I’ve been seeing (and participating) in the various threads about power upgrades and fancy a bit of a soapbox/sensible moment.
Here goes
The big pull for Exige ownership is the ability to drive the car on public roads to a racetrack - thrash it and drive home again.
In the quest for more power I wonder if people are actually making their cars overpowered for road use.
I’ve got 260bhp which on the track is fine and I could do with more but on the road in british traffic, british road surface etc it’s scary (to me) under anything but light throttle with track biased tyres on.
I am guessing most on here need their driving licence for work/general life etc and losing it would be catastrophic.
An accident would potentially be a lot worse.
As per comments in posts - 300+bhp is scary on the road which I can well imagine.
I am not a driving god but have had a few high performance cars over the years and have come to the conclusion that utilising the upper levels of performance available in these cars on public roads is only going to end one of two ways.
Discuss -
Very simply … the cars are very easy to drive slowly, very happy around town at 20-30 mph…I drive my diesel Yaris faster …
…
Once the Lotus cooling issue is sorted out that is!
[quote=chrisexigegt][quote=jfk]Very simply … the cars are very easy to drive slowly, very happy around town at 20-30 mph…I drive my diesel Yaris faster …
[/quote]
Agree - I drive my Mondeo Diesel faster [/quote]
yes i also agree, drive the (CC) Leon diesel faster especially at the moment with the crap roads (pot holes + mud/sludge) in this country
[quote=JP1]Short blasts of acceleration when the conditions allow that take your breath away 300bhp>220bhp, within the realms of the law and saftey of course
I never find myself thinking that I dont need this power, makes me smile.[/quote]
within the realms of the law and saftey of course; you don’t get out of second gear very often then?
[quote=darryl][quote=JP1]Short blasts of acceleration when the conditions allow that take your breath away 300bhp>220bhp, within the realms of the law and saftey of course
I never find myself thinking that I dont need this power, makes me smile.[/quote]
within the realms of the law and saftey of course; you don’t get out of second gear very often then?
[/quote]
Maybe a little squirt of third too but yeah, I get your point. Things do indeed start flashing by if you go for much more than that. That said its often enough to put a smile on your face
Obviously not condoning recless driving on public highways (you here that Pesky)!
Before recently being forced to step away from the lotus fold, I went from a N/A to PP exige. I was one of the few who liked the on/off nature of the n/a cam as I personally feel it gave cruise and play modes. The PP was fantastic and I would love another when funds allow, however what I felt was this. On track it felt no quicker, it was just that I got over taken less(never in boothys case ). On the road however it just felt too quick, mental but just hardly usable. God knows what its like for those with 240+ and the will power to go flat!
Ironically I’ve tuned my car to its current level of power specifically for road use
As said in another thread it’s much, much more drivable with lots more torque comming in earlier on in the rev range. I dont change gear anywhere near as much now and very rarely need to go above 6k rpm in any gear. With my recent ohlins and engine tune I’ve gone from a high reving, crashy track focused car to a torquey, smoother riding fast road sports car.
I only ever bought the car because of it’s looks, its steering feel and heritage. Something I missed after being lucky enough to own lots of other sports car since my 1st Exige in '06. Doing lots of track days never came into it, if it did i’d have kept my ariel atom (sold in '05 and still missed).
oh, one other thing…can anyone really have too much power??? I’m not a wreckless driver at all and have the clean license to prove it but c’mon power is enjoyable.
I’m surely not the only one who once honeymoon period finished felt their standard Exige was a bit underpowered. I felt it about 2 hours after picking the car up…lol.
Well I’ve heard it said a few times that to go faster on track you need a slower car…
Too much power can be underwhelming, for example on a nice twisty B road a modestly powered well balanced car on skinny tyres can be a hoot compared to a high power road rocket that’s always trying to get away from you & bite hard. IMHO of course.
I was about to start a new post but this might be of interest here:
More than half of fixed speed cameras in England and Wales do not work at any one time, according to a consumer watchdog.
And the chances of getting caught speeding vary dramatically from county to county, with all 60 Sussex cameras in operation while just 10% of Lancashire�s 287 sites are ready to snap motorists.
Less than 47% of all fixed cameras are operational at any one time, Which? magazine found under a Freedom of Information Act request.
Most areas have more yellow boxes than actual cameras and rotating the working part at random or in response to speed and accident statistics.
The watchdog asked all 43 police authorities in England and Wales how many fixed speed camera housings they had and how many were in operation under the Freedom of Information Act.
Dorset, Hertfordshire, Merseyside, Norfolk and Suffolk refused to answer, but the available results showed counties had between 10% and 100% of their cameras in operation.
Durham said it used a single mobile camera because there was no need for fixed cameras anywhere in the county, while Cleveland, North Yorkshire and Wiltshire also did not operate any fixed sites.
A spokeswoman for Durham constabulary told the magazine: ��We�re a largely rural constabulary and the mobile camera is an approach that seems to work for us.��
Elsewhere, Cumbria Police had just 12 fixed cameras - one of the lowest totals in the investigation - but all were operational.
Staffordshire Police had 263 speed camera housings but just 11% were in operation, while Avon and Somerset had 54 sites of which 94% were operational.
A Which? survey of 1,920 members found 47% of people thought speed cameras made the roads safer and 45% did not, while 83% believed they slowed drivers down only at specific locations.
Of those surveyed, 23% had received a penalty notice for speeding. Of these people, 48% paid more attention to driving within the speed limit following the fine, 39% were more cautious about their speed when near a camera and 18% did not change their driving.
Which? editor Martyn Hocking said: ��Speed cameras in some areas are always operational, whereas in others there could be a one in 10 chance the camera you�ve passed isn�t working. It really is a tale of two counties.��
end
If you can’t control a powerful Exige you just don’t have control of your right foot, it is really that simple…
I drive rough canyon roads with over 500whp and never felt out of control in the twisties…All this time on track tires…
). On the road however it just felt too quick, mental but just hardly usable. God knows what its like for those with 240+ and the will power to go flat!
