started to learn the track. Still plenty of speed left in the car of course, but looking forward to be back on familiar turf to start pushing on.
I was keen to log some IAT data to test my new air ducts but I had technology issues most of the day, both GoPro and ODB reader causing me issues. I did however manage to log one session successfully.
The initial numbers look a little bit lacklustre but considering the difference in ambient temperature I think it's a positive start.
The most obvious differences are the gaps between the "stationary" temps and the "on track" temps between Blyton and Folembray. Because the ambient was so much higher I guess this minimised the difference - which bodes well I suppose for the performance of the setup. Because of the ODB issues I had, I didn't waste further time making some other comparisons and instead will make those in the next month or so when I do another UK trackday.
My intentions are:
- Run the car with the new ducts blanked off
- Run again in "Folembray Spec"
- Run a third time without the side scoops on (to remove the restrictive looking mesh)
The first two tests should help normalise against ambient temps if done on the same day, and the third test will tell me if it's worth going for a more open mesh on my sidepods.
I've still got other areas to explore such as the air/oil catch cans to clean up the IC internals too - that may come later in the year.
Aside from the numbers, the car felt great all day - I did some very long sessions (longest almost 30mins, a personal record) and the car never felt to be under performing significantly. I got to spend some time on track with a fellow NYLOC member who has a "proper" 260bhp Exige in the format of a 260 Cup. It's running the same power as I apparently am, but also some nice toys like CF inlaid into the clam, LSD, accusump, trick suspension, etc - however was running on road tyres compared to my ZZRs. It was a great benchmark for my straight line pace which seemed on the money.
In terms of handling, a few members commented on some understeer issues in a few places but I seem to have a very nosey car at the moment with no hints of understeer. The first sign of losing grip I get is usually the rear end coming round on entry or sometimes a bit of a squirm at the back on exit. I know that should be a good thing but I very clearly remember having a nice margin of understeer I could push through on my Elise that allowed me to push on a bit and then steer with the gas a bit if needed. The Exige certainly has more peak pace in its handling setup but feels a bit scarier in practise, so might see about some opinions on that front. The insides of my rears are now completely trashed too, so need some fresh rubber.
The only other problem to note is fuel consumption, I went through 2 full tanks on track culminating in a bit of fuel surge and ALMOST stopping on track about 90secs before the session ended. At the end of my penultimate session I was showing 25% fuel, but when trundling out of the pits for the finale I was showing 0% and the light was on... I should have stopped there, but I talked myself into the fuel gauge just being a bit too conservative...
Luckily borrowed a 5L can from a NYLOC member to get me to the fuel station! I think a 5L container of super will need to join me on trackdays now just to make sure I get home OK in the event my fuel gauge lures me into one more session.
The other NYLOC members took plenty of photos so i'll get some added to the thread when they appear. Also had Rich of Rich's Garage with us playing with some Drone Photography and video - so look him up on Facebook for some good content!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsRHq14xeeE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LrrebIITiw
Tuesday was a sightseeing day and ferry home. I'm terrible at sea, but had two really smooth crossings for which I'm grateful.
Thoroughly enjoyable weekend, juices are properly flowing though so need to line up some more track time ASAP.
Edited by Fonzey on Thursday 30th May 16:50
shalmaneser said:
given the differences in ambient temps your mods seem to have made a signicant difference! So satisfying when you manage to improve the OEM performance with some simple mods!
Aye, I think it's a pretty positive start - I just wish I had a bit more data to see how much difference ambient makes to the intercooled temperatures. I'm pretty sure it's not "one in - one out" which would make my gains in the region of 15-16 degrees, but it's probably somewhere between that and the 3-5 degree differences I've logged.Update:
I think I mentioned it in a couple of posts but I've become increasingly aware that I don't have much grip at the back of this car. I watched some videos back from track sessions with my Elise and found I was understeering a lot more into corners on the Elise but the payback was that I could enter at slightly higher speeds and adjust the car a bit more through the turn. I'm visibly more nervous on turn-in with the Exige and using significantly less lock (and speed) to chuck it in.
This culminated in an evening trackday that I attended at Donington Park a few weeks ago. It was an opportunistic track day that hadn't really been planned, but I had an offer I couldn't refuse so went along. The rain was bouncing it down all night and the drive there on the motorway was nothing short of terrifying. Apologies to all of the wagons I was slowing down that evening on the M1!
The trackday wasn't much better, could barely keep the car on the track during the sighting laps (though did better than the two cars that DID go spinning off into the gravel during the sighting laps
) and I pretty much decided I was packing up after the sighting laps. Big shame as I'd never driven Donny before, but I'll certainly be going back.
The car just felt unstable at all speeds, the front just feeling very grippy but the backs giving up as soon as I applied the slightest bit of lock.
I was convinced my geo was to blame, so dug out the settings from my Elise thread and compared to find them almost identical.
So I decided to spend some time on the car to see if my rear toe settings could have slipped, or something daft like that - but as soon as I jacked the car up I spotted what is probably the problem.
Rear tyres were totally knackered on the inside edges despite looking sort of ok on the middle/outside. In addition to the bald inside edges, the rear inside sidewalls were cracking and I noticed the tyres are dated from 2013 - so probably way past their best.
They don't look too bad on camera, but my digital depth gauge reads <1mm until the halfway point on the tyre
The fronts look ok, but they're dated 2014 and probably only have one more track day left in their tread. Based on what people say, ZZR's run out of good grip long before their tread is finishes - so I'll get all four swapped.
I was about to pull the trigger with Avon, then something popped up on the eBay which caught my tight eye... some used ones with 5mm tread on. They ship with 5.5mm I believe so barely scrubbed in! I have a track record of cheaping out on tyres and getting used ones from ebay/forums - but hasn't caused me issues to date.
Yoink.
These tyres are also dated 2016(front) and 2017(rear) and felt significantly stiffer to touch when both sets were off the car.
While the car was jacked up, I had a good clean up under the arches and used the opportunity to flush my brake fluid out thanks to a trial run of a Sealey pressure bleeder that a good friend lent me and showed me how to use. After my last mess with a pressure bleeder I was a bit nervous, but this one worked about 10 times better, no mess and a nice solid pedal again.
Car is now back on all fours, so hope to get some mileage in as soon as the sun shows up. Next track day is Croft booked in mid-July, I don't think the car needs any prep for it... so time to enjoy it.
Oh actually, there is one job I may need to look at - my DIY heatshield that I put under the I/C has developed a slight rattle under certain conditions. Difficult to replicate but I think it's just the relatively thin material reverberating at certain frequencies. ProAlloy (I think) do their own version of the heatshield and that has a bit of bracing across it which is probably to resolve this... not sure if it's annoying me enough yet to warrant taking the I/C back off.
I think I mentioned it in a couple of posts but I've become increasingly aware that I don't have much grip at the back of this car. I watched some videos back from track sessions with my Elise and found I was understeering a lot more into corners on the Elise but the payback was that I could enter at slightly higher speeds and adjust the car a bit more through the turn. I'm visibly more nervous on turn-in with the Exige and using significantly less lock (and speed) to chuck it in.
This culminated in an evening trackday that I attended at Donington Park a few weeks ago. It was an opportunistic track day that hadn't really been planned, but I had an offer I couldn't refuse so went along. The rain was bouncing it down all night and the drive there on the motorway was nothing short of terrifying. Apologies to all of the wagons I was slowing down that evening on the M1!
The trackday wasn't much better, could barely keep the car on the track during the sighting laps (though did better than the two cars that DID go spinning off into the gravel during the sighting laps
) and I pretty much decided I was packing up after the sighting laps. Big shame as I'd never driven Donny before, but I'll certainly be going back.The car just felt unstable at all speeds, the front just feeling very grippy but the backs giving up as soon as I applied the slightest bit of lock.
I was convinced my geo was to blame, so dug out the settings from my Elise thread and compared to find them almost identical.
So I decided to spend some time on the car to see if my rear toe settings could have slipped, or something daft like that - but as soon as I jacked the car up I spotted what is probably the problem.
Rear tyres were totally knackered on the inside edges despite looking sort of ok on the middle/outside. In addition to the bald inside edges, the rear inside sidewalls were cracking and I noticed the tyres are dated from 2013 - so probably way past their best.
They don't look too bad on camera, but my digital depth gauge reads <1mm until the halfway point on the tyre
The fronts look ok, but they're dated 2014 and probably only have one more track day left in their tread. Based on what people say, ZZR's run out of good grip long before their tread is finishes - so I'll get all four swapped.
I was about to pull the trigger with Avon, then something popped up on the eBay which caught my tight eye... some used ones with 5mm tread on. They ship with 5.5mm I believe so barely scrubbed in! I have a track record of cheaping out on tyres and getting used ones from ebay/forums - but hasn't caused me issues to date.
Yoink.
These tyres are also dated 2016(front) and 2017(rear) and felt significantly stiffer to touch when both sets were off the car.
While the car was jacked up, I had a good clean up under the arches and used the opportunity to flush my brake fluid out thanks to a trial run of a Sealey pressure bleeder that a good friend lent me and showed me how to use. After my last mess with a pressure bleeder I was a bit nervous, but this one worked about 10 times better, no mess and a nice solid pedal again.
Car is now back on all fours, so hope to get some mileage in as soon as the sun shows up. Next track day is Croft booked in mid-July, I don't think the car needs any prep for it... so time to enjoy it.
Oh actually, there is one job I may need to look at - my DIY heatshield that I put under the I/C has developed a slight rattle under certain conditions. Difficult to replicate but I think it's just the relatively thin material reverberating at certain frequencies. ProAlloy (I think) do their own version of the heatshield and that has a bit of bracing across it which is probably to resolve this... not sure if it's annoying me enough yet to warrant taking the I/C back off.
I've made a little more progress on my "intake air temp" project over the last weekend or two.
I'd intended to plumb in some oil catch cans at some point to clean up my inlet and intercooler. These cars produce a fair bit of blowby which is clogging up the intercooler with residue, and the MAP/IAT sensor was also caked up in oil too. There's no real down side to a catch can so figured I'd get one rigged up to take the oil residue out of the equation, and also lets me keep an eye on blowby levels too.
There are a small number of bespoke Exige kits on the market asking in the region of £300... which I didn't fancy paying. I'd planned to get a generic OBP one or similar and fabricate up a bracket but one night whilst doing some research about hose internal diameters and such, I came across a blog and the author was advertising his Sector111 "Qwkcans" up for sale at a fraction of the list cost. I snapped them up, so here we go.
They don't have any dipstick/sight tube but they're very easy to remove from the car thanks to only having a single fixing and quick release hoses. They look really OEM too which is a nice bonus, as my engine bay was already looking a bit too B&Q for my liking.
I decided to remove the intercooler and pipe work so that I could clean it all up properly, so whilst the engine was pretty nude I took the opportunity to check clean the 'lift' solonoid for the ToyotaVTEC.
It was like new, as I'd hope from a <20k mile engine.
The cans came with a bracket that shared the fixings from the lift solonoid so that got bolted up first, then the cans would just sit on some pegs on said bracket and bolt onto a spare fixing by the oil filler cap.
IC and pipes got flushed out with some petrol, and the IAT/MAP Sensor got a good cleaning too.
Back together and looking very factory, I like it. Had a test-run of removing it for track-side draining and it's a piece of cake.
I'll swap the hex-head bolt with an M6 stud and wingnut so it can be removed without tools too.
I'm also on my third set of jubilee clips for this intercooler setup. Every few weeks I go for a drive and can't help shaking the feeling that the car is feeling slower than it should be. I convince myself that it's in my head, until eventually I get the tools out and find out that one (or more) of my jubilee clips has come a bit loose and is probably robbing me of a bit of boost. Tightening up almost always results in the car feeling ballistic again, so is something that's become a bit of a paranoid habit.
These particular clips are proper branded jubilee's and are a bit narrower than my last set, allowing them to sit properly in the 'channel' caused by the profile of the pipes and intercooler - so hopefully these work better than the last set.
Car is now sat patiently waiting for Friday, for another Lotus on Track trackday @ Croft Circuit. Updates to follow I'm sure.
I'd intended to plumb in some oil catch cans at some point to clean up my inlet and intercooler. These cars produce a fair bit of blowby which is clogging up the intercooler with residue, and the MAP/IAT sensor was also caked up in oil too. There's no real down side to a catch can so figured I'd get one rigged up to take the oil residue out of the equation, and also lets me keep an eye on blowby levels too.
There are a small number of bespoke Exige kits on the market asking in the region of £300... which I didn't fancy paying. I'd planned to get a generic OBP one or similar and fabricate up a bracket but one night whilst doing some research about hose internal diameters and such, I came across a blog and the author was advertising his Sector111 "Qwkcans" up for sale at a fraction of the list cost. I snapped them up, so here we go.
They don't have any dipstick/sight tube but they're very easy to remove from the car thanks to only having a single fixing and quick release hoses. They look really OEM too which is a nice bonus, as my engine bay was already looking a bit too B&Q for my liking.
I decided to remove the intercooler and pipe work so that I could clean it all up properly, so whilst the engine was pretty nude I took the opportunity to check clean the 'lift' solonoid for the ToyotaVTEC.
It was like new, as I'd hope from a <20k mile engine.
The cans came with a bracket that shared the fixings from the lift solonoid so that got bolted up first, then the cans would just sit on some pegs on said bracket and bolt onto a spare fixing by the oil filler cap.
IC and pipes got flushed out with some petrol, and the IAT/MAP Sensor got a good cleaning too.
Back together and looking very factory, I like it. Had a test-run of removing it for track-side draining and it's a piece of cake.
I'll swap the hex-head bolt with an M6 stud and wingnut so it can be removed without tools too.
I'm also on my third set of jubilee clips for this intercooler setup. Every few weeks I go for a drive and can't help shaking the feeling that the car is feeling slower than it should be. I convince myself that it's in my head, until eventually I get the tools out and find out that one (or more) of my jubilee clips has come a bit loose and is probably robbing me of a bit of boost. Tightening up almost always results in the car feeling ballistic again, so is something that's become a bit of a paranoid habit.
These particular clips are proper branded jubilee's and are a bit narrower than my last set, allowing them to sit properly in the 'channel' caused by the profile of the pipes and intercooler - so hopefully these work better than the last set.
Car is now sat patiently waiting for Friday, for another Lotus on Track trackday @ Croft Circuit. Updates to follow I'm sure.
CROFT UPDATE.
Last Friday was a Lotus on Track trackday at Croft Circuit, easily the busiest LoT trackday I've attended with ~60 cars there, but well handled crowds as always, very little queuing but a fairly active circuit for most of the day.
Socially it was like a who's who of LoT trackdays, almost everybody that I've met either face to face or online/social media was in attendance and there was some seriously quick stuff there too.
I'd be travelling up with my next door neighbour (and good mate!) to show him what all the fuss was about, he's a petrol head himself and I felt I should apologise a little bit for all the late night compressor/grinder sessions in the garage
Wet night on thursday, but drying nicely as I paced around the house waiting for departure time.
Croft has been resurfaced within the last month or so and the condition of the track, grounds, facilities was just top notch. It's been a few years since I've been but it felt like the place was brand new - very impressed.
I mentioned earlier that most people I know from Lotus trackdaying was in attendance, well this included Simon and my old Elise - which made for a rather emotional reunion (for me anyway, I'm not sure Simon felt the same)
Mechanically my objectives for the day was to see if my rear-instability had been resolved with the new set of tyres. Obviously hard to gauge on a different circuit, but the answer seemed to be very much 'yes'.
I'd also be keeping an eye on my new catch cans for leaks (not to mention filling up), and also would be logging IAT's again.
The morning started well enough, but I felt pretty slow. The car was driving/handling fine but every time I slammed on the anchors I felt like I was braking about 10-15m too soon!
I remember from my Elise trackday at Croft that I was turning into Tower too soon and I was struggling for stability through the Jim Clark Esses (which is fairly understandable, it's quite fast).
I feel like I fixed my issues at Tower but in hindsight was still far too conservative on the exit, lost lots of time there. The Esses in the Exige felt kinda OK, nowhere near flat which I know some people were doing - but a pretty big lift into the first left, a balanced throttle through the right and then a quick squirt and lift for Barcroft. I mentioned earlier that there was some quick stuff (relative to me) on track, but on the occasion I was in and around some traffic at around my pace - I felt like I was making gains on them through Barcroft so the car certainly wasn't bad through there, even though I know it could go faster with some bigger baws.
Where the Exige is certainly slower than the Elise is in the slower stuff, the final complex. I knew I could lean on the Elise like crazy because it really didn't have the torque to break traction in the lower speed stuff. The Exige on the other hand feels a bit more delicate, so I think I'm tip-toe'ing around it. I don't think it helps that I'd done my last two trackdays on 7 year old knackered rear tyres, so pretty sure I'll build up in that area for the future.
I felt to be getting a smidge faster in the afternoon, but not much. I'm not blaming the traffic completely but it was very rare to be on circuit alone for more than a couple of bends - so I was either working out a route past somebody else, or making way for some missile coming up behind me. I did however enjoy a couple of sessions in which I could settle in behind somebody of similar pace and just try and work out where they were quicker and where I was slower, sounds daft but this rarely happens on a LoT day because the track time is so clear!
I spent a particular session behind an Elise SC, and I was getting quietly nervous about his straight line speed compared to mine - he was probably a little quicker in the early phase and I'd creep up on him a bit towards the braking zone. I was nervous only because I was expecting to have a ~40bhp leg up on him, but after finding him and chatting with him in the pits I found he had a Hanger111 280 kit which had been dyno'd at 292bhp or something like that... which put me at ease somewhat! Similar story with a lad who was blasting around in an Audi S3 earlier in the day - followed him for a couple of laps and he was absolutely mincing me under traction (understandably) but then kept pulling away which I wasn't expecting. Again, saw him later in the pits and found he had 450bhp It was just one of those trackdays where almost everybody seemed to have a silly quick car, great fun!
The afternoon was cut short by an hour by what can only be described as biblical rain, I was out on track with a passenger making fairly good progress and then I turned into the right-hand part of the Jim Clark Esses to just get a massive armful of understeer then a few seconds later the windscreen got absolutely peppered by those massive fat rain blobs! I crept back round to the pits because all of our stuff was left out on the grass, and by the time we got it all packed into the car the circuit had been red flagged - not sure why, whether there was an off or whether it was just the severity of the rain - but it was bouncing it down! Within 20mins or so it started drying off, but decided to hit the road anyway as all the stuff was packed away and I wouldn't be breaking any records on the damp track.
Back home and had a quick check of the catch-can, yielded 20ml of blowby during the trackday and the ~150miles road mileage that I'd done since installation. There's no magic number for what's acceptable, but that was better than I was expecting. My previous catch-can installation on my Subaru usually needed emptying half way through a track day
As you'd expect, my intercooler innards are bone dry and nice and clean - so the baffles in the cans seem to be doing a nice good job.
As for IAT logs, similar story to Folembray really - same ambient temps and same (within a degree) averages, mins/maxes etc - so the catch can has made no appreciable difference there but of course different circuit - so not a real scientific test. I've got one more test I still want to do, which is derestricting the mesh on the sidepods and roof scoop. I may do some road testing for that to see if there are any gains, as to be honest I need to stop tinkering during a trackday and just concentrate on my driving and progress on track. I notice so many problems in hindsight/based on video which I need to be recognising during the day, so that I can push forward and get better.
Last Friday was a Lotus on Track trackday at Croft Circuit, easily the busiest LoT trackday I've attended with ~60 cars there, but well handled crowds as always, very little queuing but a fairly active circuit for most of the day.
Socially it was like a who's who of LoT trackdays, almost everybody that I've met either face to face or online/social media was in attendance and there was some seriously quick stuff there too.
I'd be travelling up with my next door neighbour (and good mate!) to show him what all the fuss was about, he's a petrol head himself and I felt I should apologise a little bit for all the late night compressor/grinder sessions in the garage
Wet night on thursday, but drying nicely as I paced around the house waiting for departure time.
Croft has been resurfaced within the last month or so and the condition of the track, grounds, facilities was just top notch. It's been a few years since I've been but it felt like the place was brand new - very impressed.
I mentioned earlier that most people I know from Lotus trackdaying was in attendance, well this included Simon and my old Elise - which made for a rather emotional reunion (for me anyway, I'm not sure Simon felt the same)
Mechanically my objectives for the day was to see if my rear-instability had been resolved with the new set of tyres. Obviously hard to gauge on a different circuit, but the answer seemed to be very much 'yes'.
I'd also be keeping an eye on my new catch cans for leaks (not to mention filling up), and also would be logging IAT's again.
The morning started well enough, but I felt pretty slow. The car was driving/handling fine but every time I slammed on the anchors I felt like I was braking about 10-15m too soon!
I remember from my Elise trackday at Croft that I was turning into Tower too soon and I was struggling for stability through the Jim Clark Esses (which is fairly understandable, it's quite fast).
I feel like I fixed my issues at Tower but in hindsight was still far too conservative on the exit, lost lots of time there. The Esses in the Exige felt kinda OK, nowhere near flat which I know some people were doing - but a pretty big lift into the first left, a balanced throttle through the right and then a quick squirt and lift for Barcroft. I mentioned earlier that there was some quick stuff (relative to me) on track, but on the occasion I was in and around some traffic at around my pace - I felt like I was making gains on them through Barcroft so the car certainly wasn't bad through there, even though I know it could go faster with some bigger baws.
Where the Exige is certainly slower than the Elise is in the slower stuff, the final complex. I knew I could lean on the Elise like crazy because it really didn't have the torque to break traction in the lower speed stuff. The Exige on the other hand feels a bit more delicate, so I think I'm tip-toe'ing around it. I don't think it helps that I'd done my last two trackdays on 7 year old knackered rear tyres, so pretty sure I'll build up in that area for the future.
I felt to be getting a smidge faster in the afternoon, but not much. I'm not blaming the traffic completely but it was very rare to be on circuit alone for more than a couple of bends - so I was either working out a route past somebody else, or making way for some missile coming up behind me. I did however enjoy a couple of sessions in which I could settle in behind somebody of similar pace and just try and work out where they were quicker and where I was slower, sounds daft but this rarely happens on a LoT day because the track time is so clear!
I spent a particular session behind an Elise SC, and I was getting quietly nervous about his straight line speed compared to mine - he was probably a little quicker in the early phase and I'd creep up on him a bit towards the braking zone. I was nervous only because I was expecting to have a ~40bhp leg up on him, but after finding him and chatting with him in the pits I found he had a Hanger111 280 kit which had been dyno'd at 292bhp or something like that... which put me at ease somewhat! Similar story with a lad who was blasting around in an Audi S3 earlier in the day - followed him for a couple of laps and he was absolutely mincing me under traction (understandably) but then kept pulling away which I wasn't expecting. Again, saw him later in the pits and found he had 450bhp
It was just one of those trackdays where almost everybody seemed to have a silly quick car, great fun!The afternoon was cut short by an hour by what can only be described as biblical rain, I was out on track with a passenger making fairly good progress and then I turned into the right-hand part of the Jim Clark Esses to just get a massive armful of understeer then a few seconds later the windscreen got absolutely peppered by those massive fat rain blobs! I crept back round to the pits because all of our stuff was left out on the grass, and by the time we got it all packed into the car the circuit had been red flagged - not sure why, whether there was an off or whether it was just the severity of the rain - but it was bouncing it down! Within 20mins or so it started drying off, but decided to hit the road anyway as all the stuff was packed away and I wouldn't be breaking any records on the damp track.
Back home and had a quick check of the catch-can, yielded 20ml of blowby during the trackday and the ~150miles road mileage that I'd done since installation. There's no magic number for what's acceptable, but that was better than I was expecting. My previous catch-can installation on my Subaru usually needed emptying half way through a track day
As you'd expect, my intercooler innards are bone dry and nice and clean - so the baffles in the cans seem to be doing a nice good job.
As for IAT logs, similar story to Folembray really - same ambient temps and same (within a degree) averages, mins/maxes etc - so the catch can has made no appreciable difference there but of course different circuit - so not a real scientific test. I've got one more test I still want to do, which is derestricting the mesh on the sidepods and roof scoop. I may do some road testing for that to see if there are any gains, as to be honest I need to stop tinkering during a trackday and just concentrate on my driving and progress on track. I notice so many problems in hindsight/based on video which I need to be recognising during the day, so that I can push forward and get better.
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