BfranklynV6

Thanks @GFWilliams and @Mattmahope for your replies. I guess I expected to see 380s in the mid/low £50ks given the price of the 410s, but there don’t seem to be any.

I was actually thinking maybe if I could pick up a 380 for low £50s, then TVS1900 it, I’d have the best of both worlds. And also a ‘sleeper’, if that’s possible in a lotus exige. But anyway, thanks for your responses I appreciate it. Hopefully you’ll be back in a lotus at some point.

Well no prizes for guessing which car I’ve got then! Do you know why they rattle a bit, and if it’s an easy fix? It’s just that I’ll soon be in the position where I need to decide whether to keep the V6s and maybe pop some Nitrons + shift cables + forged wheels, or trade in for a 350/380/410 depending on what’s about.

Oh very nice! You must have thought something was wrong at first with the absence of rattles and wind noise when driving! I am looking for 410 myself, but need the prices to come down another 5-10k really. did you prefer the evora or exige 410?

What did you move on to, and are you happy?

Bump

I think you should test drive a 350. Other than the 4c, I’ve driven all of your previous cars and in my opinion the lotus handles better. I very rarely get any understeer in my V6s on stock suspension -> once you realise that most of the weight is on the back wheels, you can drive accordingly. Yes, some Ohlins would be nice, but what car wouldn’t be improved with these!

I’ve said this before, but lotus should be able to make something in the £60k-£80k price range which could compete with the mclaren on performance. Lotus customers have already proven they are not too fussed about practicality/refinement. How much more would it cost lotus to create a new exige with a supercharged V8 for ~550bhp, but otherwise relatively similar to the current platform.

The reasons why the exige fits the bill: 1) unlike a caterham, radical, atom etc you can still plausibly drive it to work or do a long road trip if you fancy. But, like those cars it still feels special and ‘racey’. 2) it catches the eye almost like a supercar for a lot less money. (Unlike a golf R, RS6 or an Elise unfortunately). This is because of the aggressive looks and the rarity of it versus a cayman/911/M car. 3) it performs like a supercar as long as you get a >400bhp version (‘almost’ if it’s a 350) for much less up front and running costs.

It’s up to you but I wouldn’t want an RS6 as my ‘fun, sporty’ car. The lightness (at least 600kg less) and chassis stiffness of a lotus brings far more to the equation than just horsepower per ton. It’s About response to braking, cornering, and accelerator pedal. It’s also about mid engine RWD. How about a lotus, and a 330d estate?

I think you should test drive hard a V6s (high £30ks) and then a 410 (mid £60s). See how significant you think the difference is, then amalgamate that with your own financial situation and planned use for the car. Keep the future value of the car (likely depreciation) in mind. To help all of us, I do wish one of the relative experts on this forum would come up with a quantitative measure of the actual difference in cornering speeds between the different models (standardised for tyres). What is the objective difference the extra downforce and chassis improvements make.

How would you get hold of E85 in the UK?

I’ve never heard anyone saying an LSD can worsening the handling of a car. How does it cause understeer? I thought it was a matter of cost + weight + not needed because there is already a lot of grip, and there is some e-diff with the systems.

Maybe the difference is the LSD in your car. The ability to get on the power earlier with more traction out the corner could make RACE mode too restrictive.

I’ve heard about this too. I personally use Sport on the rare occasions I go on track. I also use sport for road, so basically, just sport!

That is really helpful thanks. So I could essentially get most of the way there by adding some 2-ways to my V6s.

Are you able to briefly detail what the handling differences are? Why is it night and day? Ive spent a while now toying with the idea of spending some of my hard earned, non-plentiful funds on some nitrons for my V6s. Still can’t decide.

Shouldn’t it have better ride quality than your average hot hatch, if the damping is of higher quality and the chassis stiffer?

A more rudimentary, analogue 600LT, for less than half the price. Ok, if you don’t worry about a composite chassis, why would this have to be over £100k? A GM LS2 V8 is about 30kg heavier than the V6 in the exige/evora. Not a game changing amount, but the noise and power to weight ratio, would be just that. I think it’s that raw, connected experience that Lotus drivers want.

For the new car I think they should just follow and improve on the exige formula: good power to weight, great handling (low centre of gravity and connected steering feel) and good looks. It’s easy. Power to weight: reduce chassis weight with some more composites. Supercharged, aluminium block mid mounted V8 for 600bhp. Handling: more of the same. (But nitrons/ohlins as standard on all models). LSD as standard. Aero as per cup 430. looks: more of the same. Higher quality interior though.

Thanks. Is there a setting on the 1 ways that would provide both better road compliance, and less body roll on track? Or is it just that I can change the settings easily?

Is it worth upgrading to the 1-way over the stock suspension, or is it only really worth going 2 or 3 way? Also are these easy/cheap to get off come resale time?

That’s a shame that lotus encrypt their ECU. I wonder why they go to the trouble of doing this, when some much larger manufacturers don’t. Maxi, it sounds like you have been really unlucky. No amount of ‘use’ should cause an engine failure on the standard tune. These failures do seem to be quite rare though, with a lot of people running at least 460bhp through the stock internals without issue. I’m in agreement that almost all of the KT upgrade packages seem over priced. Having a feel for the modification scene on other platforms (GT86/M4) I can say that bang for buck seems less with the KT lotus packages. I’m sure some of this expense is the large amount of R+D and the quality of the parts/labour, but some of it has to be their monopoly position.

I apologise for getting your hopes up! I’m very surprised that nobody would offer this. If you sourced a smaller pulley yourself and said ‘I want a custom tune aiming for 460bhp’ would they still say no? Potential risk to a lotus tuner = they blow up your engine and they have to replace it. £7-10k?? Potential gain = breaking the Komotec monopoly in lotus performance upgrades by offering a far simpler, more cost effective and more easily reversible solution. Much more to gain than lose IMHO.

Well driven, very impressive. Also, there was a white 350 you were chasing which was rapid. That thing can’t be stock surely?