Paul_D

I'm a massive fan of Pagid RS29's. I've used them on multiple vehicles. They work well, last a long time, they're kind to discs (for a track pad) and don't give off horrible dust that can't be cleaned.

Thanks. Yeah, I did a graph for the total downforce as well. Obviously if you wanted just the front numbers you subtract the rear from the total.

So in terms of you worrying about affecting the balance of the car too much with a 430 wing but no increase in front aero.... This is the graph I produced when I was looking into it. Now I would say that a 'high speed' corner in an Exige on most tracks would be something around the 100 mph mark. You can see at that speed, the difference in downforce is actually slightly under 10kg. Now I can only speak for myself (and there are plenty of much better drivers than me who may be able to), but I'm pretty sure I personally wouldn't be able to feel a difference of 10kg of rear downforce in terms of balance.

I wouldn't worry about it too much. In real terms the difference is not significant. The difference sounds impressive on paper, but those figures are quoted at top speed. Downforce is a square function in relation to speed. I'm at work right now, but at home I've got some graphs showing the difference in down force at various speeds from when I was considering fitting other bits myself. I'll try and dig them out for you later on.

One other thing I forgot to mention in case any one was thinking it (as I was), was whether the new exhaust resulted in any loss of power. I looked at my AIM data from when I was there in November with the OEM exhaust, and yesterday with the SWL one. This shows the acceleration / speed down the main back straight in 3rd, 4th and 5th gear. Green is November, Brown is yesterday. You can see the 4th gear traces perfectly align, and although my gear change was different, 5th gear traces follow the same curve. I think this gives a pretty good indication that there is no loss of power.

Well spring is here, and therefore it's time to start thinking about car stuff and track days again. The MOT a couple of week ago showed I've only done 2275 miles in the last 12 months, mainly due to work and being away a lot of last summer. Hopefully it'll be a bit more this year. I gave the car a bit of love over the last week or so; Brake fluid change with some fresh Castrol SRF While the wheels were off I gave the arches a good clean, and cleaned and coated the brake calipers The wheels also got given a proper deep clean and then a fresh ceramic coating with Gtechniq C5 The next change was quite a significant one. At Snetterton in November I got my first warning for noise there, with me hitting 91.7dB on the drive by against a limit of 92dB. Apparently they check at different locations around the track, and on this day it was obviously very borderline for me even with my DIY silencer. Subsequent to this, I was reading on facebook track pages that people were getting sent home from Donington who had previously passed. When they questioned this, they were told the noise meters had been recalibrated and were now accurate. All of this worried me, as I really don't want to be getting sent home. I considered a Mk2 version of my DIY exhaust, but also had a good look at the official options. That was when I came across a the newest option available from South West Lotus. I messaged James at SWL who was incredibly helpful, and also spoke to Eddie who has got one but hasn't fitted it yet. I felt encouraged, and decided to bite the bullet. The exhaust appears to be very well made, and is very good value for money. The cost was £900 + Postage. Except by sheer luck I saw it on their eBay page and I just happened to have a 10% discount on car parts through eBay at that time. So a brand new track exhaust cost me £810 plus postage. So it was off with the old.... And this was where I hit a snag. There's a 90 degree bend which needs to be transferred to the new exhaust. The plan was to do this along with the clamp holding it on. Except it turns out that clamp is spot welded to the OEM exhaust. Unfortunately I needed to car to be operable so had to put everything back together. Offending parts... With the a fresh clamp obtained, the entire job then took less than an hour from start to finish. The new exhaust is noticeably lighter than the OEM one. I got some scales out, and I think there's about a 4kg weight saving, with the new exhaust being around 11kg. The fitment was perfect, and the tips lined up perfectly in the centre of the grill cut out. After first start up I was pleasantly surprised. I didn't really WANT to fit a quiet track exhaust and I was worried it would sound rubbish. But it still has a nice tone, a burble at low revs and sounds sporty. It was also noticeably quieter than the OEM exhaust at high revs. I decided to do some comparison testing and make a little video of it. (And yes, I know I sound like a farmer....) Since then I've been at Snetterton and got some 'real' noise test results. It was 96dB on the static reading (well below the 105dB limit) and I didn't get any warnings for drive by. Overall I have to say I'm very happy with, and James at South West Lotus has been brilliant to deal with in all respects. Clean and shiny ready to get on track: Snetterton was very busy, fully booked up with 80 cars. It was a lovely day though with nice weather, lots of interesting cars and decent driving standards. A couple of obligatory videos below. One rear view only to show the new exhaust noise, and another of a full session with my mate who came along to his first ever track day.

Hi Frank, I'm afraid that my side skirts are completely unique. They were home made by somebody (they are carbon fibre skinned rather than pure carbon fibre), who then sold them to me once they sold their car. Going back to the information you gathered on the thermostat, I agree completely. In my mind it will make the car run cooler than is optimal during normal driving, but not help with cooling on track. Have you had issues with engine water temperature on track, or is it just a pre-emptive measure? The standard cooling system on my 410 seems to cope perfectly with track use, obviously accounting for the fact that generally a summer track day in the UK will be at an ambient air temperature of less than 30°C generally. You can see from the AIM trace that on my best lap that day the temperature nicely controls between 88 and 84 degrees.

Unless I’m missing something, I don’t really understand the idea of a cooler thermostat. I might be missing something, but my thinking is: During normal use the OEM thermostat will keep the engine at optimum temperature. But during hard use, the OEM thermostat will be fully open anyway. So the cooling capacity is determined by water flow and radiator size. So unless the cooler thermostat actually allows more flow then the OEM one once they’re both fully open, it not sure what the benefit is? To me, all a cooler thermostat will do is make the engine run cooler than is optimal during normal use?

Ah, that’s annoying. Are they sure the firmware updated correctly? There can’t be too many things that would cause your issue, so hopefully they can get to the bottom of it

I believe there was a bug which caused the brake light to randomly come on. Im sure it was mentioned in one of the firmware update details that it had been rectified. (I’m abroad at the moment so can’t check on my PC) I think if you install the latest firmware you’ll fix your problem. Edit: Look at the December 11th 2023 details https://www.aim-sportline.com/download/firmware/rel_histories/MX2E_release_history.pdf

You haven’t got the AIM MX2E dash have you?

I certainly noticed an improvement in performance on track when I changed my fluid to Motul Gear 300 75w90. I originally had the same 'crunchy' behaviour when it got hot, and I can't really remembering it happening anymore.

Yeah, I’ve seen a few posts on social media saying these are now available. Including from Seriously Lotus who now have them listed on their website. Slightly more expensive than Cup2’s, but not by much.

Yeah, it’s definitely a bit of an experiment. All I want is an indication of of how much the pressures are changing from when I leave the pits. Hopefully it’ll work ok for that, but I certainly won’t be trusting it for absolute values.

I haven't updated this for a while, but seeing as it's cold and wet outside and it's the end of the year.... Unfortunately I've been quite busy this year with work and other things, so I haven't been out in the car as much as I'd like to have been. Hopefully next year I can get back to plenty of track days and summer drives. I think since the last update, the earliest thing I did was install some rear carbon blades from Aerie Performance. I felt like these were the final missing piece of the puzzle to go with the front splitter and side skirts. Installation was very simple, as the mounting holes were already present on my car. One hole needed to be opened out very slightly, but other than that they just bolted straight on. One of the easiest mods yet. I was very happy with these, and I think that's now the end of the aesthetic modifications to the car. Next up I added some protection to the underneath of the carbon splitter. Because I'm tight, I had a look around to see what alternatives there were to the standard Sliplo installation. I came across a cheaper version on Amazon and thought I'd give it a go. At the end of the day, as long as it stays stuck to the splitter then it will basically do its job. I did a couple of tidy up jobs such as polishing up the exhaust... And repainting the rusty boot stay bracket.... I did have a couple of minor issues with the car during the year. It started making a squealing noise which was related to engine speed rather than wheel speed. A brief investigation suggested that one of the idler pulleys for the drive belt was the culprit. I also had a wheel speed sensor fault. It went in to Hangar111 to be sorted as well as to have the wheel alignment reset as it hadn't been done since I first got the car. After I got the car back, within a few days I took it to Snetterton for a test run to make sure all was good. Thankfully the car performed faultlessly, and it was great day. Cold and damp in the morning, but gradually drying out. There were also only about 25 people booked on for the day. In the garage ready to go.... The car felt great that day, with the reset alignment clearly working well. I think the damp start to the day was actually a blessing. Most of my track days so far have been dry, so getting used to the car sliding around under in the damp gave me additional confidence to push a bit harder when it dried out later. In one of the later sessions I was chasing a Ginetta race car which was great fun and also resulted in my best ever lap around Snetterton, a nice way to end track days for the year. Whilst at Snetterton I got talking to a nice chap about tyre pressure monitoring. I find it shame that there's no way to see live readouts from our sensors, as it just makes life a little bit easier. You can see how quickly pressures are going up, and also how much they've dropped at the start of the next session. The chap I was speaking to said that he got some of the cheap external sensors from Amazon and that they weren't actually too bad. Based on that, I thought I'd have a little look, and ended up ordering these off eBay for £40 They weigh around 10g, so shouldn't be too much of an issue with wheel balancing (I get heavier chunks of rubber stuck to the rims than that). Now obviously they look a bit ridiculous, but a) they will only be installed when on track, and b) they still look far less ridiculous than my track exhaust! They transmit directly to an App on you phone, no other equipment is required. My tyres had been pumped up to 29psi front and 32psi rear with my tyre pump, but not accurately checked with a gauge. When the sensors were installed these were the readings: So they are within 0.5psi reading of each other across axles, and potentially 1 - 2psi low overall depending on the accuracy of my tyre pump. However, for what I want this is perfectly ok. The important information is how much the pressure is increasing or decreasing. As long as I know my baseline when I've set the tyres using my gauge I'll be able to tell when I need to keep coming in to bleed some air out. That did lead to one final area that needed addressing. Because I have wireless Apple Carplay installed, I've never needed to bother with a phone holder. But the cheap app isn't Carplay compatible so I needed the phone to be mounted somewhere and ideally easy to glance at. Trying to find a solution that was neat, solid enough for a track day, and easily removable wasn't that easy. Whilst sitting there thinking about it I thought the ideal place would be next to the headunit screen, just angled towards the driver slightly. The headunit and the LCD screen are actually pretty strong and well engineered. The screen also has a metal plate at the back..... Thin sheet, some magnets (which don't affect LCD screens) some glue, a dismantled magsafe mount, and a tin of black paint later, this was my new phone mount. This will do the job nicely, and to be honest it looks subtle enough that I think I might just leave it in place permanently. Cheap tablet photo of the phone in place: And that is it for this year. I can't imagine that the car will move very much between now and spring. Hopefully next year I should have much more free time and will be aiming to do more track days and possibly some car meets. I think it's time I travelled a bit further afield and tried at least one track which I haven't done before too.