Thanks, its nice to dangle the carrot in front of me intead of the whip every so often, to be honest im not to fussed about the critism, I decided to do the build thread as I love reading other peoples so i would like to share my story with others for to enjoy with the ups and the downs that come with it
Made a plate today for my crash structure.
The testiment of a good component is that it does more than one job hence im starting to rethink the car now on what else I can remove, lighten or get it to multiple jobs.
The plate is from 5mm ali that I used to make my seat subframes and wing uprights.
Its cut out to follow the shape of the crash structure.
I have 3 tie rods bolted through it and on the middle on my tow strap is attached(decided I needed the middle one as that was a potential droop area at speed)
This means the splitter downforce is distributed through out the crash structure rather than just one hole. What it also means is that worse case scenerio I end up in the gravel again when getting pulled out the strain is dispersed.
Its a much lighter setup than the original mild steel towbar and strengthens my tiebar points.
The splitter now has 5 tie bars connecting it and 9 bolts so will be going nowhere
Looking good in terms of splitter support now. Make sure you put 2 or 3 replaceable rubbing blocks underneath the splitter if you can, as other wise the bolt heads get worn off and then need cutting off to replace which is a real pain. I put a load spreading plate on the top of my crash structure like you have done which makes that area really strong. However, not keeping the tow post means that all the load is taken by that one section, whereas keeping it means the load is also transferred through to the bottom ledge too.
Also did some final checks on my front wheels(16x8 225/45/16) today after a stuck some tyres on them to check that my tyres dont hit the splitter or any other parts and good news is Its got the all clear for track, when the car is on full lock the tyre just skims the chassis, now since I dont really need full lock apart from parking then its fine.
On this one you can see my completed canards and end fence to put the force back into the splitter, also how the offset of the wheel fits in the arch, ill be taking the clam off to have the vents cut out, have the arches trimmed as i dont need a 35mm lip on the inside and some vents ontop of the arch to get any excess high pressure air out, the lower sill extensions will be removed to stop drag and let air out of the wheelarch.
Will be putting my rear wheels on later this week, im waiting on home hub adapters to arrive, for the moment I through a couple of old tyres on them so I could check clearance on my bodywork and chassis
Another little update,
Fitted my seats tonight, took me 5hrs because I had to make all the subframes(designing and making your own takes alot of thinking about!!) and drill all the holes etc, did the passenger one first just incase I did something wrong and ended up with the seat at the wrong angle, for the passenger im not to fussed as sitting at in incorrect angle wont make any difference.
I did have a bit of a think about weight distribution while doing this.
One of the biggest benefits of a centre driving position is the better weight distribution, at over 100kg im the heaviest thing in the car so whereever i sit I massively effect the balance.
Now the time attack rules state that you have to have a passenger seat(im guessing to show that its still based on a street car so I cant just convert it, but what I can do is move the seats further over to the passenger side, this will sit me a little closer to centre, so I have stuffed the passenger seat as far over as possible
The thoughts are that if im carrying a passenger im not going to care to much about lap time so having them further out from the centre wont make any difference, but when im on my own I want the best distribution I can, moving 4kg over a couple of inches wont make a difference, but moving 110kg towards the centre will.
Also because the passenger seat is over as far as possible it gives me extra elbow room when driving on the road with a passenger, the biggest issue I had was rubbing elbows with my friends when driving which made it difficult to change gear, im hoping this will help.
Since the seat has no padding and is sitting on the floor Im also sitting at the lowest position I have managed to get since ive had the car so I can now finally see all of the rev counter/speedo(the drivers seat is tilted bringing the eyeline down by about 2inch which also seems to help me feel ive got more lateral support aswell)
Since the seat is also touching the harness bar aswell as the floor, there is no flex anywhere which is good news being a fibreglass seat
Changing the seats saved me 10kg which is always a bonus, just need to mount my harnesses to subframes and get some short m8 bolts to replace the random collection ive used
just waiting on the engine bits, kevlar doors and final aero pieces then and ill be able to start getting the car setup properly by someone who knows what they are doing(loads of suspension fiddling to help me run a lower wide height aswell, like wishbone spacers, bump steer mods, quick rack etc)
Not unless my size 13s are big enough to heel toe and press the clutch at the same time!!
Another little update,
Got myself a toe link kit with a brace, I think because of the high levels of grip and downforce the car will experience having the brace will help stop some flex in the subframe, I do have another idea to remove any flex as per the 260 cup but thats for another time
Also there is alot of talk about my wing upright and how they will flex all over the place and give babys cancer if you stand to close to them so tonight I got around to bracing them up.
Now what I wanted to avoid is anymore drag on the car, the car will be pretty draggy anyway but adding more to no reason isnt clever, so ive done these braces as high as possible while not being in the direct air stream or risk them interacting with the air going to my wing.
I was going to use threaded bar but came up with a more lightweight solution from my carbon stock pile, 8mm unidirectional carbon tube, its very strong in compression and stretching so will take up all the potential flex my uprights had plus its very light, a 80cm long piece weighs 27g!
So there they are fitted
Hope this keeps the masses happy to share a trackday with me now.
Also fitted my harnesses properly now the drivers seat is very angled to get my head lower and I had to flip the harnesses around for them to come through the slots properly, after sitting in them I think im going to invest in a 5/6 point for myself as I dont feel I can get enough tension on the lap belts to stop the should ones pulling upwards
Now I have alot more room im going to go up to a 300mm from a 280mm wheel to allow me to see the clocks better.
Fitted my rear wheels and spacers tonight, as usual something that should take 5mins ended up taking 2hrs!!!
Turns out my spacers outer hub was 0.5mm to big so that they wouldnt fit inside my wheels, I dont have a lathe to hand i grabbed my angle grinder, put in a slitting disc and slowly ground the outer edge until they fitted into the wheel.
now ive been given a pair of 235/45/17 tyres so that I can check clearance and adjust accordingly, ill be running 255/40/17 but couldnt find any free to use.
Now thats not much different than the standard exige runs so you can imagine my surprise to find that the tires rub on the rear section of the clam! So since I had the angle grinder out I hacked out the inside of the clam until they fitted, will need to trim and tidy them properly with a dremel when I get chance
But they look good and fill the arches nice, my calculations so that I clear my diffuser worked out correctly aswell, 17x9 et-10 so the cars track is now 68mm wider at the front and 79mm wider at the rear, I might mill 5mm off the spacers but ill wait till I have a set of 255 kumhos before I do that to make sure there is still clearance to the diffuser
Already done, the reason i used a angle was just to take a rough edge off so I could get them to fit to check clearance everywhere else, I was hoping to be able to machine a little bit of the spacers at the same time, but for the moment ive left them as they are as I think with 255 tyres I will be as close to the diffuser as I would be comfortable with.
Also bought myself a new wheel, since my seats sit me as low as possible now I decided it was time get myself a nicer larger suede wheel for 3 reasons, 1. so I could see the gauges better, 2. im fitting a quickrack so helps offset the extra strength required and 3. because the car will have alot of downforce and max caster im expecting the turning to be harder in the very fast corners.
I chose a D wheel to give max knee room.
Soon as I fitted it and turned the steerting wheel it felt like I was driving a coach!! so will take some getting used to again(my old wheel was 280mm this is 320mm)
My friends popped down today with the completed manifold just to check everything all still clears and to decide how we are going to do the exhaust so I can order all the parts this week, the final decision is to actually run it like a s2 gt3 so the exhaust will come out where the fog light will go.
We are then going to try a big intercooler where the numberplate goes that is being fed by the side scoops(also the low pressure side of the wing will help put a low pressure area right behind the cooler helping to help cooling)
I will then put the numberplate where the OEM exhaust outlet goes.
This will remove a potential reliability issue of a chargecooler, remove the weight of front rad/pipework/water/pump, take weight off the front end to help the balance(as most of the weight loss has been at the back) and mean all the fresh air gets the front rad to keep the water temps down.
Ill be running a carbon panel between the exhaust and intercooler to keep the heat soak down
Dude, you do realise that the exhaust manifold is going to melt EVERYTHING within about 3 inches of it don’t you? Plus, please tell me there is more than a 1mm sheet of carbon between a red hot turbo spinning at a zillion rpm and the back of your head!?!?!?!?!
I’m not being negative, i’ve got a bit of experience of turbo’s in Lotus’s, so just trying to help.
I also think you are going to have to think seriously about heat management, it is very very hard to sort out, especially as you are wrapping your engine in red hot pipework! K series engines aren’t renowned for their ability to deal with heat etc. at the best of times.
I understand that, hence the manifold is getting fully wrapped, the bulkhead is getting covered, the turbo is getting a beane and the downpipe wrapped, the roof scoop will be blowing air onto the turbo area to try and blow the hot air towards the back of the car.
And its not a 1mm sheet of carbon, well its 2mm carbon on each side with a foam core but we arnt going to keep that, we are going to make one with a carbon/kevlar mix and aluminum honeycomb so that if something were to happen I have a fair level of protection from it.
I understand the big limitations with the k series, so the plan is to get dave at emerald to map it with very low boost(circa 8psi) just so we can get testing and make sure there are no underlying issues to sort out, once thats sorted and the chassis/aero setup is spot on ill start turning the wick up.
I did ask about zirotech for everything but it was about £600 for everything which seemed an awful lot for a coating!
CV boot? as in when they are normally cooked from the exhaust running close to it?
Im hoping running my exhaust over the top of the gearbox and subframe will keep my car more reliable as not worrying about cooking driveshafts/gear cables
I really hate to say this, but most of the heat management stuff you are thinking of doing, will be like blowing on a house fire. From a long way away - see above for thoughts.
Like Sean, have been there a few times, was even involved in the short lived Thielert turbo K series in the 90’s. All the insulation you are thinking of using needs air space around it to work properly, do yourself a favour and move the bulkhead forwards to the rear of the roll cage - you seem to access to a decent carbon guy. And ask him what temps his resin will stand at the same time.
I do hope that you get to where you are trying to be with this. Other people have been there already and learnt some pretty expensive lessons that they are sharing with you to try to be of assistance.
