Well got my Exige about a month ago as a replacement for my Escort Cosworth track car. I guess I just fancied a change, plus the fact I had modded my Escort to death and was ploughing far to much money into it and it was slowly turning into an undriveable monster.
So the Exige arrived and has had a few mods done to the engine and suspension and stuff in order to get it a bit more track ready and reliable. Basically I went to Dave Walker for his ECU, plus I fitted Jenvey throttle bodies and a full Elise parts manifold and exhaust system, including there silenced de-cat pipe. Mods to the suspension have so far only included, Nylatron bushes and a rose jointed rear tie rod kit, plus a new set of A048’s. I changed the brake fluid for SRF, and changed the disks to the elise parts 2 part items. I also ditched the Air Con and fitted a remote thermostat. I also fitted a couple of SPA gauges to moniter oil temp and pressure and fuel pressure and volts.
My big worry a couple of days before my first track day with the car was noise, I was going to Bedford and as most of you are aware there noise level is one of the strictest in the country, but its one of my favourite tracks, so I had to get it sorted.
I couldn’t hear the exhaust over the induction noise, so at stupid expense (but it is a very nice piece of kit) I got the QED carbon air box kit. My engineering shop milled me up some spacers so the air box back plate cleared the fuel rail and on the airbox went. Then I could hear the exhaust and I was a bit worried about that. Ian at Elise parts had assured me the system had been designed to be 94db, so I went with that. Plus the fact it was the day before the track day so there wasn’t much I could of done anyway.
I turned up at Bedford and passed the 101db static noise test…
… Just. I was 99db, so 5 over what I was expecting. I was then really worried about the 87db drive by limit as we all know under full load at max RPM the cars are a lot noiser than when you are simply holding it at 4,500rpm
Sure enough, first session out I do about 5 laps and got pulled for noise, my driveby noise level was 88db. 1 bloody decibel!! But hey rules are rules. So after waiting 15 minutes I went back out, and simply backed off as I went past the microphones.
Apart from my noise issues (i got pulled another twice throughout the day) I had a brilliant day, the car was awesome. There isn’t really a Cosworth on the planet that is less than 330BHP as it costs nothing to achieve that power, so I was a bit worried about how I would fair on the straights. But I have to say I smoked everything!!! There were two cars that were genuinly over 400BHP and they ekked away from me on the straights, but under brakeing and through the corners nothing touched me at all. It was MINT!!!
I was going through the final fast right hander flat in 4th at about 100mph. I went out with one of my pals with a 400+ slick shod cossy and he was doing about 85 through the same corner.
The car at no time felt like I was asking it to do something that it didn’t want to do, and I had no problems at all.
The only slight issues I had and these really are slight were:
1: My Pagis RS14’s were rattling up and down in the callipers, which did my head in a bit on the drive to and from the track, so some anti rattle pads will go with the anti rattle springs already fitted
2: My oil temp rose to a peak of 109 degrees C. Which although I know is within acceptable limits, I will be looking into additional cooling as I would like to see it stay below 100.
3: My noise issue. I spoke to Ian today and he and Geary are going to sort me out a fix.
4: A very small bit of low speed under steer. Hopefully my new suspension will sort that.
5: My rear view mirror kept dropping down so I couldn’t see out of the back
6: My fuel pressure was dropping at high RPM. Dave walker had increased the pressure to 4 Bar as we were running the injectors flat out at peak revs with 3 bar pressure. So with the revised pressure all was well. Or so we thought. But in fact from 6,000rpm upwards the fuel pressure dropped from 4 bar to about 3.3 bar. So we have reached the limit of the standard pump. The mapping is OK as I guess the extra .3 of a bar is giving us our safety margin for the injector duty, but I’m not happy at running the pump right at its limit.
On my drive to Bedford I was a bit worried about what I had done. I loved my Escort, and as I have now sold most of it I was praying I had made the write decision. But I needn’t of worried, as from about the second corner in the amount of feed back and driver envolvement the Exige gives you was all I needed. I really enjoyed myself.
My worries on the car before the day, were:
The water temp, but that never rose over 85 degrees
The brakes, but these never faded once and felt as good at the end of a twenty minute stretch as they did at the start.
Noise, but hey I’ve covered that.
Overall speed, yeah ok I was only peaking at 120 on the main straight (my cossie peaked at about 160) but the extra speed through the corners more than made up for the lack of straight line speed.
All in all I had a great time and unfortunatly for you lot, I am here to stay!!!
Sean…