Back in a Lotus - 2006 Exige S
Discussion
Small gearbox update, went through to Toyota York to pick some synchro bits up. Preventative maintenance, my current 3rd synchro doesn't have any visible wear despite crunching when cold but "while it's out" etc etc.
Bit of Toyota C60/C64 trivia - around 2003-04 they changed the design of the 3rd gear synchro, it's made out of some sort of composite material vs the brass of all the other synchros. Lotus only started using this setup from 2004 so all Lotus cars should have the new version of the synchro, but it can mean you can get caught out if buying a second hand box to swap in if you wanted to transplant your 3rd/4th gears etc. As my builder primarily deals with MR2s running older conversions, he is used to seeing the older brass version.
As much as redoing the gearbox has really annoyed me, at least I could be satisfied that a lot of the other work I did last winter has lasted the year and doesn't need revisiting. Oh wait, that's not true.
To get the gearbox off I have to remove a bit of the suspension, which allowed me to inspect the zinc plating on my wishbones. As a reminder I had these done last winter, and topcoated with POR15 clear. I absolutely loved the aesthetic of them and IMO looks about a thousand times better than painted or powdercoated wishbones.
I knew they were dirty, but I hoped that a quick degrease and rinse off would have them back to their original finish. Unfortunately that was not the case:
(the black gunk on the non-zinc plated bits did clean off just fine, such as the tops of the balljoints)
It looked like baked on dirt/brake dust at first but it seemed to be under the top coat. I tried all sorts of degreasers, fallout removers and nothing would touch it. Eventually I got a (fairly soft) brush attachment onto a drill and it just scrubbed the finish off in flakes. Absolutely gutted.
I don't know enough about the zinc plating, passivation process to suggest what it could be. Maybe the finish was fine, just not suitable for my application or maybe some product I've used has caused it, brake dust, something like that. Either way, it's not fit for purpose.
With most of the rear suspension off the car, I decided to suck it up and get the rest off, mask up and paint over with POR15.
I was pretty annoyed throughout this whole process, but I'm fairly happy with the end result.
I wire brushed the remaining visible plating off first
Then went through the POR15 process of degreasing, rinsing, drying, metal prep, rinsing, drying followed by painting. Applied by brush in my fairly convenient carcass of a kitchen that I currently have.
Some other bits got done too, like engine mounts, suspension mounts and anything I could find showing a bit of rust.
We'll have to see how this lasts, but I'm hoping longer than just one year... One thing I did note is that between phases of the POR15 process the items spend a lot of time just air drying and I didn't get a spec of rust appear on any of the zinc plated items. I'm wondering if it's just the gold passivation that failed and the underlying zinc is still doing its job. Maybe wishful thinking, but perhaps they're at least now double protected.
I haven't even removed the fronts from the car, I don't have the motivation to touch those yet. Maybe later.
Bit of Toyota C60/C64 trivia - around 2003-04 they changed the design of the 3rd gear synchro, it's made out of some sort of composite material vs the brass of all the other synchros. Lotus only started using this setup from 2004 so all Lotus cars should have the new version of the synchro, but it can mean you can get caught out if buying a second hand box to swap in if you wanted to transplant your 3rd/4th gears etc. As my builder primarily deals with MR2s running older conversions, he is used to seeing the older brass version.
As much as redoing the gearbox has really annoyed me, at least I could be satisfied that a lot of the other work I did last winter has lasted the year and doesn't need revisiting. Oh wait, that's not true.
To get the gearbox off I have to remove a bit of the suspension, which allowed me to inspect the zinc plating on my wishbones. As a reminder I had these done last winter, and topcoated with POR15 clear. I absolutely loved the aesthetic of them and IMO looks about a thousand times better than painted or powdercoated wishbones.
I knew they were dirty, but I hoped that a quick degrease and rinse off would have them back to their original finish. Unfortunately that was not the case:
(the black gunk on the non-zinc plated bits did clean off just fine, such as the tops of the balljoints)
It looked like baked on dirt/brake dust at first but it seemed to be under the top coat. I tried all sorts of degreasers, fallout removers and nothing would touch it. Eventually I got a (fairly soft) brush attachment onto a drill and it just scrubbed the finish off in flakes. Absolutely gutted.
I don't know enough about the zinc plating, passivation process to suggest what it could be. Maybe the finish was fine, just not suitable for my application or maybe some product I've used has caused it, brake dust, something like that. Either way, it's not fit for purpose.
With most of the rear suspension off the car, I decided to suck it up and get the rest off, mask up and paint over with POR15.
I was pretty annoyed throughout this whole process, but I'm fairly happy with the end result.
I wire brushed the remaining visible plating off first
Then went through the POR15 process of degreasing, rinsing, drying, metal prep, rinsing, drying followed by painting. Applied by brush in my fairly convenient carcass of a kitchen that I currently have.
Some other bits got done too, like engine mounts, suspension mounts and anything I could find showing a bit of rust.
We'll have to see how this lasts, but I'm hoping longer than just one year... One thing I did note is that between phases of the POR15 process the items spend a lot of time just air drying and I didn't get a spec of rust appear on any of the zinc plated items. I'm wondering if it's just the gold passivation that failed and the underlying zinc is still doing its job. Maybe wishful thinking, but perhaps they're at least now double protected.
I haven't even removed the fronts from the car, I don't have the motivation to touch those yet. Maybe later.
fridaypassion said:
I lacquered over my Elise ones that I did the zinc passivate on they still look great but It's not been out in any weather to test them really. I'm not sure there's anything you can really do to have mint looking suspension arms over a long period if the car is used and gets wet etc. I've heard all kinds of different approaches. One of the Scots guys coated his new suspension in Bilt Hamber and that looked amazing after a Scottish winter so I have gone over mine with some of that stuff.
Yeah I really thought I'd gone to town on them before with the clearcoat lacquer over the top which is why I'm extra disappointed. Don't get me wrong, they're wishbones and I use the car most of the year round, so they were never going to stay mint forever - but hoped for more than one year :/I've got some of that BH stuff, it's great for a yearly blast over fixings/etc that you might not want to take off and paint/plate but it is very temporary. If using it for sole protection for wishbones you'd want to consider a few applications per year I think. I'll be giving my entire under-arch areas a good spritz with it before the wheels go back on.
Some positive steps taken this week, started bolted bits back onto the car which is always a nice feeling. Just small bits like engine mount supports and wishbone mounts, but progress all the same.
Also had an update from the gearbox builder, new synchros are in and everything cleaned up ready for reassembly.
The differential needed two of the thicker shims to get it preloaded, so it was miles out but he's happy with it now and it's bang in the middle of tolerance. Various bearings swapped which should have been changed last time, but weren't - so fingers crossed this will be the gearbox build to see me out!
Waiting for clutch next, SeriouslyDave is sourcing me one from down under so it may take a while yet. I've got an opportunity to do some exploratory work for the gearbox cooler I planned to add this winter, so I'll crack on with that in the next week or so. Hoping I can find a home for the laminova core and get it spliced into a coolant hose somewhere and mounted, run the electrics and mount/mock up the pump location because without a gearbox in the car, the engine bay is lovely and accessible from below.
I collected the gearbox this week, and got the final assessment. The excess sealant inside the casing (and inside of the tapered roller bearings which have since been replaced) I've mentioned already, along with the complete lack of differential preload. The final issue explained to me was one with this circlip. This circlip is the final component on the output shaft (it could also be input shaft, I forgot... so consider it interchangeable for the remainder of this post) which essentially holds sixth gear in place.
Paul, my new favourite gearbox builder explained to me that it's a common issue for this circlip groove to appear "not wide enough" when the output shaft has been incorrectly assembled. If you don't press the various gears/bearings/etc on to it properly, it means the shaft is allowed to sink too far into the casing which means not enough of this circlip groove is visible at the top. He has methods using heat/cooling etc to expand/shrink the various parts to make this process work, but he says any attempt to press on with brute force will usually end up with a fraction of a millimetre of misalignment. From looking at this circlip, the previous builders' decided to grind it down to make it fit, rather than align everything on the shaft properly. :|
Ultimately this would have meant nothing on the shaft was aligned right, and in theory would have been a slight mismatch to the meshing of the gears. Whether it contributed to my noise or not, who knows - but it certainly wasn't right.
I'm actually amazed this gearbox lasted the year based on what has been found. Very annoyed, but also relieved that it's now sorted and I'm confident it has been built to a proper spec.
Obviously we won't know if the box is any quieter until it's back in the car. The lead theory is still the lack of differential preload, so hopefully resolving that has sorted it. Paul is still a little nervous that the noise might be an unavoidable result of the final drive that I'm using, as the tolerances between the crown and pinion are much much tighter than an OE setup. Although I'll be disappointed if it still makes a noise when it's back in, I can live with the fact its now had a thorough inspection and I'd have a legitimate reason for the soundtrack. It'll just have to go into the "because racecar" bucket of explanations for stuff.
Opportunity for a cheeky pic of the new daily doing its part to keep an old relic of a bygone era going.
Paul, my new favourite gearbox builder explained to me that it's a common issue for this circlip groove to appear "not wide enough" when the output shaft has been incorrectly assembled. If you don't press the various gears/bearings/etc on to it properly, it means the shaft is allowed to sink too far into the casing which means not enough of this circlip groove is visible at the top. He has methods using heat/cooling etc to expand/shrink the various parts to make this process work, but he says any attempt to press on with brute force will usually end up with a fraction of a millimetre of misalignment. From looking at this circlip, the previous builders' decided to grind it down to make it fit, rather than align everything on the shaft properly. :|
Ultimately this would have meant nothing on the shaft was aligned right, and in theory would have been a slight mismatch to the meshing of the gears. Whether it contributed to my noise or not, who knows - but it certainly wasn't right.
I'm actually amazed this gearbox lasted the year based on what has been found. Very annoyed, but also relieved that it's now sorted and I'm confident it has been built to a proper spec.
Obviously we won't know if the box is any quieter until it's back in the car. The lead theory is still the lack of differential preload, so hopefully resolving that has sorted it. Paul is still a little nervous that the noise might be an unavoidable result of the final drive that I'm using, as the tolerances between the crown and pinion are much much tighter than an OE setup. Although I'll be disappointed if it still makes a noise when it's back in, I can live with the fact its now had a thorough inspection and I'd have a legitimate reason for the soundtrack. It'll just have to go into the "because racecar" bucket of explanations for stuff.
Opportunity for a cheeky pic of the new daily doing its part to keep an old relic of a bygone era going.
I've been scratching around finding some bits to do while waiting for a clutch. I could have had the front suspension off and POR15'd to match the rear, but I'm really not sure I can be bothered. I might do it as a mid-summer job when I get a lull between trackdays, or just put it off till' next Winter.
I did however get my dampers off for a clean.
As I was dismantling them, an option came up to pick up some stiffer springs second hand. Long time readers of the thread may recall I was considering this after some feedback from my trackday instructor, suggesting that we were having to max out damper stiffness to try and prop up my springs a bit. If buying new from SL/Nitron I don't think I would have picked this particular spring rate, as they're likely to be too far the other way but Nitron have confirmed that my dampers can/will support them without revalving so it is at worst a cheap experiment.
450/600 to 600/850
I'll get my original springs cleaned up, maybe repainted (again!) and they'll be on standby for when I realise this was a terrible idea.
I also got my flywheel skimmed by a local place, it's only a year old of course but there were a few hotspots on it. Potentially caused by the original faulty pressure place that I used originally but for the sake of beer money, I'm glad I had it skimmed.
Next up is some wiring and a bit of an experiment with my digi dash. I was intending to have a quiet Winter on the car this year, not expecting to be rebuilding gearboxes and refurbing suspension again - but one of my original plans was to fit a gearbox oil cooler (kit from seriouslylotus) with a slight difference to the usual install. Rather than using a thermostatic or manual switch for the oil pump, I would use my ECU (or more specifically, my ADU digidash) to control the pump instead.
The plan is, when gearbox oil temp exceeds a certain threshold a function will trigger in the ADU which will light up a telltale on the dash, and switch one of the aux outputs to ground. This will activate a relay, powering the pump and oil will be pumped from the drain plug, through an oil/water heat exchanger on the coolant circuit and then back into the fill plug of the gearbox. Couple of challenges yet to work out, such as where does my gearbox oil pressure sensor go after I no longer have a drain plug - but with an array of AN fittings and adapters I'm sure I can figure something out.
Last time I had my dashboard out, I ran wires from the two aux outputs in my dashboard right through the car and into the boot. I would be fitting a relay for each output, in an accessible spot for now while I stress test it all but eventually I'll install somewhere tidy/tucked away.
As mentioned I'd use one output for the gearbox oil pump and one was spare. I thought about having it all wired in for redundancy at first but then I decided to use it as an opportunity to correct a niggle that I've had since the chargecooler install a couple of years ago. The chargecooler wiring as per the guide is a little bit... agricultural. It works, but I never liked how it was setup.
The chargecooler kit comes with a lead all setup to allow you to drill into a fusebox and piggyback off an existing fuse (fuel pump I think?). It then goes off to an inline fuse holder and straight into the coolant pump. Functional, but not pretty.
I'd use the second relay/ECU output to control the chargecooler. I don't have any thermostatic requirements for this, so it's a bit over engineered - so if I can figure out a more useful use for the second aux output then I can always swap it in future, using an ign live feed for the chargecooler relay instead.
I setup a test rig to prove the concept, which worked a treat - so got on to mocking up my wiring.
Only thing I really need to finish is to connect whatever plug the gearbox oil pump will need and trim that tail of wire down once I know where the final positions will be.
It's amazing how heavy a small bit of wiring can be... the back of my car is getting full of it too from the various sensors that I've added. I might need to cough up for some fancy motorsports wiring at some point to keep weight down :?
I went to go rob the chargecooler pump plug from the existing setup to find I was sitting on an impending failure.
Poor wire routing from my part had put too much strain on a wire that was too stiff, so will make sure that's corrected this time around.
Final bit of progress has been a bit of joinery. In order to lift my gearbox back in without access from the top (clam is still on) I need a platform to sit on top of my borrowed motorbike jack. Squeezing this all under the car with a gearbox on it will be fun, but fingers crossed I can get it somewhere in the ballpark so it can be manhandled onto the splines.
I did however get my dampers off for a clean.
As I was dismantling them, an option came up to pick up some stiffer springs second hand. Long time readers of the thread may recall I was considering this after some feedback from my trackday instructor, suggesting that we were having to max out damper stiffness to try and prop up my springs a bit. If buying new from SL/Nitron I don't think I would have picked this particular spring rate, as they're likely to be too far the other way but Nitron have confirmed that my dampers can/will support them without revalving so it is at worst a cheap experiment.
450/600 to 600/850
I'll get my original springs cleaned up, maybe repainted (again!) and they'll be on standby for when I realise this was a terrible idea.
I also got my flywheel skimmed by a local place, it's only a year old of course but there were a few hotspots on it. Potentially caused by the original faulty pressure place that I used originally but for the sake of beer money, I'm glad I had it skimmed.
Next up is some wiring and a bit of an experiment with my digi dash. I was intending to have a quiet Winter on the car this year, not expecting to be rebuilding gearboxes and refurbing suspension again - but one of my original plans was to fit a gearbox oil cooler (kit from seriouslylotus) with a slight difference to the usual install. Rather than using a thermostatic or manual switch for the oil pump, I would use my ECU (or more specifically, my ADU digidash) to control the pump instead.
The plan is, when gearbox oil temp exceeds a certain threshold a function will trigger in the ADU which will light up a telltale on the dash, and switch one of the aux outputs to ground. This will activate a relay, powering the pump and oil will be pumped from the drain plug, through an oil/water heat exchanger on the coolant circuit and then back into the fill plug of the gearbox. Couple of challenges yet to work out, such as where does my gearbox oil pressure sensor go after I no longer have a drain plug - but with an array of AN fittings and adapters I'm sure I can figure something out.
Last time I had my dashboard out, I ran wires from the two aux outputs in my dashboard right through the car and into the boot. I would be fitting a relay for each output, in an accessible spot for now while I stress test it all but eventually I'll install somewhere tidy/tucked away.
As mentioned I'd use one output for the gearbox oil pump and one was spare. I thought about having it all wired in for redundancy at first but then I decided to use it as an opportunity to correct a niggle that I've had since the chargecooler install a couple of years ago. The chargecooler wiring as per the guide is a little bit... agricultural. It works, but I never liked how it was setup.
The chargecooler kit comes with a lead all setup to allow you to drill into a fusebox and piggyback off an existing fuse (fuel pump I think?). It then goes off to an inline fuse holder and straight into the coolant pump. Functional, but not pretty.
I'd use the second relay/ECU output to control the chargecooler. I don't have any thermostatic requirements for this, so it's a bit over engineered - so if I can figure out a more useful use for the second aux output then I can always swap it in future, using an ign live feed for the chargecooler relay instead.
I setup a test rig to prove the concept, which worked a treat - so got on to mocking up my wiring.
Only thing I really need to finish is to connect whatever plug the gearbox oil pump will need and trim that tail of wire down once I know where the final positions will be.
It's amazing how heavy a small bit of wiring can be... the back of my car is getting full of it too from the various sensors that I've added. I might need to cough up for some fancy motorsports wiring at some point to keep weight down :?
I went to go rob the chargecooler pump plug from the existing setup to find I was sitting on an impending failure.
Poor wire routing from my part had put too much strain on a wire that was too stiff, so will make sure that's corrected this time around.
Final bit of progress has been a bit of joinery. In order to lift my gearbox back in without access from the top (clam is still on) I need a platform to sit on top of my borrowed motorbike jack. Squeezing this all under the car with a gearbox on it will be fun, but fingers crossed I can get it somewhere in the ballpark so it can be manhandled onto the splines.
Progress, wooo!
Things had been on ice for a bit waiting for a clutch to arrive. The Competition Clutch that I had fitted before was really pretty good, but I got arse on with it because the cheap bearing they supplied prematurely wore the pressure plate down (not to mention was noisy from the get-go). I should really have bought another one, used a Toyota OE bearing and got on with my life... but I was a little bitter about it, so spoke to seriouslylotus for alternatives.
Dave had recently been talking with an Aussie company called Xtreme Clutch, who had some 2ZZ options. One in particular caught my eye because it was somewhat of a hybrid. It seems like at around 200ftlbs on 2ZZ applications, you're caught between OE style organic clutches and race style ceramic/puck ones. I really didn't want to go for a harsh undriveable paddle clutch and trying to find organic/sprung options that could comfortably deal with my torque demands (plus what might come in the future :? ) was limiting the options a bit.
The Xtreme option is a ceramic 8 paddle clutch, which retains a sprung centre and the cushion between the two plate surfaces. If the sales spiel is accurate, it should give me the best of both worlds. If it's miserable to drive... well then that sucks.
Dave has sourced this for me without any SL endorsement, he respectfully won't put his name behind a product until it's tried and tested - so we're rolling the dice on this. If it works, and if I'm happy with it - Dave may opt to list these on his site in future if anyone is interested.
All that said, Australia is a long way away and it took a while for the clutch to arrive. I tried to keep busy on car stuff but I was really running out of jobs to do. Cleaned up the backbox, and removed the old chargecooler wiring thanks to my new boot mounted relay setup, so could tidy up the kitcar looking fuse box setup.
Manifold and Cat was sent off for ceramic thermal barrier coating. I've used heatwrap for years and I've generally been happy with it, but I was getting a bit bored of the itchy arms and thought I'd try something new. Expensive, so it better work and it better last.
Finally, the day arrived
The pressure plate construction looks identical to the CC one, which is good because the pedal feel/weight was OEM-like and I had no complaints. The clutch disk itself though is very different, I hope this does as advertised.
I had a generous list of volunteers ready to help me hoof the box back in the car, then within a few hours of fitting the clutch... Covid struck. Self imposed isolation for a while meant none of my help could attend, plus I felt pretty rough anyway.
Finally with the help from my ever helpful neighbour Geoff (he's never owned a Lotus and yet he's now installed three gearboxes into them...) the box was in. This was different to the last two times because the rear clam was on, but it was actually pretty easy once we committed to just laying on our backs shoulder to shoulder and then benchpressed it up.
With the box in, and an engine/gearbox mount fitted up I could finally withdraw my trolley jack that has been robustly supporting my engine since first week of January, which means I can lift the car again. Wooo!
I had a productive hour or so tonight, 3/4 engine mounts back on, starter reinstalled and slave cylinder mounted up. Before getting the car MOT'd and Geo'd I need to finish off the gearbox cooler install, so more updates on that to come in the next week or so.
Time is ticking for Blyton on 2nd of April, so hoping for a flurry of progress now.
Things had been on ice for a bit waiting for a clutch to arrive. The Competition Clutch that I had fitted before was really pretty good, but I got arse on with it because the cheap bearing they supplied prematurely wore the pressure plate down (not to mention was noisy from the get-go). I should really have bought another one, used a Toyota OE bearing and got on with my life... but I was a little bitter about it, so spoke to seriouslylotus for alternatives.
Dave had recently been talking with an Aussie company called Xtreme Clutch, who had some 2ZZ options. One in particular caught my eye because it was somewhat of a hybrid. It seems like at around 200ftlbs on 2ZZ applications, you're caught between OE style organic clutches and race style ceramic/puck ones. I really didn't want to go for a harsh undriveable paddle clutch and trying to find organic/sprung options that could comfortably deal with my torque demands (plus what might come in the future :? ) was limiting the options a bit.
The Xtreme option is a ceramic 8 paddle clutch, which retains a sprung centre and the cushion between the two plate surfaces. If the sales spiel is accurate, it should give me the best of both worlds. If it's miserable to drive... well then that sucks.
Dave has sourced this for me without any SL endorsement, he respectfully won't put his name behind a product until it's tried and tested - so we're rolling the dice on this. If it works, and if I'm happy with it - Dave may opt to list these on his site in future if anyone is interested.
All that said, Australia is a long way away and it took a while for the clutch to arrive. I tried to keep busy on car stuff but I was really running out of jobs to do. Cleaned up the backbox, and removed the old chargecooler wiring thanks to my new boot mounted relay setup, so could tidy up the kitcar looking fuse box setup.
Manifold and Cat was sent off for ceramic thermal barrier coating. I've used heatwrap for years and I've generally been happy with it, but I was getting a bit bored of the itchy arms and thought I'd try something new. Expensive, so it better work and it better last.
Finally, the day arrived
The pressure plate construction looks identical to the CC one, which is good because the pedal feel/weight was OEM-like and I had no complaints. The clutch disk itself though is very different, I hope this does as advertised.
I had a generous list of volunteers ready to help me hoof the box back in the car, then within a few hours of fitting the clutch... Covid struck. Self imposed isolation for a while meant none of my help could attend, plus I felt pretty rough anyway.
Finally with the help from my ever helpful neighbour Geoff (he's never owned a Lotus and yet he's now installed three gearboxes into them...) the box was in. This was different to the last two times because the rear clam was on, but it was actually pretty easy once we committed to just laying on our backs shoulder to shoulder and then benchpressed it up.
With the box in, and an engine/gearbox mount fitted up I could finally withdraw my trolley jack that has been robustly supporting my engine since first week of January, which means I can lift the car again. Wooo!
I had a productive hour or so tonight, 3/4 engine mounts back on, starter reinstalled and slave cylinder mounted up. Before getting the car MOT'd and Geo'd I need to finish off the gearbox cooler install, so more updates on that to come in the next week or so.
Time is ticking for Blyton on 2nd of April, so hoping for a flurry of progress now.
Pretty frantic weekend done on the car, didn't take a huge number of photos because I've posted all this sort of stuff before and I just wanted to get it done!
With the box back in, I could start rebuilding the suspension and exhaust. The OS suspension I wanted to leave alone for a few more days, because I had some gearbox oil cooler parts coming from seriouslylotus and having the OS lower wishbone off the car would help with access.
There are a couple of approaches to gearbox cooling, a normal air radiator likely mounted either in a sidepod or maybe even horizontal to the floor by the sump would be slightly cheaper, but IMO would have had more mounting challenges. It's also a 'less regulated' way of cooling, even though you can of course thermostatically manage the pump to mitigate that.
The other option, the way I wanted to go and the way seriouslylotus go with their kit is an air/water exchanger. The 'cruising temp' of the C64 gearbox is around the mid 80s which is also where the engine coolant spends much of its time on my car. On track my g'box temps got as high as 115 and increases got sharper and sharper the longer I was out on track so if I can take the edge off of it and allow for a more comfortable 25-30min session then that's mission accomplished.
The Laminova is quite cute, I think it might be the smallest one that they do. The pump is a robust thing, it does apparently have a tendency to blow fuses if you try churning cold/stodgy oil through it so it's not something you'd want to have running full time.
I'm not sure if I've plumbed this in the exact same way that SL would with their kits, but I opted to make my own oil lines so I could make it up as I went along. This was going to be my target water hose to splice into.
You can see the wishbone mount just below with the duralac leaking through, installing with the wishbone in place would be a bit more awkward than it was.
The oil lines would all be AN-8, so I put an order in for various fittings and a coil of braided hose and got cracking. It's not the first time I've worked with AN- hoses, but it's been a few years and it's more difficult than I remember (or what Youtube will have you believe!). I woke up the morning after feeling like I'd done a stint in the gym (I guess?), very physical work to get them all pushed together!
It was 'only' 3 hoses, so the hard labour was relatively short lived. When I stopped fannying around desperately trying to not scratch the fittings I progressed much quicker, and actually ended up scratching them less. Figure that one out.
I nipped up the oil feed/return to the laminova before installation because it was going to be a bit tight in there, then threaded it all in. It'll be fairly well obscured by an (engine) oil cooler line and heater hose once it's in, but the jubilees are just about accessible and it'll be easy to inspect for leaks etc.
The pump itself is mounted on a plate which shares some bolts with the central engine mount and the NS wishbone mount.
Gearbox drain and fill plugs are M18x1.5 so an easy size to buy AN-8 adapters for.
I'm pretty happy with my hose runs, enough "intentional" kinks in the hose to allow for engine movement, but they don't really obscure any other service areas of the car so I don't expect this install to annoy me later.
Finally the wiring, I ran this ages ago. As a reminder I've got 2x aux short to ground outputs on my ECUMaster ADU Dashboard. They run to a pair of fused relays in the boot, one of which then feeds my chargecooler pump and the other to this new gearbox oil pump. I can then use logic in the ADU software to trigger the pumps depending on whatever parameters I choose. The chargecooler will simply run whenever the ignition is on, but the gearbox pump will only run when gearbox oil exceeds a certain threshold. Currently 70 degrees, but I'll play with it once I have some data to test with.
With a little telltale on the dash so I know when it's active.
With all this in place, I filled the gearbox with oil (MT-90 again) and to help deal with my extra capacity I ran the pump for a couple of seconds to burp any air out, then topped back up again. I didn't get that much oil in after the burping, so I may repeat this process after my first proper drive where the pump runs for a bit.
With that done, the rebuild could be finished off.
Exhaust on and sensors in.
Suspension on with new brake pads in (Carbotech XP8 again, really happy with them last year).
Wheels and undertrays even got a quick wash
Then finally it was time to lower the car on its wheels for the first time since end of December. My front rideheight was a little low, so a quick tweak on that got it roughly into a driveable stance. I'll get this setup properly later in the week.
Topped and bled coolant after taking a shower in it whilst doing the gearbox cooler. No sign of any leaks, good news!
Then the moment of truth, long time readers may remember my last attempt to change a clutch fell a bit flat at this point as it wouldn't disengage! Even though it was later identified as a rare/unlucky clutch issue, it haunts me. Getting the box back out at this stage is NOT fun. I was also a bit nervous about how 'racey' this new clutch was going to be, was I going to kangeroo out of the garage in a stink of clutch burn?!
Answer? No - it pulled out of the garage like an OEM clutch would. No crunches, rattles, whistles or chatters - just a nice smooth engagement, and gentle manners at 'carpark speeds'. I've not driven a car with a clutch since December, so it was particularly impressive. I took the car up and down the street, can select all gears with nothing feeling/sounding amiss yet, so fingers crossed.
All that remained was to wash off a Winters' worth of garage and plaster dust.
MOT later today, so fingers crossed for that.
With the box back in, I could start rebuilding the suspension and exhaust. The OS suspension I wanted to leave alone for a few more days, because I had some gearbox oil cooler parts coming from seriouslylotus and having the OS lower wishbone off the car would help with access.
There are a couple of approaches to gearbox cooling, a normal air radiator likely mounted either in a sidepod or maybe even horizontal to the floor by the sump would be slightly cheaper, but IMO would have had more mounting challenges. It's also a 'less regulated' way of cooling, even though you can of course thermostatically manage the pump to mitigate that.
The other option, the way I wanted to go and the way seriouslylotus go with their kit is an air/water exchanger. The 'cruising temp' of the C64 gearbox is around the mid 80s which is also where the engine coolant spends much of its time on my car. On track my g'box temps got as high as 115 and increases got sharper and sharper the longer I was out on track so if I can take the edge off of it and allow for a more comfortable 25-30min session then that's mission accomplished.
The Laminova is quite cute, I think it might be the smallest one that they do. The pump is a robust thing, it does apparently have a tendency to blow fuses if you try churning cold/stodgy oil through it so it's not something you'd want to have running full time.
I'm not sure if I've plumbed this in the exact same way that SL would with their kits, but I opted to make my own oil lines so I could make it up as I went along. This was going to be my target water hose to splice into.
You can see the wishbone mount just below with the duralac leaking through, installing with the wishbone in place would be a bit more awkward than it was.
The oil lines would all be AN-8, so I put an order in for various fittings and a coil of braided hose and got cracking. It's not the first time I've worked with AN- hoses, but it's been a few years and it's more difficult than I remember (or what Youtube will have you believe!). I woke up the morning after feeling like I'd done a stint in the gym (I guess?), very physical work to get them all pushed together!
It was 'only' 3 hoses, so the hard labour was relatively short lived. When I stopped fannying around desperately trying to not scratch the fittings I progressed much quicker, and actually ended up scratching them less. Figure that one out.
I nipped up the oil feed/return to the laminova before installation because it was going to be a bit tight in there, then threaded it all in. It'll be fairly well obscured by an (engine) oil cooler line and heater hose once it's in, but the jubilees are just about accessible and it'll be easy to inspect for leaks etc.
The pump itself is mounted on a plate which shares some bolts with the central engine mount and the NS wishbone mount.
Gearbox drain and fill plugs are M18x1.5 so an easy size to buy AN-8 adapters for.
I'm pretty happy with my hose runs, enough "intentional" kinks in the hose to allow for engine movement, but they don't really obscure any other service areas of the car so I don't expect this install to annoy me later.
Finally the wiring, I ran this ages ago. As a reminder I've got 2x aux short to ground outputs on my ECUMaster ADU Dashboard. They run to a pair of fused relays in the boot, one of which then feeds my chargecooler pump and the other to this new gearbox oil pump. I can then use logic in the ADU software to trigger the pumps depending on whatever parameters I choose. The chargecooler will simply run whenever the ignition is on, but the gearbox pump will only run when gearbox oil exceeds a certain threshold. Currently 70 degrees, but I'll play with it once I have some data to test with.
With a little telltale on the dash so I know when it's active.
With all this in place, I filled the gearbox with oil (MT-90 again) and to help deal with my extra capacity I ran the pump for a couple of seconds to burp any air out, then topped back up again. I didn't get that much oil in after the burping, so I may repeat this process after my first proper drive where the pump runs for a bit.
With that done, the rebuild could be finished off.
Exhaust on and sensors in.
Suspension on with new brake pads in (Carbotech XP8 again, really happy with them last year).
Wheels and undertrays even got a quick wash
Then finally it was time to lower the car on its wheels for the first time since end of December. My front rideheight was a little low, so a quick tweak on that got it roughly into a driveable stance. I'll get this setup properly later in the week.
Topped and bled coolant after taking a shower in it whilst doing the gearbox cooler. No sign of any leaks, good news!
Then the moment of truth, long time readers may remember my last attempt to change a clutch fell a bit flat at this point as it wouldn't disengage! Even though it was later identified as a rare/unlucky clutch issue, it haunts me. Getting the box back out at this stage is NOT fun. I was also a bit nervous about how 'racey' this new clutch was going to be, was I going to kangeroo out of the garage in a stink of clutch burn?!
Answer? No - it pulled out of the garage like an OEM clutch would. No crunches, rattles, whistles or chatters - just a nice smooth engagement, and gentle manners at 'carpark speeds'. I've not driven a car with a clutch since December, so it was particularly impressive. I took the car up and down the street, can select all gears with nothing feeling/sounding amiss yet, so fingers crossed.
All that remained was to wash off a Winters' worth of garage and plaster dust.
MOT later today, so fingers crossed for that.
Last week the car got through it's MOT, not quite plain sailing as I had another emissions hurdle to hop over. Mechanically, as hoped the car passed with flying colours but it was struggling with the fast idle test.
Fast idle test for a UK MOT is a bit odd, as it revs the car to 2.5-3k rpm with no load on it, essentially putting the car under a condition which it would never actually exist under whilst on the road!
I also failed this test last year, but could fix it with a quick tweak to the map so I set out to see what had changed since.
After reviewing the logs, I could see that the car had been idling in the MOT garage for an absolute age (don't they know how much petrol costs!!) and as such the coolant temp was in a range in which the fan was regularly cutting in and out. Weirdly, each time the coolant fan kicked in, it threw my lambda reading out a bit. It's not clear to me whether this reading is accurate or not, I guess the alternator could have been under more load when the fans kick in, hence putting more load on the engine(?) or maybe my battery was a bit on the weak side which spoiled the sensor reading. Either way, my fan almost never kicks in under normal use and if it does, it's because the car has been idling for ages. The ECU has idle compensation strategies for the fans/AC kicking in which prevents this condition under a 'true' idle, but sitting with the throttle pegged at 2.8k RPM is outside of the idle control parameters so it didn't apply.
Retesting with the car at normal operating temperatures passed the test, so I'm not going to worry about it too much for now. Alternatives could have been to lower the fan activation threshold (so it was always on for the duration of the test) and tune the fuelling accordingly, or to disable the wideband feedback - if it was a false reading on the sensor, this would have prevented the ECU from chucking fuel at a phantom issue.
On top of all of this, ECUMaster have finally acknowledged some issues with the Bosch wideband controller they have installed in their ECUs and a new software version is due any day now to resolve - so more on that later. Readers of this thread will know that lambda sensors have been somewhat of a consumable since fitting this ECU.
With MOT passed, it was onto SeriouslyLotus for a geo check.
My rideheight was all over the place from the spring change, so John had to spend some time dialling that back in. Running slightly higher than before, so hoping to be repairing my arch liners less often.
After that the toe just needed a tweak, removing/refitting the wishbones at the back allows for some variance in toe angle so that just needed straightening out. Camber remains at ~ -1.7deg front and ~ -2.7deg rear.
The last thing John did was kindly review my gearbox cooler install, and check for leaks. Seemed pretty good, I lowered the threshold in the ECU for the pump to activate a bit earlier and it was running for much of the drive home without catastrophic oil leaks.
Early signs from the Xtreme clutch are very positive, as a reminder it was a bit of an experiment to see if their sprung/cushioned ceramic puck clutch could really drive "like OE" but handle the power boasted. I can't judge it's longevity yet, but so far it really has driven like the original clutch. The only clue that you've got something in different is that it makes a sort of light sandpaper noise when you're slipping it to get moving. This may or may not bed in over time, but it's not unpleasant even if it hangs around.
The gearbox rattle that motivated the rebuild has gone, but the box is not without noise completely. It's almost like a fainter version of the straight cut whine you get when reversing at speed. The FD does have a 'shallower' helical cut, so it's probably just that. It's certainly not an unpleasant "this car is broke" noise as it was previously.
Paul who did the rebuild commented throughout that the tolerances with the Kaaz FD were much, much tighter than the many OE boxes that he's rebuilt and as such he expected some noise from it so perhaps this is just the way it'll be now that it's correctly preloaded. I'm also conscious that my car has had a year of (pretty hard!) mileage on it with a loose preload, so perhaps there's a wear pattern on the FD that I'm now working against. I think I'll do some fairly regular fluid swaps this year and just keep an eye on it, see if it beds in at all.
Jury is still out on the stiffer springs that I fitted, it's pleasant enough to drive on the road in terms of comfort - the odd bang over a manhole cover or whatever is maybe a little harsher than before but the car is no real worse off on a 'run' than it was before. Road performance though is almost certainly compromised, much less confident pressing on around a bumpy back road and traction is a little bit limited too unless the road is nice and smooth. I will play around with damper settings to see if I can tune any of this out, I'm running them very soft at the moment but inversely to logical thought it may be worth stiffening them up a bit to control the springs a bit more.
I'll judge them at Blyton, if the car feels significantly better then I'll keep them on. If it's much the same as the previous setup, I'd probably be better off reverting - or maybe going for some springs somewhere in-between the two.
I have the next few evenings to give the car a good clean, then it's time for Blyton.
Fast idle test for a UK MOT is a bit odd, as it revs the car to 2.5-3k rpm with no load on it, essentially putting the car under a condition which it would never actually exist under whilst on the road!
I also failed this test last year, but could fix it with a quick tweak to the map so I set out to see what had changed since.
After reviewing the logs, I could see that the car had been idling in the MOT garage for an absolute age (don't they know how much petrol costs!!) and as such the coolant temp was in a range in which the fan was regularly cutting in and out. Weirdly, each time the coolant fan kicked in, it threw my lambda reading out a bit. It's not clear to me whether this reading is accurate or not, I guess the alternator could have been under more load when the fans kick in, hence putting more load on the engine(?) or maybe my battery was a bit on the weak side which spoiled the sensor reading. Either way, my fan almost never kicks in under normal use and if it does, it's because the car has been idling for ages. The ECU has idle compensation strategies for the fans/AC kicking in which prevents this condition under a 'true' idle, but sitting with the throttle pegged at 2.8k RPM is outside of the idle control parameters so it didn't apply.
Retesting with the car at normal operating temperatures passed the test, so I'm not going to worry about it too much for now. Alternatives could have been to lower the fan activation threshold (so it was always on for the duration of the test) and tune the fuelling accordingly, or to disable the wideband feedback - if it was a false reading on the sensor, this would have prevented the ECU from chucking fuel at a phantom issue.
On top of all of this, ECUMaster have finally acknowledged some issues with the Bosch wideband controller they have installed in their ECUs and a new software version is due any day now to resolve - so more on that later. Readers of this thread will know that lambda sensors have been somewhat of a consumable since fitting this ECU.
With MOT passed, it was onto SeriouslyLotus for a geo check.
My rideheight was all over the place from the spring change, so John had to spend some time dialling that back in. Running slightly higher than before, so hoping to be repairing my arch liners less often.
After that the toe just needed a tweak, removing/refitting the wishbones at the back allows for some variance in toe angle so that just needed straightening out. Camber remains at ~ -1.7deg front and ~ -2.7deg rear.
The last thing John did was kindly review my gearbox cooler install, and check for leaks. Seemed pretty good, I lowered the threshold in the ECU for the pump to activate a bit earlier and it was running for much of the drive home without catastrophic oil leaks.
Early signs from the Xtreme clutch are very positive, as a reminder it was a bit of an experiment to see if their sprung/cushioned ceramic puck clutch could really drive "like OE" but handle the power boasted. I can't judge it's longevity yet, but so far it really has driven like the original clutch. The only clue that you've got something in different is that it makes a sort of light sandpaper noise when you're slipping it to get moving. This may or may not bed in over time, but it's not unpleasant even if it hangs around.
The gearbox rattle that motivated the rebuild has gone, but the box is not without noise completely. It's almost like a fainter version of the straight cut whine you get when reversing at speed. The FD does have a 'shallower' helical cut, so it's probably just that. It's certainly not an unpleasant "this car is broke" noise as it was previously.
Paul who did the rebuild commented throughout that the tolerances with the Kaaz FD were much, much tighter than the many OE boxes that he's rebuilt and as such he expected some noise from it so perhaps this is just the way it'll be now that it's correctly preloaded. I'm also conscious that my car has had a year of (pretty hard!) mileage on it with a loose preload, so perhaps there's a wear pattern on the FD that I'm now working against. I think I'll do some fairly regular fluid swaps this year and just keep an eye on it, see if it beds in at all.
Jury is still out on the stiffer springs that I fitted, it's pleasant enough to drive on the road in terms of comfort - the odd bang over a manhole cover or whatever is maybe a little harsher than before but the car is no real worse off on a 'run' than it was before. Road performance though is almost certainly compromised, much less confident pressing on around a bumpy back road and traction is a little bit limited too unless the road is nice and smooth. I will play around with damper settings to see if I can tune any of this out, I'm running them very soft at the moment but inversely to logical thought it may be worth stiffening them up a bit to control the springs a bit more.
I'll judge them at Blyton, if the car feels significantly better then I'll keep them on. If it's much the same as the previous setup, I'd probably be better off reverting - or maybe going for some springs somewhere in-between the two.
I have the next few evenings to give the car a good clean, then it's time for Blyton.
Happy to report that the car survived a day at Blyton last weekend, so be rude not to report in!
Need to go back a week first, after getting the geo sorted by Dave @ SL, I brought the car home for a good wash. I've been slacking and struggling for motivation the last few years for polishing cars, but after recently adding a couple of cars to the fleet and giving them a good going over, I thought it rude not to treat the Exige to a bit of elbow grease. It would be a tactical polishing, targeting a few specific areas for correction and then glossing over the rest of it.
I won't go full Detailing World report on it, but the summary was:
Foam, wash, decontaminate, clay, wash, dry, mask, touch up some stone chips, cutting compound on specific spots (Megs 105 with Koch Chemie heavy cut pad), polishing compound (Megs 205 with Koch Chemie finishing pad) all over and then refreshed a couple of decals and sealed with Sonax NPT.
Whilst I was on the case, I dusted off (literally) some carbon tat that I've had sat on the shelf for many months now. I'm really not a carbon tart, but after getting the adjustable/extra width spoiler I kept my eyes out for some bits to match up the aesthetic for a bit. I then got it, decided I didn't like it and it's sat getting in the way ever since!
It would be rude not to at least try the bits on, so I offered up and decided they were actually pretty nice - so they'll stay for now. My previous sidepods/splitter needed a refresh of Halfords' finest satin black so it saves me a job too.
I did pick up a pre-cut PPF kit for the splitter. The kit itself is fantastic, but I did a slightly less than perfect job applying it. It'll do for now.
New rear decal, previous was hanging off.
I'm happy with the results I got on the areas which I "spot repaired", but being honest the whole car could have probably benefitted from a full 2 or 3 stage polish rather than just going over it all with the fine cut/finishing compound. Still it came out great, acceptable for another year of trundling around.
It was then time for Blyton, I returned a hospitality favour for a friend who lives conveniently close to Anglesey and after a night of social shenanigans it was finally trackday morning!
Blyton was RAMMED. The grass was all closed off where the trailers normally end up so the paddock was completely filled with trailers and tow vehicles, meaning we were parked miles away. Oh well, we found a spot and pitched up for the day.
The morning went as you'd expect for an early season Javelin day. Seemed to get red flags as soon as I finished an outlap, and generally didn't get much mileage at all. It was good shakedown material though, monitoring temps, listening out for bangs and rattles and sniffing for leaks.
In the afternoon things got quieter and quieter (as always at Blyton) and we could get the hammer down a bit. Had some great 'social' laps following/being followed by friends and swapping war stories in the pits etc, but still clear laps were hard to come by. Eventually I got a couple in, and I'm happy to say that the car felt pretty quick. Not quite my best around Blyton, but the information gathered told me everything I needed to know and there's an achievable chunk of time still to be had.
https://youtu.be/oyagoIY07ys
Weather was very cold, but also very sunny with the odd 10min patch of what could only be described as a slushy snowy rain. It was barely enough to wet the track though, so didn't hamper running. It did feel like the ZZR's needed work though, didn't retain temp between sessions and car was a bit bambi on ice for the first couple of laps.
The main objective for the day was to make sure nothing broke, leaked or fell off. I passed 2/3 of those checks, as a wayward centre cap went flying off into the weeds somewhere.
To break down the changes made over winter:
- Gearbox and clutch held up just fine, no weird behaviour and really no niggles at all. I might just have supercharger induced tinnitus but I think the final drive whirring was getting quieter later in the day.
- Gearbox cooler worked as expected, triggered on and off and my gearbox oil temps peaked at 90degrees (only 5 degrees higher than CLT). It was very cold ambient, so can't really judge this too closely yet - but early signs are good.
- Stiffer springs for the Nitrons were a mixed bag. Jury is still out, but the car felt better in some areas and worse in others. Through the fast Port Froid section they had the desired effect of controlling body roll and as a result my minimum speeds through there were higher than previous years. In the couple of bumpy braking zones though the car felt worse, and as a result I ended up over slowing in a couple of areas and lost some time.
I didn't touch my damper settings all day which is probably a mistake, but the car felt really balanced and I had no complaints about the way it felt mid corner.
- Smaller pulley and increased power wasn't something I particularly felt on the day, but reviewing the data afterwards has shown significant gains. 10-15kmh faster at the end of most straights and much more aggressive acceleration. My traction felt worse (blaming the springs) in a couple of spots, but the logs disagreed with that. I was consistently grabbing 5th on the back straight too which wasn't needed previously.
A snippet from some logging demonstrates some of this.
Red line was a lap taken from a random session last year and the blue line from Saturday. I frigged about with the stored track coordinates over Winter so unfortunately the start line for each trace is actually about 10 yards apart, so you can't use the graphs to compare braking points, but the peak/minimum values can still be used.
I think on balance I would go back to the softer springs for Blyton but I'm intrigued to see how I get on at a smoother circuit like Dony or Anglesey. The correct answer is probably somewhere in the middle, but I'm not sure how far I want to pursue this - the car was always pretty good before, so maybe need to learn to trust the body language of the car a bit more when it's pitching and rolling around.
I'll get the floor off the car in the next day or so and give everything a good once over. I'm contemplating an early gearbox oil change just to get rid of some of the bedding in glitter I've probably generated - but MT90 is expensive so I'll sleep on that idea for now :lol:
Short term plans are to think a bit more about these springs and I have some ECU/Dash fiddling to do - but nothing major. Nothing booked now until June... that very much needs fixing.
Need to go back a week first, after getting the geo sorted by Dave @ SL, I brought the car home for a good wash. I've been slacking and struggling for motivation the last few years for polishing cars, but after recently adding a couple of cars to the fleet and giving them a good going over, I thought it rude not to treat the Exige to a bit of elbow grease. It would be a tactical polishing, targeting a few specific areas for correction and then glossing over the rest of it.
I won't go full Detailing World report on it, but the summary was:
Foam, wash, decontaminate, clay, wash, dry, mask, touch up some stone chips, cutting compound on specific spots (Megs 105 with Koch Chemie heavy cut pad), polishing compound (Megs 205 with Koch Chemie finishing pad) all over and then refreshed a couple of decals and sealed with Sonax NPT.
Whilst I was on the case, I dusted off (literally) some carbon tat that I've had sat on the shelf for many months now. I'm really not a carbon tart, but after getting the adjustable/extra width spoiler I kept my eyes out for some bits to match up the aesthetic for a bit. I then got it, decided I didn't like it and it's sat getting in the way ever since!
It would be rude not to at least try the bits on, so I offered up and decided they were actually pretty nice - so they'll stay for now. My previous sidepods/splitter needed a refresh of Halfords' finest satin black so it saves me a job too.
I did pick up a pre-cut PPF kit for the splitter. The kit itself is fantastic, but I did a slightly less than perfect job applying it. It'll do for now.
New rear decal, previous was hanging off.
I'm happy with the results I got on the areas which I "spot repaired", but being honest the whole car could have probably benefitted from a full 2 or 3 stage polish rather than just going over it all with the fine cut/finishing compound. Still it came out great, acceptable for another year of trundling around.
It was then time for Blyton, I returned a hospitality favour for a friend who lives conveniently close to Anglesey and after a night of social shenanigans it was finally trackday morning!
Blyton was RAMMED. The grass was all closed off where the trailers normally end up so the paddock was completely filled with trailers and tow vehicles, meaning we were parked miles away. Oh well, we found a spot and pitched up for the day.
The morning went as you'd expect for an early season Javelin day. Seemed to get red flags as soon as I finished an outlap, and generally didn't get much mileage at all. It was good shakedown material though, monitoring temps, listening out for bangs and rattles and sniffing for leaks.
In the afternoon things got quieter and quieter (as always at Blyton) and we could get the hammer down a bit. Had some great 'social' laps following/being followed by friends and swapping war stories in the pits etc, but still clear laps were hard to come by. Eventually I got a couple in, and I'm happy to say that the car felt pretty quick. Not quite my best around Blyton, but the information gathered told me everything I needed to know and there's an achievable chunk of time still to be had.
https://youtu.be/oyagoIY07ys
Weather was very cold, but also very sunny with the odd 10min patch of what could only be described as a slushy snowy rain. It was barely enough to wet the track though, so didn't hamper running. It did feel like the ZZR's needed work though, didn't retain temp between sessions and car was a bit bambi on ice for the first couple of laps.
The main objective for the day was to make sure nothing broke, leaked or fell off. I passed 2/3 of those checks, as a wayward centre cap went flying off into the weeds somewhere.
To break down the changes made over winter:
- Gearbox and clutch held up just fine, no weird behaviour and really no niggles at all. I might just have supercharger induced tinnitus but I think the final drive whirring was getting quieter later in the day.
- Gearbox cooler worked as expected, triggered on and off and my gearbox oil temps peaked at 90degrees (only 5 degrees higher than CLT). It was very cold ambient, so can't really judge this too closely yet - but early signs are good.
- Stiffer springs for the Nitrons were a mixed bag. Jury is still out, but the car felt better in some areas and worse in others. Through the fast Port Froid section they had the desired effect of controlling body roll and as a result my minimum speeds through there were higher than previous years. In the couple of bumpy braking zones though the car felt worse, and as a result I ended up over slowing in a couple of areas and lost some time.
I didn't touch my damper settings all day which is probably a mistake, but the car felt really balanced and I had no complaints about the way it felt mid corner.
- Smaller pulley and increased power wasn't something I particularly felt on the day, but reviewing the data afterwards has shown significant gains. 10-15kmh faster at the end of most straights and much more aggressive acceleration. My traction felt worse (blaming the springs) in a couple of spots, but the logs disagreed with that. I was consistently grabbing 5th on the back straight too which wasn't needed previously.
A snippet from some logging demonstrates some of this.
Red line was a lap taken from a random session last year and the blue line from Saturday. I frigged about with the stored track coordinates over Winter so unfortunately the start line for each trace is actually about 10 yards apart, so you can't use the graphs to compare braking points, but the peak/minimum values can still be used.
I think on balance I would go back to the softer springs for Blyton but I'm intrigued to see how I get on at a smoother circuit like Dony or Anglesey. The correct answer is probably somewhere in the middle, but I'm not sure how far I want to pursue this - the car was always pretty good before, so maybe need to learn to trust the body language of the car a bit more when it's pitching and rolling around.
I'll get the floor off the car in the next day or so and give everything a good once over. I'm contemplating an early gearbox oil change just to get rid of some of the bedding in glitter I've probably generated - but MT90 is expensive so I'll sleep on that idea for now :lol:
Short term plans are to think a bit more about these springs and I have some ECU/Dash fiddling to do - but nothing major. Nothing booked now until June... that very much needs fixing.
Following Blyton I put the car back on the ramp to just check things over, good job I did too.
I had a light spattering of gearbox oil on my subframe, and was initially difficult to track down. The airflow from the undertray naca ducts makes it very messy, very fast!
Initially I worried about the driveshaft output seals on the gearbox, because the oil was up near those and everywhere beneath, but after degreasing everything and letting it dry off - the leak soon presented itself again.
It was coming from my M18 to AN-8 adapter in the drain plug, my fault - I think I may have reused a crush washer which had a wear pattern on it different to the new adapter. It was leaking over a few hours even with no heat in the box - so it was a slam dunk.
This pushed me over the edge on a marginal decision to replace the gearbox oil. It's a lot of money to throw away after just one trackday, but I was debating on treating it like a "running in service" on the rebuilt box, so I could flush out any glitter that may have been generating from meshing the new parts in together.
With some new washers and oil in, the box hasn't leaked for the last week or so. Happy days, but big test will be once it's back up to temp a few times and the pump has been running etc.
On a less happy note, whilst under the car I found my fancy new ceramic thermal barrier coating hasn't lasted...
Very disappointed, but the coaters have been great. They admit it's a new product/process to them and they completely blasted my exhaust again and started over, under the guidance of the coating manufacturer. They made a couple of tweaks to the process, so hopefully that's it done now.
Having the exhaust back at the coaters did give me some downtime though, so I decided to revert back to my softer springs. I still think an intermediate 500/700 or so setup would be best for my car but I'm not sure it's worth the 3-400quid that would cost me... I'd rather put that money towards some better dampers with some more adjustability in the future.
Swapping the springs did of course mean I've cocked up the rideheight that [mention]seriouslylotus[/mention] spent time sorting for me, but luckily I took some reference measurements and I'll dial it back in over the next few days.
Final piece of the Blyton damage is due to arrive today, replacement centre cap :?
Hoping to get some road miles on the car now and enjoy it for a bit, getting it all prepped for Blyton was a bit of a rush. Enjoyable but a bit stressful, so hoping for some uneventful mileage now.
I had a light spattering of gearbox oil on my subframe, and was initially difficult to track down. The airflow from the undertray naca ducts makes it very messy, very fast!
Initially I worried about the driveshaft output seals on the gearbox, because the oil was up near those and everywhere beneath, but after degreasing everything and letting it dry off - the leak soon presented itself again.
It was coming from my M18 to AN-8 adapter in the drain plug, my fault - I think I may have reused a crush washer which had a wear pattern on it different to the new adapter. It was leaking over a few hours even with no heat in the box - so it was a slam dunk.
This pushed me over the edge on a marginal decision to replace the gearbox oil. It's a lot of money to throw away after just one trackday, but I was debating on treating it like a "running in service" on the rebuilt box, so I could flush out any glitter that may have been generating from meshing the new parts in together.
With some new washers and oil in, the box hasn't leaked for the last week or so. Happy days, but big test will be once it's back up to temp a few times and the pump has been running etc.
On a less happy note, whilst under the car I found my fancy new ceramic thermal barrier coating hasn't lasted...
Very disappointed, but the coaters have been great. They admit it's a new product/process to them and they completely blasted my exhaust again and started over, under the guidance of the coating manufacturer. They made a couple of tweaks to the process, so hopefully that's it done now.
Having the exhaust back at the coaters did give me some downtime though, so I decided to revert back to my softer springs. I still think an intermediate 500/700 or so setup would be best for my car but I'm not sure it's worth the 3-400quid that would cost me... I'd rather put that money towards some better dampers with some more adjustability in the future.
Swapping the springs did of course mean I've cocked up the rideheight that [mention]seriouslylotus[/mention] spent time sorting for me, but luckily I took some reference measurements and I'll dial it back in over the next few days.
Final piece of the Blyton damage is due to arrive today, replacement centre cap :?
Hoping to get some road miles on the car now and enjoy it for a bit, getting it all prepped for Blyton was a bit of a rush. Enjoyable but a bit stressful, so hoping for some uneventful mileage now.
Fonzey said:
Hoping to get some road miles on the car now and enjoy it for a bit, getting it all prepped for Blyton was a bit of a rush. Enjoyable but a bit stressful, so hoping for some uneventful mileage now.
Well that didn't last very long... Driver side electric window died on me!Switch and fuses ruled out pretty quickly just by swapping out with the working side, then was just a case of tracking down the fault with the multi meter. All of the continuity checks within the door made the right bleeps, but I wasn't getting voltage to the switch from the fusebox. Continuity check from the fusebox to the switch failed, so started making plans to run a "it'll do" wire until the clam could next come off and I could repair the loom properly.
It was pointed out to me that the hinge area of the door was a somewhat common failure point, so with nothing to lose by taking off the grommet/boot thingy the issue was pretty obvious...
I'm not sure how standard this wiring is, it has loom tape on the door side and convoluted tubing on the chassis side - with a 4" gap in sheathing right where the door hinge is.
I had to pull the wiring completely out of the door just to get repair access, which has left a few nice cuts on the forearm collection.
I cleaned some corrosion from the exposed tab ends and crimped it all back together. A quick continuity check to make sure there were no others lurking and we had life.
Tidied it all up, refitted. Job jobbed, working window.
NOW I can chill out and enjoy the car.
Fonzey said:
NOW I can chill out and enjoy the car.
Nope, not yet.This gearbox is fighting me all the way
Oil leak from the sump plug has definitely resolved with a proper crush washer, but I've got another leak from the NS driveshaft seal.
I've cleaned it off a bunch of times now, fully dried the area - gone out for a short drive and then sure enough there's a small weep of oil next time I check it. OS one seems OK, but I've bought both OE replacements and I'll do them at once.
I spoke to the gearbox builder, he said it got brand new ones when he did the box - as he considers them single use. That probably means I've damaged it either while the box was in storage or I've nicked it when installing the driveshaft.
This is what I was dealing with, camera lighting doesn't show it but it's a nice clear drip running from the driveshaft seal down and collecting on the gear cables.
I waited until I had absolutely everything I thought I might need before dismantling the car, as it was barely dripping and I wanted to be able to drive it - but once I had my parts collection, I set to work with the goal of having the car rebuilt and back on its wheels in the same spannering session... as I'm just sick of walking in the garage and seeing a pile of parts.
Rear suspension needs partially dismantling for this, just to give clearance for the driveshaft to come out of the hub. I'm getting fairly good at this now, so didn't take long.
Seal at first glance looked 'ok', no tears or whatever and it seemed to be installed flush. I removed it with a small pry bar, really should buy a proper seal puller but it came out easy enough.
Once on the bench, I had a bit of good news:
It was an aftermarket seal, not an OE one. I thought that was good news because I just don't trust non OE stuff when it comes to parts like these, so it gave me confidence that simply swapping out would fix the leak. Bit disappointed the gearbox rebuild used non-OE seals, but luckily I provided the parts for everything else - so I know they were all legit Toyota.
I cleaned up the driveshaft and polished the seal interface down a bit with some 7000grit wet and dry.
The discovery of the aftermarket seal made me want to do the OS seal too, even though it wasn't leaking - so off came that suspension and popped that seal out too.
On the build up to doing this job, I was on the scrounge for sockets/pipe offcuts etc that I could use for seal insertion tools but I came up blank. I was poking around eBay looking for some offcuts of the right size and I stumbled across this:
It's apparently a 3D Printed tool for maintaining mountain bike shocks, or something like that. It's just a small length of pipe, with different ID's at each end.... and one end is a perfect fit for the NS seal, and the other end is a perfect fit for the OS seal... it's bloody perfect!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIDFqMSJVyk&ab...
I cleaned everything up and tapped the seals in carefully. So paranoid about jobs like this and getting it wrong, because it usually writes off the seal, and almost always costs loads of effort to redo it after you've found it's still leaking.
Seals in
I replaced the circlip on the NS driveshaft (none required for OS one) and got everything built back up.
As for the oil, it's only 50 miles old so I strained it and re-used it. Actually only re-used about 60% of it, because I had a few half full bottles of MT90 which went back in. I achieved my goal of having the car back on its wheels with all but the floor back on, in a single spannering session.
Annoyingly since paying seriouslylotus to do my suspension alignment, I've now swapped all four springs with some eyeballed in rideheight, and dismantled/rebuilt half my rear suspension... so chances are, that was at least a little bit off to cock. I drove the car a couple of miles and it didn't feel great at all, so that's chapter #2.
Chapter #2, alignment. Bit of a dull update this, but I enjoyed the process.
I love having a go and doing bits myself, but some things are always just worth spending the damn money on. I honestly believe suspension alignment to be one of these things, the theory is simple - but the conditions required to do this accurately are beyond most home garages. If you ever think a 'geo' or alignment from a specialist is expensive, try pricing up just some basic tools to give yourself a good, flat environment and try getting repeatable results from it using some string and a ruler.
Despite that, I've had a go anyway
I'm lucky that my garage floor is 'pretty straight', at least straight enough within the tolerances of a basic spirit level. I intend to get a laser level and check this properly, but job for another day.
I first measured my ride height, aiming for a ~5mm rake front to rear I found that I had exactly zero rake from when I fitted my springs, and with ballast in my car the rideheight was way too low. I ended up with ~125mm rear and ~120mm front ride height with 100kg in the driver seat. That's pretty conservative for an S2, but hoping it frees me up to run the damping a bit softer at the front if needed without destroying my headlights from behind. Some proper scales would allow you to DIY this part properly, and it would be one of the easier things to setup at home... but the scales are so expensive, so it's eyeballed arbitrary measurements for now.
With that dealt with, I need to create a reference point for the centre line of the car which is achieved by creating a 'string box' around the car. The goal being that both side lines are exactly parallel with each other, and the centre line of the car. You do this by getting fixed length poles front and back on axle stands, and then keep shuffling them about until the distance between front centrecaps and the string are equal, likewise at the rear.
Measuring has it's challenges, you can throw it off 1-2mm just by having the ruler/caliper at an angle. I tried to avoid this by utilising a spirit level on the caliper, but there are just so many opportunities to bugger it up.
In theory, that's then your reference and you measure the leading edge of the wheel rim and compare with the trailing edge to measure if your wheel is toe'ing in, or out. You can then convert that measurement in millimetres to degrees with a bit of trig, or a conversion chart.
I've flirted with this a few times before, never to make adjustments but to check to see whether I can match the measurements I've had from a recent fancy machine. The honest truth is that I've never succeeded to do that, so I didn't have high hopes for this adjustment - my backup plan was always going to be to beg, borrow and steal another alignment session with Dave if I could get to Hull without shredding my tyres.
I changed my mindset a bit, I wouldn't try to match what £XX,XXX worth of laser kit would tell me, because with the best intentions in the world I would be using different reference points. Measuring against the string for instance, ideally this would run through the exact centre line of my wheels - but when limited to axle stand "clicks" you've got to just get as close as you can, so rather than measuring a 17" diameter rim, I might actually be measuring it where it's 16.5" or whatever. One of my centre caps might stick out slightly more than the others, throwing off my reference box, etc. So many opportunities for this to be wrong, BUT relative to my own settings I should be able to wiggle the setup into the direction I want.
My ballast, and eBay steering wheel clamp:
With all that in mind, I spent a long time setting up my string box and eventually got the following toe measurements:
FL: 1mm toe in
FR: 2mm toe out
Front Axle = 1mm toe out
RL: 3mm toe in
RR: 0mm
Rear Axle = 3mm toe in
The actual spec I was aiming for is:
FL: 0.5mm out
FR: 0.5mm out
Front Axle = 1mm toe out
RL: 1.5mm in
RR: 1.5mm in
Rear Axle = 3mm toe in.
So as you can see, my axle toe settings were exactly where they should be - but everything was just offset to one side. I measured this three times over a 24 hour window, got consistent measurements to within 0.1mm each time.
Onto the adjustments, I worked out some rough maths to figure out how many turns of the track rod = how much movement, just to give me a starting point, then I could adjust from there. On a proper setup, the car is up in the air, the technician can adjust the trackrods "real time" and see the data changing on a screen. For me though it was easy to lift the car, make an adjustment, drop it down and roll it back and forth and then re-measure.
Some time later, I was reliably repeating the following measurements:
FL: 0.44mm out
FR: 0.5mm out
Front Axle = 0.94mm toe out
RL: 1.3mm in
RR: 1.6mm in
Rear Axle = 2.9mm toe in
Happy enough with that, I locked everything off, retried one more time and then put the car to the test.
Did 120miles over the weekend and the car felt great. Road manners were bang on, if I let go of the wheel the car would track straight. Being slightly critical my steering wheel was ever so slightly right hand down though, but so close to level - it was hard to be certain. I wondered how much of that is just me steering into road camber, rather than it actually being off to cock.
Handling wise, the car had it's usual feeling of a slightly light off-centre feel through the wheel, but incrementally weighted up nicely when leaning into a turn. Braking stability was cock on, and on the few occasions I had to explore grip properly, it retained it's usual balance through the understeer/oversteer transition - but it'll take a trackday to judge this fairly.
Before declaring a total success, I wanted to take one more measurement of the car... to see if some proper mileage had settled it at all, and to see if I could get repeatable results.
FL: 1.3mm out
FR: 0.2mm in
RL: 1.0mm in
RR: 1.8mm in
Errr.... disaster? Measuring totally different at first glance I was pretty disheartened. Then I noticed that the total axle differences were matching, at least to within 0.1mm tolerance.
The front difference I think I can explain with steering wheel angle, I said before that it drove very slightly RHD - so perhaps I've now got it locked at slightly LHD compared to before... and the measurements would agree with that.
As for the rears, I can't explain why they're different other than measuring tolerances with an eBay caliper and some fishing line. I'll measure a few more times and average out my measurements to see what I can do. Perhaps I underestimated how much things would settle with mileage, or perhaps the fuel I burned off is responsible.
Question now, the car drove great at the weekend. As good as it ever has, tbh. Do I seek perfection and try to adjust again, straightening out the wheel... or leave it? It was probably less than 5 degrees out...
Oh, and my driveshaft seals are bone dry still
I love having a go and doing bits myself, but some things are always just worth spending the damn money on. I honestly believe suspension alignment to be one of these things, the theory is simple - but the conditions required to do this accurately are beyond most home garages. If you ever think a 'geo' or alignment from a specialist is expensive, try pricing up just some basic tools to give yourself a good, flat environment and try getting repeatable results from it using some string and a ruler.
Despite that, I've had a go anyway
I'm lucky that my garage floor is 'pretty straight', at least straight enough within the tolerances of a basic spirit level. I intend to get a laser level and check this properly, but job for another day.
I first measured my ride height, aiming for a ~5mm rake front to rear I found that I had exactly zero rake from when I fitted my springs, and with ballast in my car the rideheight was way too low. I ended up with ~125mm rear and ~120mm front ride height with 100kg in the driver seat. That's pretty conservative for an S2, but hoping it frees me up to run the damping a bit softer at the front if needed without destroying my headlights from behind. Some proper scales would allow you to DIY this part properly, and it would be one of the easier things to setup at home... but the scales are so expensive, so it's eyeballed arbitrary measurements for now.
With that dealt with, I need to create a reference point for the centre line of the car which is achieved by creating a 'string box' around the car. The goal being that both side lines are exactly parallel with each other, and the centre line of the car. You do this by getting fixed length poles front and back on axle stands, and then keep shuffling them about until the distance between front centrecaps and the string are equal, likewise at the rear.
Measuring has it's challenges, you can throw it off 1-2mm just by having the ruler/caliper at an angle. I tried to avoid this by utilising a spirit level on the caliper, but there are just so many opportunities to bugger it up.
In theory, that's then your reference and you measure the leading edge of the wheel rim and compare with the trailing edge to measure if your wheel is toe'ing in, or out. You can then convert that measurement in millimetres to degrees with a bit of trig, or a conversion chart.
I've flirted with this a few times before, never to make adjustments but to check to see whether I can match the measurements I've had from a recent fancy machine. The honest truth is that I've never succeeded to do that, so I didn't have high hopes for this adjustment - my backup plan was always going to be to beg, borrow and steal another alignment session with Dave if I could get to Hull without shredding my tyres.
I changed my mindset a bit, I wouldn't try to match what £XX,XXX worth of laser kit would tell me, because with the best intentions in the world I would be using different reference points. Measuring against the string for instance, ideally this would run through the exact centre line of my wheels - but when limited to axle stand "clicks" you've got to just get as close as you can, so rather than measuring a 17" diameter rim, I might actually be measuring it where it's 16.5" or whatever. One of my centre caps might stick out slightly more than the others, throwing off my reference box, etc. So many opportunities for this to be wrong, BUT relative to my own settings I should be able to wiggle the setup into the direction I want.
My ballast, and eBay steering wheel clamp:
With all that in mind, I spent a long time setting up my string box and eventually got the following toe measurements:
FL: 1mm toe in
FR: 2mm toe out
Front Axle = 1mm toe out
RL: 3mm toe in
RR: 0mm
Rear Axle = 3mm toe in
The actual spec I was aiming for is:
FL: 0.5mm out
FR: 0.5mm out
Front Axle = 1mm toe out
RL: 1.5mm in
RR: 1.5mm in
Rear Axle = 3mm toe in.
So as you can see, my axle toe settings were exactly where they should be - but everything was just offset to one side. I measured this three times over a 24 hour window, got consistent measurements to within 0.1mm each time.
Onto the adjustments, I worked out some rough maths to figure out how many turns of the track rod = how much movement, just to give me a starting point, then I could adjust from there. On a proper setup, the car is up in the air, the technician can adjust the trackrods "real time" and see the data changing on a screen. For me though it was easy to lift the car, make an adjustment, drop it down and roll it back and forth and then re-measure.
Some time later, I was reliably repeating the following measurements:
FL: 0.44mm out
FR: 0.5mm out
Front Axle = 0.94mm toe out
RL: 1.3mm in
RR: 1.6mm in
Rear Axle = 2.9mm toe in
Happy enough with that, I locked everything off, retried one more time and then put the car to the test.
Did 120miles over the weekend and the car felt great. Road manners were bang on, if I let go of the wheel the car would track straight. Being slightly critical my steering wheel was ever so slightly right hand down though, but so close to level - it was hard to be certain. I wondered how much of that is just me steering into road camber, rather than it actually being off to cock.
Handling wise, the car had it's usual feeling of a slightly light off-centre feel through the wheel, but incrementally weighted up nicely when leaning into a turn. Braking stability was cock on, and on the few occasions I had to explore grip properly, it retained it's usual balance through the understeer/oversteer transition - but it'll take a trackday to judge this fairly.
Before declaring a total success, I wanted to take one more measurement of the car... to see if some proper mileage had settled it at all, and to see if I could get repeatable results.
FL: 1.3mm out
FR: 0.2mm in
RL: 1.0mm in
RR: 1.8mm in
Errr.... disaster? Measuring totally different at first glance I was pretty disheartened. Then I noticed that the total axle differences were matching, at least to within 0.1mm tolerance.
The front difference I think I can explain with steering wheel angle, I said before that it drove very slightly RHD - so perhaps I've now got it locked at slightly LHD compared to before... and the measurements would agree with that.
As for the rears, I can't explain why they're different other than measuring tolerances with an eBay caliper and some fishing line. I'll measure a few more times and average out my measurements to see what I can do. Perhaps I underestimated how much things would settle with mileage, or perhaps the fuel I burned off is responsible.
Question now, the car drove great at the weekend. As good as it ever has, tbh. Do I seek perfection and try to adjust again, straightening out the wheel... or leave it? It was probably less than 5 degrees out...
Oh, and my driveshaft seals are bone dry still
Craikeybaby said:
The 3D printer tool you used looks like it was for fitting seals into mountain bike suspension forks, the "proper" version of these tools are quite expensive from the fork manufacturers, but the Unior brand does a range of more sensibly priced replacements: https://uniortools.com/eng/product/1702-fork-seal-...
Good info Oulton Park Update.
Attended Oulton with MSVT a week or so ago, fantastic day but not without gremlins.
Weather never really threatened anything other than a good day, which was a welcome relief as I'd never seen Oulton in the dry before, and haven't done more than sighting laps in a Lotus.
On the runup to Oulton the alignment of my suspension had changed probably a dozen times a I matured my techniques a bit and ironed out the inconsistencies but on the drive over I was very happy with the car, and it did not disappoint on circuit.
Garaged up with the only other Lotus' in attendance we felt massively outgunned. This was going to be a seriously quick day, with radicals, supercars, TCR cars and various other bits of incredible machinery lining the pitlane. Rarely for my Exige, I felt like we were in the slowest 10% of attendees that day!
I have a few good friends from the Lotus community who all live local to Oulton, so they descended down either as attendees or spectators which meant I got some great photos without buying the MSV ones, so thanks for that
The car felt quick out of the gates, despite the intimidating paddock it wasn't too hard to find free air and I was rarely having to pull over - so got some rhythm down early. This was disrupted mid morning when I started getting some engine knock warnings on the dash. :? Little bit worrying, but my knock protection strategies are all my own work so it would not be surprising to find I'd cocked something up.... but why now? They haven't changed in probably a year and 10 trackdays.
The warnings seemed to flash up as soon as I hit WOT coming out of a corner or during a gear change. I knew that the knock events were probably happening some time before I registered the warning on the dash so I went back to the pits to check the logs and see if I could spot any problems. It was quite clear that the events were happening on rapid throttle changes, either on or off... so highly unlikely to be real knock. I then turned my search for something loose/clanging about but couldn't find anything obvious.
I went back out and tried to mentally tune out the warnings, which was harder than it sounds so I came back and decided to take some timing out of the map during throttle tip-in (where the events generally occurred) to give me a safety net. This slowed the car down for the rest of the day, but not by much - and only for fractions of a second on acceleration.
The warnings continued and then by late morning they were joined by a quite nasty clanging noise on deceleration. Hmmmm
At lunch I jacked the car up and found my exhaust backbox was battering the diffuser, it had come loose at the slip joint and had rotated around. This was most annoying, because it's a fresh clamp and I spent ages getting it perfect without leaks. I (quietly, internally) threw my toys out and started muttering about chopping this slipjoint out and replacing with a vband once I got home. I was concerned about tightening the clamp again because generally they get very brittle after a few heat cycles, so I gingerly nipped it up and spaced the diffuser down to give me some clearance if it happened again.
After lunch the clanging initially stopped but the knock warnings persisted. I took a bit more timing out and just decided to crack on, if it blew up - at least I'd know it was real.
Despite this, I was having a great day and felt like I was pushing the car more and more. Oulton was very new to me though, and I felt like I could take every corner a totally different way from lap to lap and I had no idea what was working and what was not!
The car felt really quite planted at the higher speed corners such as Dentons, Clayhill/Watertower. Corners types at other circuits I'd have a big lift for I was able to take flat. Watertower was more of a 'half lift' by the end of the day because I found when taking it at full chat I couldn't slow it in time for Druids... and that's scary.
Lower speed direction changes not quite on point, maybe an issue with my suspension alignment but it wasn't a million miles away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0R3FU024YGQ&ab...
It was also rather warm, and I was starting to struggle physically. Really need to get my fitness up as it's detracting from my trackdays!
The car had no issues with the temps though. IAT's are the highest I've seen since adding the chargecooler due to the smaller diameter pulley I'm running this year, but still way lower than the original A2A intercooler. My ECU is pulling a small bit of timing at full WOT loads to compensate, but nothing that is noticeable. Critically it seems to handle longer sessions perfectly well, I tried to drive till' the flag in the final session but bottled it with 5mins to go due to fuel level, it was a good 30+mins on track though and IAT's were stable from about the 15min mark onwards. Gearbox temps also in check thanks to the new cooler setup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AL-svsis6h8&ab...
The clanging got worse again as the day came to a close, and it was a rather noisy drive home - but we got home safely nonetheless.
A few days later I got the car on the ramp to sort the exhaust out, and quickly found what I believe is the root cause. The rear engine mount was quite loose.
Actually "engine mount" is a bit of a misnomer, as it bolts into my gearbox casing and in this case both the M10 bolts had backed right out - and were only stopped from coming out by the back of the mount arresting their progress.
Very annoyed at myself, as this sort of thing I'm usually very obsessive with when rebuilding a car - but I'd clearly neglected the torque spec on these bolts. What's worse, I had a sinking feeling that there's no way the threads would be intact after such forces being loaded on loose bolts... and sure enough, the top of the two threads was trashed.
Initially fearing yet another gearbox removal to sort, I had a few days off and just sulked about it. After a few nights sleep, I looked at it again and found that with the manifold off I had pretty good access to this particular thread. Actually, of all the engine mount threads on the box this is the only one which can be restored with the box in situ, so perhaps I got lucky.
I had some M10x1.25 helicoils in stock already, so built myself up to taking a drill to my gearbox. I did half consider bodging it with a bonded in stud but those thoughts quickly moved on, luckily.
I did add a gadget to my toolbox though - a drill guide to help me drill it exactly straight. The casing here is very narrow, and the last thing I wanted to do was end up chipping a corner of the casing off with crap drilling.
It works for the tapping too, very handy. Not quite pillar drill accuracy but the next best thing.
After a couple of false starts, the coil was in and to my relief held the torque spec for the bolt without breaking a sweat.
Job well done, hopefully. The lower thread is fine so I'll leave that one alone.
This was almost certainly the cause for my phantom knock warnings so I'll revert my timing changes and hopefully will have a warning-free day next time out.
Still not got my trouble free motoring I promised myself this year, maybe now is the start
Fallen behind a bit on updates, so I'll get some housekeeping out of the way before my bigger updates from the weekend.
First up, was time for some new tyres. I've had Avon ZZR's on since I bought the car, the first set were old and perished so I swapped them for a newer, but still second hand set. These have lasted over 20 trackdays and to my feel with no real loss of performance - but the wear rate on them slowed to almost a stop! That suggests to me that they've gone a bit hard, but I persisted with them (because Yorkshire) and finally managed to get down to the wear markers on the inside of the rears.
Tyre choice right now is very limited, almost anything from Japan is unobtanium in the sizes I wanted. Despite excellent experience with ZZR, I wanted to try something new 'for science'. In the end I opted for Nankang AR-1, mainly because it's the only tyre I could source in the slightly wider sizes that I wanted of 235 rear and 205 front (Avons are 225/195).
With new tyres, I unlocked the freedom to do something I've been putting off for almost 2 years which is to get my 240R wheels refurbished. They've been a bit tatty since I've owned them, but I kept rattle canning them (over the brakedust, obviously) to freshen them up between trackdays. Time for a proper paint job!
I'm over black wheels now, they hide the profile/detail in the wheels and I think don't do a great wheel justice. The 240R wheels really are great.
I wasn't brave enough for silver, as Laser Blue and Black certainly 'works' so I had a good chat with my local powdercoater and he came up with a suggestion. I thought it was brave, and was terrified it wouldn't work... but I love it.
Shadow Chrome. If I understand correctly, it's a gloss black base coat and some chromy lacquer/topcoat. Comes out great, and is a really good match for the carbon bits on the car.
One of my wheels always needed a lot of weight to balance it up, the root cause for this was found - one of the rears had a slight buckle. Really minor (apparently) and easily fixed, the wheel now balances up with minimal weight.
The next excuse to throw money at the car came when I was stood in the kitchen one night and could hear a loud beeping coming from the garage. Upon investigation I found the trickle charger for the car was in an error state and it was making a right racket. Disconnected it, and sure enough the Odyssey PC680 was dead. Messed around with it for a bit, tested the charger on a spare battery and all was good - but the PC680 had nothing left to give. Grrr
As I had a PC680 sized bracket already, and my OE brackets had seized and long since removed I wanted to keep to the same formfactor... but the PC680 is a little low-tech nowadays and at 6 or so KG isn't even that light, so in came a Lithium replacement:
At barely 2kg, it shares the same bracket (with a minor tweak) and exceeds the cranking specs of the 680 anyway. It can't be tricked using my existing charger (I believe?) so I need to work out a battery cut-off switch to stop it draining. I also relocated my bracket from upright against the bulkhead to laying flat, just because the old layout made accessing the terminals a bit awkward.
Insulating boots to follow, just to stop a rogue spanner crossing the streams and blowing something up.
Another small job was to make/bodge an ODB to DB9 Serial connector.
When my ECU/Dash was installed, a USB2CAN adaptor was wired in. I could use this to push config changes to my dashboard from the laptop. Recently ECUMaster had advised that I push a firmware update to my GPS2CAN module for some bug fixes using the same USB2CAN adaptor, but I couldn't because it had been wired in to its own dedicated CANBUS, and didn't have connectivity with the GPS Module, as per:
As the original ODB port was on the same bus as the GPS module, I was able to make up a cable that would link the USB2CAN module to the ODB Port, and get the firmware update done. Simple but effective, and this concept could be expanded upon - with a bit more of a robust/better made link cable I could use the ODB port to quickly/easily add or test a new canbus facility such as TPMS or whatever, before digging into the car loom to wire it in properly.
Final bit of housekeeping update is on the fleet front. I (temporarily, rented) added a trailer to the driveway!
Since my breakdown in Anglesey last year, I've been working towards this. Originally had a training course and certification booked, which the government then banned... so after losing the ability to get 'trailer legal' in 2021 I finally inherited the capability on my license for this season. The Volvo V90 had been bought specifically for this use (well, it's my Wife's daily too) and spent an eye watering amount to get the Volvo fold away towbar etc.
The plan was to rent a trailer for some close-to-home trackdays so I wasn't getting out of my depth miles from home, but only following a day of tutoring from my neighbour and lifelong tower/driver Geoff. Geoff helped me with the basics, hitching up, balancing a load, etc- then we got onto driving, and even a bit of reversing. It all went pretty well, and the Volvo had some nice gadgets to help.
We did a few miles in various scenarios and as it went without drama, I felt confident enough to use it for real.
I had a few comments on social media about the fact I had the car facing forwards with an engine in the boot, but this was the best/safest way we could get a 95kg nose weight on the trailer. The Volvo limit is 100kg, and I wanted to be at the thick end of that to improve trailer stability.
With the car backed on, I had to have it quite far towards the rear of the trailer to keep the weight away from the nose - and considering it's significantly easier to unload/load the car forwards - I so no benefit in reversing on.
I spoke with a few other Lotus towers, and many preferred forwards loading too - those with tyre racks actually finding it mandatory.
First up, was time for some new tyres. I've had Avon ZZR's on since I bought the car, the first set were old and perished so I swapped them for a newer, but still second hand set. These have lasted over 20 trackdays and to my feel with no real loss of performance - but the wear rate on them slowed to almost a stop! That suggests to me that they've gone a bit hard, but I persisted with them (because Yorkshire) and finally managed to get down to the wear markers on the inside of the rears.
Tyre choice right now is very limited, almost anything from Japan is unobtanium in the sizes I wanted. Despite excellent experience with ZZR, I wanted to try something new 'for science'. In the end I opted for Nankang AR-1, mainly because it's the only tyre I could source in the slightly wider sizes that I wanted of 235 rear and 205 front (Avons are 225/195).
With new tyres, I unlocked the freedom to do something I've been putting off for almost 2 years which is to get my 240R wheels refurbished. They've been a bit tatty since I've owned them, but I kept rattle canning them (over the brakedust, obviously) to freshen them up between trackdays. Time for a proper paint job!
I'm over black wheels now, they hide the profile/detail in the wheels and I think don't do a great wheel justice. The 240R wheels really are great.
I wasn't brave enough for silver, as Laser Blue and Black certainly 'works' so I had a good chat with my local powdercoater and he came up with a suggestion. I thought it was brave, and was terrified it wouldn't work... but I love it.
Shadow Chrome. If I understand correctly, it's a gloss black base coat and some chromy lacquer/topcoat. Comes out great, and is a really good match for the carbon bits on the car.
One of my wheels always needed a lot of weight to balance it up, the root cause for this was found - one of the rears had a slight buckle. Really minor (apparently) and easily fixed, the wheel now balances up with minimal weight.
The next excuse to throw money at the car came when I was stood in the kitchen one night and could hear a loud beeping coming from the garage. Upon investigation I found the trickle charger for the car was in an error state and it was making a right racket. Disconnected it, and sure enough the Odyssey PC680 was dead. Messed around with it for a bit, tested the charger on a spare battery and all was good - but the PC680 had nothing left to give. Grrr
As I had a PC680 sized bracket already, and my OE brackets had seized and long since removed I wanted to keep to the same formfactor... but the PC680 is a little low-tech nowadays and at 6 or so KG isn't even that light, so in came a Lithium replacement:
At barely 2kg, it shares the same bracket (with a minor tweak) and exceeds the cranking specs of the 680 anyway. It can't be tricked using my existing charger (I believe?) so I need to work out a battery cut-off switch to stop it draining. I also relocated my bracket from upright against the bulkhead to laying flat, just because the old layout made accessing the terminals a bit awkward.
Insulating boots to follow, just to stop a rogue spanner crossing the streams and blowing something up.
Another small job was to make/bodge an ODB to DB9 Serial connector.
When my ECU/Dash was installed, a USB2CAN adaptor was wired in. I could use this to push config changes to my dashboard from the laptop. Recently ECUMaster had advised that I push a firmware update to my GPS2CAN module for some bug fixes using the same USB2CAN adaptor, but I couldn't because it had been wired in to its own dedicated CANBUS, and didn't have connectivity with the GPS Module, as per:
As the original ODB port was on the same bus as the GPS module, I was able to make up a cable that would link the USB2CAN module to the ODB Port, and get the firmware update done. Simple but effective, and this concept could be expanded upon - with a bit more of a robust/better made link cable I could use the ODB port to quickly/easily add or test a new canbus facility such as TPMS or whatever, before digging into the car loom to wire it in properly.
Final bit of housekeeping update is on the fleet front. I (temporarily, rented) added a trailer to the driveway!
Since my breakdown in Anglesey last year, I've been working towards this. Originally had a training course and certification booked, which the government then banned... so after losing the ability to get 'trailer legal' in 2021 I finally inherited the capability on my license for this season. The Volvo V90 had been bought specifically for this use (well, it's my Wife's daily too) and spent an eye watering amount to get the Volvo fold away towbar etc.
The plan was to rent a trailer for some close-to-home trackdays so I wasn't getting out of my depth miles from home, but only following a day of tutoring from my neighbour and lifelong tower/driver Geoff. Geoff helped me with the basics, hitching up, balancing a load, etc- then we got onto driving, and even a bit of reversing. It all went pretty well, and the Volvo had some nice gadgets to help.
We did a few miles in various scenarios and as it went without drama, I felt confident enough to use it for real.
I had a few comments on social media about the fact I had the car facing forwards with an engine in the boot, but this was the best/safest way we could get a 95kg nose weight on the trailer. The Volvo limit is 100kg, and I wanted to be at the thick end of that to improve trailer stability.
With the car backed on, I had to have it quite far towards the rear of the trailer to keep the weight away from the nose - and considering it's significantly easier to unload/load the car forwards - I so no benefit in reversing on.
I spoke with a few other Lotus towers, and many preferred forwards loading too - those with tyre racks actually finding it mandatory.
Cheers, the matching tow rig was definitely done on purpose 
Onto the meat of the weekend. The trailer was intentionally scheduled for this weekend as I had a double header of Blyton on the Sunday and Cadwell on the Monday. It would be an ideal way to get some towing mileage under my belt, but still relatively close to home in case I came into difficulty.
It would also help me to pack the Volvo with 2 days worth of track time supplies, spare tyres, etc.
Day #1
Plot twist, the Blyton event wasn't a trackday - it was Round 2 of the Javelin Trackday Sprint Series and I would be competing with 80+ other cars to set a fast lap. It would be my first time competing in a car, so nerves were fairly lively - but luckily I had the anxiety of towing to distract me anyway :lol:
The towing was absolutely fine, bit nervous for the first few miles on Sunday morning but soon settled into it, and was pretty much an HGV driver by the end of it. I had a bit of a trial by fire upon arrival at Blyton, I stupidly kept driving down the very packed paddock to find a slot, slowly coming to realise I'd have to turn around and go back to the entrance to park up. 3 Point turn, with a trailer in front of many trackday peers. Great Luckily a friend came to watch me back, combined with a slow but assertive manoeuvre we soon got around and back into the countryside to park up for the day.
The JTSS format is fairly straight forward, you get one untimed practise lap, then 6 timed runs about an hour between each one... so the brakes and tyres are clap cold for every run. Not nice.
The "lap" starts with a launch from the usual pitlane exit, and finishes about 50 yards away from the final corner.
The runners are split into classes, broadly decided by engine capacity and power output - but there are a few modifies for cars such as Lotus' - so I was in J04 with cars "over 2.0 and up to 400bhp". On a more normal weekend, it's a bit of a "Lotus class" but some of the other cars weren't running for one reason or another. J04 puts me quite close to the front of the running, and as the cars run in class order - it meant I was called up for my practise run as I left the briefing room. Eeek, no time to get nervous!
Stickers slapped on, go-faster creases n' all and off we went. Desperately trying to warm up the engine/gearbox oil in the queue.
I wasn't totally inexperienced with launching the car, I'd had a few cheeky practises prior to the event and felt rather confident.... but that didn't really work out. I couldn't find ANY grip off the line, wheelspin galore and this would continue throughout the day. Even launching with something like 2k RPM would initially bog down, then it would just spin like crazy when I tried to throttle up. My 60ft times weren't terrible, but I knew the car had much better in it.
Practise run was a bit shakey, but uneventful. Senses heightened trying to figure out what these Nankang tyres would do, I'd only done 50 or so road miles, really had no idea how they would respond. They were fairly well behaved though - nice stiff sidewalls made the car feel responsive. Car tended to understeer rather than oversteer throughout the day, but probably something I can tune out with pressures once they're properly up to temp on a real trackday.
Brakes were pretty weak for sprinting though, I absolutely love the Carbotechs and they do everything I need them to do on a trackday, but the first couple of stops from cold are really quite scary. This would be a theme through the day, my sector 1 being very weak compared to s2.
After coming back to the pits, I really didn't know what to do with myself. Checked tyre pressure with no idea what to do with that information, so just chatted and sat on the grass for an hour.
First timed run, launch was crap again - but got round the lap without drama, loads of time left on the table and I was making notes as I went around. Typically over braking for everything and minimum speed in the slower corners was really poor. Did a 1.13.25.
A little bit disappointed, I'd done my homework and I knew my car with me driving had a comfortable 1.10 in it, and much lower if I pushed the boat out a bit.
Nerves were gone now, and just wanted to progress - second run was a 1.11.82, step in the right direction but still loads to come.
Final run before lunch was an error strewn one, missing gears, half of bunga bunga in neutral, etc. Still a 1.11:34 so creeping in the right direction.
Lunch ruined everything, the extra hour or downtime I guess was enough to bleed off any residual heat in the car - and the clouds came over, and I went backwards.
Did what I thought was a good lap and clocked only 1.12.42 and the one after barely better at a 1.12.10. This was really rocking me, suddenly I had one run left - the leader of J04 was running away with it in the 1.08s(!) and I couldn't figure out how to go faster. I was blaming the launch a bit, so ended up wasting more time experimenting with it.
In the time before the final run, I got a bit of news that the J04 leader was actually misclassified and should have been J03... that changed things slightly, as I was only 0.2 seconds behind the new leader of J04... all to play for in the final session. The sun also came out, not sure if it was all in my head - but that made me much more confident on grip levels.
I queued up behind my J04 rival in his Honda Civic. I'm crap with Civic designations pre-EP3, but it was old, stripped and apparently rather powerful. I definitely had the edge on the launch and the faster corners, but he was monstering me in S1 for most of the day.
He got off on his lap, his launch looked decent but that's about all I could judge before it was my turn. We were both in the 1.11's and just 2 tenths apart, I was sure if I could sneak into the 1.10's that I could pinch it.
Off we go, launch was going pretty well... right up until I missed 2nd. Grrr, I got it in on the second time of asking and was pretty dejected going down into T1. I half gave up and half over committed all at the same time - but T1 was a mess. Going down towards the wiggler, I braked far too early... not going well. Sod it, I just did what I could in S2 and felt like it was pretty good coming over the line. Nothing lairy, but minimum speeds felt good in the faster stuff.
Crossed the line and glanced up to the clock, 1.10.74! Had I nabbed it?
I parked up, and before I could fumble around for the live timing on my phone a friend came up to deliver the news. "Stonking lap.... but..." My rival in his Civic had done a 1.10.66, 8/100ths faster!
I wasn't disappointed, had a good buzz from how close it was and was glad that I could at least compete. Being honest, J04 wasn't at its strongest this weekend due to non starters etc, so I got lucky. On a normal weekend I think I'd need to be in the 1.08's to be competitive but on reflection I've easily got that time in me and the car.
My 60ft time was 0.4sec up on Marc in the Civic
S1 I was 1.4(!) sec down on Marc
S2 I was 0.8 sec up on Marc
My S2 was right up there with the guys competing for the FTD which is both good to see, but also frustrating. What could have been, etc. My confidence on cold brakes by far my biggest weakness, I wonder if a road biased pad might be much better for sprinting as there's not really enough time to generate fade.
Final results, P14 and P2 in Class. As a nice bonus, I got a trophy - nice surprise at the end, I wasn't sure the J04 class was big enough to award the runner up after all of the none starters!
I still can't decide how much I enjoyed the day vs a normal trackday. The tracktime is obviously much lower, and running on cold brakes/tyres I didn't consider fun, tbh. I spend so much time trying to make my car better/faster - and then throw it all away by going out with no grip. Obviously it's the same for everyone, but I just didn't feel like I was leaning on my car properly - at least not in the first sector.
Despite doing so many trackdays in the last 10 years, I'm still not bored of them and I love driving my own day. Building up through the day, and pushing myself along at my own pace. Sprinting is different, not better, not worse - just different. I don't think I could commit to a full championship campaign because it would just eat into my free weekends too much, and limit how many trackdays I can do... one to mull over, and see what the future brings.
The tow home was fun, and absolutely smashed the reverse manoeuvre into the driveway.
Early night... long day of Cadwell tomorrow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu-_brnaJcE&ab...
Onto the meat of the weekend. The trailer was intentionally scheduled for this weekend as I had a double header of Blyton on the Sunday and Cadwell on the Monday. It would be an ideal way to get some towing mileage under my belt, but still relatively close to home in case I came into difficulty.
It would also help me to pack the Volvo with 2 days worth of track time supplies, spare tyres, etc.
Day #1
Plot twist, the Blyton event wasn't a trackday - it was Round 2 of the Javelin Trackday Sprint Series and I would be competing with 80+ other cars to set a fast lap. It would be my first time competing in a car, so nerves were fairly lively - but luckily I had the anxiety of towing to distract me anyway :lol:
The towing was absolutely fine, bit nervous for the first few miles on Sunday morning but soon settled into it, and was pretty much an HGV driver by the end of it. I had a bit of a trial by fire upon arrival at Blyton, I stupidly kept driving down the very packed paddock to find a slot, slowly coming to realise I'd have to turn around and go back to the entrance to park up. 3 Point turn, with a trailer in front of many trackday peers. Great
Luckily a friend came to watch me back, combined with a slow but assertive manoeuvre we soon got around and back into the countryside to park up for the day.The JTSS format is fairly straight forward, you get one untimed practise lap, then 6 timed runs about an hour between each one... so the brakes and tyres are clap cold for every run. Not nice.
The "lap" starts with a launch from the usual pitlane exit, and finishes about 50 yards away from the final corner.
The runners are split into classes, broadly decided by engine capacity and power output - but there are a few modifies for cars such as Lotus' - so I was in J04 with cars "over 2.0 and up to 400bhp". On a more normal weekend, it's a bit of a "Lotus class" but some of the other cars weren't running for one reason or another. J04 puts me quite close to the front of the running, and as the cars run in class order - it meant I was called up for my practise run as I left the briefing room. Eeek, no time to get nervous!
Stickers slapped on, go-faster creases n' all and off we went. Desperately trying to warm up the engine/gearbox oil in the queue.
I wasn't totally inexperienced with launching the car, I'd had a few cheeky practises prior to the event and felt rather confident.... but that didn't really work out. I couldn't find ANY grip off the line, wheelspin galore and this would continue throughout the day. Even launching with something like 2k RPM would initially bog down, then it would just spin like crazy when I tried to throttle up. My 60ft times weren't terrible, but I knew the car had much better in it.
Practise run was a bit shakey, but uneventful. Senses heightened trying to figure out what these Nankang tyres would do, I'd only done 50 or so road miles, really had no idea how they would respond. They were fairly well behaved though - nice stiff sidewalls made the car feel responsive. Car tended to understeer rather than oversteer throughout the day, but probably something I can tune out with pressures once they're properly up to temp on a real trackday.
Brakes were pretty weak for sprinting though, I absolutely love the Carbotechs and they do everything I need them to do on a trackday, but the first couple of stops from cold are really quite scary. This would be a theme through the day, my sector 1 being very weak compared to s2.
After coming back to the pits, I really didn't know what to do with myself. Checked tyre pressure with no idea what to do with that information, so just chatted and sat on the grass for an hour.
First timed run, launch was crap again - but got round the lap without drama, loads of time left on the table and I was making notes as I went around. Typically over braking for everything and minimum speed in the slower corners was really poor. Did a 1.13.25.
A little bit disappointed, I'd done my homework and I knew my car with me driving had a comfortable 1.10 in it, and much lower if I pushed the boat out a bit.
Nerves were gone now, and just wanted to progress - second run was a 1.11.82, step in the right direction but still loads to come.
Final run before lunch was an error strewn one, missing gears, half of bunga bunga in neutral, etc. Still a 1.11:34 so creeping in the right direction.
Lunch ruined everything, the extra hour or downtime I guess was enough to bleed off any residual heat in the car - and the clouds came over, and I went backwards.
Did what I thought was a good lap and clocked only 1.12.42 and the one after barely better at a 1.12.10. This was really rocking me, suddenly I had one run left - the leader of J04 was running away with it in the 1.08s(!) and I couldn't figure out how to go faster. I was blaming the launch a bit, so ended up wasting more time experimenting with it.
In the time before the final run, I got a bit of news that the J04 leader was actually misclassified and should have been J03... that changed things slightly, as I was only 0.2 seconds behind the new leader of J04... all to play for in the final session. The sun also came out, not sure if it was all in my head - but that made me much more confident on grip levels.
I queued up behind my J04 rival in his Honda Civic. I'm crap with Civic designations pre-EP3, but it was old, stripped and apparently rather powerful. I definitely had the edge on the launch and the faster corners, but he was monstering me in S1 for most of the day.
He got off on his lap, his launch looked decent but that's about all I could judge before it was my turn. We were both in the 1.11's and just 2 tenths apart, I was sure if I could sneak into the 1.10's that I could pinch it.
Off we go, launch was going pretty well... right up until I missed 2nd. Grrr, I got it in on the second time of asking and was pretty dejected going down into T1. I half gave up and half over committed all at the same time - but T1 was a mess. Going down towards the wiggler, I braked far too early... not going well. Sod it, I just did what I could in S2 and felt like it was pretty good coming over the line. Nothing lairy, but minimum speeds felt good in the faster stuff.
Crossed the line and glanced up to the clock, 1.10.74! Had I nabbed it?
I parked up, and before I could fumble around for the live timing on my phone a friend came up to deliver the news. "Stonking lap.... but..." My rival in his Civic had done a 1.10.66, 8/100ths faster!
I wasn't disappointed, had a good buzz from how close it was and was glad that I could at least compete. Being honest, J04 wasn't at its strongest this weekend due to non starters etc, so I got lucky. On a normal weekend I think I'd need to be in the 1.08's to be competitive but on reflection I've easily got that time in me and the car.
My 60ft time was 0.4sec up on Marc in the Civic
S1 I was 1.4(!) sec down on Marc
S2 I was 0.8 sec up on Marc
My S2 was right up there with the guys competing for the FTD which is both good to see, but also frustrating. What could have been, etc. My confidence on cold brakes by far my biggest weakness, I wonder if a road biased pad might be much better for sprinting as there's not really enough time to generate fade.
Final results, P14 and P2 in Class. As a nice bonus, I got a trophy - nice surprise at the end, I wasn't sure the J04 class was big enough to award the runner up after all of the none starters!
I still can't decide how much I enjoyed the day vs a normal trackday. The tracktime is obviously much lower, and running on cold brakes/tyres I didn't consider fun, tbh. I spend so much time trying to make my car better/faster - and then throw it all away by going out with no grip. Obviously it's the same for everyone, but I just didn't feel like I was leaning on my car properly - at least not in the first sector.
Despite doing so many trackdays in the last 10 years, I'm still not bored of them and I love driving my own day. Building up through the day, and pushing myself along at my own pace. Sprinting is different, not better, not worse - just different. I don't think I could commit to a full championship campaign because it would just eat into my free weekends too much, and limit how many trackdays I can do... one to mull over, and see what the future brings.
The tow home was fun, and absolutely smashed the reverse manoeuvre into the driveway.
Early night... long day of Cadwell tomorrow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu-_brnaJcE&ab...
Paul_M3 said:
Great updates as always mate. I really enjoy your thread.
Cheers Paul, always glad to know people are enjoying.Day #2, onto Cadwell.
Getting the trailer hitched up on a morning was now the work of a moment, so I was soon on my way - but seriously tired.
Stopped for coffee to sort myself out, so arrived at track a little late... missed the sighting laps in fact. Martin @ LoT was a champ for getting me signed on, and missing some track time wasn't too concerning as I had both the day AND the evening booked! Crikey.
It was a sessioned day, split with MSVT Cars and for my first time ever... sharing with MSVT Bikes! So quite a mixed paddock. The evening was to be LoT exclusive OPL so I was looking forward to that after a chilled day, probably missing every other session to nap...
Our session soon came back around, so I went out with the intention of trying to find out how much these Nankangs would pressure up, so nice and steady with a slow build up. I let all other cars past and settled into a groove. A lap or so later I was catching traffic, overtook a couple of cars and then had some clear track in front of me to attempt a decent lap.
I entered the mountain in third, slight lift as I crested and then came back onto the power for a quick squirt towards the trees. I'm not sure if there was a bang, crunch or what - but suddenly the revs flared and I was bouncing into the limiter. Uhoh, no drive.
Shifted up to fourth, nothing. Down to second, we had drive - so limped around to the main straight to try 4th, 5th and 6th. Nothing at all. Oh dear
I shuffled round a full lap in second and then got to the pits. Reverse, 1st and 2nd all worked fine. Beyond that, nothing. I could select fine, the linkage was moving appropriately on top of the box and when letting the clutch out in the missing gears, you can feel the slightest bit of engagement and then just a grinding noise.
It's as if it's stripped the teeth off of four gears simultaneously, which clearly isn't possible. Final Drive must be intact, otherwise R/1/2 wouldn't work... I'm stumped. [mention]seriouslylotus[/mention] was in attendance at Cadwell as support/parts supply so John and Dave helped me rule out anything stupid - but we could only conclude it's internal to the box.
Any long time readers will know I've spent a lot of time, effort and money on protecting this gearbox. Every feasible upgrade has been done - there's nothing else I can do to make this box stronger, to my knowledge... so this sucks. Big time.
I've been aware of the C64 gearbox issues since day 1, in fact I think I reference it in my first ever post of this thread - so I've been flirting with danger for a while now, but I thought I'd done enough... I really did.
I've spoken to a few specialists, and nobody has heard of these failure symptoms before. The only theory we can come up with is a snapped shaft... probably input, maybe output - I don't know enough about the internals of the C64 to say what's feasible.
My previous rebuilder has stepped up, he's willing to drop everything and get my box stripped as soon as I can get it off the car. He's really curious, he's never heard of a failure like this.
So that's it, sorry for the build up - but Day #2 of my motorsport weekend was all over by 10am. I know almost nothing about the Nankangs, who knows when I'll next get to find out.
I need to start thinking about what's next. I have to assume the gearbox and everything in it is trashed. I can't/won't reinvest in it, to not have any guarantees. If I stick a stock box in, then what? Detune the car? No thanks. That would be end of project for me I'm afraid.
My only hope for the car is that we find an issue that was caused either by assembly error, or extraordinarily unusual/rare circumstance that all parties agree is unlikely to happen again. If I can salvage some of my expensive parts, and source a donor casing (as I imagine the cost of replacing every single bearing/component will make a replacement make more sense) then maybe I can push forward and keep going.
I'm open to opinions on the nature of the failure, a few people have guessed at it but nobody is really sure - so it will be at least a little bit exciting to find out what went off.
wevster said:
Why don’t you open the box up yourself and have a look?
Dannydc2 on YouTube has been pulling them apart.
I did a trackday at Cadwell about a month ago in the Elise and lost 1st gear (Rover powered Elise)
It'll be broken apart this weekend with any luck. I did look into tooling up to dismantle it myself the first time I wanted it building, but the cost of all the pullers etc just meant it made more sense to send it off. I love DDC2 videos but I think he's onto his 6th or 7th attempt at it, so it's not a great advert for DIY rebuilds Dannydc2 on YouTube has been pulling them apart.
I did a trackday at Cadwell about a month ago in the Elise and lost 1st gear (Rover powered Elise)
(Sorry Dan!)Cheers Gents, yes it's very annoying but I've been pushing things, and perhaps the sprint launches were a step too far.
Emotionally I've bounced from returning car to standard(ish) and selling, to fixing as-was and hoping it doesn't happen again, to going totally mental and lobbing a K20 in... and various things in between.
I've spoken to a few specialists, some related to this box and the work it's had and some not. The only theory that comes up is the broken input shaft one, which is the only thing I could come up with in the paddock during the immediate aftermath.
Ultimately I wasn't going to be able to make any decisions until the box was out, one way or another this car needs fixing. Started slow with an oil drain and was surprised to not find much glitter. I ran the entire lot of oil through some coffee filters and all I came up with was half a dozen little glimmers.
The magnet inside the casing is probably covered, but still it made me a little positive that some of my expensive bits may have survived.
Getting a bit good at this now, but box was out probably over 2.5-3hours in a couple of stints.
Externally everything looks, feels and smells fine. I can select all gears (by feel) using the shift linkage and the diff seems to move in all gears when spinning the input shaft. This again would lend itself to the theory that the input shaft is sheared but the friction between the stubs is enough to apply 'drive' when there's no drag on the output. As soon as the box is in the car with axles and wheels, the two stubs just grind away at each other.
I'm hoping to get the box to my rebuilder at the weekend and with any luck I'll be taking with me a spare box. The spare box is a relative unknown, but the plan is to make a decision this weekend whether any of my good bits can be salvaged. If they can be, the donor box will be opened up, inspected and my bits will go in. If my bits are trash, the donor box will probably be left alone and thrown straight into my car with a plan to remove the ECU/power modifications and then see what I want to do next.
One way or the other my hope is to get the car rolling before Croft on 1st July. We'll see if that turns out to be overly ambitious very soon...
Emotionally I've bounced from returning car to standard(ish) and selling, to fixing as-was and hoping it doesn't happen again, to going totally mental and lobbing a K20 in... and various things in between.
I've spoken to a few specialists, some related to this box and the work it's had and some not. The only theory that comes up is the broken input shaft one, which is the only thing I could come up with in the paddock during the immediate aftermath.
Ultimately I wasn't going to be able to make any decisions until the box was out, one way or another this car needs fixing. Started slow with an oil drain and was surprised to not find much glitter. I ran the entire lot of oil through some coffee filters and all I came up with was half a dozen little glimmers.
The magnet inside the casing is probably covered, but still it made me a little positive that some of my expensive bits may have survived.
Getting a bit good at this now, but box was out probably over 2.5-3hours in a couple of stints.
Externally everything looks, feels and smells fine. I can select all gears (by feel) using the shift linkage and the diff seems to move in all gears when spinning the input shaft. This again would lend itself to the theory that the input shaft is sheared but the friction between the stubs is enough to apply 'drive' when there's no drag on the output. As soon as the box is in the car with axles and wheels, the two stubs just grind away at each other.
I'm hoping to get the box to my rebuilder at the weekend and with any luck I'll be taking with me a spare box. The spare box is a relative unknown, but the plan is to make a decision this weekend whether any of my good bits can be salvaged. If they can be, the donor box will be opened up, inspected and my bits will go in. If my bits are trash, the donor box will probably be left alone and thrown straight into my car with a plan to remove the ECU/power modifications and then see what I want to do next.
One way or the other my hope is to get the car rolling before Croft on 1st July. We'll see if that turns out to be overly ambitious very soon...
gofasterrosssco said:
Sorry to hear about this.. Must be incredibly frustrating!
Unfortunately the Toyota C-Series gearboxes were designed as light-medium duty, hence you don't find them in any native Toyota heavy or higher torque applications (as I'm sure you know).
Don't think there are any other Toyota compatible set-ups that offer better capacity - Older E-series are 5-speed, heavier, and likely hard to find given the long since demise of the MR2 Turbo. Don't think any the newer 6-speed EA or EB series are compatible..?
K20/24 conversion provides a solution but would be a pity to depart from the 2ZZ given the work already invested.
There's an e153 conversion available but it has a couple of downsides. The 5 speed ratios available just don't lend themselves to the 2zz powerband and it's an expensive conversion... About £5k if I can source a box!Unfortunately the Toyota C-Series gearboxes were designed as light-medium duty, hence you don't find them in any native Toyota heavy or higher torque applications (as I'm sure you know).
Don't think there are any other Toyota compatible set-ups that offer better capacity - Older E-series are 5-speed, heavier, and likely hard to find given the long since demise of the MR2 Turbo. Don't think any the newer 6-speed EA or EB series are compatible..?
K20/24 conversion provides a solution but would be a pity to depart from the 2ZZ given the work already invested.
At that money, a K swap starts to feel attractive, I know it would be much more but it would also give me a much better roadmap for the future, and I love the k20.
Still, the late S2 chassis like mine just doesn't lend itself to a sensible k20 base car, I have the extra weight of the Toyota subframe and extra ancillaries. I would honestly be better to end this project and start a new one with a different base car if wanting to go K.
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