Wishbone Bushes - Avoid the PUR variety on Tracked Cars!

 An Exige Cup car came to us for service.  Upon inspecting the car, we noted the wishbone bushes were failing.  Sadly the installation was also poorly done on this car so the subframe was maligned as well.

Closer inspection revealed the car was fitted with Polyurethane (PUR) bushes.  The factory bushes are known to fail and we have posted about this: HERE and offer suitable replacement solutions: OEalt, MONOballs, and UNIballs.

The bushes that were installed on this car did not hold up the track use but I suspect they would fail on the street as well.  If you look at the end of the wishbone, you can see that the PUR bush has been ground away.  Ultimately the wishbone made contact with the subframe and damaged it.

The mount tabs on this subframe were also distorted during the install by the shop that put these in.  This is not necessary for any properly developed bush option.

Bent tabs and crumbling PUR

The good news is that we are correcting this with a set of our MONOballs.  The car is getting it's Nitrons rebuilt so will handle better than ever.

Lotus Emira Turbo Tuning

 

Brent has been tuning the Emira Turbo and getting good results.  The car has three modules that can control the power: ECU, GCU & CPC.  We initially focused on the ECU after getting it unlocked.  This is done out of state by a trusted vendor.  We can then tune it.  

Brent's Tech Talk

The first tunes felt like the car was making good increases.  Putting the car back on the dyno revealed we weren't making much more than stock.  Torque is what most of us feel during acceleration.  Our initial tune made an additional 10 ft-lbs.  Interestingly, another Emira Turbo client was able to try this out and he noticed that difference.

A few additional days of tuning uncorked more, much more.  See below.

We will release the car to the client who will drive it and give us some feedback.  We can make additional changes as needed.  The OBDII port has been unlocked through our service so in the future or plan is to be able to flash through this port.  For now, we are bench flashing the ECU.

The CPC module is getting attention now.  It is not like the CPC modules found in the AMG cars so we have some work to do to unlock it.  These modules also control full output and will be key to making more power than what can be achieved with the ECU alone.  

Project 996 Road Rallye: Part 15

We've made some great progress on the 996RR with the exterior almost complete. The arrival of the wheels/tires plus the completion of the bodywork allowed us to start bolting the car together. 

One of the more controversial ideas that we have is to use bed liner on the fascias and the rockers.  These areas get alot of stone impact and are prone to be damaged with canyon/track use.  This car's fascias/rockers were pretty rough and in need of paint so we chose to bed liner them instead!

I believe 'form follows function' and decided to add ventilation holes to the rear fascia where the exhaust/mufflers reside.  It allows heat to flush out the back more effectively.  I have not seen anyone in the Porsche community doing this so I suspect we may get some push back...

We first did this on the Elise by opening up the rear of the car to expose the exhaust.  This application is not as aggressive looking but still something that not all folks will like - we think over time, people will get on board with this idea.

Of course we decided to pull out the heat shielding as well to save some weight.  We lined the inner fascia with heat shielding that we have used over the years on our race car and Drakan builds.

Here are some graphics ideas that we rendered.  Final concept is TBD...

Yes, I like the Mobil Pegasus!

New Rear Brake Caliper Testing

The stock rear brake caliper has been replaced with a 2 piston caliper that resembles the stock front.  This one has a smaller piston so the brake bias should be acceptable.  

Since we have installed a brake bias adjuster in place of our ABS module/block, we have the ability to further tune the bias.  Recent testing at the track proved we should be able to dial this in.

As we have written in the past, Black Ice Mode, is one of the weaknesses of the stock ABS system.  This is not a great performance biased ABS system so we have been defeating it for years on our track cars - first on our ArtCar1 with great results.

KATANA Bracket Revision

 We are always looking to make improvements to our parts based on feedback - often times our own techs will develop ideas from installing our parts.  The nose bracket we developed with the KATANA3 has now received some TLC and attention as a result.

We've added an additional notch to the bracket that eases clearance and improves fitment.  A small change but a good one!

Project 996 Road Rallye: Part 14

Yes, the front wheel styling is different from the rear  - a bit like our Drakan!

 The Braid wheels have arrived and they look amazing.  Of course we had to weigh them.  Our wheels are 102.2lbs (all 4 wheels) vs 108lbs for the stock 18" rims.  Our front wheels are considerably lighter but the rears are heavier.  

We chose two different wheel styles as discussed in a previously post. Our Drakan Spyder was the first car that I've used different wheels - front to rear.  We chose the light weight option that adds some additional machining to the face of the wheels to shave off more weight.  

Frankly I am happy that the fronts are so light as that will help with feel.  Braid are known to produce strong wheels - which is more important to me for a car that must negotiate broken road surfaces.

Since we went with the 'inch-down' on these wheels, we are looking at tire options that will work.  I've decided not to go with bigger diameter wheels as the additional tire sidewall height provided by the smaller wheels should be enough to meet our compliance needs.  I expect the turn-in to be a bit slower but thanks to the GT3 swaybars, we should have improved turn-in response anyhow.

111tank2 - Track Testing Results

 We had great results on track this past weekend after two days of track testing.  Our new baffled fuel tank for the S2 Lotus Elise/Exige now features a ball check valve. ProAlloy have been successfully using this design on their tanks for years.  We've installed several of their tanks onto Cup cars and 211s with excellent results.

We ran the car on two days on two different track configurations at SMMR.  Mansell C is shown below.  

We ran the exact corner where the car fuel starved with half a tank in Dec.  See above.  This is Pahrump 2 - which is a fast left hand sweeper that starts right after the equivalent right hander.  The picture of Nick's Elise is at the spot shown on the track map.

Now it runs perfectly down to about 1.5gallons remaining BEFORE it starts to sputter.  We experienced that twice and in both cases, the car took 8.5 gallons of fuel when we went to fill it up.  I am happy that this solution will be a good one for most of you running on the street and track.  It retains the factory safety and emissions plumbing and fixes the starvation at the source of the problem.

We will go into production on this latest design.  It will now be called the 111tank2.

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