Back in a Lotus - 2006 Exige S
Discussion
Battery swapped.
Hubs arrived, can you tell which has got the working ABS?
Lessons learned from the suspension refurb on my Elise back in 2016/17, get the right tool for the job and getting the rear hubs off takes 5mins instead of a long weekend.
Looking good.
Fingers crossed my ABS error clears now, still waiting for a new clamp for the backbox so can't test yet - hopefully a quick tootle up and down the lane tomorrow after Amazon man fetches me my clamp.
Hubs arrived, can you tell which has got the working ABS?
Lessons learned from the suspension refurb on my Elise back in 2016/17, get the right tool for the job and getting the rear hubs off takes 5mins instead of a long weekend.
Looking good.
Fingers crossed my ABS error clears now, still waiting for a new clamp for the backbox so can't test yet - hopefully a quick tootle up and down the lane tomorrow after Amazon man fetches me my clamp.
Yeah they're a great compromise on size, cost and cranking power/longevity, but I think in the next year or so they're going to be come redundant as the Lithium options become more cost effective.
I only paid £40 for this one which made it a no brainer vs £250+ for a Lithium jobby, but if I find myself needing desperately to lose another 5kg in the near future I know where to go!
I only paid £40 for this one which made it a no brainer vs £250+ for a Lithium jobby, but if I find myself needing desperately to lose another 5kg in the near future I know where to go!
Sko77y said:
Been following this on Instagram, great to see the detailed progress here, keep it coming!
Good stuff, certainly will keep updates coming as long as people are reading.Happy tax day! Today SORN is over and I'm now back on the road, sort of.
I took the car out for petrol and that's about it, the front toe angle despite a few DIY attempts to straighten it out is still all over the place so I can't really drive the car with any real enthusiasm. I'll also reserve any judgement on the new suspension until I've got a good setup sorted.
I did have a couple of 'pulls' up to the business end of the rev range to remind myself how it felt, feels pretty good - much the same as it did before really which is good as it means I didn't break anything. As I expected the charge cooler has not really added any benefit to the perceived "on-the-road" performance but I'm sure this will come into its own once I put some laps in (hopefully soon!).
Car got a wash, was nice to clean the dust off.
I'll see if I can get the front toe tracked in somewhere next week to free me up for a longer/more enthusiastic drive. My tinkering is not concluded yet, got a couple other things I want to address but nothing that will require lengthy time off the road etc. Just enough to keep me out of trouble
I've fallen behind on updates a little bit, so will post an update up-to today for now, then will compile the today update a bit later.
Car was road worthy but front geo was on the piss, so took it down to a local tyre place for a £25 alignment. The lads really take their time over it and in fairness I think they do a good job - just don't have the gear for a full four wheel setup/corner balancing etc.
They got it driveable and allowed me to get a few miles done just to shakedown everything else. Car running well, happy days.
With my geo and dyno day coming up I replaced a few more consumables to service the car.
Air filter up for the TRD airbox first:
Then something I've been debating all winter. I posted on a few forums (including here) about the condition of my ignition coils. They've got obvious burn marks on the outside of their insulators which just didn't seem right to me. The general consensus was that they're fine, but I was having sleepless nights so I chucked some new ones in:
I lathered them up with dielectric grease to assist with insulating, will keep an eye on this set.
Finally I broke a rule I've tried to enforce on myself which is never to take on a "new" job when I've got a deadline... and I wish I stuck to my rule now.
I've had a tiny oil weep on the car since I bought it, barely noticeable and it doesn't drop enough oil to register on the dipstick.... it just collects between the timing cover and sump and every now and then the side of the sump gets a bit damp from it. It's never even leaked enough to drip down onto the undertray or floor... so that should have been a back burner job? Right?
I was convinced (and still am) that it's just the timing cover gasket at the bottom - as that looks like that's where it's collecting. I'd been asking around to see if it was possible to remove the timing cover with the engine and clam in situ. It's hard to gauge from being laid on the floor so I'd like to hear of a first hand tale before starting it myself. In the meantime though I figured I'd pick up a new crank seal and maybe do that, as that sits right above the apparent location of the leak and could be an easy fix. Easy. Right?
Crank pulley off:
Calling on my inner-Dexter, it's clear there's a circular pattern of oil - whether the turbulent air from the belt whizzing round has just picked up the oil from the suspected timing cover leak below, or whether the actual crank seal was the root cause - I'm still not sure. Either way, crank seal is inexpensive so why not change that now to rule it out and come back to the timing cover later if needed?
Unfortunately at this point I regretted taking this on. The crank pulley had some odd markings on it, some I suspect are normal wear/tear but others I was less sure about.
There's quite a deep groove caused by the old seal, hard to imagine rubber on metal can do this - but with the heat/RPMs involved who knows. The dimple though is something else, I'm fairly sure I didn't cause it during removal - so was this the cause of the leak?! This left me in a bit of a pickle... I had one working day before I was due to drive 130 odd miles for geo and dyno and I really wasn't sure about putting this pulley back on.
With options and time limited, I picked up the phone and ordered one from Toyota. I really don't want to talk about how much it was, so let's leave it there
I cleaned up the engine to help identify any subsequent leaks:
New seal was fitted with a smear of RTV on its outer surface, then left overnight to cure.
Whilst there I also found the idler pulley to be a bit rattly, with a bit of play on it. Luckily these are a standard fitment so cheap as chips from motorfactors, but I couldn't get one in time so that'll come later. The belt runs straight and true so it's not urgent.
Nervously I cranked it over the following day and watched for leaks. What I absolutely could not afford was to actually cause a worse problem with a badly fitted seal so I really did take my time with it, even making a tool to push it in nice and square.
First impressions looked good, bone dry after coming up to temp in the garage. The following day I took it out for 40 miles or so and inspected again once home... still dry. More updates to come, I don't expect to have fixed it (still suspecting the timing cover) but the early signs look good that I've at least not made it worse :lol:
Next update will cover todays Dyno/Geo session - just need to collate the info / graphs etc first as I didn't pick any up whilst there.
Car was road worthy but front geo was on the piss, so took it down to a local tyre place for a £25 alignment. The lads really take their time over it and in fairness I think they do a good job - just don't have the gear for a full four wheel setup/corner balancing etc.
They got it driveable and allowed me to get a few miles done just to shakedown everything else. Car running well, happy days.
With my geo and dyno day coming up I replaced a few more consumables to service the car.
Air filter up for the TRD airbox first:
Then something I've been debating all winter. I posted on a few forums (including here) about the condition of my ignition coils. They've got obvious burn marks on the outside of their insulators which just didn't seem right to me. The general consensus was that they're fine, but I was having sleepless nights so I chucked some new ones in:
I lathered them up with dielectric grease to assist with insulating, will keep an eye on this set.
Finally I broke a rule I've tried to enforce on myself which is never to take on a "new" job when I've got a deadline... and I wish I stuck to my rule now.
I've had a tiny oil weep on the car since I bought it, barely noticeable and it doesn't drop enough oil to register on the dipstick.... it just collects between the timing cover and sump and every now and then the side of the sump gets a bit damp from it. It's never even leaked enough to drip down onto the undertray or floor... so that should have been a back burner job? Right?
I was convinced (and still am) that it's just the timing cover gasket at the bottom - as that looks like that's where it's collecting. I'd been asking around to see if it was possible to remove the timing cover with the engine and clam in situ. It's hard to gauge from being laid on the floor so I'd like to hear of a first hand tale before starting it myself. In the meantime though I figured I'd pick up a new crank seal and maybe do that, as that sits right above the apparent location of the leak and could be an easy fix. Easy. Right?
Crank pulley off:
Calling on my inner-Dexter, it's clear there's a circular pattern of oil - whether the turbulent air from the belt whizzing round has just picked up the oil from the suspected timing cover leak below, or whether the actual crank seal was the root cause - I'm still not sure. Either way, crank seal is inexpensive so why not change that now to rule it out and come back to the timing cover later if needed?
Unfortunately at this point I regretted taking this on. The crank pulley had some odd markings on it, some I suspect are normal wear/tear but others I was less sure about.
There's quite a deep groove caused by the old seal, hard to imagine rubber on metal can do this - but with the heat/RPMs involved who knows. The dimple though is something else, I'm fairly sure I didn't cause it during removal - so was this the cause of the leak?! This left me in a bit of a pickle... I had one working day before I was due to drive 130 odd miles for geo and dyno and I really wasn't sure about putting this pulley back on.
With options and time limited, I picked up the phone and ordered one from Toyota. I really don't want to talk about how much it was, so let's leave it there
I cleaned up the engine to help identify any subsequent leaks:
New seal was fitted with a smear of RTV on its outer surface, then left overnight to cure.
Whilst there I also found the idler pulley to be a bit rattly, with a bit of play on it. Luckily these are a standard fitment so cheap as chips from motorfactors, but I couldn't get one in time so that'll come later. The belt runs straight and true so it's not urgent.
Nervously I cranked it over the following day and watched for leaks. What I absolutely could not afford was to actually cause a worse problem with a badly fitted seal so I really did take my time with it, even making a tool to push it in nice and square.
First impressions looked good, bone dry after coming up to temp in the garage. The following day I took it out for 40 miles or so and inspected again once home... still dry. More updates to come, I don't expect to have fixed it (still suspecting the timing cover) but the early signs look good that I've at least not made it worse :lol:
Next update will cover todays Dyno/Geo session - just need to collate the info / graphs etc first as I didn't pick any up whilst there.
Last week I went to see Dan @ HPE Automotive, forgot to pick up dyno graphs so will update the thread later with them.
Plan was to geo the car and stick it on the dyno to make sure that the CC was working and to make sure nothing would fall off under heavy load.
Arrived and Dan wasted no time getting the kettle on whilst we got the car ready for geo.
As expected/hoped it wasn't a million miles out - I'd not touched toe/camber at the rear so it was just a case of sorting front toe out and ride heights. Even the ride height didn't need much adjustment, but Dan did notice that my NS Front was carrying a bit too much camber (as OS Front was maxed out with no shims) so we added a shim back into the NS to even them out at approx 1.3 deg.
The overall car weight was a pleasant surprise. This was before adjustment so only the headline figure is really relevant:
I calculated the net gain of the charge cooler being 13kg so to think this car was a sub-900kg car stock is nice to know. I've been assuming it was close to the wikipedia figure of 930kg (since I do have carpets, AC and pig iron wheels) but I can only assume that's for a black dash car with all the extra gubbins in it.
It's good to know that I'm a set of forged wheels away from being sub 900 again, but I've decided in the meantime I need to lose 3kg bodyweight to get it back under a tonne with me inside. Anybody know where I can find a carbon fibre burger?
Once the suspension was sorted, it was Dyno time. As said I don't have the graphs for this yet and my memory on the figures is starting to haze over, so might have to retro-edit later.
After warming the car up, we did three "power runs" and a "test the charge cooler" run in which the car was held at highish RPM for a bit before doing a WOT pull right at the end. The results can be summarised as follows:
- All runs within 1bhp of each other
- IAT's didn't exceed 26 degrees and recovered back to their 16 degree tick-over temp very quickly each time
- AFRs bang on the money
- Headline figure 255bhp ATF / 216bhpish ATW. Torque I've forgotten.
My biggest regret of the winter is not getting a dyno run done before I took the car apart. You can probably ignore any of the following comparisons if you're a true scientist, but working with what I've got I can make some conclusions.
First up, the headline figure. I did not expect any power gains from the charge cooler, I was told by a few people that the 260 map responded really well to intercooling/charge cooling upgrades and that I could maybe make a bit of peak power out of it - but I never really expected it. I have however seen dyno readouts from other 260 cars that have made comfortably into the 270s, I'm not dismissing those or diminishing their numbers I'm just aware that all cars, dynos and days are different. I'll talk more about the headline figure and my next objectives later.
Second up IATs, they were amazing! Again I've got no dyno comparison but I do have a road comparison from some tests I did last year.
Dyno pulls: 8degree ambient
(first run is warmup, second run is the "abuse the CC" run, third and fourth are power runs with the final power run missing because I took the phone to make a video)
Peak average around 25degrees, settling very quickly each time down to the 16 degree "baseline" for tickover.
Road pulls: 12 degree ambient:
Peaking over 40 degrees, never really settling down to the original "baseline" of 21/22 degrees for off-boost driving
I think it's fair to say the charge cooler is a bit of a monster, and that those gains are excellent. The heat soak element is only half of the story, the fact that peak temps are almost halved is just crazy, this should reduce the parasitic losses on the supercharger nicely as it'll be so much easier to meet the boost target. Really looking forward to logging a trackday too.
I may need to edit this section later, but we were able to compare my graphs against a legit 260 cup car that was on the standard intercooler. Obviously different day, different car but still yielded some interesting comparisons. This particular car made 268bhp(something like that) but when we overlaid the curves, mine was making more power all the way through the range and only got pipped in the final 500 rpm or so. The torque graph showed even bigger gains (to my car) in the mid range. Oh, the 260 Cup car also lost 5-10 bhp PER RUN when doing back to backs!
I'm really happy with how the day went, the car feels very quick to me currently - so if it is "only" making 255bhp then that does give me a bit more ceiling for cheap-ish improvements. If I'd have dyno'd at 280bhp (for example) I'd be at my ceiling already, and I'd take no pleasure from the higher figure.
Whilst spending the day messing around with the ODB reader and logging the various info, I came across something. When at WOT, my Throttle Opening % (at the manifold) is reading 78%. This initially meant nothing to me (who's to say the ECU is even measuring a linear 0-100% scale?!), but then I stumbled across an old post on <another> forum with this information in it about the Exige S maps:
220 = run on 315 injectors with throttle percentage of 67%
240 = run on 440 injectors with a throttle percentage of 78%
260 = also runs on 440 injectors with a fully opening throttle 100%
Suddenly that 78% figure started to seem a little bit coincidental, no?
I don't for a moment think that I'm running the 240 map on my car, the 255bhp figure should be evidence of that alone but I've also spent plenty of time on track with 260 Cup cars and I've had no issue holding straight line pace with them, I know that's hardly scientific - but the car just feels too quick for that.
There's also the 255 map that is floating around, I don't know what the throttle limits were for that though and I'm struggling to find any info on it other than it was apparently crap.
I'm fairly certain I've got the 260 ECU and that the 78% thing is just an anomaly, but I need to confirm it one way or the other so I've asked for some of the 260 owners that I know to take some similar readings, but none are currently armed with an ODB device. Alternatively Oakmere Lotus have told me they can plug in and tell me one way or the other, but that's another day off work and ~200 mile journey I can do without this month!
If there are any readers/lurkers here with a 260 ECU (or 220 or 240 tbh, it would be good to compare notes) then please feel free to contribute *Since drafting this post I've had a 220s owner do some logging for me and their throttle opens to 55% at WOT according to ODB, so there's definitely a difference between maps - but it still doesn't tell me much about my car*
Once I put that to bed, I've got a couple of options for trying to untap a bit more power:
- If I don't have a 260 ECU, then I should certainly try and source one... might be easier said then done...
- If I do have 260 and still want a bit more, then it's time to go aftermarket. Really liking the look of the EMU Black ECU that a few people have fitted recently. I'd probably couple this with a smaller SC pulley and see how it does.
Happy days anyway, car is now fully ready for use - time to get some track days booked I think.
Plan was to geo the car and stick it on the dyno to make sure that the CC was working and to make sure nothing would fall off under heavy load.
Arrived and Dan wasted no time getting the kettle on whilst we got the car ready for geo.
As expected/hoped it wasn't a million miles out - I'd not touched toe/camber at the rear so it was just a case of sorting front toe out and ride heights. Even the ride height didn't need much adjustment, but Dan did notice that my NS Front was carrying a bit too much camber (as OS Front was maxed out with no shims) so we added a shim back into the NS to even them out at approx 1.3 deg.
The overall car weight was a pleasant surprise. This was before adjustment so only the headline figure is really relevant:
I calculated the net gain of the charge cooler being 13kg so to think this car was a sub-900kg car stock is nice to know. I've been assuming it was close to the wikipedia figure of 930kg (since I do have carpets, AC and pig iron wheels) but I can only assume that's for a black dash car with all the extra gubbins in it.
It's good to know that I'm a set of forged wheels away from being sub 900 again, but I've decided in the meantime I need to lose 3kg bodyweight to get it back under a tonne with me inside. Anybody know where I can find a carbon fibre burger?
Once the suspension was sorted, it was Dyno time. As said I don't have the graphs for this yet and my memory on the figures is starting to haze over, so might have to retro-edit later.
After warming the car up, we did three "power runs" and a "test the charge cooler" run in which the car was held at highish RPM for a bit before doing a WOT pull right at the end. The results can be summarised as follows:
- All runs within 1bhp of each other
- IAT's didn't exceed 26 degrees and recovered back to their 16 degree tick-over temp very quickly each time
- AFRs bang on the money
- Headline figure 255bhp ATF / 216bhpish ATW. Torque I've forgotten.
My biggest regret of the winter is not getting a dyno run done before I took the car apart. You can probably ignore any of the following comparisons if you're a true scientist, but working with what I've got I can make some conclusions.
First up, the headline figure. I did not expect any power gains from the charge cooler, I was told by a few people that the 260 map responded really well to intercooling/charge cooling upgrades and that I could maybe make a bit of peak power out of it - but I never really expected it. I have however seen dyno readouts from other 260 cars that have made comfortably into the 270s, I'm not dismissing those or diminishing their numbers I'm just aware that all cars, dynos and days are different. I'll talk more about the headline figure and my next objectives later.
Second up IATs, they were amazing! Again I've got no dyno comparison but I do have a road comparison from some tests I did last year.
Dyno pulls: 8degree ambient
(first run is warmup, second run is the "abuse the CC" run, third and fourth are power runs with the final power run missing because I took the phone to make a video)
Peak average around 25degrees, settling very quickly each time down to the 16 degree "baseline" for tickover.
Road pulls: 12 degree ambient:
Peaking over 40 degrees, never really settling down to the original "baseline" of 21/22 degrees for off-boost driving
I think it's fair to say the charge cooler is a bit of a monster, and that those gains are excellent. The heat soak element is only half of the story, the fact that peak temps are almost halved is just crazy, this should reduce the parasitic losses on the supercharger nicely as it'll be so much easier to meet the boost target. Really looking forward to logging a trackday too.
I may need to edit this section later, but we were able to compare my graphs against a legit 260 cup car that was on the standard intercooler. Obviously different day, different car but still yielded some interesting comparisons. This particular car made 268bhp(something like that) but when we overlaid the curves, mine was making more power all the way through the range and only got pipped in the final 500 rpm or so. The torque graph showed even bigger gains (to my car) in the mid range. Oh, the 260 Cup car also lost 5-10 bhp PER RUN when doing back to backs!
I'm really happy with how the day went, the car feels very quick to me currently - so if it is "only" making 255bhp then that does give me a bit more ceiling for cheap-ish improvements. If I'd have dyno'd at 280bhp (for example) I'd be at my ceiling already, and I'd take no pleasure from the higher figure.
Whilst spending the day messing around with the ODB reader and logging the various info, I came across something. When at WOT, my Throttle Opening % (at the manifold) is reading 78%. This initially meant nothing to me (who's to say the ECU is even measuring a linear 0-100% scale?!), but then I stumbled across an old post on <another> forum with this information in it about the Exige S maps:
220 = run on 315 injectors with throttle percentage of 67%
240 = run on 440 injectors with a throttle percentage of 78%
260 = also runs on 440 injectors with a fully opening throttle 100%
Suddenly that 78% figure started to seem a little bit coincidental, no?
I don't for a moment think that I'm running the 240 map on my car, the 255bhp figure should be evidence of that alone but I've also spent plenty of time on track with 260 Cup cars and I've had no issue holding straight line pace with them, I know that's hardly scientific - but the car just feels too quick for that.
There's also the 255 map that is floating around, I don't know what the throttle limits were for that though and I'm struggling to find any info on it other than it was apparently crap.
I'm fairly certain I've got the 260 ECU and that the 78% thing is just an anomaly, but I need to confirm it one way or the other so I've asked for some of the 260 owners that I know to take some similar readings, but none are currently armed with an ODB device. Alternatively Oakmere Lotus have told me they can plug in and tell me one way or the other, but that's another day off work and ~200 mile journey I can do without this month!
If there are any readers/lurkers here with a 260 ECU (or 220 or 240 tbh, it would be good to compare notes) then please feel free to contribute
*Since drafting this post I've had a 220s owner do some logging for me and their throttle opens to 55% at WOT according to ODB, so there's definitely a difference between maps - but it still doesn't tell me much about my car*Once I put that to bed, I've got a couple of options for trying to untap a bit more power:
- If I don't have a 260 ECU, then I should certainly try and source one... might be easier said then done...
- If I do have 260 and still want a bit more, then it's time to go aftermarket. Really liking the look of the EMU Black ECU that a few people have fitted recently. I'd probably couple this with a smaller SC pulley and see how it does.
Happy days anyway, car is now fully ready for use - time to get some track days booked I think.
Strange night last night, bed early after the baby refused to let us get more than 10mins into a film and then the nest thermostat in the house went mental at around 01:30 and tried to cook us in our sleep. Once I woke up to sort it, I couldn't get back to sleep at all... Boris' words and the thoughts of my village pub being closed for potentially months really making the Corona situation start to feel a bit real (I'm a slow learner). What would the ethical or social implications of doing stuff like trackdays or leisure drives out into the country in the coming weeks and months?
As I laid there staring at the ceiling, I made a vow to get out and use the car fairly soon on a proper decent drive with no other goal than to take in some of the glory of North Yorkshire, enjoy the car and essentially shake it down for real. I'm guilty of using the car a lot for short/mundane journeys, using a bit of power on the same slip roads/roundabouts day in and day out which makes the car feel predictable and tame.
3 hours later and the Cockerel in the farm behind our house was at full chat, which then woke up the Peacock which in turn started yelping... sleep wasn't happening now so I tiptoed down to the garage...
After loading the car with my packup (bag of crisps and a cereal bar if you're wondering) I got a route sorted. Not intended to be the worlds best driving route, but a route I know fairly well and gives a good balance of roads and scenery.
At 5am on the nose(ish) I cranked the car... nothing. Immobiliser wasn't going off, looks like battery has died in my key fob. Had a brief thought about going back to bed, but no - spare key came out and the car creaked into life.
The first leg of the journey was to head towards Bridlington, a route I've done many times but normally in bank holiday traffic like a total mug. Today I had pretty much the entire route to myself, the route soon gets quite hilly but is brilliantly sighted and has some nice quick flowing sections. It was still dark when I set off but daylight was creeping in, got to see loads of Owls on this leg of the journey, not sure if they're breeding or what at the moment but they seemed to be in pairs being a bit playful with each other.
After a few miles the fizzing and buzzing of the cheap interior plastics and creaking of the surrounding fibreglass seem to silence themselves, almost as if the car "settles in" once the body and chassis has flexed a bit. Although these cars will never be truly "nice places to be" the car just felt so much nicer when it all settled in and quietened down. I think much of this is the hard top, there's clearly a bit of marginal flex in the bodywork which you only hear once a hardtop is bolted down. Eventually through lots of minor adjustments and getting the torque on the fixings "just right" you can get it silenced, but this normally takes a few journeys following a hardtop removal/reinstallation. Either way, after a few miles I had silence from the interior so perhaps it's settled on its own.
As soon as the sun made an appearance, I pulled over for a quick photo.
Shortly after this photo op I came to a roundabout, nicely open and my first exit made for a nice 90 left which I could carry a fair bit of (legal) speed through but I'd approached it a bit too slowly due to being distracted (probably by some more frisky owls) so I changed down into second and made up for it on exit, woops - bit of a wake-up call as the T/C made a half hearted attempt to cut power but only after I'd done the hard work and arrested the car back into submission. On we go....
Before getting to Bridlington I peeled off and headed for Scarborough a little further North, I preferred it there and knew where to find a public toilet (for 40p!!) which was becoming a requirement. I arrived at the North beach to be greeted with a lovely bit of sun.
40p toilets were closed... uh oh.
I had my packup and a little walk up and down the beach and then headed off for my next leg. This bit of road connected Scarborough and Whitby via a village called Ruswarp. We're regulars to Ruswarp as our ex-pub landlords now run a pub there instead so we make visits occasionally to stop over. The road to get there is fantastic, I didn't get many photos because the weather had come over a bit and it smelled like rain so I wanted to cover the ground in the dry as quickly as I could. I did get one quick stop in though.
There's actually a pair of Deer hidden away in that photo, they stood out more to me as they were hopping along the field behind but they're very hard to pick out in the photo. The Deer did have the same effect as a passing traffic cam van would have though and reminded me to keep things in check...
Can see how the new ride height sits in this shot. Aesthetically I'd want it raising at the front a bit, but can't argue with science - and I've had no clearance issues with it yet either.
Through Ruswarp and the rain hit, only very light but enough to slow things down coming back into the NY Moors via Fylingdales. Again no photos, but I did snap a few here last Easter so you can scroll back in the thread if you're so desperate.
I made my next stop at the Hole of Horcum, quick walk to stretch the legs and considered using the facilities (squatting behind a tree). Passing Police van made me reconsider, but this did mean that I needed to make a fairly direct route home
The road between Horcum and Malton was still pretty good even though the scenery of the NY Moors is largely behind you, car was feeling really, really good at this leg of the journey - just seemed to have an urgency about it and would quickly achieve some silly speeds if allowed to do so. The suspension was set far too soft really for an enthusiastic drive, but I know I've got loads of adjustment to make (currently 17 clicks from hard out of a total of 20...). I'll make an adjustment to stiffen things up closer to half way, but will leave the front slightly softer than the rear to try and improve turn-in a bit.
Due to the bathroom situation I made a call to get onto the A64 as soon as I could and just beelined it home, well - via Screwfix as I had a toilet to fix when I got home.
I did 148 miles in total and was 3 hours 10mins door to door. Considering a quick walk on the beach and a few photo stops.... not a bad rate of progress. If I'd not gone and locked myself out I could have sneaked back into the house and back into bed without the wife even noticing! As it happened I needed her to come let me in, not a popular start to the day.
Only real snagging list on the car is:
- Adjust handbrake cable, now that the brakes have settled in a bit I can probably tighten it another few turns
- Stiffen damping up a bit
- Hoover the sand out of the carpets
Car felt really really good, when you're not out driving it your mind starts wandering about modifications, chasing more power and performance, etc- but then when out on the road like this morning it really does feel more than fast enough - but with quarantine on our doorstep and weeks or months of staring at the internet, I'm sure the bug to keep modifying will be back soon...
As I laid there staring at the ceiling, I made a vow to get out and use the car fairly soon on a proper decent drive with no other goal than to take in some of the glory of North Yorkshire, enjoy the car and essentially shake it down for real. I'm guilty of using the car a lot for short/mundane journeys, using a bit of power on the same slip roads/roundabouts day in and day out which makes the car feel predictable and tame.
3 hours later and the Cockerel in the farm behind our house was at full chat, which then woke up the Peacock which in turn started yelping... sleep wasn't happening now so I tiptoed down to the garage...
After loading the car with my packup (bag of crisps and a cereal bar if you're wondering) I got a route sorted. Not intended to be the worlds best driving route, but a route I know fairly well and gives a good balance of roads and scenery.
At 5am on the nose(ish) I cranked the car... nothing. Immobiliser wasn't going off, looks like battery has died in my key fob. Had a brief thought about going back to bed, but no - spare key came out and the car creaked into life.
The first leg of the journey was to head towards Bridlington, a route I've done many times but normally in bank holiday traffic like a total mug. Today I had pretty much the entire route to myself, the route soon gets quite hilly but is brilliantly sighted and has some nice quick flowing sections. It was still dark when I set off but daylight was creeping in, got to see loads of Owls on this leg of the journey, not sure if they're breeding or what at the moment but they seemed to be in pairs being a bit playful with each other.
After a few miles the fizzing and buzzing of the cheap interior plastics and creaking of the surrounding fibreglass seem to silence themselves, almost as if the car "settles in" once the body and chassis has flexed a bit. Although these cars will never be truly "nice places to be" the car just felt so much nicer when it all settled in and quietened down. I think much of this is the hard top, there's clearly a bit of marginal flex in the bodywork which you only hear once a hardtop is bolted down. Eventually through lots of minor adjustments and getting the torque on the fixings "just right" you can get it silenced, but this normally takes a few journeys following a hardtop removal/reinstallation. Either way, after a few miles I had silence from the interior so perhaps it's settled on its own.
As soon as the sun made an appearance, I pulled over for a quick photo.
Shortly after this photo op I came to a roundabout, nicely open and my first exit made for a nice 90 left which I could carry a fair bit of (legal) speed through but I'd approached it a bit too slowly due to being distracted (probably by some more frisky owls) so I changed down into second and made up for it on exit, woops - bit of a wake-up call as the T/C made a half hearted attempt to cut power but only after I'd done the hard work and arrested the car back into submission. On we go....
Before getting to Bridlington I peeled off and headed for Scarborough a little further North, I preferred it there and knew where to find a public toilet (for 40p!!) which was becoming a requirement. I arrived at the North beach to be greeted with a lovely bit of sun.
40p toilets were closed... uh oh.
I had my packup and a little walk up and down the beach and then headed off for my next leg. This bit of road connected Scarborough and Whitby via a village called Ruswarp. We're regulars to Ruswarp as our ex-pub landlords now run a pub there instead so we make visits occasionally to stop over. The road to get there is fantastic, I didn't get many photos because the weather had come over a bit and it smelled like rain so I wanted to cover the ground in the dry as quickly as I could. I did get one quick stop in though.
There's actually a pair of Deer hidden away in that photo, they stood out more to me as they were hopping along the field behind but they're very hard to pick out in the photo. The Deer did have the same effect as a passing traffic cam van would have though and reminded me to keep things in check...
Can see how the new ride height sits in this shot. Aesthetically I'd want it raising at the front a bit, but can't argue with science - and I've had no clearance issues with it yet either.
Through Ruswarp and the rain hit, only very light but enough to slow things down coming back into the NY Moors via Fylingdales. Again no photos, but I did snap a few here last Easter so you can scroll back in the thread if you're so desperate.
I made my next stop at the Hole of Horcum, quick walk to stretch the legs and considered using the facilities (squatting behind a tree). Passing Police van made me reconsider, but this did mean that I needed to make a fairly direct route home
The road between Horcum and Malton was still pretty good even though the scenery of the NY Moors is largely behind you, car was feeling really, really good at this leg of the journey - just seemed to have an urgency about it and would quickly achieve some silly speeds if allowed to do so. The suspension was set far too soft really for an enthusiastic drive, but I know I've got loads of adjustment to make (currently 17 clicks from hard out of a total of 20...). I'll make an adjustment to stiffen things up closer to half way, but will leave the front slightly softer than the rear to try and improve turn-in a bit.
Due to the bathroom situation I made a call to get onto the A64 as soon as I could and just beelined it home, well - via Screwfix as I had a toilet to fix when I got home.
I did 148 miles in total and was 3 hours 10mins door to door. Considering a quick walk on the beach and a few photo stops.... not a bad rate of progress. If I'd not gone and locked myself out I could have sneaked back into the house and back into bed without the wife even noticing! As it happened I needed her to come let me in, not a popular start to the day.
Only real snagging list on the car is:
- Adjust handbrake cable, now that the brakes have settled in a bit I can probably tighten it another few turns
- Stiffen damping up a bit
- Hoover the sand out of the carpets
Car felt really really good, when you're not out driving it your mind starts wandering about modifications, chasing more power and performance, etc- but then when out on the road like this morning it really does feel more than fast enough - but with quarantine on our doorstep and weeks or months of staring at the internet, I'm sure the bug to keep modifying will be back soon...
Got my USB endoscope out last night and had a peek up at the crank pulley/sump area - after 300ish miles it's still bone dry so I'm getting nervously confident that I did indeed solve that leak with the crank seal which is a relief after the cost of changing the pulley etc.
Still I won't believe it's fixed completely until later in the year when I get some real mileage on the car (hopefully!)
With our lock down announcement I'm going to draw up a small list for a bit more tinkering, there's a temptation to bring forward next winters' plans but that might require 3rd party involvement which I just can't be sure of at the moment, plus we've got no idea when the lock down will be lifted so I don't want to have my car in a thousand pieces again, needs to be ready for action at a moments notice!
Still I won't believe it's fixed completely until later in the year when I get some real mileage on the car (hopefully!)
With our lock down announcement I'm going to draw up a small list for a bit more tinkering, there's a temptation to bring forward next winters' plans but that might require 3rd party involvement which I just can't be sure of at the moment, plus we've got no idea when the lock down will be lifted so I don't want to have my car in a thousand pieces again, needs to be ready for action at a moments notice!
Darryl H said:
I'm finally all caught up. Good updates Kyle
All this time at home is definitely good tinkering time!
Cheers mate, wish I paced myself a bit - not much to get done now! Well, I'm doing my best trying to make jobs that need doing...All this time at home is definitely good tinkering time!
On tonights' episode of "Kyle wastes more money on parts that aren't needed".... Idler Pulley!
When I was changing the crank pulley/seal a few weeks ago I gave all my pulleys a spin by hand and found the idle pulley to be a bit loose and wobbly. Could easily wobble it around on its axis and got a bit of knocking from it, so decided it could go on the Winter20/21 backburner as the belt still ran true etc.
Then lockdown happened, so I went about finding how much a replacement would be, found it was a very common part across a bunch of brands which is great news, as it means it was cheap! (<£30 delivered I think).
I did my research and found a video from an MR2 (2zz swapped) owner doing a similar change and he brought something to my attention, the bolt which holds it on is very long and goes through two tabs on the back of the block with a supporting collar between the tabs. The bolt is so long, you can't actually pull it out because it hits the subframe. The MR2 fix for this is to pull the bolt out a bit, chop it - then when the replacement arrives simply feed it in the reverse way, as there's loads of clearance on the "inboard" side.
I asked around to see if this was a done thing, or considered a bit of a bodge and didn't come up with much... other than one person saying "they all wobble, it's fine". After struggling to find a strong opinion either way, I noticed on some old pictures (from when I removed my exhaust last year) that my bolt was already threaded in the "wrong" way, suggesting that the pulley had been off once before... or did Lotus fit them all like that?!
You can just see in the bottom right of this photo a bolt head, well that should be the nut on that side according to the deroure and toyota parts diagrams. My car had the nut on the pulley end instead.
One way to find out, luckily I had a spare Exige sat in my garage so a quick peak down his boot lid vents with a torch showed it was bolted on "wrong" too... so I can conclude from that, Lotus must bolt it in "backwards" to make future maintenance easy... nice one!
Anyway, that's all a long way round of getting to the point - I fitted the new one tonight and guess what, it wobbles too
When inspecting it on the bench the bearing feels very tight, but as soon as it's bolted to the block and you can apply a bit of leverage onto it - it gets a slight wobble... fairly less of a wobble than the old one did mind, but I'm sure in 20k miles time it'll be just the same. So there you go, waste of time and money - but it's black and not rusty, so points for that.
I've brought a couple of jobs forward from what were supposed to come later in the year (next Winter...).
First of all I received a care package from SeriouslyLotus, not even a global crisis can stop Dave from getting bits to me the following day.
My OEM rubber ARB bushes had been added to my snagging list when I installed the suspension, they were starting to crack a little bit round the edges and the ARB had a fair bit of lateral movement to it. I couldn't remember from my Elise how much movement was normal, but if I really ragged on it with my hand I could get it to knock a little bit. As it was hard to say whether the bushes, droplinks or both were causing the problem - I just swapped out both. Cheap enough parts anyway.
My ARB is now completely locked in position (can still freely rotate when droplinks are not attached) but there's no side to side movement at all. I do wonder how many of the odd knocks/creaks/rattles this has eliminated even though the car didn't sound particularly bad (as far as Lotus' go) in the first place.
Next I took off my exhaust.
It may be a while before I can update this properly, but I'd been speaking with Chris Tullet Exhausts via Type116 Motorsport recently about potentially having them do a system for my car. Again it was likely to happen towards the end of this year, but with our recently gifted downtime we decided that we could maybe make something happen sooner... essentially I'm getting a mail-order custom exhaust done!
I know CTE have done Lotus/2ZZ exhausts before either through Lotus dealers or as custom one-off jobs but it seems they've gone very quiet in recent years on the Lotus side (despite thriving with the VX220's).
I've not gone down the well-trodden path for 2zz exhaust systems for a couple of reasons, I could have just clicked "buy now" and in anywhere between 1 and 9 months could have received a system with known credentials but it's something I'd like to avoid, at least for now.
The plan is for CTE to use my OEM bits to create a jig. I'm specifically not asking for an emulation of the current backbox hangers because frankly it doesn't fit right, and that's not something I want to bring across! Once we have a jig, he's going to ship my exhaust back to me (if couriers are still running by then...) and in the meantime he can start mocking stuff up. Once lockdown is over, I can take my car down and we can finalise fitment and do some testing.
It'll be a full system from manifold through to backbox, and hopefully the longer term aim will be to have an off the shelf product that adds to the Lotus community options. Due to the mail-order nature of the jig, getting fitment, performance and sound right may take a few iterations but I feel like I'm in good hands to get that sorted.
Until the jig is built, moving my car around the garage/driveway has become quite a noisy affair...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEBrWpMSjbc
First of all I received a care package from SeriouslyLotus, not even a global crisis can stop Dave from getting bits to me the following day.
My OEM rubber ARB bushes had been added to my snagging list when I installed the suspension, they were starting to crack a little bit round the edges and the ARB had a fair bit of lateral movement to it. I couldn't remember from my Elise how much movement was normal, but if I really ragged on it with my hand I could get it to knock a little bit. As it was hard to say whether the bushes, droplinks or both were causing the problem - I just swapped out both. Cheap enough parts anyway.
My ARB is now completely locked in position (can still freely rotate when droplinks are not attached) but there's no side to side movement at all. I do wonder how many of the odd knocks/creaks/rattles this has eliminated even though the car didn't sound particularly bad (as far as Lotus' go) in the first place.
Next I took off my exhaust.
It may be a while before I can update this properly, but I'd been speaking with Chris Tullet Exhausts via Type116 Motorsport recently about potentially having them do a system for my car. Again it was likely to happen towards the end of this year, but with our recently gifted downtime we decided that we could maybe make something happen sooner... essentially I'm getting a mail-order custom exhaust done!
I know CTE have done Lotus/2ZZ exhausts before either through Lotus dealers or as custom one-off jobs but it seems they've gone very quiet in recent years on the Lotus side (despite thriving with the VX220's).
I've not gone down the well-trodden path for 2zz exhaust systems for a couple of reasons, I could have just clicked "buy now" and in anywhere between 1 and 9 months could have received a system with known credentials but it's something I'd like to avoid, at least for now.
The plan is for CTE to use my OEM bits to create a jig. I'm specifically not asking for an emulation of the current backbox hangers because frankly it doesn't fit right, and that's not something I want to bring across! Once we have a jig, he's going to ship my exhaust back to me (if couriers are still running by then...) and in the meantime he can start mocking stuff up. Once lockdown is over, I can take my car down and we can finalise fitment and do some testing.
It'll be a full system from manifold through to backbox, and hopefully the longer term aim will be to have an off the shelf product that adds to the Lotus community options. Due to the mail-order nature of the jig, getting fitment, performance and sound right may take a few iterations but I feel like I'm in good hands to get that sorted.
Until the jig is built, moving my car around the garage/driveway has become quite a noisy affair...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEBrWpMSjbc
Edited by Fonzey on Monday 6th April 12:06
I did some measurements out of interest before it shipped...
Now I know bigger is not always better, and I know there's a lot of black magic (science) that goes into appropriate manifold length/bore/etc - but it seems to be by just having the pipework be a bit closer to the exhaust port size that there are some easy improvements to make right out of the gates...
Now I know bigger is not always better, and I know there's a lot of black magic (science) that goes into appropriate manifold length/bore/etc - but it seems to be by just having the pipework be a bit closer to the exhaust port size that there are some easy improvements to make right out of the gates...
Nyloc20 said:
Just caught up with this Kyle, brilliant detail as always! Looking forward to seeing the results of all your hard work in the not too distant.
Cheers! Yep hope so, it feels like a club meet is years away Like most people I've spent the last few weeks cleaning the car to within an inch of its life. Did it over three weekend really just to pace it out:
1. Clean and Clay
2. Polish
3. Wheels and all the other bits (glass, engine bay, etc)
I'll throw some obligatory pics in, but nothing that hasn't been seen before. Plus with the combination of lockdown and not having an exhaust, it's not like I can take the car anywhere pretty for some nice 'done' shots...
Car was washed as normal, did a bit of de-tarring but gave the iron-x a miss as frankly it didn't seem needed. For the polishing I didn't feel it needed anything too aggressive so went with my tried and tested idiot proof Meguairs microfibre kit, it's great for getting decent results from a DA polisher but will never get the peak performance of a proper pad/compound setup on a rotary. It's also really forgiving compound if you get it on "non paint" parts of the car, wipes off dead easy without staining so takes the pressure off of masking considerably.
I certainly got through the bulk of the (very light) swirling but there's a couple left that are still within correctable range, so maybe next summer I'll step up the efforts (read: pay somebody else to do it).
The car certainly came up well, Laser Blue never failing to make me warm and fuzzy inside as a really rewarding colour to polish up.
Sealed with Sonax NPT, pretty much finishing off my stock of it so might try something new next year. In the meantime it'll get topped up every wash via the Sonax BSD quick detailer spray.
Pretty much anything black on the car inside or out got a wipe down with Aerospace 303 protectant stuff, such a good all-rounder.
Wheels all came off during a day in the garden, some generic megs' wheel cleaner followed by a claying, hand polish with some random compound I had lying around and then coated with the same Sonax NPT as used on the car. I'll probably be bedding in new brake pads soon(?!) so I might come back to them with a sacrificial layer of something else just to keep on top of the mess.
I'm not a huge lover of satin/matte wheels, had I had them refurbed myself they would probably have been gloss but after cleaning them up they looks pretty nice, picking up just enough of a shine to be satisfying.
I did however find something quite upsetting...
Two things wrong with this, first the screw and second the wear pattern - the outside edge is almost demolished, compared to the tyre on the other side of the car (OS Front) which is almost brand new. Looks like the few miles I did with my "doing it by eye" geo has utterly destroyed it. I guess looking on the bright side at least the screw is in the tyres that's trashed anyway, but still will replace the front pair and leave the one remaining good one as a useful spare. Rears probably have a trackday or two left in them so can address them later.
Engine bay got a wipe down, plus spotted a bolt missing from the charge cooler which I sorted. Woops.
Interior still needs going, maybe a job for week 4...
When I was laying on the floor polishing the lower parts of the car, I spotted some parts that bugged me as they're rusty, minging and (sort of) on display so they came off for a rather over engineered process to clean them up and repaint.
5 points for guessing what they are.
Cheers Gents, really happy with how the paint came up - and still always nice to know there's room for improvement for when a non-idiot gets hold of it.
RazerSauber said:
Top work. Absolutely lovely car this.
I suspect those rusty things are *drum roll*............... Brackets. If I had to guess, you were working on the engine so at the rear of the car so it'd be holding body work of some form on. Diffuser or something?
Ding ding ding. Well played.I suspect those rusty things are *drum roll*............... Brackets. If I had to guess, you were working on the engine so at the rear of the car so it'd be holding body work of some form on. Diffuser or something?
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