2007 Lotus Exige S

[polishmafia]

Originally Posted by asshanson

Yea Pete, the raceview mirrors are carbon fiber, 1lb ligher each lol!

Why have you not purchased them yet!? Haha!

[asshanson]

Got a sweet deal on a Shorai Lithium Iron battery, the entire setup weighs 4.5 lbs and has over 400cca. Also came with a cutoff switch/knob so I can leave it for a couple months and not have it die on me.

[Halon]

Nice! Is it just me or does that + cable look to be in questionable condition?

[asshanson]

Yea, I realized it looks bad in the pic, must be the angle plus it's blurry. It's actually on the connector good and not close to the bracket at all.

Edit: I am really thinking about doing side sills/skirts, there have been a lot of people that DIY and provide CAD drawings and such, what do you think of these?


Or there are less aggressive ones:


I kind of dig the look, would be pretty cheap to make too. Especially since I already have the drawing and just need the material.

[JohnnyT]

I dig the first ones! There's nothing sutble about an Exige so why not get it looking aggressive. Only thing you have to worry about is crunching them getting in/out of the car. What would they be made of? Mine are fiberglass so I have to be extra careful - really wish there was a urethane option...

[A//// Guy]

Sweet battery setup! That side skirt is crazy, youd have to jump out of the seat with how wide it would make it haha.

[simulatedwood]

Nice battery setup! The cut off switch is nice addition.

At least throw some shrink wrap over the exposed copper, over time it will fray from vibration.

[Shane@DBPerformance]

We have a mini battery setup like that and the damn thing keeps going dead, but we don't drive the car much. The alarm might be draining it or the battery just needs to be replaced. We don't want to hit the cutoff switch though, since we want the alarm to be on.

Those side skirts look sick.

[asshanson]

Shane, my old Deka never went dead even after sitting for 3 weeks, but I don't have an alarm to drain it so it may not be a good comparison.

I decided to go with the wide side sills, I think I found some used ones for cheap.

I plasti dipped my wheels all black today, I think it looks a lot better. Before/after:

[Knoxville]

oh hell yeah, way better. That thing looks nasty

[Halon]

Dipped wheels are lookin good man!

[Speedfreak]

Yup, much better.

I'll be interested to hear your user experience with the wide sills.

[polishmafia]

The wheels look so much better now. The black sets off the black pieces on the car.

[tehehodi]

Should of CF wrapped the wheels yo!

Looks good!

Edit: do just like that black car! Looks B.A.

[rose0529]

Looks way better!

[Super Bleeder!!]

Car looks GREAT as is. I wouldn't put any of that additional stuff on there.

[asshanson]

Did a HPDE at Iowa Speedway this weekend, and all I can say is wow. After driving the track at BIR a couple times, I can now appreciate different tracks and their challenges. The banked oval has such a cool down-force effect, it's really weird and scary (mostly because of the wall on the outside haha). For my car with its limited top speed, I actually like Iowa Speedway a lot better because you don't really see the top speeds of BIR, so my car can compete with the high HP cars (like several GT500's today), especially on the tight infield.

Still though, I was spinning the inside wheel on most corner exits under throttle, because of my open diff. Last week I received my Nitron 46mm race pro shock/coilover kit which should help plant the inside wheel and get me some better traction. I'm super excited, and hope to install this week and have a corner balance done before the cruise.

The springs are a little stiff at 550 lbs front and 700 lbs rear, especially for how light the car is (I thought 400lb ksport springs were a rough ride in the Talon). They look really beefy compared to the stock Bilsteins, and the spring rates are almost double stock, but apparently with the larger diameter shock and better valving, they ride better than stock. Below is a pic. Anyway, really excited for more track days next Spring, and maybe one more yet this Fall at MAM, would be fun to try another track.

Originally Posted by Super Bleeder!!

Car looks GREAT as is. I wouldn't put any of that additional stuff on there.

I see where you're coming from, and I do agree the car looks great right now. But the front lip and side skirts are actually pretty functional as far as downforce and aerodynamics are concerned. I was surprised to learn that a good front splitter can provide nearly 100lbs of downforce, and the side skirts improve downforce while reducing drag. I will probably end up buying them eventually as I'm able to save for them. The Nitrons basically took away my car budget for awhile.

[turbotalon1g]

Car looks awesome and glad that you had a great time.

[asshanson]

Installed them today, still have to get the height adjustments close to what I want and then I will corner balance on a friend's scales and then set toe.

Side by side comparison of the stock Bilsteins and the Nitrons. I can't get over how much beefier the Nitrons look compared to stock:


I was going to buy four scales so I could corner weight this thing, but then I found out it costs $1k for the setup. Anybody know of a simple/cheap setup that is accurate? I can laser level, do math, and all that jazz myself, I don't need a fancy computer program that costs a fortune to tell me some percentages via wireless connection.

Thanks to Brandon Ranvek for re-assuring me about spring rates!

Update: Got the ride heights all set, now I just need to corner balance. The car is 20mm lower all around than it was before, looks really good.

[Mark Leasure]

I like the dual spring setup. I'm assuming that is how some of the ride quality is maintained.