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GFWilliams

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GFWilliams last won the day on April 15 2022

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  1. @DangerousDave- I have no idea why you’d want to, that’d just add an extra complication. @mayak - thanks for the kind words, car will hopefully never be for sale. Very much built as a keeper! The rear wing has lots of different holes to allow pitch to be adjusted between -4 degrees and 14 degrees AOA. I decided to make my uprights a bit simpler with 4 degrees and 8 degrees AOA, then I can drill more holes if I want more options. Hopefully at some point, I can get on track and see how it affects the balance of the car, and lap times.
  2. I thought I was done with mods, but Greg’s Race Parts just brought out a new central mirror. I’m in America next week, so perfect timing. Now the all important question… leave it exposed carbon or tint it? https://www.gregsraceparts.com/products/carbon-fiber-rear-view-mirrors-for-elise-exige
  3. Time to talk about my new dampers from CORE (by Tractive). I have known Simon from Raceshocks UK for years, and back in 2019 I went to visit him as it was vaguely on route to a shoot. He told me about the CORE dampers, but at the time the price was a bit out of reach for me. I kept in contact though as I knew it was something I eventually wanted to do. Having the car in pieces seemed the sensible time to go for it as it made the install a lot simpler. The loom was the hardest bit, but it wasn't too bad. I opted to mount the TCU under the passenger seat. You can see where the wires have to go. The wires for the front dampers were the hardest to route. I drilled a hole in the wheel arch next to where the thick live wires go through from the dash (your jump point under the front access panel). I then struggled to get the wire into the wheel arch from inside the dash as access is quite hard. If I was better at wiring, I'd snip the wires so I could push the wires into the cabin from the wheel arch side, then reconnect the wire. Simon delivered the loom before the dampers to help with the timing of having the clam off etc. To be honest, you don't need the clam off to install these, you just need to have the wheel arch liners out. The quality of the actual dampers is lovely. On a par with Nitron etc. You'll notice there are remote reservoirs, but no adjustment on them, this is the suggested setup from Simon as the best solution for my needs. My dampers are the ACE+ system, there is a R-ACE system which has high & low speed compression, but having now seen how well Simon set these up and how the active systems work, I don't think it's necessary. I fitted these myself and got the ride heights as close as I could, basically seeing how low I could have the car at the front without the lovely carbon splitter touching on the speed bumps near my house (128mm was the magic number). I was keen to visit Simon again to get the car setup how he thinks it should be, plus learn as much as I could about the dampers in the process. I filmed a video of this which I'll stick on YouTube once I've caught up with my backlog of videos of the rebuild. Raceshocks UK are in South Wales, so it was 500 mile round trip for me which is obviously a lot, and while the trip wasn't strictly necessary as I could get it set up locally, I felt it was worth the trip to learn about how they work and how changes in setup/the dampers will change how the car feels. The first thing was to adjust the ride heights to where we thought they should be, 130mm front and 136mm rear. The car was slightly out in the corner weights, so the heights were then adjusted to suit. This weight is with a driver and was how we decided to leave the car so that the heights were close enough to where we wanted. 48% across the axles is still pretty good. After the heights, the geometry was checked and only small tweaks were required to the toe. The front camber was 0.3 degrees more on one side, but I will sort this at a later date. I learnt how the touch screen will change the way the dampers react, and it's actually quite simple (plus you can feel it immediately). If you put all 4 adjustments into full soft, the active (DDA) valve isn't active, so it becomes a passive damper effectively in the softest damping setting. The ride quality in this mode is unbelievable, perfect for a SUPER bumpy Surrey back road. The next mode up is where things start to get clever though as the DDA valve turns on. The ride quality in this mode is still VERY good, but when you load the car up, it will stiffen up as required. I found it very interesting that the active systems don't feel active or unpredictable in any way, they just feel like the car is more in control than they do with a normal damper. To control the balance of the car (if needed), you can adjust the front and rear damper stiffness (these are they outer of the 4 variables), so if you want to do a skid, you can just set the rear to full stiff 😎 The two inner variables are the roll and pitch, which do as they say on the tin really. The M 1-5 on the right hand side are the memory positions so you can change things easily to different ones while driving. To save them you just press and hold, as you'd expect. My one criticism of the screen is that it's very bright at night, it'd be nice if it was in a standby brightness until you touched it to wake it up. You can turn the brightness down though if you want. So the bit that really matters... HOW DOES IT DRIVE?? It's quite hard to put into words just how much of an improvement these are over any other Exige I've been in. The ride quality is very close to as good as an Alpine A110, but with more body control. Simon recommend softer springs (450/700 IIRC) than I was on with the Nitrons and this is quite a big part of why the car drives so well. Simon explained wheel frequencies etc to me, and while they make sense to me, the reality is that the car just feels much better than it did before. The dampers will stiffen up as required, and if you didn't know they were active or change settings on the touch screen, I don't think you'd ever know as they feel natural in their operation. They really are very good. I find myself driving most of the time in full soft, then if I get to a roundabout or corner, I'll turn the dampers onto the softest active setting. I haven't tried them on track yet, but I'm confident that even with these soft spring rates, they'll be brilliant. I can't wait to take people out for a ride in the car, it's immediately obvious how good the dampers are, and even after spending ages on all the body mods, I think the dampers are the stand out for me. I only have one photo of where the screen ended up. It fits perfectly in the gap under the headlight switches, with just a small bit of foam tape to hold it in place. The car is away being detailed with Kelly from KDS Keltec / Lake Country, and to be honest I'm in no rush to get the car back as work is so busy. The car looked good before, I can't wait to see it once Kelly has finished! ETA: For those who want to learn/understand more about the CORE dampers, there is some more info here: https://raceshocks.uk/trusted-brands/core-suspension/semi-active-suspension/ I suggest calling Simon (ask him about my car if you want, he had a nice drive in it) if you want any more info
  4. I weighed my rear clam when it was off the car and it was 18kg…. Shame not to have a decent weight saving, especially when the boot section is pretty heavy and would lend itself well to carbon…
  5. @Toqcars - that’s without driver and about 75% fuel (60l tank though so guess as to how much that is). My car is an early car so will always weigh a bit more than a 430 etc. A couple of snaps from C&M
  6. Before Weight saving is about what I expected, 15kg from the battery, 6kg from the wheels, then a few little bits from other places where I could. I forgot to take a photo after the corner weighting, but Simon managed to get it to 49% across the axles with a driver in the car.
  7. Quite a cool screen grab from the video we’re working on
  8. I'll post more photos when I go into detail about the tinting process, but here are some shots which show the weave Don't have a photo to hand, but you access it quite easily from the side of the car. As the wing sits a long way back, it is actually much easier than on a Cup R.
  9. Tim also 3D scanned and designed some gaskets for sealing where the wing meets the body. There are a lot more curves than you’d think, and having seen @Mattmahopehave his crack, I was keen to do these the proper way so they last. you can see the extent of the curve from this car Once again, I’m super happy with the quality of the print from 3DprintUK. i actually fitted these today, first of all putting a bead of clear silicone around where the wing joins the clam to hopefully water seal it. I then used double sided tape to stick the gaskets to the clam. I love how neat these are, quite a neat solution I think. Also, bravo to Tim, the fitment was absolutely perfect!
  10. Okay, I’m going to try to go through all the parts of the car in posts and try to explain the process. I’ll start with the 3D printed parts, as I found the process quite interesting. My friend Tim from Bespoke Chargers (they make cool charger cable holders for EVs) offered to help me with making any parts should I need it. It’s fair to say that he far exceeded my expectations of what is possible! So the first thing is the “driving lights” from Lazer lamps. I have always loved silly bright lights on my car, I think it adds character, plus it’s nice to be able to see. There was no obvious way to fit them, but after 3D scanning the whole front grill area, Tim worked out the curves, and designed some surrounds which would hold them in place. The prints were sent off to 3Dprintuk to be done in Nylon, then bead blasted. I am really impressed with the finish! Fitting them wasn’t the easiest job, the wiring was pretty bad, but I had done that before the clams were fitted, in preparation for the parts arriving. Unfortunately the front grill on the facelift clam is rather hard to access, so I had to remove the front clam again just to fit the lights. Cutting holes in my expensive new grill hurt a bit. I bonded them in using tiger seal from behind. They’re pretty solid when driving so I don’t think the grill moves too much. Overall, I’m over the moon with them, they’re one of my favourite parts of the car!
  11. Pleased with how my interior came together. Fairly minor changes this time, but I feel they improved it a lot.
  12. @mayak - If they fit all the parts that an OEM car would have with air conditioning, there's no reason that it shouldn't be as good as factory fitment. Knowing Lotus, I'd imagine the wiring loom is the same and they just have to add a button, then plumb in the AC parts to the engine. Best thing to do is speak to the dealer and ask what the process is, ask them if it can be done to a 100% factory standard, then make your decision based on their answer.
  13. @Edinburgh 111s - I've been using social media for over half of my life and have over a million followers for my photography work on various platforms, I'm more than aware of how the internet works. Everyone can have an opinion, and that's great. Doesn't mean I care about their opinion though, especially when they haven't actually seen the car yet 🥴 I have built my car for me, and me alone, there are things on it that people won't like, I'm absolutely okay with that as I love it all. 🤗
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