2011 Evora S - Chasing lap times, while not destroying everyday's qualities (too much)

[#84]

A bit off topic, but I happened to find this site: https://dioski.com/en/car-customization-helmet-graphic-kit-and-other-stickers and couldn't resist customizing my Bell MAG-1 helmet. To put an extra touch on it, I decided to re-paint it in RAL 7038 as well. The paint work as such went well, but the masking tape didn't really want to stick to the rubber, so another day I have to fix the details

 

[#84]

I planned to post some pictures of the barge boards that were fitted after x years on a shelf in the garage, comment how well all newly manufactured components have worked and maybe write a few words about the latest and greatest in spring/damper testing and development.

However, biggest change right now is not in the garage, or on the race track. No, after just over 5 years with Freevalve and developing and promoting cam-less engine technology - that story has come to an end. From today on I have taken a tiny step closer to Hethel and represents Aurobay, Volvo Cars and Geelys powertrain division.

My time in between jobs had the upside of allowing 6 track days in 8 weeks, but now the focus will off course be a bit different 🙂

[Bibs]

Congratulations Andreas and best of luck in the new job! 

[#84]

Suspension project recap. This is what I have tried:

• Nitron R1 (46 mm / 1-way)- Hofmanns
  • 900/1100 lb/in - std front ARB
  • 900/1100 lb/in - BWR front ARB
  • 900/1100 lb/in - BWR front ARB and no rear ARB
  • 600/850 lb/in - BWR front ARB
• Nitron CS (40 mm / 1-way)
  • 425/625 lb/in - BWR front ARB
  • 475/625 lb/in - BWR front ARB
• Nitron R1 front / Nitron CS rear
  • 475/625 lb/in - BWR front ARB

Besides all of this, I have sweeped the damper settings, from time to time worked through step 1-4 of 5 in the front BWR Anti Roll Bar stiffness, varied toe and adjusted ride height with camber following it.

Since I am still in the middle of the process to develop the damper valving and sorting out other settings, I won't go into detail with that. What I can say is:

• Track width and ride height effects are far from sorted out
• Camber, especially front at 1,65 degrees, is not near being sufficient for the cornering speeds that other modern track day cars are capable of
• The 46 mm R1 kit is given the aggressive spring rates surprisingly comfortable until suspension droop exceeds a certain speed
• The 40 mm CS kit out of the box super capable for Fast Road exercises and for shaving off a second, or two, on the track day.

Since I am after the ultimate lap time pace for a fully sorted out road going car, the testing and development goes on. Many lessons learned so far.

[electro_boy]

Amazing you use to work at Freevalve!  Did you ever try to go cam less on the Evora engine?

[#84]

@electro_boyWell, it isn't that straight forward to retrofit a pneumatic cam-less valve train on an engine. For lab use, you can do it, but otherwise you either need to make a bespoke cylinder head from scratch, or manufacture a large number of special items. A V-engine is worse since you have to do it twice. During my 5+ years I think we received almost one conversion request today from entusiasts, or motorsport teams, even though we since the new website was launched in March 2020 explicitly stated that we didn't offer that kind of service. 🙂

The biggest challenge is that you have return pressure in the pneumatic system under the valve cover. Standstill pressure can reach 10 bar. Then there are minor issus such as that the engine oil circuit is separate from the valve train, so that all oil feed/return to the cylinder head has to be blocked. And a few other details.

[#84]

I had an intention to keep the pace in this thread and update on the progress in the chassis development project, but obviously not much has happened since mid August. I sadly realize that the Evora has been standing still since 17:th of August. 

The clutch had been a bit noisy ,when disengaging, for a few weeks, and I had some feeling that it didn't disengage as much as it used to. I had experienced difficulties to get 1:st gear in a few times. That evening I parked the car on the driveway to cool down during dinner, then I was supposed to drive it into the garage. But no. Totally impossible to get it in 1:st gear. I stopped the engine. Pumped the pedal like 10 times, started the engine, released the clutch and drove in.

Since the master cylinder is infamous for failing, I ordred an upgrade kit with air freight from BOE Fabrication in US. Took the painful decision to swap it myself. And. No. As soon as I started the engine the pedal got spongy. I bled the circuit in all imaginable ways. To be 100 % sure it wasn't the hydraulics, I also swapped the slave cylinder. Same result.

Right now I do not know for sure what is wrong. However, after reading several clutch trouble shoot manuals, talking F2F with Tilton about how their master cylinder should behave and talking to several Lotus owners and mechanics (no one have experienced this issue..) I now believe it is a mechanical failure that knocks back the slave cylinder just slightly when the engine is running. I loose just over 1 mm in slave cylinder travel when the engnine is running and maybe in combination with clutch wear, it is sufficient to disable the functionality.

So. Engine out is the recipe right now. I just have to finish my Alfa 155 Q4 engine rebuild and get it off the lift, so that the Lotus can get its treatment 🙁

[Bibs]

Ouch! Good luck with it, keep us updated with your progress. 

[#84]

Is something about to happen here??

Well, the car has been standing still since .. August with all the dust and dirt from some daily commuting, so maybe this is an appropriate level of project to get going again. The blue Sabelt 3" 4-point harness has been on order since late July and has been promised to show up in two weeks since before Christmas. Which hasn't happened yet.

It seems like a carbon fiber tail gate and the new ECU Master unit is also about to be delivered soon. Let's see.

[#84]

.. almost there with the harness bar.

And.

I did what must be the final test before I go for a complete engine out operation. I held a finger on the clutch release arm while my dad started the engine. I could feel some axial movements. Not super evident, but when I pushed the arm in the direction for clutch disengagement, I could clearly hear a whining mixed with squeaking noise and some vibrations in the arm.

I still haven't seen the clutch + release bearing etc, but of all tests I have carried out, of all money and time I have spent, this might be what I would recommend everyone to do as one of the first test if the clutch fail to disengage properly.

[jerzybondov]

Great advice - thank you!

[SZ]

On 12/03/2023 at 16:52, #84 said:

.. almost there with the harness bar.

And.

I did what must be the final test before I go for a complete engine out operation. I held a finger on the clutch release arm while my dad started the engine. I could feel some axial movements. Not super evident, but when I pushed the arm in the direction for clutch disengagement, I could clearly hear a whining mixed with squeaking noise and some vibrations in the arm.

I still haven't seen the clutch + release bearing etc, but of all tests I have carried out, of all money and time I have spent, this might be what I would recommend everyone to do as one of the first test if the clutch fail to disengage properly.

Sorry but I didn't read through the whole thread to see if you used the spacer plate for the master cylinder in the BOE kit.  When I did mine I had to back out the clutch pedal to master cylinder push rod all the way out until the end of the threads for engage/disengagement.  Instructions may be different for your MY.  Mine is a MY 14 S

[#84]

Thanks @SZ for your input! That was not clear from the instructions, or from any feedback when I approached them with this issue. Well, I used the white plastic adapter for the master cylinder and I have used as much stroke as I can. The end position for the pedal is fixed, what one can play with is the start position. Side note: My "local" (400 km) Lotus workshop highlighted that if you deviate from the original pedal position, the clutch position sensor may send wrong signals to the vehicle stabilization system. I set my pedal about 10 mm further out to get as much stroke as I could. Which didn't help. So, I will keep an eye on that potential issue once I am up and running again.

I happend to meet Tilton at SEMA in Las Vegas back in November and talked with their representative. He said that there is an initial travel, before the cylinder closes towards the fluid reservoir, which given the lever ratio, is about 6 mm dead travel where the foot presses the pedal. That can be worth knowing when one is sorting out "sponginess". So, his conclusion, based upon my description was 100 % mechanical failure. 😞

[#84]

Yet another season with a lot of late discover issues that leads to a VERY late season start.

In late April I started to disassemble the car and had the engine out 19th of May. The issues identified were:

• Two of four clutch friction plate springs had come a bit loose. Unclear how that causes insufficient movement when the engine is running, but at least it was an anomally
• Several idler pulleys in the engine belt circuit had worn bearings
• The belt was quite bad - but that could be seen without taking out the engine
• The front engine mount bushing had melted since no heat shield was fitted and the distance to the exhaust manifold is minimal
• Screws holding the C-pillar braces to the engine sub-frame were loose, or missing
• I sent the gearbox for inspection and LSD fitment and was recommended a re-build, which I ordered
• Then I have an engine oil leak in the right rear corner, from the power steering pump area, which I haven't been able to understand where it comes from. Incredibly annoying 🤥

So, last picture here is from the gearbox settling for a "LSD trip" 😇

[Bibs]

Ouch, sounds like a big bill incoming! 

[#84]

So, that was a lot of bad news. Good news are that I had initiated a few other upgrades before I realized how broke I was about to be some months later. And it is not the 19th of May any more, so even if I have had quite a few other things on the agenda, things are slowly advancing.

I did for example order a carbon fibre tailgate and decided to get it clear coated with metallic flakes to match the cars metallic effect. So far I have only seen it in the paint shop and then just stored it safely, but I find it promising.

Once I unwrap the harness brace painted and the 4-point harness I will share some pictures of that along with 3D-printed carbon fibre harness fixtures.

And. There is a HiFi upgrade as well which I just had to do once removing the rear seat interior panels 😁 

Full focus and perfect priority 🙈

[#84]

1 minute ago, Bibs said:

Ouch, sounds like a big bill incoming! 

Mmmm. Well, grammatically you are wrong - it has come and it is paid 😉

Drexler LSD + Reinforced bearings + updated gears => Built to handle 500 hp safely in extensive track use

Yesterday:

[jerzybondov]

Love it!!

[electro_boy]

Thank you for the update @#84.  Can you give any more details on what work you did to the gear box and where you sourced the parts from, how much it cost etc...? 

My gearbox is currently broken (lost 4,5&6 while doing a track day) and waiting on diagnosis as the car garage is busy at the moment, so I don't know what's gone wrong yet.   But would be good to have some idea of upgrade parts for when the garage get round to looking at my gearbox.

[#84]

I am sorry to hear about that tragic gearbox failure @electro_boy. My gearbox worked fine, besides the issue with gear changes when hot, which was postponed 2x-3x as long with the Mobilube SHC 75W-90 vs original oil. But, I wanted to fit a Drexler LSD, with stronger shoulder bearings and ordered an inspection. I went for JUBU Performance in Austria since they had an overall best clutch solution for my preferences, they listed the overhaul/inspection as a standalone service task and they got good review by the Radford team when I had to do with them for other reasons. In the end you pay by hour work (7,5 h), so it is not that you pay €895 on top of everything else.

So, given the gear specs they didn't recommend to put it together again given my strong track focus, which I expressed. If I wanted to do an occasional trackway here and there, I could probably have continued with that 10-15 years ahead given, proper maintenance. The gear set is up for grab.

They replaced 2-6 + reverse + input shaft + all syncros. The input shaft was a bit sad (expensive) surprise in the last second. The part prices are very much the same as in the Bell & Covill online part list, even if there might be some Brexit percentage on top of it for the export.

Price in PM.

[#84]

And. I never got a clear picture of the difference since this happened just when they went off to Pikes Peak with the Type 62-2 they prepared, but I went for the upgrade to the latest internals, which you can see in the Lotus parts list as fitted after a certain VIN number and off course quite a bit more costly than the original Evora S stuff.

[pat_t]

On 02/07/2021 at 20:17, #84 said:

.

The very latest thing done, is actually to re-fit the rear clam badges yesterday evening, after re-painting some details, but I wouldn't say that it count as a modification. Instead it must be the adjustable drop links from "Hardrace" to the rear anti roll bar. I will come back to the specs later, as well as to the other modification that could be seen in the same picture.

Great progress #84! Going all the way back to the first post in the thread... can you elaborate which Hardrace adjustable ARB drop links you used? as I can't see an Evora kit on their website. I've dropped mine quite a lot on KW V3 coilovers and I need something similar.

[#84]

@pat_t I used these for the front ARB: https://www.ddesign.nu/sv/universala-justerbara-krangningshammarstag-2-delar-set-hardrace-2

Rear, I went for the M10 version instead, which came with the benefit that they are adjustable without removal, but requieres a radial spacer. The M12’s in the link has to be disconnected in one end.

Regarding ARB’s I will soon share details on my latest product 😎

How are the KW’s? Do you run the car on track? 

[pat_t]

Thanks! 

The KW's are great. I installed their hydraulic lift kit on the front axle too so I can get away with running it lower for track. I didn't go anywhere near as stiff as you though, 450/560 lb-in rates, I still use it 50/50% on the road and I do Nurburgring where you want it a bit softer than other tracks really. 👍🏼