Dry Sump Dyno Results

We had the opportunity to dyno our Elise at K&N Engineering this past weekend. This was the first dyno run on her since adding the Dry Sump kit.  We expected to make some power but that was not our key goal with the kit.  The chart below shows the power that we made.  We are are quite happy with the results as it translates to about 275hp at the crank.  More track testing is planned for Jan 7th.

We created a quick video of the run:

The sticky cluster needle

Many of you have had concerns with the cluster needles sticking in your Elise or Exige. There is a trick you can try before taking it in to your Dealer that may fix the problem - especially if it is nothing more than just a stuck needle. Here are the steps:

1. Open your driver's door


2. Press and hold the trip button (Located on left side of steering column)


3. Turn the ignition key on

You should see your needles shimmy or it will cause the stuck needle to fall down. If it works, great! If not, you will most likely need a new cluster, so head over to the dealer.

Lotus Dry Sump Testing 12/6/11

We have been diligently working on our drysump system for the Lotus Elise/Exige/211 throughout this year. Our last test brought out two issues to sort:

1. Low hot idle oil pressure
2. Excessive oil blow-by from the tank venting

We made a few changes to the system and brought The Art Car (akaThe Blue Car) to test at Willow.  We recruited our friend Jack, again (Thanks Jack !) to handle the driving duties.  Overall the results were good and we were pleased with them.

Since our last track test, we made a couple of changes to address the low oil pressure.  We changed the gear in the pump but that was still not enough.  So we then disconnected the oil cooler lines/radiators and added a remote oil filter.  The pressures still remained low so we began questioning the accuracy of oil pressure readings from the point in the block that we are measuring from.  As it turns out, our hot idle oil pressure was actually within Lotus spec. Lotus states hot idle oil pressure at 39 kPa min, which is 5.65 psi.  


We redesigned our tank to address the excessive blow-by problem.  Our original design allowed oil to creep into the vent line.  We had it remade by Petersen and reinstalled it.  Space for a tank is the biggest challenge but we managed to keep things tidy even with the new filter location.

One new product we also tested was a 7" muffler that exits above the diffuser. This muffler will be tested over the course of the next few weeks.  It sounded great throughout the test.

 The weather at Willow Springs Big Track  was on the other end of the temperature spectrum than our last test at Spring Mountain. The weather gave us a chilly 55 degrees with just a bit of wind.  Jack made several short runs (1-4 laps each) in the morning so we could check the operation of the system and ensure everything was working well.  We experienced very little blow by about (1/2oz) while oil temps were stable around 220-240F and most important the oil pressures were quite good.  We completed a quick inspection in the garage for leaks and car condition.  Everything looked good for a longer session.

  After lunch Jack ran a couple of longer 20 minute sessions for us and the results were very promising as well. We had a bit more blow by (approx 2 oz) in the catch can but nothing compared to our first test in September.  Oil pressure at idle remains low when rpms drop but were excellent at higher rpm where it is critical.  Oil temps rose to 240degF and remained stable throughout the entire 20 min sessions.  We obviously had a bit of help with the cool ambient temperatures  but were happy with the stability of the temps.  


Jack ran the car at moderate speeds per our instructions so we could load the system and monitor it carefully.  He did a great job and delivered very consistent laps.  Our syncros on our trans are giving up due to an overly aggressive clutch we had previously run earlier this year.  This made the 5th to 4th downshift much slower than it should be.  We could see this clearly in the AiM data with spikes in the rpms and oil pressures.


We reviewed the data back at the office with Bill Dailey and did not see anything that would make us change the current system.  Oil temps were good and oil pressure is fine.  We will add another oil pressure sensor to a spot suggested by Bill and compare the readings with the original.  We will then be ready to go hammer the car and see if the system can live with 10/10s driving.  We'll recruit our good friend and professional ride and handling engineer for this task....oh, and we have a Hewland Dogbox in transit that we need to assemble and test.

Weights Savings in Your Oil Lines

As many of you know Lotus has implemented a recall for oil lines on federal Elise/Exiges that were manufactured between June'04 & Nov'06. If you have a vehicle that is affected contact your local dealer for service. With that said, Sector111 have some solutions for those owners craving additional weight savings.  We know that the innovative ULTRAliteLINES save about 4.2lbs  but cars with a single oil cooler can save more than 6lbs and deliver more reliability....here's how:

Lotus use this hardline so that they can use the same oil lines on one or two cooler cars.  It keeps their SKUs and assembly process simplified. This hardline and two fittings can be deleted with either our RACEoilLINE or ONEcoolerLINES products.  These two solutions provide one continuous line from the engine, along the RH side, across the front to the drivers oil cooler. Deleting two fittings also eliminates 2 potential failure points for an oil leak.
                                

Hardline and fittings from a one oil cooler car represents ~1.85+ pounds alone

(note; we're weighing our lighter fittings instead of the heavier Lotus).

We recognize not everyone wants to delete their freshly installed Lotus lines but some of you may want to eek out just a few more pounds by eliminating the stock RH side lines and fittings. 

If you have been data logging your oil temps and have found, like us, that these cars are taking much longer to get to proper operating oil temperature with two coolers, then you might want to delete an oil cooler.  If your car is only driven on the street then you really only need one cooler.  But we don't recommend blindly deleting a cooler, unless you have been logging temps and know your car is running cool...we'll post up how we've been logging the data in a future entry.

Continuous Improvement - Oil Control

Oil control on track is a weakness of a stock Toyota-powered Lotus. Our baffled oil pan, the gPAN has been a reliable solution that has kept many, many cars safe with good oil control when subjected to 1+g loads. We initiated a serious dry sump effort to develop the next level in oil control but continued to look at the gPAN to see if slight improvements could be made.  Both our dry & wet sump solutions are discussed in this post.

A wet sump solution like the gPAN is truly the best option for most owners as it remains street friendly. I cut my engineering teeth at Pontiac Fiero where continuous improvement was part of our daily mission and expectations. In the 90s, I worked with the Japanese OEMs, while working at 3M Automotive, and saw it applied at all areas of their business. From the Japanese I learned that small improvements, done continuously, can have a big impact over time.

The new gPAN2 is an example of a product that we have been able to improve through small design changes. Our latest improvements are horizontal ledges in the side of the pan. The chart above shows oil pressure data measured from two of our Elises(Nirvana & Blue Car). They were equipped with basically the same modifications: Nitron 46mm Triples, Hoosier A6s, SJ Racing wheels, RACEunderAero, titanQR and KATANA265. The Blue Car had our new ULTRAliteLINES vs. stock oil cooler lines in Nirvana, which may account for the slightly higher average oil pressure. The data is from the Lotus Cup events at Laguna Seca in 2010 & 2011, with yours truly doing the driving. We took laps that were close in time and also compared the g loads (over 1g) to insure we were loading the cars equally. The data is shifted a bit as our Start/Stop point were a bit different for each car so the peaks and valleys don't correspond perfectly.

The variation between the two pans is the most striking difference. Both gPANs do a good job with keeping the oil pressure in an acceptable range - the gPAN2 simply controls the variation better. Will this make any difference to wear and tear on the engine? Hard to say as we don't have the ability to test longevity. The engineer in me says that it must be better as it varies less. Though there would be added cost of material and labor for welding the ledges, I felt it would be an improvement worth incorporating.  It was also a big enough improvement that a new name was in order.  So we put on our creative hats and came up with... gPAN2...8^)

Dry sump development continues in earnest. We took Blue Car to Spring Mtn racetrack two weeks ago to test her.  We first ran her on a dyno to insure we had a working solution then made the trek out to SMMP. The oil tank in our solution is a modified tank from Peterson. Ryan spec'd a design and had it built. He wanted to see how well the solution would work so installed a temporary clear top on the tank so we could view the oil in action. The Dailey pump that we choose includes the air separation stage as external oil pumps can add a ton of air into the oil causing foaming. His separator works amazingly well as shown in our video: Tank in action

We recruited our friend Jack to drive the car at the track in 105deg F weather. He ran the car under specific directions from Ryan so we could check various issues. Oil pressure readings were excellent once we determined the correct oil level. The two issues that we experienced were our breather set-up and low hot idle oil pressure. The breather plumbing from our tank was not adequately shielded from the incoming oil under high revs, so too much oil was getting into our catch tank. You can see a bit of this in the video above. We're now making a change to the vent design. The hot idle pressure required that the pump be removed and tweaked by Dailey. The pump was adjusted after we returned and the tank is now getting modified. We should be ready for testing again soon.

Purple Elise Build Cont...

We finished Jerry's car this Tuesday and put it onto a transporter. We are really pleased with the results. This Elise started out as a basket case and is now going to be a fun, reliable and fast machine. We had the factory forged wheels painted black and added the graphics for that special race car finish!

The ReVerie 3 Element diffuser and Rear Panel Eliminator add some downforce and aggression to the rear while the Jubu front spoiler added the same to the front. When we introduced the naked rear look to the US, six years ago, we met some market resistance. Frankly it now looks so natural and has become very common! Note the plastic mesh that was installed in the front intakes. These are simply zip tied in place and are far more durable than the stock grills. We think they look better as well. This is also a race car mod - it would not pass muster with the white glove set!

The interior of the car features a Sparco race seat that is wider than normal. This seat just barely fits and is a bit of pain to install. The seat is more comfortable because of the added width. It also requires that the center console be moved over so it is not a good street solution.

The KATANA265 is shown below along with our QWKcans. We believe this is the max power that a stock trans can take with track use.

The Larini Header, Decat & 6" muffler sound great with the HKS intake. This combination is amazing.

The Before and After shown below is an amazing transformation. The wishbones were freshly powdercoated - what a difference they make. I think many cars are old enough now that undertaking this freshening is a worthwhile task. Its not just my OCD kicking in...

We installed new discNOIR rotors to save some unsprung weight along with Carbotech XP12 (front) and XP10(rear). We're running this pad combination on our car (with bigger calipers). The car came equipped with stainless lines so we simply added fresh Motul RBF600. We aligned the car to specs we prefer but the beauty of these cars is how easy the alignment can be tweaked.

I am planning on attending the Lotus Cup event next Friday at NJMP where this car will run for the first time. The car still has a couple of issues to sort but I'll work with Jerry's team to get this car shook down! Many of our customers and Dealers will also be in attendance so it promises to be a great time.

All in all, it was a fun project. This build proved to me why the Elise/Exige will be iconic cars. They are so easy to refurbish and tune. Additionally they are cost effective and too much fun to run on track. As more and more enthusiasts come to learn about these cars, they will become more and more valuable!

I would like to thank my team at Sector111 for all the hard work. We finished a months worth of work in just over two weeks! Thanks Guys and Gal!!!!

The Purple Elise Meets The Track Trilogy of Terror

As we created our list of parts to add to the Purple Elise, it was clear that the Track Trilogy of Terror would need to be addressed in full. Our Lotus are truly fantastic cars straight out of the box. They are a blast to run on the street and track. But once you take your car to the track, three issues pop up that need to be addressed. We call these the Track Trilogy of Terror: Oil Starvation, Fuel Starvation and Weak Rear Toe Link Joint. Naturally we will be addressing them in this build. The car will receive our gPAN, V2 Fuel Tank with PNPpump - since she is getting a KATANA265, RTVbrace and S99 Toe Pins.

We've been using AiM data systems for the last couple of years after being prodded by our good friend Ralph@V2. The Blue Car is loaded with AiM data recording systems as is Ralph's Exiges. Together we've accumulated some interesting data that shows that you can fix the Track Trilogies with some tasty bits. View the graphs below:

Oil Pressure Data:

Fuel Data:

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....

More Track testing: 2ZZopg, Brake Pads, etc.

We were at the track again last week for more testing. We pulled our engine and had Bruce Nogrady install our new oil pump gear, the 2ZZopg. We went to Willow Springs to test after confirming that the gear was running fine on the street. We also needed to test another brake pad compound and an improvement to an existing product. My good friend and fast LCS racer, Jack, met us at the track and was our official test driver. Jack has many, many laps on this track and could be trusted to put the car under high loads to confirm the performance of parts we are developing.

Jack ran the car for a few sessions and I ran one session as well. I downloaded the data from our AiM system between each session. The oil pressure looked fine and the car was running well even in the 97degF heat. See graph with data below. The gear is the same dimensions as stock but made from higher grade steel. Since it passed our testing, we added it to our website today. It is now ready for anyone building a motor and looking to upgrade over the stock sintered gear - which is known to break apart under high rpm, oil starved use.

We continued to test brake compounds with the 308BBK & Front OE caliper relocation set up. We had run the Carbotech XP12 front & XP8 rear at the last two track tests with good luck. We decided to test out the more aggressive XP10 in the rear this time. The car remained stable under heavy braking. Jack even felt it dived less. The added bias to the rear was noticeable over the XP8 but not nervous like the last time I tested different pads at Willow: previous test.

The brackets used to relocate the front caliper have been ordered and are expected to be in stock this week. I think it will be the solution for many of the power junkies out there who are looking for a BBK that still retains their hand brake.

I am very happy with these pads - Ralph@V2 has been swearing by Carbotech pads for years with his racing efforts. We had first tested these pads last year and have recently added them to our stock. Trail braking is great with these pads and amazingly, the dust is low and easy to clean. The only negative so far is that the pads must be bed with care, though we get them pre-bedded to ease this process.

The ULTRAliteLINES continue getting tested along with a couple of new products. We are very pleased with the data that we are gathering. The FuelSafe fuel cell was removed from the car before this test, filter cleaned and replaced. It ran well and remains a great solution though you must monitor the fuel consumption. We are working with them to improve the fuel reading as I had described in a previous post.

The engine was yanked out today by Chris. We take it to Bruce tomorrow to prep it for the Dailey Dry Sump system. Ryan will be done with the tank for this system this month. We will be back to track test it with Dave T. at the wheel. The Blue Car must be ready for LOG31!