Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/12V-DC-CAR-A...-/220798190787

:D

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

If only I had a cigarette lighter power source in the car...

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

This car is soo badass, it's nutty how comfy it is.

I want one with a bigger blower on E85, it would be a 10 sec car and have insane handling.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

I had the dash apart to install gauges in the center vents, and I remembered the SRS dash light was bothering me, so I pulled out that pin from the dash harness, no more airbag light! (next to battery)
http://www.dsmstyle.com/photopost/da...s_disabled.jpg

But here is the real reason I took apart the dash, to install an oil temp gauge I got from Nate (thanks again!). The center part is exactly 52mm so gauges fit perfectly without any cutting.
http://www.dsmstyle.com/photopost/da...nter_vents.jpg

Now I have to decide if I want white or black. I originally decided on black, but I think in the car the white with silver bezel looks better.
http://www.dsmstyle.com/photopost/da..._installed.jpg
http://www.dsmstyle.com/photopost/da..._installed.jpg

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

White with black bezel? Looking good though!

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

white gauge, matchy-matchy.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

You could always wire one in ;)

I like the white gauge. It just seems more natural with the other gauges being white

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

White, i love that old school white face look.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

Vanilla face oil temp gauge installed, works nice.
Got the car weighed, 1900 lbs with the big battery and harnesses/bar installed. Race weight will probably be in the 1860 range if I take off the roof and have the small battery.

I also got some stainless steel caliper pistons, the heat transfer on these is about 5% of the stock aluminum pistons, which equals lower brake fluid temps and fewer changes. They are also vented.
New pistons:
http://www.dsmstyle.com/photopost/da...ew_pistons.jpg

Installed:
http://www.dsmstyle.com/photopost/da..._installed.jpg

Old ones:
http://www.dsmstyle.com/photopost/da...ld_pistons.jpg

Brakes were really spongy after that so I bled the entire clutch/brake system with super blue. Excited to see how it drives tomorrow, hopefully I got all the air out.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

1900 lbs is wicked light! I can't even imagine how well this thing turns and brakes.

Out of curiosity, what kind of pads are you going to replace them with?

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

Still using the Pagid RS14 the car came with, they have a lot of life left so I probably won't change them until next year.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

Very nice.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

:drool:

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

Awesome. I've never heard of non-oem brake pistons, but your explanation makes sense. Very cool!

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

That is awesome! Can't wait to see it on a course sometime. I have always loved those cars.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

Thanks everyone for the positive comments, I'm excited to see how I can do with a fully prepped car, the only thing left is driver mod which I hope to improve a little this year.

Yea, Doug Rippie (in Minneapolis) also makes SS caliper pistons for vettes, I have read many reviews that say you can use the cheap ATE fluid with these over the Castrol SRF so it saves money in the long run for cars that see the track a lot. Two less fluid changes and you break even basically.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

New Bosch EV-14 525cc injectors installed with adapter harnesses:
http://www.boefabrication.com/images...FICset_585.jpg

Also doing a 3" maf and CAI:
http://www.boefabrication.com/images...ox_3in_585.jpg

When I was bleeding the clutch I noticed the slave cylinder moved a bit and I discovered it was only being held in with 1 of the 2 bolts. I thought the previous owner broke the head off of one and said screw it, but it was completely missing. Found a matching one in my box of bolts, glad I caught that.

Car is all buttoned up and ready to drive down to KC friday for a dyno tune. Will post results after this weekend.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

EFF YEAH!!

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

Very nice. What are you expecting for it to put down power wise? What kind of dyno?

I really want a ride in this somehow! Maybe this summer when we are down in Iowa?

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

Looking good mang, can't wait to see this thing in action.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

I will be disappointed with less than 280whp, I would really like to see 300.
You can for sure get a ride/drive this summer when you are here.

Not sure on the dyno, but it's load based I know.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

304whp peak when cool, 295whp when the intercooler was warm. Tq is in the 190 lb-ft range and very flat from 5000-8500rpm, I'm working on getting the graphs to post. Basically makes no power below 4k rpms then just screams up top, even wants to keep going way past 100mph which I wasn't expecting with the 1.8l.

The car was running stupid lean, over 13:1 on the old tune, it's a good thing I decided to get retuned after these mods. Car feels much more responsive now on tip in, and I am finally feeling traction control kick in for the first time. I didn't know what was happening at the autox today, thought it was stuttering on corner exit and the tuner told me to turn off TC next time.

After the entire day of autox (about 16-17 miles of track) I noticed my brake light came on which indicates brake fluid isn't completely full, and I saw some fluid around the front bleeders. Also I was having some trouble downshifting, like I was getting locked out, so I might have a leak in both the front calipers and the clutch slave. I may have overtightened them, or the previous owner did, they were nearly impossible to get loose when I flushed the system last week.

But the good news is I got best time of the day, and I kept getting a little bit faster as the day went on. My last lap I had a few really good turns in the fast sections but sloppy elsewhere, and it was still my best time by a half second. The car pushes a little bit so I'm going to adjust my front swaybar one notch stiffer and see how that goes.

For those of you who know Marshalltown, my best time was 1:22.06 for two laps, hoping I can get that into the sub-1:20 range with more practice and temps over 50* for some more traction.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

Congrats on time of the day!

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

Got dyno plots yet? What kind of dyno was this on?

Nice to hear the car is running good! Maybe a bunch of air still in the brake lines after your rebuild project?

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

Nice to hear. That is sick power to weight.
I just bought a motive power bleeder ill let you know how it works out incase you were looking to get one.

Congrats on the power, I have a feeling the powerband is sick.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

I have one and its pretty sweet, but I still don't mind having a buddy work the brakes though

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

Most people would advise going the opposite direction-- softening the front swaybar to reduce understeer. Plenty of articles and resources on this so I won't get all techy here but, most simply, increasing the stiffness of a sway bar at one end of the car often has the most effect at the other end due to the bar's effect on lateral load transfer.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

Yea that is what I meant, I was thinking about this last night and realized I had it backwards haha. Thanks for confirming.

Or I could just add negative camber to the front tires and just get more grip up front. I have to get an alignment soon anyway after I install my toe links.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

I think that's a better route. You could also consider a spacer, even a very small one. I'm playing with a 3mm spacer up front to widen the front track a little without hugely effecting scrub radius.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

Push is a funny thing, You could try a softer spring setup or try adding camber, it really depends is this a high speed or low speed push? Also what are the condition of the tires? Tires is usually 80 percent of all issues. Suspension setup accounts for the other 20 percent as a rule.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

All new star specs with less than 500 miles on them. Don't really want to mess with shocks or springs yet, they are all stock.

They were all tight turns, like 20mph or so.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

Did the front of the car feel like it was digging at all or just sliding? How does the tire wear look for a new set of tires?

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

It wasn't too bad, felt alright but the front just doesn't have as much grip as the rear. Definitely wasn't sliding all over the place. Maybe I'm just comparing it to the corvette which seemed really neutral, if I gave it a little gas the back would come out just a bit. It seemed to have the opposite effect in this car, more throttle just made it push a little more, maybe I just need more throttle haha. I haven't checked the inside/outside tire wear yet.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

The newness of your tires could be a factor. You may know this already but, generally, it takes about 500 miles to wear off the mold release lubricant which hurts traction; that 500 miles is usually for easy, casual driving so you might be through that already. Also, full depth tires will squirm a bit more than worn tires due to the taller, more pliable tread blocks. It's subtle and Star Specs should squirm less than "normal" passenger tires, but it could also be a factor.

With this, and knowing Star Specs especially improve as they wear, personally, I'd give it some time before changing too much. Maybe play with tire pressures-- overall and the balance from front to back-- and see what that does.

The "nice" thing about understeer is that, to correct it, you just do less of what's causing it-- less steering input, less brake, etc. If it's happening under acceleration, try squeezing the throttle gradually as you unwind the steering wheel so you're unloading the front tires a bit more gradually.

I hope I'm not being too basic and saying things you already know, just trying to offer my thoughts.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

Yeah, if the wear is on the more outside edge, I could see adding camber helping alittle bit. Pay attention to the motion of the car in a low speed situation, you might need to trail brake to keep more weight over the front wheels on lower speed turns. Be careful, Since this is a mid engine car the likely-hood of swapping ends can be high if to much weight is transferred to the front.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

Not at all, I have very little experience and everything helps. I actually forgot to check my tire pressures ahead of time so that could completely fix the issue. Terrible n00b mistake, I know.

I found this out the fun way. Braked a little too late for a 180* turn and also downshifted late since I couldn't get it into 2nd, and as I enter the turn and 2nd engages I do a quick end-swap. That was on my 3rd run of the day. It was close a few other times but some throttle quickly planted the car again, that was a blast.

Thanks a lot for the help guys, hopefully I can do another event or two before Proving Grounds to get these little things worked out.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

I started the toe link install tonight, I bought a kit from the shop that tuned my car. It's the cheapest, lightest, and strongest available but it requires drilling out the OEM holes for larger studs. The OEM ones are very prone to failure and I'm surprised the car didn't have aftermarket already since it was a track car.

Since I had the car jacked up I checked the front camber and there was one shim still installed. Previous camber was -1.85 and each shim is good for -.25*, so it will be around -2.1 now. Also I discovered the rear toe was 6mm (in) and should be just 3mm, so I will have that corrected when I get my alignment after the toe link install is complete. Also going to do 2mm total toe out on the front for better turn in and front grip. All these specs are what I have read online and also what my tuner suggested.

There are also a few shims in the rear but they are already at -1.6* camber, the inner nubs on the tires have worn down but the outer are still fully intact, which tells me I don't need any more rear camber (I think). Tire wear is almost dead even inside and outside on both the front and rear tires, but at only 500 highway miles and 16 track miles it's too early to tell I think.

The nubs on the front are worn both inside and outside, maybe need a little more tire pressure to keep them from rolling.

Thoughts?

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

Got the rear toe links installed, first bought a cheap chinese cobalt bit and broke it immediately, then got a quality high speed steel bit and everything went super smooth. Stock holes were around .31", I drilled them out to about .44", so not a lot but enough for the bigger toe link bolt to go through.

Stock vs aftermarket, you can see the larger diameter bolt on the new one:
http://www.dsmstyle.com/photopost/da.../toe_links.jpg

Stock installed:
http://www.dsmstyle.com/photopost/da...k_toe_link.jpg

New one installed:
http://www.dsmstyle.com/photopost/da..._installed.jpg

How it looks from under the car, the bolt also holds in the lower A arm:
http://www.dsmstyle.com/photopost/da...r_toe_link.jpg

Rear wheel steering engaged, also liking the front camber:
http://www.dsmstyle.com/photopost/da...l_steering.jpg

Also I removed one camber shim from the fronts, and two shims from the rears, hope to get an alignment Sunday or Monday. But it should be a little over -2* camber on each wheel.

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

Thought I would explain this pic, because I love learning about different suspension setups and maybe somebody else does too. Every one of my cars has been quite different (well I don't know anything about the V), but this one is especially different.

There are upper and lower A arms, and the upper connects via a ball type joint to a block which bolts to the hub. In order to adjust camber you add or remove shims between the A-arm block and hub. Unfortunately those are 8mm allen heads which suck, but I thought it was a cool design. I always thought the lop sided bolt/holes to adjust things were weird and would rotate in time, but I am just a suspension noob.

Front camber is normally limited to -1* if you remove all the shims. Apparently the previous owner milled down the A-arm block about 4mm because it is well over the stock adjustability at this point (little more than -2). BECAUSE RACECAR.

http://www.dsmstyle.com/photopost/da...mber_notes.jpg

Re: 2007 Lotus Exige S
 

leave them sideways like that then light smoke bombs and zip tie to chassis...epic king-o-drift! But you only turn left.