I have heard that the run-in process for an Exige is a nightmare? Can anyone confirm this? What’s the exact procedure?Cheers
According to the Exige manual:The progressive and sympathetic running in (or bedding in) of a new engine and transmission is a major factor in attaining efficient operation with smooth, durable and economic performance throughout the life of the vehicle.Although it is not necessary to follow a formal ‘running in’ schedule, it is important during the engine’s early life to limit the amount of engine heat generated, which is dependent on throttle opening and speed. For the first 600 miles (1000 Km) use only moderate throttle openings and do not exeed 3,000 rpm, making full use of the gearbox to avoid labouring the engine in too high a gear. After this period, the engine speed and throttle opening may be progressively increased, and higher engine work loads used for longer periods. Vary the operating conditions rather than maintain a steady cruising speed, and restrict operation at full throttle and rpm until after 1,000 mile (1,6000 km) have been covered.I’ve heard others talk of troublesome running in, and my car is still quite lumpy at idle, but think this is normal.
Compared to the Elise I had previously, it was a lot tighter and took a lot more miles to loosen up.Even each gear loosened up gradually as they had more miles put on them. The first long trip was completed in mainly 4th and 5th, so afterwards these were relatively loose, whilst the first 3 gears were painful.Now, with over 7000 miles, the restrictor on the air intake removed, and giving full throttle, it’s as good as I think it will get in standard trim. Still a pain in slow traffic when you can’t go over 2000rpm, requiring constant clutch adjustments. Similar to what I’ve heard about the Elise 160.
Mines an absolute nightmare under 3,000rpm…no power to pull in any gear and then an enormous surge at 4,000rpm…is this normal whislt running in…Ive only done 500 miles so far.
Mines the same as Steve’s… Not a fat lot under 3-4000 then loads! However the engine is detting badly upto 3k. I’m just about to drop it off at Lotus to sort it. I’m going to ask if they’ll take out the restrictor/governor, etc… sounds like a worthwhile mod.
quote:Originally posted by stevegreen:Mines an absolute nightmare under 3,000rpm…no power to pull in any gear and then an enormous surge at 4,000rpm…is this normal whislt running in…Ive only done 500 miles so far.Yes, this is normal. And I suspect you’ve not had your restrictor removed yet.Take a look at your engine bay, and then compare it with mine (see Members Cars) you’ll probably see you have a 2" silver ring just before your airbox on the left-hand-side.Get them to remove this at your first service.
Looking at the plots from my recent rolling road session, the torque curve is nowhere until approaching 3500rpm (around 120lb/ft), where it is then quite flat until the rev limit. Max torque is 130lb/ft@6900.
Yes i still have the restrictor and two filters…just another 500 miles to go and I’ll get rid of them…is there any graphs of the torque/power curves for the standard exige engine…ive seen plenty for the standard elise engine and its variants but none for the exige. Interested to see what the torque figures are from 0 to 3,000rpm.
In theory, any 340R plots knocking about should be close. The only proper standard Exige plots I’ve seen so far, are mine :-)Can email you the spreadsheet if you want, or try and upload a jpeg of the graph somewhere.
to run mine in i drove to work each day a mixture of A roads and urban (40miles round trip). that way i used the full gear range, changing gear at 3k-3.5k rpm with the odd brief venture into 4k-5k territory to prevent sweet spots developing. worked well for me the car is running great.
would appreciate an email of your details - thanks…I will have a quick surf around to see if I can find any 340R graphs.
Today was the first day out of the block after the as service and having it derestricted…what a difference…it now pulls up the way through the rev range…especially low down where i was reporting the difficulties earlier…and it also sounds better for it too. Tomorrow is planned to be better than expected so will be out again…more miles = bigger smiles!PS I agree with another post elsewhere about changing down to 1st gear to take corners and slow down…2nd gear is really only to be used as an accelerating gear and when changing down but keeping relatively high revs - well above 2,500rpm anyway!