GFWilliams Purple, Slightly Modified, Exige V6

[C8RKH]

Nothing wrong with biscuit or tan in the right coloured car - just not a pink one lol...

[JCERB]

8 hours ago, GFWilliams said:

Liquid Yellow is a 3 stage pearl paint, so it has a coat of yellow paint, then over it goes about 2 or 3 stages of pearl. The problem being that that pearl stage varies depending on paint manufacturer, how thick each coat is, even the angle of the spray gun.  So if you ever get even a small scratch, or stone chips, etc, you can't blow in a section, you have to respray the whole car to get a good finish. I want to respray the car to make my car perfect again, but don't want to have LY again when it would just mean I'm in this situation again if anything happens.

I get you here George, that is why I'm so paranoid about mine! It can take the fun out of it a bit. My hat goes off to you using yours properly though

[Martrack]

While in the colours, are the other Lotus colours such multi-stages paints as the Liquid Yellow ?
I'm thinking about metallic colours and premium colours, such as the burnt orange, which looks pretty special.
I think solid colours are rather "simple".

[GFWilliams]

2 hours ago, JCERB said:

I get you here George, that is why I'm so paranoid about mine! It can take the fun out of it a bit. My hat goes off to you using yours properly though

I’ve always been of the opinion that it’s pointless paying to not use a car. It’s a car... 

2 hours ago, Martrack said:

While in the colours, are the other Lotus colours such multi-stages paints as the Liquid Yellow ?
I'm thinking about metallic colours and premium colours, such as the burnt orange, which looks pretty special.
I think solid colours are rather "simple".

I can’t talk for other colours too much as I’m no paint expert, but I think the other colours available are just metallic, which is in the colour stage, not a pearl in the clear coat like liquid yellow. I’ve learnt about liquid yellow from my experience of it, I can get away with white pearl in the colour stage as the pearl and metallic sits on the top of that clear coat when you spray it. 

[NW76]

Its as bad as my matte black then ... forget to repaint one area - if you want a proper match you most likely have to repaint the whole car.

@GFWilliams how large of a bill are you looking at for a full repaint of the whole car?

[GFWilliams]

I prefer not to talk about costs as the rates I get are often different to retail prices

I wouldn’t be doing it if the figure was too much, let’s just say, full strip and Respray is the same as the quote I had from a good company to just do PPF...

[geartox]

A donut king pink Exige, with black parts, exists and it's quite nice. 

Georges has proved that he built things with good harmony and design 👌

One of the most iconic car of the Lotus Exige community will have a new dress... 2020 a "grand cru" ? We wiil see 😀 

[GFWilliams]

Had a flat tyre yesterday in my Exige on the rear left Cup 2, I already had a set of tyres ready to go on, but instead of paying for fitting, I thought it would be a good time to also do a wheel refurb and choose a new colour, so the wheels will be redone in gloss anthracite.

Hopefully I can pick them up either on Friday or Monday. I'll lower my suspension back down when I change the wheels over I think, then when the car is resprayed I'll get Back on Track to do a proper geo and corner weight.

[GFWilliams]

Oooooo

[cweeden]

Where did you get the wheels done? They've done a lovely job. 

[GFWilliams]

Took this Evora Sport 410 for a quick test drive today thanks to Bell and Colvill, it was very interesting to compare to my Exige... Chassis of the Evora is clearly superior, as is the damping quality, it absorbs bumps in a way an Exige could only dream of, which means you can drive down a bumpy road at might higher speeds without getting thrown around at all which means you can press on easier. The downside of this is it doesn't have that race car kind of feel where you feel like you could die on any corner like you do with an Exige... 

The noise of the Evora 410 is just nuts, very addictive in fact, although it didn't have much of a shove in the back compared to the Exige. Feels comparable to about 350hp in an Exige I think? 460hp in my Exige on the way home felt a lot lot quicker.

Interior was really good, nice to be easy to get in and out of and things were well finished. I understand why they added arm rests to the new version of this, it's bloody annoying without them, also you sit way too high with these Sparco seats which is a shame, the original Recaro seats were much better IMO. Storage behind the seats is awesome, would make the car much easier to use day to day.

Overall, the Evora would actually suit me a lot better in many ways as it's more usable and I do lots of miles, but I think the Exige looks nicer (the front more so, the rear of the Evora looks awesome now) and I like that the Exige is more stupid and more of an experience. I highly recommend it though overall, worth a test drive, got me thinking a bit...

 

[GFWilliams]

Also, fitted the Anthracite wheels and 225 front tyres today. Love the look of the Anthracite wheels, the finish is very good (from wheelworksuk in Gatwick).   The car drives really well on the 225 tyres, better than the 215s, but I don't like the difference in profile being so large compared to the 285/30 tyres on the rear. It's purely looks, but I think I might go back to 215 on the front. If anyone wants to buy the 225 Cup 2 from me, let me know, happy to do a deal and they're brand new.

[RedViper]

Nice comparison. My mate has an Evora 400 that I’ve driven and compared  with my exige S I could pretty much copy and paste what you said. 
 

I think an evora will be my next car after 2.5 years in an S2 and nearly 6 in my S3. 
 

different proposition to the exige, but still typically lotus and still rarer than most other exotica a 2,3,4 times the price. 

exhaust note is great but too loud. Actually pretty stupid of lotus making it that loud considering how many of their cars see track use. My mate got black flagged at donny last year
 

[Martrack]

33 minutes ago, GFWilliams said:

Took this Evora Sport 410 for a quick test drive today thanks to Bell and Colvill, it was very interesting to compare to my Exige... Chassis of the Evora is clearly superior, as is the damping quality, it absorbs bumps in a way an Exige could only dream of, which means you can drive down a bumpy road at might higher speeds without getting thrown around at all which means you can press on easier.

Certainly due to the dampers used compared to the ones you have on your Exige ?
Perhaps you would have had the same sort of comment testing a Sport 410 / Cup 430 (fitted with 3 ways Nitron) ?

This is more or less what those testing 3 ways Nitron tend to say.

[GFWilliams]

I have 3 way Nitrons on my Exige

[Woots]

Wheels look good bro

[Martrack]

32 minutes ago, Martrack said:

Certainly due to the dampers used compared to the ones you have on your Exige ?
Perhaps you would have had the same sort of comment testing a Sport 410 / Cup 430 (fitted with 3 ways Nitron) ?

This is more or less what those testing 3 ways Nitron tend to say.

 

24 minutes ago, GFWilliams said:

I have 3 way Nitrons on my Exige

That said, this chassis comparison is also rather interesting to look at :

I wouldn't have expected this sort of result, would have though the Exige to be as quick / quicker than Evora in fast corners (especially thinking about downforce numbers the Exige Cup 430 argues).

[Mark030358]

I drove a 410 and thought it felt like a barge in comparison to the Exige....JMHO

[DJW]

Re Evora an ideal garage would be to have both   BTW that’s a GT Sport 410, as Sport 410 was previous model defaulting to Exige bucket seats which I personally found too small for Evora. The buckets in Alpine I had would have been more suitable. 

Agree fully that no arm rest is pain in arse and sparco’s too high.  I altered mine in 400 to remove spacer at rear of runners to tilt seat back.

In terms of sound, the Exige Sport 380 upwards sounds identical.

Re damping ask to have a go with the 430 with Ohlins. Takes it to another level. 

Do miss my Evora 400 

 

 

[Lxsx]

On 29/06/2018 at 05:20, alias23 said:

I thought your car was now pink? 🤣

you saw this one coming, didn't you?🤣

[GFWilliams]

Okay, bit of an update and some decisions to be made (hopefully) soon on my car.

I still want to do the respray when I can, this will depend on how long the world implodes for etc though.  I need the louvres, then want to send them away to be done in carbon fibre before the respray is done, so my timeframe will be slightly dictated by that.

When the respray is done, I want to do some other small changes to the bodywork:
 - Flatten out where the front Lotus badge is and get the painter to do the new Lotus logo with some small changes in black, in paint, under the lacquer.
 - Potentially change rear access panel to gloss black as this would mean it can all be under the same lacquer and offer a better finish.  Any thoughts on what will look better, Satin or Gloss?
 - 460 logo above the side indicator - not sure on this one, potentially a bit too much?
 - Brake callipers in pink - is it possible to flatten off the Lotus embossed logo?  I much prefer the AP Racing callipers on the newer cars, would be nice to have my own logo maybe?
 - For the rear engine lid, I'm tempted to get it skinned in pink to match the body. Need to find out if the finish can be made to match though.

Next thing to consider is my gearbox, unfortunately the Quaiffe LSD isn't working anymore and it's popping out of 3rd gear which implies synchros have gone potentially.   Man maths says it would be "sensible" to take the gearbox out when I respray the car and rebuild it and put a new LSD in.  Costs on this are obviously quite high, in the region of £3k I'd guess?  Depends on the state of the gearbox when it gets opened though, the gears are quite expensive, so if they're worn it can start to add up quickly!

I still want to make my own big wing, I've got everything designed in CAD now, but costs are too high to justify this year with so many unknowns.  I'd also like side skirts, front splitter and side scoops in carbon, but I'm in no rush to do them.

[RoflOnMyWaffle]

Excited to see this progress.

I personally would keep the carbon rear but everything else I'd do.

Calipers I'm 90% sure can be sanded down - but I'm no pro!

[Seriouslylotus]

26 minutes ago, GFWilliams said:

Okay, bit of an update and some decisions to be made (hopefully) soon on my car.

I still want to do the respray when I can, this will depend on how long the world implodes for etc though.  I need the louvres, then want to send them away to be done in carbon fibre before the respray is done, so my timeframe will be slightly dictated by that.

When the respray is done, I want to do some other small changes to the bodywork:
 - Flatten out where the front Lotus badge is and get the painter to do the new Lotus logo with some small changes in black, in paint, under the lacquer.
 - Potentially change rear access panel to gloss black as this would mean it can all be under the same lacquer and offer a better finish.  Any thoughts on what will look better, Satin or Gloss?
 - 460 logo above the side indicator - not sure on this one, potentially a bit too much?
 - Brake callipers in pink - is it possible to flatten off the Lotus embossed logo?  I much prefer the AP Racing callipers on the newer cars, would be nice to have my own logo maybe?
 - For the rear engine lid, I'm tempted to get it skinned in pink to match the body. Need to find out if the finish can be made to match though.

Next thing to consider is my gearbox, unfortunately the Quaiffe LSD isn't working anymore and it's popping out of 3rd gear which implies synchros have gone potentially.   Man maths says it would be "sensible" to take the gearbox out when I respray the car and rebuild it and put a new LSD in.  Costs on this are obviously quite high, in the region of £3k I'd guess?  Depends on the state of the gearbox when it gets opened though, the gears are quite expensive, so if they're worn it can start to add up quickly!

I still want to make my own big wing, I've got everything designed in CAD now, but costs are too high to justify this year with so many unknowns.  I'd also like side skirts, front splitter and side scoops in carbon, but I'm in no rush to do them.

Carbon front splitter you say😉

[GFWilliams]

This arrived yesterday thanks to @Seriouslylotus

[Wilbert Camshaft]

On 29/03/2020 at 15:51, GFWilliams said:

Next thing to consider is my gearbox, unfortunately the Quaiffe LSD isn't working anymore and it's popping out of 3rd gear which implies synchros have gone potentially.   Man maths says it would be "sensible" to take the gearbox out when I respray the car and rebuild it and put a new LSD in.  Costs on this are obviously quite high, in the region of £3k I'd guess?  Depends on the state of the gearbox when it gets opened though, the gears are quite expensive, so if they're worn it can start to add up quickly!

 

To my knowledge Quaife ATB differentials come with a lifetime warranty whereat track use is explicitly not exluded - so if it's a Quaife differential (i thought you had a Drexler plate type fitted) I would contact them