Esprit

My work was done by Glenn Suckling at GDS Automotive. He's as methodical as they come, takes his time (which costs money) but he took the time to get it exactly how I wanted it, even when the way I wanted it was confusing/illogical/difficult because I was trying to achieve a certain look or feel. MoTeC stuff is nice and I'm glad I've got it now that I've spent the money, but in hindsight, I think I could have saved a buck or two here It's lovely to use and customise though, I've added all sorts of nice little tweaks to my control, and know that I'll never run out of I/O as I can just expand as necessary. Not that this car is getting any fancier than it currently is, it's just nice to have the option

Rookie, you're right. Same with stuff like MoTeC, the price tends to be the price. I was happy in the end with my wiring/ECU install, because at least it was all being done by one bloke who'd stand behind his workmanship, and I was happy to pay for that. Given the wiring was the one and only part of the build that I wasn't taking ownership of and didn't have an intimate knowledge of (I'm colourblind, wiring isn't my forte!) I wanted to make sure that it was up to the quality of all the work I'd put in up to that point.

Couple of my Autosport connectors were about $250 per side, (2 sides for each connector) and I had three of them, so you can see how it adds up. The benefit of it all is the loom integrates all the factory stuff (like the rear lights, alarm sensors etc) with a whole bunch of other stuff I've added like a gearbox cooler pump and temp sensors, fuel pressure sensors oil temp/pressure sensors etc, with the easy ability to expand into the system should I want to add more stuff later on. It's also proven extremely reliable. In the end, on a $100k car it's not silly, or on a dedicated race car build at the top level it makes good sense. But on most builds you can do as good a job with off-the-shelf connectors you can get from RS components etc and standard wiring/shrinkwrap. The labour etc that you put into it and the skill of the loom installer will make much more of a difference to final appearance than fancy connectors and loom gear.

I think my loom cost in excess of $4k on its own. The connectors, DR-25, etc added up to about half that, before it had even been assembled. That, combined with about $10k of MoTeC gear made it an especially spendy couple of months, given that I'd budgedted about $5k for ECU, wiring and installation!

Yeah, most autosport connectors are similar to mil-spec but are generally lighter construction. Cars generally don't use mil-spec connectors these days as they're far heavier than they need to be, and don't need to be explosion proof, corrosion proof in salt water etc.

Nice info! And those looms are very pretty! Warning, it does get VERY expensive though, I had my engine and rear looms (and some datalogging stuff up front) done in similar fashion and it got spendy real quick. The loom was done in DR25 and Deutsch Autosport connectors were used along with Deutsch Mini-DT for all the new stuff, with Tyco connectors being used where the loom needed to interface with the OEM stuff. The loom was made to be backwards-compatible with the original engine/loom/ECU should I ever wish to revert to 100% factory spec.

It's all about how you spread the load though. Your house weighs many, many tonnes, yet is supported quite happily on a 100mm slab, because the weight is dispersed throughout the edge. We do robotic installs where a robot needs to be anchored down to a massively thick slab, but you can work with a thinner slab if you spread the load out. If you're using a 100mm slab you simply need to make up some arms to spread the load wider to gain back the margin lost through having a thinner slab.

Mine are all hiiiiiigh

100mm is fine, if the slab is good and there are spreader bars on the bottom of the hoist. If the hoist has a small bolting footprint then it might be marginal, or if you're planning on hoisting Landcruisers all day err'day. For a home hoist or semi commercial use 100mm should be fine.

4 posters are good for doing exhausts and oil changes and that's about it

Oh, and the only thing I want to add to mine, is an optical beam sensor to detect when the top of the vehicle is about to contact the ceiling. Currently you have to guess it and if you get lazy there's a risk of contact. Cheap solution is a mirror mounted ona 45 degree angle on the roof above the control box so you can see across, but since I'm an automation engineer, I'll get some basic sensing up in here.

You'll need at least a 100mm reinforced pad, and to be honest, even then you'll want to probably bolt on some load-spreader bars to the hoist along the sides to spread the load. Here's mine, it's a 3-phase 2-post Istobal. Early '90s vintage but built like a brick shitter. Ceiling heght is just under 3.2m level, and on a normal car you can get it quite high, although with something modernish or large You have to work on it with a slight stoop, I find it pretty comfortable though and I'mabout 5'11". Ideally you'd need about a 3.5-4m stud to be able to work on most carsabove head-height. Recessing it into the floor for low cars is a good idea, although you'll still need temporary ramps to drive over and allow room within the "pit" for the arms to swing into. I can't get the Lotus onto my hoist yet, but because it's my hoist and I'll do what I want with it I'm going to make up some custom-arms to suit the car (you need massive reach to get to its jacking points anyway). The under-lighting is a good idea, although bear in mind that everything underneath a hoist gets covered in shit, oil, coolant etc so spec wisely. It'll also get scratched, so some kind of replacable covers would be good so you can replace them when they get scratched up. Flouro tubes preferable to LEDs because they cast less shadows. To be honest I've never found lighting an issue in my garage, although you can see it's well lit and having the ceiling and whalls painted white REEEEEEEALLY helps as it reflects the light around. I'm going to be painting the floor an off-white, which will help things even further in time, but I find I only need a lead-lamp when working way up in the bowels of a car where floor-lights wouldn't help anyway. I've got tilt-sectional doors on mine, but as you can see, they don't intrude into the hoist space. For a single-depth garage they'd still work (tilt sectionals are the best) but you might want some interlock on them so that the hoist won't raise when they're up and when the hoist is up the door is locked-out. But yeah, anything over 3m stud will be fine (unless you're semi rural you won't get that anyway, see the battles Ed had with his shed) and unless you're working 40 hour weeks under a hoist, having to stoop a little isn't uncomfortable at all. Snoozin' will attest that the working height of mine is not bad at all.And yeah, throw as much lighting at it as you can, although pay attention to the type of lighting and know that ambient light is best! Happy hoisting.

Kiwi808, your car is just the duck's nuts. So much tidy!

Trans would be incapable of dropping a skid without more fluid either.... didn't like manoeuvring last night did it?

Richy doesn't have a front lawn I'm sure Richy will come out of this quids in and with a bunch of spare parts #iamthebargainhunter

That was pretty rusty too. As evidenced by the number of mis-shifts and ham-fisted corrections. One of the sessions I managed to get it smoother and quicker, but it usually looks slower because I'm less busy at the wheel. Good thing about the session was because there was little traffic out front I spent most of the afternoon experimenting with taming the oversteer with left-foot braking, which was surprisingly effective out of the slower corners. Needs some more work but I think there could be half second or so in that in the long run once I figure out my technique for the car properly.

Wasn't too frustrating, later sessions I started more up the front so only had to deal with them when I came up to lap them That was the first run of the day, tyre pressures weren't right, and the track was cold and still a little damp. It does need more rear end grip though, I've a stiffer front ARB on the wishlist as I'm at maximum stiffness on the stock item and it's still unloading the inside rear too much. It's a common thing with S1s though and more a case of too much front grip rather than not enough rear. I could run more camber on the rear for more grip on track, but it'd drive like arse on the road, and it is still a street car after all

Been busy with house/work stuff of late so not many miles put on the car. I did, however, manage to track down the source of the grinding noise on the rear (I think) to a rear calliper bolt being sliiiiiightly too long and just touching the back of the brake disc when loaded up. A quick touch with the grinder sorted that out. This last week, I got round to doing something I've been meaning to so for a while; resetting the ride-height and giving the car a full geo, as the handling suggested it wasn't ideal. I've had the rear suspension on and off a couple of times and while I had an alignment done not too long ago, it just didn't feel right.... so now that I have the garage space, out came the string! As I suspected, it was a way out, so after several hours of setting up, measuring, adjusting, and repeating, I had it pretty damned close. The reason for this? I'd been invited along to a trackday by my father as his group of mates was going to one with the Hawke's Bay Car Club at Taupo. My good friend Paul Aston was coming along too in my old Elise, so it was set to be a fun day. After a foggy drive down, the day was just a perfect late Autumn day. Clear blue sky, little breeze and about 20 degrees. Lovely! Paul and I were allocated into the fast road-car group, which put us out with a couple of 997 Turbos, a 996 Turbo S, an R8 V10, a couple of F430 Scuderias and a Ferrari F458, among others. Despite being outgunned under power, SEXIGE acquitted herself well, clearly faster than everything else out there over a lap, even though sometimes the others were reluctant to let the little upstart past! This was from the first session, and I've got more video to come, but this was the only one where I started from the rear of the group, in the others I tended to just lead out and leave the exotica behind. It's not every day you get the chance to dust off Scuds and 458s! Managed to clock a high 1:42 laptime which isn't too bad... car has more in it though, especially since my rear tyres have long since given their best!

Saw this bad boy at the Concours show on the weekend It was parked not far from my car, which was on the Club Lotus stand It looks like it'll be quite the ship when done... bet it'll make a nice noise, those 250 V8s were always one of the sweetest sounding 8 cylinders around!

I'll sign off with a few more photos of the day and a couple of vids. (Photo Credit to Andrew Whalley) (Photo Credit to Wayne Thompson) (Photo Credit to Andrew Whalley) (Photo credit to NZHondas member "colgateam") "Hello, Apex?...... Yes, I have a long-distance collect call here from George, will you accept the charges?" (Photo credit to Matt Carter) Managed a bit better next time around (Photo credit to NZHondas member "colgateam") Just to prove it wasn't all drifting and slidey stuff! (photo credit to Andrew Whalley) And finally, my favourite shot of the day, captured by Matt Carter: Which was also captured by Ant's on-board camera as I went past him: And how it looked from my angle:

It was great fun sliding the car about like a mad bastard, but I managed to get some solo seat time in the third session and get some tidier, quicker laps in: Sadly, the day didn't go ENTIRELY smoothly. Towards the end of the first session, the speedo died completely. I was just coming up behind JC in the Elise and it just dropped immediately to zero and stayed there. I've had a loose connecton on the LHS wheelspeed sensor, but I thought I'd got to the bottom of that issue, so I'm hoping it's just the same thing or perhaps a dead sensor and not something amiss with the Stack. The second issue was that I've blown another alternator. Unlike last time where it just died, this time I noticed in the 3rd session that the usually rocksteady 13.9V while running was down to about 12.4V, jumping between 11.9V and 13V. I kept an eye on it for the day and it got no worse, but on the drive home it did get progressively worse with voltage dropping down to 10.7V or so on occasion. At each time I was able to wake the alternator up by changing down into 4th for a few seconds to bring the revs up over 4000RPM, at which point the alternator would go back on charge to about 12.6V.... so it at least got me home, just. I've got another alternator on the way, but given this is the second one I've cooked this year, I am going to have to adapt another one that can better handle the heat and high RPM that seem to be killing mine. I could also perhaps keep the stock one and under-drive it slightly, but really I should look for a better, lighter solution. The third issue is that there's a clonk coming from the rear suspension I think. Some slack when transitioning on and off the power, like something's loose or moving. It could be a loose engine or gearbox mount or perhaps a toe-link, but I only noticed it as I neared home so hopefully it's nothing major. Due to these niggles, the car probably won't see the track again until the new year. I want to take her away with me over the Christmas break down-country and want her in rude health by then, so my fingers are very much crossed that it's all minor stuff.

I spent much of the day playing taxi to people who wanted lifts, and generally having some fun overdriving the car and sliding about on a track with very little grip, as these vids of the first two sessions will attest! The first session with Steph riding shotgun: And the second with Hannah:

Last couple of weeks I've gotten some new Pagid RS14s in the front as the last ones were completely done for, and I'm now shopping for some better brake discs as the EBC Turbogrooves on it are nearing the end of their life. Some AP or Alcon rotors with alloy bells will find their way on there soon enough. Had an absolute blast in the car on Saturday. Went down to James and Nixx's last Friday night and we were up at sparrow's fart to drive down to Taupo to join in the NZHondas NIMM trackday. We met up with my flatmate and good friend Ant on the way down in his Nissan Skyline and we convoyed down. Picked up a few nasty stonechips on the way thanks to some rather shoddy roadworks, but these are to be worn as a badge of honour I guess, and when they bother me enough I'll give her a respray in the factory colour (Photo Credit to Ant) It was a great trackday with plenty of track time for everyone, so much so that I was rationing petrol by the end of it and sadly nursing a couple of niggles (more on that later). There were some cracking cars out there though, including Fraser Simpson in his newly completed Super GT-replica Honda NSX. The thing's still being dialled in and is due to receive a couple of turbos in the near future so it's fair to say it'll be quite the weapon when done! (Photo Credits to Wayne!) There was also an array of other cool Honda machinery out there including a brace of NSXs and some lovely JDM style Hondas. (Photo credits to Matt Carter)

I shall hopeully be there tonight in some filthy newschool contraption to bask in some nostalgic fervour!

Yeah, that was us On our way up to the Sawmill Cafe for lunch