wiseraven

Halfords were spot on for me too. I went there not expecting much, and thought I'd at least need the long ICI code, but was surprised to see they had the Lotus codes. It must have been good, because Howard didn't even spot that any work had been done, and there's not much slips past Howard's eagle eye.

I just showed this to a biker at work and watching his reaction was almost as funny as the video itself. First his shoulders started to shake, then got uncontrollable giggles. By the end he was literally in tears. Several tissues were needed before the flow was under control.

Hi you two, Congrats on the engagement and the lovely house. Been trying to ring you Simon, but just keep getting your voicemail - I've left my home number on it. I'm working at home tomorrow, so you can call me during the day. I'm sure Bibbo's celebrated diplomatic skills will persuade Lisa that man + fire = happiness. That decking should do nicely for the house warming bonfire (let's face it, it's soooo 1990's), and I see there are plenty of trees for when that's gone. Do we have to bring our own ironing boards? Phil

If Howard's OK with this, then I'll be happy to second the proposal.

Hi guys, After 3 months of all work & no play, I was really looking forward to a bit of a hoon. Unfortunately, there's a leak in my clutch, so until I get time to sort it out, I'll be stuck with my daily drive. I'll try to get to the lay-by for 8, but if I'm not there, don't wait for me. I'll have been working late and will meet you all at Donny, where you can all teach me about work-life balance and other mythical concepts such as "free time". Phil

If this is still on, I'll be up for it again. Sorry for the late response, I've been up to my eyes in work lately (actually, I'm still working at 12:40am ), so I'd not spotted this before. As one of the few who went to the first detailing day, I can assure any waverers it'll be an interesting day, and you'll also have the chance to pick up some top quality detailing products with a nice discount. Phil

First impressions are good. It looks nice, but... I can't make out what the main graphic is, and what's with the grey fish? I'd prefer to see an Esprit on there, and also the Lotus logo, although I think you should check with the factory before using it. I wouldn't think there'd be a problem, but it's the courteous thing to do. I don't like sites where you have to click to enter - they're an irritating waste of time and bandwidth. I always feel it's like having a shop where you have to knock to get in. They might say welcome, but that's not the impression they give. The second picture works just fine for the first point of contact - it's simple, elegant and lets you get going straight away. Make sure you don't get too focussed on the visuals and forget the usability. I see far too many sites that look good, but which leave me wanting to strangle the designer after I've tried to use it. Keep it simple, elegant and uncluttered (so far you're doing fine on this score). Remember, if you have a news page (and I think you should), you're committing yourself to fairly regular updates. If the last update was months or even years ago, it looks like your business is stagnant, even though it's probably just the opposite and you just haven't had time to do the updates. If you think you might struggle to add news items as they occur, I suggest presenting it in the form of a monthly or quarterly news letter. If you have a fixed day when you need to add an entry, it's much easier to schedule and keep it current. Unlike bigbird, I like the way you've chosen to have the navigation across the page. It makes much better use of screen space than a vertical menu. Once you've got to where you're going, you can scroll them out of the way, leaving the full screen free for content. With menus at the side, they always take a chunk of real estate away from the content, even if they've scrolled off the top of the screen.. If you find yourself needing more entries in your menu than you have already, it suggests a lack of focus in the design. The human brain can only cope with about 6 one-word choices at once. More than that, and you have to start consciously thinking. Instead of adding extra entries, stick with 6 or 7 broad entries, which take you to pages with no more than six further choices plus a link back to the home page. It's quicker to make two easy choices than one from a longer list. Remember that menus are not content, they only serve to let you get to the content. I also like the way the navigation links are nice and large - it makes it much quicker to find them with the mouse (Fitts's law). The same law shows that horizontal menus are easier and quicker to aim the mouse at. As the site grows, consider adding a site-map, where you can have links to all the site's pages in one go rather than cluttering up every page. A site-map is also easy to do a text search on. This can be important for the parts section, where some parts are hard to categorize (e.g. does a courtesy light come under "electrical", "interior" or "lighting"?) Phil

I had the same problem. If you don't know the key code, you have to go via a Lotus dealer. They send off an archive search request to Lotus to get the code, then get the key cut themselves. I tried going to Lotus direct, but they would only do it through a dealer.

You're more or less right Rog. I'm no expert, but I can hopefully clarify a bit. As you say, the wastegate, when open diverts exhaust gasses away from the turbine, therefore removing drive from the turbo. The primary activation of the wastegate is from the inlet manifold pressure. There is a spring in the wastegate which controls the maximum inlet manifold pressure. The chargecooled cars also have a solenoid, controlled by the ECU which can override the spring, E.g. on the SE, the wastegate spring is designed to open the gate at 0.65 bar boost, the same as the non-chargecooled cars. The ECU overrides this, opening the gate at 0.8 bar, or 1.0 bar on overboost. A BOV or dump valve operates solely on the inlet side and vents excess pressure. When you close the throttle whilst the turbo is spinning, for a short time the turbo is pushing at a closed door and the pressure peaks. The wastegate will open, but the turbine has momentum, and so there is a sharp spike of pressure. This back pressure can stress the turbo to breaking point. It also causes the turbo to stall (i.e. stop spinning). The BOV vents this excess pressure rapidly, either to the atmosphere, or in the case of recirculating BOVs back into the inlet (between the filter and the turbo). By venting the excess pressure, the turbo is effectively allowed to freewheel instead of stalling, so when you reopen the throttle, it is still spinning and you therefore experience less lag during gear changes or following a brief lift off the throttle. A BOV won't help reducing lag if the turbo isn't already spooled up. The spool-up time is mainly determined by the turbine size and the quality of the bearings. Poor bearings will act as a brake on the turbo. All things being equal, a smaller turbine will have lower inertia and therefore less lag, but it will tend to run out of puff at the top of the rev range. You can help to reduce lag by improving the general breathing of the system, making the airflow more efficient and therefore reducing the loading on the turbo.

The SE has the rectangular vent too. I think the hi-wing was the first to use the new deck.

Is that Karl's handywork Graham? Modtastic

One has to question his commitment to the NMEG cause! Time for an EGM I think. If Dave doesn't show, we can vote him our new chairman and bill payer. If hot-tub photos or video are forthcoming (the only admissible evidence), we would of course be ready to apologise and drop the charges.

First, a personal thanks to Alex for his hospitality last night. A few drinks, then a curry served by the equally delicious Amy Another enjoyable NMEG day blessed with fine weather. A decent turnout, with six Esprits, and six different models. As well as the reg'lars it was good to see Andy representing the G-cars in his fire breathing S3 - one pop was so loud I actually felt it After a hoon around some Cheshire lanes led by Alex, we stopped for a photo opportunity outside Jodrell Bank. After passing through a cloud of feathers, and seeing a fresh pheasant in the middle of the road, I was expecting to hear that one of us was responsible for its demise. You can see some of the feathers in my grille in this pic. To accommodate Graham we changed plans and went in. Sadly, the visitor's centre is much less impressive than the last time I went, but we enjoyed the 3D cinema show. After an impressively quick trip to Mars, we returned to the cars for a short motorway trip to the Imperial War Museum North, a fitting destination for Holocaust Memorial Day. After lunch in the cafe, we spent the rest of the day wandering round the museum. It's a well thought out exhibition with some interesting displays. Well worth a visit. The consensus was to abandon plans to visit the Lowry Centre in order to avoid getting caught up in the Old Trafford match traffic. I trust everybody got back safely. I hope you all noted that it doesn't ALWAYS rain in Manchester. You're all welcome back to black pudding land any time. The full set of pics can be seen here Here's to the February hoon. We're all hoping the AEG can agree a route to the meeting point by then Phil

One more to add to your collection Alex. When you flash your headlights, I think they're supposed to glow! The pods popped up, but the lights stayed off. Perhaps the relay shifted by 4mm too.

No news for a couple of days. Did you decide to try some sloppy sixteenths after all Dave?