Exige S260 Shift Cable Damage!

We have had two S260 Exiges in the shop in the last month.  Both cars have suffered from poor shifting.  The shifts were very stiff and somewhat vague.  Even when we compared them to a bone stock '05 Elise that we have, the shift action was clearly off.  We found that each was suffering from the same issue.  It appears the factory subframe stiffener can crush the cables (one or both)during undertray installation.  

These detailed images show the damage.  Once the cable housing has been crushed, the action of the cable is compromised and becomes very stiff.  

We found that pushing the cables out of the way during the undertray installation could provide enough clearance.  Though the proper fix would be to move one of the cable routing brackets - which requires removing the sheer panel and drilling new holes. 

Here is another installation tip from an S260 Owner.

...When you reinstall the lower pan, remove the NACA duct so that you can reach in and pull the cables to the far left. Then push the pan up and secure it with the nearest bolt. This will hold the pan in place and not allow the cables to get pinched. If you do not do this, you actually risk tearing the sheathing on the cable.

-Eldon

Both clients opted to get our cables as the cable housing had also begun separating.  The shifting action is greatly improved now as well.

If you have a car with a factory subframe stiffener, check your cables to ensure they are not getting crushed.  If they are, give us a call and we can help get you sorted!

Clutch Inspection & Selection

The Lotus are getting older and racking up more mileage.  Wear items like clutches have been blowing up from the early days thanks to abuse, high power, or just wearing out.  We have run various clutches over the years and have formed some opinions.  This Blog hopes to illustrate some of our findings.

FAILURE ON TRACK

At our recent track day weekend, one friend blew up his clutch.  This Elise had seen 25+ track days since the clutch was installed.  His original factory clutch lasted about the same time (25 track days).  This 190hp car was being driven by an experienced driver who enjoys his car on the road and track.  See the pictures below:

This pressure plate came apart and also did some damage to the trans housing as shown below:

INSPECTION

Clutches don't last forever as they are designed to wear out.  The more you shift the more you wear on the clutch/fly system. There is no perfect way to determine when your clutch may fail.  Peeking through the inspection area on your trans housing is certainly one way to check, but not fool proof.  You can gauge the clutch engagement point, with the pedal, as another way to determine when it is wearing out  - but even this is not perfect.  What is the solution?  

You have to physically inspect the clutch to know for sure.  So you need to determine an interval that is acceptable to you as it takes a fair amount of time to do right thoroughly.  Your interval will be based on how you drive your car.  In fact, we know of one car with well over 200k miles with a stock clutch - though this one has never been on the track or AutoX.

If you are tracking your car regularly, I would suggest that you have your clutch removed and  checked every 3 years.  If you race, then I suggest having this done every year.  The trans is something that you should consider having inspected and rebuilt at the same interval.  If you are a regular AutoXer , I would check every 2-3 years.  More frequently if you tend to dump the clutch at every start.  If you run only on the street and are easy on the clutch, then you might consider having it done at 100k miles.

SELECTION

Choosing a clutch can be hard as there are a myriad of choices.  I find that most people think they need much more clutch that they actually do.  The torque (133 ft-lbs) on a stock Lotus is quite modest - even most modified cars don't make enough power to justify aggressive clutches. 

I tend to like clutches with smooth engagement and release.  I don't like pedal effort that is too high - in fact, stock-like effort is possible.  If you have a stock Lotus or even one with modest power (<300hp), we see no need for a race clutch.  We have serviced clients cars who had overly aggressive clutches installed and are hard to drive smoothly.  These cars usually don't need the capacity of these clutches and end up have much worse driveability - especially around town.  Get a clutch with a sprung hub.  We learned the hard way that an unsprung friction plate does bad things quickly to the trans. 

The OE clutch that came with most of the lower powered cars has great feel.  The only real weakness is that the springs are held in the hub by a plastic retainer.  This plastic will fail with aggressive use and/or abuse.  The uprated TRD clutches are a good alternative for those of you who prefer to stay with OE.

Of course, we have our favorites.  I'm a fan of Organic friction material for normal applications.  Fiber Tough is another material that we have found to work very well.   Our STREETclutch can work for most of these applications.  Our HDclutch is a good alternative for cars with more power (<300hp) or regular trackday use or AutoX.  The pressure plate on these clutches offer great pedal feel with effort that is OE-like.  We installed a kit on an Evora and was surprised to find it was even lighter!

Perfect for street cars with stock levels of power.

Good for cars driven more vigorously or with modest power increases (<300hp).

If you drag race or dump your clutch with AutoX, then a more aggressive clutch would be better - but be prepared for other tradeoffs.  Typical tradeoffs include:

• Much higher pedal effort
• 'On & Off' feel or engagement
• Lower life
• Additional wear on trans parts

BREAK-IN PERIOD

This is often times the worst part of installing a new clutch.  The clutch and flywheel need to mate together.  Your new parts need a sympathetic break-in period of about 500 miles.  Normal stop-and-go driving is needed.  Clutch dumps or full throttle or compression braking is FORBIDDEN during this 500 mile interval!  The feel of the clutch won't be that great initially until they bed in.  After 500 miles or so, you will be able to drive more aggressively. 

Lotus Alignment Recommendations

  A proper alignment is critical to the performance of your lightweight sports cars.  These cars are very sensitive and respond well to changes in the suspension setup.  These recommendations are based on experience we've gathered since 2004 with the Lotus 111 platform.  Your results may vary so we suggest you start here and tweak as your driving style demands.  

Make sure that your car's suspension components are in mechanically sound condition.  Check your ball joints, toe links, track ends, etc to ensure that nothing is worn out.  See our 60pt Prep Sheet for a great reference.  Consider our Suspension Refresh Kit if you discover worn-out parts have a higher mileage car.

Recommended settings for an Elise/Exige street/track car with R-compound tires.         

                          Front                 Rear
Ride height    125 +/- 3mm    130 +/- 3mm
Camber            -2.2°               -2.4° to -2.7°
Toe (total)       0                       3mm total toe-in

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Recommended settings for a track Elise/Exige car with slick tires.

                           Front                      Rear
Ride height    120 +/- 3mm              125 +/- 3mm
Camber            -3°                             -3°
Toe (total)       0 - 1mm toe out        3mm total toe-in

---

Follow These Steps:

1.      Set the ride height.  

2.      Set camber.

3.      Set toe.

• To set the camber, remove all your stock shims as well as the ABS shim. You may need to install V2arms or machine your stock steering arms to obtain optimal camber.  Remember to use thread locker on the steering arm bolts.
• While a lower ride height is possible, we find the suspension works best at these recommended heights and the chance of scraping the bottom of your car is less.
• Write Down All of Your Changes!  Write down your alignment settings and then note how the car performs. Write down any changes you make and record the results. This is the best way to get the car dialed in exactly how you like it.  Use our Alignment/Set-up Sheet to help keep tabs on the changes.

Engine Mount Trouble!

We love the fact that Lotus are lightweight cars.  One reason is the minimal number and size of fasteners used on the cars.  These fasteners have a tendency to come loose and need frequent inspection.  In fact, we always like to do a visual inspection BEFORE any driving event - especially a track day.   Engine mounts are items that we recommend should be inspected before each event or ...

In the last month, we've had two cars in for service, a '06 Elise and an '11 Exige S260 with engine mounts that were compromised thanks to fasteners that had either become loose or fallen out!  This resulted in major powertrain movement that caused collateral damage including:

• damage to the oil pan
• damage to subframe stiffener
• poor shifting
• shift cable damage
• more

We have used the 60pt Prep Sheet to help check critical areas on these cars.  Find it: HERE.  Winter is the perfect time to look over your car and get her prepped so you don't suffer any of the problems these last two car owners have had to deal with!

Rear Swaybar & Soft Suspension (Spring) Testing

We have been testing a new suspension that features a component not found on the Elise or Exige.  This innovation is a rear swaybar (anti-rollbar) that was developed by our partners in Italy, DNA Racing.   This rear swaybar allowed us to test softer springs than we typically run.  We've spent several weeks testing on the road and track.  We recruited our friend and pro-Ride & Handling Engineer, David Thilenius for set-up and tuning.  Our focus was to create a fantastic handling car for the street and occasional track use.  We were focused on delivering a flat handling car with grip and compliance, especially on rough roads and tracks.  All the work was conducted on our street legal '05 Elise.

We tested the following:

• Spring rates:
  • 250lbs/350lbs
  • 350lbs/500lbs
  • 450lbs/600lbs
• Valving
  • 2 different levels
• Swaybar settings:
  • Front: 20mm bar with 5 positions
    • .78Kg/mm to 1.1Kg/mm
  • Rear: 20mm bar with 4 positions
    • .93Kg/mm to 1.235 Kg/mm

The key advantage of the rear bar is that you can run softer springs than normal.   Swaybars are used to help manage large side-to-side body movements (body roll).  Running softer springs deliver a more compliant ride and more grip.  Without a rear bar, we've had to run heavy springs in an effort to better control the car and to reduce body roll.  The downside of a rear swaybar is the added complexity and cost.   Check this reference for more details: Wikipedia

Rear swaybar with 4 adjustments.  Requires drilling one hole into the lower wishbone as shown above.

We started with 450/600 spring rates but then switched over to even softer rates than we have ever run: 350lbs front & 500lbs rear.  We completed most of our testing with Triple Adjustable dampers with our V2 valving developed by our good friend Ralph@V2 Motorsport.  This gave us a wide latitude to test.  A future blog will cover the details of the dampers and settings. 

Dave T. spent a day running our Elise on his development route through SoCal roads to dial in his tuning.  His final settings proved to be good but firm.   He also had the dampers set at almost full soft and recommended that we revalve the dampers as well as other areas to find additional compliance.   I drove the car and was impressed but wanted to take it to the West Coast Lotus Meet to really put some miles on this set-up.

The West Coast Lotus Meet trip included a several-hour freeway trip to reach the location and one EPIC canyon run that took most of the second day.  The suspension felt good and performed very well as I hung with the tour leader for hours through some great but rough canyon roads.  I knew this was a nicely balanced kit BUT it was still a bit stiffer than I wanted.  It was more comfortable than the factory Sport suspension but stiffer than the factory Standard suspension.  I wanted the best of both worlds.

We had the dampers revalved to shift the curve to deliver more comfort but kept enough to make it stiff enough for the track.  We also placed the softer 250/350 springs on to help.  Dave was recruited once again to have a go.  The advantage of a professional is that you can get excellent data fairly quickly.  It took him another day of tuning to land on a setting that struck the best balance.  I took the car out onto my favorite test canyon road and was truly impressed.  The compliance and grip were what I was hoping for.  The car turns in flat and sharply.  The soft suspension soaked up the rough roads without beating me up.  

Track testing was our next objective.  I decided to drive the car to Spring Mountain and softened the Rebound 5 more clicks to see the effect.  It was even better on our bump-strewn freeways.  SoCal has expansion joints that are notoriously bad and can make a Sport pack Lotus feel like a bucking bronco.  Our new suspension was perfectly comfortable yet still sporty and responsive.  My goal is to create a  useable sports car that you can take on trips and yet still strafe a canyon or run an occasional track day, not a boulevard cruiser.  

Spring Mtn was running the East 1.6mile course.  This is a fast and smooth course but has many curbs that you can ride that can upset a less forgiving suspension.  After stiffening rebound to Dave’s road settings, I went out to do some warm-up laps and quickly realized that the car was too soft for the track.  We decided to put the swaybar onto the stiffest settings to see if that would help the wallowly response on track.  This proved to be a disaster as the car turned in quickly but understeered horribly.  I took one lap on track and exited immediately to make a change as it was almost undrivable!  It took us another few different iterations of settings on the swaybars and the dampers to get the car to my satisfaction.  I like a neutral-handling car that maintains a nice balance.  The final setting was exactly what I liked.  

I had a couple of Lotus owners drive the car to get their feedback as well.  Steve drove the car on track and was very impressed.  He has owned an Elise for 10 years and has done at least 60 track days so is very dialed into this platform.  He also has the Ohlins TTX dampers yet was very impressed with our kit.  Watch his video testimonial: Click HERE or below.

https://www.facebook.com/inokineticgroup/videos/388429991605550/

At this point, we are ready for production parts.  We placed an order with our partner and expect to see production parts by the end of Dec or early Jan'18. 

One additional configuration that we need to test is running this rear swaybar with the factory non-adjustable bar.   I'm not overly optimistic as the torsional stiffness of the factory bar may be too light - even after drilling a new hole to increase stiffness.   We try it out this coming week... (UPDATE Edit: stock front bar works.  New Blog will be posted soon)