Back in a Lotus - 2006 Exige S
Discussion
Yep agreed Honda in this car doesn't make much sense.
I've had the box stripped today and there's no real good news unfortunately. The failure was in the aftermarket output shaft, which came part of the Kaaz final drive kit.
As soon as we started stripping the box it became apparent that the shaft had broken. It just wobbled around like mad as soon as 5th and 6th were removed.
The carnage is minimal, but still enough to effectively write-off the gearbox. I went to visit the rebuilder with a donor gearbox in my boot, the hope was that if my 3rd, 4th and Final Drive (the expensive bits) had survived, then I could transplant them over and try again in a new box.
The 3rd and 4th survived, they look completely unscathed - but the FD is obviously written off, and we mutually decided that I could risk reusing the diff as we'd never really know how much crap it had ingested.
Considering the cost to strip the donor box, replace the single use items and rebuild with the 3/4 - it feels like throwing good money after bad. Although I'd like to sleep on it a few more times, I think the decision has been made to put a completely unmolested standard box back in the car instead.
I then have a choice to make... Do I:
a) Detune the car and run it happily within its comfort zone? This is likely to lead to the sale of the car, readers will probably appreciate that the project element of this car is most of the enjoyment.
b) Run it as is, with a standard box. I might get 2 laps out of it, I might get a decade - it's anyone's guess. In the name of science, it would be interesting to find out because if a standard box would last me a decent length of time, then it's not totally out of the question to treat them as consumables.
The way I'm feeling, all signs are pointing towards detuning and selling on. I wouldn't want to sell it running 300bhp without an uprated box, but if I knocked it all back a bit and got a comfortably 260-270 out of it, it'll still be a belting car - but it just won't have the project ceiling to keep me entertained for long.
In hindsight, running the standard box to destruction is absolutely the thing I should have done. I may have ended up with a failed gearbox sooner than I have but at least I wouldn't have lost the better part of £3k (probably closer to £4k including rebuild labour and extras like the oil cooler) in the process.
I've had the box stripped today and there's no real good news unfortunately. The failure was in the aftermarket output shaft, which came part of the Kaaz final drive kit.
As soon as we started stripping the box it became apparent that the shaft had broken. It just wobbled around like mad as soon as 5th and 6th were removed.
The carnage is minimal, but still enough to effectively write-off the gearbox. I went to visit the rebuilder with a donor gearbox in my boot, the hope was that if my 3rd, 4th and Final Drive (the expensive bits) had survived, then I could transplant them over and try again in a new box.
The 3rd and 4th survived, they look completely unscathed - but the FD is obviously written off, and we mutually decided that I could risk reusing the diff as we'd never really know how much crap it had ingested.
Considering the cost to strip the donor box, replace the single use items and rebuild with the 3/4 - it feels like throwing good money after bad. Although I'd like to sleep on it a few more times, I think the decision has been made to put a completely unmolested standard box back in the car instead.
I then have a choice to make... Do I:
a) Detune the car and run it happily within its comfort zone? This is likely to lead to the sale of the car, readers will probably appreciate that the project element of this car is most of the enjoyment.
b) Run it as is, with a standard box. I might get 2 laps out of it, I might get a decade - it's anyone's guess. In the name of science, it would be interesting to find out because if a standard box would last me a decent length of time, then it's not totally out of the question to treat them as consumables.
The way I'm feeling, all signs are pointing towards detuning and selling on. I wouldn't want to sell it running 300bhp without an uprated box, but if I knocked it all back a bit and got a comfortably 260-270 out of it, it'll still be a belting car - but it just won't have the project ceiling to keep me entertained for long.
In hindsight, running the standard box to destruction is absolutely the thing I should have done. I may have ended up with a failed gearbox sooner than I have but at least I wouldn't have lost the better part of £3k (probably closer to £4k including rebuild labour and extras like the oil cooler) in the process.
wevster said:
Return to stock and sell, then buy a Honda Elise.
If you can't find one, buy an early Elise and covert to your spec, you could probably do it with the money you get for the Exige.
Yeah I've got no interest in buying a converted car, I'd want to do it "my way"... but I'm not sure I'm motivated to do another Elise platform car tbh. If you can't find one, buy an early Elise and covert to your spec, you could probably do it with the money you get for the Exige.
snotrag said:
Send those photos to the manufacturer (not the seller, the actual manufacturer). That's a very telling pattern showing the failure propagating through the material.
It's hard to tell but are there some slots where the cracks have initiated?
Already done. The chubby half has a hole milled through the centre of it, it's completely hollow. The other half has no hole - so the fracture point is the exact point where the hole started/stopped.It's hard to tell but are there some slots where the cracks have initiated?
If you are wanting to run big power get a VX220. Ours runs 400bhp quite happily on a stock gearbox and the gearbox is the single reason I run a VX over a Lotus for this higher level track use.
K20s are good but they have their own challenges it will take you a while to get a highly tuned one running right. You'll get 50 million different opinions on which kit etc I can save you a lot of time there feel free to PM.
K20s are good but they have their own challenges it will take you a while to get a highly tuned one running right. You'll get 50 million different opinions on which kit etc I can save you a lot of time there feel free to PM.
wevster said:
Isn't there other manufacturers that can supply finals drives, RRR Engineering look like they have one?
Yeah I believe that's the komotec one, and also there's jubu. Obviously if I could go back in time I'd choose different, but I went Kaaz because they had the ratio I wanted.Not sure I have it in me to spend again. I could have bought/swapped 6 stock boxes for the money I've spent.
The diagram I did on my kitchen whiteboard immediately following Cadwell turned out to be fairly accurate.
I've spent the last week or so mainly staring at the car, but my neighbour (he's literally the second most experienced person I know at swapping 2zz gearboxes out) pushed me into getting a move on and mounting the new box. No photos because I'm sick of this as much as you are, but we have our technique refined now and it was in fairly easily.
Just prior to the install, I fitted some new Toyota output seals.
I spent another few hours on mounts, ancillaries, etc. The only change of note is that I put studs in the forward facing engine mount to make reinstallation easier (it was).
I fully disconnected the gearbox oil cooler to fully flush it out (in case it ended up with some shrapnel in it, despite not being running at the time) which meant dumping a load more coolant on the garage floor, so today I got the car idling on the ramp and rebled/refilled the coolant. I had some cheap and cheerful Halfords gearbox oil in the new box because I knew it had been sat for a while, and just wanted to clear out any dust/crud that had formed within it.
With the car and box up to temp and fully bled, I switched off and drained £30 of Halfords goodness down the drain. (not literally, EA).
All that's left now is to buy and fill the box with MT90, rebleed the cooler and then give the car a cursory geometry check. (lots of suspension components disconnected for a box change).
Oh, and decide what I'm going to do. At 300bhp the standard box may survive, it may not. It could last 5 years or 5 laps. Feeling how I'm feeling, I'd rather take the edge off of the car a bit so I intend to fit the standard pulley back on and give the map a little tweak and try to build some confidence back up.
Standard pulley made 280bhp last time I had it on a dyno, it's not quite as easy for me to revert to that map because I've made some fuelling changes I'd rather not undo because they add some good engine/surge protection mechanisms. This means I'll have to 'fix forward', the WBO feedback should keep fuelling in check but I think my timing will be a bit on the low side, meaning power may be lower than 280. Still, safety first. I'll hopefully survive Croft next Friday and then take things from there.
I've spent the last week or so mainly staring at the car, but my neighbour (he's literally the second most experienced person I know at swapping 2zz gearboxes out) pushed me into getting a move on and mounting the new box. No photos because I'm sick of this as much as you are, but we have our technique refined now and it was in fairly easily.
Just prior to the install, I fitted some new Toyota output seals.
I spent another few hours on mounts, ancillaries, etc. The only change of note is that I put studs in the forward facing engine mount to make reinstallation easier (it was).
I fully disconnected the gearbox oil cooler to fully flush it out (in case it ended up with some shrapnel in it, despite not being running at the time) which meant dumping a load more coolant on the garage floor, so today I got the car idling on the ramp and rebled/refilled the coolant. I had some cheap and cheerful Halfords gearbox oil in the new box because I knew it had been sat for a while, and just wanted to clear out any dust/crud that had formed within it.
With the car and box up to temp and fully bled, I switched off and drained £30 of Halfords goodness down the drain. (not literally, EA).
All that's left now is to buy and fill the box with MT90, rebleed the cooler and then give the car a cursory geometry check. (lots of suspension components disconnected for a box change).
Oh, and decide what I'm going to do. At 300bhp the standard box may survive, it may not. It could last 5 years or 5 laps. Feeling how I'm feeling, I'd rather take the edge off of the car a bit so I intend to fit the standard pulley back on and give the map a little tweak and try to build some confidence back up.
Standard pulley made 280bhp last time I had it on a dyno, it's not quite as easy for me to revert to that map because I've made some fuelling changes I'd rather not undo because they add some good engine/surge protection mechanisms. This means I'll have to 'fix forward', the WBO feedback should keep fuelling in check but I think my timing will be a bit on the low side, meaning power may be lower than 280. Still, safety first. I'll hopefully survive Croft next Friday and then take things from there.
With the annual LoT Croft trackday quickly approaching I had to get a move on buttoning up the car.
I threw some more rear discs on because the originals had lipped heavily and was starting to mess up my pads. In hindsight I should have done this over winter when the new pads went in.
One last spanner check, then car was onto its wheels for a quick geo check. Everything was within tolerance, just - so gave her a wash and prepared my toolbag for Croft.
I was bricking it tbh, new unknown gearbox, felt like I'd sort of rushed the car back together (even though I don't think I could have taken more care over it with an infinite deadline) so I booked another rental trailer, different place this time and a bit cheaper.
I collected the trailer the night before, it was different type of trailer and as soon as I saw it I feared the worst... it was massive, wheels completely tucked under which would make the approach angle for the ramps too steep for the Exige. On top of that, the previous customer had ripped the jockey wheel off and a temp had been bodged on. Although I managed to get the car on, I just wasn't comfortable with the trailer. Bodged jockey wheel made it really had to manoeuvre around the drive so I just binned it off, blocked it in with the Volvo and committed to driving to Croft.
Made for a lovely driveway for the neighbours to look at though
On to Croft, car behaved fine on the run up and met up with a couple of friends en route.
Started the day steady... for about half a lap, then any fears about gearboxes faded. If it was going to break, it was going to break.
Car felt really good on the AR1 tyres, bags of grip and I felt immediately quicker than previous years. Power delivery of the car had certainly lost the zing I had got used to, particularly from losing the closer ratio gearing but it's still plenty fast and can easily get me in trouble if I take my eye off the ball..
Which incidentally, I did on the first or second session. Looking down at the dash to check oil pressure was behaving on a moderate G turn, I suddenly ran out of exit at Sunny Out and found myself bouncing over the grass. Woops! Only casualty my front plate, which was returned at lunch time - so that explains some continuity issues with my pictures for the day...!
https://youtu.be/FSBxkx45KJs
After the that the day went without drama, but not without bags of excitement and a couple of fantastic opportunities.
One was getting a passenger ride with the spanking new Komotec 500bhp DSG car that [mention]seriouslylotus[/mention] have been working on.
Absolute weapon, and scarily enough it feels like the chassis can take more. The tyres definitely could not though! Really well put together car, mind bogglingly fast and from what I could see/feel it was brilliantly usable.
After that I was determined to get a ride out in a "more normal" V6 platform car, it's no secret that my gearbox woes have given me itchy feet and a V6 car is an obvious 'upgrade' from the S2. I went over to speak to NYLOC'er and friend Martin who owns a 430 Cup (amongst other fantastic cars) and asked for a ride out after lunch. Unfortunately he needed to get home to sort out the NYLOC post trackday BBQ, but with 10mins left of the morning session... he threw me the keys
I've never, ever driven another persons car on track before - and this was quite an introduction to it. The better part of £100k worth of Exige, and suddenly I was trundling down the pits in it. With Martin's better half playing co-pilot, I also had some precious cargo to look after. Not nervous at all.
The car was fantastic, and in the short time I had (only had time for an out, flyer and in) with it, it just oozed competence. Brilliantly stable on the brakes compared to the flighty feeling of the S2, and more traction that it new what to do with out of the slower corners. It did understeer in the faster esses, a lot. I suspect this can be addressed through setup - as Martin has always kept his cars very road biased. I was probably 10mph down on my S2 through the esses and it still struggles to stay the course.
The power was smooth and plentiful, but not urgent. It didn't tear my face off, but if I'd taken the time to familiarise myself with the AIM dash layout beforehand I'm sure I would have seen the numbers climbing rapidly! What did come quickly was the RPM limiter, quite hard to get used to after 2ZZ life!
It was a thoroughly enjoyable few minutes, but left me with an interesting feeling. I wanted to either fall head over heels in love with it, or hate it. I did neither. It felt like a very grown up and more 'secure' version of my car. I'm 90% sure I'd be quicker in an S3 even given equal power:weight after half a day of familiarisation just because it seemed to look after me more, and that would give me confidence. It was like driving an S2 whilst being wrapped in a nice warm fluffy blanket.
It certainly missed the edginess of the S2 though, didn't feel quite so ready to flick around but it's really hard to be too critical of the S3 after such a short amount of time in it, and obviously I was nowhere near it's limits!
Fantastic opportunity, so thanks again Martin
After lunch I got another set of keys thrown at me(!) this time in a friends S2. It's pretty much as close to my car as you can get in terms of spec, but approached from a slightly different angle. It's also more road biased than my car, running AD08's and Pagid RS42s meant that it was down on ultimate pace, but was like wearing an old favourite sock. The car felt great, and hopefully was reassuring to the owner that he had a car that was setup well and was delivering a healthy dose of power to the wheels (at least, compared to my only other reference point).
The rest of the afternoon was pretty plain sailing. Got a couple of clear laps in but had more fun driving around with friends, swapping positions around and just having a bit of a blast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HPPJpkdKas&ab...
Car was faultless all day, never felt like I needed to check anything or tweak anything - it just worked, for which I'm very grateful after the last few weeks I've had. It felt fast enough for me, even with the detuned power but I can't shake this feeling that I've emotionally moved on from it now
It might change, but I really need to decide what I want going forward. The S3 didn't make me want to immediately part with another 30 or 40k (on top of the value of mine!) and as corny as it sounds, being around a massive bunch of mates at the LoT trackday made me really want to stick to the brand... so options are limited.
We'll see how I feel in the coming weeks, Donington Evening next so I'll have a quick healthcheck on the car before then. There are some huge positives from Croft, the new gearbox is a peach - all gears selecting smoothly without noise, and the AR1 tyres have been a lot of fun. I would say they don't quite have the session longevity of ZZR's but their peak grip in the first 5 laps is astonishing. I need to reprogram myself to get the most out of them, as I always ramp up slowly through a session and typically even with the AR1s I'm fastest on lap 8 or 9... but if I got my head into the game on lap 3 or 4 I'm convinced there would be loads of time to gain.
Thanks to Paul & Mark for the Photos, top job lads
I threw some more rear discs on because the originals had lipped heavily and was starting to mess up my pads. In hindsight I should have done this over winter when the new pads went in.
One last spanner check, then car was onto its wheels for a quick geo check. Everything was within tolerance, just - so gave her a wash and prepared my toolbag for Croft.
I was bricking it tbh, new unknown gearbox, felt like I'd sort of rushed the car back together (even though I don't think I could have taken more care over it with an infinite deadline) so I booked another rental trailer, different place this time and a bit cheaper.
I collected the trailer the night before, it was different type of trailer and as soon as I saw it I feared the worst... it was massive, wheels completely tucked under which would make the approach angle for the ramps too steep for the Exige. On top of that, the previous customer had ripped the jockey wheel off and a temp had been bodged on. Although I managed to get the car on, I just wasn't comfortable with the trailer. Bodged jockey wheel made it really had to manoeuvre around the drive so I just binned it off, blocked it in with the Volvo and committed to driving to Croft.
Made for a lovely driveway for the neighbours to look at though
On to Croft, car behaved fine on the run up and met up with a couple of friends en route.
Started the day steady... for about half a lap, then any fears about gearboxes faded. If it was going to break, it was going to break.
Car felt really good on the AR1 tyres, bags of grip and I felt immediately quicker than previous years. Power delivery of the car had certainly lost the zing I had got used to, particularly from losing the closer ratio gearing but it's still plenty fast and can easily get me in trouble if I take my eye off the ball..
Which incidentally, I did on the first or second session. Looking down at the dash to check oil pressure was behaving on a moderate G turn, I suddenly ran out of exit at Sunny Out and found myself bouncing over the grass. Woops! Only casualty my front plate, which was returned at lunch time - so that explains some continuity issues with my pictures for the day...!
https://youtu.be/FSBxkx45KJs
After the that the day went without drama, but not without bags of excitement and a couple of fantastic opportunities.
One was getting a passenger ride with the spanking new Komotec 500bhp DSG car that [mention]seriouslylotus[/mention] have been working on.
Absolute weapon, and scarily enough it feels like the chassis can take more. The tyres definitely could not though! Really well put together car, mind bogglingly fast and from what I could see/feel it was brilliantly usable.
After that I was determined to get a ride out in a "more normal" V6 platform car, it's no secret that my gearbox woes have given me itchy feet and a V6 car is an obvious 'upgrade' from the S2. I went over to speak to NYLOC'er and friend Martin who owns a 430 Cup (amongst other fantastic cars) and asked for a ride out after lunch. Unfortunately he needed to get home to sort out the NYLOC post trackday BBQ, but with 10mins left of the morning session... he threw me the keys
I've never, ever driven another persons car on track before - and this was quite an introduction to it. The better part of £100k worth of Exige, and suddenly I was trundling down the pits in it. With Martin's better half playing co-pilot, I also had some precious cargo to look after. Not nervous at all.
The car was fantastic, and in the short time I had (only had time for an out, flyer and in) with it, it just oozed competence. Brilliantly stable on the brakes compared to the flighty feeling of the S2, and more traction that it new what to do with out of the slower corners. It did understeer in the faster esses, a lot. I suspect this can be addressed through setup - as Martin has always kept his cars very road biased. I was probably 10mph down on my S2 through the esses and it still struggles to stay the course.
The power was smooth and plentiful, but not urgent. It didn't tear my face off, but if I'd taken the time to familiarise myself with the AIM dash layout beforehand I'm sure I would have seen the numbers climbing rapidly! What did come quickly was the RPM limiter, quite hard to get used to after 2ZZ life!
It was a thoroughly enjoyable few minutes, but left me with an interesting feeling. I wanted to either fall head over heels in love with it, or hate it. I did neither. It felt like a very grown up and more 'secure' version of my car. I'm 90% sure I'd be quicker in an S3 even given equal power:weight after half a day of familiarisation just because it seemed to look after me more, and that would give me confidence. It was like driving an S2 whilst being wrapped in a nice warm fluffy blanket.
It certainly missed the edginess of the S2 though, didn't feel quite so ready to flick around but it's really hard to be too critical of the S3 after such a short amount of time in it, and obviously I was nowhere near it's limits!
Fantastic opportunity, so thanks again Martin
After lunch I got another set of keys thrown at me(!) this time in a friends S2. It's pretty much as close to my car as you can get in terms of spec, but approached from a slightly different angle. It's also more road biased than my car, running AD08's and Pagid RS42s meant that it was down on ultimate pace, but was like wearing an old favourite sock. The car felt great, and hopefully was reassuring to the owner that he had a car that was setup well and was delivering a healthy dose of power to the wheels (at least, compared to my only other reference point).
The rest of the afternoon was pretty plain sailing. Got a couple of clear laps in but had more fun driving around with friends, swapping positions around and just having a bit of a blast.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HPPJpkdKas&ab...
Car was faultless all day, never felt like I needed to check anything or tweak anything - it just worked, for which I'm very grateful after the last few weeks I've had. It felt fast enough for me, even with the detuned power but I can't shake this feeling that I've emotionally moved on from it now
It might change, but I really need to decide what I want going forward. The S3 didn't make me want to immediately part with another 30 or 40k (on top of the value of mine!) and as corny as it sounds, being around a massive bunch of mates at the LoT trackday made me really want to stick to the brand... so options are limited.We'll see how I feel in the coming weeks, Donington Evening next so I'll have a quick healthcheck on the car before then. There are some huge positives from Croft, the new gearbox is a peach - all gears selecting smoothly without noise, and the AR1 tyres have been a lot of fun. I would say they don't quite have the session longevity of ZZR's but their peak grip in the first 5 laps is astonishing. I need to reprogram myself to get the most out of them, as I always ramp up slowly through a session and typically even with the AR1s I'm fastest on lap 8 or 9... but if I got my head into the game on lap 3 or 4 I'm convinced there would be loads of time to gain.
Thanks to Paul & Mark for the Photos, top job lads
Edited by Fonzey on Monday 4th July 21:52
Oh and a complete non event was going back to an open differential.
I was expecting to really miss it in the hairpin but I just didn't.
Surprised, I thought I'd be winging about a lack of LSD for months but it really wasn't noticeable. In the wet it'll be another story, adding a diff turned my car from deathtrap to something I could have fun with so it will still suck to lose that.
My opinion of LSD in a Lotus is firmly "not worth dropping your box just to fit one, but there's zero downsides to adding one if your box happens to be out"
I was expecting to really miss it in the hairpin but I just didn't.
Surprised, I thought I'd be winging about a lack of LSD for months but it really wasn't noticeable. In the wet it'll be another story, adding a diff turned my car from deathtrap to something I could have fun with so it will still suck to lose that.
My opinion of LSD in a Lotus is firmly "not worth dropping your box just to fit one, but there's zero downsides to adding one if your box happens to be out"
The Exige now has a stablemate, I'd love to say I can keep them both and keep the Exige as a practical road/all-weather car but my garage can't really accomodate both long term. Plus I need the cash for a trailer
2-Eleven thread will appear soon, there still will be updates to the Exige one as I conclude its journey. In all honesty it will probably be turned into a more road friendly iteration and sold in the near future.
Just to conclude this thread, the Exige has recently been sold.
I had toyed with the idea of keeping it, returning it to a more 'road friendly' spec and enjoying it when the conditions don't lend themselves to 2-Eleven mileage but ultimately keeping the capital tied up, and the garage space was just a bit too much.
I'm happy to say that it's staying local, the new owner is a thread reader and knows everything I've written about the car (which is pretty much all there is to know!) but with his cooperation the car has been returned largely to a standard spec. Not mercilessly stripped of good bits, but respectfully returned to the way Lotus intended it leaving behind anything that is an objective upgrade to reliability or safety.
Cracking car, thoroughly enjoyed the project and learned loads - but onto the next
I had toyed with the idea of keeping it, returning it to a more 'road friendly' spec and enjoying it when the conditions don't lend themselves to 2-Eleven mileage but ultimately keeping the capital tied up, and the garage space was just a bit too much.
I'm happy to say that it's staying local, the new owner is a thread reader and knows everything I've written about the car (which is pretty much all there is to know!) but with his cooperation the car has been returned largely to a standard spec. Not mercilessly stripped of good bits, but respectfully returned to the way Lotus intended it leaving behind anything that is an objective upgrade to reliability or safety.
Cracking car, thoroughly enjoyed the project and learned loads - but onto the next
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