Kev's Millitary Grey 410

[tactical lizard]

Well I've had the car 6 months, Probably about time to do a project thread!

Its a 20th edition 410 sport in military grey so it has a lot of the options already included.

I don't have any decent photos of my own so I'll just jump straight in with some photos on the track whilst I was out testing:

 

I'm 6ft 3 and being honest I don't really fit in it properly, The first several times I drove it I had a stiff neck for days after because I was subconsciously stooping my head to see out the windscreen.

The car wasn't going to last long if I kept injuring myself every time I drove it so I had to find someway of fitting in it better.
From reading the forum it appears that the Tillet seats are recommended to gain a few inches of head room, However this would be too simple, the car would have mismatched seats and the standard carbon seats are awesome to look at, with hindsight it would have probably been cheaper to just get a Tillet compared to what I have done!

I removed the seat, measured the standard mounting points and got the 3d printer in action to print me off some blocks to replicate the mounting height in the car.

And the standard seat using the newer Lotus brackets:

With the seat now in the position it would be in the car there is about 12mm of room directly under the seat. Unfortunately it is not possible to vertically lower the seat with the standard seat rails as the seat would interfere on them.
I was left with tilting the seat to gain headroom, I measured the existing seat at various points and drew a simple line diagram in cad that I could rotate at various degrees around a pivot, this would allow me to see how much the headrest would drop and move rearwards vs how far the front of the seat raises. In the end I settled on 5 degrees of tilt. using Cad I designed some new brackets that will mount the seat to the existing seat rails.

Here is half of one after 6 hours printing:

This was the first one where I realised that you couldn't lower the seat. So another 6 hours later I had one that fitted to the seat.

I was happy with the design so had a local laser and folding company to make me the brackets in 3mm steel, I had to order 10 sets so not exactly the cheapest thing if I had got them wrong. 
Anyway they arrived, being a bit anal about things they had not been made perfectly like I would have liked, However they did fit and worked like I wanted them too.

Here they are in raw steel fitted to the seat,

As a comparison I have blended two photos together to show the difference between standard brackets and mine,

And in the car:

The basic stats are that I gained 33mm of headroom and lost 26mm of room at the front of the seat. I also lost additional leg room because the seat can not be pushed as far back on the rails. 
Luckily the forum comes to the rescue again and it is possible to raise the steering column slightly to claw back some of the lost room between the steering wheel and my thighs.

Driving wise, I prefer the more laid back seating position, I can see out the windscreen and I don't hurt my neck. 
I have done a few track days to test the brackets out without any issues. I just need to get them powder coated and look into what I need to do to sell the other 9 sets.

As a a slight sneak peak I have also been working on some properly fixed seat brackets that do away with the lotus seat rails to gain that extra 11-12mm under the seat, only had a play with them today and still need to see if they fit in the car and test them, Basic details of them is the tilt is 5 degrees, They are fixed but I have made it so there is a range of 110mm in 10mm increments to get the seat set where you need it. Potentially can be modified to tilt the seat up to + or - 2.5 degrees.
I also used a different company (a generic online one) for manufacturer and the resulting parts delivered are practically perfect, I always try and support local companies but if they do not do the job properly then I have no choice but to use one of the bigger players. In the below image there's a couple of mm left but with 90kg sat on the seat I'm pretty sure there will be none:

 

On track the car is great, gets a lot of attention in the pits. I met some fellow lotus owners at a Donnington evening session with some komotec 460 exiges and swiftly had my ass handed to me out on the track, Think I need a lot more time behind the wheel to get used to the car.
Also did a day at Cadwell park and it's now my favourite track, I felt I made some decent progress with the car and by the afternoon I was keeping up with some fairly decent cars, nearly kept up with an Atom but the way they go around corners is mental.
I usually start the day with the full traction control on and it is quite amazing how it deals with understeer, However I do feel it nibbling at the wheels on quite a few corners. In the afternoons I use sport mode and seem to get on with it a lot better, no nibbling at the wheels on the corners and it allows just a little bit of sliding, it has saved me a few times though! 

One thing I have noticed from looking at photos and the tyres is that I definitely need more camber. I have the car booked in for a full geo next week, be looking to maximise the standard camber on the front and a similar amount of extra camber on the rear.

I quite like designing and making things so will probably have some interesting things on here in the future.

That's all for now, been writing this for hours!

[Bibs]

Very nicely done, a creative solution to an unusual problem, thanks for sharing

There may be a few more people for those extra brackets if they're spare so please feel free to pop them in the classifieds. 

[TonyKL]

Best colour!

[Inversed]

Lovely car and some fabulous brackets. Does anyone know if carbon seats are mounted same way as standard seats in 350/390?

[tactical lizard]

These brackets are designed around the later seats and rails, I think the seats have an extra pair of mounting holes at the front compared to the old seats (circled below).

I have not tried the bracket with the standard seats, however there only appears to be one set of seat rails on deroure so assume it's the same set for standard and carbon seats in which case it should fit.

[RP420]

Hi Kev.

Great work on the seat position and thanks for posting!

I'm 6'3 too (with a long back 🙄) and collecting my 420 FE in the next couple of weeks. I ordered the TALLRails from Inokinetic when I put my deposit down at the start of the year, but I'm a bit worried that they may not fit the newer seats/rails. They also make the drivers seat position fixed. So I might be interested in a set or two of your brackets if the TALLRails don't work out.

I will know within a week or two so please bear me in mind and I will let you know once the TALLRails situation is clarified.

Thanks again. Ryan

[tactical lizard]

Thanks for the comments guys.

I need to try both type of brackets out on the standard seats.
So I was wondering if there was someone with a standard seated Exige with the newer rails not too far away from Yorkshire?

Preferably it would be someone who would make use of a set of brackets as in return for trying them out you can have a set of your choice for free.

[KIMUTAKU]

Nicely done on the custom brackets!

Definitely need more pics of the car!

[tactical lizard]

Bit of an update,

I looked over the first batch of brackets that I had made locally to see which ones were good enough to use, As I have previously said they were not made perfectly like I would of liked. 
Out of the remaining nine sets I managed to get 4 useable pairs. these have now been powder coated. All I need to do now is order some replacement bolts and do a quick installation guide.

2 sets have been reserved so far. Because they are not perfect they will be reduced to £100 for a set plus postage which I think is around a tenner to the UK. 
Just as a reminder these replace the brackets that mount the seat to the seat runners on the newer versions. they tilt the seat back 5 degrees from standard which should gain around 33mm of head room. however you may have to raise the steering wheel if you have chunky legs. It is a good solution if you still require to be able to move the seat forward and backwards. I will see if there is a demand for them before ordering more sets.

I have been working on my fixed brackets, I have had to get some welding done on them which has another story of a great local company trying to rip me off, I wanted around 90 mm of weld on each bracket as shown below.

Took them to a local engineering company who started at £30 an hour and told me he could do two per hour. I have done some welding when I was in my teenage years and I know it doesn't take that long to lay down 90mm of weld. In the end I found a another local chap who was a much more reasonable £4.20 per item.
I have tried them out in the car and I found the extra 12mm of room although doesn't sound like much makes a difference for me to help get my hands past my legs when turning the wheel. some pics,

Fixed brackets won't be everyone's cup of tea but it may help get some taller drivers into these cars. I still won't be able to get in the car with a helmet and the roof installed, I don't think further tilting the seat will help as it will negatively impact the leg to steering wheel room. perhaps the next project will have to be a bubble roof!  
I do have the steering wheel spacer from Komotec so may give that a go one trackday.

And lastly I have had a 2bular exhaust on order since April 12th, I have had a few dates for delivery which never materialized but have been chilled out about it and had not spoken to Jim for well over a month, got in touch last Friday and found out he had forgotten my order and has shipped orders placed after mine which isn't great but he's a busy man and mistakes happen. He has assured me it will be delivered tomorrow so I am pretty excited about that. I only just scrapped in at 104db on a 105db static day at Cadwell with the standard exhaust.

[milesofsmiles]

Kev, loved reading your journey.  You’ve preempted the journey I was going to go.

I’ve sent a message…. 

[tactical lizard]

Bit of an update.

Had the Geo done a few weeks back as I was noticing on quite a few of my track day photos the front camber was no where near enough.
I was struggling to find a decent set up for the 410 but there is a guy called Ecain on pistonheads who is documenting his trackdays and modifications, he posted up his set up here https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=15&t=1818288&i=140

I decided to follow his set up but avoid the drop in ride height because whilst my car is mainly used on the track for parts testing I still do use it on the road sometimes for work where I have to navigate speed bumps.
Anyway this is the frankenstein set up I ended up with:

 

I also had the corner weights done and with 90kg of lard in the drivers seat it came out very close to 50/50 weight balance, I was told it was very minimal adjustment required.
The only thing I'm unsure about is the caster as it was supposed to be -2.4 but I seem to have ended up with -3.

Anyway I have no idea if this set up is any good as I haven't driven the car apart from driving home since having it done. I was told it would tramline a lot but didn't notice anything unusual on the journey home. Should be able to report back at the end of the month when I'm out testing my fixed seat brackets at Blyton.

Should have some more updates this week regarding seat brackets if I get them back from the powder coaters.

[tactical lizard]

Todays 1st update is about seat brackets and trying to get a 6ft 3" person to fit in the car with a helmet!

As you have probably seen from my first post I started out with some brackets that mounted on to the Lotus seat rails that tilted the seat back 5 degrees, This gained me 33mm of head room.
However these left room under the seat that could be utilised, But it is not possible to gain this room with the lotus seat rails as they block the seat from reaching the car floor as seen below,

This left me with one choice of designing fixed brackets that replace the lotus seat rails. I set about in CAD taking measurements from the existing set up and working out how to do this.
I wanted to keep the 5 degree tilt. Lower the whole seat 11mm and make sure it is adjustable so other people can use these brackets.

I came up with a design and started to look at where to get them made, I had used a local company on my previous brackets but their accuracy and quality control is not up to the standard I expect, after a bit of googling I decided to use one of those online companies with online quoting, I honestly didn't know what to expect but I was pleasantly surprised when they turned up practically identical to the CAD design.

Unlike my previous brackets these ones take a bit of manual labour to assemble into the final item. Anyway lets have a look:
  

They come in two main parts, The bracket that fixes to the seat and the bracket that mounts to the floor of the car, These are bolted together with two high tensile bolts. The above photo shows the bracket in its most rearward position. The bracket can go up to 90mm further forward in 10mm increments which should capture quite a range of people heights,

 
The fully back position at 5 degree tilt leaves about 10mm of room between the rear speaker and seat and is where I have mine set. Some photos fitted to the seat:

All the mounting holes line up and the seat is a mm or two from touching the car floor as designed so I was very happy in choosing that particular company to make them. I measured the seat height drop against the stock position to see how much room I had gained,

It says 47mm on the calliper but now noticing at how bad I lined up the calliper with the lines we'll call it 46mm. So 46mm of head room gained. Off to the car I went to fit the seat and try it out,
Just realised I did not get very good photos of the seat in the car!

I have fitted a Komotec steering wheel spacer but will talk about that in a different update. But I have decent enough knee room and have about 62mm of room between the wheel and my leg.
Whilst in the car I thought I would try my helmet to see if I would fit in with the soft top on where I discovered I wasn't a million miles off. 
The only way to now increase head height is to tilt the seat further back, I had thought of this as a possibility and made my new brackets modifiable in that they can go from 2.5 degrees to 7.5 degrees of tilt from the standard lotus position. I did this by placing some laser cut pilot holes in the seat bracket so you could choose what you wanted and simply drill the holes.

 

With the holes drilled for 7.5 degree tilt I reassembled onto the seat and measured what I had gained.

According to CAD I would have to move my seat 30mm further forward so that it does not hit the rear bulkhead, But in return I gained an extra 20mm of head height. Here is the seat in the car:

I really need to learn how to take decent photos but hopefully you can see its a good difference in height. 
So now the number one question do I fit with a helmet and the roof on? Short answer is YES, only just, but YES!!!
Here's a photo with my helmet just fitting under the soft top roof bar:

I had to sacrifice a bit of knee room,

It also turns out I only needed to move the seat 20mm forward and not the 30mm that CAD indicated. However I had been at this nearly 6 hours and the seat was fully bolted in so I left it as is to try out. If I find I'm struggling with knee room I'll move the seat back 10mm.
But anyway I have gone from having my head out of the car to potentially being able to have the roof fitted for trackdays.

What is next? Well I need to test these brackets out but hopefully in the next month they will be good to go. I'll have 9 sets available, should be looking at £190ish plus delivery.

To recap:
These will only fit the newer cars that are fitted with the lotus seat rails part number: A147V0029J
Fixed seat bracket to fit Lotus seats only.
Standard 5 degree tilt will gain 46mm of head room.
Max 7.5 degree tilt will gain 66mm.
90mm of fore/aft movement.
You will most likely need to move the steering wheel column up and fit a steering wheel spacer, because you cannot gain head height without sacrificing something else and in this case its leg and knee room.

I will also look at getting some better pictures next time I'm out testing.

 

Future Mods:
I really want to fit the hardtop but I cannot get in the car without seriously hurting my back hence why I have the soft top. What I really want is some easy way to remove the roof or tilt the roof to access the car easier. I have seen some really old attempts that are no longer made with the T-bar roofs. I'm not interested in designing a whole new roof although a bubble roof would be useful! I may just start out with making some quick release latches along the lines of the soft top and see how that goes.

 

[tactical lizard]

2nd update: Bit of a more general one.

I had a komotec steering wheel spacer sat in the spare room that I thought I would give a try, its about 30mm I think and ended up being around 100 quid delivered from Germany! 
Now it's supposed to be made for airbag cars but It didn't exactly fit, the car has the newer steering wheel so maybe this is why. Anyway the newer steering wheels have a tab on the rim and there is no hole for it in the spacer so I had to drill a hole into the spacer.

 Next issue was the bolts supplied were no where near long enough:

Ordered some 50mm replacement bolts and it all went together well after that.

I quite like it, The wheel rests on my wrist now instead of in my palm, the indicators are not too far away and I have gained some more wheel to leg room.
If I was to do it again I would try and source one from the UK so you don't have to pay a ridiculous amount on shipping.


Car issues:
Had a bit of a weird issue with the car not starting properly. Usually these cars start and rev up with some va va vroom but mine started to almost struggle to start and would go straight to idle. This was fixed by either disconnecting the battery or cleaning the MAF sensor. I did both at the same time so not sure which is the culprit but its now fixed and starting properly. 

 

Exhaust:
Finally after 4 months it has arrived,

A 2bular QP track system with all the trimmings.

But what's this?

Yep, that's a lotus track day exhaust too, in my frustration I have ended up with two track day exhausts 🙈. 
One needs to go, I'll be fitting the Lotus one first for a track day at the end of the month as that is already used, So I'll give that a go and depending on the results early next month one of these will be for sale.

Prices will be:
2bular: Brand new never fitted, Seems to be £2155 on the website.
Lotus: Used, £1550.

Collection from Sheffield area or I'm usually traveling for work up and down the M1 to London way.

[Inversed]

Nice updates Kev. I see you went to town with lowering seat, great job. 4.6cm is huge... but then 6.6  I'm not sure I would see over dashboard.
Harness bar probably can't be installed when seat is tilted, right?

[tactical lizard]

Hey Inversed,

From what I have heard you can't even have the standard seat fully back with the harness bar, But it should be possible to get a harness bar in, There is another 70mm of forward room available from where I have my seat at the moment, I could just go forward 20mm and a harness bar should fit.... My legs wouldn't fit though! so, no harness bar for me. I will get some photos at the end of the month with some better lighting and a better view of the seat in the car.

Being tall is a compromise with these cars. I'm 6ft 3 seem to be long torso and legs somehow, I need that full 7.5 degree tilt and the seat as close to the rear bulkhead as possible to fit in with the helmet and roof on. I will get some various sized friends to sit in the car and take some measurements and photos but I would have thought if you're around =<6ft 1 then you could just stick with the 5 degree tilt and move the seat forward to easily fit in the harness bar.   

[Inversed]

Thanks for info, I'm still waiting on car and I'm just overthinking everything, I probably won't even put harness bar in.
I'm also 6ft3 with "optimal" inseam.. we'll see how I fit when I get it. I drove once elise in my life for 15 minutes and that's all experience I had in a Lotus. I honestly don't even remember how well I fitted in it. Your rails give me some hope for a comfortable fit. 

[tactical lizard]

This past weekend I was out testing my new seat brackets along with a geo set up and a track exhaust.
 

Seat Brackets - I had installed my new fixed brackets a couple weeks back but had not been out for a drive until the weekend gone, On the drive to the track I found the seat a little close to the peddles, Using Cad I had determined to gain the extra 2.5 degrees of tilt I needed to move the seat forward 30mm, I followed this guide but from looking at the seat position there was a good 30mm of room available to the rear speaker.  In the morning I took the seat out and moved the brackets back 20mm. 20mm does not sound much but it certainly felt different in the car. 
Below are some photos showing the height difference achieved with the drivers seat.

I think the above is one of my favourite photos for showing the difference between the seats.

As I have said before you can't have everything, I have chosen to gain headroom at the sacrifice of leg room. However raising the steering column and adding a steering wheel spacer has made things acceptable.
I'm glad I went with the 7.5 degree of tilt as it has made a big difference for me, I actually feel in the car instead of on it. The rear of my helmet also sits slightly under the roll hoop instead of on it like before so I have ended up in a good position.
I do just fit in with the roof on but there is only about 10mm of headroom left so where to go from here? well I think I have gained all the room possible with the seat. I spent a bit of time trying to find a helmet with less padding on top but it appears all car helmets are the same. Perhaps I need to look at some motorbike helmets.

Anyway some photos of me inside the car, I'm 6ft 3 with 32-33inch leg.

So yes the brackets were a great success!

Geo Setup - I followed a geo set up by Ecain from pistonheads but did not have the car slammed to the floor, Initial thoughts on my first track outing "oh no what have I done?"
The car was very understeery and not confidence inspiring at all. At one point I had a 4 wheel drift in a corner and promptly called it quits for that session. Back in the pits I adjusted the tyre pressures to 2 bar front and 2.2 bar at the rear as per the set up, also learned a friend was sliding everywhere too so I must have hit some fluids on the track.
Went back out and it must of took a good 4 laps but the car suddenly changed and just started working, honestly so much better, however this happened for every session, 4 laps of rubbish before everything warmed up and started to work. I did end up really liking this set up and will keep it for the foreseeable, found cornering a lot better with the increased camber and any slides happened gradually and were easily controllable, with the stock set up, slides happened suddenly and required a change of pants after.

Track exhaust -  Fitted the used lotus track exhaust.... It had done 1800 miles and some would have you believe that the packing would have disappeared out the exhaust by now. Anyway I checked it out and the packing is still there and looks good.

Everything went smoothly until the coupler fixing the stock exhaust to the downpipe, it just would not come off, after 2 hours and with seriously low blood sugar I fetched the grinder and cut the bloody thing off, even then it was still fighting me!

Also found the car is built on a 380 cup chassis, this is probably the same for all 410's 

On track the lotus trackday exhaust is very quiet to the point a friend was asking if the car was electric so this means it works perfect and I have decided to keep it on, plus I have no desire to try changing the exhaust again!
Anyway the 2bular is for sale on the classifieds.

 

 

[Inversed]

Nice job on all three fronts! Now that you are happy with brackets, will you fit them also on passenger seat so you have matching seat heights?

Also.. damn that metallic gray, looks better with each picture you post!
 

[tactical lizard]

The driver side brackets will not fit the passenger seat. I believe the passenger seat is offset as close to the sill as possible allowing more room for the driver seat. I'm not a 100% sure but I think the handbrake and gear stick tunnel are also offset. Either way the passenger seat uses different mounting holes and you can see these other holes on the driver side if the car was going to be the other hand drive. 

I could probably design and fabricate some brackets but I don't really see that there would be a demand for them, I also have to order ten sets at a time so there is an expense issue. My driver side brackets owe me a fair amount of money so I could do with shifting the other sets first before contemplating anything else. However let me have a look next time I get the car out to see if these driver side brackets could be modified to fit, it may be simpler than I think.

Thanks I do like the colour, Its been stage 1 polished and ceramic coated so its quite reflective in some photos, does seems to get a bit of attention. What colour did you go for?
Here is some more photos for you:

[Inversed]

Interesting details on passanger seats, didn't think that was the case. I only knew they are fixed anyway.

I decided on Solid Yellow, just based on configurator looks (no black pack, gonna wrap rear transom). I was a bit rushed when I was deciding, I should've googled some colors beforehand. I would probably go for Daytona Blue if I had to pick again, it looks horrible in confgurator, but amazing on photos. I also loved Vivid Green, but it was 5k€, because it's not standard for 390. I just worry it's going to be a bit to plain, however I loved the solid color look on my GT86. I'm just overthinking it I'm sure I'll love it when I see it.
 

[tactical lizard]

I viewed a solid yellow 380 and it is indeed very yellow! it will look pretty good out on the road where you live, just be prepared for plenty of attention. Wrapping the rear will make things look a lot better, I would have thought you could get the rear wrap sticker from deroure.

5k for paint is a bit obscene, I think I was quoted 1.2k for the military but must be different from country to country. 

[Inversed]

I think prices are similar everywhere, these custom options are just bit overpriced. Metallic colors would be also around 1k here. Attention will be horrid anyways, I think it could be only Exige in a country.
Sadly you can't get sticker for rear transom as its apparently painted, you can only get paint mask.

[Ali]

Hi Kev,  Just found this forum - I'm 6ft 4 and have an Exige 410 - struggling with seat height.  I see you had some brackets made - are there any left for sale at all - I would very interested assuming they fit.

 

I also note you mentioned raising the steering wheel - I couldn't find the post - any chance you could send me the link?

 

Many thanks

Alistair

[tactical lizard]

Hey Alistair,

Yes I have a few fixed sets left. Not sure on the brackets that bolt to the existing lotus rails. But being 6'4 you'll probably need the fixed ones anyway.

I'm back home this weekend so will see what I have left and I'll PM you. 

Its quite hard to find the post but it's here: 

You will most likely need to raise the wheel when fitting the brackets. A wheel spacer may also be needed.

Just ensure that your existing seat brackets are part number A147V0029J. On this link:

https://www.bellandcolvill.co.uk/deroure?qs=1&preview=1&make=1&model=40&groupid=11937

The older cars with the older style seat brackets have different bolt positions and thus are not compatible.

Best regards

[Pilou.be]

Dear Kev,

do you still have some on stock ?

I would be interested for an Elise Final Edition.

Many thanks.