Lotus 111 Uprights - Street & Track

We have kicked off production of our street uprights.  One of our goals this year is to look for more obscure ways to save unsprung weight on the Elise/Exige.  Unsprung weight savings have been a major focus of ours for over 20years.  Our ULTRAdiscs and RS343 are the lightest components of their type for these cars.  The uprights are the next opportunity that we need to address - at least for street cars.

 These are a derivation of our raceUPRIGHTs.  Our raceUPRIGHTs are a proven solution that we introduced on our first ArtCar (see above) that we campaigned in Lotus Cup.  We saved nearly 9lbs with these uprights.  These allowed us to run the cars even lower while leaving the suspension geometry intact.  You can lower these cars too much and ruin the handling of the car.  Our raceUPRIGHTs allow the car to run low so we can get the benefit of a low CG and better aero.  Another cool advantage is that our uprights allow you to bolt on the front 2 piston calipers onto the rear.  We did just that plus our 308BBK in the ArtCar and could out brake 211s!

Street cars don't need to run that low.  But unsprung weight savings is still a nice thing to have as there are really no reliability issues that you will face.  Of course durability can be an issue if you attempt to go too light - we don't want it to break just as you cross the finish line!  😉

We are producing our first set for testing.  Ours will also allow you to install the 2 piston caliper at the rear - though we may ultimately offer this as an option since it will add additional weight to the uprights.  I think that most street cars run perfectly fine with the stock rear calipers - assuming good pads are installed.  This picture below is the machining that is underway.  We will be testing them later this Winter.

The ArtCar2 above also runs the raceUPRIGHTs

EV Conversion: Delorean

We've started to make progress on the EV conversion on the Delorean.  This will be the first Delorean that has been converted in the US.  Electrogenic have developed this kit on a car in England and ours will be the second in the world.  We have completed three of their kits on: S1 XKE, D90 and S3 XKE.  This DMC is the fourth kit for us.  

This one is especially interesting as Colin Chapman and Lotus were hired to develop the original car.  The chassis shares the design with the Lotus Esprit.

The car came to us with the original powertrain removed.  Jorge took inventory of the parts and began the install.  The motor was fitted and most things lined up well. He has dry fitted the rear battery to determine wiring lengths so we can terminate them for final install.

 

battery box dry fitted

 

Project 996 Road Rallye: Part 13

 The 996RR received a few new upgrades including a new front tube bumper, fabric tow straps, mud flaps and a front fascia - with a special coating.  

We had the 'new' front fascia coated with bed liner used on trucks.  The front of most sportscars get hammered - especially when following other cars in the canyons or tracks.  Instead using clearbra, we thought we would try this textured coating.

The front tube bumper was refabbed and extended a bit from the original.  It will get powder coated black onced we finalize the mounts for the Baja Designs DOT legal lights arrive.  I'm excited about improving the lighting on the car as the stock headlights are now 26years old.  These older cars really benefit from updated LED lighting.  

The mudflaps we installed are pretty low.  They are scraping on even the slightest incline.  The noise is pretty annoying!  We will cut them back and then extend them with rubber sheet. 

 

The rear tube bumper is still a work in progress...

We also have Braid wheels on order:

• Front: Fullrace A = 17x8 ET40
• Rear : Winrace S = 17x10 ET40
• Lightweight machining on all wheels
• Lighter Gold

The offsets are 10mm pushed out from stock.  I plan to run stock diameter tires so these specs should work for our needs.  Note the different spoke count?  Influenced by the Drakan Spyder.  Yes, we like to be different!

front: Model Fullrace A

rear: Model Winrace S

Emira Collision Part 3

 Months of waiting for parts has been frustrating for all involved.  Finally we are getting close with this collision/repair.  I would estimate that we are 95% of the way.

We reinstalled much of the interior including the side curtain airbags.  

The rear boot of the car required some fitment in order for the rear fenders and hatch to line up.  This took a fair amount of trial and error.  We had the rear glass removed from the original hatch and reinstalled onto the new hatch after it was painted.  Over all it is coming together nicely.  

We had Lee clean things up including removing some adhesive that remained from the tow yard after the accident.