My rally project is complete, first event this weekend. I need to carry a spare wheel of some sort, the car has been converted to 100mm wheels so a Toyota space-saver is probably my best option as an emergency spare. What does the factory road-side jack look like and where are the jacking points?
there is no factory supplied jack as far as I know. you only had the option of the tyre sealent to get you to the dealer for a tyre repair / replacement.
100mm wheels? What ride height are you running?
Something like this?
You’d have to leave the old wheel at the side of the road though and go back for it later.
Hi, I presume you need the spare for running at Croft. Always seems a crazy situation to me as no race cars carry a spare when competing at Croft!
What engine and transmission did you decide upon for the rally project? I sold my S1 a year ago and am now in the middle of building an S2 Exige rally car so look forward to seeing you out and about later in the season.
Wow, didn’t expect that! When a rally car needs a wheel it is usually because one has been shredded or knocked off.
Wheels for this car have been quite the drama. As most people would know 16" is mostly obsolete and in rallying completely obsolete; 15", 17" and 18" being the standards for what we call moulded slicks. Rally tyres are quite different, they get up to heat quickly and hold a steady temperature despite allot of sidewall abuse on rough road.
I ended up fitting Elise parts 100mm wheel stud adaptors (Vauxhall, Toyota and many other Japanese brands) and running Speedline 7x17" wheels on the front and 8x17" on the back. My front tyres are now 200/615/17 Super 1600 tyres and the rears 220/640/17 GpA8 tyres. The stagger comes back about right but the heights haven’t been worked out yet. Spending Saturday testing, Sunday sprinting and both days next weekend tarmac rallying.
[quote=Neil_C]Something like this?
You’d have to leave the old wheel at the side of the road though and go back for it later. [/quote]
I just need the spare to get back to service, I can get the old one later.
That spare is wikkid-kewl. I will probably just have to run a standard compact spare that doesn’t inflate bigger.
[quote=wesj111]Hi, I presume you need the spare for running at Croft. Always seems a crazy situation to me as no race cars carry a spare when competing at Croft!
What engine and transmission did you decide upon for the rally project? I sold my S1 a year ago and am now in the middle of building an S2 Exige rally car so look forward to seeing you out and about later in the season. [/quote]
The car was built for Barbados, I run the Barbados Rally Carnival www.barbadosrallycarnival.com. This is my old A7 RWD car - YouTube
Dave Ballerby who was so successful with his Elise in British rallycross helped me with the car. The cage work was done by harry Hockley and the car built by Kevin Franks.
Right now it has a standard engine. It will soon have a 1600 vauxhall (due to weight limits; a 2ltr engined car needs to weigh 900Kgs). The problem has been the gearbox, all the reliable FWD gearboxes like Hewland, Sadev and Ricardo are rod shift from the rear. It seems I have to run an electric solenoid on the shift rod with some kind of actuator inside the car.
Excellent footage and nicely sideways. Your carnival always looks to be a great event. It would be nice to take the exige there at some future time. Need to finish building it first!
I think the Sadev ST75 boxes have cable shift? If not there are several companies making solenoid paddle shitters. Geartronics seem reliable, some of the Darrians run that system on Hewland boxes.
On the jack subject, I found that the Renault Clio ‘toolkit’ jack is ideal (a happy discovery made literally by accident as it came from my written-off Clio V6!!).
Some of them have a small tang/locating hook, but 2 minutes with a hacksaw and that is sorted. Leaves a nice 4"x3" flat pad that can either have a thin wood or hard rubber pad to prevent chassis damage/marks.
Fits nicely on the marked jacking points under the Lotus’ sides.
Not perhaps the prettiest solution, but it was free, works well 
Thanks; been driving RWD and 4WD cars for 25 years, might be a difficult habit to break with this car. It does nice doughnuts though and I have had it a bit crossed-up on the rallysprint track.
ST75 is rod shift, cables suck for serious shifting. The cable stretch can actually ruin dogs. Have contacted Geartronics for hydraulic/pneumatic solution, excellent website. Will look for simple factory car jack with flat top. Jacking a well-ballanced car from the side makes perfect sense, just not something we ever do but with the front splitter there isn’t much choice. Thanks all.