2007 Lotus 2-Eleven
Discussion
Some more chunks of progress at the weekend:
Jamie popped round and took the role of laptop jockey whilst doing the ABS bleed procedure.
The procedure was pretty straight forward, I stood near a caliper with a spanner and a hose. The Master Cylinders were under pressure from my pressure bleeder, and Jamie was in the car with the laptop connected and a foot poised over the brake pedal.
Once the sequence started, Jamie just followed the on-screen instructions and I cracked the nipples when instructed to do so. The ABS pump whirred away, and gave me some lovely satisfying streams of bubbles whilst doing it's thing.
During the start of the process, Jamie needed to press the brake pedal very hard for the software to recognise that he had done so. This correlated with the fact the brake pressure sensors didn't start registering until you'd applied a considerable force (hence me being unable to do it with my arm leaning into the footwell).
As the process progressed, the sensors detected pressure sooner and sooner - and by the time we got onto the last corner, just breathing on the pedal was registering pressure. Such is the effect of air in the system!
I mentioned before that the pedal feel was lovely even before doing this process, and it very much was. Jamie also commented on it. As we got to the final caliper, Jamie was getting quite excited about how the pedal now felt.
I was eager to try it, so we swapped seats and my golly gosh, the pedal was absolutely fantastic. Unfair to just say it's "hard", that's only part of it. It's hard, solid but has a lovely progression to it as you pile on the pressure. No spongeyness at all, just a very direct and robust movement. Really excited to see how this translates when actually applying the brakes at speed.
In terms of the brake pressures, pre-bleeding the most I could muster was 50bar per circuit. It was now just a lick over 100bar (1450psi per line!). Sound like massive numbers, but I've got no idea what a reference is.
Moving away from brakes, another winter job I had was to inspect the chargecooler pump. I'd noticed the flowrate into the header tank was looking a bit miserable. I've commented a few times in this thread that the 2-Eleven IAT's are a bit higher than the Exige ones were, so investigating this seemed like a sensible route.
When first taking the bodywork off the car back in December I quickly found this. A kink in the pipe where it had been forced around the OE ABS unit a bit.
In addition to this, I had another kink directly at the pump inlet as it bent around the chassis into the sill.
Prior to finding these kinks, I'd fully intended to just stick a more powerful pump on, but now I was less sure of that route. Instead I've decided to fix the kinks, and see how we get on. IAT's are "fine", so it's not like this was an urgent task - if I get no improvement from fixing this, I won't lose sleep over it. It would just be a bonus.
So, fluid out:
With the ABS relocated I could cut the front lines and take about a foot of pipework out, deleting the kinked bit and making for a straighter run:
...and at the pump inlet I swapped the kinked straight pipe out for a preformed 90deg piece to clear the corner of the sill.
Observing the flow rate into a bucket now looks much healthier, but that's not particularly scientific.
I was now quickly running out of jobs to do before putting the bodywork back on. The NS side panel had remained undisturbed through this work so far, but annoyingly it had the vacuum hose running through it for the MIA brake booster. I did consider just bunging the pipe and leaving it in place, but eventually I stopped being lazy and whipped the side off the car to remove it properly.
I'll cap this off at the throttlebody.
That brings us up to speed. Later this week I'll look to get the bodywork back on, or at least enough of it to allow me to get the car outside and do a few basic tests of the brakes.
Jamie popped round and took the role of laptop jockey whilst doing the ABS bleed procedure.
The procedure was pretty straight forward, I stood near a caliper with a spanner and a hose. The Master Cylinders were under pressure from my pressure bleeder, and Jamie was in the car with the laptop connected and a foot poised over the brake pedal.
Once the sequence started, Jamie just followed the on-screen instructions and I cracked the nipples when instructed to do so. The ABS pump whirred away, and gave me some lovely satisfying streams of bubbles whilst doing it's thing.
During the start of the process, Jamie needed to press the brake pedal very hard for the software to recognise that he had done so. This correlated with the fact the brake pressure sensors didn't start registering until you'd applied a considerable force (hence me being unable to do it with my arm leaning into the footwell).
As the process progressed, the sensors detected pressure sooner and sooner - and by the time we got onto the last corner, just breathing on the pedal was registering pressure. Such is the effect of air in the system!
I mentioned before that the pedal feel was lovely even before doing this process, and it very much was. Jamie also commented on it. As we got to the final caliper, Jamie was getting quite excited about how the pedal now felt.
I was eager to try it, so we swapped seats and my golly gosh, the pedal was absolutely fantastic. Unfair to just say it's "hard", that's only part of it. It's hard, solid but has a lovely progression to it as you pile on the pressure. No spongeyness at all, just a very direct and robust movement. Really excited to see how this translates when actually applying the brakes at speed.
In terms of the brake pressures, pre-bleeding the most I could muster was 50bar per circuit. It was now just a lick over 100bar (1450psi per line!). Sound like massive numbers, but I've got no idea what a reference is.
Moving away from brakes, another winter job I had was to inspect the chargecooler pump. I'd noticed the flowrate into the header tank was looking a bit miserable. I've commented a few times in this thread that the 2-Eleven IAT's are a bit higher than the Exige ones were, so investigating this seemed like a sensible route.
When first taking the bodywork off the car back in December I quickly found this. A kink in the pipe where it had been forced around the OE ABS unit a bit.
In addition to this, I had another kink directly at the pump inlet as it bent around the chassis into the sill.
Prior to finding these kinks, I'd fully intended to just stick a more powerful pump on, but now I was less sure of that route. Instead I've decided to fix the kinks, and see how we get on. IAT's are "fine", so it's not like this was an urgent task - if I get no improvement from fixing this, I won't lose sleep over it. It would just be a bonus.
So, fluid out:
With the ABS relocated I could cut the front lines and take about a foot of pipework out, deleting the kinked bit and making for a straighter run:
...and at the pump inlet I swapped the kinked straight pipe out for a preformed 90deg piece to clear the corner of the sill.
Observing the flow rate into a bucket now looks much healthier, but that's not particularly scientific.
I was now quickly running out of jobs to do before putting the bodywork back on. The NS side panel had remained undisturbed through this work so far, but annoyingly it had the vacuum hose running through it for the MIA brake booster. I did consider just bunging the pipe and leaving it in place, but eventually I stopped being lazy and whipped the side off the car to remove it properly.
I'll cap this off at the throttlebody.
That brings us up to speed. Later this week I'll look to get the bodywork back on, or at least enough of it to allow me to get the car outside and do a few basic tests of the brakes.
FTW said:
Great update, thank you. Does the ECUMaster ADU recognise the Bosch CAN structure or do you have translate it? Sorry if that’s a silly question.
The ECUMaster ADUs look very customisable, does it display the TC level setting?
It doesn't recognise is natively, the ADU doesn't do anything natively though! It's flexibility is its downfall, it's about as far away as plug and play as you get. The ECUMaster ADUs look very customisable, does it display the TC level setting?
So yeah you need to configure it to "listen" for the Bosch CAN messages, then once you have them defined you just map them to gauges, labels, etc. All CAN messages are also logged, so when I review the lap times etc I'll be able to see my exact brake balance at that time, plus when/where ABS triggers and on which wheel.
Yeah my dash does display the TC level too. That's a knob connected to an analogue input on my ECU, and the ECU sends that to ADU via CAN.
Yazza54 said:
If you wind up changing the pump a lot of people with forced induction cars run / upgrade to pierburg CWA100. I use one on the spire as a main coolant pump, works great.
Yeah that rings a bell, perhaps the one I'd chosen. I even setup a PWM config on the ECU to lower the pump speed at idle to reduce noise. Oh well, one for next year!Well progress on the car fell very flat, very quickly. Can't believe it's been over a month since last update!
Still, it was all for the greater good.
I'd had a dialogue open with the builders who did my kitchen knockthrough a few years ago about doing a bit of a garage project. Talks picked up again this Winter about working me in between their other big jobs - and suddenly, we got a slot!
This meant the car had to leave, sharpish. I had about a week to get the car in a fit state to go hide in the trailer and get all delicates/bodywork out of the garage too. It was a rushed few evenings after work but I lobbed the clams back on and got it into the trailer. My first and only experience to date of driving the car on the new brakes was summarised by "wow, they do NOTHING at low pedal force".
I think the biggest thing you miss when dropping a booster is that real low effort/low load end of the scale when pottering around a carpark, driveway or trailer. You're used to just brushing the pedal to stop the car, but it now needs a bit more effort.
As for the garage work, plan was to get rid of these:
..and fit a single double width door in their place.
This would allow me to rearrange internally to put the ramp in the middle, and gain storage down each side wall.
Old layout:
This meant sticking an RSJ in.
Due to the way garage door suppliers seem to work, I couldn't get a site survey done until AFTER the steel was in, which means several weeks with an OSB facia to my garage instead of doors.
With a centralised ramp position, this got me thinking about moving to a four post lift. This idea is still being internally debated, and thoughts on the decision are welcome - but the summary is:
Pro:
- Can store two cars in the garage, one above the other
Cons:
- Four poster is a much more imposing install, making the large workshop space feel small again
- Four poster might actually be worse for the type of spannering I do, but this can be mitigated by jacking beams etc.
- Ceiling height is a little low to comfortable get two cars one atop the other. Two Lotus type cars would be fine, but if I wanted my FF to sit beneath it for example, it would be very very tight.
In order to proactively address the last 'Con, the builders proposed changing the strusses for the centre two, effectively opening out a square. The trusses were reinforced further up, and they then replastered the ceiling to create a bit of a ceiling feature:
Though quite a large feature, it's actually only intended to give the 2-Eleven rollbar the extra inch or so it needed to comfortably allow the FF to sit under it, if a four post ramp does get installed. Until then, it's just a fancy light feature and nothing more as my scissor doesn't raise that high anyway!
Between builder visits, door delivery and bad weather I bought a load of garage furniture and got to building flatpacks on a night:
I also did many, many tip runs. Think I counted 12 exclusively on garage stuff.
Floor got covered in plaster, so that came out to be jetwashed:
I did some sheeting and some painting:
The builders uncovered the previous DIY job (not mine) of the garage lighting, and were shocked I was still alive.
Which meant scope creep to run new lighting. This was an excuse to reposition all the spots too. No hexlights were harmed in the making of this garage.
Was my job to blank, fill and paint the old spot locations:
Bought and built a new workbench:
Dropped my tools:
Dropped my wine:
But eventually things started to come together:
Finally new door day came. It was a 5m insulated jobby from Aluroll.
With the door in, I could get on with the last bit of tidying, more scrubbing of the floor and retrimming a few floor pieces to suit the new layout.
..after some more tip runs
et voila.
Retrieval of the 2-Eleven was a very exciting day, spoiled only by the discovery the battery was completely dead - so had to unceremoniously push it into its new home.
Added some cabinet lights for the workbench:
Battery confirmed to be dead. 4v seems to be somewhat of a failure mode for a LifePo4. I've ordered a new one, but have also charged this one up - so will see what it does. 48hrs in and it's still holding 13.8v.
The garage really has worked out a treat.
I now have excellent working space all around the car. With a full size car in here it's always going to be cramped due to length. With the FF in for instance, it will almost be flush bumper to bumper.
Jury is still very much out on the four poster. It really would be a huge unit inside the garage and it might get annoying to step around the posts etc... but being able to have two project cars on the go is very enticing. Well, maybe not two projects - but at least two cars that justify garage storage.
I wouldn't be able to spanner on a car whilst it sits above something else, so whatever takes the second spot would be regularly pushed out onto the drive under a cover between garage sessions but would still be workable, particularly if it was something small and definitely not FF sized. Input welcome from anyone who has installed a 4Post at home.
I now have very little time to finish the 2-Eleven off ready for first track outing (Easter Sunday), so really need to get cracking!
Still, it was all for the greater good.
I'd had a dialogue open with the builders who did my kitchen knockthrough a few years ago about doing a bit of a garage project. Talks picked up again this Winter about working me in between their other big jobs - and suddenly, we got a slot!
This meant the car had to leave, sharpish. I had about a week to get the car in a fit state to go hide in the trailer and get all delicates/bodywork out of the garage too. It was a rushed few evenings after work but I lobbed the clams back on and got it into the trailer. My first and only experience to date of driving the car on the new brakes was summarised by "wow, they do NOTHING at low pedal force".
I think the biggest thing you miss when dropping a booster is that real low effort/low load end of the scale when pottering around a carpark, driveway or trailer. You're used to just brushing the pedal to stop the car, but it now needs a bit more effort.
As for the garage work, plan was to get rid of these:
..and fit a single double width door in their place.
This would allow me to rearrange internally to put the ramp in the middle, and gain storage down each side wall.
Old layout:
This meant sticking an RSJ in.
Due to the way garage door suppliers seem to work, I couldn't get a site survey done until AFTER the steel was in, which means several weeks with an OSB facia to my garage instead of doors.
With a centralised ramp position, this got me thinking about moving to a four post lift. This idea is still being internally debated, and thoughts on the decision are welcome - but the summary is:
Pro:
- Can store two cars in the garage, one above the other
Cons:
- Four poster is a much more imposing install, making the large workshop space feel small again
- Four poster might actually be worse for the type of spannering I do, but this can be mitigated by jacking beams etc.
- Ceiling height is a little low to comfortable get two cars one atop the other. Two Lotus type cars would be fine, but if I wanted my FF to sit beneath it for example, it would be very very tight.
In order to proactively address the last 'Con, the builders proposed changing the strusses for the centre two, effectively opening out a square. The trusses were reinforced further up, and they then replastered the ceiling to create a bit of a ceiling feature:
Though quite a large feature, it's actually only intended to give the 2-Eleven rollbar the extra inch or so it needed to comfortably allow the FF to sit under it, if a four post ramp does get installed. Until then, it's just a fancy light feature and nothing more as my scissor doesn't raise that high anyway!
Between builder visits, door delivery and bad weather I bought a load of garage furniture and got to building flatpacks on a night:
I also did many, many tip runs. Think I counted 12 exclusively on garage stuff.
Floor got covered in plaster, so that came out to be jetwashed:
I did some sheeting and some painting:
The builders uncovered the previous DIY job (not mine) of the garage lighting, and were shocked I was still alive.
Which meant scope creep to run new lighting. This was an excuse to reposition all the spots too. No hexlights were harmed in the making of this garage.
Was my job to blank, fill and paint the old spot locations:
Bought and built a new workbench:
Dropped my tools:
Dropped my wine:
But eventually things started to come together:
Finally new door day came. It was a 5m insulated jobby from Aluroll.
With the door in, I could get on with the last bit of tidying, more scrubbing of the floor and retrimming a few floor pieces to suit the new layout.
..after some more tip runs
et voila.
Retrieval of the 2-Eleven was a very exciting day, spoiled only by the discovery the battery was completely dead - so had to unceremoniously push it into its new home.
Added some cabinet lights for the workbench:
Battery confirmed to be dead. 4v seems to be somewhat of a failure mode for a LifePo4. I've ordered a new one, but have also charged this one up - so will see what it does. 48hrs in and it's still holding 13.8v.
The garage really has worked out a treat.
I now have excellent working space all around the car. With a full size car in here it's always going to be cramped due to length. With the FF in for instance, it will almost be flush bumper to bumper.
Jury is still very much out on the four poster. It really would be a huge unit inside the garage and it might get annoying to step around the posts etc... but being able to have two project cars on the go is very enticing. Well, maybe not two projects - but at least two cars that justify garage storage.
I wouldn't be able to spanner on a car whilst it sits above something else, so whatever takes the second spot would be regularly pushed out onto the drive under a cover between garage sessions but would still be workable, particularly if it was something small and definitely not FF sized. Input welcome from anyone who has installed a 4Post at home.
I now have very little time to finish the 2-Eleven off ready for first track outing (Easter Sunday), so really need to get cracking!
Nice job; it's quite surprising how the same space can feel once you work out what to change to make it more usable.
Personally, on that note though I think I'd probably end up regretting making all that extra working space then filling it up again. Maybe live with it as is, then take a view on the 4 poster when you're used to it.
Personally, on that note though I think I'd probably end up regretting making all that extra working space then filling it up again. Maybe live with it as is, then take a view on the 4 poster when you're used to it.
Thanks for the comments so far.
2 post I'd sort of ruled out because it has more demands on the underlying concrete which is suspect, and also less ideal for long term storage without ways to fit drip trays etc.
I have no immediate plans to add a second garage car so I have time to get the feel for my new space and take it from there. That said, plans change quickly...
If I could find some convenient car storage close to home it would make the problem go away.
2 post I'd sort of ruled out because it has more demands on the underlying concrete which is suspect, and also less ideal for long term storage without ways to fit drip trays etc.
I have no immediate plans to add a second garage car so I have time to get the feel for my new space and take it from there. That said, plans change quickly...
If I could find some convenient car storage close to home it would make the problem go away.
New battery arrived promptly so got that in, and car fired to life as hoped.
Gone with same brand/model as before. It's a straight fit for "PC680" formfactor so no messing with brackets etc, straight in to the 2-Eleven factory bracket.
I did attach a quick release lead for my LifePo4 charger though so I don't need to rip the seats out if I have a problem with this one.
Up next, whilst the seats were out I had some replacement seat rails to fit from Tillet. They issued a safety recall on a couple of items over Winter, so great service and was reassuring to get these sent out so quickly.
Seems like they just got a bit taller, with more material between the mounting holes and top edge:
The powdercoat had suffered a bit after a year of the originals, probably not helped by how exposed they are in the 2-Eleven but still a little disappointing. Gave these a good waxy coat of Dynax UC to keep the worst of the Anglesey out.
Nice feeling getting the seats back in, getting very close to going for a drive now.
Over the next couple of evenings I tidied away some odd jobs, got the oil/filter change done.
Then got to repairing some missing/broken fixings inside the front clam. Lotus just bonded some nuts in, and most of them have suffered. This means that to fit my splitter/front under tray I'm often fishing around with big repair washers and nuts which is a PITA.
I used my multi tool to carefully grind the old adhesive off and give me a flat surface:
Then fitted a bunch of these captive nuts, using small rivets:
I've not had the time, energy or patience to make up a fresh splitter this winter so I chose the least crap of my old damaged ones and bolted that on. I fancy a nice summer evening job sanding down a new one with a beer. Winter joinery just isn't fun.
Refitted the carbon 'buckets' inside the wheel arches to cover over all my hard work for the Winter, and hide what I hope to be a very dry and very sealed braking system.
Really small jobs now, plates bolted/velcroed back on:
Then did the annual nip-up of the weep I seem to develop every winter on the front rad hose.
With all that done, it was time for the grand finale and one of the most annoying jobs with a scissor lift... the undertray. Luckily I'd treated myself to a new toy over Christmas which makes it slightly less awful.
...and I think I'm ready for tax!
I have a bit of calibration to do with the ABS once the car is up and running, but job one is just to go out and do some basic tests and see how the brake balance feels. Once I get the bias adjustment somewhere in the ballpark, I can start messing with the ABS. Excited!
Gone with same brand/model as before. It's a straight fit for "PC680" formfactor so no messing with brackets etc, straight in to the 2-Eleven factory bracket.
I did attach a quick release lead for my LifePo4 charger though so I don't need to rip the seats out if I have a problem with this one.
Up next, whilst the seats were out I had some replacement seat rails to fit from Tillet. They issued a safety recall on a couple of items over Winter, so great service and was reassuring to get these sent out so quickly.
Seems like they just got a bit taller, with more material between the mounting holes and top edge:
The powdercoat had suffered a bit after a year of the originals, probably not helped by how exposed they are in the 2-Eleven but still a little disappointing. Gave these a good waxy coat of Dynax UC to keep the worst of the Anglesey out.
Nice feeling getting the seats back in, getting very close to going for a drive now.
Over the next couple of evenings I tidied away some odd jobs, got the oil/filter change done.
Then got to repairing some missing/broken fixings inside the front clam. Lotus just bonded some nuts in, and most of them have suffered. This means that to fit my splitter/front under tray I'm often fishing around with big repair washers and nuts which is a PITA.
I used my multi tool to carefully grind the old adhesive off and give me a flat surface:
Then fitted a bunch of these captive nuts, using small rivets:
I've not had the time, energy or patience to make up a fresh splitter this winter so I chose the least crap of my old damaged ones and bolted that on. I fancy a nice summer evening job sanding down a new one with a beer. Winter joinery just isn't fun.
Refitted the carbon 'buckets' inside the wheel arches to cover over all my hard work for the Winter, and hide what I hope to be a very dry and very sealed braking system.
Really small jobs now, plates bolted/velcroed back on:
Then did the annual nip-up of the weep I seem to develop every winter on the front rad hose.
With all that done, it was time for the grand finale and one of the most annoying jobs with a scissor lift... the undertray. Luckily I'd treated myself to a new toy over Christmas which makes it slightly less awful.
...and I think I'm ready for tax!
I have a bit of calibration to do with the ABS once the car is up and running, but job one is just to go out and do some basic tests and see how the brake balance feels. Once I get the bias adjustment somewhere in the ballpark, I can start messing with the ABS. Excited!
Outstanding work on the garage! I have fantasies about doing the same to my double garage but always give up because the effort involved just seems insurmountable 
1. SO much crap (I'm guessing possibly double your dozen tip runs)
2. I have a huge column in the middle of the garage that holds up the corner of the upper story. B*stard stupid house design!
Fingers crossed the weather comes to us soon and we can just be out of the garage instead
1. SO much crap (I'm guessing possibly double your dozen tip runs)
2. I have a huge column in the middle of the garage that holds up the corner of the upper story. B*stard stupid house design!
Fingers crossed the weather comes to us soon and we can just be out of the garage instead
First wanted to say thank you for sharing your 2 Eleven journey. I recently picked up one myself in the States and there isn't much said about these cars so this was a great read to learn more.
As for a 4 post lift, I have a 2 car wide 4 post lift in my garage and I have found it to be pretty helpful for most jobs. Namely basic maintenance where you just need to remove the under tray or just working at one wheel (or side) at a time. My lift currently doesn't have the rolling lifters in the middle so I just use pancake/air bag jacks to lift one or both sides at a time. Without the lifters in the middle you can't easily get all 4 wheels off. But you also lose that ease of use and access when using them.
That said I have replaced the engine & trans in each of my Evora's so far on this lift.
I'm too new to post a direct link but here is my lift: i.imgur.com/GoRWiFJ.png
As for a 4 post lift, I have a 2 car wide 4 post lift in my garage and I have found it to be pretty helpful for most jobs. Namely basic maintenance where you just need to remove the under tray or just working at one wheel (or side) at a time. My lift currently doesn't have the rolling lifters in the middle so I just use pancake/air bag jacks to lift one or both sides at a time. Without the lifters in the middle you can't easily get all 4 wheels off. But you also lose that ease of use and access when using them.
That said I have replaced the engine & trans in each of my Evora's so far on this lift.
I'm too new to post a direct link but here is my lift: i.imgur.com/GoRWiFJ.png
Re: Ratchet. I had a Ryobi version for a few years but it was a bit underwhelming in a couple of areas. It was too bulky thanks to the Ryobi battery format, but also was a very slow ratchet. Went for the ultra fast Milwaukee one and it's a corker.
MDifficult said:
Outstanding work on the garage! I have fantasies about doing the same to my double garage but always give up because the effort involved just seems insurmountable
1. SO much crap (I'm guessing possibly double your dozen tip runs)
2. I have a huge column in the middle of the garage that holds up the corner of the upper story. B*stard stupid house design!
Fingers crossed the weather comes to us soon and we can just be out of the garage instead
Yeah the garage clutter is/was a real problem. I'm trying to change my ways - but already slipping, as those old pre-recall Tillett rails which are useless to anybody are just sat in a box waiting to go up into the loft. I should just scrap them and move on...1. SO much crap (I'm guessing possibly double your dozen tip runs)
2. I have a huge column in the middle of the garage that holds up the corner of the upper story. B*stard stupid house design!
Fingers crossed the weather comes to us soon and we can just be out of the garage instead
friss said:
First wanted to say thank you for sharing your 2 Eleven journey. I recently picked up one myself in the States and there isn't much said about these cars so this was a great read to learn more.
As for a 4 post lift, I have a 2 car wide 4 post lift in my garage and I have found it to be pretty helpful for most jobs. Namely basic maintenance where you just need to remove the under tray or just working at one wheel (or side) at a time. My lift currently doesn't have the rolling lifters in the middle so I just use pancake/air bag jacks to lift one or both sides at a time. Without the lifters in the middle you can't easily get all 4 wheels off. But you also lose that ease of use and access when using them.
That said I have replaced the engine & trans in each of my Evora's so far on this lift.
I'm too new to post a direct link but here is my lift: i.imgur.com/GoRWiFJ.png
Thank you, and thanks for the lift info!As for a 4 post lift, I have a 2 car wide 4 post lift in my garage and I have found it to be pretty helpful for most jobs. Namely basic maintenance where you just need to remove the under tray or just working at one wheel (or side) at a time. My lift currently doesn't have the rolling lifters in the middle so I just use pancake/air bag jacks to lift one or both sides at a time. Without the lifters in the middle you can't easily get all 4 wheels off. But you also lose that ease of use and access when using them.
That said I have replaced the engine & trans in each of my Evora's so far on this lift.
I'm too new to post a direct link but here is my lift: i.imgur.com/GoRWiFJ.png
I'm fairly sure that with a jacking beam (or two) I can do all the work I currently do... it's just battling with how much the lift will encroach on my workshop space. Even a narrow lift is 2.6m from pillar to pillar in terms of width. In a 5m garage, with 600mm units at each side that leaves me barely 500mm of walkway clearance between the pillars and my units. Granted the pillars aren't particularly large... but still, needs some thought and maybe even a massive cardboard mockup
The "proper" answer is probably just to find some local car storage that works for me. I only have the time/energy to be spannering on a single car at once. Hiding in the trailer is an option, but carries risks and is a bit inconvenient at times. We'll see.
In the meantime...
With the weekend forecast to be grim, and with the following weekend booked away - I had to grab a dryish half hour at lunch time on Friday to give the car an initial shakedown.
Slapped some tax on, and off we go!
Initial impressions on the brakes were that I really wasn't getting much stopping force at all. Even with all of my might going through my leg into the now unassisted pedal. The car slowed up, and the pedal felt great - but nowhere near the stopping force it once had.
Still, discs were covered in rust, pads cold, tyres cold, etc. Tried not to judge too much.
Put a splash of fuel in, and worked to generate some temperature. As the brakes cleaned up, things got a little better. I was getting a lot of intrusion though from the new ABS. It feels very different to factory ABS, much higher resolution in the pulses and feels "sandy" to the OEM "rocky" feel is the best way I can word it.
I flicked through the adjustment knob settings of the ABS and could certainly feel it backing off at the "dry" end of the scale, to the point I got the odd chirp of a locking wheel.
Out of interest, I then disabled the intervention completely. I honestly barely breathed on the pedal and I had a massive lockup at the rear! Could feel the car yaw a bit at the back and mirrors were full of tyre smoke.
With that in mind, I dialled the bias knob several clicks forward and through a few iterations I felt the braking get dramatically stronger and stronger. Eventually I was getting a front to lock, felt by a slight twitch in the steering wheel - so left the settings there and then re-engaged ABS.
Now when I slammed on, it was face detachingly strong. ABS still interfering but very subtly now.
I did a small handful of miles and then brought it back for a data dump. I did have some slight calibration issues that needed sorting...
I fettled some bits on the canbus to correct my dodgy data (The ABS Data was fine, so it wasn't affecting the strategy - just was a problem with how my dash interpetted it).
Also checked some logs, and could see just how often ABS kicked in when it was switched on, but granted I being overly aggressive on the brakes as part of testing.
After making my tweaks, I squeezed another half hour in at the end of the day before it rained and the braking was loads better.
In terms of bias now at the master cylinders I'm approx 55/45 F/R. The actual bias at the calipers will be different still due to different caliper dimensions, pad/piston surface etc. This does contradict my prior calculations though, at 50:50 at the MC I was expecting 60/40 F/R which should have been right bang in the zone. The fact I've had to go 55/45 at the MC suggests that my rear braking is still stronger than I calculated/anticipated, it's a good job I added bias adjustment I guess!
I think all of this could be subject to change once on a warm race track with everything properly up to temp, and being actually "on it". I think I may need a spotter when I first go out on some knackered tyres and just try to find the sweetspot of locking the fronts a smidge before the rears go.
What is clear though is just how many sins the ABS covers up in terms of a badly balanced brake system. Despite the lower overall braking force I experienced when the bias was too far rear, the car was perfectly stable and very safe. I know from experience with the OE ABS that when I had too much rear bias, the car was borderline undrivable, so the ABS is already proving its worth.
On the topic of ABS, it does need calibrating properly still. I have it running with some placeholder data which is there or thereabouts, but I need to do some measuring to get it properly sorted.
Brakes aside, the car felt fantastic - nothing sounded/felt loose and the engine pulled strong and smooth.
With the weather predictably bad at the weekend I used the opportunity to be dragged round IKEA, not missing out on an opportunity for more garage storage in the form of a Kallax helmet shelf.
I picked some wheels up from seriouslylotus a few months ago, who subsequently shod them in A052 for me.
Will be my first time on these flavour of the year tyres, so looking forward to them - but I remain a staunch AR1 fan. The AR1 have lasted me brilliantly with no notable drop off in performance. Very keen to see how the CR-S is.
Can't have a set of new wheels without protecting them from the legend that is performance friction brake dust.
Wheels are the same as the later Elise Cup cars, and are very light. The A052 is notably lighter than the AR1, and the wheels are also lighter than my 240R forged - which adds up nicely.
I then got onto making some measurements for the ABS Cal.
That left me with two more measurements to make.
Wheel circumference, easy enough but the recommendation from SCS is to measure the distance the car travels after 10x rotations, then divide that by 10 to average out tyre squish and whatever other factors are involved rather than just running a string or tape around the outside of the tyre... so I'll do that when it's dry.
Then finally vehicle weight. I have some data from last year when I was on the scales at SeriouslyLotus but this was an excuse to unveil a new toy..
I've kept my eyes out for some used corner scales for years, trying to nab a bargain but they just rarely come up - or are miles away when they do. Then these popped up, they're a new product from a small fabrication place in Sheffield. They are a fraction of the price of most of the mainstream offerings, and are definitely on the 'small fabrication operation' end of the production scale, 3D printed components etc.
As a result, they lack some of the features of most purpose built corner scales such as the ability to tell you F/R ratio and cross-weight ratio, and instead just gives you the four weight readings for you to figure out yourself. Luckily there's an app for that.
I bought them via the eBay shop, and I've never ever had such a better service from an eBay seller. They're made on demand, so is a 2-3 week wait but all the way through I was getting photos and regular text updates. Seriously impressive, and I LOVE projects like this. His kit is very much aimed at the trackday geek/clubman racer and I believe started out as a one-off project to satisfy his own requirements.
So far, I'm dead impressed. They have adjustable feet so you don't need separate levellers, and comes with custom made laser levellers to help you line it all up, but they were the only miss so far as I think they're a bit wonky. I've tried them against known flat surfaces and they don't line up with each other.
With that in mind, I reverted to one of my alignment poles and a spirit level to get my platform all straight.
Also sat each scale on a thick piece of steel that I've had in the bottom of a cupboard for about 18months whilst building up my collection of alignment toys.
The display box:
With it all hooked up and zeroed, I lowered the car onto them and gave each corner a good bounce.
The aforementioned app for plugging the data in:
Definitely not taking this too seriously
I calibrated the scales against a few known quantities and they look bang on. I also had some reference data from SL's scales last year and everything is believable. I've got too much fuel in it technically, should be on half a tank for the ABS Cal so I can tweak this later - or just take off ~15kg.
As per last year though, no adjustment needed - it's within tolerance for the right cross weights so that's good. Note how it just hovers around +/- 0.1% tolerance with and without driver, just shows I guess how close the driver is to the COG of the car.
Brings me up to date, I'll show off my other geo toys next week maybe. I'd like to at least check it even if I don't make any adjustments before my first track outing, but this year I would like to experiment with something a bit more aggressive.
Will be my first time on these flavour of the year tyres, so looking forward to them - but I remain a staunch AR1 fan. The AR1 have lasted me brilliantly with no notable drop off in performance. Very keen to see how the CR-S is.
Can't have a set of new wheels without protecting them from the legend that is performance friction brake dust.
Wheels are the same as the later Elise Cup cars, and are very light. The A052 is notably lighter than the AR1, and the wheels are also lighter than my 240R forged - which adds up nicely.
I then got onto making some measurements for the ABS Cal.
That left me with two more measurements to make.
Wheel circumference, easy enough but the recommendation from SCS is to measure the distance the car travels after 10x rotations, then divide that by 10 to average out tyre squish and whatever other factors are involved rather than just running a string or tape around the outside of the tyre... so I'll do that when it's dry.
Then finally vehicle weight. I have some data from last year when I was on the scales at SeriouslyLotus but this was an excuse to unveil a new toy..
I've kept my eyes out for some used corner scales for years, trying to nab a bargain but they just rarely come up - or are miles away when they do. Then these popped up, they're a new product from a small fabrication place in Sheffield. They are a fraction of the price of most of the mainstream offerings, and are definitely on the 'small fabrication operation' end of the production scale, 3D printed components etc.
As a result, they lack some of the features of most purpose built corner scales such as the ability to tell you F/R ratio and cross-weight ratio, and instead just gives you the four weight readings for you to figure out yourself. Luckily there's an app for that.
I bought them via the eBay shop, and I've never ever had such a better service from an eBay seller. They're made on demand, so is a 2-3 week wait but all the way through I was getting photos and regular text updates. Seriously impressive, and I LOVE projects like this. His kit is very much aimed at the trackday geek/clubman racer and I believe started out as a one-off project to satisfy his own requirements.
So far, I'm dead impressed. They have adjustable feet so you don't need separate levellers, and comes with custom made laser levellers to help you line it all up, but they were the only miss so far as I think they're a bit wonky. I've tried them against known flat surfaces and they don't line up with each other.
With that in mind, I reverted to one of my alignment poles and a spirit level to get my platform all straight.
Also sat each scale on a thick piece of steel that I've had in the bottom of a cupboard for about 18months whilst building up my collection of alignment toys.
The display box:
With it all hooked up and zeroed, I lowered the car onto them and gave each corner a good bounce.
The aforementioned app for plugging the data in:
Definitely not taking this too seriously
I calibrated the scales against a few known quantities and they look bang on. I also had some reference data from SL's scales last year and everything is believable. I've got too much fuel in it technically, should be on half a tank for the ABS Cal so I can tweak this later - or just take off ~15kg.
As per last year though, no adjustment needed - it's within tolerance for the right cross weights so that's good. Note how it just hovers around +/- 0.1% tolerance with and without driver, just shows I guess how close the driver is to the COG of the car.
Brings me up to date, I'll show off my other geo toys next week maybe. I'd like to at least check it even if I don't make any adjustments before my first track outing, but this year I would like to experiment with something a bit more aggressive.
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