21 replies to this topic

[Conrad]

Well at last...my launch edition 2-11 is finally road legal in Switzerland and its the first one ! (fully homologated as of jan 09 after waiting since jan 08) and I collected it last thursday from dealer, then drove back about 300 miles at -5 centigrade , but thanks to the same screen as Scott it was not too bad even with some rain.

A few odd facts about what the car had to have modded/changed for the gnomes in Bern...

- shortened front splitter
- rear wing lowered
- exhaust/ecu/injectors of exige S for emission and noise control
- huge protection on side bar vs the small foam lotus ones

Of course putting it back to original would not follow the letter of the law, oh well

But the funniest/weirdest thing is that I am prohibited from wearing a helmet BUT must wear a leather pilot helmet and matching gogles my only explanation is that since the authorities could not block the homologation they decided to make me look as weird as possible whilst driving

Since the car was idle for so long I could not resist a few mods

- mog racing carbon seats (left over from my speedster/vx)
- removable steering wheel (needed for carbon seats...)
- morosso oil pan with mods for better baffling
- cigarette lighter socket for gps and stuff
- lead for charging battery
- oil temp gauge

Still waiting for upgraded engine mounts (back order since dec from Lotus)

And dealer will be bringing out oil cooler for gearbox in april/may which should solve issue of gearboxes going plonk (while tracking their own 2-11's they noticed that gearbox oil temp was going over 160 centigrade !! )

So all in all well chuffed, and just waiting for it to stop raining/sleeting (since friday...) to go for a spin.

Look forward to meeting as many of you on track, whose going on LOT french frolics this year ?

Drive safely.
Conrad

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Congratulations and well done

Oil cooler for the C60 transmission eh? I think there would be alot of interest in that if it could be turned into a kit.
Would love to hear details and prices.

I think the pilot helmet and googles is fab - If I did that I'd *have* to wear a big white silk scarf too!

Edited by ads_green, 07 February 2009 - 08:48 PM.

[Conrad]

Congratulations and well done

Oil cooler for the C60 transmission eh? I think there would be alot of interest in that if it could be turned into a kit.
Would love to hear details and prices.

Will let everybody know when details are available.

I think the pilot helmet and googles is fab - If I did that I'd *have* to wear a big white silk scarf too!

Are you in cahoots with them black scarf for the moment, but white silk mmmhh http://www.2elevenfo...tyle_emoticons/default/cool.gif

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Ooh - Whilst I remember just in case. Pilot googles are different to driving googles.
They are not as strong (a decent pair of driving ones should actually be bullet prooft for .22 calibre) and they have curved lenses. Driving ones are flat so they don't distort your vision
check out http://www.classicpa.../cargoggles.htm to see what I mean.

160 degree transmission temp is amazing - no wonder the gearboxes suffer after lots of track work!
Might even be worth venting some airflow to the gearbox casing.

[Conrad]

Ooh - Whilst I remember just in case. Pilot googles are different to driving googles.
They are not as strong (a decent pair of driving ones should actually be bullet prooft for .22 calibre) and they have curved lenses. Driving ones are flat so they don't distort your vision
check out http://www.classicpa.../cargoggles.htm to see what I mean.

Thanks for that, will check what goggles I actually have.

160 degree transmission temp is amazing - no wonder the gearboxes suffer after lots of track work!
Might even be worth venting some airflow to the gearbox casing.

Exactly, but they could not find a way to direct significant airflow hence the oil/water rad idea. Also they where telling me that when they changed gearbox oil its appearance (and smell?) was terrible, consistent with overheating. Their comments on the syncro's however was that in many of cases it was down to driver abuse which surprised me a little in view of the large number of exige/elise/2-11 owners who seem to have a problem with 2nd/3rd syncro failure, surely all are not abusers ? might be intersting to have a poll including exige/elise who regurlarly track.

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to be hoest most transmission oil smell awful - kinda like cat pee. however never overheated the oil so not sure.

As for the synchros - I do think there are the fair share of heavy handed use. but as you say appears to be quite common. I think its probably a combination of factors.
Like the rover elises the engine and transmission setup are desined for fwd so much better cooling airflow. also the shift cable lengths are longer and have to go through a u bend you dont get in the fwd installation.

I think the stock engine mounts may be quite standard and maybe not ideal for the torque of the S/C resulting in more engine movement which may affect things.

Apparently there is an uprated toyota transmission oil available - that may be able to cope better with temperatures

[Conrad]

Thanks for that, would be good to do a survey to separate fact from fiction. Meantime what fluid/oil did you upgrade to and when you say upgraded mounts, are these just the 2 (3?) engine mounts, or are their extra ones for the tranny ?

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Redline MT90 for the fluid

Thats the stuff I've been recommended

Engine mounts fore and aft from Lotus Sport.

I'm going to try the mount inserts as this is easy to switch back if it's too much. I didn't like the Lotus ones as these require the existing mounts to be cut away/modified making it tough to reverse if you don't like it.

[Edika]

Hi,

Very interesting ! I'm also trying to do my registration in France.
How did you change the exhaust ? The 2-11 have exhaust tail pipe on the side and not on the center of the silencer as the Exige. So how do you manage to fix the License plate ? Have you pics ?
You change the ECU and injector because of the noise or the evaporative emissions ?

[pgn340r]

I think the pilot helmet and googles is fab - If I did that I'd *have* to wear a big white silk scarf too!

POOF!!

Thats the stuff I've been recommended



I'm going to try the mount inserts as this is easy to switch back if it's too much. I didn't like the Lotus ones as these require the existing mounts to be cut away/modified making it tough to reverse if you don't like it.

Ads,

It's one of the few cheap(ish) Lotus Sport mods that I can whole heartedly recommend the engine mounts.

Makes a big difference to the engine movements.

As an aside they are also currently developing lateral engine mounts as well.

Paul

[Conrad]

Hi,

Very interesting ! I'm also trying to do my registration in France.
How did you change the exhaust ? The 2-11 have exhaust tail pipe on the side and not on the center of the silencer as the Exige. So how do you manage to fix the License plate ? Have you pics ?
You change the ECU and injector because of the noise or the evaporative emissions ?

Difficult to help much, dealer did all (luckily for me I brought basis homologated...) but for the exhaust I remember that they made a hole in diffuser to let the central tip of exige exhaust out. on injectors/ecu, was for emissions.

[Nick Adams]

We were involved in the early stages of the process, providing data and the like, but the credit for this piece of work should go to Arthur Schneider of Lotus West who methodically worked his way through the minefield. To be honest I am not fully aware of what he had to do in total, but I do remember the list of tasks was daunting. Congratulations and I hope the car lives up to your expectations!
Nick

[Nick Adams]

The very first production cars went to Switzerland, so I suspect CN's car is a very early example. The first 30 or so cars were fitted with the optional stage 1 silencer as a "free upgrade" because we had issues with the early supply of the larger standard unit which is closely based on the Exige S silencer. The stage 1 silencer barely meets noise restrictions for many UK and Europe circuits, which is why we had to make the standard silencer quieter. Not much point in having a track car if you can't drive it on track. Perversely the track restrictions over here are so stringent that many road legal cars are too noisy to be driven on track. I keep wondering about a louder stage 2 system to complement the stage 1, but there are several non-Lotus systems out there already so I'm not sure we can make a positive business case with such a small volume of cars out there (boring I know, but that's why I'm at Lotus.... ). Go on, persuade me.....
Nick

[Conrad]

good evening Mr Adams, yes mine is n° 9 (anything I should know about it ? fuel surge ?) only joking, yes it is quite loud, do you have any idea how loud ? (for track use as you rightly mention) and yes Arthur nearly went insane during 2008... hats off to him and his mechanics who are great guys, I do have some of the low down, but dont wish to post on public forum but happy to share some over a beer, suffice to say that KTM seem to have had an unfair advantage, but wait and see, they dont have their papers yet. Car is great, but you already know that.

[Edika]

Hi Nick !
I receive your mail this evening : thanks a lot. I think that it will be easy for me now, very easy and probably without UTAC needed.
My car, the 4 or the 5th in France, is not enought noisy. I don't ear the motor at hight speed even with a new (and good quality) BMW helmet.

In France, there is only few tracks look at the noise ... the harder is Charade

Fuel surge ... in counterclockwise ... at half tank ... but in France there is only 2 tracks counterclockwise !


Jack > Let's ask to Nick but I think that I have the same

[Scotty C]

Fuel surge ... in counterclockwise ... at half tank ... but in France there is only 2 tracks counterclockwise !

http://www.ledenon.com/

One of the best tracks I have driven on and the only anti-clockwise one

[Edika]

The second one is La Châtre. It's a very short track on 1100 m with only curves :

Here