Evora & Atom Brake Rotors

We've taken the rotors off our Lotus Evora & Ariel Atom 3 to be sized up for some lighter and better-ventilated two-piece rotors. We love saving unsprung weight. Our ULTRAdiscs & Monolites having been saving unsprung weight for years now on Lotus Elise & Exiges. It's time for the Evora & Atom to enjoy the same benefits!

The pictures below show the Evora's suspension (front & rear respectively) unobstructed by the factory brake rotors. http://www.sector111.com/podcast/GirodiscPODCAST.mp3, the man behind our brake rotor offerings, was impressed with the Evora's OE rotors but says there are great weight savings and cooling improvements to be had. The fronts will utilize a two-piece, floating rotor design like our CUPdiscs & ULTRAdiscs. The rears however may use a different design to accommodate for the drum-style parking brake.

Our Atom 3 is fitted with the optional Alcon racing brakes. These are fantastic brakes that are virtually fade free on or off the track. The rotors however have a lot of weight-saving potential. We'll fit two-piece floating rotors on all four corners which give us a significant loss in unsprung weight.

We'll post the final weight saving figures when we get the finished rotors.

KATANA26X Initial Dyno Results

We recently dyno'd KATANA2's track-oriented, evil, brother which we have been referring to as "KATANA2track." After dynoing this setup, we realized we need a new interim name. "KATANA26X" will be more appropriate because it's putting down 235hp at the rear wheels. If you calculate for 15% drivetrain loss we're looking at 270hp at the crank. A more conservative 12.5% drivetrain loss puts us at just under 265hp at the crank. The calibration needs a couple of small adjustments until we can officially give it a number. The results, so far, look great!

The KATANA26X kit is similar to the KATANA2 but adds a cold-air intake and a Larini Header & Decat. A larger fuel pump is recommended as is uprating your trans gears as we are now entering gear eating torque territory.

The dyno graph above compares the KATANA26X's rear-wheel horsepower (rwhp) and rear-wheel torque (rw lb-ft) with the KATANA2. The KATANA26X is about 20hp stronger at the rear wheels than the CARB-pending KATANA2.

This upgrade will be perfect for you track-rats looking for more power than the KATANA2. While retaining all of the driveability you've come to expect from calibrations completed by our engine calibrator Steve. We'll have it available soon...and will be sold as a track-only solution.

New Partnership with PB Racing in Italy

A key strength of Sector111 has been the various partners we've developed over these last 7 years - all over the world. This has allowed us to introduce many new products to this tiny Lotus market. Leveraging the talents and expertise of our partners has been a huge benefit for all of us. To that end, September was a crazy month for me as I traveled all over including NY, MI, VA, England and Italy.

I went to visit PB Racing outside of Milan to discuss some of their new products and brainstorm ways for us to cooperate. PB Racing are a Lotus Dealer and also manage the Lotus Cup series. PB is run by a cool guy, Stefano d'Aste, who has a racing resume that is quite impressive. He and his Engineering Manager Dr. Federico Turrata are true Lotus enthusiasts. Their shop is full of S1 & S2 Elise, Exige and 211s. PB have developed many items for various Lotus models as well as providing development support to Lotus on cars like the 211 GT4.

Racing is a key part of PB Racing. In addition to racing themselves, they manage several arrive and drive clients within the Lotus Cup Italy. This affords them a clear view on what can fail in these cars when subjected to serious race conditions. Similarly, we found our participation in Lotus Challenge in the US has given us even more insight on product needs than regular HPDE days can. Racing against the clock truly requires a different perspective and different products.

One of the items that most racers need are multiple sets of wheels. PB have a very nice wheel that caught my attention. We will be getting a few sets of them as I think they are an excellent solution. These cast wheels are made in Italy and are very affordable. The quality is superb and unlike some other cheaper options, were designed to fit the Lotus. PB have been running them successfully in the Cup series for two+ years with no failures. I like the way they look and think they will become quite popular here. The sizes are 16x7 & 17x8 with offsets that are fairly conservative. We expect the pricing to be less than $1500/set but will know soon once we have the final landed costs.

One key product that they have developed is a TVS supercharger kit for the Evora. They've cast some nice manifolds and are now finishing the brackets and engine mounts. We will get this kit over here soon and will plan to offer it to Evora customers. We will need to sort the ECU tuning for our lovely 91 octane fuel but should be able to use the rest of the kit.

I'm pretty excited as I expect some very tasty bits will be the fruit of this partnership. Stay tuned.

Video Chat with Sector111

We are always trying to improve our communication with our customers. For clients who can't just stop by our shop, video chatting can provide more clarity to many questions. To this end, we now have the ability to FaceTime & Tango with our customers. If you have an iPhone4, new iPod Touch or an Android Smart Phone, you can get live video support from Sector111 from anywhere in the world for free! If you have a tech, installation or product question, e-mail us at info@sector111.com to schedule a video chat appointment.

FaceTime is a new Apple application that allows you to video chat using the iPhone4 or new iPod Touch and a Wi-Fi connection. FaceTime requires no setup, no new account or no extra charges. Its as easy as placing a phone call and is free no matter where in the world you are.

Tango is new video chat application for Android phones or previous generation iPhones. Tango is also free and downloadable from your phones app store.

Seats & Safety

I visited Ralph@ V2 Motorsport in Detroit last week and also stopped in and visited Roush Industries. I'm a big believer in safety in our cars and am constantly looking for best practices and learned some new tips from each visit.

Ralph supports two Exige 'S' cars that are being raced in SCCA T2. The cages and seat arrangement in these cars are truly amazing. I wanted to share some pictures of his cars. Seat back reinforcement is becoming the norm in serious racing. We had installed a ReVerie race seat in my Atom a couple of years ago that had it's seat back bolted into the chassis. It was seriously rigid! The cage in these Exiges featured extra gussets and had double door bars that extended out further from the stock sill. He has also installed interior head nets that are a smart solution and becoming required in many series.

As it turns out, these cars set track records at Waterford Hills Raceway this past weekend turning 1min 15sec times. Fast AND safe!

I toured Roush courtesy of my grade school friend, Dennis who happens to be the son of a Roush co-founder. Dennis has been working at Roush since we were teenagers. He was gracious enough to give me a great tour of their museum and race shop.

Roush is an impressive company with extensive capabilities. Many cars that you see on the road feature products that were in part developed by Roush. They have been active in Stock car racing for many years and had quite the collection of cars.

I had the pleasure of sitting inside a Fusion stock car. The seats in these cars are amazing. They feature bolstering and support unlike any other sportscar race series. They are awesomely safe. Climbing in and out through the window was a kick. I suspect more of the features displayed in these seats will trickle their way into other forms of racing. I'm sure we will incorporate some of them for sure. Look for some future cooperation as well between Sector111 & Roush.

Brake Pad Testing

Here at Sector111, we are always testing something that will make your car handle better, be faster, create more grip to the track or stop quicker. It is the last point that we concentrated on for our last test at Buttonwillow Raceway.

We took a Naturally-Aspirated Spec Elise that races in the Lotus Challenge Series and used it as our test car. This car started with Hawk HT-10 brake pads with stock Lotus rotors.

Our test drivers ranged from one pro racer/ driving instructor (a real expert at Buttonwillow having raced there since the opening of the track), one leading Lotus Challenge Series contender (our fast amateur driver), one mid level driver with very good knowledge of the Lotus cars and the braking characteristics, and one driver that is new to driving Lotus’s in particular on the track.

We were able to test two new sets of brake pad options. The first test of these new pad options was set up around the feel of how the brakes were on the track. The four criteria that we used for each driver was:

• Initial Bite
• Modulation
• Pad Release
• Resistance to Fade

Durability and wear characteristics will come later if they are able to pass this first test. Luckily the pads that were chosen for this test all passed and are scheduled to be used in our next stage of development.

Spec Elise Build

After the Laguna Seca Lotus Challenge Series(LCS) race, one of our clients requested that we build him another Elise for wheel to wheel racing. He was currently running an uncaged Elise SC in LCS that he also drives on the street. He was having so much fun that building a car that was even safer seemed to be a prudent decision. Developing a car that would qualify for the Spec Class within LCS was his request to us in mid July. He also wanted to be able to run at the next LCS event in early Sept. Time was clearly too tight to start from scratch.

To expedite this build, we bought an Elise that was already track prepped but needed some tweaks to make it compliant with LCS rules. This car came from our friends at R3 Motorsports who used it as a school car and also for arrive and drive. It had a cage and fire suppression system already. We stripped the car down to assess it's condition. It had seen some serious track days but was in decent condition. The car had a salvage title so had some minor chassis damage that R3 corrected.

The parts that we changed included the suspension, steering arms, gPAN, brakes, RTVbrace, airbox, hubQR, Nardi F1 steering wheel and added a fifth point harness. Several of the ball joints were torn or worn out so we simply replaced them with some of our components like our Nitron S99 kit. We gave the car a full fluid flush, including our transELIXIR and alignment. We added a set of stellaCORSE wheels from the clients SC. Since the car is not street legal, we had to wait until a track event to test her out.

The car was originally Chrome Orange but the client and his business partner wanted a yellow car. They christened it 'Saffron'. The stripe scheme was our 'Blade' design that was

first developed on our Exige. I'm pleased to report that several client's have copied this design around the country. We chose red and white as these colors were in the client's race suit and helmet. After adding the stickers the car really looked sweet. The 'Toyo' & 'R888' were sprayed onto the tire sidewalls for that finishing touch.

Of course the proof is always in the pudding so we needed to run her to see if she was fast. Steve brought her to the Streets of Willow LCS event. Our client and his partner hired a pro to coach them. The coach is a Skip Barber instructor at Laguna Seca with experience in their Lotus school cars. He was very happy with the car. So much so that he did not want to give it back! He managed to run some fast laps in the 1:32sec range with a safe margin. Saffron ran without a hitch in 105degF track conditions. Ultimately the track race was cancelled as the corner workers were getting sick from the heat.

Our client and his partner were pleased with the car and raved about its performance. We managed to deliver a track ready Elise to them in 1.5months. So give us a call if you are interested in a track focused Lotus, we can build one to suit your specific needs.

New Trailer for Our First Atom Customer

Our first Atom client requested that we get an enclosed trailer built to house his Atom. We called our friend Chad at CNC Trailers to build a nice 20' trailer for him. Chad and his father build some of the best custom trailers in Southern CA. You can spec in anything your heart desires. They built a stacker for one lucky family that owns 2 Lotus 211s. Each trailer is built from all box tube steel so they are very sturdy.

One cool feature of this trailer is the built in 'basement' for storage. The cabinets and stainless counter are also quite nice. It has been plumbed with air and features a compressor and winch. The awning will also be a sweet way to beat those sunny CA track events. The flush mounted L-track will be a perfect way to strap down the Atom.

This is clearly one of the nicest trailers we've seen. Give us a call if you are interested in getting one for your sportscar - especially your Atom or Lotus.

Metal Shard in Evora Tire!

Picked up a metal shard while driving the Evora home from Monterey this weekend! This bit decided to lodge itself into my rear tire somewhere along the 605 freeway. I began hearing a repetitive noise from the rear tire that was somewhat quiet yet different from the usual noises. The Evora is nicely insulated but still allows you to feel and hear things that most cars would not allow you to detect.

Three quarters of this metal part was in the tire. It took some effort to remove and luckily the tire did not lose any air. The Evora has the tire pressures on display in the dash. This allowed me to monitor them during the remaining 70 miles I had to get home. I was concerned as it was 100+degF which can be severe for tires - especially ones with torn tread blocks!

I returned home with not issue. The Pirellis held up well. Time to get a new rear tire...