Modification priorities

The Oily Bits S2 Specific Topics
41

I hope your diplomacy wasn’t influenced by ‘Guest’ readers

Diplomat, moi?

Just not clear of your ultimate goal (for your driving pleasure, or your car) e.g. if you have your sights on LOTRDC, then you’ll have to be careful re mods. If it’s a pure trackday tool, then you’d perhaps best be starting afresh, & flogging your Exige. If it’s a combined road/track car, then upgrade/mod your car as you see fit!

LOTRDC off the agenda. Worked out �66k to start out in a 2-11!!!

track toy only, will be trailered to circuit, and sometime in 2009/early 2010 sold for a 2-11.

42

Im currently running my 2-11 at 85-90mm ride heights, I really wouldnt want to go any lower than that tbh. (you’ll probably have to modify the arch liners and re-route the oil cooler lines as they will all foul on an S2 exige at those ride heights)

Even for ‘track only use’ which mine is, a little bit of height clearance to the bottom of the tub is not a bad thing… theres some bloody big kerbing out there on track and if you accidentally clip or ride it you really dont want to be dragging its belly over them!!

I doubt youd get much lower than 75-80mm even with the 2-11 front wishbones as they would also run out of acceptable working range…

43

Agreed Gav.

I’ll have first dibs on yours when you go GT4!

Good luck in 2009, will be shouting for ya as long as Dave isn’t alongside

44

OK back on track…

What lowering from standard are people recommending?

It seems that the quality of the dampers is the key as ride height isn’t a wide range.

Are those spring rates high for a car this ‘light’?

45

I run 550/750 springs with the big hofmans arb at what I think is 115/125 (can’t remember). I can’t go as mad as you can though as it’s my only car.

46

I’ve been using the Plans ARB. Went for the motorsport version as found the std fast road/trackday one to soft.

Re spring rates. Think the nitrons that Randy does are 550 front, 700 rear although I could be wrong. Come with lower rate helper springs.

I’ve been using 425/550 on the 46mm Ohlins with tenders due to the ride height drop. Work for me, but if it was for a pure track car I might go a bit higher.

The Lotus Sport Ohlins use 325/400 and these offer a very good compromise for road and track, and a significant step up from the standard. For me they ended up too soft as I was putting the clam on the ground through some of the faster stuff.

47

NeilC is about where its at for the majority of people on track, but who still need to use on the road. Much stiffer and it can make things interesting in the wet, specially on 48’s. But get a set of proper wets for the track and spare wheels, and its less so.

To be honest, theres not a lot to dremmel away, before you are into the light housings. Again, depends on how reversable you want it to be. GT3 car had the offending items removed totaly and replaced with an idicator on a flat panel. But it didnt need to be bothered with much in the way of lights!

John

48

The Lotus seems like it could benefit from the ‘bleed valves’ that are becoming more prevelant with dampers.

49

You know D I’ve kept it simple, you’d be really surprised what a good set of dampers on your Exige will do, I know I was…I was told I would be! If you plan to sell that soon get Lotus Motorsport Ohlins, you can resell them easy off the car later. ARB’s a must (Hanger111), I have mine set on full hard and the same applies as above with the brakes, big brake kit from Lotus…That mate is where your money is most wisely spent…(not such bollox after all )

50

You know D I’ve kept it simple, you’d be really surprised what a good set of dampers on your Exige will do, I know I was…I was told I would be! If you plan to sell that soon get Lotus Motorsport Ohlins, you can resell them easy off the car later. ARB’s a must (Hanger111), I have mine set on full hard and the same applies as above with the brakes, big brake kit from Lotus…That mate is where your money is most wisely spent…(not such bollox after all )

Have to say that makes sense for my application, I already have the brakes, so I think Ohlins will be my next stop. Just still not sure on the Accusump…

D, I thought you had first dibs on Kurgens 2-11

51

Its been an interesting couple of days.

Got the car apart to look at various mounting solutions.

We have decided to go with the Lotus Motorsport mounting kit.


[image]http://images42.fotki.com/v1436/photos/5/537502/7073275/Lotusbar-vi.jpg[/image]


with me in the seat the strap is within the 20% angle the Schroth kit dictates. Its exactly 90% from the point of mounting.

I have also decided to order some Schroth FIA 6-points with hook mounts at the lap belt and mount them to the chassis.

How heavy are the Probax!!! They are off for cutting and re-trimming.

We made a lot of decisions…

Aero: on balance we determined the return on investment is low unless you are prepared to cut the rear clam. I am not going to. The Lotus OEM is aero balanced and �2.2k of aero is going to provide gain, but maybe not as much gain as �2.2k spent with a good instructor.

Interestingly by just reducing the depth of the supporting bolts to the boot catch you can improve the performance of the OEM wing. Try closing the engine cover then seeing how much movement you can get by wobbling the wing. Then get someone to press down on the engine cover base then wobble the wing. It is much more stable. So by just reducing the height of the adjustable supports you are getting a better aero effect. And it costs �0.

Some thin end plates will also help and some simple CF ones will be made from ‘reclaimed’ CF. Lots of bent CF panels around from racing incidents

Brakes: we are looking at some new discs, but not AP or Alcon.

Suspension: An interesting one this. Yes once on the ramp and looking into the arches it is surprising to see how much intrusion their is compared to a lot of cars. So the lowering is compromised by this, with a ‘clean’ liner the car has so much more potential.

Much analysis of the spring rates that are popular was interesting too. The analysis of the car weight and distribution led to the conclusion that the rates are high for a car of this weight. The concern was the low speed grip levels are not addressed and the high spring rate was a compensator for a less than optimal damper.

The use of the 46mm damper was also looked into. It provides a more accurate bleed off leading to more stability in low speed work. This is why I was focussing on Moton dampers. Moton have a wider dimension as standard and that is why the racing community use them more as they provide a competitive advantage, especially in the wet. The introduction of rapid bleed valves is also available on the higher end kits these days and they provide a great advantage in kerb mounting/dis-mounting.

I have been lining up some Motons, but the price is high and the Euro is making it harder to justify. I may still go for this at some point in the future but for now I have gone with the traditional Ohlin 2-way setup from Lotus. In the engineers opinion the dampers are excellent and the spring rates will suit ‘a Billie’ like me I’ll gather data with these and if I upgrade I will compare them to see if the numbers back up the marketing claims.

The guys competing may disagree with the suspension analysis, but bottom line I am not competing and unless you are prepared to take the car to the race level in mods, stripping, clam cutting etc, the performance gains are questionable.

The ARB is the next area for attention. But that may wait until some data has been logged…

So the DL1 is also to be ordered. I am checking to see if there is the ECU connection available too. Does anyone know?

Overall it re-inforces Rob’s point that this is a road car. For many first time/new Exige owners it might seem that you are buying a track toy but the car has too many compromises in its design to really take on that role wholeheartedly. To make it a weapon on track you need to modify it past the point of ‘return’ and if you are going to do that it will be expensive and loose any resale potential to 95% of the market.

So my/our conclusion is to focus on the cost-effective gains, geo, suspension, pads, discs, weight reduction within market awareness (keep it looking close to std.) and safety equipment.

Then learn to drive ‘you Billie’

52

Seems like you’ve made some sensible choices.

So the DL1 is also to be ordered. I am checking to see if there is the ECU connection available too. Does anyone know?

They have a serial ODB2 cable that works with the Lotus ODB2 port. I’ve got one for mine. Works but the refresh rates are very slow, roughtly 3 readings a second if I remember for TPS. RPM might have been 5 per second. This isn’t really fast enough for on track logging or for video overlay so I’ve ended up using a combination with a hard wire for RPM from sender 1, hard wire from the TPS and another for the brake light.

53

Seems like you’ve made some sensible choices.

So the DL1 is also to be ordered. I am checking to see if there is the ECU connection available too. Does anyone know?

They have a serial ODB2 cable that works with the Lotus ODB2 port. I’ve got one for mine. Works but the refresh rates are very slow, roughtly 3 readings a second if I remember for TPS. RPM might have been 5 per second. This isn’t really fast enough for on track logging or for video overlay so I’ve ended up using a combination with a hard wire for RPM from sender 1, hard wire from the TPS and another for the brake light.

Thanks.

That’s disappointing to hear on the ECU link. I’ll make some inquiries on what the latest is. If it is still the same it is going to make getting the data more expensive.

54

So I guess a pretty boring outcome then guys?

55

So I guess a pretty boring outcome then guys?

Yep!

56

Yeah I really fancied the Moton’s as I know they are awesome. I would had them a deal price too, but would still be more expensive than anything on the market atm.

But common sense prevailed.

Looking forward to the improvements and just driving it well. So I reckon some good money to spent on days with Tom Ferrier and Sean Edwards to improve my inputs

57

You know D I’ve kept it simple, you’d be really surprised what a good set of dampers on your Exige will do, I know I was…I was told I would be! If you plan to sell that soon get Lotus Motorsport Ohlins, you can resell them easy off the car later. ARB’s a must (Hanger111), I have mine set on full hard and the same applies as above with the brakes, big brake kit from Lotus…That mate is where your money is most wisely spent…(not such bollox after all )

Well I am doing the suspension but not the brakes yet.

Now I’ve just got to learn to drive it well enough to take advantage of them!

58

I was thinking of some F1 mods like this

Must help…

59

Haven’t we all

60

Best mod for an S2 is an S1 body