Me too, Keith and I got into it a couple of times, but that was a lawyer/CPA thing, which I do every day. I dunno. Seems like a random number generator thing.
Very Very sad about Keith, he was a true car guy, a real driver, and never shy with his opinions on the subject. We should all be reminded that life is very short, and one needs to live as full a s one as possible in the time alloted. You never know, so if you are wavering about doing something, go do it.
Off to the track tomorrow for another shakedown run. Yoko slicks being delivered next week, Ill adjust ride height then change fluids and run it again.
Sweet. I want to hear what you think about the difference with a different suspension setup and slicks.
Ok next track report. I was still running the trofeo R tires. Cant say I love them or that they suck, they need a fair bit of heat to work, and past that amount they get greasy, also very psi dependant. i guess thats what happens when you want a street legal tire that is also sort of a slick. For wets in future or warmups I will try 888s. I made some adjustments tot he car based on how it went before. I dialed out 1 click rear rebound and put in some front rebound(1 clisk stiffer). each now being 1 click more than lotus says is an easy track setup, to me the lotus setup is at best a street setup. With the extra rebound in the front, Lo and behold the car started to turn in beautifully, very much like an elise, but with way more grip and control from the front. Now i could start to carry speed through turns. Still the rear felt loose, almost wallaowy on really high speed corners, and when it stepped out it was snap oversteer. One click more of compression and the rear behaved, when it stepped out, it was easy to catch and the whole car became predicatble. My imperssion though is that the while more predictable and easier to catch, the limits from the rear were now lower. Laptimes overall were way better. I was easily able to run with a heavily modified cayman, he was runnign massive slicks hige negative camber aero, strippied and a 911 motor. Spec Miata are cones. The biggest surprise is how far and deep you can go before braking. The biggest change for me, will be a complete brain recalibration. A corner you might arrive at doing 105 in the elise, you can easily be doing 120 in this car, and you can brake later and harder. I am still getting power on oversteer comming out of bends, for sure there are still some adjustemnts to do. But I finally got some sort of flow through the track so its commign together. While laptimes are very driver depedant, I can see that catching a vette or cayman type car is easy with this, there were some modded Gt3s I couldnt get near, and I still think I am cornering faster int he elise(on slicks), but its getting close. There was a pro racer out in a brand new Miata cup with fresh rubber and it was so fast through the corners that clearly there is a long way for me to go. Slicks arrive this week, which is good as the pirellies are shot. So prbably there will be a bunch of adjustments to work with on the slicks. Also the car needs more rake, ie the front lowered which will make it less rear biased and bettr on turn in still. As it is now you can feel the front getting a bit light above 140 and lotus says the front shoudl be 126 mms and mine is now 130. As a contrast, after cleaning I ran it up the hill behind my house. With the suspension adjustments it now doses not really feel streetable, the ride is HARD, although maybe somewhat soft for the track. After that i dorve the elise, which even with track pack felt soft, it also seems to have more suspesion compliance, and on the elsie every control is balanced with the other. The exige, it feels like a weapon of war, ready to do battle, evryhting is is turned up 50% or more and focussed for a purpose. Like any "real" race car, there are lots of adjustments one can make, and each one has an effect that alters the others. Its a matter of small adjustments one at a time noting the differences and then seeing what the next change does in relation to the others. That goes for suspension settings to tire prressures. This is one very capable and sensitive machine, yet in some ways it feels less intimidating than an elise, more tolerant of the ham fisted. Well we'll see what happens when i can really start to fully use the motor(so far been limiting to mostly 6k) and dial in the suspension/slicks.
Yep a 3 step system, 1 is stabilitya nd traction, it cant cope with track. 2 is just traction which supposedly elarns the track and how you drive, it incorporates yaw sensors etc. 3. all off. I started in mode 1, and if anythign it worked aginst the car on track. Mode 2 which is traction only seems to work well and is a good teacher int hat driving properly it should not intervene.. Like many such systems mode 2 is in theory faster roud a track than the most acomplished human.
Strongly disagree - those systems are very good only on the tires the mfg specs and installs initially, as soon as you increase your mechanical grip or significantly alter the suspension, they will slow you down a bunch. Turn off your targeting computer. Trust the force young padawan Thank you for the detailed info.
i remember watching a topgear or 5th gear tv episode about lotus stab control where they had pro drive through a corner and be faster with it on. idea was could just floor it and let computer decide on throttle.
Well reality is you dont even need to floor it and the computer intervenes comming off an apex, when the computer steps out there is a noticeable power gain. On the other hand on some bends the rear still goes oversteer, so somethign nto right int he setup and driving One possible issue is like most loti I does not have a lsd and maybe at this power level it needs one. i have been runnign so far the stock tires, trofeo Rs which i dont love, and as the car isa 2016 that was imprted late last year these tires could have been frozen more than once and past their due even though they started "new" On the elise I can run traction with the slicks and it adjusts because it essentialy uses the abs sensor to detect wheel spin so in theroy is Ok. Stability control i can see would interfere because it uses g sensors in one mode and s yaw sensors, but pure traction as in "race mode" in theroy works with various tires as its just a wheel spin. Spidey I did see the 5th gear episode, and now that i think about it, they were also drivign on a typicaly wet english day so for sure the sytems will help there. i do know on my M3 I am way faster with systems off because they interfere way too soon and you cant use the throtle to rotate the car. The BBi has no ssytems and I dotn struggle there and the Gt40 had no systems and it was fine, so yes I will trust the force. Slicks go on this week, and Ill see how sunday goes, if its really nicely dialed in and progressive Ill try hero mode. one thing for sure, its great to have a single track to learn a car on, its sets a consistent tempo and each change is driver and car is easy to measure, plus there are not big gaps in seat time.
I do agree in very limited traction situations it can be very helpful, and more sensitive then most - maybe all - humans. But flat out, dry situation, with a modified car i.e. slicks and suspension changes - these systems are not as fast as well trained right foot. Nothing good every happens on a wet track. The rain line is snoozing in the covered garage.
Ok forget everyhting I wrote before, slicks completly transform the car. Yes as we read in the press with slicks the steering is heavier, whereas in an elise its maybe lighter. The whole car is more physical, not least because all the forces are magnfied, and its all happening much quicker. The car on slicks is adjustable with a capital A. You can work the throttle to adjust the rear or the steerign to work the front end or a combo of both. It goes where you point it with a degree of accuracy no elige I have ever driven has. Or imagine how accuratly an elige steers at low speed and this car has that degree of precison at speed at the limit. On the slicks if the rear or front steps out its benign and easy to pull back in, it does not threaten to punish. In some sense the ability to correct and recorrect allows for sloppy habbits which focus needs to eliminate. The brakes are as before epic. Personaly I never noticed any aero instability or need for more aero, apparently the big wing on the R versions add 30% more downforce. Biggest issue is reclibrating the mind because the accelration especialy in 3rd is so strong one arrives at corners significantly faster and with the brakes as they are you brake later and less, which means its all happening much quicker and in a shorter distance. I was fortunate in that a fellow lotus aficianado went out with me and gave me some great instruction/pointers which magnified things even more and brought some much needed smoothenss. Relative performance. It certainly has the emasure of a cayman Gt4, and can easily cope with average driven Gt3s and vettes, of course well driven Gt3 is in a higher performance category. So as with all Loti its the underdog that can if you can and pushes you to do. Great sucess.
Yes in England it would be street legal. But here a roll cage, no airbags make it definitively not street legal, and I think no car is legal on street with a cage regardless, although the front part of the cage is removeable. I think even a cage would not be legal in UK. I kinow some have been registered in states that dont care, but I hear if you crash in a non DOt car Insurance fs you regardelss of fault. One could of course remove the engine in the UK, import it as a kit car roller and reinstall the engine, then it would be be A+ legal. The bigger issue in my book is that the car is way beyond street tires, unless you are driving 80%, hence the nannies. But yes int he Uk you could drive one of these to the track and home. But would you drive an Indy car on street tires? Its also rougher and noisier than an elise, zero sound deadening every stone pings, the motor is smoother and sounds nicer though but would be a great sunday driver on smooth roads if you took it easyish. The path to perfection I can see is the following. Stiffer springs and or stiffer roll bars as per R spec. Loosing weight, ie loose the trunk insert rear mesh, louvered rear hatch instead of glass(all give better cooling),thats probably 45lbs. You can cf the roof and front panel another 10 lbs(and a small fortune). Lightewieght battery 20 lbs(easy to do for $300). The track forged wheels I got already lost 5 lbs per corner. So if you dont mind spending 13K there is an easy 100lbs to loose. Wheels and battery part(already done) is $3500 and 35-40lbs. There is an aero kit which adds 30% more downforce, that aero kit and loosing the rear glass etc is about 10K. Gearing shorter 4/5/6 gears. lastly more power comes from exhuast header and a tune maybe close on 400hp after heat soak, and then intercooling up to 460hp. My fist choice would be springs/shocks and roll bar or whatever combo comes there, but thats a year off because I am not driving to current potential of the car and its around 6k. Weight, its around 1375lbs wet now. The battery is easy and worh doign because its on the same side as the driver and the wheels were easy because you need two sets for track use anyway. I would probably look at springs and gearing because that would be the biggest leap in terms of on track perforamce. Going down the straight, whether I shift at 6k or 7k the terminal velocity is more or less the same around 145ish above that speed its just slowly building revs. You can just feel after 4th its much more blunted and if you compare the ferocity in 3rd to even 4th (bearing mind aero drag) its clear there is ever wider spacing going up the gears whereas for the track as speed builds you want closer spacing going up. 6th is currently superfluous. Komotec has a nice graph on this. In theory stock 5th goes to 175, shorter would be 150 and shorter 6th to 175. all of which means 4th can be shorter too. This is the same short of gearing the paddlshift exiges have then. After that its loosing weight because that helps braking and cornering, although currently I am nowhere near the limits of either. Last I would say some cams and inetrcooling. So its a car I am a year or two off from driving to relative potential as is, and then one can probably spend 5k per winter or ever other year over 5-10 or years taking it a level higher each time(30K or so). So realisticaly it will be sitffer suspension and then after that either headers and a tune or gearing. Should easily take me through the next 5 years and maybe thats as fast as I want to go on track anyway. In any event the unlocked potential of this machine is huge. The beauty like all stock loti its turn key and durable, consumeables are light too. After 200 track miles the tires look like they will comnfotably go another 3-400 so figure 3-4 days for tires, like the elise its a heatcycle issue. Ads with the elise pads and rotors are years 30days plus. To run it shouldnt be too much more than an elsie cost and consumables wise, except for gas. The elise on track is about 10 mpg, this car more like 7. But its pump gas so I bring my own cans with me in the truck. The only other factor, between pace at which things happen so much faster and slightly heavier controlls my stamina fades a little quicker. 5X40min sessions in the elise was doable. In this car after 4X40 I am done. Relative pace. A friend in a track worked and slicked late 80s 911 was more or less at a similar pace to the elise, this car will lap him in 15-20 mins, and I dont even really know what I am doing yet. Like the elise, its a keeper. The elise now gets to enjoy backroad driving.
Last weekend at Montoicello. Brole 2.40 which is 7 secs faster than my elise time. Clearly I am not up to the level of the car yet, and am overbraking to boot. I think the car as is should be a good 5 secs quicker. So 2.35 is the goal for next year. Meanwhile had an absolute blast. Costs boild down to 30 gals of 93 and some tyre and brake pad wear.
Raining today. The one thing to add from last week, apart from more seat time and some coaching, the times are improving because I shut off all the nanies. In particular the Tc like all street based systems intervenes too early, this meant it was dificult to balance the car with the throttle on slower corners as the tc was chopping it.
