I finally collected my Exige Cup with Bemani 265bhp S/C yesterday
I had asked the dealer to get me the list of settings that Lotus apparently gave out to some owners, after the first Cup season at the circuits around Europe, specifying the settings they recommend. In particular I would like to know what they are for Hockenheim and Anneau du Rhin.
Yesteday he told me that a senior engineer at Lotus whom he knows personally (I also know the name, but don’t feel I should mention it) told him they could not issue such info any more. The reason is that some german guy dialled in the given settings, crashed the car, said it had responded completely differently to before, blamed Lotus and initiated legal proceedings against them. There’s always one, who has to spoil it for the rest, isn’t there?
To cover themselves against similar claims, the info is no longer officially released!
Question: Does any Cup owner have these settings for the various circuits?
I would really appreciate it if someone could let me have them � preferably soon, as I’m in Hockenheim next Tuesday, 21st March!
RS14s are standard for the Cup 240 car… That’s why I can’t understand the problems I’m having. Never had anything go wrong with the brakes on my previous cars (useing the same setup), now I’m on my second set of brakes (disks, pads & fluid replaced under warrantee) and the problem has just reoccurred.
Have emailed Pagid for advice, and of course Lotus Sport will know of it on Monday�
I saw Simon & his car on Saturday - good to put a face to a name etc.
Noticed his discs are drilled, but not grooved, & I wonder if that may be causing the problem. I regard Uldis as being our resident expert in this area, & wonder what he thinks?
I have seen ducting being added to direct more air to the brakes. Worth a look?
I had Pagid RS14s on my Speedster and the discs (standard, not cross-drilled) got cooked on the Hockenheim F1 track.
I spoke to my dealer about the Exige Cup brake cooling last week and he said they could get air feed from the oil cooler ducts � bend the feed plate slightly out of the way and run ducting to the brakes. Decided to leave it stock for the mo.
I’m interested to see how it goes at Hock this week…
The discs are also all the same - the interenal er fan type blades all face the same way. (so two out of the four should get air and the others dont!) I have since found out that this is the same on most cars eg Porkers cos the brake disc makeres cant be arsed. If you do buy new discs, worth looking at getting some that ‘face the right way’.
Hope that makes sense!
Exactly my point (complaint) even since the S2 Elise came out.
It is just a cost saving solution.
I reckon Lotus figured out that the few going over the stock braking system’s capabilities would upgrade anyway.
Anyway, how much does the cup Exige weigh? more than my S1 for sure, so I�m not surprised to find that you have problems.
I still believe that the 2 piston calipers could be up to the job, but in your case because of the extra weight they have to do more work. If the vanes are facing in the wrong direction and you�re a late a heavy braker it�s not going to help�
You�ve already got good pads. Here�s what you need:
-a lighter car
if that�s not possible
-better cooling, and I mean through the vanes forced cooling.
That means getting some sort of scoop in the front (could be under the grill or similar), designing a behind-the-disk ducting enclosure to force that cold air through the vanes.
-Probably 295mm discs instead of the 284mm stock ones.
-definitely other disks, not stock (hey are made of cheese). AP is a good ones, but ask for a closed alloy bell so you can add ducted cooling later.
Maybe my page in Bookatrack will give you an idea:
Hit the nail in the head.
See, I intended to fit a nice removable cover but since the house move I haven’t been able to do it.
Still, there is a definite need to block these ducts on normal road driving so I resort to the old duct tape over the grills trick, and just remove it when I’m on track.
Hopefully I’ll have some properly made covers soon
Seriously now, crossdrilling doesn’t do an awful lot for brakes apart from reduce the friction area, they’re supposed to let gases and dust escape (and slightly reduce weight) but that’s exactly what the grooves do, and do much better.
Strange that the internal vanes weren’t straight if the discs were meant to be used all round too.
Seriously now, crossdrilling doesn’t do an awful lot for brakes apart from reduce the friction area, they’re supposed to let gases and dust escape (and slightly reduce weight) but that’s exactly what the grooves do, and do much better.
Strange that the internal vanes weren’t straight if the discs were meant to be used all round too.
Spot on! Not only that but holes tend to create a stress point, and are the origin of cracks.
And instead of strange I would say it’s silly on a performance car like these. Cost cutting there is just plain stupid.
Exactly my point (complaint) even since the S2 Elise came out.
It is just a cost saving solution.
I reckon Lotus figured out that the few going over the stock braking system’s capabilities would upgrade anyway.
Anyway, how much does the cup Exige weigh? more than my S1 for sure, so I�m not surprised to find that you have problems.
I still believe that the 2 piston calipers could be up to the job, but in your case because of the extra weight they have to do more work. If the vanes are facing in the wrong direction and you�re a late a heavy braker it�s not going to help�
You�ve already got good pads. Here�s what you need:
-a lighter car
if that�s not possible
-better cooling, and I mean through the vanes forced cooling.
That means getting some sort of scoop in the front (could be under the grill or similar), designing a behind-the-disk ducting enclosure to force that cold air through the vanes.
-Probably 295mm discs instead of the 284mm stock ones.
-definitely other disks, not stock (hey are made of cheese). AP is a good ones, but ask for a closed alloy bell so you can add ducted cooling later.
Maybe my page in Bookatrack will give you an idea: http://bookatrack.com/-pg?1960
HTH
Just to clear things in my mind. Lotus don’t hand their disks as a cost saving exercise, that I understand (but don’t agree with). This leads to overheating of the disks, this doesn’t makes sense to me. If that were the case one side would be worse the the other, and it’s not?
The weight issues can’t be argued with, but the RS14 pads also appear on number of TNBs (turbo nutter barges) and they weight alot more…
Anyway, this car isn’t that much heavier the my old S2 111S (the weight of a passanger at most), and I never had a problem with that when running the same set up.
Lotus disks have always been made of cheese, and I had thought of upgrading, but why should I pay for it? The 240 Cup car is ment to be the european race car, and should therefor be more then capable of with standing a joe public trackday, especially given what I paid for it.
This has pi55ed me off abit and I don’t mean to have a pop at anyone here. I just want to be able to complete a trackday, and not waste half the money I’ve spent booking it.
I’ll post some photos of the disks later with my theory of what’s going wrong…
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