I love reading your topic and the instagram pictures. Makes me really think to sell my converted elise (exige/motorsport and 2.5 Duratec) and start looking for a 2-11
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Donington Update
I had a family trip away booked in the days leading up to Donny, so the car was parked up in the trailer ready to go a week ahead of time.
Whilst away, the postman dropped me off a present from Reverie.
It’s something I’ve wanted on the car since day one. Although the 2-Eleven is not at Radical levels of engineered downforce, you can see that Lotus made have an attempt to generate a bit of downforce with it, with all of the body panels being custom for the car… with the exception of the rear wing fitted to the ‘road’ spec cars.
The road wing is, as far as I know just leftovers from the Exige S1 production line. Does a job, but by all accounts it’s a fair bit draggy at the angle the car was delivered with in order to balance out the aero a bit.
The GT4 race cars came with something much more purposeful, a proper ironing board job. There are a couple of companies reproducing them to the same (or at least very similar) specs, and there’s a fair bit of CFD info on them too for proper geeking out. I spoke to Reverie at the start of the year, and after deliberating on the dimensions a bit I opted for this. It’s a 300mmx1400mm wing, in “low drag” configuration.
With it sat in my garage the day before Donny, I couldn’t resist squeezing into the back of the trailer and bolting it on.
On it’s flattest setting, in theory it should add a little bit of downforce but generate less drag than the previous ‘road’ wing on it’s factory middle setting.
To be clear, this was 98% a styling modification. I’m nowhere near tuned into this car enough to start chasing downforce on what is at the end of the day, a pretty agricultural setup from Lotus. But if I can gain a little bit of top speed on the big GP circuits by shedding a bit of drag, then that would be a nice benefit.
From what I could see poking out of the back of the trailer, I loved it… but I’d have to wait till’ the next day to see it properly.
It felt bloody nice to be hitching up the trailer in daylight, I’m not sure how I tolerate Winter…
Trip over was uneventful, and arrived just in time to get signed on and unloaded with some minutes to spare to tighten up the fasteners on the wing(!) before going out for sighting laps.
It was a sessioned day shared with MSVT, so we had 20mins of Lotus on Track, 20mins of MSVT cars and 20mins of MSVT bikes rotating throughout the day. I’d not done a full sessioned day before, it was ‘ok’ - I wouldn’t avoid a trackday in future just because it was sessioned, but if all other factors are equal I do prefer OPL.
If anything the day felt a bit rushed, you came in - had a chat, ran to the bog and then before you knew it, it was time to queue up again to go out. Not only that, but the track was then busier as everyone was out at once, every time. Made it very hard to get a clean lap in but it was still a lot of fun, I probably ended up with more track time than I would have done left to my own schedule on OPL.
My only mechanical failure came on the sighting laps. Yes, I forgot to take my plate off again… yes, it fell off. That’s the third rear plate this car has claimed.
Luckily it didn’t hit anyone…
I saw my second 3-Eleven in as many weeks too, would be rude not to get a few photos of the two generations lined up.
Great bit of kit, and seriously fast too. Absolutely vanished after a fleeting moment of sharing some track with each other.
It was to be another social day with a couple of passengers, love sharing this car with others - as it’s a bit of a sensory overload and so hard to explain in words.
The car was feeling fantastic on the track, expected to feel a bit mugged by the more powerful V6 cars at Donny, particularly dragging up the hill but the 2-Eleven held it’s own and was able to just about say in touch with all but the fastest of the 6 cylinder cars.
I’m still trying to figure out Craners’. It’s the sort of corner where 90mph can feel utterely terrifying and 100mph can feel safe as houses just due to a slight deviation of approach angle. The way the camber falls away from you on turn-in just does not come across in videos or photos at all, but it’s really unsettling if you catch it wrong. I know I have loads of time to gain through here, especially when I do finally get it ‘right’ and realise I’m then barelling into the old hairpin 10mph faster than normal, which leads to me over slowing and losing more time than I gained from being brave in Craners! I’ll get there eventually.
Elsewhere on the track I felt I was pushing the car a bit more, trailbraking into Redgate was getting better and better as the day went on. Coppice was a lot of fun too, found later in the day that I could just leave it in fourth, brake hard and turn in -and as soon as I was pointing at the apex I could floor it in fourth all the way around the corner and be at the thick end of 100mph whilst still in the corner… crazy stuff, and really paid dividends down the back straight where I was almost 10mph up on my last visit there in my Exige.
Brakes as ever, astonishing. Nothing really to add, I’m slowly creeping up to their limits on trackdays now and not leaving quite so much on the table - but still occasionally have a lapse in concentration and brake far too soon, leading to a snails pace through the corner.
Had a slight hiccup on the session before lunch, and went out without enough fuel in the car so had to cut that one short. Seemed like a very fuel heavy circuit so it caught me out a bit.
Got gassed up over lunch, and the sun came out for the afternoon. Even did a session without a fleece on, lovely stuff.
I checked the oil at some point, nothing to report. But another excuse to post a wing photo.
The day quickly drew in on us, and finished the last session with a dead GoPro. Wouldn’t be a trackday update without complaining about GoPros.
I did get some footage from the penultimate session, which turned out to be one of the quieter ones.
Lotus 2-Eleven at Donington Park - YouTube
It’s a shame I didn’t get the last one though, as we were the last car (I think?) to go out, so was a great session of weaving through the traffic trying to chase as many cars down as possible.
Really happy with everything, never felt like I needed to make any change to the car all day - it was just working.
Anglesey up next in a couple of weeks, so will probably just clean it, fuel it and roll it back into the trailer. Happy days.
For fun a little comparison to my Exige, I had to cut the log short on the back straight as Exige was on the GP layout and this was the national layout, but still pretty indicative of the differences.
(Green is 2-Eleven)
Have to defend the Exige a little bit, it’s not as bad as it looks - I’d only done a short evening of sessions on a very hot day, so didn’t really get my teeth into the circuit until this week.
Overlay from Exige days - now that’s good!
I know this footage is ropey but this is Craig Dolby in Nick Ledger’s 240R at Dony - he was 19 at the time I think. He’s still competing at some level, GTR I think but he was bloody rapid…
Crikey look how different Donny was! Like another era
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That really is a wing to be proud of there Kyle.
Improve the racecar and improve the bench to eat your lunch from. Win , win!
The exige vs 2-11 overlay is very interesting. Almost a shame you havent a longer session in the exige to really compare.
Will look forward to following you around on track one day soon!
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I lied a bit when I said the car would just get cleaned before Anglesey, and found a couple of jobs to tick off.
First off, an aim to stop running GoPros flat.
A 12v - 5v step down thing which I can hard wire in at the battery (via an ignition live relay) and then directly connect two GoPros at once. Whenever the car is running, they’ll be charging.
My battery box is starting to hide an ever increasing nest of accessory wiring, something I need to neaten up - but it’s all fused and safe, so happy with it for now.
One USB will go straight up to the normal GoPro on the rollover bar, along with the external mic wire:
All sort of hidden away
The other USB will go through the engine bay, up through a panel gap (thanks Lotus) and to a rear mounted GoPro which hasn’t left my camera bag for about 12 trackdays now. Just need to figure out where to mount it.
Next up I turned my attention to harnesses. I noticed a few weeks ago that my driver harness was missing the anti-submarining (ASM) yellow patch on the inside shoulder.
Not sure why, maybe it predates ASM, but I think more likely these shoulder straps were potentially from a previous 6 point installation, where of course the ASM attributes are much less important.
I’d planned to address this with a full harness swap, probably to 6point but I got a good inexpensive interim solution when some ASM shoulder straps came up for sale on their own.
All in, a bit safer. Still will try not to crash.
Next, the new rear wing got some attention. When assembling it I noted that the end plates would not be particularly watertight.
Washing the car and/or driving in bad weather would probably end up in some moveable ballast collecting inside the wing - so got to work on a solution.
Neoprene
All done
Final job, brake pads. I noticed they were getting close at Donny.
That finishes off the various part worn Pagid pads that I had in my collection, so time to stick some fresh stuff in for the first time. I’d been a bit of a Carbotech convert on my Exige, they have an initial bite which I find reassuring but we’ll have to see if that translates to something a bit too harsh in the 2-Eleven which already feels like it will stand up on its nose if it slows any harder.
They’re the XP8 from their range.
Pad swap is the work of a moment nowadays, almost feels like I’m getting good at something.
I followed the bedding in instructions on a quick road test, first three stops were very lethargic and then like someone has flicked a switch, they activate and sent me hurtling into my new shoulder straps. Really good first impression in the 2-Eleven.
I’d wager that they have similar outright performance to the Pagid RS14 but the early phase bite they have gives the illusion of a much more effective pad when not using the full force of the middle pedal.
They are expensive, though 
That’s about it. I did wash the car, I’ll hoover the dead Donny bees out of the footwell and that should about do it for next week. Getting excited.
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Anglesey Update!
You can probably copy and paste the opening paragraph of this from the last four years. Anglesey has asserted itself as my favourite fixture on the calendar, despite the fact we’ve had monsoon conditions every time we’ve been.
There’s something about Anglesey, driving over the M62 and out of the dull/flat of central Yorkshire where I live, and slowly seeing the glorious Snowdonia national park unfold out infront of me as I toddle along with my trailer. The 4 hour drive was broken up by a meet and catchup with @MrP80 at Chester Services, and an appreciated stay with another friend who resides in what must be one of the most beautiful parts of a beautiful Country.
This friend has recently equipped himself with a sequential Caterham R500 and would be joining in for the day, recreating 2/3rds of an old track test that Harris, Jethro and Dickie did at this very circuit back when these cars were new. Potato Video here if you’re interested: Drivers Republic - New Caterham R500 v Ariel Atom 3 v Lotus 2-Eleven - 1/2 - YouTube. It 's a sickening reminder that I paid more than RRP for a 16 year old car though 
The forecast was lots of rain in the AM, with maybe a less wet afternoon. Again this is a repeat of every single Anglesey I’ve done.
I was secretly looking forward to the wet, I had a really good time here last October time in similar conditions and the variable TC on the 2-Eleven was providing loads of fun, and allowing me to push my luck considerably. This year I’d be here with a similar variable TC, but one I had tuned/programmed myself - so I was expecting some work on it, but excited at the prospect of testing it properly.
You’d think I’d be good at packing for trackdays by now, but I forgot a couple of items which made the day slightly less pleasant.
- Clear visor for my helmet
- The remote I’d just bought and tested for my GoPro to prevent those “is it or isn’t it recording right now” moments in the pit lane queue
- My waterproof romper suit…
We drove to the circuit in the rain, and got the cars tucked up in the garage ASAP to keep as dry as possible, for as long as possible.
It was raining steadily for the sighting laps, I pulled out of the garage into the queue to find that the laps would be done in two groups, and group 1 had just set off… so there I sat for 8 or 9 mins in the rain, stationary in the pits. Not a great start!
Sighting laps done, I’d stayed surprisingly dry once I got moving and it was soon onto the first session. Shod with AD08R tyres as my ‘all weather’ option, I set off with my TC mode set to ‘fully intrusive’ at 10 on the dial.
My strategy for the TC tuning was to preset a wide range of config before I left home, and try to find two settings throughout the day:
- A nanny mode that would allow almost no slip, and could be used as my maximum setting.
- A Playful mode that would allow me to slide the car, and deploy enough torque to keep the rears spinning enough to sustain a bit of a slide
As the car is still with an open differential, I configure the TC to bias the slip measurement from the slowest of the driven wheels. This means it doesn’t start going mental when the inside rear flares up, and it pays closer attention to the outside wheel instead.
I have 10 settings to play with, setting #1 being “off”, so 9 levels of granularity.
Across the settings I can change four parameters:
- Slip target (difference between driven and undriven axle)
- Torque Reduction modifier
The PID controller in the ECU would measure slip against slip target, then come up with a “torque reduction” value. It is then on me as the tuner to say what happens at any given level of torque reduction. Here we dovetail in the following two parameters:
- Ignition retard
- Fuel Cut events
Obviously a well setup system will slowly ramp in ignition retard to dull the power without that ‘papapapapap’ of the more intrusive cut events, but then as the torque reduction demand increases, the papapapap is gradually feathered in.
My settings looked something like this:
So if the ECU was demanding a 22% decrease in torque, I would get 7 degrees of ignition timing reduced, and 9% of my ignition events would be cut (via fuel cut). The ignition retard then flatlines at 12degrees from 44% and above because I don’t want to melt any valves from a sustained period of intervention - and fuel cut ramps up.
When switching my knob, a multiplier is applied to the torque reduction output:
So at Pos 5, if the ECU returns a 20% reduction in torque, then 20% is what I get.
At Pos10, if the ECU returns the same 20% reduction in torque, I actually get 28%
At Pos1, if the ECU returns the same 20% reduction in torque, I actually get 14%
etc etc.
This was setup to give me a wide range to play with, and I could try a different setting on every corner rather than getting the laptop out between sessions.
What I ended up figuring out quite quickly is that anything from setting 10-5 was pretty intrusive and didn’t allow much in the way of fun. Setting 4 allowed a bit of slip, but very quickly got things back in line. It also didn’t let me sustain a slide because it dulled the power too much. Setting 3 was my sweetspot, where I’d stay for the rest of the day.
As I don’t have any stability management, you can definitely still spin the car on any setting. Getting a Lotus to slide is primarily about being too fast on entry, and pivoting round - rather than using power to break traction. They’re generally over gripped and under powered, outside of the more extreme variations.
Anyway, back to the day - the first session lasted exactly one outlap, then I got black flagged. I’d done a little bit of a skid on the hairpin just as part of my aforementioned TC exploring, but surely not a flaggable offense?!
I got in to be told my new GoPro setup was not allowed. I could not have any cameras ‘outside the silhouette of the car’, which in a 2-Eleven is quite difficult… I was also told that my rear facing camera was not allowed, even though it sat within the silhouette of the rear wing - there’s apparently a flat out ban now on external cameras which is a shame, but rules are rules.
After reshuffling my cameras, it was back out and I steadily lapped the morning sessions in varying degrees of rainfall. Got very wet, but had a blast.
The Caterham looked like an absolute murderer in the wet. Using the sequential box at part throttle with the engine a little ‘rough’ when also at part load (a property of the TBs apparently) made it a bit of a handful, with the car happily spinning up the wheels in a straight line during most gear changes. Pretty terrifying, but Paul was handling it brilliantly.
A little spin on entry to the hairpin was the worst the morning had to offer after a sequential downshift locked up the rears. Definitely a steep learning curve from the sequential box.
The rain worsened over lunch, so we kept our heads down and tried to dry out socks/shoes/etc the best we could.
Right on schedule, the rain drifted away and after a couple of post-lunch damp sessions, dry lines started to appear. We went out for a fairly long session as the track was drying and the AD08R went from ‘entertaining’ to ‘frustrating’ quite quickly as I was trying to put together sensible laps, it was just sliding all over the place. Couple of examples here:
AD08R Tyres overheating on the drying track - YouTube
At this point Paul and his R500 was a distant spec on the horizon (actually, I think he was behind me - but no question I was holding him up big time) so I came in, and decided to stick the AR1 on.
In the half hour or so it took me to get swapped over, the track had completely dried. It clearly wasn’t as grippy as it would be on a warm/dry day - but the AR1 instantly switched on. Within the second corner of the outlap I could feel a totally different car under me. Brakes felt assertive, turn in sharp, bags of traction.
Reviewing video afterwards, my ‘quickest’ lap on the overheating AD08 was a 1.57. My very first hotlap on the AR1 while the tyres were still cold etc was a 1.47, and by the end of the session they were almost an additional 7 seconds quicker. The difference was mind blowing, and it was a lot of fun.
This video is a back to back comparison of a rainy morning session, vs the first AR1 session in the afternoon.
Lotus 2-Eleven at Anglesey - YouTube
The Pos3 on the TC was a little limiting here, where I could enter the hairpin fast enough to rotate the rears around, I couldn’t quite get enough power down to sustain it. I think this is a combination of being one gear higher, and also the TC not allowing enough slip at that speed. I think in hindsight I should have gone down one more setting to prove the theory.
Inevitably, this happened. Maybe more than once…
Lotus 2-Eleven spinning at Anglesey - YouTube
We wrapped up a successful day, on the AR1s the 2-Eleven was once again able to keep touch with the R500 and despite very different approaches to performance, they were both very similar over a lap. The Caterham smashing me in a straight line, but a little exposed under braking. Both very similar in the slow corners.
Towed home without drama, and the sun came out the following day to allow me to start drying everything out…
My plan for the TC now is to adjust all of the scaling and make the previous Pos3 my new Pos5. Pos10 will remain my road setting, Pos5 will become my wet trackday setting and I think somewhere between Pos3 and Pos1(off) will be used in the dry.
Another great write-up. Following it with interest, as ever 
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Oooops! You must have been soaked sitting there.
These sound great mind. Must be the kid in me
Why?
Now that is interesting
Do you think you would have an edge going SQ?
I don’t think so, at least not me personally. If you’re consistently getting 10/10ths from a car then of course shaving a few milliseconds from each gear change will make you faster, and give you some driveability options such as upshifting through a corner (where a manual shift might upset the car too much).
For me personally, where there’s still fist full of seconds to gain from just about every part of my technique, I’m not sure the switch to sequential would be tangible in terms of laptime.
They do seem to have a massive learning curve, and make driving in the wet very difficult. They’re typically designed/tuned to operate only when the engine is on full chat. If you’re trying to short shift, part throttle and stuff like that - it probably causes more harm than good to the ability to deploy performance.
They are very, very cool though. Just sitting in the pitlane hearing the ‘clunk’ of Paul selecting gears was intimidating, and I was sat 30 feet away!
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Oh and not sure on the ‘why?’ to the external cams. I guess someone has been silly and one has gone flying through somebodies windscreen or something…
Flat out ban is easier than individual scrutineering of mounts etc.
Something I forgot to mention, in the preflight checks before my trackday I found the Accusump wasn’t working again.
When clicking the key to power on the car, as there’s no oil pressure in the engine - a pressure switch should fire, open the accusump valve and let it discharge into the engine preoiling it before cranking. This wasn’t happening, which also meant the AS wouldn’t release oil under an oil surge event on track either.
I wasn’t too concerned, it happened before (it was dead when I bought the car) and a new sensor is inexpensive. I proved it was the sensor by bridging the wires, which caused it to discharge. I also had a baffled sump, so I was doubling up on protection anyway.
I asked around on a 2-Eleven group to be almost unanimously told to rip the accusump out. They’re prone to failure, not just the pressure switch but also prone to leaking, sometimes catestrophically.
I’m torn, I love the fact it has an Accusump because it’s a bit of a Lotus Motorsport stamp, and some geeky bragging rights in my own little world… but it’s a heavy bit of kit, doubles the cost of my oil changes and I’ve had it fail twice in a year… so hardly reliable.
Still deciding what to do here…
Light is right! 
But don’t come and hit me if something dies!…
Rip it out but leave the accusump canister in place just for posterity.
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Sounds good… but how much does the canister weigh? Not that I’m OCD or anything, you understand…
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Fill it with hydrogen. That will solve the problem.
I’d let my MOT lapse as I just didn’t get time to sort prior to Anglesey, but today was the big day.
I don’t plan on using the car too much on the road*, but it’s nice to have the option.
To my local test centre, good bunch of lads and I only ever use them for MOT’s but I have confidence that they do test my stuff properly knowing that I’m a fan of taking my cars to bits regularly.
The Emissions were the only area of concern, with the EMU Black and 2bular sports cat combo I’d had a rocky history, my Exige initially needing a map tweak to get through and then the following year not going through at all due to a fluctuating idle messing up the lambda readings.
This year I’d done my driveway testing, was confident that my lambda was at least in order - so it would be up to the catalyst to see if the other stuff fell into place.
Oh, I’d also had to buy yet another rear plate!
As expected, car flew through all the usual tests after a giggle about ingress/egress and finding the start button. All too soon it was time to get the emissions rig out.
I’ve talked about this before, but both tuners I’ve used have pretty much neglected the MOT testing conditions on the two cars I’ve had mapped, and I’ve seen many others in the community that are the same. MOT’s test emissions under “fast idle” conditions which is at 2500rpm with no load on the engine, which puts the fuel table into an area that just wouldn’t be active under normal driving conditions, so you have to specifically map this area just for MOT purposes.
After learning all this a couple of MOT’s ago, I spent some time driveway tuning it. I can’t measure CO or HC at home, but I can peg the throttle electronically and hold 2500rpm and use my lambda sensor to keep it at 1.0 lambda (0.03 tolerance either way).
With this setup, I had to just hope the MOT sensor agreed with mine… which it did!
Initially the Lambda and HC readings were bang on spec, CO needed the cat to warm up a little bit - but soon was right in the centre of it’s tolerance. Happy days.
Tester was surprised, I was relieved, car had passed.
I took the back roads home, got my foot down a bit. *I mentioned earlier about not planning much road use but Christ this car is hilarious on a back road. Had my dampers in track settings, tyres a bit low on pressure but it was an absolute monster and had me giggling after just a couple of miles… maybe I will use it a bit on the road.
Got the car home and safe, pinging away and proudly road legal again… plate only just survived the trip though
Quick Accusump update. The 2-Eleven community (all 5 of them) unanimously voted that I take the accusump off, and throw it in the bin.
The baffled sump that I have means it’s highly unlikely that the accusump will ever be needed (outside of it’s fringe benefit of preoiling the engine before cranking) and they’re prone to failure, which means I may be just lugging around its dead weight occasionally like I was at Anglesey.
For some reason though, I like it. It’s a bit of Lotus Motorsport bling and I can’t come to terms with scrapping it yet. It may go in the future when I have the car in bits and I want to lose a few KG, but for now… I’m fixing it.
Dead easy with a new pressure switch from Seriously Lotus:
Swapping is the work of a minute, just some PTFE and in we go.
As expected, it worked a treat and the accusump is now operational again. I may have already come up with a plan to make this pressure switch redundant though…
The 2ZZ in Elise/Exige format comes equipped with a heat soak pump, a small electric water pump that circulates coolant through the heater circuit if the car is ever powered off whilst coolant temp is very high (triple digits). I’m fairly sure the 2-Eleven won’t have this pump because it has no heater circuit, which means there’s a redundant switch to ground output sat right next to the accusump, already wired into the ECU! I’ll have a proper look later, but if that’s the case - I’ll just replug the accusump wiring to match the redundant plug in the engine bay, connect it up and change the heatsoak pump logic in the ECU to trigger when oil pressure falls below a certain threshold, job jobbed.
This has the benefit too that I’ll effectively be datalogging whenever the accusump triggers, so I can say with confidence that it is indeed redundant after a large enough sample size.
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Have you invited the other 4?
They wouldn’t be seen dead around these parts with all you “roofies”