Sot's 2020 Liquid Yellow Pearl Lotus Exige 410 In Aus.

[Sotirios]

hello all

I thought I'd start a thread about my cars journey from buying it new in 2020. I never thought to originally do a thread about the car but as ive grown to love it more and more over time, with that has come a lot of tinkering and modifying so i thought it would be good to share with Lotus community as it may help others wanting similar mods etc and the thread can induce feedback for me about things i do not know about to gain better knowledge or insight and advice. I will gradually post upgrades and some events i've done with the car

I originally ordered the car through Zagame automotive in adelaide and specced it to my liking.

In Australia, the carbon front lip Splitter was not standard on the 410 sport and was instead a cost option.I ordered the car with following options:

- Liquid yellow Pearl paint(unfortunately for me it was the most expensive colour option of them all) but I love the colour and pics never really do it justice. In person it really pops with pearlescent effect.

- Carbon front Splitter

- Carbon roof

- Carbon bucket seats

- Liquid yellow pearl interior paint pack to seat holes for harnesses, window switches, radio surround

- Yellow and white stiching to interior

- Black brake calipers

 

here are some pics when i took delivery of the car:

 

 

 

[Sotirios]

The first modification i did to the car was install the black shark fins to rear quarters for protection and for aesthetics as i think it suits the exige well. I also personally installed 3m matt black wrap on the roof to connect the carbon roof to the carbon rear hatch as i feel it flows nicer on the car and never liked the carbon/yellow separation on the roof. For me it was either a yellow roof  or carbon roof with the vinyl black wrap in between the roof and rear hatch. I ordered the Shark fins from lotus and i also personally made up some of the yellow stripes for the roof/ front access panel and front bumper inserts. If i had my time all over i never would have attempted this as it took ages to make them myself. I had to buy yellow pearl wrap, the stencils from lotus so i could trace the exact length and width of the stripes onto tracing paper, put vinyl over the trace and then carefully cut them with cutting wire to get perfect lines. Was painful and difficult but i managed to get them perfect for 3 months only, as i decided to clear PPF wrap entire car through a workshop and the stripes had to come off. I made a few sets so not a big deal to put new ones back on but when i had the car wrapped with Xpel PPF the Wingard Wrap workshop told me they had the Cup 430 stripes already on file and were able to print them on cutting machine as per lotus spec. I probably should have asked workshops in the first place before going down the route of ordering lotus stencils and making my own, but live and learn. They gave me a few sets in case mine ever got crappy as they sit ontop of the clear PPF.

 

 

Edited September 26 by Sotirios

[Sotirios]

i have a question for admin. what is file size limit for posting photos? in the caption box it says max total size is 2.47mb but when i upload a 1.4mb pic it says i have exceeded 996kb? is their a daily limit for posting pics?

[C8RKH]

That Sir, is simply stunning. I absolutely love it and the black ppf addition on the roof looks classy.

You have impeccable taste.

Personally, I'd do the calipers in LY to just add the icing on the delicious cake.

[Sotirios]

I was thinking about doing the calipers actually in the body colour...maybe next winter when hibernating again

[Bravo73]

6 hours ago, Sotirios said:

i have a question for admin. what is file size limit for posting photos? in the caption box it says max total size is 2.47mb but when i upload a 1.4mb pic it says i have exceeded 996kb? is their a daily limit for posting pics?

You have only got a ‘Basic Account’ so you are probably restricted to the size, and quantity, of images that you can post. 

If you upgrade to a ‘Full Forum Membership’, all of those restrictions will go away:

https://forums.thelotusforums.com/store/category/2-subscriptions/

[Sotirios]

Ahhh nice ill do that

[Sotirios]

Just became gold member. I dont know why i didnt notice this membership feature before. I always thought it was strange that my pic uploads must be less than 2mb lol

[Sotirios]

This was my attempt at making the stripes on my own using pearl yellow wrap and genuine lotus stencils for the pin stripes. Had i known at the time that PPF companies have manufacturer templates in their system for vehicles emblems, decals etc i wouldnt have attempted this as it was a pain. I bought genuine lotus stencils designed to put on the carbon for actual painting. I would the stencil onto tracing paper, then run the cutting tape along the lines of that traced stencil, then overlay the wrap over that cutting tape so the wrap is double the size, and then pulled on the tape to cut vinyl and be left with the original stencil. It was tedious. But they came out great. I ended up using proper machine cut PPF yellow pearl wrap from the workshop that clear PPF'd my car as they were able to source a better quality yellow pearl wrap and the machine cut was perfect whereas my home made version up close had a little bit of imperfections. 

 

When i first brought it home!

[Sotirios]

love the carbon seats. I optioned the car from factory with large parts that are unattainable in the aftermarket like carbon seats, carbon roof and front splitter. What i mean is, you can source these items in aftermarket but quality can be questionable. 

[Sotirios]

My home made attempt at the matt black vinyl wrap roof came out schmick. But again, once I had the car completely PPF'd with clear Expel wrap a few months down the track, the shop had the Cup 430 template for the black roof vinyl on hand and did it for me in satin black instead which matches up with the gloss carbon better imo. My attempt was fully winged and I gauged the length and width of the black section just by naked eye. I reckon I played around with the lining up of the cutting tape 30 times before settling. Pic below is my home made version.

[Sotirios]

My son with his yellow bat mobile!

 

[Sotirios]

Thr first set of hard part mods i did to the car were:

- eltech carbon side skirts

- eltech carbon mirror covers

- eltech carbon rear side pods

- CUP 430 Carbon side air intakes

 

[MrD]

Very nice Sotirios, love the journey - LY is such a colour isn't it? I'm a Renault Sport fanboy but this colour suits every single sports car out there.

How did you find the fitment and quality on the Eltech skirts? They are also making the non flat items (like the 430) which look good and I'm tempted with the fiberglass option as my car hasn't got any CF on it; 

https://www.eltech-italia.com/carbon-fiberglass-lotus-exige-s3-v6/

[Sotirios]

thanks MrD. Yes i have the flat version eltech skirts and to be honest they fit perfect right up against the front mud flap of exige and they are quite strong. They didnt have the non flat version when i bought mine. The flat version has a straighter profile and doesnt kink as much either in the middle which i cant say im a huge fan of. The straight flat version  seems to flow nicer. However i prefer the cup 380 rear side underskirt pods shape compared to eltech rear pods i have. At the time i bought no one was making a 380 rear pods copy and the lotus genuine part was too $$$

[Sotirios]

hello people, im about to send car in for a bit of a more slightly aggressive race geo alignment. Does anyone recall how many shims are on the front of the 410 sport that can be removed and much does the negative camber increase by per shim? reason being, mechanic wants to save labor time of removing shims, reinstating wheels etc each time they remove a shim to see increase of camber. stock camber is 0.8 so i want about 1.3 to 1.6 region if possible

[El-RGB]

If I recall correctly, there are two sizes of shim in the front hub, where the amount of shims is different on every car (and left and right side too). Each shim should give .5 degree difference, but I can't recall both metric results for both sizes. The quickiest way is that you remove the same amount and the sizes of the shim on both sides, so at least that gives you approximately the same result on both side.

Frank

[DH2]

1mm shim is approx 1/4 of a degree.

You don't need to remove a wheel to swap shims.

[Sotirios]

Thanks guys. Ill work off of that

[Sotirios]

[Sotirios]

First outing for the car was at "All British Day' at new racetrack "The Bend" in Tailem Bend, South Australia. After the Nurburg ring, I think its the second longest race track in the world. I'm yet to track/race the car here but will hopefully be doing track days late this year and in 2025