Petrolgeneration's Metallic Grey 2019 Lotus Elise Cup 250 - Project Thread

[Petrolgeneration]

It's been a while guys!

I did a trackday at Abbeville, will post some info on that later as I'm trying to figure out a way to host extra pictures as I can't upload any more here it seems? If anyone has a decent image hoster for forums, please share the wealth!

Mo Powa Baby!

I got some updates on the power increase. I've been talking a lot with several engine experts and Lotus tuners and I think I'm pretty sure on what path I'm going to follow.
I think I'm sticking to the Elise platform for now as I love the handling more than an Exige and the running cost is also very enjoyable.
An Exige is fast, but put Exige numbers in a little Elise and it's a ballistic missile, so here is where we stand:

I'm aiming for the 350-370hp mark and it IS doable (on stock engine nonetheless!), however fellow cup owners, don't get too excited yet, it is and will be very expensive to get there.

For a 350-370hp build several things will happen:

• New ECU
• Adapter Loom
• O2 Wideband controller & sensor
• Reinforced engine with steel rods and custom pistons
• New bearing and gaskets
• Drill and hone cylinders
• Oil pump modifications
• CNC Head/Camshafts including 4-in-1 header and exhaust
• Updated intercooler setting
• ....

Quite a list. We're still discussing the details but I'm about to pull the trigger soon on which way I'm going. I might be willing to pay extra for all the above so I can have an 'overbuilt' engine which should be able to handle even more power. I like headroom specially on a car that is being driven hard on track. Should give me a bit more confidence in the pistons not going airborne thru the engine bay on a trackday.

Some other things that will happen aswel:

• Aim MXG dash
• Clutch upgrade
• LSD install (still can't believe Lotus doesn't fit this stock)
• Extra gearbox cooling
• Traction control system 12-step
• Big brake kit
• Suspension

 

Tomorrow I'm meeting up with the guy who's going to trim the dashboard so will be able to post a cool update on that aswel soon. 

For the suspension, Jubu was really pushing hard on the KW Competition 3 dampers. They said it is a superior system compared to Nitron 3-way. Any feedback or experiences here? Price very similar but I only see people fitting Ohlin or Nitron?

 

Edited October 11, 2019 by Petrolgeneration

[Bibs]

On 11/10/2019 at 16:19, Petrolgeneration said:

I'm trying to figure out a way to host extra pictures as I can't upload any more here it seems? If anyone has a decent image hoster for forums, please share the wealth!

You get something like 50 times more space and a load of other benefits for equiv £2/month as an FFM. 

https://www.thelotusforums.com/forums/store/category/2-subscriptions/

[Petrolgeneration]

20 hours ago, Bibs said:

You get something like 50 times more space and a load of other benefits for equiv £2/month as an FFM. 

https://www.thelotusforums.com/forums/store/category/2-subscriptions/

Thx mate! Will do!

[MilkNCookies]

no bigger supercharger pulley\injectors? what's the power figure you could dish out without having to do internals?

[Petrolgeneration]

1 hour ago, MilkNCookies said:

no bigger supercharger pulley\injectors? what's the power figure you could dish out without having to do internals?

300 is doable and affordable.
320 is already quite expensive as a lot of parts are getting reinforcements.

Extra gearbox cooling and reinforcements are advised if you run the car hard on track. For road usage, you should be fine running 300hp. That will set you back around 8k. I think the Komo-tec 285 kit will be a bit more affordable and probably the best 'bang for buck'. Should be released soon!

[MilkNCookies]

On 17/10/2019 at 11:49, Petrolgeneration said:

300 is doable and affordable.
320 is already quite expensive as a lot of parts are getting reinforcements.

Extra gearbox cooling and reinforcements are advised if you run the car hard on track. For road usage, you should be fine running 300hp. That will set you back around 8k. I think the Komo-tec 285 kit will be a bit more affordable and probably the best 'bang for buck'. Should be released soon!

i think this should interest you 

 twincharged 2ZR 430hp (in the video he talks kilowatts)

[Petrolgeneration]

1 minute ago, MilkNCookies said:

i think this should interest you 

 twincharged 2ZR 430hp (in the video he talks kilowatts)

Awesome, thx for sharing!

I'm really behind on updates here but I'll try to do my best soon.

Just a small teaser: was at a trackday yesterday.

Day in the rain so was pretty exciting on semi's. Only one guy faster on soft wets, you see him passing me here. Oh well, I wasn't even close keeping up with that thing haha

[Neal H]

Ace picture. To be fair, that's not a fair fight

 

[MilkNCookies]

man just look at the rear camber this thing got 😂

[Petrolgeneration]

6 minutes ago, MilkNCookies said:

man just look at the rear camber this thing got 😂

And the spray from the ridiculous amount of downforce compared to the Cup 250. The amount of grip was stunning, even if he was driving on soft wet racing tires. 

Absolutely bonkers. He was actually only 4 seconds a lap faster than me. Which is kind of amazing on a small track like folembray. He did 1:01:XX and I drove 1:05:XX on my semi's in the rain/damp. Once again this confirms what an awesome machine the Cup 250 is. Horsepower is overrated. There even was a professional racecar driver there who drove formula 3, 24h Le Mans, 24 Zolder (and made podiums) and he was driving 1:10:XX in a track prepped M3 so all in all, very impressive.

Very pleased with my laptimes! With a limited slip diff, I for sure would have shaved another second of the laptimes easy.

[MilkNCookies]

Just now, Petrolgeneration said:

And the spray from the ridiculous amount of downforce compared to the Cup 250. The amount of grip was stunning, even if he was driving on soft wet racing tires. 

Absolutely bonkers. He was actually only 4 seconds a lap faster than me. Which is kind of amazing on a small track like folembray. He did 1:01:XX and I drove 1:05:XX on my semi's in the rain/damp. Once again this confirms what an awesome machine the Cup 250 is. Horsepower is overrated. There even was a professional racecar driver there who drove formula 3, 24h Le Mans, 24 Zolder (and made podiums) and he was driving 1:10:XX in a track prepped M3 so all in all, very impressive.

Very pleased with my laptimes! With a limited slip diff, I for sure would have shaved another second of the laptimes easy.

really impressive man, you also were perfect on keeping your tires in optimal temperature i imagine.

now wonder what you can do with 100hp more

[Petrolgeneration]

Just now, MilkNCookies said:

really impressive man, you also were perfect on keeping your tires in optimal temperature i imagine.

now wonder what you can do with 100hp more

Yes, should be interesting to see! The car performed great. 

Also, during the day, all of a sudden a white Cup 220 drove up with an older guy who just bought the car 3 weeks ago. It was a komo-tec 265. He was interested in doing some trackdays and came by for some info.  Gave the guy a helmet and took him for some laps as passenger. He had a blast. Always great sharing the same passion with people. Even with the rain, it was a great day!

[Petrolgeneration]

15/09/2019 - Trackday Abbeville

I did 2 trackdays in the last couple of weeks. First one was at Abbeville in France.

It's a track that is quite technical with some very interesting corners. Should be very suitable for the Cup 250.
I did however have some issues that day.

In the front I was still running my old A052's and in the back new A048's. The circuit itself felt very greasy and slippery so I was struggling quite a bit. Even more so when near the end of the day, all of a sudden I spotted that one of the rear tires was mounted the wrong way. It took me about 30 seconds on track to figure out something wasn't right with the car so I didn't have the confidence to go all out and didn't figure out the problem till later on the day, which is a shame. I wouldn't have been able to fit the tires correctly anyway but atleast it would have given me peace of mind and made me less frustrated. "what the h*ll is going on with the car?"
Also the lack of a limit slip diff was something that bugged me a lot and was costing me lots of time. I could just feel the car just pushing on just one wheel on corner exit, which was a shame.

Didn't do great laptimes as the confidence in the car wasn't there.

Decided to just throw out the tires and go for a complete new set.

27/10/2019 - Trackday Folembray

I've been to Folembray before and it was my first ever trackday with the Lotus Elise Cup 250. Some of my friends don't really like this track and say it is 'boring' but I think the track is absolutely fantastic in the Lotus.

A week before the trackday, I decided to fit a complete new set of Toyo R888R tires and Pagid RS14 brake pads. Everything was looking good but 3 days before the trackday all of a sudden the weather changed and there was a rain forecast.
Oh well, let's see what happens. I learned my lessons and now always book a hotel nearby so I can sleep in and don't have to wake up at 5 in the morning. Woke up, looked outside... great... pouring
Arrived at the track and there was a lot of standing water, which obviously isn't great on dry semi's.

Since it was just slightly raining, I decided to let other cars 'clear' the track of standing water a bit and waited about an hour before going on track. No need to take unneccessairy risks.

Although it was very slippery, I did notice the sheer difference in the wet between the Yokohama's and the Toyo R888R. If you're fitting semi's and driving on the street a lot, I can definitely recommend these tires over the Advans as they feel much more stable in the wet. (and we do have our fair share of rain in Belgium and the UK).

Doing some very slow laps and kept building up the pace.

On my first trackday there I did manage a 1 minute flat with less perfect driving lines and more cautious driving so driving laptimes like the ones in the movie above in light rain was actually very surprising and I was pleased.

As the confidence started to build and I felt more confident pushing in the rain, I started pushing harder.

I also made sure I was qualified for my vanity plate. Got Apex? Yes we do!

The photographer present is a great guy and he always makes some nice shots. So here is some extra car pr0n for you guys. Love the picture with the carbon hardtop.

The Reverie wing might not be as pretty as the OEM Lotus wing but it does look mean and sure does the job. There is a significant noticable difference in the rear downforce with the wing fitted although it does eat away quite a bit of topspeed due to extra drag. Stickers from my local car club present obviously!

As you can tell on the last picture, the rain stopped later in the afternoon. I did still struggle with some grip as some parts were still extremely slippery due to the dampness of the track, however, we did manage to do some better rounds.

For some reason, my AIM camera starting to act up and I wasn't able to record the fastest lap of the day but you can tell by comparing with the other video, I'm already braking later, going in more aggressive and pushing a lot harder. I also really need to figure out why the throttle input is completely off. It looks like I'm never full on the throttle or never completely off the throttle. Will sort that out later.

It was obviously impossible to keep up with the super trofeo on soft wets, but nonetheless, I do find it impressive that the gap is so small because it's comparing a purpose built jetfighter to a paper plane as far as I'm concerned. The amount of speed it could carry through the corners and acceleration under rain conditions were just mindblowing compared to the Elise who was really struggling on semi's. Also the lack of the LSD didn't help me here and I would easily shave of another second more just by an LSD alone.

Day over... time to drive home... then disaster struck.

All of a sudden, complete loss of power. Was this my first Lotus issue? Lot's of trouble usually serious? The car struggled to get up to 100km/h, losing speed when going slightly uphill and the engine was choking when I gave it too much throttle. Like I was flooding the engine. Might be coilovers, sparkplugs or O2 sensor I think. Probably nothing to serious but I can tell you, driving 300kms home with a car that accelerates slower than a bicycle isn't a lot of fun.

Going to drop it off at the dealership soon as we're disassembling the interior aswel to have it trimmed with alcantara. (update on that in 2 weeks!).

 

All in all, great day, had a blast and I hope to see one of you guys at the track one day!

Edited October 30, 2019 by Petrolgeneration

[Petrolgeneration]

Another minor update.

Decided to pull the trigger and ordered the Supersprint Race exhaust for the Cup 250.

Very pleased with Supersprint on my C63 so I figured, might aswel go for their solution on the Lotus!

[infinitereality]

That's dead sexy right there.  Looking forward to some installed pics soon!

[MilkNCookies]

man that's gonna be a loud one and you are going to need a remap if you aren't catless already

[Petrolgeneration]

3 minutes ago, MilkNCookies said:

man that's gonna be a loud one and you are going to need a remap if you aren't catless already

Remap not a problem. The shop that is going to fit it is my main tuner. They did ECU flashes on all my cars. At some point the ECU will be replaced also with the higher hp tunes but might be interesting to see what they can do HP wise on the stock ECU, even if I'm not going to run that setup very long. They have to remap anyway so might aswel get some extra power in the meanwhile.

And loud, I guess. Can't be any louder than my straight piped C63 though so I'm hopefull haha.

[Petrolgeneration]

My friend from the alcantara trim stopped by today to drop off a sample with the alcantara and wire we chose that would match the seats.

It's a tiny bit darker but it's almost impossible to find the exact alcantara and I doubt the lotus factory is willing to ship me their alcantara haha.

[internets]

2 hours ago, Petrolgeneration said:

It's a tiny bit darker but it's almost impossible to find the exact alcantara and I doubt the lotus factory is willing to ship me their alcantara haha.

Allon White are just doing a some work for me on my seats and they could not match the Alcantara used by the factory but as they are the only Lotus authorised after sales trim shop they could  order it in from Lotus.

[sjw]

On 30/10/2019 at 12:48, Petrolgeneration said:

Day over... time to drive home... then disaster struck.

All of a sudden, complete loss of power. Was this my first Lotus issue? Lot's of trouble usually serious? The car struggled to get up to 100km/h, losing speed when going slightly uphill and the engine was choking when I gave it too much throttle. Like I was flooding the engine. Might be coilovers, sparkplugs or O2 sensor I think. Probably nothing to serious but I can tell you, driving 300kms home with a car that accelerates slower than a bicycle isn't a lot of fun.

Did you establish what happened ?

[Petrolgeneration]

On 15/12/2019 at 18:58, sjw said:

Did you establish what happened ?

The TRD Airbox is a very tight fit on the Cup 250 and the airhose got loose a bit so it was taking in too much air which makes sense as I felt the engine was drowning when I gave it too much throttle.

Refitted it and hope it stays put now

 

On 05/11/2019 at 13:42, internets said:

Allon White are just doing a some work for me on my seats and they could not match the Alcantara used by the factory but as they are the only Lotus authorised after sales trim shop they could  order it in from Lotus.

Fabrics are ordered. Waiting for a delivery update! 

[Akajak]

On 24/09/2019 at 15:51, MilkNCookies said:

Then man you gotta go for the 250 build, 430 cup is very similar to GT4 in performance but it won't have any comfort

k20 turbo swapped lotus overheating not sure if can be fully resolved but surely can be managed, just don't expect to be able to do 30minute turns without cooldown laps, there are turbo k20 lotus around that do hillclimb and stuff but those are cars completely turned upside-down

supercharged k20s can easily reach 350hp

side note k20 turbo swaps are in the 30k€ range, imo the best compromise is to take the 2ZR to 300 or so hp with a dogbox

Surprised that the 430 isn’t a bit quicker than a GT4

[Petrolgeneration]

15 hours ago, Akajak said:

Surprised that the 430 isn’t a bit quicker than a GT4

I feel a Cup 430 will be quite a bit quicker than a GT4 in my opinion but it's very difficult to compare cars one to one. Much comes to the driver I'd say. Maybe the GT4 drivers weren't super quick on Folembray when I drove there. I already knew the track quite well and felt really confident when running in the rain there as I knew every corner in and out.

Haven't had much updates lately. Car is in the garage doing its beauty/winter sleep. I also had an unexpected health issue pop up. My heartbeat was acting out a lot and doctor said it was probably due to stress and fatigue so I took it a bit slower lately. 

I did do something fun in the meanwhile: I have been talking and planning to drive my first AM race soon in the 24h of Zolder and I figured I needed as much training as I possibly could so I decided to build a dedicated racing simulator.

A simulator is a helpful tool to get used to changing track conditions, ideal driving lines, overtakes and lap consistency during longer stints so it will be quite helpful.

I'm using iRacing as my go-to platform. It is used by many professional drivers including Max Verstappen and Lando Norris. 

For those interested, I started uploading a few of my races. Feel free to subscribe to my youtube channel. (I need a 100 subscribers to get a decent youtube url instead of yt.com/xsodjfsdfoij :))

Keep in mind, I'm not a professional Youtube video editor so it is just the footage with poor beginning/ending trimming haha.

 

[Bibs]

1 minute ago, Petrolgeneration said:

Feel free to subscribe to my youtube channel.

👍

[Petrolgeneration]

Been a long time since I've updated. Car has been in the garage for a while but season is right around the corner and last sunday did my first trackday again at Clastres in France.

Some minor updates:

Exterior update: Mirrors!

I finally fitted the mirrors from George. It is an amazing upgrade. I do need to fix the gaping hole on the side where the 3th mounting screw used to be. I'm looking into options to have a full backplate in black because I don't like the paint color showing at the mirrors. It just looks off.

Interior Trim

Original Lotus fabric and thread are in! Haven't been able to have it installed yet and it was planned for this month, however my friend got some extra work in for customers and that obviously has priority over my project. We should be able to do the trim in March!

Interior Update

I couldn't hold back longer: the Aim dash. I wasn't a big fan initially of the AIM MXE2 but I decided to give it a go anyway due to it's easy install. I had some concerns on using extra sensors but it is possible and somewhere next week they should be pushing a software update that allows you to add custom pages so I decided to pull the trigger and get an MXE2! If I plan on changing the ECU, I'll probably have to change the dash (I think?) but I'll fix it when that problem occurs. 

First, we remove the original dash!

You have to be careful when pulling of the binacle because it uses these types of clamps that can fall off or break easily and when they drop 'inside' the dashboard, you will be cursing, A LOT. Surprised when I found out they used some kind of velcro tape that prevents the clips from falling off so that was a pleasant surprise. That is something they didn't do on older S3 cars. I'm guessing starting MY17.5? Also good news for S2 owners: the new software update they're pushing will also allow 2004+ cars to install the dash!!

Removing everything is fairly easy and next up was installing the MXE2 dash and putting the data expension hub in there aswel to use to Smartycam HD2.1 which I already had for my Solo2 DL.

I'm trying to figure out what sensors I'm going to be using exactly so when I need to remove the whole dash for the trimming, I will be installing the carbon door sills and adding the channel expansion with the extra sensors like brake pressure.

Once everything is in place, it's just a matter of sliding the binacle over and pushing it into place. It's not a perfect flush fit but nothing that is really noticeable unless you pay real good attention.

What an upgrade!

I don't like the default binacle so during the trim process, I will replace it with a custom mounting solution as seen from the guys from Trackspec on their race lotus. I'm still contemplating how to manage the 4 buttons on the binnacle now. Add custom buttons to the radio DIN or install a summit talon button box.

I think it would look really sleek if I use another carbon passenger airbag cover behind the dash, which will contrast nice with the alcantara dash. 

First figuring out how I will do the buttons though!

'Sticky substance under floormats'

Next I confused my girlfriend by asking her to use her hairdryer and then taking it to my garage. I was able to remove about 98% of the substance below the floor mats so now there is just bear aluminium underneath my feet. Weight reduction and adds to the whole racecar experience imho. I still need some glue remover to get rid of a few remaining stains but shouldn't be too hard!

First trackday of 2020

Did my first trackday last sunday at Clastres!

In the morning, everyone on Toyo's was complaining. Very little grip.

I managed to put a few good laps in but traffic cost me some real nice hot laps. Best of the day was 1:22:78 and I had several laps I would have shaved off over a second but always got stuck in traffic  
Later in the afternoon, the wind was getting so harsh that doing better laptimes became almost impossible. I did manage to do a 1:23:XX with a passenger in the afternoon but didn't have another window to throw in another hotlap.

I also experienced another technical issue like the one I had before on my previous trackday: the hose came loose again from the TRD airbox, choking the car and flooding the engine. My buddy helped me out and we re-attached the hose and tightened the clamp a little different and it seems to be more rigid than ever now. Just keep in mind that the TRD airbox sits really tight in the newer Cups and the hose is actually a bit too short. I think the safest way is just replacing the hose aswel, which I'll probably be doing sometime soon to avoid similar issues in the future.

Edited February 18, 2020 by Petrolgeneration