Factory Bushes Will Walk!

The factory wishbone bushes have a tendency to wander out.  Our cars are driven in a spirited manner, usually, and this will expedite this issue.  We have seen this problem on street only cars along with track oriented cars.  This latest example is a street car with 38k miles on it.

Here is a factory bush moving out

This shows the damage to the wishbone after making contact with the subframe

This shows the subframe chassis damage

This is an easy problem to spot with our cars.  Remove your rear wheels and inspect where the wishbone attach to the subframe.  If you see the bush is moving out, then please consider addressing this ASAP.

We have three options: OEalt Bushes, MONOballs, and UNIballs.  Give us a call if you have any questions.

111RS #3 Build: Suspension, Brakes & More

We are starting to bolt on all the four corners of the 111RS now.  This includes the Refreshed Wishbones with MONOballs and Refreshed Uprights with new Hub Bearings.  New hardware is getting installed as the old bits are looking tired.  We added new 12.9 hardware to the refreshed calipers as well.  FASTarms are also a must have for this build.

This build is getting the DNA Front & Rear Swaybar kit as we've become big fans.  We love the ability to run much softer spring rates thanks to roll stiffness being managed by the sways.  The added compliance on rough roads and tracks is remarkable.  We will install the DNA Rear Toe link brace as well.  This is the first 111RS that has received this upgrade - it almost feels sacrilegious considering we make excellent braces ourselves!

We had a set of Nitron 46mm Singles that we had rebuilt sitting on our shelves.  We also have 350# and 500# springs that are reasonably light.  Usually we go lighter still with the DNA sways but we would test these rates on this car.  Generally we had run Nitrons in the past with 450# spring and up.  The lighter rates that we are running compare with what came on their Street Series dampers.  Since Nitron are building a Tech Center in our town, we thought it would be good to have a set on this car to test and tweak.  If you have not seen our video interviewing the Owner of Nitron, Guy Evans, please watch it: HERE

ULTRAdiscs are simply the best rotors for these cars with a 10lb unsprung weight savings.  We have paired them with G-loc R10 pads.  I like my cars to brake more aggressively than stock and this combo does not disappoint.  They are killer in the canyons and work fine on track.  Our QWKbleed lines are being fitted.  BULLETstuds were added as well.

We've deleted the passenger oil cooler - of course!

White Rascal Update #3

The White Rascal, our poor little shop car, has not gotten much love lately. We finally made a little progress on it in the last few days. The car has been completely stripped down will all the interior and dash removed. I think we may have taken the "simplify and add lightness" just a little too far this time. We need to start bolting parts back on soon if we have any hope of getting onto the track.

The rear subframe was taken off, media blasted, then painted black. This car is going to live a long hard life on the track, it will not be a trailer queen. Low maintenance black engine enamel spray paint will keep this part looking relatively nice as well as hide track grime. 

We did need a little bit of bling so we had all our control arms powder coated a bright red. Why red? Because race car. We finished off the arms by installing a set of our MRbearings and MONOballs. This should greatly increase the steering feel of this track focused machine. The stock bushings and ball joints are fine for road use but a track car demands suspension that does not flex and deflect under load.

Expect some more progress in the coming weeks because we are all itchin' to drive her! 

New Sector111 Race Elise Build: White Rascal

We have been searching for a crashed Elise that we could build into a Spec Elise track car since selling our Exige S.  We finally snagged one from our good friend Ryan.  This car showed up a couple weeks ago and we cleaned it up a bit and organized our build plan.  Essentially this car will be another test mule for us in addition to potentially becoming a rental car for Lotus Cup racing.  As a result, we will keep the build fairly simple.  If any of you are interested in this car, let us know.  We would be happy to build it to your spec...

The car is stock though it came missing many bits.  It had suffered a crash that damaged both clams, one side sill and a door.  We will replace the clams with our Spec Elise clams front and rear as several clients have done in Lotus Cup.  These clams are lighter and easier to repair than stock.  Plus they lack the openings for lights which is another advantage that prevents those items from popping out during a race.  Don't ask us how we know this...The chassis is straight and undamaged so we will simply clean her up and bolt on our tasty bits.

The car will run as a normally aspirated car to start.  Eventually we may install our KATANA265.  The brakes and suspension will all be upgraded.  We'll address the typical failure areas like radiator, steering rack, shift cables.  Reliability and safety are our top goals so we will avoid any drastic modifications.  Our R3cage will get installed along with harnesses a race seat and fire extinguisher.  The TrackTrilogy of Terror will be taken care of right away as well.

We've named this car the White Rascal.  You'll have to ask us why next time you call us or see us.  The car is actually silver so we may be off a bit...We are working on this car in between client's cars so it may take us until the end of the year to have her running.

Really Filthy

Less Filthy

High Mileage Lotus - Benefits of 60pt Prep

Recently we serviced a repeat client who puts a ton of miles on his '05 Elise.  With 94,000 miles, this may be the highest mileage Elise in North America.  It is definitely the highest mileage car we have seen.  James first brought his Elise to us in Jan 2010 with 56,000 miles on the odometer.  At that time we conducted our 60pt Prep on the car.  This preparation checks over 60 of the critical areas, of a Lotus, that tend to loosen up.  Our service removes the fasteners, threadlocks them, torques them to spec and then paint markers each one.  You can find our 60pt Checklist on our Tech Tips page: HERE  Feel free to download this and use it to prep your car.

The picture below shows the old paint markers that we had put on James' car at the 56k service.  Even after 40k additional miles, you can still see them.  This technique allows you to visually inspect your car to quickly verify that your critical fasteners are still torqued correctly.  If you see that a paint line has shifted, this is a good indication that you need to retorque.

Once we inspected the car, we noticed that most of the fasteners had not moved.  We still removed each fasterner, reapplied threadlock, then cleaned off the old markers and repainted the joints.  These paint markers are readily available at auto parts or hobby stores.

One of the issues that we found during this inspection was the rear bushes had moved and the wishbones were making contact with the subframe.  The picture below shows what we found.  

Typically we see this on track cars but even high mileage street cars that are driven with some enthusiasm can exhibit this problem.  Luckily we have a couple of solutions that can help:  SL Bushes and the MONOballs or Nitron Bearings for the track/race focused cars.  We have a previous blog entry about this issue: HERE

We are big believers in the fact that these Toyota powered Lotus can be reliable cars.  The two basic requirements are that you:

1. Keep the fluids & filters fresh
2. Keep the critical fasteners torqued correctly

If you follow these basic rules you can run your Lotus for years with confidence and a grin on your face.

Spherical Bearing Conversion for the Lotus

Our MONOball and Nitron Bearing kits have become a popular choice for racers and track enthusiasts who are running sticky tires.  Nitron's upright kit had full spherical bearing conversions and we've been interested in developing a solution to eliminate the balljoint for cars with stock wishbones and uprights.  Mitch has designed our new solution and we've begun testing them.

A full kit will soon be on our Art Car for track testing.  Getting the dimensions correct in this application proved to be a lengthy effort.  We've cycled the suspension in every conditions and configurations that we could brainstorm.  Note the picture below show a stock damper with stock uprights at full lock and compression.  As you can imagine many other configurations needed to be tested as well - which Mitch has patiently executed...This will be a track-use only product.

Purple Elise Track Car Build

Two weeks ago, we received a commission to build a track-only Elise by a client in NJ. Jerry requested that we build him a fast, fun and reliable car. He gave us a good budget but a tight timeline, so we went to work without delay. Luckily we knew of a vendor who stocked Tasty Lotus Bits....

We found a partially built spec Elise and bought it for him. This car needed some TLC but had a straight chassis and a good engine. The car was originally used as a Lotus Driving Experience car at Spring Mtn. After taking delivery of the car, we fully inspected it and found that it needed most of the typical wear items replaced. We dug into her in earnest and developed our project plan - 78 hrs of work to get her right. I figured we'll spend at least double that as these projects tend to be motivated by passion...a Balanced Approach was our strategy.

During the tear down, one area that I noticed needed improvement was the steering arm bolts. They were the older Grade 8.8 spec that came on some of the early cars - Lotus uprated them to Grade 10.9 in later cars. By installing 10.9 bolts, this joint, which sees significant load, will be stronger. We have some friends who have installed even higher grade bolts than this. The Grade 10.9 is an excellent compromise with added strength over the 8.8 yet still ductile enough.

The existing cage in the car was not installed to our standard. Unfortunately it was too expensive to fix, so we decided to tear it out and replace it with our new R3cage. Welding can be a challenge but there are experts who can do it properly. We would encourage anyone who is getting a cage installed to first inspect the welding capability of the shop you are hiring. Check out this picture to see an example of a poorly welded cage (as originally found on the Purple Elise). We're very happy with our new cage and will be able to sleep at night knowing Jerry will be well protected.

One of the typical wear points on the Lotus is the a-arm (wishbone) bushings. Under heavy braking, especially with track use and/or sticky tires, these bushes tend to wander. Eventually the wishbone will come in contact with the chassis - as shown below.

Most of the top bushes suffered from this on the Purple Elise so we decided to replace them, with MONOballs along with the ball joints - that we now get from our partner Seriously Lotus. We took the opportunity to get the wishbones powder coated as they were quite oxidized and nasty looking. The corners of the car will be sexy with newly finished wishbones, Nitrons, brake rotors and pads.

The rear subframe was another component that suffered some cosmetic damage. A battery had clearly come loose at some point in this car. The acid made a mess in the trunk and the leaked onto the subframe. This caused the steel to rust. My buddy, Ducati John, lent us an experienced hand over the weekend as he was quite interested in this build. We Scotchbrited the rust off and scuffed up the rest of the subframe. We primered it with Rust-Oleum high temp primer and then painted it as well. The cage was painted with the 'Hammered' finish Rust-Oleum. The subframe was reattached to the chassis and looks ten-fold betta.

Most of the work is being executed by Chris. His race experience clearly helps, as he is cranking through this car at a great clip. He installed a gPAN in the time it takes most people to read the install instructions. More blog entries are coming as we have alot more work to do....anyone note the Larini header peeking out the back? KATANA265 is getting installed....