Nautilus blue 350s

[MAG]

On a different note, I put some of this on before leaving...

[F1_Chris]

Cars looking really good MAG, nice work.

Looking forward to your feed back on the EX430

[MAG]

Okay, first little update is about my new phone mounting solution. I use my phone as a sat nav and a music source so it's pretty important to have a good solution.

I found a company called Brodit that make mounting solutions for pretty much every car, including lotuses. 

They're made to order so take a couple of weeks to come through but it's well worth it. It provides an extremely stable platform that clips on between the air vents.

I've temporarily fixed my phone case to the mounting plate which actually works really well but will be buying the matching phone appropriate clamp soon.

Highly recommended!

[MAG]

Enough about bloody phone clips you say, what about the EX430 kit!?

Okay, so here's my initial review;

I picked the car up yesterday and drove it home to Peterborough from H111. The car was fitted with both the EX430 and the Komotec valved backbox system with carbon tips.

Immediately on the way home the car was singing a different tune. The exhaust is far louder, deeper and more visceral, it's just sounds plain evil but not overbearing. Performance wise, initially, the most noticeable change was torque. The car now pulls harder regardless of gear selection, where as before you had to try harder to find that peak power spot.

On the drive out to Northampton last night and on the road trip today is where it really started to show it's teeth! I think perhaps the ECU needed a settling in period in order to get used to what else was now available and at its disposal.

The car is just more agressive in every gear, it pulls like a train and as I've said previously, there's far more torque and it's far less fussy with gears. In point, it's quite noticeably, considerably quicker!

Soundtrack wise, the exhaust is pretty awesome, supercharger whine isn't as pronounced as I thought it might be but it's not a big deal.

The car performed faultlessly for the 350 ish miles I've covered yesterday and today. Engine temps remained consistent with pre modification and fuel consumption wasn't notably more either.

So, all in all, so far, I'm a happy chap! The only thing I'll need to change is the bit of tied off bungy cord holding the carbon airbox in place as I think that's pretty low rent...

My initial opinion would be, if you do alot of track work then save up and go 460 with the peace of mind of charge cooling, but if you're mainly a fast road user, you can have not far off the same performance for 60% of the cost...

[alias23]

Congrats buddy! Been great to track your journey so far and you just can’t go wrong with Komotec! 

[Mattmahope]

Stunning car and great write up!

How was Caffeine and Machine? I am planning to visit the first weekend in October.

Edited September 21, 2019 by Mattmahope

[MAG]

5 hours ago, Mattmahope said:

Stunning car and great write up!

How was Caffeine and Machine? I am planning to visit the first weekend in October.

Thanks, really enjoying it and the upgrade process...

It's a really nice venu on stunning grounds accessed by classic British back roads, so you can have some fun traveling to it as well!

We had breakfast, the food was of s high standard and quite reasonably priced too...

The car park is a cornucopia for petrol heads 😁

[MAG]

Okay today's little jobs;

1. Some of us drive our cars 😲 during this crazy foolhardy process I've noticed that when it gets (shock horror) wet, the little rear view window to the engine compartment gets covered in water droplets and condensation pretty quickly. This is probably due to the holes in the engine cover 🤣

Anyway, all joking aside, it's a pain, so as I'd invested in some rather magic Gthechniq G1 glass coating and had some left over, I thought I'd treat the little window to a coating. It was a hernia inducing feat of contortion to apply it but as it's meant to last for two years, I thought it'd be worth it 😁

2. Changing the colour of the rear spoiler struts. Most people go with black but as I have a fairly unique wheel colour, I thought I'd try and match that. Although I'm fairly handy, I'm also quite impatient so can't be bothered to mess around with lots of preparation and primer etc. With this in mind, I wanted a direct to metal paint that was resilient, easy to apply and roughly matched my wheels. That came in the form of Halfords anthracite engine bay paint. I stripped the fin down this morning, fortunately or unfortunately it's still waiting for warranty work to be completed by rebonding the horizontal section to the uprights but in this instance it just made it easier to take it apart! Struts removed and wiped down with white spirit, layers built up gradually. Left to set for an hour. Then baked in the oven for an hour to cure hard and put back together, must say I'm pretty happy with the result 😁 

[stephenwhyte]

Are you missing the finished struts picture - the ones in the photos still look silver?🤔

[MAG]

5 minutes ago, stephenwhyte said:

Are you missing the finished struts picture - the ones in the photos still look silver?🤔

No, unfortunately due to bright sunlight it was difficult to get a good representation as the light was bleaching things out. They do match the wheels in reality though 🤣

[RoflOnMyWaffle]

I find the engine heat dries the window almost instantly? Get yours hotter 🤣👍

[Mattmahope]

7 hours ago, MAG said:

Thanks, really enjoying it and the upgrade process...

It's a really nice venu on stunning grounds accessed by classic British back roads, so you can have some fun traveling to it as well!

We had breakfast, the food was of s high standard and quite reasonably priced too...

The car park is a cornucopia for petrol heads 😁

Sounds like a good spot then! I’ll be there in the morning of Saturday 5th Oct if anyone else fancies it? Will put up a separate post as well

[Ben410]

I ve just bought this brodit support , I like it as well . You can remove the brodit badge on the top if you want to make it even more subtile XD 

[Karls]

On 21/09/2019 at 21:19, Ben410 said:

I ve just bought this brodit support , I like it as well . You can remove the brodit badge on the top if you want to make it even more subtile XD 

Where did you buy it from please?

[vd9]

32 minutes ago, Karls said:

Where did you buy it from please?

https://www.brodit.co.uk worked fine for me (well, they took my money so far )

[Ben410]

Brodit.uk , doesn t work out from UK , 

 

If you are based out , you have to order from a specific shop related to your country , in my case was : https://www.brodit-shop.de/home.php 

 

I guess , there is one for every EU  area 

 

I was looking for a distributor in my country : https://www.brodit.com/reseller.html?pn=cont&sm=fd 

 

if you are in UK, life is easy then  

[C8RKH]

8 hours ago, Ben410 said:

if you are in UK, life is easy then

If you want a Brodit kit, then yes, life in the UK is easy and peachy.

For lots of other things, no, it ain't easy at all. But still better than a hell of a lot of other places, but not as good as some... 😂🤣

[MAG]

It's the little things sometimes, replaced the bungee chord air intake strap with a nylon webbing strap and steel D ring attachments. OCD satiated...

[MAG]

Next little job, install a better stereo...

I know people like them but I can't see the point of fancy flip out screens, they become dated quickly and are expensive to begin with.

As my phone gets updated every couple of years and is generally the basis for my music library on the move in addition to also being my primary navigation system, it makes sense to get something that takes advantage of this.

Enter the Pioneer SPH10BT which effectively uses the considerable computing power of your phone as the primary source and control interface. Makes sense! At £93 delivered, you can't really argue with that in my opinion as it also overcomes the phone mounting conundrum in one hit!

Install was fairly straightforward but not quite finished yet as I need a plastic spacer which I should get tomorrow...

It came with a microphone to install too which I've done. This was the most difficult part as having mounted it on the steering column as recommended, I had to take the trim off which isn't too bad as it's only 6 screws but it's just a bit fidly...

You down load an app onto your phone which allows you complete control, I've only had a brief play so far but all looks good and functions well.

Stereo definitely has more power than the stock clarion set. Later I'll add a removable compact sub box but not just yet 😁

 

[MAG]

Couple more little bits from a day of fettling.

I think you can see in this pic how my spoiler struts now match the wheels...

Also, on the recommendation of that Canadian chap on YouTube, I bought this bead maker stuff and can say that he's right, it's bloody shiny! And works fine with the Gthechniq coatings that are already on the car 😁

[MAG]

What a great little bit of kit!

Pioneer stereo install complete...

So, finished installing, had to get a 15mm spacer (flimsy rectangular piece of black plastic) but it did the trick after a little fettling with the fit. Problems mainly caused by the leather trimming getting in the way. But it does the job!

Phone bracket on the Pioneer is rock solid and great, my current device (Sony XZ premium) is quite large and heavy but it handles is without issue... It can be set in portrait or landscape. I've also ordered a nice short 20cm right angled USB C cable so I can keep my device powered directly from the USB socket on the Pioneer's facia.

 

The Pioneer app is pretty comprehensive, not the most intuitive but allows lots of functionality. Sound from the unit is a good step up from the Clarion, it's a lot more dynamic even with just the two small stock dash speakers, it's obviously got a more gutsy internal amp. I've only had a brief 30 min play around and there's probably a lot more to discover, need to see how effective the mic for voice control is over my newly vocalised Toyota V6 /Komotec soundtrack 🤣

But, in short my conclusion is, if you want a half decent stereo in your V6 which will simultaneously fix your phone mounting, music and navigation issue's... Then for £93 delivered plus £8 for a spacer this is a very hard option to beat!

PS, sorry for the dim pics but had to take em on my rather shocking tablet camera...

[MAG]

As the head unit was so successful I thought I'd upgrade the speakers while I was at it. Always got on well with JBL for car audio in the past so got these little 4" 2 ways, really nicely made...

[BatMobile]

You will love it, I have focal’s in mine but the best upgrade by far is a small sub. Mines where the passenger footrest is on early cars.

makes it into a really good little system. 

[TonyKL]

33 minutes ago, BatMobile said:

You will love it, I have focal’s in mine but the best upgrade by far is a small sub. Mines where the passenger footrest is on early cars.

makes it into a really good little system. 

Which sub did you get? I have upgraded to focals but am missing something. 

[MAG]

11 hours ago, BatMobile said:

You will love it, I have focal’s in mine but the best upgrade by far is a small sub. Mines where the passenger footrest is on early cars.

makes it into a really good little system. 

When I get around to it I'm going to get the matching JBL compact sub 😁