Nautilus blue 350s

[MAG]

Bit late to the party on this one but hey...

More dramatic carbon upgrade also inbound!

[MAG]

More carbon inbound...

3 new additions!

[MAG]

🤔

😲

[stephenwhyte]

Oh yes......now we’re cooking. Santa’s looked after you this year!👍🎄

[GFWilliams]

That’s awesome, I love my carbon rear lid!

[Woots]

Jeesusss yes! Get it spent! 
She’s gonna look awesome!

[MAG]

Couple of less exciting bits have got done in the lockdown. First I decided I wanted to give the suspension some extra protection as the weather conditions are poor at the moment. I got the car up on a jack removed the wheels cleaned the wheel arches and then applied acf-50 to all the shiny metal bits to give it some protection. I wanted to apply C5 wheel armour to the wheels but couldn't get any anytime soon so resorted to some autoglym sealant.

Next up was utilising the DAB feature on my Pioneer stereo which I haven't been able to do up until this point. For this I needed to install a dab aerial I thought quite long and hard about where I should locate the aerial and eventually settled on the area just behind the driver's seat. As the car is mainly plastic I decided it didn't really matter exactly where I placed the aerial as there should be good reception in most upper areas of the cabin so I ended up using the self adhesive aerial strip to attach it to the plastic work just forward of the rear view window. Then I hid away all the wiring behind the plastic trim and used the aluminium chassis as an earth.

[MAG]

Experimental headlight upgrade...

After some searching I've found a couple of brands of so called upgrade bulbs that profess to be both more powerful than standard halogen bulbs but also give a much purer white light output.

The lotus manual says you are able to swap out the bulbs by just putting the steering at full lock and removing the forward section of the wheel arch liner. I feel that this is a tad optimistic!

In order to access the area in a reasonable manor I found it necessary to jack the car and remove the wheel. Once this is done it's far more straightforward. The forward trim comes off with 2 bolts and 3 plastic push pins to reveal the rear of the headlight assembly.

The result of the first brand I've tried called Twiss which is available on Amazon is that the output is definitely much whiter but no more powerful. I will update when I try the second set.

If you want to fit a LED type upgrade bulb, I think it can be done but the LED options available come with additional wiring and voltage conversion electronic control assemblies. I'm not sure if all this gubbins would fit inside the rubber boot on the back of the original headlight assembly or if further modifications would be required. Also, most of the decent LED options are considerably more expensive and therefore an expensive mistake if you are unable to make it work well.

[MAG]

Canards en route...

[Woots]

1 hour ago, MAG said:

Canards en route...

Nice! Which ones are these mate? HK? 

[Bravo73]

2 hours ago, MAG said:

Canards en route...

Quack, quack. 🦆

[C8RKH]

8 minutes ago, Bravo73 said:

Quack, quack. 🦆

Nice packaging too

[Arun_D]

It took me a couple of moments for me to twig when I was asked this from a Euro based Exige owner recently. The effort to ask in English should be appreciated, though

However, it did make me smile.

 

[MAG]

Another go at bulbs, these ones were from hids direct...

[MAG]

Okay, so there ones are much better, very white and seem noticeably brighter than stock bulbs 😁

[stephenwhyte]

Sent you a message about the Canards Mark.......

[Jcx]

15 hours ago, MAG said:

Okay, so there ones are much better, very white and seem noticeably brighter than stock bulbs 😁

Hiya Mark,  Can you please share details? Type. model. price etc.  Would be great to be able to stay out after dark 🤣

...when we are next allowed out.

[MAG]

On 08/01/2021 at 09:53, Jcx said:

Hiya Mark,  Can you please share details? Type. model. price etc.  Would be great to be able to stay out after dark 🤣

...when we are next allowed out.

I have more testing to do with a third option on the way. When I've tested all three I'll do a proper YouTube review and definitive guide with full product details 👍

[Jcx]

Fab thx mark. 👍

[MAG]

So today I took delivery of an exciting new parts for my car. Jon Seal from Lotus Hardtops delivered my new carbon fibre roof with v weave pattern carbon fibre.

Removing the original roof and fitting the new one was relatively straightforward however you need to be aware that you will need some specific not normal tools. You will need to get yourself some security torx bits for your driver as there are four bolts which are of this type.

Jon's roof comes with all the necessary brackets and hardware for you to fit in the kit all the hardware is of a very high standard black anodized stainless steel.

The inside of the carbon fibre roof is not felt lined but is finished to a high standard in a smooth satin black painted GRP finish.

The fit of the roof was good and tight although I did have some issues with fitting the new GRP internal headliner due to alignment of the screw holes and the reciprocal threads. So for now I ended up using the original one from my OEM roof.

Fit, finish and also the quality of the weave in the carbon fibre of the product is of an extremely high standard.

I haven't had a chance to drive the car yet so report back with any issues like squeaking etc.

 

[MAG]

So today as it seems to be quite popular and as I've now tried several products. I thought I'd try to produce a more comprehensive upgrade guide to changing the dipped beam headlight bulbs in the V6.

I have now tried, including the OEM solution, four different types.

The OEM bulb is a sylvania bulb which is a brand quite popular in America and is of a decent quality but the bulb that is fitted as standard isn't particularly powerful and output quite a conventional halogen yellowish light. Sylvania do produce more powerful conventional halogen bulbs with a brighter and more white output but they are difficult to obtain in the UK although there are a few listings on eBay.

The first upgrade bulb I tried was a brand called MSA which I purchased from Amazon for under £10. this bulb definitely output a much white a light but the power of the bulb was quite disappointing and was quite likely no more powerful than the original bulbs.

The second brand I tried was from Hidsdirect, a brand called Au lite. this is a relatively unknown brand but the bulbs performed really well considering they were less than £10 they output a much more white light and were noticeably more powerful.

I was quite resistant to using LEDs from the point of view that they all come with an additional control box and wiring which I thought would mean a lot of faff with the install. However after doing some research I eventually caved in and ordered a set. The brand I ordered were Twenty20 from Hids4u. The brand is well reviewed they are not the cheapest but having examined them, they are made to a very high standard with excellent quality castings on the heat sinks and control boxes, the wiring is of a high standard too.

I thought that the installation would be quite complicated due to the boot on the back of the headlight assembly and need to mount the LED control box, but it actually turned out to be quite straightforward. All I had to do was cut a small notch with a razor saw at the 6 oclock position in the circular plastic opening on the back of the headlight assembly, this allowed me to feed the cabling from the back of the LED assembly and also the power supply cable through the notch to mount the LED control box externally. I mounted the control box on the base of the plastic headlight assembly casing using a 3M double-sided sticky foam mount. After this the boot could be replaced, fitting well.

I will follow up with a performance summary.

[Techyd]

Nice - I was looking at those for my Elise, will wait for your performance report.

 

Out of interest, the fan is now obviously covered by the boot, but presumable its able to generate some air flow from the base of the boot where the cables hang out, do you think that will be enough?

[MAG]

We'll find out 😁

[MAG]

They're shit 🤣

[Bibs]

That is a shame, but kinda funny too! Would be ace for driving along a railway line!