Pauls Exige 410 Sport

[Peapod]

Just needs a couple of No Step stickers 😀

NO STEP warning decal – Divine Handcraft

 

[Paul_D]

Sunday was my first track day of the year, at Snetterton. 

It was nice to get the car on track and blow the cobwebs away, but it wasn't exactly the most successful of days. Firstly, it was more like a test day than a track day. Which isn't necessarily a problem, but combined with a damp greasy track meant that there were lots of red flags, normally just as I was about to go out.

When I did finally get a nice dry session just before lunch I started to smell burning. Came into the pits and there was light smoke from the engine bay. Whilst having a look around trying to figure it out, I then noticed this:

A reasonable amount of oil on the floor in the pit garage. Looking around, there was a misting on the rear diffuser to the far left. Therefore it appears to be gearbox oil. Judging from the location, I think the best guess is some sort of problem around the gearbox oil filter, pump or connecting pipework. I'll have a proper look at the weekend when I've got time to get the diffuser and undertray off. So that was the end of my day before it was even lunchtime.

Just for a little while though, I was having great fun and the car was looking and performing great. 

 

 

[El-RGB]

The car is looking exceptionally nice on track. Hope that oil isn't a big deal, and will be fixed soon. 

[Bibs]

Good luck tracking down the leak and yup, epic photos

 

[Rambo]

Are you sure that's all your oil? Looks like quite a lot to me 🤔

Also OAT coolant but it looks a bit dried at the edges so might not be yours?

[Paul_D]

3 minutes ago, Rambo said:

Are you sure that's all your oil? Looks like quite a lot to me 🤔

Also OAT coolant but it looks a bit dried at the edges so might not be yours?

It was definitely oil, and definitely mine. There was a light covering of it on the rear of the grill panel above the diffuser.

[GER]

Great colour scheme there Paul. Good to meet you.

Cheers

Greg

[Paul_D]

15 hours ago, GER said:

Great colour scheme there Paul. Good to meet you.

Cheers

Greg

Likewise, was good to meet you too. Hopefully your day was a bit more successful than mine!

[Exigo]

Which skirt supplier did you go for?  They look great.

[Paul_D]

Thanks, I'm really pleased with them.

Unfortunately (for others) they are completely bespoke and one off.

I saw on a facebook group that a guy had fabricated his own. He shaped the base material and then skinned them in real carbon fibre / resin.

I was going to have a go at doing the same myself, so I contacted him for advice. He said he'd be happy to...but that he'd sold his Exige and would be willing to sell me the skirts if I wanted them. By sheer luck, he lives about 10 minutes away from me so I snapped his arm off and took him round some cash. 

[Exigo]

Nice how things work out sometimes.

[Paul_D]

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. 

[Bibs]

Nice update! 2:08 around Snett isn't a bad time at all too, very quick and looked like a lot of fun 

[DH2]

Car is nicely sorted now, Paul 👍

Will be interesting how the cheap TPMS works - as you say, for keeping an eye on track, might be useful.

 

[Paul_D]

3 hours ago, DH2 said:

Car is nicely sorted now, Paul 👍

Will be interesting how the cheap TPMS works - as you say, for keeping an eye on track, might be useful.

 

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. 

[Paul_D]

 

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.

[Paul_D]

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.

[Paul_D]

Thought I'd just do a little update to this...

After Snetterton I decided to book a track day at Bedford Autodrome. I'd been there once previously in the Exige, but had to keep lifting off past the noise meters even with my old track silencer add-on fitted.

I thought I'd give it another try, although to be honest I was still partially expecting to trip at least one of the noise meters as they are so strict there.

It was a nice day weather wise, and there were a few other Exiges there. 

I started off short shifting past the worst noise meter, and gradually increased the revs each time I went past to find the 'limit' of what I'd be able to do. I was pleased to discover that I could go fully revs and full throttle past every noise meter with the SWL exhaust which makes it more enjoyable. A lot of people don't like Bedford, but I think it has a nice mixture of corners and enough run off to let you push harder than at some other circuits.

It's a long circuit to learn and try and perfect, but I was starting to get there by the end of the day. I definitely want to go back and try to improve further now I know I have no noise concerns.

I also ended up giving a fellow Exige owner a lift home after he had a coming together with a BMW.....

A couple of clear laps from the day:

Next on the agenda was Cadwell Park, one of my favourite circuits. Complete opposite of Bedford, with lots of undulations and plenty of armco barriers in close proximity.

This ended up being one of the least enjoyable track days I've had for a while unfortunately.

Firstly, the day was incredibly busy. I've never really needed to queue up waiting to get out on circuit before, but I certainly did on this day. That aspect wasn't helped by the second issue....red flags. Lots and lots of them. And it was for all sorts. Cars breaking down, spinning on their own oil after a leak, a Mini caught fire, a BMW had a wheel come off, and finally a Clio t-boned a Toyota Corolla after the Corolla spun. I haven't seen car to car contact in 15 years  of track days, and then it happened on two consecutive events!

After lunch I was hoping to actually get a decent amount of laps in. On my second afternoon session I pulled out of the pit area and then everything suddenly got very loud in terms of exhaust noise. I cruised back round to the pits, and began to investigate. This is what I found:

I was relieved to find that the exhaust pieces had just separated at the clamp. At this point I was hopeful to be back on track shortly. Unfortunately, although I managed to get the clamp back in position ok, as I was tightening the clamp back up one of the bolts seized. Subsequent removal has shown that the thread had picked up on the bolt and made a mess of itself. So unfortunately I didn't want to risk going back out on track. That meant an early pack up and a careful drive home. The Javelin photographer did manage to get a few nice shots though:

And a video of one of the sessions:

Yesterday I intended to fix the exhaust but the discovery of the stripped thread on the clamp bolt initially put a delay on that. (It seems to be an M11 x 1.75 bolt. Stupid size, nobody has those)

However, whilst have a general poke around under there I also spotted this:

 

The bracket has snapped off the y-pipe section. I don't know if the extra movement now possible contributed to the pieces pulling out of the clamp or not, but I need to get it sorted.

Other than that, the car hasn't missed a beat. I've currently got two more track days booked. One at the Lotus test track at Hethel, and the second at Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit. I'm really looking forward to Brands. I love the GP circuit but had a few issues there last time (including failing the drive by noise meter). Fingers crossed this time will be better!

 

 

[Paul_D]

Last Saturday was Hethel, and this may have been the quietest track day that I've ever been on. I didn't count exactly, but around 15 cars would probably be a good estimate. Weather was lovely, and it was a nice chilled atmosphere. As it's the Lotus test track and factory, the rules were initially no photography of any kind. But then the guy from Lotus said you can take photos towards the track, and "If you have a GoPro in your car, keep it on narrow field of view". Which meant I got a rare opportunity for footage of the Lotus test track. The car performed faultlessly all day. 

Short video of a clean lap...'threading the needle' between the 'orange cone chicane' got faster and faster as the day went on!

 

 

Then yesterday was Brands Hatch GP. This was a sessioned day with the 20 minutes per hour split between Lotus on Track, a Caterham club, and general MSV drivers.

The weather was beautiful and bumped into a few track friends. 

The first 20 minute session included sighting laps, so after those it was a just a few minutes of getting a feel for the track before it was time for a break.

The next 20 minute session unfortunately had a red flag due to a brake down, which effectively turned it into a 10 minute session.

At 11am we finally had a full clear session, and it was great to try and get back into the rhythm at Brands GP, it's a fantastic circuit. That session finished, the car felt good, and I was looking forward to lots more laps and trying to improve.

And that was when it all went wrong. I parked up, and put my number plates back on to drive to the petrol station to top up. During the journey I noticed that the ABS and TC lights were on, and I couldn't select Sport or Race mode. 

This is a relatively common fault for these cars, and is often the brake switch, but could also be an ABS sensor or even steering angle sensor.

I got back to the pits, and turned the car off. Left it a while, and turned it back on...fault still present. Checked the codes with my generic OBD reader but as expected nothing was showing, as these would be Lotus specific fault codes. A couple more ignition cycles did nothing, so unfortunately that was my day over after just three sessions, only one of which was decent. The curse of Brands Hatch continues for me. I wasn't going to risk going around Brands GP like that, but at least the car could still be driven home I suppose.
 

After getting home, and having a drink and a bite to eat I thought I'd go for a drive round the block with the data logging running to see if there was anything giving an obviously incorrect signal. I started and the car....and the fault was gone!!! I may have said some naughty words at this point. 

I looked back at the data for the final session where everything was fine, and there are no weird readings. All wheel speed sensors align, steering angle looks good, and both brake switches are working, with the ECU switch clearly operating more sensitively than the brake light switch.

My guess is that out all of those items, if something was going to play up intermittently it would be the brake switch. I removed it and had a play on the work bench.

It all seemed to work fine. For the info of anybody who needs to test theirs - Fully depressed is how it sits when the brake pedal is not being touched.  The ECU contact is closed, and the 'brake light' contact is open. Releasing the plunger is the same as pressing the brake pedal. Release the switch slightly and the ECU contact will open. Release the switch further and the 'brake light' contact will close. 

The contacts all seemed to change cleanly and had low resistance.

As a point of note, my switch was set to 4 clicks out. Generally people seem to suggest that 5 or 6 is the sweet spot.

To set it up properly you ideally need Lotus software. With the pedal not being touched the switch should be fully depressed so that the contacts are as per above. Stage 1 should activate with minimal pedal pressure and virtually no movement. This is the ECU signal. The second stage for the brake lights should activate with more pedal pressure and ABS line pressure of 2 to 6 Bar. Obviously I don't have that, but I do have the AIM dash so that I can at least set it up to view when the switches are operating. I initially set the plunger to 5 clicks instead of 4, wondering if over time 4 clicks has it operating right on the limit of where it needs to be. 

I refitted the switch and selected the AIM page I'd set up to test it:

Although I can't see ABS line pressure, this didn't 'feel' right. The ECU switch would operate with a fairly light touch, but I could immediately stop the car from a gentle roll without initiating the brake light.

I set the switch back to 4 clicks and everything seemed to operate at the levels of pedal movement / braking I would expect. So that's where I've left it for now. What I don't know is how critical it is for the pressure to be between 2 and 6 bar when the second stage operates. I imagine this could even change over time, if your brakes needed bleeding and had become a bit spongy for instance (you'd need more movement to get the correct pressure)

So this has left me in a situation where the switch seems fine, and is set back to where it's been forever with no issues. My only other possible explanation is that it got sticky. The service notes refer to a service bulleting about lubricating the plunger, and mine was completely dry. 

For now I'll see how it goes, but I have ordered a spare switch that I will keep in the car at all times. It's a 5 minute job to change it, and most of those minutes are spent getting my 6ft chubby body in and out of the footwell. 

Anyway, here is a video of the only full session I got that day. Lots of cars, including some GT Porsche, a Noble, an Atom and many Lotus. Some traffic heavy parts, but clearer laps towards the end. 

 

[Paul_D]

Just to close out the latest issue, I needed to pop out somewhere last night so I thought I take the Exige. 

The TC Fault which had previously cured itself suddenly popped back up. I hit the Data Record on my AIM dash and carried on my journey hoping that this time I'd be able to definitely confirm the issue.

Just checked the data, and the answer is 'yes'. Rear Left wheel speed sensor has given up the ghost. 

 

[DH2]

39 minutes ago, Paul_D said:

Just checked the data, and the answer is 'yes'. Rear Left wheel speed sensor has given up the ghost.

Would you like me to sell you a new one?  Got them in stock, should get to you tomorrow with Royal Mail.  They are easy to do on the Exige.

Lotus price, eyewatering.  Real world price, less so.

Dave

[Paul_D]

19 minutes ago, DH2 said:

Would you like me to sell you a new one?  Got them in stock, should get to you tomorrow with Royal Mail.  They are easy to do on the Exige.

Lotus price, eyewatering.  Real world price, less so.

Dave

Hi Dave,

Hope you're all good mate?

Cheers anyway, but I've already ordered one online after a bit of research. Not in a massive hurry as I'm off to the Goodwood Festival of speed this afternoon for the Thursday / Friday, and busy weekend when I get back. 

And you're right, the Lotus price is extortionate. Especially for what appears to be a relatively common Bosch part (assuming my Googling hasn't led me down the wrong path) 

What I found especially 'funny' is that the Lotus price for the rear speed sensor alone, is only fractionally cheaper than a complete front hub/bearing assembly that has the sensor integrated. Random number generator pricing strategy!

Edited July 10 by Paul_D

[DH2]

3 minutes ago, Paul_D said:

Hi Dave,

Hope you're all good mate?

Cheers anyway, but I've already ordered one online after a bit of research. Not in a massive hurry as I'm off to the Goodwood Festival of speed this afternoon for the Thursday / Friday, and busy weekend when I get back. 

And you're right, the Lotus price is extortionate. Especially for what appears to be a relatively common Bosch part (assuming my Googling hasn't led me down the wrong path) 

Yeah all good here.  Busybusy as usual.

No worries.  The price difference is a bit interesting in this case!

Have fun at FoS!