track day essentials??

[DH2]

2 hours ago, C8RKH said:

So how does it work then?

When I added new 2bular headers and a 200cel cat to my Evora I was advised to drive it gently for 500 miles to allow the ECU to relearn. I did this, and 7 years later it has never once missed a beat.

Running it at idle for 30 minutes will only allow it to do some idle learns.  For obvious reasons, this makes zero difference to the areas of the 'fuel learns' table at different load vs rpm sites.

The ECU is constantly making adjustments to the fuelling learns, which is all saved in the fuel trim table(s). That's the whole point of it, you have a certain %age fuel trim in both directions, to allow for engine individuality, and other things.  If you use up say half (in my experience, likely more) of this because it needs to trim fuel in to account for the extra air you are flowing, then you only have half left for what it is originally specified for.

Ideally, reset the ECU, clear the learns, let it idle for 10-15 mins to get an handle on that, then drive it. Start gently and build up.  It will continue to "learn" for a while - but it is always learning, its just the averaged adjustments are generally smaller over a longer period of time.

And this is only when running closed loop (using the lambda sensors for feedback).  Put your foot down, and you are open loop, so you are using the fuel and ignition mapping that Lotus baked in to the ECU.  You "get away with it" because the cars are mapped rich anyway.

I've seen standard cars with ANOther intake kit fitted running around using up 80% of the long term fuel trim, usually at motorway cruise speed (the 25-35% load band seems to be the culprit most of the time).  Take that to play on track, or in the mountains in Europe and you've got no trim left in closed loop, and open loop is down to luck anyway.  But it makes a nice noise, and a claimed uplift in power... but it will because it is effectively running lean(er than originally intended).

But, as you said, I'll happy take the parts and labour job to replace the short engine when the piston cries enough and makes a bid for freedom

Dave

 

[DH2]

19 hours ago, Tex said:

Just a full 2bular system and KT Airbox and an ECU tune

Custom tune of OE ECU?

[C8RKH]

Thanks for the explanation @DH2, I was really interested as I know little of these things and it's always good to learn more.

From what I have seen, a headers and sportcat change seems to be coped with. An air filter/cai such as the Komotec and others seems to be coped with. But if you do all three, you usually get MILs and issues, WITHOUT, also adding the ECU tune.

It feels as though all three is just too many changed variables for the ECU to handle, probably explained by your explanation.

[Tex]

4 hours ago, DH2 said:

Custom tune of OE ECU?

I think you probably did it ?

[Sotirios]

thanks for all the advice guys. i will go down the route of an ecu tune to get this 500-510 HP pack from SSC with 530nm torque, they do a fair amount of work with the ecu and it gets a custom dyno tune which will give me a readout of what my car actually pulls but they say from all cars done with this pack its between 500-515 car dependant. They tell me to stick with the standard geometry as lotus engineers have put a lot of R&D into handling and messing with it can produce negative results. they also say to stick with the ferodo 2500 pads and maybe upgrade to the ferodo 3000 but they advise against it as the extra bite and stopping power on the Adelaide Grand Prix circuit with a ferodo 3000 can have an effect whereby hard braking, can make the front end dive plane and cause rear wheels momentarily lift so the back end is left wailing in brake zone relying on 2 skinny front tires to grip. It kind of makes sense as adelaide circuit has 2 or 3 hairpins and lots of 90 degree corners so many hard brake zones. They suggest upgrading brake fluid for added performance but to stay with the stock gearbox fluid. They advised against adding front camber also as if im used to the car with stock handling, extra camber may throw me off and all the electronic gizmos the lotus produces can be affected negatively for me. Ill stick to what they say and just do the power upgrade and use my advan AO50 semi slicks at 24psi cold to get best performance out of the lotus. In totally stock form as far as horsepower goes for my car, the bunch of 30 or so guys i do hill climbs, adelaide rallys, adelaide 500 circuit events with, the car has always been top 6 out of the 30 cars which include maybe 1 other cup 430 lotus and the rest are all Mclaren 720s, 765s, 675s, porsche gt3's, ferrari 488s and pistas, some gallardos and huracans, audi r8, and other odd super cars so the lotus is fairly competitive in twisty tracks and rallys. This extra 100 horsepower should see me not lose out on the straights against the mclarens and gt3s. 

[Sotirios]

This is what the stock 410 is capable of on a 1min 40sec constant hillclimb sprint. My time was nearly the same for all 7 runs. the lotus who finished after me in 7th was a Cup 430 FE.

 

 

Edited August 18 by Sotirios

[Paul_D]

8 hours ago, Sotirios said:

thanks for all the advice guys. i will go down the route of an ecu tune to get this 500-510 HP pack from SSC with 530nm torque, they do a fair amount of work with the ecu and it gets a custom dyno tune which will give me a readout of what my car actually pulls but they say from all cars done with this pack its between 500-515 car dependant. They tell me to stick with the standard geometry as lotus engineers have put a lot of R&D into handling and messing with it can produce negative results. they also say to stick with the ferodo 2500 pads and maybe upgrade to the ferodo 3000 but they advise against it as the extra bite and stopping power on the Adelaide Grand Prix circuit with a ferodo 3000 can have an effect whereby hard braking, can make the front end dive plane and cause rear wheels momentarily lift so the back end is left wailing in brake zone relying on 2 skinny front tires to grip. It kind of makes sense as adelaide circuit has 2 or 3 hairpins and lots of 90 degree corners so many hard brake zones. They suggest upgrading brake fluid for added performance but to stay with the stock gearbox fluid. They advised against adding front camber also as if im used to the car with stock handling, extra camber may throw me off and all the electronic gizmos the lotus produces can be affected negatively for me. Ill stick to what they say and just do the power upgrade and use my advan AO50 semi slicks at 24psi cold to get best performance out of the lotus. In totally stock form as far as horsepower goes for my car, the bunch of 30 or so guys i do hill climbs, adelaide rallys, adelaide 500 circuit events with, the car has always been top 6 out of the 30 cars which include maybe 1 other cup 430 lotus and the rest are all Mclaren 720s, 765s, 675s, porsche gt3's, ferrari 488s and pistas, some gallardos and huracans, audi r8, and other odd super cars so the lotus is fairly competitive in twisty tracks and rallys. This extra 100 horsepower should see me not lose out on the straights against the mclarens and gt3s. 

I'll be diplomatic and simply say that I find their thoughts 'surprising'.

What exactly is involved in their 500+Bhp package? Does it involve a new supercharger? (as that's what their packages seem to be based on)

[Sotirios]

Its an aftermarket highflow air filter, stainless headers, stainless y-pipe, 200 cel cat, you can keep original back box or use theirs, and a custom dyno tune

[DH2]

21 hours ago, Paul_D said:

I'll be diplomatic and simply say that I find their thoughts 'surprising'.

I would agree.  Lotus sell a road-biased car that anyone can get in and drive.  If they sold you a track-biased car, I guarantee you'd be seeing most of the things that the aftermarket are doing.

[Sotirios]

your right, but i think they are trying to give a fair compromise to a car that i have which isnt just 100% track use. They've probably done other cars with mods and realised many owners go back wanting it stock for handling on the road with alignment etc and have experience to know that i can enjoy the car on odd track day and still enjoy on road with factory handling settings. 3000 pads do require heat to work so on cold days on road may be not nice to use and noisy. A change in geometry with big camber can make a for a tramlining car with bad tyre wear etc. so i think they are trying to make the car have a multipurpose setup which is fair enough

[DH2]

Understood.  In that case, this thread is pointless, and just make sure the car is as Lotus spec

Everything is somewhere on the compromise scale, it just depends where you want to be on that scale.

The Cup does have a bit more standard geo than non-Cup.  Still worth getting the ride height and geo checked, even if you stick to standard.

I wouldn't be adding a load more power until you've used up all that you already have - go and do a season of track days first, and see where you think it lacking.

[Paul_D]

3 hours ago, Sotirios said:

your right, but i think they are trying to give a fair compromise to a car that i have which isnt just 100% track use. They've probably done other cars with mods and realised many owners go back wanting it stock for handling on the road with alignment etc and have experience to know that i can enjoy the car on odd track day and still enjoy on road with factory handling settings. 3000 pads do require heat to work so on cold days on road may be not nice to use and noisy. A change in geometry with big camber can make a for a tramlining car with bad tyre wear etc. so i think they are trying to make the car have a multipurpose setup which is fair enough

As I've got a bit more time to reply now..... wasn't the whole point of this thread to get the real experiences of people who have actually made changes and KNOW the effects?

Also, you've already changed your tyres to effectively Motorsport Spec AO50's and increased the front size to 225 haven't you? This will probably be as big a change as anything else being talked about. 

Going back to specific points - Alignment - Putting a bit more camber on the front does not ruin the road handling. In fact, my car felt better driving home after it's first 'track' alignment at Hangar111 than it did on the journey there because it was already out of spec from the factory. We're not talking racecar spec alignments with 3.5 degrees of camber or anything here. Even if I stopped doing track days tomorrow I wouldn't bother getting my alignment set back to standard. Yes, Lotus DO know what they're doing, and what they did was provide a very safe understeer biased set-up for the general public who won't go anywhere near a track.

Increased tyre wear? I threw my last set of front tyres away with plenty of tread left on them as they'd simply got too old and had lost grip. They were still the original factory tyres after around 5 years total road use and 15 track days. 

Ferodo 3000 pads may well require heat to work and make noise, I don't know. I've never heard good things about them as a combined road/track pad so I've never entertained the idea of using them. That's why I recommended Pagid RS29 pads which work well from cold and haven't made so much a squeak. 

As for the SCC saying that the rear will 'lift' during heavy braking - not in my experience. You've increased the rear bite/performance by the same amount, bearing in mind the rear brakes are effectively the same as the front. There's also a LOT of weight over the rear to start with, and you're pretty grip limited at the front due to the narrow tyres. In reality, you'll just kick in the ABS on the front wheels if anything. The back end normally feels completely planted under heavy braking. The damper Rebound and Low Speed Compression settings can obviously have some bearing on this.

If you watch this video of mine you'll see a couple of heavy braking zones (2nd and 4th corners) and you can probably even see from the video how stable the car is. 

 

What was their argument for not changing the gearbox oil? Don't get me wrong, lot's of people don't bother. But it WILL improve hot performance on track. And that's BEFORE you add a load more power and torque to the engine....

 

[Sotirios]

2 hours ago, DH2 said:

Understood.  In that case, this thread is pointless, and just make sure the car is as Lotus spec

Everything is somewhere on the compromise scale, it just depends where you want to be on that scale.

The Cup does have a bit more standard geo than non-Cup.  Still worth getting the ride height and geo checked, even if you stick to standard.

I wouldn't be adding a load more power until you've used up all that you already have - go and do a season of track days first, and see where you think it lacking.

I wouldnt say its pointless. Always good to get peoples opinions and knowledge sharing. Even though they are giving me the power upgrade and keeping mostly everything else stock i think theyre pushing me in direction of trying to get best out of the car whilst keeping it streetable and then waiting to see where i may benefit from suspension/braking/handling upgrades. 

 

I think at the moment i am lacking most in power department. I was keeping up on a track day with many fast exotics but losing out on the 2 main straights and then catching again on corners. And this was with 100% stock 410. Ill do power upgrade and go from there

[Sotirios]

34 minutes ago, Paul_D said:

As I've got a bit more time to reply now..... wasn't the whole point of this thread to get the real experiences of people who have actually made changes and KNOW the effects?

Also, you've already changed your tyres to effectively Motorsport Spec AO50's and increased the front size to 225 haven't you? This will probably be as big a change as anything else being talked about. 

Going back to specific points - Alignment - Putting a bit more camber on the front does not ruin the road handling. In fact, my car felt better driving home after it's first 'track' alignment at Hangar111 than it did on the journey there because it was already out of spec from the factory. We're not talking racecar spec alignments with 3.5 degrees of camber or anything here. Even if I stopped doing track days tomorrow I wouldn't bother getting my alignment set back to standard. Yes, Lotus DO know what they're doing, and what they did was provide a very safe understeer biased set-up for the general public who won't go anywhere near a track.

Increased tyre wear? I threw my last set of front tyres away with plenty of tread left on them as they'd simply got too old and had lost grip. They were still the original factory tyres after around 5 years total road use and 15 track days. 

Ferodo 3000 pads may well require heat to work and make noise, I don't know. I've never heard good things about them as a combined road/track pad so I've never entertained the idea of using them. That's why I recommended Pagid RS29 pads which work well from cold and haven't made so much a squeak. 

As for the SCC saying that the rear will 'lift' during heavy braking - not in my experience. You've increased the rear bite/performance by the same amount, bearing in mind the rear brakes are effectively the same as the front. There's also a LOT of weight over the rear to start with, and you're pretty grip limited at the front due to the narrow tyres. In reality, you'll just kick in the ABS on the front wheels if anything. The back end normally feels completely planted under heavy braking. The damper Rebound and Low Speed Compression settings can obviously have some bearing on this.

If you watch this video of mine you'll see a couple of heavy braking zones (2nd and 4th corners) and you can probably even see from the video how stable the car is. 

 

What was their argument for not changing the gearbox oil? Don't get me wrong, lot's of people don't bother. But it WILL improve hot performance on track. And that's BEFORE you add a load more power and torque to the engine....

 

They said to keep stock gearbox oil because if i went to a redline type oil, its hard to ever swap back as you need to do full reflush to get factory spec back in. In their experience they feel the stock oil does a good enough and only upgrade when ppl get into long session track races etc.  They are going to check if my gearbox oil cooler is working properly as theyve found some cars in past where this part fails and the owners complain of hot whiny gearboxes after a session.

 

They said the extra bite from an upgraded pad may be a hinderence to me on the adelaide circuit as im not used to them and if i get into habit of being a late braker into hairpin corners, could get myself into trouble with hard heavy braking making rear end get slightly elevated(not in the air) and losing grip relying on fronts momentarily.

 

The camber u speak about is something i still wanna try straight up even though theyve said to stay stock for now.....only because i feel the car understeers when im pushing it on track and its a bit annoying

 

Ill post a vid of a track day i did on the adelaide grand prix circuit this year but this was 1/3 of the original track and shortened into a sprint track with 54sec ish lap times. 

Edited August 19 by Sotirios

[Sotirios]

Oh, the one thing i definately want to add to car is an OBD scanner so it can sync up with lap timer apps which i use like 'racechrono pro' so i can overlay, RPM, throttle and brake inputs etc because at the moment i only get speed via GPS from phone when app is in use.

 

Whats a good brand of OBD scanner thingamajig that is reliable i can use?

[Sotirios]

This is me at an event at the Adelaide grand prix circuit(1/3 of the track). The famous senna chicane is turn 2 and 3.

 

Any tips on my driving style or habit id appreciate very much. Am i downgearing too early relying on engine braking too much? U can see the car is understeering wide a bit delaying me getting on throttle earlier. I kept up with the 991 GT3 RS for 10 or so laps but he pulled on me every lap on the straights by a little each time which is why i need more straight line horsepower!

 

Lotus Eletre was the pace car which was pretty cool.

Fast forward to 9min mark. I didnt trim video enough.

 

The first 2 laps i wasnt pushing it as i was worried i had a loose wheel. I leant afterwards that during the warm up lap i went off race line and picked up all the rubber marbles from other race groups tyre on track and i had severe vibration through steering wheel until it went away by lap 3. 

 

Edited August 19 by Sotirios

[Sotirios]

 

[Bibs]

If I had anything to offer, coming up to the first left then right, you're on a trailing throttle for a distance. I'd keep on the throttle and brake closer to the corner. There's not a time on a straight that you should be either on the throttle or the brakes, engine braking isn't the quickest way of slowing down. Being a Lotus you can brake a little later than most and turn in while still on the brakes a bit for trail braking, keeping the weight on the front of the car for a better turn in and no understeer. 

[Bravo73]

Is it too late to offer the advice that often the most cost effective way to increase your lap times is to pay for driver tuition?

It doesn't always feel as satisfying as buying new (expensive) bits for your car but it will normally pay dividends in the long run.

[Sotirios]

Thats true. However i cant say no to 100 extra horsepower

Edited August 20 by Sotirios

[Paul_D]

@Sotirios

Will you be doing track days at a few different circuits? 

I have to say I’m not sure you’d notice much difference in handling on that one. It basically looks like a short drag race between a few very slow corners. 

[Tex]

As already alluded to here, having track tuition is invaluable.

It’s not just about driving and learning yourself but also allowing the Pro driver to drive your car and show you what it’s really capable of. 

I learnt as much from sitting as a passenger for 5 laps of Silverstone as I did from tuition all morning.

When you see what your car can do at the limit and still be safe, it gives you more confidence to extract a bit more out of yourself. 
 

[Sotirios]

16 hours ago, Bibs said:

If I had anything to offer, coming up to the first left then right, you're on a trailing throttle for a distance. I'd keep on the throttle and brake closer to the corner. There's not a time on a straight that you should be either on the throttle or the brakes, engine braking isn't the quickest way of slowing down. Being a Lotus you can brake a little later than most and turn in while still on the brakes a bit for trail braking, keeping the weight on the front of the car for a better turn in and no understeer. 

Your right i was braking early at end of that straight and could uave gone another 15meters or so flat stick before braking. Ill know that for the next upcoming track day there. I was braking early into that hairpin with black tyre wall on back straight too.

[Sotirios]

7 hours ago, Paul_D said:

@Sotirios

Will you be doing track days at a few different circuits? 

I have to say I’m not sure you’d notice much difference in handling on that one. It basically looks like a short drag race between a few very slow corners. 

Yes i will be doing track days in future at big circuits like "the bend" in adelaide which has the second longest circuit in the world im pretty sure after nurburg ring. They break that track up into 4 different configurations with distance.

 

Paul, Are you alluding to the fact that the extra horesepower may not be useful or another mod?, bit confused?

In my video above you can see the corners i make up ground against the red GT3 RS but i lose him on the 2 straights. Im thinking an extra horsepower will keep me up there.

 

That video i posted ABOVE OF adelaide GRAND PRIX circuit i will be doing again this year, BUT this time they are making available the full track. The video above of my car is about 40% of the track distance. Below is a video of a porsche doing the FULL track last year. You can see the extra corners and the even longer back straight. You will recognise the track if u watched F1 in 80s and 90s

 

 

Edited August 20 by Sotirios

[Bravo73]

On 20/08/2024 at 16:27, Sotirios said:

Thats true. However i cant say no to 100 extra horsepower

An extra 100bhp is going to cost you £5000 - £10000 (or AUS$10000 - $20000). At least.

That could buy you an awful lot of high quality tuition. And your lap times would probably be just as quick (if not quicker) as the higher hp cars.