2007 Lotus 2-Eleven
Discussion
With time ticking before the first track outing of the year, I got on with some finishing touches.
Hoovered my mats.
"We" washed it.
..and spent some time measuring the final bit of calibration for the ABS. The Wheel circumference.
The SCS recommendation is to rotate the wheels 10x times, measure the difference travelled and then divide by 10 to reduce any measurement errors. I did this in steps of 2x rotations, as I didn't have a 20m tape measure!
Spent an hour or so of the delightful BH weekend to do some final checks on the ECU, ABS and Dash configs. I spotted one problem with the calculated gear ratios, so the dash doesn't quite know what gear I'm in with the new wheelspeed data... small job to fix when I get time just to run it up and down the road in all gears.
Then that's it, off to the races!
Hoovered my mats.
"We" washed it.
..and spent some time measuring the final bit of calibration for the ABS. The Wheel circumference.
The SCS recommendation is to rotate the wheels 10x times, measure the difference travelled and then divide by 10 to reduce any measurement errors. I did this in steps of 2x rotations, as I didn't have a 20m tape measure!
Spent an hour or so of the delightful BH weekend to do some final checks on the ECU, ABS and Dash configs. I spotted one problem with the calculated gear ratios, so the dash doesn't quite know what gear I'm in with the new wheelspeed data... small job to fix when I get time just to run it up and down the road in all gears.
Then that's it, off to the races!
First track outing as ever was to be at Blyton Park. My Local track, and a great one for shaking down winter tweaks.
Would be a little different this year though, as it was a Javelin Sprint Series taster day with a morning of open pit lane trackday, and an afternoon of timed sprint runs.
Not an ideal environment for testing so many changes to the car, but I'd had every intention of doing a "normal" OPL day before this... just the garage works put a stop to that.
Arrived to a rather crisp morning, but was forecast dry for the day. All good.
Plan was to go out on the old AR1 tyres for a couple of sessions and just check I wasn't locking brakes up left right and centre. Didn't want to ruin the A052 if so!
First session I went as hard as I could onto the brakes on T1 after the start just to get a feel of how well the car would stop on the sprint laps later when everything is cold. The answer was, not well. I got lots of ABS triggering and the car just about hauled itself up, but it wasn't a great feeling.
As the laps piled on and the tyres ballooned in pressure the car felt quicker and quicker and by the end the brakes felt great. Really strong pedal feel, good modulation and was quite intuitive as to when ABS would trigger. On warm pads/tyres, the ABS triggering was few and far between. Fair amount of traffic on this session, so hard to measure anything useful - but the brakes didn't fall off, so there's that.
On the second session, I reset the hot tyre pressures and managed to get a few clear laps.
I had no inclination to play with brake balance at all, because the car felt 'right'. Stable in braking and seemed to be hauling itself up just fine. I did back the ABS off a bit, if 1 = Fully Wet, most intrusion and 10 = Fully dry, most allowable yaw I ended up running a setting of 7.
This gave me just a bit of movement in the car on turn-in when still trailing the brakes, and the odd chirp of a locking tyre (but nothing sustained with tyre smoke everywhere). If I dialled it closer to 10, the car was noticeably less stable on the brakes, but I imagine on a properly warm day where I'm really pushing on this will be a great setting.
I knew grip would be compromised in the afternoon due to cold tyres, so I kept it at 7 for the rest of the day.
On this second session, I was already matching the best times I'd ever done at Blyton which was rather promising. The car didn't feel anywhere near as close to the edge either to hit those times, in fact I still felt like I was warming up.
The noticeable difference with the car compared to last time aside from the brakes is the changes I made to engine mapping. Previously I had a "slow" map of 260bhp, and a "fast" map of 300bhp. But I was scared to use the 300 one in fear of smashing the gearbox.
Now I have a slow of 260, and a fast of 280. As such, I'm now using the fast one on trackdays and in effect, am up on power from previous visits.
There's "a line" that gains a lot of time at Blyton, and involves somewhat straight lining over a curb at "The Ump". Figured I'd see if I could clear it in case I got a bit competetive in the afternoon...
Turns out the answer is "sort of". Splitter catches it, get a lovely smell of smouldering sawdust for a few more corners but the chassis-proper remains unscathed. Free time, woo!
Now that I felt I had a decent baseline, I came in and swapped over for the A052 tyres which seem to have generated legend status.
First outing would be a 'scrubbing' one, bring them up to temp and just get a feel. Immediately I noticed that the sidewalls felt softer and more forgiving. This gave the car less of a 'racey' feel compared to the AR1 but no question the grip was there in return.
Slowly ramped up and was pretty much on the pace from earlier sessions by the time I came in with once again, ballooned tyres.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTCfnwJ_pQQ
Video of a lap from that session. Front end not quite where I expected it to be on a couple of corners which sent me for a nice bumpy ride over the finish line. Interestingly this lap is within fractions of my best ever at Blyton but looks considerably slower. No doubt I was leaving lots on the table at the weekend, but it's promising to know the car has some core performance unlocked within it.
I Reset pressures to go out again and then was hit with a red flag which would keep the track closed right up until just before lunch. Annoyingly with some oil down on the Bishops corner and a load of cement dust really compromising the track and stopping me from getting a proper session in on the 52s.
Onto the lunch break and was still not sure exactly what I thought about the 52s. No doubt they have more grip to offer, but they feel noticeably more "road-like" in their steering response. That's not to say it's a bad thing, just what jumped out at me on a back to back test.
Going into the sprint afternoon and we'd have one untimed practise run, then 3 (turned out to be 4) timed runs depending on how quickly they rotated the field. Cars were numbered in an approximate class system, not the proper classes they use for championship events but just to roughly get us in performance order. I was granted #12, so in the first group to launch.
Practise run went 'Ok'. Was aiming to do fairly gentle launches, 3-4k RPM then slip the clutch out to let the clutch take the beating rather than the gearbox, but the TC was far too disruptive and bogged me down a bit when trying to get on full power. Still, it got away well and the rest of the run went without drama. Brakes and tyres performed better than I expected after cooling off over lunch so that was reassuring.
The cement dust at Bishops was still really unnerving though. Not sure how other participants attacked it but I'd say I was 6/10ths at best through there for the rest of the afternoon.
First timed run came round very quickly, so off we went. Launch went even worse this time, TC to blame but I eventually spluttered away and got on with it.
Car felt great through the back half of the circuit, and my sector times concurred. Came across the line with a 1.10.X, which matched by previous best time at this event on my Exige - so decent start. P3 overall.
I knew the car had loads more left in it, so the competitive bug started to nibble away at this point.
Next session came around and I disabled the TC. Plan would be to disable it for the launch then flick it back on down the first straight. I wouldn't say the car is traction limited, but the TC is very useful at arresting the spinning inside wheel I get on some corners courtesy of the open differential, so I quite liked to have it in place.
Launch was LOADS better, no stink of clutch, no hopping of the drive train, just a nice smooth amount of slip and launched me on my way. This brought my 0.60ft time to within 0.2sec of the AWD cars that occupied the times ahead of me. In all of the overthinking of the TC settings though, I forgot to switch to my faster map - so when I crossed the line with a 1.09.X it felt like a wasted opportunity.
Next session came around, and was the final scheduled one. I completely fluffed the 1st-2nd gear change off the launch and then was just distracted for the rest of the lap. Still, another 1.09.X and had slipped to 4th in the overall table as some faster cars started showing up.
I went in for a brew to calm myself down at this point and get ready for the trailer loading operation, but then the WhatsApp group pinged to say we did indeed have time for a fourth run.
I got lined up, map definitely in the 'fast' one. TC definitely switched off. All good.
Set off, another good launch and fired down the start straight. This car really does fly off to 70-80mph insanely quickly even when fortunate enough to have an EV and a V12 Ferrari on the drive to compare it to.
I distinctly remember getting to T1 and being way to cautious. Probably just bottled it a bit knowing it was the first run, but hey ho that's the way it goes.
Got round the rest of the lap without much drama, generally felt very conservative but the stopwatch didn't lie as I came in to a high 1.08.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCoQH8Tpyuw
Happy to at least keep improving on the day, but I know there's an easy second or two still in the car!
All in all, a really successful day. The ABS was almost completely transparent in its contributions which is exactly what you'd hope for. Not playing with brake bias was probably a missed opportunity based on what I've since learned in data logs (looks like I'm still over biased towards the rear, so losing some brake performance due to that. ABS is hiding the implications a treat, but is robbing me of ultimate performance).
The ability to turn into T1 really early whilst still heavily on the brakes was novel. Not sure if it's quicker, but it really opens options up for corners like that where you feel like you're compromised no matter how you approach it.
The only niggles with the car were the gear ratio calculations being wrong on the dash, and I think my brake pedal sensor needs backing off a bit as it occasionally came on whilst the car was parked.
Oh, and a niggle resurfaced from the end of last season which I totally forgot about. The Clutch pedal occasionally feels slow to return to the top of its travel. I'll stick my head in the footwell and make sure all is well with the return spring etc, but open to other possibilities/suggestions.
I'm back to Blyton in a couple of weeks for a good old fashioned OPL day, so really hope to spend more time with the brake bias and the A052 tyres for that.
Two notable observations from the data logs:
1) Only using around 40bar of brakeline pressure when on track. Can generate 90+ when static in the garage.
2) Rear brake line pressure is fluctuating on really heavy stops, which correlates with ABS triggering so I *think* the rear is still over braking. Ideally it's the front that locks/triggers first. That said, the resolution on the data logging is not quick enough to really tell me for sure so I've made some config tweaks to hopefully get more granular data next time out.
Would be a little different this year though, as it was a Javelin Sprint Series taster day with a morning of open pit lane trackday, and an afternoon of timed sprint runs.
Not an ideal environment for testing so many changes to the car, but I'd had every intention of doing a "normal" OPL day before this... just the garage works put a stop to that.
Arrived to a rather crisp morning, but was forecast dry for the day. All good.
Plan was to go out on the old AR1 tyres for a couple of sessions and just check I wasn't locking brakes up left right and centre. Didn't want to ruin the A052 if so!
First session I went as hard as I could onto the brakes on T1 after the start just to get a feel of how well the car would stop on the sprint laps later when everything is cold. The answer was, not well. I got lots of ABS triggering and the car just about hauled itself up, but it wasn't a great feeling.
As the laps piled on and the tyres ballooned in pressure the car felt quicker and quicker and by the end the brakes felt great. Really strong pedal feel, good modulation and was quite intuitive as to when ABS would trigger. On warm pads/tyres, the ABS triggering was few and far between. Fair amount of traffic on this session, so hard to measure anything useful - but the brakes didn't fall off, so there's that.
On the second session, I reset the hot tyre pressures and managed to get a few clear laps.
I had no inclination to play with brake balance at all, because the car felt 'right'. Stable in braking and seemed to be hauling itself up just fine. I did back the ABS off a bit, if 1 = Fully Wet, most intrusion and 10 = Fully dry, most allowable yaw I ended up running a setting of 7.
This gave me just a bit of movement in the car on turn-in when still trailing the brakes, and the odd chirp of a locking tyre (but nothing sustained with tyre smoke everywhere). If I dialled it closer to 10, the car was noticeably less stable on the brakes, but I imagine on a properly warm day where I'm really pushing on this will be a great setting.
I knew grip would be compromised in the afternoon due to cold tyres, so I kept it at 7 for the rest of the day.
On this second session, I was already matching the best times I'd ever done at Blyton which was rather promising. The car didn't feel anywhere near as close to the edge either to hit those times, in fact I still felt like I was warming up.
The noticeable difference with the car compared to last time aside from the brakes is the changes I made to engine mapping. Previously I had a "slow" map of 260bhp, and a "fast" map of 300bhp. But I was scared to use the 300 one in fear of smashing the gearbox.
Now I have a slow of 260, and a fast of 280. As such, I'm now using the fast one on trackdays and in effect, am up on power from previous visits.
There's "a line" that gains a lot of time at Blyton, and involves somewhat straight lining over a curb at "The Ump". Figured I'd see if I could clear it in case I got a bit competetive in the afternoon...
Turns out the answer is "sort of". Splitter catches it, get a lovely smell of smouldering sawdust for a few more corners but the chassis-proper remains unscathed. Free time, woo!
Now that I felt I had a decent baseline, I came in and swapped over for the A052 tyres which seem to have generated legend status.
First outing would be a 'scrubbing' one, bring them up to temp and just get a feel. Immediately I noticed that the sidewalls felt softer and more forgiving. This gave the car less of a 'racey' feel compared to the AR1 but no question the grip was there in return.
Slowly ramped up and was pretty much on the pace from earlier sessions by the time I came in with once again, ballooned tyres.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTCfnwJ_pQQ
Video of a lap from that session. Front end not quite where I expected it to be on a couple of corners which sent me for a nice bumpy ride over the finish line. Interestingly this lap is within fractions of my best ever at Blyton but looks considerably slower. No doubt I was leaving lots on the table at the weekend, but it's promising to know the car has some core performance unlocked within it.
I Reset pressures to go out again and then was hit with a red flag which would keep the track closed right up until just before lunch. Annoyingly with some oil down on the Bishops corner and a load of cement dust really compromising the track and stopping me from getting a proper session in on the 52s.
Onto the lunch break and was still not sure exactly what I thought about the 52s. No doubt they have more grip to offer, but they feel noticeably more "road-like" in their steering response. That's not to say it's a bad thing, just what jumped out at me on a back to back test.
Going into the sprint afternoon and we'd have one untimed practise run, then 3 (turned out to be 4) timed runs depending on how quickly they rotated the field. Cars were numbered in an approximate class system, not the proper classes they use for championship events but just to roughly get us in performance order. I was granted #12, so in the first group to launch.
Practise run went 'Ok'. Was aiming to do fairly gentle launches, 3-4k RPM then slip the clutch out to let the clutch take the beating rather than the gearbox, but the TC was far too disruptive and bogged me down a bit when trying to get on full power. Still, it got away well and the rest of the run went without drama. Brakes and tyres performed better than I expected after cooling off over lunch so that was reassuring.
The cement dust at Bishops was still really unnerving though. Not sure how other participants attacked it but I'd say I was 6/10ths at best through there for the rest of the afternoon.
First timed run came round very quickly, so off we went. Launch went even worse this time, TC to blame but I eventually spluttered away and got on with it.
Car felt great through the back half of the circuit, and my sector times concurred. Came across the line with a 1.10.X, which matched by previous best time at this event on my Exige - so decent start. P3 overall.
I knew the car had loads more left in it, so the competitive bug started to nibble away at this point.
Next session came around and I disabled the TC. Plan would be to disable it for the launch then flick it back on down the first straight. I wouldn't say the car is traction limited, but the TC is very useful at arresting the spinning inside wheel I get on some corners courtesy of the open differential, so I quite liked to have it in place.
Launch was LOADS better, no stink of clutch, no hopping of the drive train, just a nice smooth amount of slip and launched me on my way. This brought my 0.60ft time to within 0.2sec of the AWD cars that occupied the times ahead of me. In all of the overthinking of the TC settings though, I forgot to switch to my faster map - so when I crossed the line with a 1.09.X it felt like a wasted opportunity.
Next session came around, and was the final scheduled one. I completely fluffed the 1st-2nd gear change off the launch and then was just distracted for the rest of the lap. Still, another 1.09.X and had slipped to 4th in the overall table as some faster cars started showing up.
I went in for a brew to calm myself down at this point and get ready for the trailer loading operation, but then the WhatsApp group pinged to say we did indeed have time for a fourth run.
I got lined up, map definitely in the 'fast' one. TC definitely switched off. All good.
Set off, another good launch and fired down the start straight. This car really does fly off to 70-80mph insanely quickly even when fortunate enough to have an EV and a V12 Ferrari on the drive to compare it to.
I distinctly remember getting to T1 and being way to cautious. Probably just bottled it a bit knowing it was the first run, but hey ho that's the way it goes.
Got round the rest of the lap without much drama, generally felt very conservative but the stopwatch didn't lie as I came in to a high 1.08.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCoQH8Tpyuw
Happy to at least keep improving on the day, but I know there's an easy second or two still in the car!
All in all, a really successful day. The ABS was almost completely transparent in its contributions which is exactly what you'd hope for. Not playing with brake bias was probably a missed opportunity based on what I've since learned in data logs (looks like I'm still over biased towards the rear, so losing some brake performance due to that. ABS is hiding the implications a treat, but is robbing me of ultimate performance).
The ability to turn into T1 really early whilst still heavily on the brakes was novel. Not sure if it's quicker, but it really opens options up for corners like that where you feel like you're compromised no matter how you approach it.
The only niggles with the car were the gear ratio calculations being wrong on the dash, and I think my brake pedal sensor needs backing off a bit as it occasionally came on whilst the car was parked.
Oh, and a niggle resurfaced from the end of last season which I totally forgot about. The Clutch pedal occasionally feels slow to return to the top of its travel. I'll stick my head in the footwell and make sure all is well with the return spring etc, but open to other possibilities/suggestions.
I'm back to Blyton in a couple of weeks for a good old fashioned OPL day, so really hope to spend more time with the brake bias and the A052 tyres for that.
Two notable observations from the data logs:
1) Only using around 40bar of brakeline pressure when on track. Can generate 90+ when static in the garage.
2) Rear brake line pressure is fluctuating on really heavy stops, which correlates with ABS triggering so I *think* the rear is still over braking. Ideally it's the front that locks/triggers first. That said, the resolution on the data logging is not quick enough to really tell me for sure so I've made some config tweaks to hopefully get more granular data next time out.
I've just spent almost a week going through this from start to finish whenever I've had 10 minutes spare.
It's made for a brilliant read, the detail you go to not only with the car but on here too is exceptional. I'll admit I was completely lost whenever you were talking about electronics and reading the same paragraph 2 or 3 times didn't help, but I've never really understood that side of things at all. It's been fascinating though, looking forward to your next update.
It's made for a brilliant read, the detail you go to not only with the car but on here too is exceptional. I'll admit I was completely lost whenever you were talking about electronics and reading the same paragraph 2 or 3 times didn't help, but I've never really understood that side of things at all. It's been fascinating though, looking forward to your next update.
FTW said:
Cleaning the footwell matts before a trackday is impressive prep!
Great update on the ABS, good luck not getting too lost in all the settings and bias positions!
How much current does it draw during big interventions? Do you have a PDM or using a traditional fuse?
Honestly not sure on the draw during interventions but it has a dedicated feed to the battery via a fuse - all included on the SCS Wiring loom. But more on that in a bit...Great update on the ABS, good luck not getting too lost in all the settings and bias positions!
How much current does it draw during big interventions? Do you have a PDM or using a traditional fuse?
Carl-H said:
I've just spent almost a week going through this from start to finish whenever I've had 10 minutes spare.
It's made for a brilliant read, the detail you go to not only with the car but on here too is exceptional. I'll admit I was completely lost whenever you were talking about electronics and reading the same paragraph 2 or 3 times didn't help, but I've never really understood that side of things at all. It's been fascinating though, looking forward to your next update.
Glad you've enjoyed, plenty more to come I hope!It's made for a brilliant read, the detail you go to not only with the car but on here too is exceptional. I'll admit I was completely lost whenever you were talking about electronics and reading the same paragraph 2 or 3 times didn't help, but I've never really understood that side of things at all. It's been fascinating though, looking forward to your next update.
I try to keep the electronic bits to a minimum because it's both pretty dry/boring but also I don't actually know much about it myself - so the more I say, the more chance there is that I'll be exposed
I investigate the slow to return clutch pedal between events, and guided by John @seriouslylotus I retrieved the clutch line from the slave cylinder.
Where the plastic bit is, this separates with the removal of the clip and can then be rebuilt without the centre part.
The centre part has a restrictor in it with a pinprick hole. Got it plumbed back in and bled, will see how that goes.
Whilst under the car, also adjusted the handbrake cable up a bit.
I took a look at my front camber shims too to see if I could sneak a bit more camber. This is in response to the very unscientific indicator that I'm starting to scrub the wear markers on the tyre shoulders a bit. Unfortunately nowt' doing now without going aftermarket, or machined arms. (the 2-Eleven ones are already different to allow the camber I've got).
It was then time to get trailered up to head back to Blyton. Clocked off work on a nice warm Friday evening and got ready for the quick 20min job to load up.
...Until I found the 2-Eleven battery to be completely flat
It's a LifePO4 one, and charger was no longer recognising it so it was proper dead. Luckily had a spare, but meant the seats needed to come out so I could do the swap.
This is all down to the new ABS unit (I suspect). The 2-Eleven has no parasitic draws in factory trim, what with no alarm, immob, radio, etc. It has an isolator, but the ABS power feed connected directly to the battery.
For now I'll keep the spare battery plugged in between use - but next time I get seats out I'll extend the ABS power cable a bit and connect it to the isolator switch instead I reckon. Can't always have it on trickle especially when it's hiding in the trailer.
20min trailer load turned into 2 hours.
Onto Blyton again, good old fashioned trackday and was excited to just settle into a rhythm of messing with the brake balance.
Another change I'd made was a digital one. My ADU dash/data logger has a limited quota for how much data it can log per second across all channels. It logs a LOT, and so I was able to reduce the log rate of some less important channels and in return increase the granularity of the wheelspeed sensor and brake pressure sensor data considerably.
Wheelspeed and brake pressure got bumped up to 250hz, and Longitude G force up to 125hz. My hope was that the logs would clearly tell me which axle was triggering the ABS to help guide my adjustments. (Having the ABS output a message to say which solenoid is firing would be too convenient...)
I won't do the usual blow by blow account of the day, but the summary is that it all went very well and without drama. Enjoyed some laps with a passenger (ages since I've tracked the car with one it seems) and made plenty of bias tweaks throughout the day.
Example of a log prior to my config changes from a single braking event:
Main observations are that the brake pressure traces (red = rear circuit, blue = front circuit) closely follow each other, and wheel speed traces show that the rear sensors (purple and blue) show a couple of drops, perhaps indicating that rear is trying to lock.
If I compare this to another log (same corner, different day) with my new logging settings I get this:
As you can see it has the desired effect and the log data is much more granular. I can now see pressure spikes on the rear circuit which correspond to the wheelspeed drops. Rear axle is definitely trying to lock!
Also note a drop in longitude g-force as this happens, showing an observational lack of deceleration as ABS is triggering.
Impressive stuff, less so impressive is how bad I am at maintaining brake pedal pressure during heal/toe (TPS blip on the topmost graph) but we'll focus on fine tuning 0.0003% performance from hardware rather than on the 40% I could probably gain by not being crap.
Armed with this info, I gradually crept brake bias forward through the day and was feeling a notable improvement as a result. Brakes felt more responsive, particularly from cold and stopping performance ramped up nicely.
In hindsight I should have bumped the bias forward in much bigger increments, as by the end of the day I was getting much fewer ABS interventions but it was still the rear if/when it happened... so clear I'm still a bit overbraked at the back, I think?
I also played with the ABS adjustment knob to give me more or less intrusion. It had a notable effect on stability - probably not helped by the fact my rear is still the end moving around. I'll revisit this once I'm happier with the brake balance.
Aside from brakes, I was also testing out the A052 tyres properly. I'm still not sure what I think, to be honest. It's clear they have grip - and probably more peak grip than the AR1, but they don't feel as nice to me when accessing that grip. They feel much more like a road tyre, and I really miss the direct response of the AR1. Ultimately they didn't unlock me a heap of performance, felt worse, and are more expensive - so I'll make some efforts to do some back to back sessions on my next trackday before properly concluding. Might be some damper, alignment or pressure settings I can adjust to get more out of them but for now just feel a bit underwhelmed. Perhaps I just overhyped them in my head!
The car was notable slower through the exit of Port Froid (the fast chicane) compared to my last visit on AR1. I noted it on track, and data logs agree. Up to 10kph down on minimum speed.
An important factor in defense of the A052 is that I run narrower sizes of those compared to AR1 (225/195 vs 235/205).
Photographer got some nice shots:
Traffic was pretty gnarly most of the day, with some absolutely shocking driving standards. I even taddled to Javelin late morning because there were some repeat occasions of some pretty dangerous stuff. I've never ever felt the need to report somebody before, in 10 years of trackdaying - I consider myself pretty tolerant.
I wasn't the only one, saw them getting spoken to at least three times, but still were exhibiting similar behaviour in the final session of the day. No idea how many warnings you get...
Oh, clutch pedal return thing totally resolved. By all accounts the restrictor allows for a mechanically imposed slip of the clutch during launch control. I much prefer it gone.
One more graph, sorry.
Can use the same data to look at wheelspin on corner exit too. Where I've written #1 is the exist to bunga bunga which has always been one for spinning up the inside rear.
Back to the brake balance to finish off. I've still got adjustment range to move it forward incrementally during my next trackday, but I will start running out of adjustability soon - and I don't think it's ideal to be on the extreme end of a balance bar.
The fix for this may well be taking a revisit to my master cylinder sizes. I run 0.75" front and rear currently, and dropping front circuit to a 0.7" should in theory move the bias naturally forward a touch and also give me a slightly softer pedal - which honestly I think I'd like. I could barely walk on Sunday!
Where the plastic bit is, this separates with the removal of the clip and can then be rebuilt without the centre part.
The centre part has a restrictor in it with a pinprick hole. Got it plumbed back in and bled, will see how that goes.
Whilst under the car, also adjusted the handbrake cable up a bit.
I took a look at my front camber shims too to see if I could sneak a bit more camber. This is in response to the very unscientific indicator that I'm starting to scrub the wear markers on the tyre shoulders a bit. Unfortunately nowt' doing now without going aftermarket, or machined arms. (the 2-Eleven ones are already different to allow the camber I've got).
It was then time to get trailered up to head back to Blyton. Clocked off work on a nice warm Friday evening and got ready for the quick 20min job to load up.
...Until I found the 2-Eleven battery to be completely flat
It's a LifePO4 one, and charger was no longer recognising it so it was proper dead. Luckily had a spare, but meant the seats needed to come out so I could do the swap.
This is all down to the new ABS unit (I suspect). The 2-Eleven has no parasitic draws in factory trim, what with no alarm, immob, radio, etc. It has an isolator, but the ABS power feed connected directly to the battery.
For now I'll keep the spare battery plugged in between use - but next time I get seats out I'll extend the ABS power cable a bit and connect it to the isolator switch instead I reckon. Can't always have it on trickle especially when it's hiding in the trailer.
20min trailer load turned into 2 hours.
Onto Blyton again, good old fashioned trackday and was excited to just settle into a rhythm of messing with the brake balance.
Another change I'd made was a digital one. My ADU dash/data logger has a limited quota for how much data it can log per second across all channels. It logs a LOT, and so I was able to reduce the log rate of some less important channels and in return increase the granularity of the wheelspeed sensor and brake pressure sensor data considerably.
Wheelspeed and brake pressure got bumped up to 250hz, and Longitude G force up to 125hz. My hope was that the logs would clearly tell me which axle was triggering the ABS to help guide my adjustments. (Having the ABS output a message to say which solenoid is firing would be too convenient...)
I won't do the usual blow by blow account of the day, but the summary is that it all went very well and without drama. Enjoyed some laps with a passenger (ages since I've tracked the car with one it seems) and made plenty of bias tweaks throughout the day.
Example of a log prior to my config changes from a single braking event:
Main observations are that the brake pressure traces (red = rear circuit, blue = front circuit) closely follow each other, and wheel speed traces show that the rear sensors (purple and blue) show a couple of drops, perhaps indicating that rear is trying to lock.
If I compare this to another log (same corner, different day) with my new logging settings I get this:
As you can see it has the desired effect and the log data is much more granular. I can now see pressure spikes on the rear circuit which correspond to the wheelspeed drops. Rear axle is definitely trying to lock!
Also note a drop in longitude g-force as this happens, showing an observational lack of deceleration as ABS is triggering.
Impressive stuff, less so impressive is how bad I am at maintaining brake pedal pressure during heal/toe (TPS blip on the topmost graph) but we'll focus on fine tuning 0.0003% performance from hardware rather than on the 40% I could probably gain by not being crap.
Armed with this info, I gradually crept brake bias forward through the day and was feeling a notable improvement as a result. Brakes felt more responsive, particularly from cold and stopping performance ramped up nicely.
In hindsight I should have bumped the bias forward in much bigger increments, as by the end of the day I was getting much fewer ABS interventions but it was still the rear if/when it happened... so clear I'm still a bit overbraked at the back, I think?
I also played with the ABS adjustment knob to give me more or less intrusion. It had a notable effect on stability - probably not helped by the fact my rear is still the end moving around. I'll revisit this once I'm happier with the brake balance.
Aside from brakes, I was also testing out the A052 tyres properly. I'm still not sure what I think, to be honest. It's clear they have grip - and probably more peak grip than the AR1, but they don't feel as nice to me when accessing that grip. They feel much more like a road tyre, and I really miss the direct response of the AR1. Ultimately they didn't unlock me a heap of performance, felt worse, and are more expensive - so I'll make some efforts to do some back to back sessions on my next trackday before properly concluding. Might be some damper, alignment or pressure settings I can adjust to get more out of them but for now just feel a bit underwhelmed. Perhaps I just overhyped them in my head!
The car was notable slower through the exit of Port Froid (the fast chicane) compared to my last visit on AR1. I noted it on track, and data logs agree. Up to 10kph down on minimum speed.
An important factor in defense of the A052 is that I run narrower sizes of those compared to AR1 (225/195 vs 235/205).
Photographer got some nice shots:
Traffic was pretty gnarly most of the day, with some absolutely shocking driving standards. I even taddled to Javelin late morning because there were some repeat occasions of some pretty dangerous stuff. I've never ever felt the need to report somebody before, in 10 years of trackdaying - I consider myself pretty tolerant.
I wasn't the only one, saw them getting spoken to at least three times, but still were exhibiting similar behaviour in the final session of the day. No idea how many warnings you get...
Oh, clutch pedal return thing totally resolved. By all accounts the restrictor allows for a mechanically imposed slip of the clutch during launch control. I much prefer it gone.
One more graph, sorry.
Can use the same data to look at wheelspin on corner exit too. Where I've written #1 is the exist to bunga bunga which has always been one for spinning up the inside rear.
- 2 more surprisingly is the exit of Port Froid, a very fast chicane.
Back to the brake balance to finish off. I've still got adjustment range to move it forward incrementally during my next trackday, but I will start running out of adjustability soon - and I don't think it's ideal to be on the extreme end of a balance bar.
The fix for this may well be taking a revisit to my master cylinder sizes. I run 0.75" front and rear currently, and dropping front circuit to a 0.7" should in theory move the bias naturally forward a touch and also give me a slightly softer pedal - which honestly I think I'd like. I could barely walk on Sunday!
Been fidgeting on the car the last few weeks finally putting to use some equipment I've been collecting for well over a year.
I've wanted to be able to measure, and potentially adjust my own suspension alignment settings since forever. It's not so much a cost saving thing, because what I'll spend in time and gadgets I'll never make back compared to taking it to an actual specialist with actual equipment - but it keeps me out of trouble and lets me experiment a bit.
I started off way back with a Tegiwa String Kit, similar to this:
I'd done all my research, but the one thing I'd not accounted for was the fact there's no place on a Lotus clam to hang the hardware from. This was way back when I had an Exige, and the 2-Eleven didn't really fix anything.
What I then resorted to was sticking the poles on axle stands and having the string-box independent from the car. This worked in a manner, and allowed me to get pretty accurate and repeatable measurements - but if I wanted to make adjustments then moving the car around a bit becomes almost mandatory, and resetting the string-box each time means a basic alignment takes many, many hours.
Up next about a year ago I got some hubstands with roller bearings on the bottom.
These would allow me to have the car sat at "rideheight", but have ready access to the toe links etc. Great in theory, but to be totally honest I found them a bit annoying in my garage.
I have to drive my car onto scaff boards to clear my lift, which gives me quite a narrow platform for these hubstands to sit on. It's all level, but if I were to lean on the car ever so slightly it would shoot off sideways and the risk of the car falling sideways off my planks didn't bear thinking about. Recovering it would have been a nightmare. That said, they did the job... just... sketchy.
If I had a perfectly flat bit of concrete without my ramps, I'd probably get much more success with these.
Having the car on the bearings means you can make realtime adjustments without resettling anything. There's no massive tyre to bind up against the floor, so they definitely have their use.
Along the journey I also collected ballast in the form of 3x25kg ballast bags from B&Q and then a 25L water jug to let me finetune what was left.
An Idea I'd had for ages to 'fix' the string-box issue was to find a way to mount the front pole to the toe eye at the front. I could use the Tegiwa hardware to mount to the engine bay with a bit of fettling.
I ended up with this:
This was just one of the Tegiwa components modified with an M8 caphead bolt for my toe post.
With a grubscrew added to stop it moving:
I'm calling it Tow2Toe. Available in all good 2-Eleven alignment shops near Selby.
Finally after probably 3 years I had a string box attached to the car.
This is the final step to making home alignment a little less annoying and time consuming. With not too much work I am now able to measure toe on the floor, raise the car and re-measure then work out roughly the impact of the full suspension droop, then with not too much more experimenting work out how much to adjust whilst the car is in the air.
With the adjustments made, I can lower the car and roll it back and forth at will without the string-box needing a reset, meaning I can resettle everything and get repeatable measurements at last, for little time consumed.
On to my findings after all this. My Alignment had indeed drifted since early last season, perhaps not surprising with the amount of track time I've had plus the odd clonk over a curb.
NSF:
1mm toe-in
-1.6 camber [1 shim remaining]
OSF:
0.5mm toe-out
-1.1 camber [shims maxed out]
NSR:
0.5mm toe-out
-2.8 camber
OSR:
0.5mm toe-in
-2.4 camber
The standard accepted setup for S2 track cars is a "bit of toe-in" at the rear, and a "trace of toe-out" at the front which is how I had mine set last year. Obviously front toe can easily be swayed by not quite having the steering centred but even taking that into account my overall toe was still 0.5mm toe-in.
What I finished up with is:
NSF:
0.75mm toe-out
-1.9 camber [shims maxed out, but ABS shim left in]
OSF:
0.75mm toe-out
-1.6 camber [removed ABS shim and mounted the sensor wiring a different way]
NSR:
0.5mm toe-out
-2.8 camber
OSR:
0.5mm toe-in
-2.7 camber
Actually, scrub that - that's a lie. My first attempt had toe-out being slightly more excessive at around 1mm toe-out at each side.
I did a road test and found that:
- the car drove straight, true and didn't want to pull off the road
- had no odd sensations whilst loading up the brakes or on turns
- plenty of stability on the power
The only concern was how light the steering was just off-centre. It had lost a lot of feel, but it instantly weighted up and felt great when applying load.
I re-did the front with the settings published above, so barely took any toe angle out of it and it made a massive difference. Restored the off-centre feel and brought the whole thing together nicely. Incredible what 0.5mm overall can do.
Treated the car out to a road blast to @seriouslylotus for their annual open day. Car felt really, really good - and Dave/John put on a great event at their workshop. Said it before, but really fortunate to have them on my relative doorstep.
Their string is a bit cleverer than mine though.
Main learnings from the DIY alignment can be summarised as:
- Very satisfying to get repeatable measurements, but head bangingly frustrating as you work towards that.
- Need to somewhat forget about 'absolute' figures. How you measure toe at home will vary from how it is done with professional equipment. Perhaps you measure the wheel rim slightly off it's centre, perhaps the wheel has some runout, etc. You need to focus on an 'outcome based' tuning of the setup instead, using published figures as a starting point or target.
- I think ultimately turnplates would be the best option for home. Safer and compatible with a 4-post ramp which I'm still considering. You can actually make toe changes front and rear with the car sat on the floor, you'd just need to raise it for loosening/tightening lock nuts before/after the job.
- Tightening locknuts can easily throw your alignment out! Very frustrating until you figure that out
- Always drive the car round the block before putting all the equipment away properly to give it that one last check over.
- Don't overthink it. I was measuring with veniers to the nearest 0.01mm during my early attempts. Dumb, and well within tolerance of powdercoat thickness. A clear steel rule and a steady hand is all you need.
- Ultimately an annual visit to a specialist with proper equipment will be better for 99% for people. For me I put myself through the pain because I find it fun, and I can now muck about at my leisure. Perhaps I'll try a trace of toe-in for a road run at some point, may make the car a little more less prone to wandering on a rutted road. Perhaps it won't, it's only my time I'm wasting!
I've wanted to be able to measure, and potentially adjust my own suspension alignment settings since forever. It's not so much a cost saving thing, because what I'll spend in time and gadgets I'll never make back compared to taking it to an actual specialist with actual equipment - but it keeps me out of trouble and lets me experiment a bit.
I started off way back with a Tegiwa String Kit, similar to this:
I'd done all my research, but the one thing I'd not accounted for was the fact there's no place on a Lotus clam to hang the hardware from. This was way back when I had an Exige, and the 2-Eleven didn't really fix anything.
What I then resorted to was sticking the poles on axle stands and having the string-box independent from the car. This worked in a manner, and allowed me to get pretty accurate and repeatable measurements - but if I wanted to make adjustments then moving the car around a bit becomes almost mandatory, and resetting the string-box each time means a basic alignment takes many, many hours.
Up next about a year ago I got some hubstands with roller bearings on the bottom.
These would allow me to have the car sat at "rideheight", but have ready access to the toe links etc. Great in theory, but to be totally honest I found them a bit annoying in my garage.
I have to drive my car onto scaff boards to clear my lift, which gives me quite a narrow platform for these hubstands to sit on. It's all level, but if I were to lean on the car ever so slightly it would shoot off sideways and the risk of the car falling sideways off my planks didn't bear thinking about. Recovering it would have been a nightmare. That said, they did the job... just... sketchy.
If I had a perfectly flat bit of concrete without my ramps, I'd probably get much more success with these.
Having the car on the bearings means you can make realtime adjustments without resettling anything. There's no massive tyre to bind up against the floor, so they definitely have their use.
Along the journey I also collected ballast in the form of 3x25kg ballast bags from B&Q and then a 25L water jug to let me finetune what was left.
An Idea I'd had for ages to 'fix' the string-box issue was to find a way to mount the front pole to the toe eye at the front. I could use the Tegiwa hardware to mount to the engine bay with a bit of fettling.
I ended up with this:
This was just one of the Tegiwa components modified with an M8 caphead bolt for my toe post.
With a grubscrew added to stop it moving:
I'm calling it Tow2Toe. Available in all good 2-Eleven alignment shops near Selby.
Finally after probably 3 years I had a string box attached to the car.
This is the final step to making home alignment a little less annoying and time consuming. With not too much work I am now able to measure toe on the floor, raise the car and re-measure then work out roughly the impact of the full suspension droop, then with not too much more experimenting work out how much to adjust whilst the car is in the air.
With the adjustments made, I can lower the car and roll it back and forth at will without the string-box needing a reset, meaning I can resettle everything and get repeatable measurements at last, for little time consumed.
On to my findings after all this. My Alignment had indeed drifted since early last season, perhaps not surprising with the amount of track time I've had plus the odd clonk over a curb.
NSF:
1mm toe-in
-1.6 camber [1 shim remaining]
OSF:
0.5mm toe-out
-1.1 camber [shims maxed out]
NSR:
0.5mm toe-out
-2.8 camber
OSR:
0.5mm toe-in
-2.4 camber
The standard accepted setup for S2 track cars is a "bit of toe-in" at the rear, and a "trace of toe-out" at the front which is how I had mine set last year. Obviously front toe can easily be swayed by not quite having the steering centred but even taking that into account my overall toe was still 0.5mm toe-in.
What I finished up with is:
NSF:
0.75mm toe-out
-1.9 camber [shims maxed out, but ABS shim left in]
OSF:
0.75mm toe-out
-1.6 camber [removed ABS shim and mounted the sensor wiring a different way]
NSR:
0.5mm toe-out
-2.8 camber
OSR:
0.5mm toe-in
-2.7 camber
Actually, scrub that - that's a lie. My first attempt had toe-out being slightly more excessive at around 1mm toe-out at each side.
I did a road test and found that:
- the car drove straight, true and didn't want to pull off the road
- had no odd sensations whilst loading up the brakes or on turns
- plenty of stability on the power
The only concern was how light the steering was just off-centre. It had lost a lot of feel, but it instantly weighted up and felt great when applying load.
I re-did the front with the settings published above, so barely took any toe angle out of it and it made a massive difference. Restored the off-centre feel and brought the whole thing together nicely. Incredible what 0.5mm overall can do.
Treated the car out to a road blast to @seriouslylotus for their annual open day. Car felt really, really good - and Dave/John put on a great event at their workshop. Said it before, but really fortunate to have them on my relative doorstep.
Their string is a bit cleverer than mine though.
Main learnings from the DIY alignment can be summarised as:
- Very satisfying to get repeatable measurements, but head bangingly frustrating as you work towards that.
- Need to somewhat forget about 'absolute' figures. How you measure toe at home will vary from how it is done with professional equipment. Perhaps you measure the wheel rim slightly off it's centre, perhaps the wheel has some runout, etc. You need to focus on an 'outcome based' tuning of the setup instead, using published figures as a starting point or target.
- I think ultimately turnplates would be the best option for home. Safer and compatible with a 4-post ramp which I'm still considering. You can actually make toe changes front and rear with the car sat on the floor, you'd just need to raise it for loosening/tightening lock nuts before/after the job.
- Tightening locknuts can easily throw your alignment out! Very frustrating until you figure that out
- Always drive the car round the block before putting all the equipment away properly to give it that one last check over.
- Don't overthink it. I was measuring with veniers to the nearest 0.01mm during my early attempts. Dumb, and well within tolerance of powdercoat thickness. A clear steel rule and a steady hand is all you need.
- Ultimately an annual visit to a specialist with proper equipment will be better for 99% for people. For me I put myself through the pain because I find it fun, and I can now muck about at my leisure. Perhaps I'll try a trace of toe-in for a road run at some point, may make the car a little more less prone to wandering on a rutted road. Perhaps it won't, it's only my time I'm wasting!
Edited by Fonzey on Tuesday 7th May 20:40
Finally, Anglesey weekend had arrived!
As I've done a couple of times now, I tried to shoehorn in a family weekend away to coincide with this because we love North Wales and it kills two birds with one slate.
So trailer and Volvo loaded up with tools, geo strings, dolls, books, beach stuff, beer, cereal, etc etc.
We headed over on Saturday morning for the trackday on the Monday.
The weather was turbulent throughout the weekend, spots of bright glorious sun punctuated by stormlike wind and rain. Really was anyone's guess how it would be on track, but based on the last three years of May Anglesey trackdays we suspected it would be torrential... as usual.
I'll skip the holiday snaps*, but lovely weekend all in - nice waterfall walk and explored the glorious beach of Harlech amongst a few other things. Soon enough it was time to head to the circuit.
On the ~1hr drive from the airBnB to the circuit I had fog, sun, storms and maybe even a bit of hail. So still none the wiser as to how the day would go.
Got unloaded in the rain, and just ahead of the sighting laps the track looked like this.
There was no photographer at the circuit and I was pretty weak at taking photos so relying on video to capture this day best I can.
This was session #1, still damp so tiptoeing around but already could tell that the A052 tyres were better than anything I'd ever driven before in the wet.
https://youtu.be/Vem_KYtlKSY
The front would understeer as expected into the hairpin etc, but get hard on the power and where I'd previously enjoy a nice little slide out, the rear just gripped up and fired me off. Though I was a bit underwhelmed with the feel of A052 in the dry compared to a traditional 'semi slick', it's clear that they have a lot of potential and warm up really quickly.
Unfortunately my new love for the A052 would go no further, as on a later lap I had a bit of a weird moment going into the final corner onto the pit straight, checked the TPMS and could see that I had a deflating OSR.
Doh.
This meant on with the AR1s which at this point in their life are very, very worn. They've done the best part of 20 trackdays across two cars now so this was almost certainly going to be their send-off.
The track now looked like this.
The AR1's felt immediately familiar but notably slower to warm up compared to the 52s. I'd actually say they had LESS grip in the dry when warming up than the A052 had in the wet! But once they got going, they gave me the direct feel I'd been missing from the Yokos, clearly past their best but the sliding was fun, predictable and controllable.
I'd stuck a gopro in my footwell to try and give me something to learn from with my releasing of brake pressure during rev matching. Getting the footwell gopro to stay recording for a session was harder than anticipated, so ended up only with one mid-morning session where I could sync a clip up. Shame, but still gives me some useful footage to study later.
https://youtu.be/QLKawHoc4-U?feature=shared
I spent the morning building the speed up and enjoying how playful the car could be at certain corners. The lap started all well behaved, tiptoe it into T1 so as to not ruin the lap before it had started, then the banked hairpin of T2 giving seemingly unlimited grip it was hard to know the limits.
When you've only ever done wet laps at Anglesey Church corner is a bit of a mental block because it has zero grip in the wet, so relearning this was the main topic of the day. Early in the day it was dab of brakes and glide it in, later in the day it was just a generous lift in fourth before rolling it in. Feels like there's always something left on the table, until suddenly there's not.
After this the lap gets fun, keeping it pinned into the "not straight" kink and up the hill before impossibly heavy braking for rocket, rear of the car goes very light on the right hander and then again towards peel fighting for grip on entry and mid corner.
Braking down hill was something that required more bravery throughout the day, but then the hairpin at the end of the GP straight is where most of the fun could be had.
Absolutely adore this circuit and the 2-Eleven felt properly on top of it.
All too soon it was lunch time.
After eating (outside! At Anglesey!!) it was back to work and kept gradually building up and changing a few bits here and there, but for all my improvements in technique/line/etc - the car was starting to struggle with the rear tyres getting less and less tolerant of the abuse.
It was really, really good fun though.
This is a bit of a longer clip but gives a good jist of the day. Low traffic, blue skies and a few skids.
https://youtu.be/XogfVjG9FfE?feature=shared
No mechanical issues (tyre aside) to report and the 2-Eleven felt relentless all day. ABS intervention seemed at an all time low (I'd moved bias forward a bit since Blyton) but in retrospect after checking data it was still intervening on the rear a bit - so still some balance to move forwards I think.
The Schlep home was a tiring one, but the buzz from one of the best trackdays in memory carried me through most if it.
Hard to think what could put a downer on this anytime soon!
As I've done a couple of times now, I tried to shoehorn in a family weekend away to coincide with this because we love North Wales and it kills two birds with one slate.
So trailer and Volvo loaded up with tools, geo strings, dolls, books, beach stuff, beer, cereal, etc etc.
We headed over on Saturday morning for the trackday on the Monday.
The weather was turbulent throughout the weekend, spots of bright glorious sun punctuated by stormlike wind and rain. Really was anyone's guess how it would be on track, but based on the last three years of May Anglesey trackdays we suspected it would be torrential... as usual.
I'll skip the holiday snaps*, but lovely weekend all in - nice waterfall walk and explored the glorious beach of Harlech amongst a few other things. Soon enough it was time to head to the circuit.
- this was cool though
On the ~1hr drive from the airBnB to the circuit I had fog, sun, storms and maybe even a bit of hail. So still none the wiser as to how the day would go.
Got unloaded in the rain, and just ahead of the sighting laps the track looked like this.
There was no photographer at the circuit and I was pretty weak at taking photos so relying on video to capture this day best I can.
This was session #1, still damp so tiptoeing around but already could tell that the A052 tyres were better than anything I'd ever driven before in the wet.
https://youtu.be/Vem_KYtlKSY
The front would understeer as expected into the hairpin etc, but get hard on the power and where I'd previously enjoy a nice little slide out, the rear just gripped up and fired me off. Though I was a bit underwhelmed with the feel of A052 in the dry compared to a traditional 'semi slick', it's clear that they have a lot of potential and warm up really quickly.
Unfortunately my new love for the A052 would go no further, as on a later lap I had a bit of a weird moment going into the final corner onto the pit straight, checked the TPMS and could see that I had a deflating OSR.
Doh.
This meant on with the AR1s which at this point in their life are very, very worn. They've done the best part of 20 trackdays across two cars now so this was almost certainly going to be their send-off.
The track now looked like this.
The AR1's felt immediately familiar but notably slower to warm up compared to the 52s. I'd actually say they had LESS grip in the dry when warming up than the A052 had in the wet! But once they got going, they gave me the direct feel I'd been missing from the Yokos, clearly past their best but the sliding was fun, predictable and controllable.
I'd stuck a gopro in my footwell to try and give me something to learn from with my releasing of brake pressure during rev matching. Getting the footwell gopro to stay recording for a session was harder than anticipated, so ended up only with one mid-morning session where I could sync a clip up. Shame, but still gives me some useful footage to study later.
https://youtu.be/QLKawHoc4-U?feature=shared
I spent the morning building the speed up and enjoying how playful the car could be at certain corners. The lap started all well behaved, tiptoe it into T1 so as to not ruin the lap before it had started, then the banked hairpin of T2 giving seemingly unlimited grip it was hard to know the limits.
When you've only ever done wet laps at Anglesey Church corner is a bit of a mental block because it has zero grip in the wet, so relearning this was the main topic of the day. Early in the day it was dab of brakes and glide it in, later in the day it was just a generous lift in fourth before rolling it in. Feels like there's always something left on the table, until suddenly there's not.
After this the lap gets fun, keeping it pinned into the "not straight" kink and up the hill before impossibly heavy braking for rocket, rear of the car goes very light on the right hander and then again towards peel fighting for grip on entry and mid corner.
Braking down hill was something that required more bravery throughout the day, but then the hairpin at the end of the GP straight is where most of the fun could be had.
Absolutely adore this circuit and the 2-Eleven felt properly on top of it.
All too soon it was lunch time.
After eating (outside! At Anglesey!!) it was back to work and kept gradually building up and changing a few bits here and there, but for all my improvements in technique/line/etc - the car was starting to struggle with the rear tyres getting less and less tolerant of the abuse.
It was really, really good fun though.
This is a bit of a longer clip but gives a good jist of the day. Low traffic, blue skies and a few skids.
https://youtu.be/XogfVjG9FfE?feature=shared
No mechanical issues (tyre aside) to report and the 2-Eleven felt relentless all day. ABS intervention seemed at an all time low (I'd moved bias forward a bit since Blyton) but in retrospect after checking data it was still intervening on the rear a bit - so still some balance to move forwards I think.
The Schlep home was a tiring one, but the buzz from one of the best trackdays in memory carried me through most if it.
Hard to think what could put a downer on this anytime soon!
I got sent this from another participant. Pretty cool Insta360 view, always cool to see your car from another perspective.
Got a few odd jobs sorted in the week between sleeping off Anglesey and preparing for Cadwell the following Saturday.
The A052 was sent back to SeriouslyHQ for analysis and subsequent repair. It's a slamdunk repairable puncture so happy to give the tyre a second chance like that.
With that sorted, I suddenly got motivated to tidy my trailer up a bit. It has a small job list growing, and has always looked a bit scruffy.
Old stickers off
Knackered door frames off with broken hinges
Gave it a clean
And repainted the rear ramp
Reloaded 2-Eleven, didn't get time to wash that!
Got a few odd jobs sorted in the week between sleeping off Anglesey and preparing for Cadwell the following Saturday.
The A052 was sent back to SeriouslyHQ for analysis and subsequent repair. It's a slamdunk repairable puncture so happy to give the tyre a second chance like that.
With that sorted, I suddenly got motivated to tidy my trailer up a bit. It has a small job list growing, and has always looked a bit scruffy.
Old stickers off
Knackered door frames off with broken hinges
Gave it a clean
And repainted the rear ramp
Reloaded 2-Eleven, didn't get time to wash that!
Fonzey said:
I got sent this from another participant. Pretty cool Insta360 view, always cool to see your car from another perspective.
https://youtu.be/bqPvOPOzJEA
That's my video. Thought you might appreciate it. https://youtu.be/bqPvOPOzJEA
Fonzey said:
SpudLink said:
That's my video. Thought you might appreciate it.
A-ha! Small world, thanks for that Really got me thinking about the 360 cameras now...
By the way, great driving.
Edited by SpudLink on Monday 3rd June 20:28
Onto Cadwell
My last visit to Cadwell was an emotional rollercoaster. It was the beginning of the end for my Exige, which suffered a gearbox failure on the first session of the day. It was particularly upsetting on the Exige because I'd invested heavily in proactive upgrades from it, and it was all for nowt.
There was a 2-Eleven present though, and for the first time my head was turned and even though I did one (or two?) more trackdays on the Exige after repairing it. I'd emotionally moved on, and this ultimately lead to my purchase of the 2-Eleven.
Once again a weak day for photos. At least from me, I ended up the subject of quite a few.
Coming from the highs of Anglesey, where the car and the track felt like my b**ches and completely under my control, the first couple of sessions at Cadwell felt suddenly very humbling again! The place just shrinks around you, the track feels impossibly narrow and yet still has some very fast sections.
Lotus 2-Eleven and Lotus Exige 430 Cup at Cadwell Park (youtube.com)
It's a circuit I've barely lapped over the years despite being so local and I never recall having tuition there so a large part of the track felt like a constant experiment. Having cars to follow was both useful and confusing as there were so many interpretations of the track. Some would coast into T1, others would dab the brakes, others would dive on them! 2-Eleven was feeling good though, and the feeling of having so much potential at every part of the track was exciting.
Oh, I was back on the A052s too and the car felt so much different. Obviously sheds more grip than the knackered AR1 - but back to the goopy sidewalls.
This lap was from fairly early in the day, I tried hanging onto fifth and just coasting into T1 but I was scrubbing too much speed off with my scaredy-cat lift point. Later in the day I was staying on the gas longer and doing a brake dab and downshift instead which I felt netted a chunk more time. In all honestly the 2-Eleven can probably carry a further 10-15mph through there but it will take a few more laps before I build up to that.
The other area I changed a lot through the day was gooseneck. Initially downshifting to third but later keeping fourth as you can carry a way more speed than it looks into that.
I didn't do too many laps in the morning because the motion sickness had hit me bad. Kicks in every half dozen trackdays or so, but carry tablets with me now so just needed to take it steady till they kicked in.
Enjoyed lunch, then feeling much better it was back out to start properly learning. Unfortunately this is as far as it got.
So there we go, another Cadwell, another gearbox!
The tow back was a bit dramatic too, about half way round T2 the shrapnel got caught up in the diff and so started locking the rear up - causing the tow rope to start janking which then ripped the tow hook clean off. Initially very concerned from my unsighted position in the car, I worried that it had ripped the tow post out of the crash structure and clam, but fortunately not - the hook had done it's job and sacrificed itself for the cause.
What happened next was a bit annoying. I wasn't particularly upset or angry about the gearbox - it's one of those things, but the recovery driver seemed to be trying his hardest to be an absolute arse. Swearing and shouting at the fact my tow hook had broken and after extending his tilt bed, ragged me up it with no concern for the car or its ground clearance (we had planks, we just needed to take a minute or so to work up slowly). At this point his winch was attached to my rollcage, and the angle of the car rising up the ramp meant that the steel cable was getting closer and closer to garotting my front clam. I was shouting for him to stop, he was just grunting and swearing - eventually a flag marshall ran over to step in, because I'd jammed my hand (stupidly) between the clam and the cable to stop it. Luckily he did stop it with mm to spare but I had to forcibly hold the cable up all the way back to stop it rubbing through the clam.
After eventually arriving back in the pits I seemingly had 10000 smartphones pointing at me for the tow of shame.
The final grunt from the driver came from a bystander/helper commenting on "is the splitter going to clear?" when he was rolling me back, to which he replied "I couldn't give a f
k".
Absolute bellend, clearly hates cars, people and his job. Since heard that he's got form for it too.
Many thanks to literally everyone else, flag marshal was a life(hand) saver and everyone in the pits crowded round to help get the car loaded onto the trailer etc.
Initial diagnosis/expectation is stripped third gear. For anyone living under a rock with these cars, they're well known for it - and I was absolutely expecting it at some point hence been pretty chilled about the whole thing. I'd not invested anything into this box other than fitting my old cooler, but now the old sleep losing question was to return... what next?!
My last visit to Cadwell was an emotional rollercoaster. It was the beginning of the end for my Exige, which suffered a gearbox failure on the first session of the day. It was particularly upsetting on the Exige because I'd invested heavily in proactive upgrades from it, and it was all for nowt.
There was a 2-Eleven present though, and for the first time my head was turned and even though I did one (or two?) more trackdays on the Exige after repairing it. I'd emotionally moved on, and this ultimately lead to my purchase of the 2-Eleven.
Once again a weak day for photos. At least from me, I ended up the subject of quite a few.
Coming from the highs of Anglesey, where the car and the track felt like my b**ches and completely under my control, the first couple of sessions at Cadwell felt suddenly very humbling again! The place just shrinks around you, the track feels impossibly narrow and yet still has some very fast sections.
Lotus 2-Eleven and Lotus Exige 430 Cup at Cadwell Park (youtube.com)
It's a circuit I've barely lapped over the years despite being so local and I never recall having tuition there so a large part of the track felt like a constant experiment. Having cars to follow was both useful and confusing as there were so many interpretations of the track. Some would coast into T1, others would dab the brakes, others would dive on them! 2-Eleven was feeling good though, and the feeling of having so much potential at every part of the track was exciting.
Oh, I was back on the A052s too and the car felt so much different. Obviously sheds more grip than the knackered AR1 - but back to the goopy sidewalls.
This lap was from fairly early in the day, I tried hanging onto fifth and just coasting into T1 but I was scrubbing too much speed off with my scaredy-cat lift point. Later in the day I was staying on the gas longer and doing a brake dab and downshift instead which I felt netted a chunk more time. In all honestly the 2-Eleven can probably carry a further 10-15mph through there but it will take a few more laps before I build up to that.
The other area I changed a lot through the day was gooseneck. Initially downshifting to third but later keeping fourth as you can carry a way more speed than it looks into that.
I didn't do too many laps in the morning because the motion sickness had hit me bad. Kicks in every half dozen trackdays or so, but carry tablets with me now so just needed to take it steady till they kicked in.
Enjoyed lunch, then feeling much better it was back out to start properly learning. Unfortunately this is as far as it got.
So there we go, another Cadwell, another gearbox!
The tow back was a bit dramatic too, about half way round T2 the shrapnel got caught up in the diff and so started locking the rear up - causing the tow rope to start janking which then ripped the tow hook clean off. Initially very concerned from my unsighted position in the car, I worried that it had ripped the tow post out of the crash structure and clam, but fortunately not - the hook had done it's job and sacrificed itself for the cause.
What happened next was a bit annoying. I wasn't particularly upset or angry about the gearbox - it's one of those things, but the recovery driver seemed to be trying his hardest to be an absolute arse. Swearing and shouting at the fact my tow hook had broken and after extending his tilt bed, ragged me up it with no concern for the car or its ground clearance (we had planks, we just needed to take a minute or so to work up slowly). At this point his winch was attached to my rollcage, and the angle of the car rising up the ramp meant that the steel cable was getting closer and closer to garotting my front clam. I was shouting for him to stop, he was just grunting and swearing - eventually a flag marshall ran over to step in, because I'd jammed my hand (stupidly) between the clam and the cable to stop it. Luckily he did stop it with mm to spare but I had to forcibly hold the cable up all the way back to stop it rubbing through the clam.
After eventually arriving back in the pits I seemingly had 10000 smartphones pointing at me for the tow of shame.
The final grunt from the driver came from a bystander/helper commenting on "is the splitter going to clear?" when he was rolling me back, to which he replied "I couldn't give a f
k".Absolute bellend, clearly hates cars, people and his job. Since heard that he's got form for it too.
Many thanks to literally everyone else, flag marshal was a life(hand) saver and everyone in the pits crowded round to help get the car loaded onto the trailer etc.
Initial diagnosis/expectation is stripped third gear. For anyone living under a rock with these cars, they're well known for it - and I was absolutely expecting it at some point hence been pretty chilled about the whole thing. I'd not invested anything into this box other than fitting my old cooler, but now the old sleep losing question was to return... what next?!
Edited by jeremyc on Friday 7th June 18:16
To evidence the fact I was expecting this failure, I've had a spare sat in my garage cupboard for a while now.
It's a zero mile, box fresh jobby from Toyota and now for some reason.... I really didn't want to use it!
There's a warm fuzzy feeling you get from having a spare, knowing that if I had a failure just before a big event, that I could just pull an all nighter and get it swapped.
So what to do next?
I've had the 2-Eleven almost exactly 2 years and probably done near 20 trackdays in that time. 6 of which I've done with a bit more than stock power, but not much - as I detuned from the full 300bhp that killed my Exige. I estimate that I run approx 275-280bhp on track with my current pulley/map.
My killrate is 100% Cadwell. Is the Mountain the killer? The unloading and loading of the rear at full chat? Maybe.
My Exige box failed despite having a few grands worth of upgrades. It had SSC/Hollinger uprated 3rd/4th and a Kaaz FD/output shaft with a Toyota LSD. The Kaaz output shaft sheared on that, meaning that I still had the Hollinger 3/4 in a box seemingly unharmed.
I've been really missing an LSD recently. When I first got the 2-Eleven I felt like it was much happer than the Exige on an open diff, and much less likely to spin up the inside rear. As I've built up speed gradually, it's become more and more of an issue but not to the point I would have ever considered dropping a healthy box to fit one. Now that I have to drop the box, a diff feels like a nice consolation prize.
I awoke the following day feeling oddly motivated, so dropped the oil to start with.
Would make for a nice PTS colour on a 911 or something.
Some bits
I didn't really intend to make so much progress, but I just started taking bits off. I'm quite well rehearsed on this now. I did 3 gearboxes on my Exige (including the original upgrade, a re-do due to a dodgy clutch and the final change) plus a recent swap on a old Elise that a friend now owns. So the process is fairly well established now.
Every now and then you need to do something new though.
I got some of the coolant in a bucket from removing the gearbox laminova.
The pile of bits slowly built up throughout the morning, then it was time to call it for a bit and do some parenting etc.
The gearbox cooler pump probably collateral damage, as stupidly didn't have a filter on it.
I have since opened it up for a look, can't find a rebuild kit for it but it all looks fairly "ok". Will think on this, might just replace to be safe.
After making it through the day, I got another hour or two on the car after hours so finished the job and got the box out.
A nice little trick is this stick that has now seen 3 gearbox swaps.
It sits nicely between the rear subframe and the front chassis cross member and supports the sump of the engine (as you remove 3/4 engine mounts to remove the gearbox). Allows you to move the car up and down without having a trolley jack nursing the sump into position.
Whipped the clutch off for a quick look. It's a rather smelly thing and often smells like it's burning/slipping a lot, especially when loading the trailer or driving onto ramps etc. It looks fine though.
Will probably swap it.
Also took flywheel off to weigh it. The Cup 260 cars and 2-Eleven are supposed to have lightweight options but I'm not convinced that mine does. I can't say I really noticed a difference when going LWFW on the Exige, but now that I have a flywheel off in my hands, I'm tempted to try again...
On Monday morning I made a call through to Datum Motorsport, as recommended by @seriouslylotus. Datum are down in Stevenage and have built and repaired a fair few C64's over the years.
Plan was to take both of my boxes down and have them strip the broken one and see what it would take to restore. On the basis that I'd have an LSD installed anyway, and replace the stripped 3rd and other weak 4th with the old Hollinger ones I had "in stock". They'd been subject to a final drive failure but that generated very little shrapnel on the Exige failure, so providing they weren't cracked I was happy to reuse them subject to Datum's advice. Nearly sold them recently, glad that fell through.
I was due into London for work on tuesday, so via Stevenage it was.
Datum is a very cool place, and could have spent all morning there gabbing - but alas, work to do.
And that's pretty much where we're at.
We discussed C64 failures at lengths, also discussed sequentials. As the 2-Eleven becomes more and more of a dedicated track car the sequential concept does appeal, but certainly not something I have the headspace for this season. If I can time a failure for November time, that would be appreciated to give me time to do something more drastic!
It's a zero mile, box fresh jobby from Toyota and now for some reason.... I really didn't want to use it!
There's a warm fuzzy feeling you get from having a spare, knowing that if I had a failure just before a big event, that I could just pull an all nighter and get it swapped.
So what to do next?
I've had the 2-Eleven almost exactly 2 years and probably done near 20 trackdays in that time. 6 of which I've done with a bit more than stock power, but not much - as I detuned from the full 300bhp that killed my Exige. I estimate that I run approx 275-280bhp on track with my current pulley/map.
My killrate is 100% Cadwell. Is the Mountain the killer? The unloading and loading of the rear at full chat? Maybe.
My Exige box failed despite having a few grands worth of upgrades. It had SSC/Hollinger uprated 3rd/4th and a Kaaz FD/output shaft with a Toyota LSD. The Kaaz output shaft sheared on that, meaning that I still had the Hollinger 3/4 in a box seemingly unharmed.
I've been really missing an LSD recently. When I first got the 2-Eleven I felt like it was much happer than the Exige on an open diff, and much less likely to spin up the inside rear. As I've built up speed gradually, it's become more and more of an issue but not to the point I would have ever considered dropping a healthy box to fit one. Now that I have to drop the box, a diff feels like a nice consolation prize.
I awoke the following day feeling oddly motivated, so dropped the oil to start with.
Would make for a nice PTS colour on a 911 or something.
Some bits
I didn't really intend to make so much progress, but I just started taking bits off. I'm quite well rehearsed on this now. I did 3 gearboxes on my Exige (including the original upgrade, a re-do due to a dodgy clutch and the final change) plus a recent swap on a old Elise that a friend now owns. So the process is fairly well established now.
Every now and then you need to do something new though.
I got some of the coolant in a bucket from removing the gearbox laminova.
The pile of bits slowly built up throughout the morning, then it was time to call it for a bit and do some parenting etc.
The gearbox cooler pump probably collateral damage, as stupidly didn't have a filter on it.
I have since opened it up for a look, can't find a rebuild kit for it but it all looks fairly "ok". Will think on this, might just replace to be safe.
After making it through the day, I got another hour or two on the car after hours so finished the job and got the box out.
A nice little trick is this stick that has now seen 3 gearbox swaps.
It sits nicely between the rear subframe and the front chassis cross member and supports the sump of the engine (as you remove 3/4 engine mounts to remove the gearbox). Allows you to move the car up and down without having a trolley jack nursing the sump into position.
Whipped the clutch off for a quick look. It's a rather smelly thing and often smells like it's burning/slipping a lot, especially when loading the trailer or driving onto ramps etc. It looks fine though.
Will probably swap it.
Also took flywheel off to weigh it. The Cup 260 cars and 2-Eleven are supposed to have lightweight options but I'm not convinced that mine does. I can't say I really noticed a difference when going LWFW on the Exige, but now that I have a flywheel off in my hands, I'm tempted to try again...
On Monday morning I made a call through to Datum Motorsport, as recommended by @seriouslylotus. Datum are down in Stevenage and have built and repaired a fair few C64's over the years.
Plan was to take both of my boxes down and have them strip the broken one and see what it would take to restore. On the basis that I'd have an LSD installed anyway, and replace the stripped 3rd and other weak 4th with the old Hollinger ones I had "in stock". They'd been subject to a final drive failure but that generated very little shrapnel on the Exige failure, so providing they weren't cracked I was happy to reuse them subject to Datum's advice. Nearly sold them recently, glad that fell through.
I was due into London for work on tuesday, so via Stevenage it was.
Datum is a very cool place, and could have spent all morning there gabbing - but alas, work to do.
And that's pretty much where we're at.
We discussed C64 failures at lengths, also discussed sequentials. As the 2-Eleven becomes more and more of a dedicated track car the sequential concept does appeal, but certainly not something I have the headspace for this season. If I can time a failure for November time, that would be appreciated to give me time to do something more drastic!
Sequential really is tempting, but three things have always held me back.
The final point I can rationalise by saying at least the servicing will (hopefully) be on my terms. Both gearbox failures I've suffered have been in the middle of summer, not ideal. At least with annual removals for a sequential service can be done over winter.
The middle point I might soon have another option for anyway, so the sequential argument is slowly making as much sense as it can.
That aside, I don't have headspace for it right now so pushing on with C64s and trying to make the best of a bad situation. Tom @ Datum called me back on Friday with a damage report from the Cadwell box.
As expected, third gear is totally stripped. Likely cracked a single tooth, and then the slack in the meshing just destroyed the rest immediately afterwards. The Diff contained a decent quantity of third, which explained why the axle started locking a bit whilst being towed.
That aside, there isn't much collateral damage. As I was intending to stick an LSD in anyway, the loss of the diff is no big concern. The Final drive, my old 3/4 Hollinger gears and various other things were all crack tested with no concerns.
This then presented me with a fork in the road.
Either:
The next component to fail will almost certainly be the Toyota final drive, but to uprate that is another few grand and as I know from experience - it offers no guarantees either. Even with that swapped, if it survives - you're then entering the realms of selector fork failures. The boxes are just fundamentally weak so I'm just trying to land on a solution that minimises cost and buys me as much time as possible.
Back in the garage I had a care package from @seriouslylotus in the form of a new Competition Clutch and matching lightweight flywheel. I fitted both of these to my Exige, honestly couldn't notice much difference when fitting the flywheel and always said I wouldn't bother next time.... but when you're suddenly faced with a cheap way to save 2kg I got tempted again...
For the clutch I just went with a "normal" non-paddle option. I did end up with a paddle clutch in the Exige which I really enjoyed - but I figure here that having something that will still allow a bit of slip occasionally might be a good thing for the gearbox...
Various other sundries either got ordered from Toyota or came out of my stash of gearbox replacement bits.
New manifold to cat gasket. Old one had blown out and had started blowing judging by the soot everywhere.
I popped the gears out of the mocal gearbox oil pump and found a lot of shrapnel and considerable scoring to the bores.
Oh well, add that to the pile of bits to swap - but replacement will absolutely come with a pre-filter.
Baby laminova got a really good flush out. Happy to reuse this.
That brings me about up to speed. Waiting on some loctite and other bits and pieces to arrive before flywheel and clutch go back on. Gearbox(es) hopefully back with me next week.
- Expensive
- I like driving manuals on track
- They still require regular servicing, so aren't really a fit and forget.
The final point I can rationalise by saying at least the servicing will (hopefully) be on my terms. Both gearbox failures I've suffered have been in the middle of summer, not ideal. At least with annual removals for a sequential service can be done over winter.
The middle point I might soon have another option for anyway, so the sequential argument is slowly making as much sense as it can.
That aside, I don't have headspace for it right now so pushing on with C64s and trying to make the best of a bad situation. Tom @ Datum called me back on Friday with a damage report from the Cadwell box.
As expected, third gear is totally stripped. Likely cracked a single tooth, and then the slack in the meshing just destroyed the rest immediately afterwards. The Diff contained a decent quantity of third, which explained why the axle started locking a bit whilst being towed.
That aside, there isn't much collateral damage. As I was intending to stick an LSD in anyway, the loss of the diff is no big concern. The Final drive, my old 3/4 Hollinger gears and various other things were all crack tested with no concerns.
This then presented me with a fork in the road.
Either:
- Spend a couple hundred quid on sundries to refresh the old box, put my Hollinger 3rd/4th in from my Exige which should prevent this same failure again in future . New bearings/seals etc.
- Spend the same couple hundred quid in labour to split the zero mile box, and fit an LSD and my 3rd/4th.
- Save the couple hundred quid, and just fit the zero mile box as-is.
The next component to fail will almost certainly be the Toyota final drive, but to uprate that is another few grand and as I know from experience - it offers no guarantees either. Even with that swapped, if it survives - you're then entering the realms of selector fork failures. The boxes are just fundamentally weak so I'm just trying to land on a solution that minimises cost and buys me as much time as possible.
Back in the garage I had a care package from @seriouslylotus in the form of a new Competition Clutch and matching lightweight flywheel. I fitted both of these to my Exige, honestly couldn't notice much difference when fitting the flywheel and always said I wouldn't bother next time.... but when you're suddenly faced with a cheap way to save 2kg I got tempted again...
For the clutch I just went with a "normal" non-paddle option. I did end up with a paddle clutch in the Exige which I really enjoyed - but I figure here that having something that will still allow a bit of slip occasionally might be a good thing for the gearbox...
Various other sundries either got ordered from Toyota or came out of my stash of gearbox replacement bits.
New manifold to cat gasket. Old one had blown out and had started blowing judging by the soot everywhere.
I popped the gears out of the mocal gearbox oil pump and found a lot of shrapnel and considerable scoring to the bores.
Oh well, add that to the pile of bits to swap - but replacement will absolutely come with a pre-filter.
Baby laminova got a really good flush out. Happy to reuse this.
That brings me about up to speed. Waiting on some loctite and other bits and pieces to arrive before flywheel and clutch go back on. Gearbox(es) hopefully back with me next week.
Fonzey said:
Hard to think what could put a downer on this anytime soon!
I stopped myself from posting something along the lines of 'Careful you don't tempt fate' when I read this the other week.Seems fate was well and truly tempted, commiserations
Given both failures were at Cadwell I suspect you're right, the jerky on/off load on the drivetrain as you go over the Mountain could well be the culprit.
EmBe said:
I stopped myself from posting something along the lines of 'Careful you don't tempt fate' when I read this the other week.
Seems fate was well and truly tempted, commiserations
Given both failures were at Cadwell I suspect you're right, the jerky on/off load on the drivetrain as you go over the Mountain could well be the culprit.
The gearbox was already in pieces in the garage when I posted that, so appreciate that somebody picked up the reference Seems fate was well and truly tempted, commiserations
Given both failures were at Cadwell I suspect you're right, the jerky on/off load on the drivetrain as you go over the Mountain could well be the culprit.
Fonzey said:
EmBe said:
I stopped myself from posting something along the lines of 'Careful you don't tempt fate' when I read this the other week.
Seems fate was well and truly tempted, commiserations
Given both failures were at Cadwell I suspect you're right, the jerky on/off load on the drivetrain as you go over the Mountain could well be the culprit.
The gearbox was already in pieces in the garage when I posted that, so appreciate that somebody picked up the reference Seems fate was well and truly tempted, commiserations
Given both failures were at Cadwell I suspect you're right, the jerky on/off load on the drivetrain as you go over the Mountain could well be the culprit.
I did think it was out of 'character' (in as much as you can know the character of someone online) at the time.Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff