And Then, The Brits

Some of the more interesting cars from across the pond

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320whp and Counting

Vision Functions Lotus undergoing E85 tuning. Where will it end up power wise?

Trial Sports Exige

Love what they have done with the car. The paint/graphics scheme is hardcore, retro and modern at the same time – love it!

Stormtroopers Attack!

This is some funny ish. Props to Cheston for posting this pic up on my350z, i just wish it were bigger.

Running with the Big Boys

Got a message from a customer of ours down in North Carolina today telling me what an awesome experience he had at a track day this past weekend at V.I.R. .  Beau was in need of some inexpensive shocks since his were toast, and I sent him the old ones from my Z, since they were just sitting here collecting dust anyway.  Not only did he have an awesome time, he did incredibly well, considering his car is nearly stock!  Check it out:

“Thanks for the shocks!

Cliffs Notes: My fastest lap time was a 2:27!!!! Full factory suspension, only power mod is a catback exhaust for a whopping 2-5hp or so. Factory NON BREMBO BRAKES!!!! I used Hawk HP+ pads. And my 275/35/18 Kumho Ecsta XS tires. Absolutely nothing else modified on the car. See below for the average track times.

http://www.trackpedia.com/wiki/index…al_Lap_T imes

I was faster than every Lotus in my run group (the only two were in my run group, 1 was an Exige S and the other was a last generation Exige something or other), most Corvettes, most Porsche’s, every WRX/STi/Evo, every FWD car, all but 1 Mustang (on slicks with a big brake kit).

Cars that were faster than me: Z06, Corvette, Turbo Toyota Corolla AE86, heavily modified 12:1 compression 80’s(I think) Celica, my friends Mustang with slicks and race pads on 13 inch brakes, modified (huge turbo) Porsche 944. I think that’s it.

The bad: I wore out my rear brake pads down to the backing plate. I didn’t realize my increased pace would wear out my pads faster than ever! So I didn’t check. I’m hearing a popping noise from the front occassionally so I think a ball joint may be on it’s last legs. I overheated my front pads once. That is WAY better than after every 4-5 laps like before. So my brand new rotors are either disipating heat better or I’m easier on my brakes by braking later than I used to.

The good: 2:27 baby!!!! I’m braking later than ever, trail braking more, my heal/toe is excellent now, and I’m only 10-15 seconds off of race car pace with a near factory 350Z!!!! Even though some of the cars were faster than me I DID catch up to many of them in the corners! But, they pulled away on the straights.

I’m pretty sure I’m nearly to the point that I need suspension upgrades to go faster. Absolutely need brake upgrades. More power would be nice, but my biggest gains will probably be in brakes and suspension.”

Beau was good enough to take some pics from the event!

And since I’m on a Lotus kick lately, the silver Exige really caught my eye – looks very heavily modded, with a K series swap (ps, Beau was still faster!).  Very, very cool looking car!

Exiged!

Ok, so it’s only in a video game, but here are the photos of the Exige we built in Forza2…

After a couple hours of playing with the suspension and gear ratios, this thing pulls and handles like a LeMans car. Now to bash on the online racers of the Forza community 🙂 Lotus has long been known for making the most of a powertrain with lightweight platforms.

The Exige also inspired this K20A powered, turbocharged CRX. K-swaps are hugely popular for older Honda’s as companies like Hasport make the job a breeze with their motor mounts/adapters. The K-series motors themselves (namely from the RSX-S) are plentiful, have unlimited aftermarket support and boast impressive stock power and a stout block. Plus, they aren’t very expensive!

Right now, this 600hp CRX pulls VERY hard in all 5 forward gears all the way to 180mph but I’m having some trouble finding the right settings for suspension/LSD. All in good time… Some may think it’s a bit lame, but I think tinkering with this stuff in Forza2 is a BLAST!

Exige Me?

Yesterday Shaun and I were bs’ing online, as we usually do on Saturday afternoons, and the talk turns to Lotus.  Admittedly, I don’t know much about them, except that they have always captured my imagination by being a performance oriented car, that is both attainable, and rare – two things I can always appreciate in a performance platform.  One car in particular caught my eye on ebay – the color scheme just spoke to me!

 

So, I had the Exige bug going, and last night before eating some mediocre sushi with Jonathan, he built an badass version on Forza – down to the stripes.  I’m not a huge video game person, but this thing was a blast….570 hp, around 2000 lbs.  I might be east coast, but I know how to say yee-haw! 

After watching Vettel win at Monza today (amazing BTW!) I started googling all things Exige, and found some cool stuff I figured I’d share.

Lotus has done a ton of development work on the car since it’s introduction.  One neat version was the 270E  was shown at Geneva this year and runs on your choice of three fuels – gasoline, alcohol, or methanol! (white car with green stripes in the gallery below)

And of course the grand daddy of ’em all – the car every Exige wants to grow up to be: Lotus’s own Sport Exige 05.  This was developed in conjunction with RTN (of Bentley LeMans winning fame), and is a V6 NA monster – 400 hp + 1974 lbs = hold the hell on.