Pauls Exige 410 Sport

[Jcx]

41 minutes ago, Paul_D said:

@Jcx Yeah, the sunlight was starting to be a problem. The camera makes it look a bit worse as it looks like I didn’t get the spot metering right. 
 

Good spot on the watch! It’s a Black Bay 58 Blue. I really like it. 

I am a big fan of Tudor. That looks great on you.

[Paul_D]

The car was supposed to be having a service and its first MOT today, but due to issues at Stratton this got cancelled. Luckily, it meant I had the day off work when a delivery arrived that I'd been patiently waiting for... GRP V3 Lights. Every time I'd seen these on other cars I thought that they looked great, but I was really trying to stop spending so much money on expensive mods. Then one night I'd had a few drinks and thought to myself "Bugger it. You love this car, you're not planning on selling it and it will probably be the last car you ever modify and personalise" And that was when I placed the order with Gregs Race Parts. 

Installation is obviously about as simple as you can get. 2 nuts to take off and a connector. I did need to use the extra resistors Greg sent to stop the indicators from fast flashing. 

Before:

 

Halfway:

 

Unlit:

 

Lit:

I love the look, and it definitely freshens up and modernises the rear of the car. 

 

[Toqcars]

My wallet suggested to stop reading your topic 😆

Looks great. So much better than OEM. What is next step? Removal of the small lights (reverse and fog light) or exposed carbon fiber rear panel around the lights?

[Paul_D]

I need to stop spending money too. 😂

I think I’m pretty much finished now. There’s only a couple more things that I’ve got planned. 

Won’t be doing anything else to the rear, unless you count adding the rear tow strap from the 430 Cup. 

[DH2]

Don't forget you will need some reflectors for MOT legality.

[Paul_D]

Yeah, I did know that, but thanks for the heads up. The GRP V3 lights can be ordered with reflectors which are much less noticeable when not in direct light. 
 

 

[Toqcars]

Paul, how many times have you refreshed/repainted the front mesh? 

[Paul_D]

@Toqcars Not much at all mate. Just a couple of times in one or two tiny areas. 

[Toqcars]

Interesting. My outer one is silver on at least 50% of the area. So now I am thinking how to paint or spray it without removing the whole front end and without clogging the coolers 😂

 

So you use paint brush or spray?

[Paul_D]

I just use hammerite paint and a small brush. 

[lotus_exig3]

On 25/03/2022 at 03:23, Paul_D said:

The car was supposed to be having a service and its first MOT today, but due to issues at Stratton this got cancelled. Luckily, it meant I had the day off work when a delivery arrived that I'd been patiently waiting for... GRP V3 Lights. Every time I'd seen these on other cars I thought that they looked great, but I was really trying to stop spending so much money on expensive mods. Then one night I'd had a few drinks and thought to myself "Bugger it. You love this car, you're not planning on selling it and it will probably be the last car you ever modify and personalise" And that was when I placed the order with Gregs Race Parts. 

Installation is obviously about as simple as you can get. 2 nuts to take off and a connector. I did need to use the extra resistors Greg sent to stop the indicators from fast flashing. 

Before:

 

Halfway:

 

Unlit:

 

Lit:

I love the look, and it definitely freshens up and modernises the rear of the car. 

 

Those looks very nice Paul!

Are they like LED lights?

The indicator lights, are in the center and turns orange?

[Paul_D]

@lotus_exig3

I assume the whole unit uses LEDs, but the red outer ring just seems to ‘glow’. The light is really consistent, so you wouldn’t know where the actual light source is. (If that makes sense)

Yep, the indicator is amber and is a ring just inside the outer ring. 
 

 

[DH2]

17 hours ago, Paul_D said:

Yeah, I did know that, but thanks for the heads up. The GRP V3 lights can be ordered with reflectors which are much less noticeable when not in direct light. 

The reflector ones barely reflect - we've had them fail.

[Paul_D]

11 minutes ago, DH2 said:

The reflector ones barely reflect - we've had them fail.

Oh really? That’s useful to know, cheers. 
 

To be honest, I wasn’t sure if the MOT testers actually paid that much attention to reflectors unless one was present but obviously broken. 
 

To be on the safe side I did order some (supposedly) MOT compliant reflectors that I could add to the car if needed. 

[Paul_D]

Took the car in for the 3rd year service and its first MOT today at Stratton Motor Company.

Everything went pretty smoothly. They noticed on the healthcheck a couple of undertray bolts missing. It then failed the MOT on headlight alignment. The service guy said they were pointing down far too much. I'll be interested to see how much different it makes driving at night now. Hopefully it will be a decent improvement. 

And yes, it was sporting a special "MOT-Spec" rear end. 🤣

 

[Toqcars]

Always taught that you only fail, if the headlight is pointing too much upwards. Never heard that pointing down is a problem. 
 

So I guess we will get a guide how to set headlight beam angle 😂

[Paul_D]

@Toqcars There is an upper and lower limit for beam cut off in the UK. 
 

Lol, I don’t actually know where the adjuster is as they did it for me. Must be simple though, as they said it only took 15 minutes. 

[Paul_D]

There was one downside to fitting the carbon mirrors - every piece on the car was now carbon apart from the side scoops. They started to really stand out to me as being the only non carbon piece. At this point of basically 'all in' with making the car 'mine', so decided to change them for carbon ones. The choice was then which ones to get. In the end I went for the Aerie Performance ones. Partly because they were a bit cheaper, and partly because you don't have to do any irreversible modifications to the car. I do prefer to be able to put the car back to standard if I wanted to.

I fitted them today, and I'm really pleased with how the car looks now with all of the cosmetic modifications.

 

[Exx]

You only miss 430 wing and silver wheels and it will be perfect

[Paul_D]

Second job of the weekend now completed. As I do a few track days, I thought it would be nice to have the rear tow strap fitted like the 430 Cup has.

 

The actual bracket (Part 2a) was a very reasonable price, less that £40. The nut plates however (Parts 4 and 5) were over £50 each, so I wouldn't be paying that. The strap (Part 3) is a TRS item, and can be bought from various places in different colours. 

Instead of the Lotus nut plates, I just got some 6mm thick steel bar and drilled it and tapped it with a thread.

 

All the parts together:

 

I then had a bit of luck, as removing the arch liner to fit the carbon scoops gave great access to the outer side of the bracket. I may have just awkwardly tried to do it from underneath otherwise.

 

I didn't want to spend money on a new grill, so I just cut the existing one, and touched up the paint with satin black hammerite.

Then it was just a case of feeding the strap through and bolting it in place.

With the strap folded back on itself into the slot when not in use, it's a bit more subtle.

Now let's just hope I never need to use it...

[Tex]

Interesting solution and effective.

In the  picture where you show the cut in the grill you can see the bolt with the green pen marker on it which secures the exhaust bracket. 
 

Have you had any issues tightening it up.

The plate which has the nuts connected to it is just stuck on to the chassis and comes unstuck 

[Paul_D]

@Tex

I hadn’t really paid any attention to the bolt with the green pen on. If it is lose, it wasn’t obvious to me when I was messing about. 

[stephenwhyte]

Lovely - but it really is crying out for a Cup rear wing now!😬😉

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tex]

43 minutes ago, Paul_D said:

@Tex

I hadn’t really paid any attention to the bolt with the green pen on. If it is lose, it wasn’t obvious to me when I was messing about. 

Only if you are removing the back box would you need to.  
 

[GFWilliams]

1 hour ago, Tex said:

Interesting solution and effective.

In the  picture where you show the cut in the grill you can see the bolt with the green pen marker on it which secures the exhaust bracket. 
 

Have you had any issues tightening it up.

The plate which has the nuts connected to it is just stuck on to the chassis and comes unstuck 

I came up with a solution for this as it was getting really annoying.  Buy long (50mm or so) bolts, take out the nut plates and screw them in from the other side using permanent thread lock.  Then use nuts from the exhaust side to secure the exhaust.  Makes it significantly quicker to change the backbox.  There are photos on my build thread somewhere.

Found the photos (sorry for the thread hijack!)