2007 Lotus 2-Eleven
Discussion
There was a good pack of Caymans there yesterday which was nice to see, if I’d realised it was more PHers I would have had closer look and said hello 
.
The reds in the afternoon were frustrating for all of us, sometimes they seem to be on a roll and can’t be stopped but it was good to see that it settled and there was no queues later on.
And good to meet you in person Fonzey, the car looks great in the flesh
.
.The reds in the afternoon were frustrating for all of us, sometimes they seem to be on a roll and can’t be stopped but it was good to see that it settled and there was no queues later on.
And good to meet you in person Fonzey, the car looks great in the flesh
.
Croft time baby!
First trackday since Spa which feels like a lifetime ago, it's probably the biggest gap I've had between trackdays outside of the Winter months since ever!
Since Spa the brake setup had remained the same, with the big discs all around and the road intended RS42 Pagid pads in the rear to keep the balance drivable. I would be karting along a set of 288 (OE size) discs and hardware to allow me to try downsizing at the rear as another experiment.
Also since Spa, I had spent what felt like hundreds of hours cleaning CV grease out of the engine bay, and I had upsized the supercharger pulley from 2.9" to 3.0". This would drop my maximum boost and hence power in my 'race mode' map, but hopefully drop IATs in both maps. With my ultimate power potential now a bit lower (I calculate around 15bhp down in the race mode map) I now feel brave enough to run it all day on the track, so really I am up on power compared to the rest of this year where I was timidly sat in the lower powered road map.
15bhp (and the associated torque) doesn't sound like much, but when you're right on the bubble for the accepted limits of the gearbox - it's a nice fluffy safety blanket.
The trackday was with Circuitdays, I think my first ever one. Some serious kit in attendance but a really good blend up and down the pitlane. From the trackday classics such as the Clio and the MX5 up to high end GT Porsches, race cars and everything in between. Special mention out to a pair of BMW cars, no idea what spec - but they were liveried up and seriously fast.
Sighting laps and first session underway, steady away really - reminding myself what the car felt like and where the track goes. Nothing exciting to report.
I was keeping half an eye on IATs, but just convinced myself to ignore them and review in the logs later. It can be misleading to watch stuff like that real time.
My passenger for the day would be short lived. Not literally, he didn't die - but he did forget his travel sickness pills so that was that :slight_smile:
Brakes felt good, still the very occasional wobble at the rear as it locked up (or tried to lock up, triggering ABS) so the bias I think was still a smidge too far back, but it was certainly driveable and would have happily kept going all day. External witnesses reported that my braking was inconsistent though, sometimes braking way too early, sometimes very aggressively deep into corners which apparently made following me quite interesting. Perhaps I was second guessing the brakes more than I realised from within the cockpit.
Slowly built up speed through the morning, felt like I was a fair bit off the potential of the car but I was enjoying it having a fair bit of mixed-pace traffic meant a slightly different vibe to the usual LoT day. It was fun, even if clear/flowing laps were rare.
A few of the NYLOC gang came out wielding cameras, so thanks PT and Mark for your content. Complemented the Circuitdays photography nicely.
Circuitdays photographer didn't seem to like the back of my car, luckily Paul stepped up.
Car felt really strong in the complex, and through the awkward Hawthorn into the chicane. The quicker stuff I felt like it struggled more than usual, wasn't getting the bite from the front end that I'd been accustomed to in this car. You could normally just flick the wheel at almost any speed and the nose would dart in, but at Croft I had to ease it in, wait for it to connect and then load her up. Initially I just put this down to the ageing AR1 possibly being past their best... I've had them well over a year now, and they even did a few trackdays on my Exige too before transferring them.
After I got home, it dawned on me that we'd made a damper change at Spa in a desperate attempt to stop the rears locking. I stiffened the crap out of the front to try and stop it diving on the brakes, and in hindsight I'm not sure I ever reverted that! At time of writing I haven't checked yet, as car is still in the trailer - but it's something I'll definitely check for.
In any case, it didn't seem to spoil my day - and in all honesty taking a steady line through the faster stuff wasn't all that upsetting - it's scary when you're on full attack through there anyway!!
At some time around midmorning I ran into Circuitdays Instructor, fellow 2-Eleven owner and PH poster Steve. Nice to meet you, I'll make CD a bigger part of my TD calendar in future and definitely try to get some time booked in with you. I've really missed tuition since getting the 2-Eleven but it sounds like you have a system that we could adapt, and get some value out of it.
At lunch time I really wasn't motivated to swap the rear discs over as I'd intended. The car was driving 'fine' and I was feeling pretty knackered from the morning excercise. Luckily though, I found somebody who WAS motivated, in stepped John from @seriouslylotus to kindly lend some tools, and hands, and expertise to get things swapped over sharpish.
The AP 2 pot calipers were fitted with spacers and longer bolts to allow for the large discs, so all we had to do there was drop the spacers out and refit the original bolts. The handbrake caliper though would remain offset by too much, so is effectively hanging off the disc now. This can be fixed if I commit to this route full time by modifications to the bracket, but in the meantime it would still function just fine.
I wanted to go straight in and refit the aggressive pads to the rears, but I was talked out of it. Keep the RS42 in and change as few variables as possible.
Going out after lunch the car immediately felt more comforting on the brakes. No question it had lost some all-out stopping power, but I seemed to gain a load of feel through the pedal when braking on the limit which was lost before. The power assisted, ABS brakes in the S2 platform have never been known for their pedal feel compared to the unassisted setup in the S1/Rover cars - but I'd been missing a bit of feedback without realising.
I'm not sure why this is, maybe because the stopping power is slightly less intense now and I have a bit more time to compute what is happening, or maybe because the balance is now thrown forward enough that it's the fronts reaching their limits first and the front circuit provided better feedback? Really don't know, but it felt better.
The next logical step is to put the aggressive pad back in the back so I'm matching compounds - but that's a job for the next trackday I think, I want to get used to my new baseline for now.
The afternoon continued being fun, didn't really feel like I was picking up any pace and started stagnating. The red flags didn't help, we seemed to have 5 or 6 within a couple of hours and always seemed to be as I was starting a session - but still got plenty of laps squeezed in.
Very late in the day a chap wandered up and asked for a passenger ride, to which I of course obliged. After getting him strapped in and out on track, the car felt really good for some reason. Normally you can really feel the penalty of a passenger in this car, but for whatever reason the stars aligned, we got nice flowing traffic and the car just felt great. Because of the sudden distraction of a passenger jumping in, I forgot to fire up the gopro but the ADU logs concur that it was my best, most consistent session by far. Very odd, as usually a passenger is worth a couple of seconds!
Eager to get out for one more ride solo, it dawned on me that I'd used the dregs of my fuel and that was me done for the day. I tried to sneak out for a couple of laps with Ishy (resident NYLOC driving instructor) but we barely made it round the outlap before the car cut out on a left hander.
Oh well, finished a bit early but the car finished without any niggles - pulled strong all day and we had some good science achieved on the brakes.
Rear tyres seem to be maximising their camber, and wear going down to the wear indicators. This may be because the front was too stiff after the Spa damper changes, but it may also mean I could benefit from a sliver more camber at the rear. Something to consider.
As for IATs, the logs showed a clear and consistent result of approx. 10C savings from stepping up a pulley size.
This is a snippet from a log from Donington earlier in the year, on 2.9":
And this is from Croft on 3.0":
Obviously different days, and different ambients - but the Donington IAT performance is consistent across all of my 2023 trackdays. Ambient has a very diminished effect on IATs when out on track IME, you need huge swings to see noticeable differences and it's typically a case of heatsoaking the hardware when stationary which is the problem rather than on-the-move performance.
I'm not sure what this means yet. As a result of the lower temps, my ECU was only retarding 0.5 deg rather than the 1.0-1.5 it was pulling at Donny. Is that enough to reclaim the 15bhp we've dropped by lowering boost? No idea. But it feels good to be stressing the hardware a little less.
Oh, and I used 'race mode' all day and nowt' blew up. That also felt good. Through capping my boost via DBW throttle in the road mode map, I'd been strangling the "vtec" lift gains more than I'd realised. A few times round Croft the car had really (pleasantly) surprised me once it was really singing. Felt great.
In terms of video, my ageing GoPro 6 has had a bit of a failure - the onboard GPS just doesn't work anymore. It sounds like a non-issue, but it's such a useful tool when buddied up with RaceRender software to just open up a clip, and instantly identify your 'clear' laps. You can turn a YT video round in minutes based on quickly picking out your quicker laps. Without it, you're left trawling through an hour or two of footage to pick good bits out, and I just can't be bothered anymore!
For that reason, I've just trimmed a full session and stuck that up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eB9h-8fZeg
It was quite late in the day, I think it was the session just before the mythical passenger session that I did (and didn't record). Not even watched it all myself yet, but from skimming through it seems a pretty fair representation of the day with regards to other cars on track.
Top day, not much to do on the car before the next one - but also quite a big gap in the calendar till' my next one - so need to find something to do.
First trackday since Spa which feels like a lifetime ago, it's probably the biggest gap I've had between trackdays outside of the Winter months since ever!
Since Spa the brake setup had remained the same, with the big discs all around and the road intended RS42 Pagid pads in the rear to keep the balance drivable. I would be karting along a set of 288 (OE size) discs and hardware to allow me to try downsizing at the rear as another experiment.
Also since Spa, I had spent what felt like hundreds of hours cleaning CV grease out of the engine bay, and I had upsized the supercharger pulley from 2.9" to 3.0". This would drop my maximum boost and hence power in my 'race mode' map, but hopefully drop IATs in both maps. With my ultimate power potential now a bit lower (I calculate around 15bhp down in the race mode map) I now feel brave enough to run it all day on the track, so really I am up on power compared to the rest of this year where I was timidly sat in the lower powered road map.
15bhp (and the associated torque) doesn't sound like much, but when you're right on the bubble for the accepted limits of the gearbox - it's a nice fluffy safety blanket.
The trackday was with Circuitdays, I think my first ever one. Some serious kit in attendance but a really good blend up and down the pitlane. From the trackday classics such as the Clio and the MX5 up to high end GT Porsches, race cars and everything in between. Special mention out to a pair of BMW cars, no idea what spec - but they were liveried up and seriously fast.
Sighting laps and first session underway, steady away really - reminding myself what the car felt like and where the track goes. Nothing exciting to report.
I was keeping half an eye on IATs, but just convinced myself to ignore them and review in the logs later. It can be misleading to watch stuff like that real time.
My passenger for the day would be short lived. Not literally, he didn't die - but he did forget his travel sickness pills so that was that :slight_smile:
Brakes felt good, still the very occasional wobble at the rear as it locked up (or tried to lock up, triggering ABS) so the bias I think was still a smidge too far back, but it was certainly driveable and would have happily kept going all day. External witnesses reported that my braking was inconsistent though, sometimes braking way too early, sometimes very aggressively deep into corners which apparently made following me quite interesting. Perhaps I was second guessing the brakes more than I realised from within the cockpit.
Slowly built up speed through the morning, felt like I was a fair bit off the potential of the car but I was enjoying it having a fair bit of mixed-pace traffic meant a slightly different vibe to the usual LoT day. It was fun, even if clear/flowing laps were rare.
A few of the NYLOC gang came out wielding cameras, so thanks PT and Mark for your content. Complemented the Circuitdays photography nicely.
Circuitdays photographer didn't seem to like the back of my car, luckily Paul stepped up.
Car felt really strong in the complex, and through the awkward Hawthorn into the chicane. The quicker stuff I felt like it struggled more than usual, wasn't getting the bite from the front end that I'd been accustomed to in this car. You could normally just flick the wheel at almost any speed and the nose would dart in, but at Croft I had to ease it in, wait for it to connect and then load her up. Initially I just put this down to the ageing AR1 possibly being past their best... I've had them well over a year now, and they even did a few trackdays on my Exige too before transferring them.
After I got home, it dawned on me that we'd made a damper change at Spa in a desperate attempt to stop the rears locking. I stiffened the crap out of the front to try and stop it diving on the brakes, and in hindsight I'm not sure I ever reverted that! At time of writing I haven't checked yet, as car is still in the trailer - but it's something I'll definitely check for.
In any case, it didn't seem to spoil my day - and in all honesty taking a steady line through the faster stuff wasn't all that upsetting - it's scary when you're on full attack through there anyway!!
At some time around midmorning I ran into Circuitdays Instructor, fellow 2-Eleven owner and PH poster Steve. Nice to meet you, I'll make CD a bigger part of my TD calendar in future and definitely try to get some time booked in with you. I've really missed tuition since getting the 2-Eleven but it sounds like you have a system that we could adapt, and get some value out of it.
At lunch time I really wasn't motivated to swap the rear discs over as I'd intended. The car was driving 'fine' and I was feeling pretty knackered from the morning excercise. Luckily though, I found somebody who WAS motivated, in stepped John from @seriouslylotus to kindly lend some tools, and hands, and expertise to get things swapped over sharpish.
The AP 2 pot calipers were fitted with spacers and longer bolts to allow for the large discs, so all we had to do there was drop the spacers out and refit the original bolts. The handbrake caliper though would remain offset by too much, so is effectively hanging off the disc now. This can be fixed if I commit to this route full time by modifications to the bracket, but in the meantime it would still function just fine.
I wanted to go straight in and refit the aggressive pads to the rears, but I was talked out of it. Keep the RS42 in and change as few variables as possible.
Going out after lunch the car immediately felt more comforting on the brakes. No question it had lost some all-out stopping power, but I seemed to gain a load of feel through the pedal when braking on the limit which was lost before. The power assisted, ABS brakes in the S2 platform have never been known for their pedal feel compared to the unassisted setup in the S1/Rover cars - but I'd been missing a bit of feedback without realising.
I'm not sure why this is, maybe because the stopping power is slightly less intense now and I have a bit more time to compute what is happening, or maybe because the balance is now thrown forward enough that it's the fronts reaching their limits first and the front circuit provided better feedback? Really don't know, but it felt better.
The next logical step is to put the aggressive pad back in the back so I'm matching compounds - but that's a job for the next trackday I think, I want to get used to my new baseline for now.
The afternoon continued being fun, didn't really feel like I was picking up any pace and started stagnating. The red flags didn't help, we seemed to have 5 or 6 within a couple of hours and always seemed to be as I was starting a session - but still got plenty of laps squeezed in.
Very late in the day a chap wandered up and asked for a passenger ride, to which I of course obliged. After getting him strapped in and out on track, the car felt really good for some reason. Normally you can really feel the penalty of a passenger in this car, but for whatever reason the stars aligned, we got nice flowing traffic and the car just felt great. Because of the sudden distraction of a passenger jumping in, I forgot to fire up the gopro but the ADU logs concur that it was my best, most consistent session by far. Very odd, as usually a passenger is worth a couple of seconds!
Eager to get out for one more ride solo, it dawned on me that I'd used the dregs of my fuel and that was me done for the day. I tried to sneak out for a couple of laps with Ishy (resident NYLOC driving instructor) but we barely made it round the outlap before the car cut out on a left hander.
Oh well, finished a bit early but the car finished without any niggles - pulled strong all day and we had some good science achieved on the brakes.
Rear tyres seem to be maximising their camber, and wear going down to the wear indicators. This may be because the front was too stiff after the Spa damper changes, but it may also mean I could benefit from a sliver more camber at the rear. Something to consider.
As for IATs, the logs showed a clear and consistent result of approx. 10C savings from stepping up a pulley size.
This is a snippet from a log from Donington earlier in the year, on 2.9":
And this is from Croft on 3.0":
Obviously different days, and different ambients - but the Donington IAT performance is consistent across all of my 2023 trackdays. Ambient has a very diminished effect on IATs when out on track IME, you need huge swings to see noticeable differences and it's typically a case of heatsoaking the hardware when stationary which is the problem rather than on-the-move performance.
I'm not sure what this means yet. As a result of the lower temps, my ECU was only retarding 0.5 deg rather than the 1.0-1.5 it was pulling at Donny. Is that enough to reclaim the 15bhp we've dropped by lowering boost? No idea. But it feels good to be stressing the hardware a little less.
Oh, and I used 'race mode' all day and nowt' blew up. That also felt good. Through capping my boost via DBW throttle in the road mode map, I'd been strangling the "vtec" lift gains more than I'd realised. A few times round Croft the car had really (pleasantly) surprised me once it was really singing. Felt great.
In terms of video, my ageing GoPro 6 has had a bit of a failure - the onboard GPS just doesn't work anymore. It sounds like a non-issue, but it's such a useful tool when buddied up with RaceRender software to just open up a clip, and instantly identify your 'clear' laps. You can turn a YT video round in minutes based on quickly picking out your quicker laps. Without it, you're left trawling through an hour or two of footage to pick good bits out, and I just can't be bothered anymore!
For that reason, I've just trimmed a full session and stuck that up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eB9h-8fZeg
It was quite late in the day, I think it was the session just before the mythical passenger session that I did (and didn't record). Not even watched it all myself yet, but from skimming through it seems a pretty fair representation of the day with regards to other cars on track.
Top day, not much to do on the car before the next one - but also quite a big gap in the calendar till' my next one - so need to find something to do.
Fonzey said:
Top day, not much to do on the car before the next one - but also quite a big gap in the calendar till' my next one - so need to find something to do.
Nice report. 
Perhaps create a log book (a real paper based one) that you keep with the car to record any changes you make in setup (damper settings, brakes etc.). Then you can use a pre-trackday checklist to revert to previous setups as required.
Nice writeup Fonzey and I look forward to seeing you on our days again and getting out in the car .
The BMWs you mentioned are regulars of ours, quick cars with good pedalers in them!
Since we are now after the event and you would just be referring to datalogs do you mind if I ask what kind of lap times you were doing on Monday?
.The BMWs you mentioned are regulars of ours, quick cars with good pedalers in them!
Since we are now after the event and you would just be referring to datalogs do you mind if I ask what kind of lap times you were doing on Monday?
Steve H said:
Nice writeup Fonzey and I look forward to seeing you on our days again and getting out in the car .
The BMWs you mentioned are regulars of ours, quick cars with good pedalers in them!
Since we are now after the event and you would just be referring to datalogs do you mind if I ask what kind of lap times you were doing on Monday?
I believe it was in the region of 1.33/1.34, does that sound realistic? I'll double check at the weekend..The BMWs you mentioned are regulars of ours, quick cars with good pedalers in them!
Since we are now after the event and you would just be referring to datalogs do you mind if I ask what kind of lap times you were doing on Monday?
I did check, and recall it being in the same ballpark as my Exige was a couple of years ago. This will be the first track I've attended this year where the car wasn't notably faster than my Exige was, so I do need to spend some time in the logs to find out why!
Fonzey said:
Steve H said:
Nice writeup Fonzey and I look forward to seeing you on our days again and getting out in the car .
The BMWs you mentioned are regulars of ours, quick cars with good pedalers in them!
Since we are now after the event and you would just be referring to datalogs do you mind if I ask what kind of lap times you were doing on Monday?
I believe it was in the region of 1.33/1.34, does that sound realistic? I'll double check at the weekend..The BMWs you mentioned are regulars of ours, quick cars with good pedalers in them!
Since we are now after the event and you would just be referring to datalogs do you mind if I ask what kind of lap times you were doing on Monday?
I did check, and recall it being in the same ballpark as my Exige was a couple of years ago. This will be the first track I've attended this year where the car wasn't notably faster than my Exige was, so I do need to spend some time in the logs to find out why!
I’m guessing the lower pace compared to the Exige will be because it is just so bumpy that you can’t get the same advantage in the lighter 2-11.
Since Croft the car got wheeled onto the ramp, and didn't move again until it was trailer time for Hethel.
In the downtime I made another rear brake iteration, by putting the performance friction pads back in the rear but retaining the smaller 288mm discs. I'd be taking the less aggressive pagid pads in the event I felt the rears were too keen once I got on track. As a reminder of my iterations to date:
308mm front/rear with PF08 front/rear at Spa: Far too biased to the rear, and very grabby
308mm front/rear with PF08 front and RS4-2 rear: Much more drivable, but a bit grabby occasionally still at the rear
308mm front/288mm rear with PF08 front and RS4-2 rear: More driveable again, but noticeable loss of bite
Whilst also poking around, I found my DIY archliner (roof flashing tape) had drooped on the driver side, just enough so that the tyre could pick up the tar-like substance (tar?) and fling it everywhere. I wonder if this contributed towards my occasional understeer in the car as the tyre edges were covered in it!
Luckily Mothers to the rescue.
Speaking of understeer, I also reset my dampers to service manual settings after cocking around with them at Spa to try and rescue the brakes.
I also tried some new shoes on whilst the car was up in the air. Pretty nice, a bit lighter than my 2-Eleven/240R wheels so these may find a spare set of tyres on them at some point even if I prefer the look of the 240Rs.
Cleaned up ready for action.
Next trackday would be Hethel, and photography is not really allowed here - so content will be limited unfortunately, but it was a belting day. First though you need to endure the drive there...
Best part of four hours, even with a quick pee break. Really hard work, but got to the Hotel in time for a beer and then the worst nights' sleep on record.
(not so) Bright and early at the circuit and soon made a friend in the form of John and his 2010 2-Eleven. I think it's the only other one I've seen at a UK trackday since I got mine.
Again, no photography or video so a quick summary of the day:
Car went great all day, another flawless day for reliability/performance
Without cameras and stuff like that to distract me, I got my head down and took some notes/observations about the car as I steadily built my speed up. The car has always had a small amount of turn-in understeer which I've found comforting, but I was curious to see if I could dial it out, and what impact that would have in other areas.
During my poor nights' sleep I'd read a few blogs and found a good high level cheatsheet here:https://suspensionsecrets.co.uk/how-to-remove-oversteer-and-understeer
To cut a long story short, over 3 or 4 sessions I ended up adding two clicks of rebound damping which really did tighten the front end up nicely. I struggled to understand the logic trackside, but in retrospect it makes sense that by limiting the rebound 'return rate' was slowing the weight transfer that move rearward as I transition back onto power at corner entry. I did try going further than this, but felt that was coming at a cost of a slightly looser rear when transitioning from brake to neutral through the slower hairpin corners.
In fact, I spent a bit of time playing with the compression damping at the rear to try to remedy that but that was still a bit inconclusive. I found I was taking away the gains I'd made at the front, and ultimately having a bit of rotation mid corner at a hairpin works well for me anyway.
It was an enjoyable experience, and I was really seeing a strong correlation between the theory and my experience on track. I think there's a lot of information out there which can be very confusing and sometimes sound contradictory because people interchange terms like stiffer, slower, harder, faster, damping a lot - and you can tie yourselves in knots and actually interpret something backwards.
I also dabbled with tyre pressures a bit, lowering a couple of pounds at the rear did help me a bit in the hairpins but it was much less obvious than the damper tweaks.
As for the brakes, they were the best iteration I've had since putting the larger kit on. Putting the aggressive pads back in the back gave me back some bite that I'd lost with the pagids in. I had a bit of side to side instability early on, but I just put this down to bedding in yet another disc/pad combo.
I had a couple of issues braking into the chicane towards the end of the Mansell straight. It's a very fast straight, almost 140mph in the 2-Eleven which is quite a feat for this brick but the track kinks slightly left in the braking zone (easily countered once you figure out to just drive down the centre of the track, and only aim towards the outside in a straight line under braking) but there's also a change in tarmac right in the braking zone. A couple of times this triggered my ABS to crap its pants a bit, giving me a hard pedal and massively reduced braking power. Not like the cycling pumping of regular ABS intervention.
I think people refer to this as "ice mode", and I have to say it's not really something that's bothered me across any of my Lotus to date. Time will tell as to whether this is another symptom of changing the braking setup, or whether it was just track/corner specific.
It was easily driven around though, maybe I left a bit on the table after experiencing it for the first time - but it didn't really bother me despite being quite unnerving the first time it happened! It felt like releasing pedal for a fraction of a second and re-applying immediately would get me hauling up again.
As good as the brakes were, they did seem to be making me ill - so I had an extended lunch break trying to find some medication.
Afternoon progressed without drama, just steadily built up speed and really enjoyed just finding a groove and pounding round. Hethel is still a bit of a weird track for me, I could really benefit from some tuition here but... well, 2-Eleven isn't really too suited for that unfortunately.
Car after my tweaks felt a lot more assertive when turning in. During faster turns the rear end is as solid as you like, but retains that bit of rotation through the slower stuff on demand. Looking forward to getting back to some familiar turf to try my tweaks there, and see whether there's measurable difference on a circuit that I feel like I "know" properly.
After playing pesticide for the day, I called it and prepared myself for the long trek home.
Oulton Park next towards the end of October.
In the downtime I made another rear brake iteration, by putting the performance friction pads back in the rear but retaining the smaller 288mm discs. I'd be taking the less aggressive pagid pads in the event I felt the rears were too keen once I got on track. As a reminder of my iterations to date:
308mm front/rear with PF08 front/rear at Spa: Far too biased to the rear, and very grabby
308mm front/rear with PF08 front and RS4-2 rear: Much more drivable, but a bit grabby occasionally still at the rear
308mm front/288mm rear with PF08 front and RS4-2 rear: More driveable again, but noticeable loss of bite
Whilst also poking around, I found my DIY archliner (roof flashing tape) had drooped on the driver side, just enough so that the tyre could pick up the tar-like substance (tar?) and fling it everywhere. I wonder if this contributed towards my occasional understeer in the car as the tyre edges were covered in it!
Luckily Mothers to the rescue.
Speaking of understeer, I also reset my dampers to service manual settings after cocking around with them at Spa to try and rescue the brakes.
I also tried some new shoes on whilst the car was up in the air. Pretty nice, a bit lighter than my 2-Eleven/240R wheels so these may find a spare set of tyres on them at some point even if I prefer the look of the 240Rs.
Cleaned up ready for action.
Next trackday would be Hethel, and photography is not really allowed here - so content will be limited unfortunately, but it was a belting day. First though you need to endure the drive there...
Best part of four hours, even with a quick pee break. Really hard work, but got to the Hotel in time for a beer and then the worst nights' sleep on record.
(not so) Bright and early at the circuit and soon made a friend in the form of John and his 2010 2-Eleven. I think it's the only other one I've seen at a UK trackday since I got mine.
Again, no photography or video so a quick summary of the day:
Car went great all day, another flawless day for reliability/performance
Without cameras and stuff like that to distract me, I got my head down and took some notes/observations about the car as I steadily built my speed up. The car has always had a small amount of turn-in understeer which I've found comforting, but I was curious to see if I could dial it out, and what impact that would have in other areas.
During my poor nights' sleep I'd read a few blogs and found a good high level cheatsheet here:https://suspensionsecrets.co.uk/how-to-remove-oversteer-and-understeer
To cut a long story short, over 3 or 4 sessions I ended up adding two clicks of rebound damping which really did tighten the front end up nicely. I struggled to understand the logic trackside, but in retrospect it makes sense that by limiting the rebound 'return rate' was slowing the weight transfer that move rearward as I transition back onto power at corner entry. I did try going further than this, but felt that was coming at a cost of a slightly looser rear when transitioning from brake to neutral through the slower hairpin corners.
In fact, I spent a bit of time playing with the compression damping at the rear to try to remedy that but that was still a bit inconclusive. I found I was taking away the gains I'd made at the front, and ultimately having a bit of rotation mid corner at a hairpin works well for me anyway.
It was an enjoyable experience, and I was really seeing a strong correlation between the theory and my experience on track. I think there's a lot of information out there which can be very confusing and sometimes sound contradictory because people interchange terms like stiffer, slower, harder, faster, damping a lot - and you can tie yourselves in knots and actually interpret something backwards.
I also dabbled with tyre pressures a bit, lowering a couple of pounds at the rear did help me a bit in the hairpins but it was much less obvious than the damper tweaks.
As for the brakes, they were the best iteration I've had since putting the larger kit on. Putting the aggressive pads back in the back gave me back some bite that I'd lost with the pagids in. I had a bit of side to side instability early on, but I just put this down to bedding in yet another disc/pad combo.
I had a couple of issues braking into the chicane towards the end of the Mansell straight. It's a very fast straight, almost 140mph in the 2-Eleven which is quite a feat for this brick but the track kinks slightly left in the braking zone (easily countered once you figure out to just drive down the centre of the track, and only aim towards the outside in a straight line under braking) but there's also a change in tarmac right in the braking zone. A couple of times this triggered my ABS to crap its pants a bit, giving me a hard pedal and massively reduced braking power. Not like the cycling pumping of regular ABS intervention.
I think people refer to this as "ice mode", and I have to say it's not really something that's bothered me across any of my Lotus to date. Time will tell as to whether this is another symptom of changing the braking setup, or whether it was just track/corner specific.
It was easily driven around though, maybe I left a bit on the table after experiencing it for the first time - but it didn't really bother me despite being quite unnerving the first time it happened! It felt like releasing pedal for a fraction of a second and re-applying immediately would get me hauling up again.
As good as the brakes were, they did seem to be making me ill - so I had an extended lunch break trying to find some medication.
Afternoon progressed without drama, just steadily built up speed and really enjoyed just finding a groove and pounding round. Hethel is still a bit of a weird track for me, I could really benefit from some tuition here but... well, 2-Eleven isn't really too suited for that unfortunately.
Car after my tweaks felt a lot more assertive when turning in. During faster turns the rear end is as solid as you like, but retains that bit of rotation through the slower stuff on demand. Looking forward to getting back to some familiar turf to try my tweaks there, and see whether there's measurable difference on a circuit that I feel like I "know" properly.
After playing pesticide for the day, I called it and prepared myself for the long trek home.
Oulton Park next towards the end of October.
Increasing rake can be very effective for dialling out understeer.
Also playing with ARBs. As you say lots of information out there that is only half useful because it depends what end of the spectrum you're at.
For instance a lot of them say softer = more grip...but if you're already too soft then what you'll be feeling is a lack of response, too slow to load the tyre up and going softer will only make it worse.
A lot of the time it's worth a trade in mechanical grip for responsiveness, allowing you to rotate the car more quickly and get on the power earlier, hustling the car more.
So normally I'd say for understeer stiffen the rear bar / soften the front bar... but it all depends on how stiff or soft they already are, how responsive the car is and where the understeer is. I tend to prefer a stiffer front bar for the responsiveness and stability at high speed then play with the rear ARB / chassis rake a bit to help rotation.
It's a slippery slope trying to do too much with your dampers and you could end up jacking the front down with too much rebound etc.
Have you got a decent amount of caster too?
Also playing with ARBs. As you say lots of information out there that is only half useful because it depends what end of the spectrum you're at.
For instance a lot of them say softer = more grip...but if you're already too soft then what you'll be feeling is a lack of response, too slow to load the tyre up and going softer will only make it worse.
A lot of the time it's worth a trade in mechanical grip for responsiveness, allowing you to rotate the car more quickly and get on the power earlier, hustling the car more.
So normally I'd say for understeer stiffen the rear bar / soften the front bar... but it all depends on how stiff or soft they already are, how responsive the car is and where the understeer is. I tend to prefer a stiffer front bar for the responsiveness and stability at high speed then play with the rear ARB / chassis rake a bit to help rotation.
It's a slippery slope trying to do too much with your dampers and you could end up jacking the front down with too much rebound etc.
Have you got a decent amount of caster too?
Edited by Yazza54 on Tuesday 3rd October 06:44
Just watched your croft video and I think the car looks lazy changing direction/steering. Are your arbs adjustable and where are they set?
Also I'm no good at multi quotes and don't want to mess up the thread but I'm interested in the image where you amhave wear down the marker on the sidewall. Have nankang advised you to use this marker? I ask as I run the AR1 on my spire and at least on my 13 inch 60 profile versions that marker in my opinion is too far down the sidewall to use as any sort of indicator and if I was touching it in any way I would be massively increasing camber as it would indicate rolling over on the outside of the tyre.
What's your wear like across the tyre / inside?
Also I'm no good at multi quotes and don't want to mess up the thread but I'm interested in the image where you amhave wear down the marker on the sidewall. Have nankang advised you to use this marker? I ask as I run the AR1 on my spire and at least on my 13 inch 60 profile versions that marker in my opinion is too far down the sidewall to use as any sort of indicator and if I was touching it in any way I would be massively increasing camber as it would indicate rolling over on the outside of the tyre.
What's your wear like across the tyre / inside?
Edited by Yazza54 on Tuesday 3rd October 10:32
Yazza54 said:
Really Good Info
I'm also crap at multi quoting so I'll just pick up on your points in turn:Rake: This is an interesting one and could be an area for improvement. The front of my car is relatively jacked up mainly for ground clearance purposes. If racing and going for a balls out laptime setup, lowering the front a touch would probably be helpful.
ARBs and responsiveness vs grip:
I fully agree that there's a trade-off, and I personally seem to respond well to the car feeling sharper to drive even if it's at the cost of ultimate grip. Feeling the front end bite and react gives me the confidence to keep creeping up to the limit, and is why I'll probably never ever be fast in the wet as all feeling vanishes!
The Lotus platform only runs a front ARB, so we're limited on what we can play with here. Aftermarket kits exist for blade-style rear ARBs but they're pretty rare. I had some advice years ago from a driver that I trust who just said to adjust the ARB to max stiffness and forget about it, and seek car balance everywhere else (tyres, dampers, driving style, etc). That way you've always got an option to soften it right off, or detach it completely in monsoon conditions to allow the tyres to work a bit harder.
The last track car I had with both front and rear ARBs was my Impreza, which was plagued by chronic understeer until I softened the front right off, and stiffened the rear right up. It was noticeable and measurable, and probably would have gained fistfuls of lap time in a competitive environment.
Caster is maxed out with the shim arrangement, can't remember the exact figure - but I can't feasibly add more.
Croft: The car was definitely lazy and (I think) I complained about it at the time. Particularly with the JC Esses I felt like I was scrubbing off way too much speed waiting for the front to hook up and let me commit. I think here a skilled/confident driver could overcome it and push through, enjoying the understeer as a bit of a safety margin - but for me, it was a sign to keep scrubbing speed and try to keep out of the field.
My damper settings were all over the place for Croft, after I had been frantically cocking around at Spa trying to carry the brakes. I'm happy to say that the car at Hethel was very different, and much better in this department. Hopefully at Oulton I get some good footage and it would be interesting to see your observations of that and how it compares to Croft.
AR1s:
I haven't had any specific advice on how to use the wear marker, that's just the way my current geo/pressures is using the tread surface. The rear is even gobbling up part of the marker: Front/Rear here:
Wear across the surface is pretty even to be honest. I keep taking my very expensive IR camera/gun thing to trackdays and never remember to whip it out to measure tread temp.
The 2-Eleven can run much more camber than a standard Elise/Exige, but I'm still running 'book' figures which is close to what I had my Exige maxed at. I'm steadily collecting materials and equipment to give myself a proper alignment rig at home and I'm hoping to spend some time this winter on it. This will free me up to go to a local track like Blyton for instance with a much more aggressive setup as an experiment, knowing that I can easily revert if it's a disaster.
Camber opinions in the Lotus world seem to be largely divided. Particularly the US auto-cross guys chase massive camber figures, as much as they can front and rear. In the UK we're a lot more conservative and keep close to what Lotus recommend, with -1.5 to -1.7 at the front and ~ -2.5 at the rear. Based on my shims I think I could easily achieve -2.5F and -4R if I really wanted to.
I believe the Lotus geometry allows for camber change to be largely independent to toe adjustment, so you can afford to make regular changes trackside if so desired. Food for thought.
Joehow said:
Love the write ups on this. I'm pissing around with damper settings at the moment on my lowly Elise and find the process fascinating.
Car looks mega as always
Thank you! Yes I'm enjoying the process too, I've had adjustable dampers on cars before in which frankly I couldn't notice any difference! This is incredible though how just one or two clicks can alter the car.Car looks mega as always
Nothing lowly about an Elise
Fonzey said:
Yazza54 said:
Really Good Info
I'm also crap at multi quoting so I'll just pick up on your points in turn:Rake: This is an interesting one and could be an area for improvement. The front of my car is relatively jacked up mainly for ground clearance purposes. If racing and going for a balls out laptime setup, lowering the front a touch would probably be helpful.
ARBs and responsiveness vs grip:
I fully agree that there's a trade-off, and I personally seem to respond well to the car feeling sharper to drive even if it's at the cost of ultimate grip. Feeling the front end bite and react gives me the confidence to keep creeping up to the limit, and is why I'll probably never ever be fast in the wet as all feeling vanishes!
The Lotus platform only runs a front ARB, so we're limited on what we can play with here. Aftermarket kits exist for blade-style rear ARBs but they're pretty rare. I had some advice years ago from a driver that I trust who just said to adjust the ARB to max stiffness and forget about it, and seek car balance everywhere else (tyres, dampers, driving style, etc). That way you've always got an option to soften it right off, or detach it completely in monsoon conditions to allow the tyres to work a bit harder.
The last track car I had with both front and rear ARBs was my Impreza, which was plagued by chronic understeer until I softened the front right off, and stiffened the rear right up. It was noticeable and measurable, and probably would have gained fistfuls of lap time in a competitive environment.
Caster is maxed out with the shim arrangement, can't remember the exact figure - but I can't feasibly add more.
Croft: The car was definitely lazy and (I think) I complained about it at the time. Particularly with the JC Esses I felt like I was scrubbing off way too much speed waiting for the front to hook up and let me commit. I think here a skilled/confident driver could overcome it and push through, enjoying the understeer as a bit of a safety margin - but for me, it was a sign to keep scrubbing speed and try to keep out of the field.
My damper settings were all over the place for Croft, after I had been frantically cocking around at Spa trying to carry the brakes. I'm happy to say that the car at Hethel was very different, and much better in this department. Hopefully at Oulton I get some good footage and it would be interesting to see your observations of that and how it compares to Croft.
AR1s:
I haven't had any specific advice on how to use the wear marker, that's just the way my current geo/pressures is using the tread surface. The rear is even gobbling up part of the marker: Front/Rear here:
Wear across the surface is pretty even to be honest. I keep taking my very expensive IR camera/gun thing to trackdays and never remember to whip it out to measure tread temp.
The 2-Eleven can run much more camber than a standard Elise/Exige, but I'm still running 'book' figures which is close to what I had my Exige maxed at. I'm steadily collecting materials and equipment to give myself a proper alignment rig at home and I'm hoping to spend some time this winter on it. This will free me up to go to a local track like Blyton for instance with a much more aggressive setup as an experiment, knowing that I can easily revert if it's a disaster.
Camber opinions in the Lotus world seem to be largely divided. Particularly the US auto-cross guys chase massive camber figures, as much as they can front and rear. In the UK we're a lot more conservative and keep close to what Lotus recommend, with -1.5 to -1.7 at the front and ~ -2.5 at the rear. Based on my shims I think I could easily achieve -2.5F and -4R if I really wanted to.
I believe the Lotus geometry allows for camber change to be largely independent to toe adjustment, so you can afford to make regular changes trackside if so desired. Food for thought.
I think potentially your rear is rolling round a bit too much, especially given you're at 2.5deg which should be there or thereabouts. It would also explain lack of bite on turn in, even a soft rear arb would give you loads of setup options but as it stands you're pretty limited. Getting about 10mm rake in the car would help I'm sure, but it's whether you can be arsed chasing setup so much, but no harm in raising the rear a bit if you don't want to do it on the front.
It seems like even on a very track focused car like this one lotus still opted for a very safe setup. Probably not such a bad thing for most drivers.
t tooOulton Update
Day started well as I fell off my trailer ramp unloading the car into a wet and miserable paddock.
As it's October of another busy year, the splitter was looking tatty anyway so a quick repair job to see the season out and we're on our way!
It was raining a bit for the sighting laps but we never got another drop after that. The track took an age to dry though, which meant for a slippy slidy morning session.
Was a pretty cool day, because for the first time the three Lotuses that I've owned would all be present at the same trackday. My Laser blue 111R, Laser blue Exige S and then of course the 2-Eleven. We hoped to get a good photo of them all flying in formation but it didn't really work out.
I was on the AR1 tyres but had some AD08 in the trailer. As the track was just damp, I stuck with the AR1 and I was pleasantly surprised. Had loads of grip in the nose of the car and traction seemed ample... until suddenly it wasn't.
Did my first lap at what I thought was a fairly steady pace, then about half way into the second one I lost the rear of the car quite badly in the Britten's chicane. I don't mind the car moving around on a wet day, and have thoroughly enjoyed my last few Anglesey's in monsoon conditions but this caught me completely by surprise and had to flail around to catch it in the most undignified way.
Back in for a breather, checked pressures and bolts and stuff like that and then went back out, desperately trying to build back up but feeling like I had no trust in when the grip would be there, and when it would not.
I quite enjoyed the morning, but I was easily one of the slowest cars on track. Just couldn't find a groove but I had a bit of fun chucking it into the chicanes and spent a lot of time working on my braking technique.
My recent habit of bias troubles and ABS drama encouraged me in the damp to be really progressive on the brakes rather than just stomping the bulkhead, and it quickly started to pay off.
Just before lunch, the faintest dry line was appearing and it looked promising for a dry afternoon.
First PM session was probably 70% dry and I quickly started piling on the speed. The mobile chicane I'd been driving in the morning quickly started becoming the hunter and as I leaned on the tyres more and more, the car responded and grew into the day nicely.
I did 3 or 4 sessions in the afternoon and they just got progressively quicker and quicker, I continued my braking technique from the morning and this was really paying dividends now. No ABS triggering at all, nice bit of rotation on entry when trailbraking and the stopping power was immense. Up near 1.65/1.7 G according to my dash which when achieved consistently represented a personal best.
Some time during the day I met and spoke to a previous owner of my 2-Eleven which was nice. Told me some tales to go with the many photos I have stored from previous ownerships, and filled in a few blanks too. Nice to meet you Simon.
Final session was an absolute belter, track was fairly empty and got a fair few clear laps in, building up and up and the car just kept giving and giving. Didn't touch my damper settings from Hethel but happy to say they weren't a fluke, and that the car felt mega in the dry here too. I had one complaint creeping in on this final session, I'm not sure if it was my imagination but my clutch pedal felt like it was a bit slower to come up after a gear change. It wasn't impacting the drive, but it was just an odd sensation under foot. I need to investigate. Oh, and I had one instance of ABS ice mode braking gently into druids.
I also had a passenger in for this session, and there's definitely nothing more to be said about that.
Based on my last experience out here in my Exige, I made pretty good advances in the first sector of the lap. T1, Cascades and Island Bend all significantly quicker (13kph quicker minimum speed in some corners) and my confidence on the brakes into the hairpin allowed for some real gains here. The generous camber of the banked corner goading me in, and rewarding with plenty of stability and no drama.
Around Druids I was still a bit tentative, I think I was second guessing the grip level at that end of the circuit, the blind (and very fast) corner leading into it was giving me cause for caution, but the net result was coming away feeling like I'd learned loads about the track in the last couple of hours - and pretty excited to get back there. I don't do Oulton as often as I'd like.
The only real mechanical/reliability issue was once again... GoPros. I had a brand new one on for today, GoPro Hero 10 rigged up with the media mod case and my external microphone setup, all tested nicely beforehand - but for some reason the battery just kept dropping from 100% to zero, then wouldn't take on any charge for ages.
Pic from a quick test at Hethel, though filming wasn't allowed here so couldn't use it in anger.
Really annoyed, GoPro support have had me do a manual firmware update which I was sceptical about, but in the days since the battery seems to be holding OK... so maybe. I do have the camera wired in whilst driving, so for my next outing I may try it without the battery completely and rely on the 12v from the car giving it juice.
Last session particularly would have been great footage so I'm pretty miffed - but if that's the only thing I broke, I won't cry too much.
Day started well as I fell off my trailer ramp unloading the car into a wet and miserable paddock.
As it's October of another busy year, the splitter was looking tatty anyway so a quick repair job to see the season out and we're on our way!
It was raining a bit for the sighting laps but we never got another drop after that. The track took an age to dry though, which meant for a slippy slidy morning session.
Was a pretty cool day, because for the first time the three Lotuses that I've owned would all be present at the same trackday. My Laser blue 111R, Laser blue Exige S and then of course the 2-Eleven. We hoped to get a good photo of them all flying in formation but it didn't really work out.
I was on the AR1 tyres but had some AD08 in the trailer. As the track was just damp, I stuck with the AR1 and I was pleasantly surprised. Had loads of grip in the nose of the car and traction seemed ample... until suddenly it wasn't.
Did my first lap at what I thought was a fairly steady pace, then about half way into the second one I lost the rear of the car quite badly in the Britten's chicane. I don't mind the car moving around on a wet day, and have thoroughly enjoyed my last few Anglesey's in monsoon conditions but this caught me completely by surprise and had to flail around to catch it in the most undignified way.
Back in for a breather, checked pressures and bolts and stuff like that and then went back out, desperately trying to build back up but feeling like I had no trust in when the grip would be there, and when it would not.
I quite enjoyed the morning, but I was easily one of the slowest cars on track. Just couldn't find a groove but I had a bit of fun chucking it into the chicanes and spent a lot of time working on my braking technique.
My recent habit of bias troubles and ABS drama encouraged me in the damp to be really progressive on the brakes rather than just stomping the bulkhead, and it quickly started to pay off.
Just before lunch, the faintest dry line was appearing and it looked promising for a dry afternoon.
First PM session was probably 70% dry and I quickly started piling on the speed. The mobile chicane I'd been driving in the morning quickly started becoming the hunter and as I leaned on the tyres more and more, the car responded and grew into the day nicely.
I did 3 or 4 sessions in the afternoon and they just got progressively quicker and quicker, I continued my braking technique from the morning and this was really paying dividends now. No ABS triggering at all, nice bit of rotation on entry when trailbraking and the stopping power was immense. Up near 1.65/1.7 G according to my dash which when achieved consistently represented a personal best.
Some time during the day I met and spoke to a previous owner of my 2-Eleven which was nice. Told me some tales to go with the many photos I have stored from previous ownerships, and filled in a few blanks too. Nice to meet you Simon.
Final session was an absolute belter, track was fairly empty and got a fair few clear laps in, building up and up and the car just kept giving and giving. Didn't touch my damper settings from Hethel but happy to say they weren't a fluke, and that the car felt mega in the dry here too. I had one complaint creeping in on this final session, I'm not sure if it was my imagination but my clutch pedal felt like it was a bit slower to come up after a gear change. It wasn't impacting the drive, but it was just an odd sensation under foot. I need to investigate. Oh, and I had one instance of ABS ice mode braking gently into druids.
I also had a passenger in for this session, and there's definitely nothing more to be said about that.
Based on my last experience out here in my Exige, I made pretty good advances in the first sector of the lap. T1, Cascades and Island Bend all significantly quicker (13kph quicker minimum speed in some corners) and my confidence on the brakes into the hairpin allowed for some real gains here. The generous camber of the banked corner goading me in, and rewarding with plenty of stability and no drama.
Around Druids I was still a bit tentative, I think I was second guessing the grip level at that end of the circuit, the blind (and very fast) corner leading into it was giving me cause for caution, but the net result was coming away feeling like I'd learned loads about the track in the last couple of hours - and pretty excited to get back there. I don't do Oulton as often as I'd like.
The only real mechanical/reliability issue was once again... GoPros. I had a brand new one on for today, GoPro Hero 10 rigged up with the media mod case and my external microphone setup, all tested nicely beforehand - but for some reason the battery just kept dropping from 100% to zero, then wouldn't take on any charge for ages.
Pic from a quick test at Hethel, though filming wasn't allowed here so couldn't use it in anger.
Really annoyed, GoPro support have had me do a manual firmware update which I was sceptical about, but in the days since the battery seems to be holding OK... so maybe. I do have the camera wired in whilst driving, so for my next outing I may try it without the battery completely and rely on the 12v from the car giving it juice.
Last session particularly would have been great footage so I'm pretty miffed - but if that's the only thing I broke, I won't cry too much.
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