bubblegoose Posted January 22, 2011 Share Posted January 22, 2011 You can still use those old belts, FIA approved belts can get 5 year extension on exp date now. Mab not on road cars? SHHH! ill give you a tickle for the old ones? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted January 22, 2011 Author Share Posted January 22, 2011 You can still use those old belts, FIA approved belts can get 5 year extension on exp date now. Mab not on road cars? They expired in 2005, so ran out a month ago... hence why I replaced them... I want to do competitions this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
My name is Russell Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 Oh yup yup yup Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jakesae101 Posted January 23, 2011 Share Posted January 23, 2011 5 year extension doesn't cover all race series ect better off to replace them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted January 23, 2011 Author Share Posted January 23, 2011 Today was a day of little progress to show. I spent a chunk of the day cleaning up various bits and giving the car an oil and filter change as the engine's done a couple hours running now. Fresh mineral oil in for the remainder of the run-in. I got to take the car out for a shakedown up and down my road (private road, honestly officer!). Happy to report that the car goes as well as it should up to about 3000RPM but is rather grumpy down low... a road tune will probably sort some of this out, but it'll never be perfect. One thing's for sure it's in desperate need of a geo! I managed to get the Motec SLM fitted in today. Since the seats went in yesterday, the two spots I had earmarked for it were both no-gos. Putting it on top of the steering column cowl obscured a couple of the Stack warning lights as well as the engine temperature. Putting it on top of the binnacle shroud made it invisible behind the steering wheel rim. My solution was to stick it upside down, here: I can programme it to work in reverse and the cabling hides away nicely. It's in the perfect position for the eye and doesn't obscure either tacho or speedo gauge more than a couple of mm. It's just stuck on with industrial adhesive tape right now so I can reposition if necessary, but it'll stay mounted until I decide to move it. The other little job was to mount the engine cover hinge, which is now done. I also got the engine cover out for a look as it's sat under my bed in careful storage for almost 3 years. Really makes the back end look like it should! Jobs for the rest of the week involve cleaning out and fitting the rest of the interior (carpets, footrest etc) and to get a couple of things finished up out back. I've designed up the mount for the battery shutoff switch up front and will kick off manufacture of this tomorrow... I'm also just trying to finish up the design of the rear heatshield panel to get that underway too.... The list of things to do now before having some fun in it is only a page long in my notebook now, so we must be getting close Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted January 24, 2011 Author Share Posted January 24, 2011 Another night in the garage last night and thankfully had a lot back from anodising, so was ale to make some progress. Finally got the correctly-made coil bracket anodised and fitted. The coil now sits as it will permanently. The bracket fits EXACTLY as it should and looks the part. Better fit than OEM! Also got the version 2 battery mount done. This was a slight change from the last one I made since that was to fit the old synergy battery that wouldn't cut the mustard when cranking. This new one fits the Odyssey PC680 battery perfectly and mounts the battery on the floor of the car. Nice and low! This picture is taken without the washer bottle bracket in to hold it all down. Please also excuse the wiring mess, you can see I've added a battery shutoff switch to isolate the earth. This is just hanging mid-air at the moment as I've designed up and am waiting to get back a bracket to mount this properly. This will mount to the vacant rivnuts you can see at the bottom of the picture. This battery shutoff is not a kill switch, nor is it intended to be used as such. It's merely an earth isolator. this is because with the battery laying down like this, it's a 10 minute exercise in contortion and swearing to access and disconnect the battery terminals. If you're wanting to do any electrical or mechanical work on the car, isolating the battery power becomes a frustrating task! This way it's just the flick of a switch to make the car safe to work on. It'll also mean that I can isolate the battery if I have to leave it for a long period somewhere where I don't have access to a charger. Just out of shot on the top right (you can just see a black wire coming towards the camera from the battery) is a charging jack for the battery. This enables me to plug in my intelligent cyclic charger to charge and maintain the battery when the car's not in use for more than a week. Just helps to keep the battery in good health and means that when I do want to use it, it'll be ready for me. I can have the charger connected with everything locked up and the car alarmed too, which is a nice feature. Another thing I finished off last night was my new, deeper rear diffuser. I designed and made this over 3 years ago but never fitted it to the car as I pulled it to bits before it was finished. However it's finished now and ready to hang back on the car when it's rolling again. This one is just made up in black anodised aluminium and is just a prototype. If it proves successful I'll probably make another in dry carbon to make it lighter and stiffer. Won't have a lot of time to work on the car tonight but intend getting everything bar the isolator switch finished inside the front compartment and want to get the rest of the interior cleaned out and done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted January 27, 2011 Author Share Posted January 27, 2011 Well work has continued these past couple of days. Mainly clean-up type stuff. All of the interior fabrics have been meticulously cleaned, as has the interior of the tub. All alloy components have been treated with ACF50 to ensure ongoing corrosion resistance. Tonight I hope to get the rear clam offered back up in place, get the car washed and clay-bar'd and then polished up, which will be the first time it's looked anything like a car in a long looong time. Another thing that arrived today, is one of those VERY cool little "finishing" things that really ice the cake on a job like this. You'll recall that the car's running a Quaife 6-speed gearbox now in place of the original Rover PG1-B4BP Close-Ratio box. The stock gearknob, which I've reverted to has the gearshift-pattern on a small badge on the top of the knob. What I wanted to do was to keep the car 100% stock-looking with the new box, so I've had some badges made up using the exact same "metalphoto" anodising process as the OEM badge. I destroyed my original 5-speed badge in the experimentation process, but here's a photo of it, alongside the CAD rendering I did of what I designed to replace it: I got the completed badge back today and it's bloody perfect... the badge is a dead-ringer for the original one, so I'm very very happy. It's the little finishing touches like this that I think really make a project like this... hopefully showing that genuine thought and effort has gone into ensuring everything is just right Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Honda Ass Dragger Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 Wow looking really good Better keep hold of this thing now becasue with Dany Bahar (aka the worlds biggest tool) runing Lotus they might not be around for to long Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted January 27, 2011 Author Share Posted January 27, 2011 Yeah well ain't that the truth. Either way, it looks like the hard-core, focussed Lotus is on the extinction list..... That's precisely the reason I love the S1 Exige, is that in my eyes it's probably THE most hardcore, focussed road/trackday car ever made that's actually still a car (so not something like a caterham, atom etc that has questionable weather protection, no doors/boot etc.)... For sure, if Danny Bahar doesn't ruin Lotus, I think he's taking it in a direction that distances itself from a few of their most notable models in the past. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Honda Ass Dragger Posted January 27, 2011 Share Posted January 27, 2011 Yeah well ain't that the truth. Either way, it looks like the hard-core, focussed Lotus is on the extinction list..... That's precisely the reason I love the S1 Exige, is that in my eyes it's probably THE most hardcore, focussed road/trackday car ever made that's actually still a car (so not something like a caterham, atom etc that has questionable weather protection, no doors/boot etc.)... For sure, if Danny Bahar doesn't ruin Lotus, I think he's taking it in a direction that distances itself from a few of their most notable models in the past. Very well said Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted February 1, 2011 Author Share Posted February 1, 2011 Well another busy weekend with the car, although little in the way of actual progress to show. This weekend just gone was the weekend of the 4 and Rotary Nationals here in Auckland. This is the largest performance car show and drag racing event of the year. My friends in the CJC club were putting together a club stand for the show and I decided to see if I could squeeze my car onto their display. A couple of weeks ago it became apparent that the car wouldn't be 100% completed for the show so I decided that I'd show the car on the display with the rear clam removed, at least giving the punters something a bit different to look at than just another shiny car! On Thursday night I got to washing, clay-baring, polishing and generally treating the car to a good clean-up. My friends Richy and Gung were up to stay at my place for the show from Palmerston North and Wellington respectively so I had some extra hands on board. SELOCer Eddie even popped by all the way from the UK to have a looksee too! That's commitment. Anyway, about 10:30pm, we FINALLY got the rear clam muscled back into position on the car. This was a massive step for me as it's the first time I've seen the car "complete" for almost 3 years! Eddie snapped this photo of the happy owner surveying his work: The clam was only mounted in place with a couple of fasteners and some duct tape... just enough to hold the bugger on as it was to be removed again. Friday morning dawned and the car was trucked over to the showgrounds. I could have driven it but she's still not road legal so trucking was the best bet. Car got off the truck and through registration for the show: (pic credit to 4 and Rotary) Friday was then spent setting up the stand and getting the cars ready for display. (pic credit to NZ Performance Car Magazine): (pic credit to 4 & Rotary): (pic credit to Brian from the mighty CJC): The car was pretty well received, despite not really being the usual sort of thing you see at the 4 & Rotary show. There was a lot of interest in it from the punters, mainly thanks to having its guts hanging out and thus having something interesting to gawk at! The car didn't win any awards, but given my efforts to keep things stock-looking and to enhance things subtly, it's almost validation of my work that most of the work I've done passed unnoticed The CJC stand however did land us "Best overall club" award, which was just reward for the hard work put in by all of the Jerks. It was a fun weekend and hopefully I can be involved again next year with a more complete car! (pic credit to keisuke at 86Fighters): The car's now back home sitting under her dust cover (the first time I've used THAT in a while (I've only used it twice since forking out a bomb for it back in early '08!). I'm trying to keep the car clean since it's going to be on the Club Lotus display at the Ellerslie Concours in a couple of weeks. I've also designed up the rear heat shield and sent this off to manufacture. This is the only thing holding me up now from getting the bodywork mounted properly, which is the only thing stopping me getting it back on the road. Give me a couple of weeks and we'll be back rolling again and getting some run-in miles under my belt! Game on! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
My name is Russell Posted February 1, 2011 Share Posted February 1, 2011 Confirms it would looks rubish as a limo. Well done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted February 1, 2011 Author Share Posted February 1, 2011 Yeah... I've binned the idea of mounting a bench seat in the back Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted February 13, 2011 Author Share Posted February 13, 2011 A very VERY long weekend in the garage this weekend. Worked from 6pm til midnight on Friday night on the car, then back in there at 9am on Saturday and worked right through until about 7am on Sunday morning! I had arranged for the car to be part of the Club Lotus NZ stand at the Intermarque Concours show at Ellerslie. The first job was to make up and fit my new rear heatshield. The old heatshield had disintegrated about the mounts and was gradually crumbling away so I had a replica pressed up in aluminium sheet and bought some heatshield fabric to cover it with. Here you can see the old shield, new shield and fabric together. I did however make a bit of a cock up and it turns out my proposed setup would have been a lot heavier than the OEM shield. I pressed on and fettled the new shield to fit though. However, after all of this, I decided I'd import some Nimbus heatshield material as this would be lighter and more durable than the OEM stuff. In the meantime, I've repaired the old shield and mounted that in the car. I'll use the "new" shield as a pattern for the one I've yet to make up. It's not high on the priority list though, so I'll get some Nimbus material on the way and I'll worry about it down the line. It's an afternoon's work to swap to a new shield when the time comes, so not a massive job. The rest of the time was spent getting the seats and rear fascia out so the rear clam could be bolted back on properly. I got it all shimmed out and the shut lines pretty good. Other little jobs involved reinstalling the boot divider, captive fasteners for the undertrays and inner arches, as well as cleaning up the inner arches themselves and fitting them. I also fitted my new undertray and diffuser, the first time they've been on the car. Given they're a first-shot kinda thing, they fitted pretty well and are surprisingly rattle-free on the car. So this basically means that after 3 years, the car is FINISHED!!!! Ok, so it's not finished, I've still got a lot of little finishing things to do, but the car is actually a car again, and can be driven... so that's a result! At 9am Sunday, I got the car out of the garage and DROVE it to Ellerslie (about a 3-4 mile trip). It's not registered or warranted yet, so was trying to keep pretty low-key. Initial impressions are that it's in DIRE need of a geo since it was crabbing all over the road. I'll get the ride heights set this week and then get a rough geo check done on it at the local alignment place to find out where we're at camber/caster wise. I'll then get the rear bumpsteer adjusted how I want it, before getting a final toe adjustment done. The car should handle pretty bang on then. Driving around at 50km/h can't tell you much about the car, but I'm surprised how driveable it is. It's more lumpy for sure than it used to be, but certainly it's no harder to drive than it was in stock form. Once the revs are up a little, the throttle response is amazing, and although the rev limiter is killing the party at 5000 at the moment, it fair takes off once the revs pass 4000! I've got a very very slight rattle coming from the gearbox (actually I suspect the diff) when turning left. It sounds like a bit of backlash in the differential or something. I've e-mailed Quaife about it to see if it's a normal sort of noise or not, but I suspect it's nothing to worry about. There's no noise when going straight or turning right, but when turning left (either gently or sharply) there's a tiny bit of gear chatter. I don't know if it's happening under power as the induction noise drowns out EVERYTHING, including the noise.... but given how it sounds, it's a "slack" sort of noise so I suspect it's only a case when there's little load on the diff. At the concours, the car was rather well received. I even met a few people who have been reading this blog on various forums, and it was fantastic to talk to them about how they came across it and how they think the car has turned out. It's always nice to know that by reading this tome, others have managed to get something out of my experiences here too. I didn't snap any photos, but my friend Tom managed to snap one on my behalf with Tony Herbert's Type 14 Elite in the background: Work in the next week or two will centre around getting the basic suspension setup done and getting it warranted and registered for the road. Then I can begin the run-in work in earnest and check for issues. A very positive weekend and one that I've waited so very long for! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
My name is Russell Posted February 13, 2011 Share Posted February 13, 2011 WELL DONE! Thats a huge effort! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KKtrips Posted February 13, 2011 Share Posted February 13, 2011 Firstly - congrats mate - the job is OUTSTANDING - update your blog on FF - sure plenty of them goats want to know about it.. Next - these may seem silly questions but A: does this now fall into the need for an LVV Cert? (with more power and a 6 speed gearbox..) B: if it does - are you going to do so? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Testament Posted February 13, 2011 Share Posted February 13, 2011 I apologise for terrible cropping, could not see phone screen well with glare/holding it super low down car is rather exceptional probably should have won the prize @ concours if the white panda wasn't at the fiat club stand also in other news saw a 111r elise? outside maccas in taupo the other week, maybe someone you know? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fuel Posted February 13, 2011 Share Posted February 13, 2011 I was following that black Lotus down Greenwood street in Hamilton the other day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Esprit Posted February 13, 2011 Author Share Posted February 13, 2011 Thanks for the comments guys Firstly - congrats mate - the job is OUTSTANDING - update your blog on FF - sure plenty of them goats want to know about it..Next - these may seem silly questions but A: does this now fall into the need for an LVV Cert? (with more power and a 6 speed gearbox..) B: if it does - are you going to do so? As for cert, no it doesn't need it. 6-speed is a direct replacement for OEM, so no worries there... mounts are the same, which is all that matters. More power, STRICTLY speaking it is on the cusp of needing one (>20% power hike) but given it was 192bhp new (as the stats say) and it's going to be about 230bhp, it's right on the limit, so not massively powered up... so it won't need a cert for anything... will have to see how I get on at a WOF though, I expect to have arguments. As for that Black Elise, that's a Sport111, a VERY nice model of S2 that only we in NZ, Australia and Hong Kong got.... pretty rare and I'd love one. That one's recently sold to a new owner I don't know... I know OF him, but that's about it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KKtrips Posted February 13, 2011 Share Posted February 13, 2011 Oh sweet - for some reason I thought the gearbox mounts were different - you are bloody close on power though - still you are right it should be AOK.. Can't see why you would have arguments with WOF bloke/ette.. to the unitiated it looks more factory than factory (other than the Motec rev lights on the dash..) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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