It’s sounds great to me… it’s a much deeper sound than my previous exhausts… so doesn’t scream at high revs like the 2bular did. You can hear the wail of the supercharger more too…
Not much change in 2018 - just a service and MOT etc, plus some new pagids and a set of AD08Rs
When I first got into Lotus with my 111R I absolutely wanted to go for the “k-series style” exit exhausts. For one reason or another I never got round to it before selling, but I agree they look so much better - like they were designed into the car rather than just lobbed on afterwards.
Into 2019, and some planned and unplanned mods… First of these was to fit a GARW dash and add Oil Temp and pressure sensors. Back on Track did most of the work but I did quite a lot of the dash setup being in IT and all that. We used an adapter plate for the sensors which was fine… but once we connected everything to the dash, oil pressure just would not work… turns out merlin motorsport had sent a different sensor which acted as a switch if it was earthed, sensor if not (I think that’s the right way round). Once we found that - it worked fine… the oil temp worked but seemed a little low - but a temp reading at the cooler identified that the temp was indeed correct. In normal driving, my oil temp rarely goes above 75 - so the coolers are doing a good job… not tracked it since I added the sensor, so not sure what it would go up to.
Dash is great… there are a few little foibles like the fuel gauge that needs more damping but Garw is working on that…
I take my oil temp from the sump so it reads even cooler. There’s a lot of chit-chat on the American forums about the Lotus twin coolers overcooling the oil in our cars, some people attributing that to the intake cam lobe wear (though I think the fact this happens to uncooled Elises’ etc debunks that…).
When I had my clam off I had a huge temptation to remove mine completely (replacing with laminova or rear mounted air cooler) or maybe even just bypass one of the two coolers at the front but ultimately I left it alone. From what I’ve seen, my road temps rarely exceed 75 like yours but on track once the whole circuit is thermostatically opened and normalised you do get some healthy readings in the 90’s. Never seen it over 100 though.
Agree with [mention]Fonzey[/mention] its all about where you measure the oil temps. Mine are around 60 on road and 80 ish on track. Saw 100 once when I did a 35minute stint on track. Was perhaps a bit too long that 
Yeah 60 - 65 on a cool day, not much traffic - Andy, where do you measure yours ?
Same as [mention]Fonzey[/mention] and I guess yours with those temps. Sump bottom!
mines on a sandwich plate just before the filter… so maybe my reading not as accurate
It really isn’t too relevant I guess when comparing to other cars. Obviously after 16 years and 30+ odd thousand miles your engine is somewhat happy with the oil temperatures, so all you need to know is what values are ‘normal’ for your car so you can identify any anomalies or spikes… that’s how I use mine, don’t really care what the absolute figures are.
On my Subaru there was a takeoff for oil temp right above Cyl3 which was the part of the engine known for overheating - the temps I got on that car read much higher (90’s whilst cruising) but it’s all just relative, if we could see the temps of 2ZZ oil when it’s actually inside the business-end of the engine we’d probably see similar. The sump and sandwich plate I guess would have very similar temps (sump maybe a little cooler as the pump hasn’t picked it up and agitated it yet).
Either way the coolers certainly do a good job, whether they do a job that’s “too good” or not is probably still up for debate…
yeah agreed fully… that’s what I have it for… car has done just over 50K now… so I don’t think there are oil temp issues… or not from what I do with the car…
The oil cooler system on these cars has a thermostatic control on the oil flow. So doubt very much the oil is over cooled.
The second radiator is fitted so that for the cars most likely to be used hard there is sufficient ceiling height in the cooling system to not over heat the oil
What im actually saying is the car wont necessarily use the whole oil cooing capacity available, unless it needs too
When a laminova is installed a new take off plate without the thermostat should also be fitted,
Yup my understanding was always that the coolers were thermostatically controlled - it’s mainly the 'Mericans that thing these overcool but their argument is that it’s not a total open/shut thermostat and that it’s always open a little bit to keep the oil flowing round and to stop big/sudden temp drops when the thermostat opens fully.
The only downside of using a laminova is, you put the heat from the oil into the coolant circuit which for most times is a good thing, until the car is hot on track on a hot day and the air going over your charge cooler rad is also hot, can you see where I’m going here?
All this can add up to everything being hot, I was amazed when I added the gearbox cooler laminova in, suddenly I went from 90 water temps on track to 95
I still had twin oil coolers as well, I never had an oil temp gauge in the car but borrowed an infrared one on a track day and after a long session on a hot day my oil rads were both ~100
All I’m saying is just be wary of loading the water circuit when all your trying to remove is the fact the current oil coolers are doing too good a job
Wise words, and this is ultimately why I left the air coolers alone. I was already adding a CC rad so the water temps were to become a bit of an unknown.
On with my updates - mid 2019, I thought I has a slipping belt somewhere, as there was a slight screaming sound from the engine bay… however, it seemed only to do it with clutch pedal depressed… bugger - it was the clutch release bearing… so… as the gearbox had to come out, I decide to change the clutch anyway as you do… so in went a TRD clutch, Lightened flywheel (as it would have been rude not to) and some sexy ARP flywheel bolts. It was also a good time of course to change the gearbox oil.
Whilst the car was there, I decided to alter its appearance inside and out…
So reverie side skirts, carbon sill covers and black section at the back to match the latest cars…
a cool picture of the car as it is now from the outside… but I hadn’t finished with planned updates…
as a result of the picture, I did replace the rear numberplate…
Looking good! I am tempted to get a S and supercharged sticker for mine but I think Ill keep to the stealth look ( well as much as I can )
