RAID "DAYTONA" AIRBAG WHEEL

[CHASEVDR]

Just got the Daytona wheel from Raid. It is absolutely gorgeous. Quality through and through. Will post some close up pics if I can figure out how to. It experienced zero-holdups in US Customs, so they must've ironed out that issue previous owners have mentioned. It is no wonder that Aston Martin, Koenigsegg and Brabus Porsche use these wheels.

[JK1]

Chase,

That's great. Can't wait to see it. Hopefully they have the shipping bugs worked out.

Jim Knowles

[kmaier]

Chase, which adapter did you get and where did you source it?

Regards, KM
2000 V8 (longing for a real wheel)

[chasevdr]

I bought the adapter and the wheel from MotoConcept. It is a long story how this came to be because I intended to do the group thing with Karl-Franz, but it happened nonetheless.... perhaps for the better for everyone else though, since now Karl-Franz & Co will try and retro-engineer the parts for the group buy at a much lower price. Have photos if you are curious (the pictures have a ruler for scale in the background).

The wheel & adapter are not yet installed just to be clear.

[kmaier]

Chase, would like to see the pics.... as I do travel to Germany once in a while I would be willing to stop by moto-concept and pick up an adapter. If you could send pics to [e-mail] I would appreciate it.

Regards, KM
2000 V8

[chasevdr]

Will do. Don't let me discourage you, but from what I hear, it may be difficult to convince them to sell you the adapter alone. I think they are well aware that it is a sought after item and may price-gouge you. $300 is the number I saw last from a posting on this forum.

[karlfranz]

I also got my Raid Daytona wheel about a week ago. I showed it to some of our Florida Lotus folks this weekend at Daytona International Speedway (we were there for the historic and Grand Am races) and they really liked it. I currently have a Raid Freeway installed on my car and I like them both a lot. They have a nice, chunky grip and are very well built. They are 340mm diameter wheels so they are quite a bit smaller than the Lotus/Momo wheel (360mm). This gives you even more thigh room. For comparison, the ugly GM/Saturn wheel is about 370mm.

Chase is helping Jim Knowles and I with the development of the adapter by providing us with the parts which we will try to reverse engineer. The most complicated part is doing the "broaching" for the splines. If we cannot get this accomplished, we may have an alternate approach that I am working on using a different hub adapter that the engineers at Grant recommended to me.

The next concern is to source the proper Amphenol connetor for the airbag unit. We will also need to get all the purchasing details worked out. It's going slowly, but it will get done. We hope the price will be under $1,000US which is pretty good for an airbag wheel.

As far as Customs issues, the first wheel I was sent (Freeway) didn't have any Customs charges, while the second (Daytona) did. Go figure. I haven't gotten an explanation for this yet.

Here's a small taste of what the Freeway looks like on my car. Keep in mind that the Lotus logo horn button is custom and not on the production wheel. I am working with JAE to see if we can get a proper logo center to mount onto the crashpad. The horn buttons on the production wheels are on the spokes and are conveniently under your thumbs.

[karlfranz]

kmaier said:

Chase, would like to see the pics.... as I do travel to Germany once in a while I would be willing to stop by moto-concept and pick up an adapter.

Hi Kevin,

MotoConcept entered into an exclusive agreement with the folks at Raid to be the exclusive provider of the Lotus/Raid adapter. They will not sell the adapter separately from the wheel anymore to prevent people from buying the wheel from someone else.

Cheers,

KFM

[chasevdr]

Here are photos of the Daytona wheel and Adapter




And the adapter (front)



(back)


(side)


And the components



And a close up of the orange thing

[karlfranz]

Here's a preview of what the new Daytona will look like mounted in your Esprit. Again, please note that the Lotus horn button is not standard. We're still trying to iron out all the details for the group buy and the hub adapter. Hopefully, I'll have more news in a week or so.

[jleasure]

I am *SO* very in for one of these -- please keep updates posted

Thx!

J