Ok next track report.
I was still running the trofeo R tires. Cant say I love them or that they suck, they need a fair bit of heat to work, and past that amount they get greasy, also very psi dependant. i guess thats what happens when you want a street legal tire that is also sort of a slick. For wets in future or warmups I will try 888s.
I made some adjustments tot he car based on how it went before. I dialed out 1 click rear rebound and put in some front rebound(1 clisk stiffer). each now being 1 click more than lotus says is an easy track setup, to me the lotus setup is at best a street setup.
With the extra rebound in the front, Lo and behold the car started to turn in beautifully, very much like an elise, but with way more grip and control from the front. Now i could start to carry speed through turns. Still the rear felt loose, almost wallaowy on really high speed corners, and when it stepped out it was snap oversteer. One click more of compression and the rear behaved, when it stepped out, it was easy to catch and the whole car became predicatble.
My imperssion though is that the while more predictable and easier to catch, the limits from the rear were now lower. Laptimes overall were way better.
I was easily able to run with a heavily modified cayman, he was runnign massive slicks hige negative camber aero, strippied and a 911 motor. Spec Miata are cones. The biggest surprise is how far and deep you can go before braking. The biggest change for me, will be a complete brain recalibration. A corner you might arrive at doing 105 in the elise, you can easily be doing 120 in this car, and you can brake later and harder.
I am still getting power on oversteer comming out of bends, for sure there are still some adjustemnts to do. But I finally got some sort of flow through the track so its commign together.
While laptimes are very driver depedant, I can see that catching a vette or cayman type car is easy with this, there were some modded Gt3s I couldnt get near, and I still think I am cornering faster int he elise(on slicks), but its getting close. There was a pro racer out in a brand new Miata cup with fresh rubber and it was so fast through the corners that clearly there is a long way for me to go.
Slicks arrive this week, which is good as the pirellies are shot. So prbably there will be a bunch of adjustments to work with on the slicks. Also the car needs more rake, ie the front lowered which will make it less rear biased and bettr on turn in still. As it is now you can feel the front getting a bit light above 140 and lotus says the front shoudl be 126 mms and mine is now 130.
As a contrast, after cleaning I ran it up the hill behind my house. With the suspension adjustments it now doses not really feel streetable, the ride is HARD, although maybe somewhat soft for the track. After that i dorve the elise, which even with track pack felt soft, it also seems to have more suspesion compliance, and on the elsie every control is balanced with the other. The exige, it feels like a weapon of war, ready to do battle, evryhting is is turned up 50% or more and focussed for a purpose.
Like any "real" race car, there are lots of adjustments one can make, and each one has an effect that alters the others. Its a matter of small adjustments one at a time noting the differences and then seeing what the next change does in relation to the others. That goes for suspension settings to tire prressures. This is one very capable and sensitive machine, yet in some ways it feels less intimidating than an elise, more tolerant of the ham fisted.
Well we'll see what happens when i can really start to fully use the motor(so far been limiting to mostly 6k) and dial in the suspension/slicks.