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!

111RS Brakes + shiftR111 + More

 We are at that stage where most of the parts are in house and we simply need to bolt them on.  We have less than a week before unveiling her at WCLM so...

The brake calipers were vapor blasted and look amazing.  Rene took the opportunity to spray them with some matte clear coat.  A local shop suggested this will hold up fine but I am curious to see just how well the clear will withstand the nasty environment found within a wheel.

Our ULTRAdisc rotors have been the gold standard for these cars since 2005.  Clients have been getting 50k miles out of them and over 50 track days.  We made them too good!  Seriously, we are proud of how they have performed and super happy to be partnered with a first-class company like Girodisc.

The DNA front and rear sway bars are part of this build allowing us to run softer springs: 250lb & 350lb coupled to our Racetech SCCA Singles.  The sways manage roll stiffness while the soft springs provide the compliance needed on a fast canyon cruiser.  In the past, we ran heavier springs to flatten the roll on the car but gave up compliance in the bumps.  No longer - this is the sweet combo!

The shiftR111 Ultimate package is going in and will make each shift a joy.  This car is getting the close-ratio KAAZ gear set.  We have not driven this solution on the street so are interested to see how it fairs.  Our client has another Lotus with this gear set and is a believer.  

111RS Build - Gathering Parts

Supply chain woes have plagued most of us.  Getting all of our key parts gathered up for this build was our next step to see if our goal of finishing this car in time for the West Coast Lotus Meet was possible.  We went through items that are not in stock and considered their due dates and I'm confident we can have this car ready for the show and most importantly, the Palomar Hillclimb event!

We have a full set of refreshed uprights and wishbones that we had previously stripped, sandblasted and plated.  This items are generally in bad cosmetic condition on cars with 50K+ miles.  Have these ready allows us to minimize down time and build the car quickly.  We will be installing MONOballs along with a full Suspension Refresh kit.  As this car will become a canyon carver that does occasional track days, the MONOballs were chosen.

One especially tasty bit this car will get is a light Gold set of Monolites.  We have never produced this color until our latest batch.  This is the only set in this color.   This color is really awesome and is sure to become part of our future offerings.  Combining Gold with Chrome Orange may sound too blingy but they work beautifully together.  Chrome Orange actually has gold flakes in the paint - a more appropriate name might have been 'Gold Orange'!

When coupled with the ULTRAdisc rotors this car will enjoy a 20lb unsprung weight savings!  You can feel this immediately through the steering wheel.  We feel this is one of the key reasons why our 111RS cars are such a joy to drive.  

White Rascal Update #6

It is alive!! We finished up the wiring last week and the White Rascal was started for the first time. The wiring was a major project for us on this car. We made the decision to dive deep into it and ripped the entire chassis harness out of the car. All non-essential wires and systems were deleted from the harness. The ABS was left alone, for now, but everything else that is not essential for a track car was deleted. We even chose to remove the problematic multi function relay in the front of the car in favor of some simple switches to activate the cooling fans.

Severely Modified Harness

Stock Wiring Harness

Before we started, the wiring harness weighed 20.20 lbs. Once we cut out the non essential items, the fuse box count dropped from 22 to 7, this is not including the 5 fuses under the dash that got deleted as well. That is 20 circuits in all that were removed. This all brought the harness weight down to about 9 lbs. The harness was laid back into the car and we made the decision to delete the stock fuse block in favor of 2 bussed fuse blocks. This allowed us to really simplify the wiring, remove a bit more weight and we have some empty spaces for what ever circuits we would like to add in the future. The two fuse blocks and ignition relay were mounted to a panel that covers where the passenger air bag used to be. We re-used the stock start button simply because it was easy and it is a cool piece, joining the start button on our switch panel is an ignition switch and one switch for each fan. Nice and simple.

After we got the car running, we wrapped up all the wiring and secured it so it wont be flopping around on track. The number one way to decrease the reliability of an electrical or plumbing system is to let it move around and get chafed/pinched. Zipties and edging material are your friend when it comes to securing wiring and plumbing. 

A look under the dash

We mounted a raceBATTERY in the spot where the AC blower assembly used to live. This moves a little bit of weight forward and opposite from the driver. 

We mounted the battery with an Xtender Bracket with no kill switch. We have two other kill switches mounted on this car. One is outside and will poke through the right side access panel at the front of the car and the other is located where the left hand driver side AC vent used to be. This configuration will allow the engine to be shut down from outside or inside the vehicle. We chose to use two of these killswitches from Pegasus Auto Racing. Properly wired, these switches will completely isolate the battery and stop the engine. 

Kill Switch Wiring Diagram

These are essentially 3 switches in one, the main part will isolate the battery. If you do a setup that just isolates the battery with a simple single pole switch, and you throw the switch with the engine running, the alternator will continue to supply power to the system and the car has no reason to shut off. So what you do is run the power to the ignition coils or ECU ignition (like we did) through the switches. Now what happens when you throw the switch is the battery gets isolated AND the engine stops because you also killed the power to the ignition coils at the same time. This creates another problem though, when you isolate the battery from the alternator it causes a large voltage spike that has nowhere to go since you shut off the connection from the alternator to the battery, this can and will damage the alternator components. The third set of contacts on the switch give the alternator voltage somewhere to go by switching the alternator output to ground the moment the connection to the battery is severed. The image above shows roughly how this all works.

A view from the driver seat

The car has been missing a steering wheel since we ripped it off early in the tear down. We finally replaced it with a Sparco Cup Wheel. This saves a few pounds of weight and allows the addition of a quick release. We do not recommend deleting your air bag in a street car, but in a race car, we consider it a necessity. We would normally run a hubQR2  but we had a sweet quick release from old stock that we decided to use. This release flips the wheel up, rather than removing it completely, this makes it easier to get in the car but the wheel stays attached to the column at all times. We can still get these hubs so if you are interested, let us know.  Yes, they are more expensive than the regular quick release kits.  8^)

That is all we are going to share for now. Look for another update next week.

Mod List:

raceUPRIGHTS

ULTRAdisc

BULLETstuds

YELLOfellos

RTD2brace

MONOballs

MRbearings

TRACKmounts2
proRAD
radHOSES
Top-Mounted Fans

ONEcoolerLINES

titanQR 

Larini De-Cat Pipe 

TRACKpipe

raceBATTERY

Xtender Bracket 

Sparco Cup Wheel

Alfa 4C Update: New Race Exhaust & Brake Rotors/Pads

Our 4C has been racking up some miles and we are finding things we like and others that we don't.  The Launch Edition 4C comes with the factory 'race' exhaust - which drones like crazy.  We had to fix this.  The brakes on track, can be improved, so we started to develop some options.  We now have a couple of solutions that we have been able to test and are under development.

Race Exhaust:

The factory race system has no muffler.  It is a turbo car that does a decent job at killing dBs.  Since it has catalytic converters, it is not as loud as you might think.  It sounds great at idle and when you are really going for it.  It is loud and won't pass noise limits at Laguna Seca - as Eric@SuspensionPerformance found out.  But the real issue for me is the the drone that the car creates when cruising on the freeway.  When you are in 6th gear, anywhere from 2250-3500 rpm, the car creates a resonance that hums so loudly in the cabin that you need ear plugs.  Forget listening to the stereo.  I dreaded having to take the car anywhere that required freeway travel.  Luckily we have a great exhaust partner who knew how to fix our issue.  

We lent them our 4C for about a week so they could measure the frequencies inside our car.  They use sophisticated equipment to map out the frequencies and identify the offending range.  They then employed Helmholtz principles to kill the range that was causing the drone.  This Helmholtz Chamber is a canister that sits outside of the main flow of exhaust and does not interfere with the straight through design.  This allows this system to keep power as stock and not create any additional back pressure or power reduction.  Sophisticated exhaust suppliers are now employing these Helmholtz principles to great effect.  Learn more about this: HERE  

I brought another fellow 4C LE owner, Martin, along with me to pick up my 4C.  See his car above compared to our 4C - note the exhaust tip difference.  We took the car with the prototype system installed and were shocked at the difference!  The car has no drone when cruising.  The only thing you hear is wind and tire noise.  The difference is amazing.  Watch the video we made of the car:

We are now putting the system into production as we know there are many other 4C LE owners who share our opinion.  We believe that once standard 4Cs (with actual mufflers) start getting delivered, our system will become a great choice over the factory race exhaust option.  Now we have to decide on the size of the exhaust tips.  Unfortunately we have to send the prototype system back so they can measure it for production.  The stock system is getting reinstalled until our first production part arrives.  Where are my ear plugs...




Brake Rotors:
Finding unsprung weight savings has always been one of our goals with all of our cars.  The 4C is heavier overall than the Elise/Exige so we would like to find any savings that we can.  We have had great success with our ULTRAdiscs on the Lotus.  Our partner, Girodisc, has been a key ally in our attempts to find weights savings while delivering excellent performance.  The factory rotors are a one piece rotor but are made in a innovative manner that frankly is fairly light.  We had Martin make us some ULTRAdiscs to fit the 4C and found a 1.25lb savings on the rear and .5lb savings at the front.  This is per rotor.  We installed them onto our 4C and ran them on track.  We still had the stock pads and they performed well.  Unfortunately we discovered that the front stock pads were already at about 30% life after 3 track days.  One of our brake pad suppliers worked to get us pads but they did not arrive in time for this test.



Brake Pads:
The pad shape on the 4C are not made by anyone other than the OE supplier so we had to get them specially made.  The pads arrived a day late so we did not track test them.  We received a compound that is not a strict race pad so it should work for aggressive street use.  Stay tuned as we will report back soon.  Looks like we have to go back to the track for more testing...what a rough life!  ;^)

Correct Brake Rotor Venting

We often get asked what is the correct orientation when installing directional brake rotors. The correct orientation of the vanes is a subject often debated. I wanted to take this opportunity to clarify it with help from my buddy Martin from Girodisc.

From Girodisc's website: For maximum airflow and superior cooling, the Girodisc system uses curved vanes. For a curved vane internally vented disc, the geometry of the vanes dictates the direction of rotation. A curved vane disc must be installed with the vanes running back from the inside to outside diameters in the direction of rotation. Your discs will come with labels indicating their correct placement on the vehicle. Orienting the disc in this manner creates a centrifugal pump. The rotation of the disc causes air to be pumped from the center of the disc, through the vanes, and out through the outside diameter of the disc. This greatly enhances the disc’s ability to dissipate heat. Discs installed backwards have very limited cooling.

Many clients wonder if their brakes are good enough. The truth is that most stock Lotus will run fine on track with the stock brakes. The advantage of our lightweight cars is that we don't actually generate that much heat when braking properly. We've tested brakes temps and posted about it last year: see brake temp post. Of course as drivers get faster they realize that the stock pads lack the initial bite they need to be confident when out braking those pesky GT3s. Or when they have burned through their original rotors they start looking for alternatives.

Our discNOIRs, ULTRAdiscs & CUPdiscs all come from Girodisc and therefore use curved vanes to maximize the cooling potential. Now that cars are running higher levels of power, with slicks and serious downforce, we are starting to see more heat in the brakes. Running properly vented rotors, better pads and fresh brake fluid usually is enough to keep a modified Lotus stopping on a dime - repeatedly. We use our AP Rotor paint to see how hot they are really getting - before jumping to conclusions.

But for those who need more, we have more BBK solutions coming.....we are now testing a bracket that relocates a stock front caliper to the rear - especially tasty for clients running our 308BBK or a Lotus Sport upgrade. Stay tuned as we are still mental as ever...

ULTRAdiscs Love You Long Time & Now For Less!

It appears we have made our 2-piece ULTRAdisc rotors almost too good!

We are getting awesome mileage out of our ULTRAdiscs. The Spyder had over 30k miles on ULTRAdiscs - lots of road and track use. Phil@BOE recently informed me that he has gone through 3 sets of ST43s pads (which are brutally aggressive on rotors) on his front ULTRAdiscs and they remain in great shape with plenty more life. His stock OE rear rotors don't appear to be wearing near as well. He also mentioned that a competitive rotor was destroyed by one set of ST43s.

These brakes have been very successfull in LCS. Several of the fastest competitors are running ULTRAdiscs or its big bro the CUPdisc. In fact Brent, the winner at the LCS Laguna Seca event runs ULTRAdiscs. Of course Nirvana is sporting them as well.

We worked carefully with Girodisc 4 years ago to sort out a high end 2-piece rotor. Martin@Girodisc clearly did a great job as we've had nothing but positive feedback from these rotors. The 10lb weight savings, true floating design, corner specific solution and now proven life has made this rotor the best solution on the market. Learn more about these rotors here: Info Sheet

Some of our features have been copied by competition but none have delivered a solution that is as feature laden or has years of track proven history. No reason to gamble with your brakes, our ULTRAdiscs have kicked asphalt for longer than any other solution.

To make things even better, we've ordered 50 car sets to get our cost down. We are reducing our price on a set of 2 to $600. A full car set can now be ordered for $1200. This is a remarkable savings over the original price. Fear not, we're keeping the same spec. We firmly believe you will not find a better, longer lasting rotor on the market.