TOQ's Exige Orange Exige Cup 430 Final Edition

[Toqcars]

So the day has come. Simple 3 hours job turned into a 5 days nightmare... but it's drivable now 😃

Long story short:

No issues on a front end. Got the bump steer kit by eliseparts. Bump steer was actually not a huge problem for now. But I am still not used to this car fully (read: slow 😂 ), so I guess it would be a problem sooner or later. Wanted to incrase the front camber by milling the uprights. Since bump steer kit offers additional camber as well, I picked the kit. Looks like that:

 

Haven't measured it precisely yet, but you can notice the toe change when the car is loaded with an eye! When the front axle is loaded with 160 kg, toe is closed for 1° on a max setting. Went on a short drive (short due to a combination of a weather and new tyres). Car is super nervous, almost undrivable on a road on a current settings, but calms down nicely under braking. It's like day and night driving it accelerating/constant speed or during braking. Haven't expected this big difference. However, I decided that it is a bit too much for the beginning so I am putting a bit more conservative bump steer setting for now. Oh one more important thing: car is not lowered. It's running on a standard cup430 height. 

Spacer is not needed, but recommended to prevent rubbing when on full lock (since max lock is only needed when parking, no rush to get the spacer on front). 

 

Rear end: 

Those are adjustable upper rear arms by DNA Racing:

Those arms can provide some serious camber. Factory reports it can provide up to 6° of camber (so I can set an Exige for the stance car meet 😂 ). You set the approx camber on upper arm, than put the wheels on. Than set the precise camber with the lower OEM eccentric bolt). When on car, looks quite nice:

Hope that the nice powder coating survives all the beating down there 🙂

Additional camber means fitting issues. When more than approx 2° of camber, standard cup430 wheel with an OEM 3 mm spacer is hitting the helper spring. Additional spacer was needed. I have a track day next week, so I needed it immediately... so we went to the lab:

 

Measured all that was measurable, machined few spacers, made sure it was precise enough:

Outcome was that the 5 mm of additional spacer (this makes 8 mm of spacer with the OEM 3 mm one) is fine regarding the fit. But quite problematic for mounting the wheel, so 9 mm spacer is ideal for the OEM wheel without an OEM spacer (or 6mm of spacer + OEM 3mm spacer). Hope it helps someone 🙂

And wheel is up!

Bump steer will be put to some more conservative setting in the following days. Whole geometry will be set. Than some Sunday fast road trip and trackday next week. Can't wait to drive it on a track. Not sure whether I will be faster since car is totally different now. It's like getting a new car. Also not sure if the settings are ideal. Will see.

Wise man change just one thing on a car and do the testing. When happy with a setting, they move to the next thing to upgrade. Its called iterative progress or something like that? I listen to the wise guys. So I only changed bump steer setting. But than s*** happened and I changed rear upper arms, added huge amount of camber on front and rear, changed toe, added new tyres... now I can't drive fast, because I need to learn how to drive it. Exige way of thinking 😆

Edited June 23, 2022 by Toqcars

[Toqcars]

After quite a few track days and hill climbs I can confirm, that the understeer is fully gone. Sure the understeer could be initiated by maximum braking into the hard turn. Otherwise it's gone. 

 

Car was running Yokohama A052 fronts (225) and rears (295). It was very stable and predictable, no more ESP/TC shaking of the front end at the fast double S corners that was reported before. But rear tyres are struggling  to put all the torque to the track when exiting the curves. It's awful when driven in "slip angle mode". EDL (e-diff, yes, I said that) in regular race mode helps a lot. That is the main reason I prefer regular race mode over "slip angle" mode. So owners with 390/420/420, you are not missing a lot here 😉 

Car is mostly driven on counterclockwise tracks. Has some issues with an uneven tyre wear. I was not aware of it until the left tyre happened:

 

No burnouts here, just track. And this is the inner side of the rear left wheel. Right rear rubber wear is perfect:

 

How to know that this is happening? There are high frequency vibrations at the high speed (above 180 kmh / 120 mph). But it's vibrating so intense, that you can't clearly see. Even center of view is blurred. I was pretty sure that one tyre lost pressure, so I went to pits, measured pressures. All fine. Checked the tires (with the helmet on), so I only checked the outer sides, it was all good. Did few more laps and stopped the car... I guess in the last moment before the disaster. You can see that the steel wire was just being damaged.  I am driving on 4 years old Cup2 until I receive set of Nankang AR-1 that was just ordered. Otherwise Yokohama A052 was great. Especially on the front axle. Never tried Trofeo R on front, but this was way better than the Cup2. 

Maybe an idea for drivers using Cup2 and don't want to go to the increased camber settings... maybe try stickier tyre just on the front. Might help with the understeer. But be aware that front end will grip and rear will not. I am driving Yokohama A052 at front and old Cup2 at rear. It's quite good actually. And A052 will last for ages on front axle. 

For sure wheels needs to be rotated more often. LSD might help as well.

Car is still great. Still love it. Still the best car I've ever had. It works on the track. No heating issues. Was driving Evora recently. I can confirm that the front axle is way better than the Exige. It is easily noticeable, even on a road. Would love to have Evora front axle on my car. But the only way to have it is one cow heavier GT430 😂 

Few things I would like to improve in the following months/years:
- rear axle grip. So LSD. Or downforce. Or better suspension setup.
- rear brakes needs better pads (using Ferodo DS3.12 at front and OEM DS2500 at the rear) 
- improve rear dampers access. It's such a pain to setup the rear left damper. No place at all.
- explore how to mitigate the front axle diving (sometimes even rubbing) on heavy braking
- integrate Schroth 6-point harnesses
- get GRP rear lights (it's so hard to get them)
- explore whether shifting into the 5th gear could be improved

Those are just a small things. Car is great without those. But there is one big thing killing my nerves. Exige has 45 l tank. 22 l are useful. If fuel consumption is 2 l per lap, only 11 laps could be done before refilling. This is killing me. I am thinking about the eliseparts 54 l tanks with 51 l of usefull capacity. That would be fine for 25 laps... which is 250% better 😃

 

 

 

 

[fjc27]

The standard tank volume is supposed to be 48 l  for 380 models and onwards. Maybe you should plan a bigger model than the 54 l to make it worth the change

[C8RKH]

Can you not get a 60ltr for exige, same as for Elise/VX220?

I put the 60l into my VX and it just makes such a difference re road and track use.  The fuel guage doesn't know about the upgrade so it just says full for ages then starts counting down as normal.

[Toqcars]

On 18/09/2022 at 11:17, fjc27 said:

The standard tank volume is supposed to be 48 l  for 380 models and onwards. Maybe you should plan a bigger model than the 54 l to make it worth the change

Hm... could be that it's 48 l. Problem is that the OEM tank has a problem under 50% level. So it's more like 24 l vs 51 l. But I agree, 60 l is better than 54 l 😃

On 18/09/2022 at 12:40, C8RKH said:

Can you not get a 60ltr for exige, same as for Elise/VX220?

I put the 60l into my VX and it just makes such a difference re road and track use.  The fuel guage doesn't know about the upgrade so it just says full for ages then starts counting down as normal.

From what I've read on this and the other forum seems like 60 l tank is quite problematic to integrate. But 54 l should be quite simple to put in. Have you had any issues by putting it in? Until what level of gas do you use it on the track?

[C8RKH]

@Toqcarsno issues but it was a tight fit - remember thought it was my VX220 (similar but better than an Elise 😂 )

I run it down to around 6ltrs as it is internally baffled too.

[DangerousDave]

Time to get cup2R which unfortunately only last 3 day sor so on other cars but with a lightweight car like the exige maybe it will be worthwhile.

I have the drexler and have never ever lost grip in the rear at the track even with the 475 kit. Hence why i'm going turbo

 

Edited September 26, 2022 by DangerousDave

[Toqcars]

7 hours ago, DangerousDave said:

Time to get cup2R which unfortunately only last 3 day sor so on other cars but with a lightweight car like the exige maybe it will be worthwhile.

I have the drexler and have never ever lost grip in the rear at the track even with the 475 kit. Hence why i'm going turbo

 

Based on our local track records, I would say that Cup2R would last forever on front axle and same as others on rear axle. But I really doubt 3 track days are possible with the Cup2R 😂

Thinking about the "spare" wheel set with the slicks just for the track days. I least I would like to test the difference 🙂

[Rambo]

On 17/09/2022 at 18:15, Toqcars said:

Has some issues with an uneven tyre wear. I was not aware of it until the left tyre happened:

 

No burnouts here, just track. And this is the inner side of the rear left wheel. Right rear rubber wear is perfect:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bloody hell. You're very lucky you didn't have a high speed blow out 😲

@luckytobealive.com

[Toqcars]

9 hours ago, Rambo said:

Bloody hell. You're very lucky you didn't have a high speed blow out 😲

@luckytobealive.com

Confirmed, very lucky 🙂 Can also confirm, that I will be underneath the car before every session.

 

6-point harnesses were just received. Just not sure yet of this is a weekend project or a winter project.

Also 3 mm spacer for the front axle arrived. I guess spacer will not be a winter project 😂, so will know sooner or later if this fixes the rubber rubbing on bumpy surface under the heavy braking. 

Edited September 26, 2022 by Toqcars