Back in a Lotus - 2006 Exige S
Discussion
Good to see you again!
Was a good day. I left at lunch due to stuff happening at home..
Was a busy day at Croft but thoroughly enjoyed it. Last time I was there I was in the Zenos, the exige is so much easier to drive on limits could really confidently lean on it. The fast corners at bottom of track (clark?) my exige was virtually flat around those and didn't come across a car that I wasn't noticeably gaining on. Slower corners tho it kept pushing wide so I do really need to play about with settings etc..
At least we/the cars got home in one piece.
Was a good day. I left at lunch due to stuff happening at home..
Was a busy day at Croft but thoroughly enjoyed it. Last time I was there I was in the Zenos, the exige is so much easier to drive on limits could really confidently lean on it. The fast corners at bottom of track (clark?) my exige was virtually flat around those and didn't come across a car that I wasn't noticeably gaining on. Slower corners tho it kept pushing wide so I do really need to play about with settings etc..
At least we/the cars got home in one piece.
likesachange said:
Good to see you again!
Was a good day. I left at lunch due to stuff happening at home..
Was a busy day at Croft but thoroughly enjoyed it. Last time I was there I was in the Zenos, the exige is so much easier to drive on limits could really confidently lean on it. The fast corners at bottom of track (clark?) my exige was virtually flat around those and didn't come across a car that I wasn't noticeably gaining on. Slower corners tho it kept pushing wide so I do really need to play about with settings etc..
At least we/the cars got home in one piece.
Aye likewise!Was a good day. I left at lunch due to stuff happening at home..
Was a busy day at Croft but thoroughly enjoyed it. Last time I was there I was in the Zenos, the exige is so much easier to drive on limits could really confidently lean on it. The fast corners at bottom of track (clark?) my exige was virtually flat around those and didn't come across a car that I wasn't noticeably gaining on. Slower corners tho it kept pushing wide so I do really need to play about with settings etc..
At least we/the cars got home in one piece.
I'm a terrible passenger but I need to get a passenger ride with you next time I think, your car is a great spec and is something to potentially work towards.
I've made a decision that I'm going to hold spending on any big bits now until I get a good chunk of driver tuition/coaching sorted. The car is solid, and I've had a good intro-year with it but I want to start making some personal progress now and maximise my time on track. Stay tuned...
I have a track day booked this week so thought I'd summarise progress recently. Nothing major has happened on the car, but a few tweaks and jobs.
First up I splashed out and got some Murray Clamps for the intercooler hoses. The Standard Jubilee's had been bugging me since buying the car, every now and then one would slip off and occasionally I would get a nagging feeling that the car felt a bit down on power, only to find one of the clamps was no longer holding any tension when I got it back home. These clamps were a solution that finally allowed me to drive my Subaru for more than 20minutes without a FMIC pipe blowing off, so I figured I'd go back to what I was comfortable with despite them being silly money compared to legit Jubilee's.
So far I've had no issues, but I do feel that perhaps my silicone joiners could be 10-20mm longer to give the whole setup a bit more wiggle room so I may address that too in the near future.
Second up I was going to address my brakes, again. I did a full fluid change before Croft but after a few sessions I got quite a long pedal. I could still stop alright, but it was a bit confidence knocking. Speaking of knocking, my NS Front brake pads rattled like crazy despite me having some buffers fitted to my caliper.
To sort the knocking, I swapped out the caliper pins and springs. Old ones may have just lost a bit of tension, but so far so good on these ones.
To sort the fluid I bled through, again. This time I took the front calipers off and turned them upside down. As soon as I tapped them with a mallet (with the pressure bleeder attached) some great big gobs of air came out so I'm hopeful that this is now sorted. I've certainly got a firm pedal once again, so we'll see how that lasts on track.
In parallel to doing my Lotus tinkering, it's also been MOT/Service season for my fleet.
The FN2 Civic breezed through MOT but the Clio 182 needed a bit of love, including:
- Rear Brake Hoses (Solid and Flexi)
- Track Rod Ends/Inner Gaitors
- Various Bulbs
- Missing middle seatbelt (managed to blag this, as never actually had one in the car and didn't realise it was supposed to have one until this (my third) MOT...
- Exhaust Hanging off
Treated the lot to oil/filter and some gearbox oil for the Clio to replenish the ever weeping rust prevention on the selector arm...
We need to move the Clio on soon to get something a bit more family friendly so going to look at doing shocks and springs as she's a bit creaky before she goes.
Between all the maintenance I went to a very hot and sunny evening meet for the North Yorkshire Lotus Owners Club and even went for a drive without the roof on!
Fantastic turn-out as expected. Speaking of NYLOC, I also got speaking to a club member who is a little bit handy when it comes to driving cars quickly, he does a fair bit of racing and has had Lotus cars for years and he'll be joining me this week for a Blyton Park trackday to give some much needed one-to-one tuition.
I'm really looking forward to Blyton, though it's forecast as being wet... that may be a good thing or bad thing, I haven't yet decided. Either way I shall report towards the end of the week.
First up I splashed out and got some Murray Clamps for the intercooler hoses. The Standard Jubilee's had been bugging me since buying the car, every now and then one would slip off and occasionally I would get a nagging feeling that the car felt a bit down on power, only to find one of the clamps was no longer holding any tension when I got it back home. These clamps were a solution that finally allowed me to drive my Subaru for more than 20minutes without a FMIC pipe blowing off, so I figured I'd go back to what I was comfortable with despite them being silly money compared to legit Jubilee's.
So far I've had no issues, but I do feel that perhaps my silicone joiners could be 10-20mm longer to give the whole setup a bit more wiggle room so I may address that too in the near future.
Second up I was going to address my brakes, again. I did a full fluid change before Croft but after a few sessions I got quite a long pedal. I could still stop alright, but it was a bit confidence knocking. Speaking of knocking, my NS Front brake pads rattled like crazy despite me having some buffers fitted to my caliper.
To sort the knocking, I swapped out the caliper pins and springs. Old ones may have just lost a bit of tension, but so far so good on these ones.
To sort the fluid I bled through, again. This time I took the front calipers off and turned them upside down. As soon as I tapped them with a mallet (with the pressure bleeder attached) some great big gobs of air came out so I'm hopeful that this is now sorted. I've certainly got a firm pedal once again, so we'll see how that lasts on track.
In parallel to doing my Lotus tinkering, it's also been MOT/Service season for my fleet.
The FN2 Civic breezed through MOT but the Clio 182 needed a bit of love, including:
- Rear Brake Hoses (Solid and Flexi)
- Track Rod Ends/Inner Gaitors
- Various Bulbs
- Missing middle seatbelt (managed to blag this, as never actually had one in the car and didn't realise it was supposed to have one until this (my third) MOT...
- Exhaust Hanging off
Treated the lot to oil/filter and some gearbox oil for the Clio to replenish the ever weeping rust prevention on the selector arm...
We need to move the Clio on soon to get something a bit more family friendly so going to look at doing shocks and springs as she's a bit creaky before she goes.
Between all the maintenance I went to a very hot and sunny evening meet for the North Yorkshire Lotus Owners Club and even went for a drive without the roof on!
Fantastic turn-out as expected. Speaking of NYLOC, I also got speaking to a club member who is a little bit handy when it comes to driving cars quickly, he does a fair bit of racing and has had Lotus cars for years and he'll be joining me this week for a Blyton Park trackday to give some much needed one-to-one tuition.
I'm really looking forward to Blyton, though it's forecast as being wet... that may be a good thing or bad thing, I haven't yet decided. Either way I shall report towards the end of the week.
Oh I forgot the best bit. One of the interior let downs in this car was the passenger footrest, my best guess is that the footwell has been used to store something before (soft top?) and the anodised finish was scuffed quite badly.
I had contemplated a few ideas for refurbing it including spraying it silver, wrapping it or just putting some skateboard griptape over it (still might do that to protect the new one) but as one popped up fairly cheap on a classifieds ad, I just bought another one.
I'm quite liking the interior in this car nowadays, never really liked it in the Elise but it's growing on me. I can see me picking up a motorsport looking wheel at some point in the future just for the tart value and maybe getting the sill pads trimmed in something. I did them in eBay alcantara on the Elise and they came up really well, so maybe a job for winter.
I had contemplated a few ideas for refurbing it including spraying it silver, wrapping it or just putting some skateboard griptape over it (still might do that to protect the new one) but as one popped up fairly cheap on a classifieds ad, I just bought another one.
I'm quite liking the interior in this car nowadays, never really liked it in the Elise but it's growing on me. I can see me picking up a motorsport looking wheel at some point in the future just for the tart value and maybe getting the sill pads trimmed in something. I did them in eBay alcantara on the Elise and they came up really well, so maybe a job for winter.
Track day update: Blyton Park
I returned to Blyton this week for another track day, as mentioned before I would be attending this with an instructor/adviser for the full day. I was quite excited about the learning potential, but the ~70% chance of rain forecast all day was putting a bit of a downer on the run up to the day.
This was the first "non-Lotus" track day I'd done in absolutely ages, and it was quite refreshing to see a bit of variety in the paddock even though the attendance numbers were a little higher than I'm used to.
The rain had eased off during the briefing and due to a keen wind the circuit had dried almost immediately for the sighting laps. Once the formalities had been dealt with we got out onto circuit as quickly as possible as there was a constant drizzle but no real sign of the track getting properly wet yet - time to make hay.
First session was just a bit of calibration, car felt great and it gave my instructor (Rich) a couple of places to start. Rich had come prepared with an intercom system that just velcro'd into the helmets - fantastic addition and made the day significantly more productive than it would have been if we just shouted odd words to each other and had to wait to debrief in the paddock after every session.
We began to work deconstructing turn one and spent much of the day tweaking that and carrying through more speed. My lines elsewhere seemed acceptable but generally just needed to take them a bit quicker, sounds pretty obvious but tweaking a bit of car positioning and altering technique passively raised the minimum corner speeds and brought along some fairly substantial changes.
Mid morning it was still somehow dry on track despite the drizzle being fairly constant, and Rich went out for a session in the car to see how it felt. He's no stranger to Lotus cars and so has a fairly good idea what they're capable of and how a good one should feel, and he was pretty happy with how mine felt throughout the day. So did I actually, the car felt properly good and just carried no niggles at all with the exception of a bit of fuel surge just before we broke for lunch.
My confidence on turn-in was much higher than it was earlier in the year, pretty sure the new tyres has sorted that (as nothing else has really changed) and the car just had loads of grip everywhere - even when the drizzle ramped up a bit.
The car also felt like it was pulling really hard all day, just seemed really strong and as a result my sessions kept creeping up in duration - I got a good chunk of mileage in compared to usual.
At lunch the rain came in so I trundled off for fuel, but by the time the circuit re-opened once again by some kind of miracle it was dry again!
We carried on improving, traffic was fairly heavy for much of the day but overtaking manners were generally fine. The Exige was probably one of the quicker cars in attendance but only really got held up a couple of times, and the new blue lights at Blyton were pretty quick to activate which was handy. Had one car in particular which had a habit of pulling over to the left about half way along the straight and kept it pinned which would have forced me to go for a pretty late lunge and there were a handful of cars with mirrors seemingly removed, but no hard feelings.
The traffic did lend itself to the instruction a bit, as we could attack a corner then just back off and chill out a bit whilst we discussed changes to make. It did mean that consistent strings of flat out laps were fairly rare though, but that's only apparent after scanning through the gopro footage - it didn't disrupt us during the day.
I had one clear lap mid afternoon, around 30% into it I realised that I wouldn't hit any traffic so decided to make it a good one... but pushed a little too hard and got my positioning wrong a bit when braking for the penultimate corner... so ended up exploring the infield instead!
The rain finally started making an appreciable difference to grip levels at around 16:00 - so went out for one last session and pretty much had the track to ourselves. I followed a Clio 182 around for a handful of laps and then he peeled in to get packed up so we just trundled around and got a feel for the tolerances that the car had. Understeer was the order of the day, but I could then easily bring the back end around or straighten the car up depending on the corner profile and it was a productive 20mins or so just playing with the car dynamics. Eventually called it a day and got to the miserable task of packing up and getting off home.
The debrief/summary of the day was that I'd certainly picked up speed around Blyton, as you'd hope/expect. My lines on an "obvious" corner are pretty much fine, but on some of the less obvious corners where the line may be a little counter-intuitive I needed to make some adjustments, which were surprisingly hard after probably 10-12 Blyton days and ingrained bad habit.
I have no issue carrying more speed into pretty much every corner when asked to do so, all Rich had to say was "we can take this one a bit quicker" and the next lap I would be 5mph quicker or whatever. Also I let past a race prepped Elise at one stage and followed him for a lap or so and straight away emulated some of his entry speed and had no problem with doing so... so I need to be able to do this myself in future without just settling into a 'safe' pace for the day. There's a big gap between where I am now, and being reckless - so plenty of easy improvement to make.
Technique wise I have a bit too much time between pedal inputs, I'm generally on the brakes hard - coasting for a small window - back on the gas. I'd treat most corners like a heavy braking zone, so big late heavy braking and then a relatively aggressive swap back onto the gas. We worked instead on treating the brake less like an off/on switch which has really helped on a few corners and I'm fairly sure I can carry that across onto other circuits.
I didn't record any solo laps all day (only solo session was cut short just before lunch because of fuel, and go-pro battery was on charge) so I was carrying the weight penalty of a passenger for all of my footage - but I can still see some good improvements when referenced against my footage earlier in the year. I'm eager to get back solo on a quieter day and really string together some strong laps - I think the differences could be significant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBXrWvSQtLU
Final note if you're still here, the ambient temps were down to 15 or so - which is by far the coolest trackday I've had since doing all of my IAT modifications, and the logging results are quite impressive (IMO):
I'm now seriously considering my options for long term future of the car, go air/water charge-cooler or try an aftermarket air/air intercooler to advance on what I've already improved. I need to see some logs from a charge-cooled car I think before making up my mind, so any volunteers reading? Feel free to get me some data at your next track day
I returned to Blyton this week for another track day, as mentioned before I would be attending this with an instructor/adviser for the full day. I was quite excited about the learning potential, but the ~70% chance of rain forecast all day was putting a bit of a downer on the run up to the day.
This was the first "non-Lotus" track day I'd done in absolutely ages, and it was quite refreshing to see a bit of variety in the paddock even though the attendance numbers were a little higher than I'm used to.
The rain had eased off during the briefing and due to a keen wind the circuit had dried almost immediately for the sighting laps. Once the formalities had been dealt with we got out onto circuit as quickly as possible as there was a constant drizzle but no real sign of the track getting properly wet yet - time to make hay.
First session was just a bit of calibration, car felt great and it gave my instructor (Rich) a couple of places to start. Rich had come prepared with an intercom system that just velcro'd into the helmets - fantastic addition and made the day significantly more productive than it would have been if we just shouted odd words to each other and had to wait to debrief in the paddock after every session.
We began to work deconstructing turn one and spent much of the day tweaking that and carrying through more speed. My lines elsewhere seemed acceptable but generally just needed to take them a bit quicker, sounds pretty obvious but tweaking a bit of car positioning and altering technique passively raised the minimum corner speeds and brought along some fairly substantial changes.
Mid morning it was still somehow dry on track despite the drizzle being fairly constant, and Rich went out for a session in the car to see how it felt. He's no stranger to Lotus cars and so has a fairly good idea what they're capable of and how a good one should feel, and he was pretty happy with how mine felt throughout the day. So did I actually, the car felt properly good and just carried no niggles at all with the exception of a bit of fuel surge just before we broke for lunch.
My confidence on turn-in was much higher than it was earlier in the year, pretty sure the new tyres has sorted that (as nothing else has really changed) and the car just had loads of grip everywhere - even when the drizzle ramped up a bit.
The car also felt like it was pulling really hard all day, just seemed really strong and as a result my sessions kept creeping up in duration - I got a good chunk of mileage in compared to usual.
At lunch the rain came in so I trundled off for fuel, but by the time the circuit re-opened once again by some kind of miracle it was dry again!
We carried on improving, traffic was fairly heavy for much of the day but overtaking manners were generally fine. The Exige was probably one of the quicker cars in attendance but only really got held up a couple of times, and the new blue lights at Blyton were pretty quick to activate which was handy. Had one car in particular which had a habit of pulling over to the left about half way along the straight and kept it pinned which would have forced me to go for a pretty late lunge and there were a handful of cars with mirrors seemingly removed, but no hard feelings.
The traffic did lend itself to the instruction a bit, as we could attack a corner then just back off and chill out a bit whilst we discussed changes to make. It did mean that consistent strings of flat out laps were fairly rare though, but that's only apparent after scanning through the gopro footage - it didn't disrupt us during the day.
I had one clear lap mid afternoon, around 30% into it I realised that I wouldn't hit any traffic so decided to make it a good one... but pushed a little too hard and got my positioning wrong a bit when braking for the penultimate corner... so ended up exploring the infield instead!
The rain finally started making an appreciable difference to grip levels at around 16:00 - so went out for one last session and pretty much had the track to ourselves. I followed a Clio 182 around for a handful of laps and then he peeled in to get packed up so we just trundled around and got a feel for the tolerances that the car had. Understeer was the order of the day, but I could then easily bring the back end around or straighten the car up depending on the corner profile and it was a productive 20mins or so just playing with the car dynamics. Eventually called it a day and got to the miserable task of packing up and getting off home.
The debrief/summary of the day was that I'd certainly picked up speed around Blyton, as you'd hope/expect. My lines on an "obvious" corner are pretty much fine, but on some of the less obvious corners where the line may be a little counter-intuitive I needed to make some adjustments, which were surprisingly hard after probably 10-12 Blyton days and ingrained bad habit.
I have no issue carrying more speed into pretty much every corner when asked to do so, all Rich had to say was "we can take this one a bit quicker" and the next lap I would be 5mph quicker or whatever. Also I let past a race prepped Elise at one stage and followed him for a lap or so and straight away emulated some of his entry speed and had no problem with doing so... so I need to be able to do this myself in future without just settling into a 'safe' pace for the day. There's a big gap between where I am now, and being reckless - so plenty of easy improvement to make.
Technique wise I have a bit too much time between pedal inputs, I'm generally on the brakes hard - coasting for a small window - back on the gas. I'd treat most corners like a heavy braking zone, so big late heavy braking and then a relatively aggressive swap back onto the gas. We worked instead on treating the brake less like an off/on switch which has really helped on a few corners and I'm fairly sure I can carry that across onto other circuits.
I didn't record any solo laps all day (only solo session was cut short just before lunch because of fuel, and go-pro battery was on charge) so I was carrying the weight penalty of a passenger for all of my footage - but I can still see some good improvements when referenced against my footage earlier in the year. I'm eager to get back solo on a quieter day and really string together some strong laps - I think the differences could be significant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBXrWvSQtLU
Final note if you're still here, the ambient temps were down to 15 or so - which is by far the coolest trackday I've had since doing all of my IAT modifications, and the logging results are quite impressive (IMO):
I'm now seriously considering my options for long term future of the car, go air/water charge-cooler or try an aftermarket air/air intercooler to advance on what I've already improved. I need to see some logs from a charge-cooled car I think before making up my mind, so any volunteers reading? Feel free to get me some data at your next track day
Cheers Darryl, it's been a fairly quiet couple of months with the car - plenty of odd runs out between the trackdays but nothing much to report with regards to maintenance/tinkering.
I do have a small update today though which you may have seen on the old instagram.
I felt like the interior needed a bit of a clean up, after I replaced the footrest the mats were then letting things down a bit. They were almost worn through on the driver side and they just looked tatty. Ordered some nice new ones from Autostyle, expensiveish at £60 but fit perfectly and feel really good quality.
After that I turned attention to the sill pads, this is a bit of a copy/paste from my Elise thread but it's about time I got round to it on this car. They get very worn in these cars as you're dragging your arse/feet over them to get in/out of the car and it's just a nasty big piece of plastic that really brings things down. It also doubles as an armrest whilst driving so comfort is lacking with the bare plastic.
Enter some £12 Alcantara knock-off from eBay:
The pads come off with 5 screws, they're apparently glued down from the factory but that glue seems to have long since popped off as they came up without effort.
£12 got me enough material for about 5 sills which has covered the one mistake I already made, and gives me an option to re-cover in a year or so once these are looking tatty. *realistically I'll lose the material I have spare and buy some more, but eh well.
Gave the back of the material and the sill pads a good spraying with some contact adhesive spray I found on Amazon
The next part is very sticky, stretch and not good for photography - but basically stretched all of the bubbles/creases out and got the excess trimmed off on the underside. Quick brush down, looking good.
The glue had congealed in some areas on the driver side bit which caused some small lumps under the material - but a quick glance over it with a warm iron sorted that out a treat.
Refitting into the car took a minute or so, voila.
I ordered the "charcoal" colour which is a really nice contrast with the two different colours of "alcantara" that the car already has in it. The dash top/binnacle is a light shade, the seats and doorcards a dark shade and these sills are somewhere in between.
When I did this on my Elise I think it lasted about a year before a small bubble appeared. I think this was just water ingress as the sills get rather wet when jetwashing the car. I'll put some effort into covering them this time around, but as I said - £12 to re-do the job I can treat these as sacrificial coverings and just tidy it up whenever needed. The old stuff on my Elise wore surprisingly well to shoes/bums, so we'll see how these get on.
I know have a bit of comfort on the armrests, it looks nicer and it usually cures a couple of squeeks/rattles where I previously had plastic on the tub, as it's now cushioned by the material.
All quiet aside from that, hoping to get one more track day done this year before my time is up - but dates are quickly running out so I may end up at any old venue just to get the car on circuit.
I do have a small update today though which you may have seen on the old instagram.
I felt like the interior needed a bit of a clean up, after I replaced the footrest the mats were then letting things down a bit. They were almost worn through on the driver side and they just looked tatty. Ordered some nice new ones from Autostyle, expensiveish at £60 but fit perfectly and feel really good quality.
After that I turned attention to the sill pads, this is a bit of a copy/paste from my Elise thread but it's about time I got round to it on this car. They get very worn in these cars as you're dragging your arse/feet over them to get in/out of the car and it's just a nasty big piece of plastic that really brings things down. It also doubles as an armrest whilst driving so comfort is lacking with the bare plastic.
Enter some £12 Alcantara knock-off from eBay:
The pads come off with 5 screws, they're apparently glued down from the factory but that glue seems to have long since popped off as they came up without effort.
£12 got me enough material for about 5 sills which has covered the one mistake I already made, and gives me an option to re-cover in a year or so once these are looking tatty. *realistically I'll lose the material I have spare and buy some more, but eh well.
Gave the back of the material and the sill pads a good spraying with some contact adhesive spray I found on Amazon
The next part is very sticky, stretch and not good for photography - but basically stretched all of the bubbles/creases out and got the excess trimmed off on the underside. Quick brush down, looking good.
The glue had congealed in some areas on the driver side bit which caused some small lumps under the material - but a quick glance over it with a warm iron sorted that out a treat.
Refitting into the car took a minute or so, voila.
I ordered the "charcoal" colour which is a really nice contrast with the two different colours of "alcantara" that the car already has in it. The dash top/binnacle is a light shade, the seats and doorcards a dark shade and these sills are somewhere in between.
When I did this on my Elise I think it lasted about a year before a small bubble appeared. I think this was just water ingress as the sills get rather wet when jetwashing the car. I'll put some effort into covering them this time around, but as I said - £12 to re-do the job I can treat these as sacrificial coverings and just tidy it up whenever needed. The old stuff on my Elise wore surprisingly well to shoes/bums, so we'll see how these get on.
I know have a bit of comfort on the armrests, it looks nicer and it usually cures a couple of squeeks/rattles where I previously had plastic on the tub, as it's now cushioned by the material.
All quiet aside from that, hoping to get one more track day done this year before my time is up - but dates are quickly running out so I may end up at any old venue just to get the car on circuit.
Reporting in for another trackday update. Blyton Park again for the last time out this year.
The weather forecast had me pretty down all week as it was scheduled for 70-90% of rain pretty much from 9am till close. It was even more annoying that the day before was an absolute stunner.
As part of my pre-trackday inspection I decided to check the spark plugs, or more specifically check the coils. I inspected them at the start of the year and found the outside of the coil boots were mucked up with a browny/red dust but I thought nothing of it, cleaned them up and lobbed them back in. I'd made a note to check them again to see what state they were in, and on the night before the trackday I found them to be all dusty again but also with some slight burn/scorch marks on them and slight damage to the rubber/plastic construction.
I didn't get a picture, but I've stolen a very similar one from Google:
As it was the night before, I couldn't do much about it so I lubed them all up with dielectric grease and got on with it.
If anyone is still reading, you're probably bored of Blyton Park updates by now but to summarise the day was fantastic and the weather actually held off! It was fairly quiet so I got lots of time to focus on my laps and just get my head down. Video review suggests I've dropped a couple of seconds from my laptimes from pre-tuition and I'm starting to get that feeling back that I'm really pushing the car a bit, similar to how I felt just before selling my Elise.
I've uploaded a few clips to YouTube, but I'll post a couple here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofzxgO_pTJE - 2x Clear laps at the end of a session.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swxW9ZOJjQo - Full unedited version of that same session. A bit of traffic earlier on and some good laps following around a V6 350 Sport. Gives a good demonstration in some cases of how the V6 and S2 cars differ in certain areas of performance. The traffic clears for the final 2 laps where I push on a bit.
The only issues I had all day with the car was fuel surge just before lunch, exact same happened last trackday I did. When I got to the petrol station I could fit 30 litres in the car suggesting I had a good 20-25% left in the tank. My fuel pump was upgraded as part of the 260bhp upgrade but I need to figure out why I'm surging so soon, never had these issues in my Elise.
We got a bit of rain over a lunch and it just started spitting as I was packing up, really couldn't believe my luck.
I had a chat with another 260 spec S2 owner towards the end of the day, he'd commented about how much quicker my car was on the straights than his so we had a good talk about the heatsoaking modifications that I've done. I also found my car keeping very close pace to the V6 cars on track (again on the straights) but they would clearly start pulling away on a longer circuit with more time at 100+ mph.
Once I got home, I checked the coils again. They're covered in grease this time but you can clearly see that more red/brown dust has appeared (looks a lot like rust when mushed up with the grease) and you can see the evidence of burning/scorching too.
I have a confession to make that I was starting to have dirty thoughts about selling the car this winter. We've got our first baby due any day now sp the car is likely to collect dust over winter and I've been having really tempting thoughts about getting a V6 Exige for next year and beyond. The trackday on Sunday however has temporarily put that to bed, as it was one of those days where I really fell back in love with the car and found myself making all sorts of longer term plans for it. It was always intended to be a long-term car, so I'm going to put this down to a wobble and crack on with my plans.
If I could best describe the performance of my car I would say it swings a bit between "warm" and "hot". Some days I put my foot down and the surge of acceleration is just brutal, with a real 'zing' to it. Other times I stomp on the gas and it gathers speed quickly enough, but doesn't give me that same spikey sensation. I'd put it down to placebo, other times I thought it was because boost hoses were loose and other times I've put it down to warmer weather or whatever.
At Blyton on Sunday the car was very much in 'zingy' mode all day, and it seemed to pull all day long even during longer sessions. Thinking back to the beginning of the post, I wonder if the coil packs have been arcing a bit and robbing me of a bit of power which the dielectric grease went some way towards mitigating? It seems unlikely because the car always runs well, never is lumpy or obviously misfires.
So over autumn/winter I'm going to take a look at the following. This list is mainly for my benefit so I think a garage whiteboard is called for.
- Investigate the ignition coils, more than likely will replace them all with fresh plugs
- Check over brakes again, I think I've made good progress on my Pagid pads and I think they might be nearly done...
- Lift the fuel pump out and see what I've got. Aftermarket/upgrade pump assemblies are available which boast faster surge recovery etc. If I've already got that upgrade (possible as part of 260 upgrade) then I might need to consider a larger capacity baffled tank. $$$$$$$
- Front Clam off:
- Braided brake hoses
- Aluminium radiator (plastic endcaps on mine are on borrowed time if t'internet is to be believed)
- Stainless tow post/driving light brackets
- Check/inspect the heater matrix and airconditioning condensor
- Chargecooler??***
- Change front track rod ends. I've got a very slight/subtle click sensation going from lock to lock whilst stationary on very sticky/hot tyres between track sessions.
- Inspect coilovers, get them off the car and clean them up. Spring seats are looking crusty so evaluate refurb/replacement options
That about covers it, I do welcome any thoughts or opinion about my ignition coils if anyone is still reading
The weather forecast had me pretty down all week as it was scheduled for 70-90% of rain pretty much from 9am till close. It was even more annoying that the day before was an absolute stunner.
As part of my pre-trackday inspection I decided to check the spark plugs, or more specifically check the coils. I inspected them at the start of the year and found the outside of the coil boots were mucked up with a browny/red dust but I thought nothing of it, cleaned them up and lobbed them back in. I'd made a note to check them again to see what state they were in, and on the night before the trackday I found them to be all dusty again but also with some slight burn/scorch marks on them and slight damage to the rubber/plastic construction.
I didn't get a picture, but I've stolen a very similar one from Google:
As it was the night before, I couldn't do much about it so I lubed them all up with dielectric grease and got on with it.
If anyone is still reading, you're probably bored of Blyton Park updates by now but to summarise the day was fantastic and the weather actually held off! It was fairly quiet so I got lots of time to focus on my laps and just get my head down. Video review suggests I've dropped a couple of seconds from my laptimes from pre-tuition and I'm starting to get that feeling back that I'm really pushing the car a bit, similar to how I felt just before selling my Elise.
I've uploaded a few clips to YouTube, but I'll post a couple here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofzxgO_pTJE - 2x Clear laps at the end of a session.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swxW9ZOJjQo - Full unedited version of that same session. A bit of traffic earlier on and some good laps following around a V6 350 Sport. Gives a good demonstration in some cases of how the V6 and S2 cars differ in certain areas of performance. The traffic clears for the final 2 laps where I push on a bit.
The only issues I had all day with the car was fuel surge just before lunch, exact same happened last trackday I did. When I got to the petrol station I could fit 30 litres in the car suggesting I had a good 20-25% left in the tank. My fuel pump was upgraded as part of the 260bhp upgrade but I need to figure out why I'm surging so soon, never had these issues in my Elise.
We got a bit of rain over a lunch and it just started spitting as I was packing up, really couldn't believe my luck.
I had a chat with another 260 spec S2 owner towards the end of the day, he'd commented about how much quicker my car was on the straights than his so we had a good talk about the heatsoaking modifications that I've done. I also found my car keeping very close pace to the V6 cars on track (again on the straights) but they would clearly start pulling away on a longer circuit with more time at 100+ mph.
Once I got home, I checked the coils again. They're covered in grease this time but you can clearly see that more red/brown dust has appeared (looks a lot like rust when mushed up with the grease) and you can see the evidence of burning/scorching too.
I have a confession to make that I was starting to have dirty thoughts about selling the car this winter. We've got our first baby due any day now sp the car is likely to collect dust over winter and I've been having really tempting thoughts about getting a V6 Exige for next year and beyond. The trackday on Sunday however has temporarily put that to bed, as it was one of those days where I really fell back in love with the car and found myself making all sorts of longer term plans for it. It was always intended to be a long-term car, so I'm going to put this down to a wobble and crack on with my plans.
If I could best describe the performance of my car I would say it swings a bit between "warm" and "hot". Some days I put my foot down and the surge of acceleration is just brutal, with a real 'zing' to it. Other times I stomp on the gas and it gathers speed quickly enough, but doesn't give me that same spikey sensation. I'd put it down to placebo, other times I thought it was because boost hoses were loose and other times I've put it down to warmer weather or whatever.
At Blyton on Sunday the car was very much in 'zingy' mode all day, and it seemed to pull all day long even during longer sessions. Thinking back to the beginning of the post, I wonder if the coil packs have been arcing a bit and robbing me of a bit of power which the dielectric grease went some way towards mitigating? It seems unlikely because the car always runs well, never is lumpy or obviously misfires.
So over autumn/winter I'm going to take a look at the following. This list is mainly for my benefit so I think a garage whiteboard is called for.
- Investigate the ignition coils, more than likely will replace them all with fresh plugs
- Check over brakes again, I think I've made good progress on my Pagid pads and I think they might be nearly done...
- Lift the fuel pump out and see what I've got. Aftermarket/upgrade pump assemblies are available which boast faster surge recovery etc. If I've already got that upgrade (possible as part of 260 upgrade) then I might need to consider a larger capacity baffled tank. $$$$$$$
- Front Clam off:
- Braided brake hoses
- Aluminium radiator (plastic endcaps on mine are on borrowed time if t'internet is to be believed)
- Stainless tow post/driving light brackets
- Check/inspect the heater matrix and airconditioning condensor
- Chargecooler??***
- Change front track rod ends. I've got a very slight/subtle click sensation going from lock to lock whilst stationary on very sticky/hot tyres between track sessions.
- Inspect coilovers, get them off the car and clean them up. Spring seats are looking crusty so evaluate refurb/replacement options
- * On the Chargecooler front, I've made really good progress with the IAT cooling this year but I still get nagging thoughts about going for the full fat solution whilst the front clam is off. I think I'll see how I feel later on, but after Sunday I felt my car was handling the temperatures brilliantly.
That about covers it, I do welcome any thoughts or opinion about my ignition coils if anyone is still reading
Looks like the car was going well at Blyton Kyle. I'm surprised how little is in it on some of the straights between the V6. I was expecting it to walk away quite a bit quicker than that.
Interesting you were thinking of trading it in, I get your points though. I imagine from your previous threads that the V6 wouldn't be standard for very long pushing the budget up even more if you need a counter argument... They do sound great though
Interesting you were thinking of trading it in, I get your points though. I imagine from your previous threads that the V6 wouldn't be standard for very long pushing the budget up even more if you need a counter argument... They do sound great though
Darryl H said:
Looks like the car was going well at Blyton Kyle. I'm surprised how little is in it on some of the straights between the V6. I was expecting it to walk away quite a bit quicker than that.
Interesting you were thinking of trading it in, I get your points though. I imagine from your previous threads that the V6 wouldn't be standard for very long pushing the budget up even more if you need a counter argument... They do sound great though
Cheers mate, I'm under no illusions that a V6 isn't going to start walking away on a longer circuit but I was pretty happy with the performance gap between the two generations' of Exige. I'm also well aware that people aren't balls-out racing at a trackday, generally the attitude of a LoT day is to keep the cars healthy and get home without the aid of the RAC, so not everything is driven to its peak performance!Interesting you were thinking of trading it in, I get your points though. I imagine from your previous threads that the V6 wouldn't be standard for very long pushing the budget up even more if you need a counter argument... They do sound great though
From what I could tell, the V6 had better traction out of the slower stuff and of course had more power/torque. The S2 seemed to manage the direction changes better and was much better on the brakes. It felt like I started to crawl back some straight-line ground after the initial acceleration between around 70-100mph but that could just have been circumstantial.
It was certainly interesting to see the weight shifting around at the back of a V6 round the long left-hand acceleration zone, even though the tech is 7(!) years old now there's some pretty special stuff going on in those cars from what I can tell.
My main reasons for being tempted by a V6 are:
- Theatrics and 'presence' of a baby supercar. They really do sound amazing, and look a bit more grown up than an S2.
- Newer baseline for a long-term car. Getting something of 2016-2017 vintage over my 2006 car has obvious benefits if I'm going to be keeping and tracking the car for a number of years
- Generally they're a bit nicer inside, some nicer materials being used nowadays.
- Higher baseline for power mods, a 350bhp starting point with options for 430+ are nice to have
- Bit more technology to keep me alive on wet trackdays
The main reasons for wanting to stay S2 are:
- Cheap to run on track, means I can do trackdays as often as time allows. May be throttled with the tyre/fuel/brake/insurance costs of a V6
- I keep getting told that the S2 is more fun on a circuit, but I can't make my own mind up about that without trying both. I imagine/understand the V6 to be a lot more sure footed, better under traction and generally have a "heavier" and more stable feel to them. The S2 is a little more on edge.
- I keep hearing stories of people going from S2 -> V6 and then back to S2 again (but for balance I'm quite sure that more people are staying V6...)
- Values seem rather stable on the S2, V6's are obviously still coming down and are very close to crossing over with S2s which makes me think the S2 may become more desirable in the longer term(?)
The performance of the two cars doesn't factor in too much, I'm still way below the capability of my car but I'm sure if I suddenly became a driving god overnight I could still find plenty of areas to improve the S2.
All in all it's a tough one, the Lotus community that I interact with have quite conflicting opinions on the matter. I feel like I need to do a trackday in a V6 before I could possibly decide... and I can't see that happening, so hopefully I can hold onto my cash and keep the S2 for the foreseeable future
Thanks John, glad you enjoyed it.
If I'd have been told back 5-6 years ago that people would be saying such things on one of my project threads I'd laugh them out of the room. I'm a serial blagger, counterbalanced with a little bit of operational OCD I think - but every time I get the tools out I'm learning something
Uncle John said:
with your mechanical nouse.
If I'd have been told back 5-6 years ago that people would be saying such things on one of my project threads I'd laugh them out of the room. I'm a serial blagger, counterbalanced with a little bit of operational OCD I think - but every time I get the tools out I'm learning something Uncle John said:
I’d struggle to part with such a good example but keep us all posted.
Yep I've slept on this a few times and particularly after Blyton I'm quite enthusiastic for the future of this car now - I think it'll be staying around for a bit.Long overdue update, not that much has happened!
I can excuse my work rate and low usage of the car by introducing my new (and first) baby, born October 17th. Obviously my wife and I are pretty chuffed, but time to get back to business now
To celebrate the birth I bought myself a new steering wheel for the Exige. I'd chosen a Sparco 300mm jobby months ago and had it on my list of bits to buy over winter, but whilst sitting around in hospital waiting for our spawn - a used (but very good condition) one came up on a Lotus forum.
->
The Lotus horn-push from the OEM wheel fits perfectly, so don't need to mess around too much with that... though it's a very cheap/nasty part so a nicer version may get dropped in at some point. My reasoning for swapping the wheel was pure man logic, back when I had my Elise I bought some gloves to wear on trackdays - my hands tend to blister up bit when they get sweaty and I often end up flaking all over the cockpit towards the end of a trackday, but mainly I just wanted to look like a racing driver.
The Elise wheel leather was a bit tired, with it having ~50k miles on it but my Exige wheel is much, much nicer and I noticed my gloves were starting to eat away at the leather finish a bit. I would like to preserve it if possible, so man-logic dictates rather than ditching the gloves - I should just buy a suede wheel to further enhance the racing driver aesthetic.
The wheel is marginally smaller than the OEM one too, 330mm down to 300mm (I think) so it's helped my knee clearance a bit too which is nice. Unfortunately the 35mm spacer I had for the OEM wheel does not have the right PCD for the new wheel, and drilling out extra holes wouldn't have worked as there's just not enough material to work with. This had caused my heel-toe issues to return a bit, getting my seat back enough to allow my knees space would mean my arms were too stretched out to be comfortable.
I fixed that today with a new spacer, this time 20mm which I feel is likely the sweetspot of still having good access to my indicator stalks whilst allowing my seat back another click or two.
->
->
First impressions are strong, position feels good for the knees as I can now easily clear the steering column shroud and arm stretch is more comfortable. Happy days.
I've managed to stick a handful of miles on in late October/early November, mainly impromptu nappy supply runs to whatever supermarket was open at the time:
..but also met up with some members of the NYLOC hosted by our nearest Lotus dealership (JCT600 Leeds) for a quick breakfast meet.
Although other Lotus news is quiet, I've been a bit manic on the whole 'amateur mechanic' front with the rest of our fleet.
First up is our Clio 182, I think it's been mentioned on the thread before but it's turned into a bit of an ornament recently - with Missus off on maternity and me working from home 95% of the time... cars don't get used much, and the 182 isn't particularly isofix friendly..!
It's actually the second 182 we've owned and I've not been particularly impressed with either of them. Neither felt good to drive, didn't feel that fast and were generally quite shonky. First one got punted on once my lease car daily (at the time) was delivered and this second one was supposed to be a temporary stand-in whilst we found a replacement... two years later and we just never bothered.
This Clio went to a specialist last summer for about £1k worth of effort, belts/dephaser and fixed a load of other tit and tat bits underneath it. After collecting it I could honestly say I thought the car felt 'fast' for what it was, certainly pulled harder than before and harder than any other Clio I'd experienced. I guess it was the dephaser, maybe timing slightly out before?
It still drove like crap though, 110k miles on it so creaked and groaned all the time - couldn't feel anything through the steering and it didn't grip well either. Threw some Rainsport3 tyres on it after the wife nearly drifted it into a BT exchange and since then have been slowly going through refurbing/replacing everything. It could probably warrant its own thread, but I just can't be arsed.
In spring this year it got new discs/pads all round, summer I did track rod ends, balljoints, tie rods and a few other bits. For MOT in August I replaced a load of brake lines and fixed the exhaust a bit. I was still left with a creaking from the front end and a really loose/inconsistent feel to the steering. I sourced some original cup springs and bought some OEM dampers with some Febi topmounts.
It didn't go without a fight, I needed to retain a couple of bits from the old struts such as the spring top plates and a spacer/bolt combo - but it wasn't coming off without a grinder.
A nut I had to grind through turned out to be a rocking-horse dung size, required ordering direct from Renault despite a friendly PH'er going into their shed and tapping one out for me in the meantime
Once back together, I was amazed that all clunks/creaks had gone - and the car actually felt amazing. For the first time in years of experiencing/owning 182's I can finally say that I can see what the fuss is about. The steering seems to have taken on a subtle amount of weight, and with it feeling. It feels light on its feet, back end moves about a bit (but that's mainly just tyres that I rotated after MOT I think...) and it's a joy to drive. Seriously tempted to do a winter trackday in it, but really we need to think about moving it on to make way for something a bit more child-seat friendly, because our only other cars are 2 doorers.
Speaking of which... Wife took baby and her mum out shopping last Friday and called me in a bit of a panic saying the car sounded knackered. This time referring to our 2009 Civic Type R. I went to go meet them at her mums house and quickly decided it was 'just' brake pads running low.
MOT in August had put them as an advisory, but that was only 200 miles away. That's my defence for what comes next!
I drove the Civic home with Fonzey Jr in the back, had lots of vibration through the brake pedal and heavy squealing at low speed. Once the system got warmed up a bit, the wobble started kicking in big time even without applying brakes - this got me a bit concerned that it was more than just discs and pads.
Up bright and early Saturday I got (thanks to a 37% discount code for ECP) new discs/pads all round for £155. Hardly track-car spec, but they'll do.
I'm ashamed to say that everything was completely dead. Discs had a lip on them that was 4-5mm thick, wear indicators were scoring into what was left of the discs and the pads were pretty much to their backing plates.
I've done probably 10-15 brake pad changes in my time, and every single time I've sworn blind that "next time" I'll buy a rewind tool... yet I never do, each time burning hours with long nose pliers, g-clamps and in this case - a modified spring compressor I got three corners done in three hours, then finally sacked it off and Amazon Primed a rewind kit and went to the pub (baby friendly, obviously).
Next day with my new tools, I got the last corner done in about 12minutes. So much easier all for the sake of £12, so annoyed I didn't do this sooner.
Civic is now driving fine, all vibrations/issues are gone though I think the fluid could use a flush/bleed - one for another day.
All that aside, I'm starting to work on my garage space a bit too - mainly tidying so far and getting rid of some domestic crap from when we moved, such as getting rid of an old fridge to a fellow petrolhead via FB and moving the best part of a tonne of woodburner fuel into the house (that was popular). I've got some timber coming next week and I'll be building a workbench, and sorting out some proper tool storage - so I'll probably update this thread for that too.
Finally, MOT booked for the Exige tomorrow. I'm making a long-way-round trip to a newish localish specialist that's opened in the last few years (or at least, I never heard of them when I had my Elise) so I'll use it as an opportunity to check out their premises, get the MOT done and also get my AC drained off in case I need to remove the condenser as part of my clam-off work over Winter. I guess I'll update tomorrow whether it's a pass or fail
I can excuse my work rate and low usage of the car by introducing my new (and first) baby, born October 17th. Obviously my wife and I are pretty chuffed, but time to get back to business now
To celebrate the birth I bought myself a new steering wheel for the Exige. I'd chosen a Sparco 300mm jobby months ago and had it on my list of bits to buy over winter, but whilst sitting around in hospital waiting for our spawn - a used (but very good condition) one came up on a Lotus forum.
->
The Lotus horn-push from the OEM wheel fits perfectly, so don't need to mess around too much with that... though it's a very cheap/nasty part so a nicer version may get dropped in at some point. My reasoning for swapping the wheel was pure man logic, back when I had my Elise I bought some gloves to wear on trackdays - my hands tend to blister up bit when they get sweaty and I often end up flaking all over the cockpit towards the end of a trackday, but mainly I just wanted to look like a racing driver.
The Elise wheel leather was a bit tired, with it having ~50k miles on it but my Exige wheel is much, much nicer and I noticed my gloves were starting to eat away at the leather finish a bit. I would like to preserve it if possible, so man-logic dictates rather than ditching the gloves - I should just buy a suede wheel to further enhance the racing driver aesthetic.
The wheel is marginally smaller than the OEM one too, 330mm down to 300mm (I think) so it's helped my knee clearance a bit too which is nice. Unfortunately the 35mm spacer I had for the OEM wheel does not have the right PCD for the new wheel, and drilling out extra holes wouldn't have worked as there's just not enough material to work with. This had caused my heel-toe issues to return a bit, getting my seat back enough to allow my knees space would mean my arms were too stretched out to be comfortable.
I fixed that today with a new spacer, this time 20mm which I feel is likely the sweetspot of still having good access to my indicator stalks whilst allowing my seat back another click or two.
->
->
First impressions are strong, position feels good for the knees as I can now easily clear the steering column shroud and arm stretch is more comfortable. Happy days.
I've managed to stick a handful of miles on in late October/early November, mainly impromptu nappy supply runs to whatever supermarket was open at the time:
..but also met up with some members of the NYLOC hosted by our nearest Lotus dealership (JCT600 Leeds) for a quick breakfast meet.
Although other Lotus news is quiet, I've been a bit manic on the whole 'amateur mechanic' front with the rest of our fleet.
First up is our Clio 182, I think it's been mentioned on the thread before but it's turned into a bit of an ornament recently - with Missus off on maternity and me working from home 95% of the time... cars don't get used much, and the 182 isn't particularly isofix friendly..!
It's actually the second 182 we've owned and I've not been particularly impressed with either of them. Neither felt good to drive, didn't feel that fast and were generally quite shonky. First one got punted on once my lease car daily (at the time) was delivered and this second one was supposed to be a temporary stand-in whilst we found a replacement... two years later and we just never bothered.
This Clio went to a specialist last summer for about £1k worth of effort, belts/dephaser and fixed a load of other tit and tat bits underneath it. After collecting it I could honestly say I thought the car felt 'fast' for what it was, certainly pulled harder than before and harder than any other Clio I'd experienced. I guess it was the dephaser, maybe timing slightly out before?
It still drove like crap though, 110k miles on it so creaked and groaned all the time - couldn't feel anything through the steering and it didn't grip well either. Threw some Rainsport3 tyres on it after the wife nearly drifted it into a BT exchange and since then have been slowly going through refurbing/replacing everything. It could probably warrant its own thread, but I just can't be arsed.
In spring this year it got new discs/pads all round, summer I did track rod ends, balljoints, tie rods and a few other bits. For MOT in August I replaced a load of brake lines and fixed the exhaust a bit. I was still left with a creaking from the front end and a really loose/inconsistent feel to the steering. I sourced some original cup springs and bought some OEM dampers with some Febi topmounts.
It didn't go without a fight, I needed to retain a couple of bits from the old struts such as the spring top plates and a spacer/bolt combo - but it wasn't coming off without a grinder.
A nut I had to grind through turned out to be a rocking-horse dung size, required ordering direct from Renault despite a friendly PH'er going into their shed and tapping one out for me in the meantime
Once back together, I was amazed that all clunks/creaks had gone - and the car actually felt amazing. For the first time in years of experiencing/owning 182's I can finally say that I can see what the fuss is about. The steering seems to have taken on a subtle amount of weight, and with it feeling. It feels light on its feet, back end moves about a bit (but that's mainly just tyres that I rotated after MOT I think...) and it's a joy to drive. Seriously tempted to do a winter trackday in it, but really we need to think about moving it on to make way for something a bit more child-seat friendly, because our only other cars are 2 doorers.
Speaking of which... Wife took baby and her mum out shopping last Friday and called me in a bit of a panic saying the car sounded knackered. This time referring to our 2009 Civic Type R. I went to go meet them at her mums house and quickly decided it was 'just' brake pads running low.
MOT in August had put them as an advisory, but that was only 200 miles away. That's my defence for what comes next!
I drove the Civic home with Fonzey Jr in the back, had lots of vibration through the brake pedal and heavy squealing at low speed. Once the system got warmed up a bit, the wobble started kicking in big time even without applying brakes - this got me a bit concerned that it was more than just discs and pads.
Up bright and early Saturday I got (thanks to a 37% discount code for ECP) new discs/pads all round for £155. Hardly track-car spec, but they'll do.
I'm ashamed to say that everything was completely dead. Discs had a lip on them that was 4-5mm thick, wear indicators were scoring into what was left of the discs and the pads were pretty much to their backing plates.
I've done probably 10-15 brake pad changes in my time, and every single time I've sworn blind that "next time" I'll buy a rewind tool... yet I never do, each time burning hours with long nose pliers, g-clamps and in this case - a modified spring compressor
I got three corners done in three hours, then finally sacked it off and Amazon Primed a rewind kit and went to the pub (baby friendly, obviously).Next day with my new tools, I got the last corner done in about 12minutes. So much easier all for the sake of £12, so annoyed I didn't do this sooner.
Civic is now driving fine, all vibrations/issues are gone though I think the fluid could use a flush/bleed - one for another day.
All that aside, I'm starting to work on my garage space a bit too - mainly tidying so far and getting rid of some domestic crap from when we moved, such as getting rid of an old fridge to a fellow petrolhead via FB and moving the best part of a tonne of woodburner fuel into the house (that was popular). I've got some timber coming next week and I'll be building a workbench, and sorting out some proper tool storage - so I'll probably update this thread for that too.
Finally, MOT booked for the Exige tomorrow. I'm making a long-way-round trip to a newish localish specialist that's opened in the last few years (or at least, I never heard of them when I had my Elise) so I'll use it as an opportunity to check out their premises, get the MOT done and also get my AC drained off in case I need to remove the condenser as part of my clam-off work over Winter. I guess I'll update tomorrow whether it's a pass or fail
Just a tip...
Take a closer look at the Sparco steering wheel on the Exige.
If you measure the distance from the top of the wheel to the centre of the horn button, and then the bottom of the wheel to the center of the horn button, you'll find those distances are the same. i.e. the button is in the middle.
Now do the same on the old wheel. The button isn't in the middle, it's much nearer the bottom of the wheel. Actually, you don't need to measure, you can see it in your before and after photos.
This is by design. It's a fundamental part of the Lotus "feel". The offset when the wheel is turned 90 degrees offsets your hand position left or right into the corner, and gives your brain a load of subconscious feedback about how much lock you have on, where the front wheels are pointing etc. You don't realise it (until a Lotus engineer points it out to you) but once you know about it, you can't un-notice it.
Sadly, the Sparco wheel will lose that feedback.
There are aftermarket wheels such as Momo Team available for the Elise derivatives which maintain this offset, even in smaller diameters.
I would recommend paying attention to this, and maybe trying the old wheel again, and see if it matters to you enough to swap back or try a Momo.
P.S. Congrats on dadhood! Many happy years are ahead!
Take a closer look at the Sparco steering wheel on the Exige.
If you measure the distance from the top of the wheel to the centre of the horn button, and then the bottom of the wheel to the center of the horn button, you'll find those distances are the same. i.e. the button is in the middle.
Now do the same on the old wheel. The button isn't in the middle, it's much nearer the bottom of the wheel. Actually, you don't need to measure, you can see it in your before and after photos.
This is by design. It's a fundamental part of the Lotus "feel". The offset when the wheel is turned 90 degrees offsets your hand position left or right into the corner, and gives your brain a load of subconscious feedback about how much lock you have on, where the front wheels are pointing etc. You don't realise it (until a Lotus engineer points it out to you) but once you know about it, you can't un-notice it.
Sadly, the Sparco wheel will lose that feedback.
There are aftermarket wheels such as Momo Team available for the Elise derivatives which maintain this offset, even in smaller diameters.
I would recommend paying attention to this, and maybe trying the old wheel again, and see if it matters to you enough to swap back or try a Momo.
P.S. Congrats on dadhood! Many happy years are ahead!
Edited by CrossMember on Thursday 21st November 08:15
CrossMember said:
P.S. Congrats on dadhood! Many happy years are ahead!
Thanks, so far it has been lots of fun!As for the wheel, I first became aware of the offset/eccentric nature of the Elise wheel when I did my carlimits day a few years ago. Andy Walsh pointed it out and explained the benefits etc. To be honest I probably wouldn't have noticed without him saying it, but after you're aware... it's hard to "un-notice it".
The Sparco wheel I've fitted is not centrally mounted, even if the pictures make it look so - it is still slightly offset towards the bottom as per the OEM wheel. I did go down with a ruler to try and gauge whether it was a less-extreme offset than the OEM one but it's hard to measure with the wheels having different size, thickness, dish etc... but they don't look a million miles off from what I can see.
I think the Lotus/Nardi wheel just looks more extreme due to its chunkier interier and thinner rim, maybe? Either way - Sparco one feels good.
MOT was a pass, advisory on the windscreen washer being a little on the weak side. I had noticed that on the way for the MOT, perhaps a kink in the tubing somewhere. I can investigate when clam comes off.
CrossMember said:
Ah, all good then. Sorry for the thread diversion. Car's still looking fantastic.
No Problem, I think it's a worthwhile discussion - if it had not been pointed out to me previously I'd have never noticed! I also got the AC drained today at the MOT place, just a quick shout-out I took my car to https://www.performance-autocare.co.uk/. They don't do MOT internally but ship it next door to VASSTECH. There are dozens of MOT places between me and Knaresborough but I wanted an excuse to check out Performance Autocare as they're probably my nearest specialist.
Jonny has a good setup there, has got a great range of services and capabilities in-house so will be returning for somewhat regular service stamps in my book (between DIY oil changes) and any bigger/more awkward jobs that may come along in the future.
Fonzey said:
I've done probably 10-15 brake pad changes in my time, and every single time I've sworn blind that "next time" I'll buy a rewind tool... yet I never do, each time burning hours with long nose pliers, g-clamps and in this case - a modified spring compressor
Treat yourself!james_gt3rs said:
Treat yourself!I'm looking forward to the magnetic bowl the most, shame the Exige isn't magnetic.
I always tell myself tools are an investment. In the spirit of that I recently bought myself one of these:
I used to hate bleeding brakes and getting fluid everywhere but now it's practically fun! Even with monoblock calipers you just work you way around the car cracking the bleed nipples.
Amazing what a difference fresh fluid makes, too. A worthwhile investment.
I used to hate bleeding brakes and getting fluid everywhere but now it's practically fun! Even with monoblock calipers you just work you way around the car cracking the bleed nipples.
Amazing what a difference fresh fluid makes, too. A worthwhile investment.
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