350 tweaks and mods

[Mark030358]

Interestin, after having a V6S I think the forged wheels on my 380 are the dogs.... however I also liked the diamond cut on the S... maybe it’s just me 😳

[Dan.G]

The 380 wheels do scratch easily from stones I've noticed

[Mattmahope]

3 hours ago, MrP_ said:

Thats why I'm fabricating grills  

Maybe forged wheels next but not convinced on the styling of the Lotus items, but yet to make up my mind. The back wheels look good, but not in love with the front wheel. Not a popular view I know. Will look properly later and see what's out in the market

I fully agree re the Lotus Forged wheels. I’ve never been a fan of the look. Will be going BC Forged when I eventually do swap wheels for that reason.

[alias23]

@MrP_ your thread reminds me of the early days of mine and @GFWilliams builds when every day was something new! So on that basis im hoping to see the grills for the side vents done either today or tomorrow

** Best make two sets as I'll need a pair **

[MrP_]

Just proof the car does leave the garage here's a very non artistic shot, but shows all the bits together and how it all looks from the outside.

This weekends running was mainly just to drive the car, and also check for any issues such as rattles - happy to report that it's currently silent.

Also made up some grills for the scoops which hide the GRP in the scoops much better, so happy with these. The mesh matches the factory mesh in the front access panel so ties together nicely:

[GFWilliams]

That mesh transforms it!

[Mattmahope]

The car looks terrific!

[BatMobile]

How about you order the carbon on our behalf, fettle it to fit, add extra bits (grills etc) and then sell onto us for a little bit extra! I’d happily pay......

[RoflOnMyWaffle]

And then fit it for me too please...  

[Mattmahope]

12 minutes ago, BatMobile said:

How about you order the carbon on our behalf, fettle it to fit, add extra bits (grills etc) and then sell onto us for a little bit extra! I’d happily pay......

Ditto!!

[alias23]

Another here for a pair of side scoops with mesh fitted!

[MrP_]

The hardest part is actually getting the parts on time before adding in the delay of making it all fit 🙄 So getting stuff fitting spot on would take months, mostly due to the drip drop of supply. And too much margin on margin get in the way of getting it cost effective!

Trying to get something that actually does not need the work in the first place is the priority - seeing if I can find a manufacturer that would be able to get to the quality level in the first place, no idea if it'll pan out but worth investigating. My Carbon production extends to wet layup only and it would need a significant step up from that.We'll see if there is an alternative that would be viable

[stephenwhyte]

I’d love a set too if an order was ever to be possible - they look superb with the mesh👌

[NANO]

good job !! 👏

[MrP_]

So its been a while, but thought I'd update with another change that you're going to see more of round here.

Fancying a bit more induction sound, I started looking for an better intake and @alias23 came up with the perfect solution. The aim was to get more induction roar and better throttle response, as long as power wasn't lot I was happy. Imran had some great results on the dyno, and I won't know if there is any power gain unless I do a back to back on the dyno, but so far the arse dyno is giving good results so I'm happy. 

@alias23 gives great instructions, but it's all very simple - I chose to adapt them slightly as I could see no point in removing the wheel - but you might have a different experience, and maybe the v6 is tighter or the clips are different, certainly the airbag looks about half the size and is without an additional hose wrapped in what looks like a binbag! The key reason for removing the wheel is to get to the clips that hold the top of the airbox in place - having removed the airbox to run cables I knew I could remove the lids with the wheel in situ so that’s what I did. 

The contents look like any other intake system:

 

Me being me, I wanted to make sure any opportunity to make stuff shiny was not missed, so elected to polish the intake tube before fitting, you know just because. That and its easier to buff off grease without needing an IPA wipe down each time.

The pipe went from this:

 

To this as I was working out what method was going to work:

 

To this, happy with the result so left it there: 

 

Procedure was the same as any other metal polishing exercise, rub down with 600 grit to remove casting marks, down to 800 grit. When happy the casting marks are gone, work through the grades of wire wool, Fine, Super Fine and then ultra fine. Polish with Peek/Autosol etc using ultrafine wirewool, then with a microfibre, wool mop then finally a sponge applicator pad to do the final polish and stop marring. Finish off with megs NXT for a bit of protection.

The silicon hose that connects the filter to the tube is black, but has blue centre which you can see looking into the engine bay and would do the OCD no good at all  - so I simply sharpied in the edge so it all matched, here it is half way to give you an idea. It took a few coats to get it properly black. Not needed at all but just wanted it to look 100%

Assembled it looked like this:

 

I won't repeat the instructions too much as Imran supplies a great set, but… 

Remove the engine covers, intake hose, vacuum lines etc then remove the top of the airbox. Remove the vacuum solenoid. Remove the MAF sensor.

Remove the ducting to the airbox from the left hand side scoop, remove bolts from airbox and pull free. Its really easy on the 350 as there is no extra ducting that the v6 had. Reposition the vacuum solenoid on a suitable bracket, vacuum line from supercharger into the solenoid, then solenoid to exhaust. I don't actually need the solenoid as I have a valve less exhaust, so it redundant, but kept in place so an error isn't thrown.

Extra to the instructions I removed the airbox mount bracket as it serves no purpose and kept it with the now removed airbox. Vacuum hose to exhaust was covered as it was red so looked odd.

Then simply refit the intake, mount on the support arm, connect up the piping, refit the breather hose, fit the MAF and reconnect.

I changed the clips to Mikalor all round because I didn't like the spring ones supplied as OEM, and they match those Imran supplies for the kit.

Refit covers, then it looks like this:

 

 

Exterior of the throttle body was polished, although not to a mirror shine

Total install (excluding polishing), was under an hour, but I was familiar with removing the airbox

[alias23]

You forgot one major bit of your install summary... the 10-15 min idle and running in period to let the ECU learn 👍

Must say that engine bay is looking very nice with polishing! 

[MrP_]

48 minutes ago, alias23 said:

You forgot one major bit of your install summary... the 10-15 min idle and running in period to let the ECU learn 👍

Must say that engine bay is looking very nice with polishing! 

Yep don’t forget that! Car was idled for about 15 mins, no hunting or dying to report! Then 30 mins up and down the gears before you finally get to hear it as you take the revs up a bit. Adds a very nice sound above 3k  and beyond 😄.

Sharpens up the throttle nicely, and combined with the 2bular sounds spot on when opened up 👍.

Follow Imran’s guide and there will be no issue with MIL coming on 🙂

[MrP_]

So back to some changes. Over the winter I have been trying to work out what to do with cars, should I change modify etc - that really is undecided but I thought I would go about changing a few more bits that I think could be better on the Exige.

First was something I had an idea would work, but wasn't sure till I tried it - removing the ugly plastic grills. As I have the carbon access panel, the standard plastic hex stuff was gone from there. Side scoops also are now meshed, but the front was still there and it annoyed me, so I wanted rid…

First I got some spares of the grills on the front end so I could go back to standard if I messed up:

 

Then I started cutting, removing the mesh leaving only frames:

Next became the far harder task of cutting out the mesh to fit - it took forever to cut and bend to shape and cut my hands to bits, which was nice.

Once bent and cut, I bonded with epoxy, then covered that with silicon adhesive to keep it all looking black. They looked like this in the end:

All screws were still accessible through careful lining up of the holes, so fitting and removal is identical to OEM - just a bit more fiddly.

Then trial fitting - all looked how I wanted so then I had to cut for the towing eye (towing eye bolts missing as I was taking it on and off to measure. 

Also moved the number plate up and removed the plinth - may move it back as I am not sure on the higher number plate position. We'll see when out in the light properly, but I had to pack up and head off at this point. 

Towing hook hole was lined to keep it looking neat, but I need to make final adjustment on alignment . Ignore the dust and stuff I took photos before the clean down.

And that’s it - will probably make an uncut version without the towing eye, but that’s for another day. Anyway, to my eyes it's lifted the look of the front end nicely - it may be marmite for others!

 

 

  

[Markymark]

Look much better than standard in my opinion 👍

[alias23]

This is a cool idea although need more pics to see the whole of car etc... how did you bend the mesh so nicely. Working with mesh is one of my pet hates lol

[MrP_]

18 minutes ago, alias23 said:

This is a cool idea although need more pics to see the whole of car etc... how did you bend the mesh so nicely. Working with mesh is one of my pet hates lol

That’ll wait as I’m preparing for a few other small bits and can’t be bothered to fit it all to take for a drive, bad I know.

As for bending the mesh, I’d love to share a magic secret, I just marked the lines I had to follow in terms of contours. Then bent by hand until it was there, didn’t use tools as I didn’t want to damage the mesh. 
 

The routine was measure, bend, check, bend again, trim, bend, cut hand and repeat till happy then wipe up blood 👍 It was not a quick job!

[Mattmahope]

Great work! This is something I have been thinking about doing too. Looks so much better in my opinion. I love the way the front radiator is more visible in particular. Obviously an Evora, but similar principle here.

[MrP_]

Cheers mate. Definitely looks better going back through old pictures. I think the effect is more obvious on the Evora like you say as we only have one exposed rad on the drivers side, the centre rad is hidden so its just a black pit and on the pass side for non charge cooled cars we have a rather fetching sheet of plastic as a blanking plate!

 

[Mattmahope]

Yeah, I guess it’s more to show off Komotec kit on 460+ charge cooled cars. Would look sweet!

[MrP_]

11 minutes ago, Mattmahope said:

Yeah, I guess it’s more to show off Komotec kit on 460+ charge cooled cars. Would look sweet!

That could be an option 😂