[invictusmaneo]

I have gotten lots of questions and over the last few months promised a build thread, but various hiccups (reworking tune, being hit, awaiting parts, clutch going out, etc) have caused a hold up. So in the meantime I am going to start the build thread and progress through what I can for now, namely the stereo/interior install, and the aero/carbon bits. The power/engine part will come last as I finish that up over the next few weeks by getting my car back and refining the tune.

I have done a few other “build” type posts throughout here, so this will also serve as a repository linking to those threads from here.
So this all started when I bought the car..I told myself I wa
sn’t going to do much to the car as I loved it as is. I knew up front I would tint, eventually do a stereo and an exhaust..that was about it. Just some superficial things. That didn’t last long. I love to tinker and do things myself, and I love my things to be unique, so I went bout much of this the hard way. There are still a few more small things to come, but not much else.

Here is an overview of the finished product

So first up stereo install. I will try to keep this short and sweet. Backstory
I bought the car from Newport European and unfortunately (Despite my awesome sales experience!) they had a company Reus Audio install a “””high end””” stereo. Reus is all over cars and coffee in Irvine always bragging about their high dollar high quality stereo. It was utter ****. Terrible. Install quality and products used were awful and the price that was being charged was absurd, so I told them to pull it as I wasn’t paying for it. As usual the sales staff was awesome, pulled it and I didn’t have to pay for it. Reus left some door speakers in (6.5” coaxials) because they didn’t want to spend the time to pull the door panels. I lived with just that (non-tech pack car) for 8 months before I got tired of it. The sound was mediocre, the HU offered no features and I wanted to upgrade.

My goals
Nice, clear high fidelity audio with the windows down at highway speeds. This meant volume and fidelity, but not tons of bass or anything like this. I knew with the car in general I wanted to lose some weight so I also didn’t want this system to be terribly heavy. Having a reasonable background in car audio and many other installs and builds under my belt, I attacked it myself.

First up was a headunit swap. I won’t bore you with my reasons for going with what I did as there are plenty of threads covering head units, but I ended up with a Kenwood DDX-419. Here is my install thread.

http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/f170/single-din-non-tech-pack-double-din-aftermarket-tips-123003/

This added the features I wanted on a headunit, now it was the time to improve the audio side. This was already a start, but first up I wanted some lower frequencies to reinforce the poor drivers in the doors that at the time were handling full range. Here is my sub build thread.

http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/f170/evora-footwell-sub-124427/

I put in a lot of time and thought into my install to get me what I wanted, and to this day am still very happy with my results. This thing will throughout more volume then I need, sounds great doing it and fits perfectly.
The next step was to finally redo my front stage and deaden up the doors a bit. I knew I wanted nice, mellow components that would fit in the factory locations (6.5” mids and a roughly 1” tweeter) and I also wanted to improve my signal wiring and use some strategic deadening in the process.

I prefer natural, warm components and silk tweeters in general as that is how I prefer my music. I was initially leaning CDT as I had good experiences in the past, but a local shop here with which I am friends with and I demoed components one night on his wall for hours. He only carries high end items, so I had a wide array (mosconi, hybrid, gladen etc) to choose from. Although a sound wall isn’t the best pace to decide on components, the company having the reputation it did and the components sounding like they did, I was confident in choosing some Hybrid Audio Clarus 6.5” components. I wanted some Legatias (the next step up) but the price was prohibitive for me.

I chose a different amp than I was originally running (in the sub build thread) because I now needed 4 ch. I ended up going with an alphasonik PMA6004F as it provided the power and footprint I needed and was a class A/B not a D like most smaller amps. Eventually I’d like to go with a better amp, but this one serves the purpose and power very well. It runs a little warm as I have a carpet panel behind the driver’s seat that hides it, but has never overheated or gone into protection. The front two channels run the components on each side, and one of the rear channels drives the sub (the amp can’t run in tri-mode which is fine, it has plenty of power for the sub.)

For wiring I went with KnuKonceptz twisted speaker wire and shielded 4 ch RCAs. The speaker wire is great, high quality as usual. The RCAs have been ok. Somewhere on the amp end near the termination of the wiring before they become the RCA male ends, if I twist it the right way the shielding causes interference or something. Now that everything is situated it isn’t a problem, but is a bit irritating.

I have all the power wire running on the outside of the door sills, and all the signal wire running up the center console. There is plenty of room to run wiring without pulling the door sill panels completely if you remove the seats and only pull up the bottom of the sills and the carpet.

My amp is still mounted behind the drivers seat with a custom bracket I made. It reduces seat travel by about 15% in the last little bit, but when I have it set for my driving position, I still have about 5” of travel left and I am 5’10” so it isn’t much of a concern to me.

For sound deadening I went with RAAM Audio products again for their reputation and quality. I ordered a small amount of RAAMat classic and ensolite, enough to do both doors and a little more. My goal was strategic sound deadening with the RAAMat to eliminate the waves in the hollow fiberglass door panels from my now beefy mids, and then complete application in the doors of the ensolite to eliminate road noise. This would be the most efficient (you don’t need much sound deadening in most cases to reduce the waves, and the ensolite doesn’t weigh hardly anything.) I ended up using about 4 pounds of RAAMat in each door and covered it completely in ensolite, EXCEPT behind the midbass drivers as this can absorb some of the waves in the midrange frequencies when placed right behind the drivers. For tips on application in order to be efficient, I suggest you look here

How-To

There are many other sources online, but bottom line is the heavy stuff (the tarry aluminum backed deadening) does NOT need to be applied much to be effective.

I also deadened up the plastic speaker cups (they are easy to remove, and if you go to remove them and they seem to stick just pull a bit and they’ll pop off as it seems heat melts the foam gasket a bit causing it to bond to the fiberglass a bit. After that I created an “X” out of thin strips of ensolite with a little slack on the backside of the cutout for the speaker in the door (think of it as a little pouch) and used some polyfill loosely stuffed in the speaker cup, then mounted up the drivers. Loosely stuffed is key here. Also you don’t want it to pooch out too much in the back or it’ll hit the window, but in general the window has plenty of clearance back there. Keep window clearance and movement in mind when deadening as well.

I only applied deadening to the fiberglass but may go back and add some bits to eliminate some newfound rattles in the doorcards themselves.
I removed the factory crossovers, and luckily the Hybrid audios fit perfectly in their place using one of the factory crossover mounting screws and a bit of Velcro. There is actually a good amount of room in that spot so many various shpes and sizes of crossovers will likely fit.

 

[invictusmaneo]

The tweeters I had are listed at 1” and that is roughly what the oem is, but they wouldn’t drop right in so I VERY VERY carefully and slowly sanded with a tiny piece of 60 grit sandpaper the foam in the factory tweeter pocket..checking often so I only removed a little bit. Once the Hybrid tweeters fit snugly, I wired them up and pressed them in. The factory imaging is actually pretty damn good, shooting towards the ideal rearview mirror location to stage properly, so I didn’t alter that.

I used some spare ensolite in the footwell as well to reduce some road noise. Then hooked everything back up!

Note with the door panels off it is a good time to examine the workings of the lock mechanism etc and adjust as necessary. Adjusting the door latches is actually quite easy. Be warned when removing the interior door handle cable, that you first need to CAREFULLY remove the little white/clear plastic thing that holds the cable in the connector. This piece breaks easily, so be careful. You can also use a sharpie or similar to mark where the locknuts are on the adjustment threads so when you reinstall you don’t have to futz with adjusting them.

Some other things to be careful of-when removing the black plastic endplates to the AC ducting portion of both the door and dash, be careful as the little plastic studs that stick out to align then dash portion break very easily. Also, it is easy to muck up the trim panel on the door (can’t see it with door closed) when trying to remove the bugger plastic attachment fasteners.

Also, when removing/reinstalling the door panel be careful as it is relatively easy to damage the midbass driver due to its location.

Oh and those “high quality” parts that Reus Audio used? Turns out the speakers in the doors were just RE Audio 6.5” coaxials that they had cut the wires for the tweeter for…wtf
All buttoned up and after a few weeks of break in, lets just say the car sounds unreal. Sooo much more midbass, much more solid and quiet while driving. Since I am running quite a lot of power to the components, they have shaken a few new vibrations in the door cards that I attack as they happen  But in general it really sounds detailed, clear, warm and inviting with a good imaging (a better head unit could improve it slightly as I don’t have much time correction or anything-right now it is more centered than on the driver but front to back it is perfect) and gets LOUD while maintaining its fidelity. I don’t want to win any contests or blow eardrums-just hear clear music over my admittedly loud exhaust/intake while driving on the freeway if I have the windows down. It really does sound sooo nice.

Due to my wing/rear louver panel, I also installed a rearview camera and monitor to replace my mirror. I have searched long and high for a monitor that will literally replace my entire mirror, but the ones I find only have small screens on the side of the mirror, not one entire screen, so the search is still on. As it is right now the screen clips onto the factory mirror. It has a proprietary plug (part of the reason why I chose it) that only has one cable going to and from that carries power, ground, signal instead of running three separate cables. The cable is run along the top of the windshield and tucked into the headliner, then down the A pillar. The interior A pillar is a bitch, and I only popped part of it and ran the cable. Unfortunately the male/female plug from the monitor itself is at about 2’ of length, so there is a bit of a bulge in the corner of the pillar, but you wouldn’t see it if I didn’t point it out.

I did the parking brake override on the head unit, and rearview camera is wired up to a switched power wire I have running to the trunk already for the shift light which I will touch on later. This allows the monitor/camera to be on 24/7 when I am driving.

The monitor is off amazon, and there are several duplicates. It is a Chinese one but mine has held up well so far, although I did have to take it apart at one point because one of the springs for the tabs that hold it to the mirror slipped and it was loose. For the 20-30 bucks I can’t complain.

The camera is one of the Boyo night/day ones with a bunch of IR LEDs. It is large but I wanted the night capability. I wish it didn’t have the red/blue/yellow lines on the signal since I drive with it on all the time, but they do help to a certain extent. I sealed the back of the camera and the place where the plastic housing is joined with black silicon in order to prevent wire seepage.

Running the wires for the camera is a HUGE pain in the ass if your car isn’t prewired. I had to drill a hole as ther e is no way without removing the bumper. Wire runs under the license plate then up in between the two license plate lights into the trunk and onto the interior.

Overall works great, as it is nice to have another means to see behind me while driving. In order to not have the camera angled down (it comes with an angle built into the housing since it is designed to look down) I made a small aluminum bracket and bent it to the proper angle, coating it with back rubberized undercoat and mounting both camera and the bracket with 3m moulding tape. Works great, hasn’t fallen off. The camera can get dirty after crap weather but that is no different than any camera.

Video of it in use

It seems like it would be distracting, but you really grow to treat it just like a rearview mirror after awhile. Glare from cars headlights isn’t bad like it is with a normal mirror at night, and you can dim/brighten the screen anyways. Not a perfect solution but good for me!

Here you can see the camera location

I have also converted all light bulbs to LEDs interior and exterior thanks to the threads on here.

I also had my steering wheel redone. I bought a factory 2010-2011 take off from a forum member who switched to a 2012 so that I could keep my factory wheel. Then I cut all the stitching off and removed the leather, and went about using an exacto knife, sand paper and patience removing the factory bumps at 10 and 2 as I know longer wanted them. For removal and installation I used this thread

http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/f170/adding-cruise-control-evora-105600/

Be very careful when removing the aluminum trim. It is also a bitch to get the foam tape off the trim and the wheel in order to have room for all new adhesive (since I was switching wheels I couldn’t reuse adhesive.)

After removing the bumps I sent it off to Craft Customs after getting a quote. It wasn’t cheap, but they were willing to do what I wanted and the quality is outstanding from everywhere I read. Turnaround was quick too, I had it back in 2 weeks including shipping both ways.

I went with charcoal suede to match my dash (dark gray in other words) orange stitching and an orange vinyl center stripe. I also asked them to add extra to make it thicker, and they did, but I wish it were thicker still.

They got the wedge shaped center stripe PERFECT (no idea how they do that) on center, stitching is all nice (I went with baseball style) and those wrinkles on the bottom disappeared after a few weeks of driving due to heat humidity and use. I still love it and it is holding up great.

I also added an Ecliptech ShiftI sequential shift light. I printed off the templates and futzed with it for awhile trying to figure out a good location until finally settling on the top of my gauges, blocking the odometer. Still in my peripheral and readable, no permanent modifications and easy to run wires.

I chose the shift I because I knew I wanted sequential, I wanted green-yellow-red, and I wanted one that was easy to wire up and didn’t require extra parts. I Chose the flat bottom one as it fit the contours I needed better and ordered it.

 

[invictusmaneo]

I used the Elise/Exige install threads to install it, hoping for the best that the two Toyota motors would be similar. They are but there are some distinct differences.

I picked up an MSD GMR tach pickup like the Elige owners had used and went to radioshack to buy some wiring since I knew I would need to run more wires to the trunk (this was prior to the rearview camera install, pardon it being out of chrono order.)
I decided on some heavily insulated home wire with 4 color coded wires inside of it, separately insulated. This gave me the signal, ground, (Switched) power I needed while also allowing for expansion if ever necessary. Since both the rearview camera and shift I run off of negligible power, I tapped into the switched power wire and ground wire on the stereo harness.

The shift I is attached to the top of my guage cluster using some Velcro at the top of it, so I can remove it as needed (you can peek under to still see the mileage without taking it off though.) The wires are tucked into the space behind the gauges (above the chrome trim ring) and out of site, then run behind the aluminum stereo fascia trim and through the dash. I put some felt on the back of the shift I to keep it from vibrating against the dash trim. The signal wire from the shift I was hooked up to one of the wires from my 4 strand wire, then the 4 strand wire was run into the trunk.

At that point, in the trunk I tapped into the switched power for my rearview camera, as well as the ground. Again negligible current and the wire had more than enough capacity to handle it. Then for the signal wire for the actual tach pickup, I ran it into the engine bay.

Here is where it gets a bit annoying. The elige threads are right in that the signal wire for the coil harness on the plugs is the outside, green/pink wire (IIRC-my car is at the dealer right now so I can’t take pics or remember perfectly.) No matter how I tried though unfortunately the GMR just would not pick up signal on this car. I spent days trouble shooting to no avail and ddecided to just tap into the wire itself. So I carefully exposed just a bit of copper, wrapped the signal wire around it, then sealed it all up.

Problem. LOADS of interference like this caused the shift-I to go nuts. Troubleshot for awhile then finally decided to try shielding the wire just at the coil portion since I made sure I ran the signal away from the rest of the wires, so that was probably where I was picking up interference. After research online, people recommended using some aluminum foil wrapped around the wire at the pickup point and a few inches back, then sealing it back up.

VOILA! Worked perfectly. I need to go back and use some heatshielding on the wire in the engine bay just as insurance (hasn’t been a problem and the wire is way way out of the way anyways) but that is it.

I have it set to light the first green light at 3000 RPM and flash at 7000 RPM since fuel cutoff is a little after that, and anyways my power peak is between 6500-6700 RPM anyways. Since I also have a lightweight battery (DEKA EXT-14, discussed plenty in the battery thread)

http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/f170/lipofe4-lithium-iron-battery-my-evora-111922/

I have also set mine so that with the key in the ignition in the on position it shows battery voltage, and it also shows voltage for 3 seconds after startup of the engine. This is nice because once you learn the pattern of the lights it is easy to figure out that you are still at 12 volts engine off, 14 volts engine on. Sort of a pre-drive diagnostic tool.

The steering wheel pictures above give a good idea of where the shiftlight is. For my height, if I adjust the steering wheel so that it just clears the shift light while driving in my line of sight, the wheel is at a great comfortable angle. So it works perfectly for me. It is an awesome tool to have-I would’ve preferred it higher and thought about some custom mounting options, but this works well and is reversible.

Unfortunately I deleted the video of the shift I working on accident, so I will eventually do another if anyone is interested.

I have also been using my cupholder option and it has worked great through driving across country, daily driving it, and many long roadtrips. Here is a link

http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/f170/cupholder-solution-117513/

I also began deleting my rear seats, and will finish when I get my car back. By deleting my rear seats, I mean removing the cushions and replacing it with carpet to save some weight. This initially came about so that I could gain a bit of extra legroom on the passenger side to make up for the 2” lost with the sub install as I was dating a wonderful woman who was tall, and we were taking a roadtrip. I liked it, so I left it in. Right now the bottom cushion is replaced with carpet, the top will be too. I am going to redo both panels using some lightweight foam and carpet so I have a little bit of protection for the aluminum and wiring when I throw suitcases back there.

I used this carpet (same as in my sub build)
Black Automotive Carpet Car Trunkliner Yard 40" Wide | 261-700

It is affordable, durable, feels pretty nice, easy to work with and matches the factory carpet color closely. It is a trunkliner style so the pile is a bit more loose, but not by much, from the factory carpet. In the rear seat it blends in perfectly. This is also what I made my amplifer cover panel out of.

So next will be the exterior bits and brakes…then eventually be the performance stuff. If you have any questions so far, please ask. My goal is to make this a semi-repository for my experiences and helpful hints since I have had so much of this car apart and done stuff. I have enjoyed every last minute and find it immensely rewarding doing it myself, and doing it differently!

The Evora can definitely be a pain in the ass to work on, but overall, it is pretty awesome that a car of this caliber is easy to work on and do what you want with great results.

 

[invictusmaneo]

And some gratuitous photos

 

[sobowad2]

thanks, very comprehensive. you have been busy indeed.:bow:

 

[Lckitty]

Thank you for sharing so all can use what you've done/learned.

 

[Julian73]

Excellent start; I will skip my first thoughts on the need for more space on passenger side for a beautiful women.

 

[2011 chrome orange]

Awesome thread. I'm looking forward to the rest! Thanks for posting!!

 

[SwingLo]

+1 for Craft Customs.

They did the wheel on my prior Elise (before I converted to flat bottom) and they did a great job. The main guy - Carter Craft - is a very nice guy.

Top notch work!

 

[low2ground]

Great thread! I'd like to hear the finished product if you're going to be at duPont on Saturday. I'm interested in the cupholder, too, if it's still available.

 

[invictusmaneo]

Bill likely won't have the car back until next week unfortunately, but definitely next time we all meet up down here.

 

[c640947]

Where did you get the shifter knob? I am interested in replacing mine (original 2010 LE)

thanks

Andrew

 

[invictusmaneo]

Its from cg woodcraft on eBay-walnut burl and a maple stripe with a lotus emblem on top. Note that though they say on their auctions the fit the Elise and exige (and thus should fit the evora) they are not a drop in due to the reverse collar. Thread pitch is right but that's it. Took quite a bit of work and the factory sleeve to get it to work.

It is beautiful though. I wanted a bit of throwback to go with all my aluminum leather and carbon.

 

[c640947]

thats pretty awesome but too bad it isnt plug and play. Not sure Im ready to take on a project like that (since it sounded challenging) but I sure wouldn't mind replacing my shift knob.

 

[invictusmaneo]

Ok so now for part 2-we will call the Exterior Part just to lump it all together. So this won’t include any engine performance items, but will include the brakes/tires.

Firstly-here is a picture I found of my “rear seat delete.” Pardon the poor quality and incompletion of the final product-I will do a better documentation once I spend more time making the new bottom and back carpet panels.

So my goals in the exterior were pretty straightforward-I wanted it to be relatively easily reversible with none to minor modifications to the car. So holes need to be coverable with stock items or not visible, etc. My overall look was geared more towards the various iterations of the Evora GT cars, without spending a fortune on the Mansory or motorsports body panels, though eventually I would really like to get the motorsports front bumper. In general I just wanted a “Racier” look BUT I wanted it to work. In essence, I didn’t want to add totally unproven frivolous crap. There is argument there, but in general I am happy with both appearance and performance. And most of all, I didn’t really want any “off the shelf” solutions as I really enjoy having something unique, and doing it myself. So I strove for parts that hadn’t been made or no one else had when I could.

So I will start from the front and move back. To start, the two black vinyl stripes came on the car when purchased new-it also had some side stripes which I hated and had pulled at purchase. I like the two stripes, and am a big fan of the fact that they were hand cut (though this has some consistency drawbacks) to follow the curve in the roof dimple. The stripes are more satin-not quite matte and not glossy.

Up front I have a custom APR splitter that I created a custom template and had made. I tossed around going for the honeycomb vs standard but decided on standard for durability’s sake (it has a Masonite bottom) and price. The biggest drawback is weight-I went with the full half moon shape vice having the center cut out, and thus this piece is quite hefty. I would say 15-20 pounds unfortunately, probably closer to 15. I made the template a general rounded shape (I didn’t want the splitter to have the two little fang things the factory bumper did) and added between 1.5” and 2” depending on the portion of the bumper. My goal was then to have the side skirts/splitters/etc stick out about the same. I had it all pretty clearly in my head when I had it made.

Splitters from APR come with rubber trim on the edge (a good thing IMHO) and if you order custom are not predrilled. This was fine, but took lots of fiddling. I had the car on ramps and doing this by myself, used the help of a hydraulic jack and various items to prop everything up to get it centered and marked properly. To mark the holes to be drilled, I removed the factory bolts (I used the main ones across the fiberglass underneath, as well as the two large ones that bolt into the subframe) and then used some blue Loctite stick (think waxy material) and put it around each of the holes. Then carefully centering it, I used the jack to raise the splitter up and pressed it by hand into each of the approximate locations of where I knew the holes should be. After pulling it down the marks were on the top side. Then I drilled the first hole, referenced, double checked, bolted up, triple checked, etc and repeated until they were all done. Ended up nice and centered.

(note the APR logo was a vinyl decal I removed upon receipt)

Now when I ordered I tossed around the idea of adding some spacers to ideally get the splitter horizontal to the ground, but short of machining my own delrin or plastic spacers to the correct angles, couldn’t readily come up with a good looking solution. So my plan was to try it out with the factory upward cant of the bumper/smooth underside) and if it was problematic, reattack.

There are obviously a lot of forces at play for a front splitter (as unfortunately witnessed by early adopters of the bumper protectors) so I knew it had to be strong. This was part of the reason I had APR make the splitter as a full half moon, as this would further prevent buckling. APR suggested cutting out the middle to save some weight but after talking we decided to leave it as is.

In addition to the factory bolts, I added four soft material rivnuts (the rubber expanding ones) with allen bolts and washers along the very back of the splitter, where it was flush with the factory aluminum undertray. After verifying there was nothing on the backside that would be damaged, I carefuly marked, drilled and properly installed the rivnuts. Then, I copiously applied 3M VHB tape across the various underside portions that needed to be bonded. This will make removal a total bitch, so I am not looking forward to it. But it is STRONG.

After adding the 3m VHB properly (cleaning, etc) to the underside of the car, I CAREFULLY –repeat CAREFULY---used a jack and my hands to raise the splitter into the proper position, except jusssst before the splitter made contact with the adhesive. Then I got under the car and loosely finger spun the bolts into place to make sure everthing was lined up, and then raised the jack and firmly pressed everything into place.

The rivnuts help a ton in the back, and overall this sucker is very rigid. I am sure there is a touch of flex at high speeds just due to the nature of the bodywork/aluminum undertray etc, but we are talking very minor deflection. This panel is on there strong.

All in all it took me a few hours to install properly and make sure everything was lined up, not including time to template everything out etc. I’ll speak to the effectiveness of everything at the end because I essentially installed everything over a few days so really only can talk about the whole package.

Close up of the spitter and the bumper—pardon the sacrificial froggy 

Then it was time for the side skirts. I really liked the VSA pieces, but they weren’t aggressive enough for me. I wanted more or less straight, and I wanted them to stick out quite a bit. Unfortunately not many options for us Evora owners, soooo I had to do a bit of sniffing. I settled on some universal carbon fiber side skirts that were essentially just straight panels. Rolled the dice but the price was right as it should be for a basic, universal item. You can find these under various names from various places in various prices.

Overall I am meeehhhh about them. I like the shape a lot, and am happy with how they look and I am sure they are effective. There are however a few drawbacks:

-the listings everywhere on various sites fail to mention this, but they are carbon skinned fiberglass. I was pissed at first but in the grand scheme of things on a piece like this, without buying 5000 dollar autoclaved crazy stuff, the weight savings wouldn’t exist anyways for a full carbon part. Still annoying, as I vowed to not buy anything like that up front.

-Because they are long, when they are not affixed to something, they are flexible. Unfortunately, this can lead to warping in the gelcoat. DOH.

-They are lipped on the edge-ie it is essentially a big U shape. I was hoping for a hollow core solid shape, but instead got this. Aerodynamically not ideal, though probably negligible in my case (and is addressed anyways by how I installed them a little)

So I had to cut them to length, figure out how to mount them, etc. I ended up mounting them with a mix of VHB and rivnuts, as well as using the factory hex bolts at both ends (there are 2/3 at each wheel well. I removed the front mudflaps for personal taste. This has led to more spray, and one new chip, but after a few roadtrips, some hard driving and several thousand miles no crazy abuse. I am sure a track day would exacerbate so I will tape that area off when the time comes.

 

[invictusmaneo]

I trimmed off the rear, removing the U shape so it was now open, cut it to match the profile of the wheel well at that point. As far as how far they stick out-I wanted it to match the splitter in the front and the vertical edge of the wheel well at the rear. This led to it almost matching up perfectly with the edge of the aluminum tub on the underside.

Now they do stick out quite far. Luckily my method of getting in and out didn’t have to be changed much, but if you look down on it, between the edge of the splitter and the inside of the doorsill, it is probably 12-13”. I don’t care-I bought the car for myself  but it puts off others sometimes and I am extra careful about people getting in. I haven’t had any stepping issues yet, my problem is kicking it (myself included when I have a dumbass moment) as it is easy to kick it on the edge when you walk up. Subsequently the drivers side esp has some distortions in the gel coat. I will get it fixed, a friend of mine is really good at filling them, but annoying.

I also ordered HKFever’s side scoops in 3k to match everything else. They are widely documented on here, but I will say my fitment was pretty damn poor when they arrived.

Obviously all body panels may require some fitment and I accepted that-this orientation was about the best I could get out of the box. The other side was worse. It was very clear that the maker had spent quite a bit of time making the outside of the mold and the cosmetic portion very nice and consistent, but the IMPORTANT part, where the body panel meets it, was lumpy various amounts of carbon sheet, gelcoat, and not very straight.

It took me several hours to get it to a fit I was comfortable applying VHB and getting a good seam. Even then it wasn’t great, so in hindsight, or upon removal, I will reapply using sugru as referenced in the thread per squidward

http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/f170/evora-side-scoops-153113/

These are pretty well documented so I won’t go into much more.

I knew I wanted the vented rear glass panel, and I liked the style of the PB Racing version as it was essentially a direct copy of the Lotus Racing fiberglass version but in carbon fiber (so I thought.) I preferred this shape to the Technocraft item, so I ordered it. Mistake. Read about the debacle here

http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/f93/pb-racing-pb-ripoffs-160434/

PB Racing rectified the situation for the most part (sans paypal fees but at that point I just wanted the situation overwith) and I purchased a technocraft item through VSA after verifying the weave was 3k.

The technocraft product was much nicer-3k weave was pretty good except at the tricky bits (where the curves for the louvers were) and a few stretch marks, but the weight was nice, it was rigid, straight and a nice overall product.

Unfortunately, this is not a simple drop in like the PB Racing/Lotus Racing part.

Unbeknownst to me (and VSA when I ordered it) this panel replaces both the glass AND the metal mesh below it and on the street cars this requires the removal of the fiberglass strut that supports the bottom of the glass (though not very structurally) and holds the mesh and a small metal heat scoop.

Now this was an install I wasn’t comfortable doing myself for obvious reasons, so I did a bunch of research and found a very good glass shop locally to do it. If anyone needs well priced very high quality glass work in the Tampa area, use Mike’s Auto Glass!

Anyways they wired out the factory glass easily enough. Turns out that as part of the trunk leak TSB the service department in CA I used had added silicon around the seam on the top of the glass in addition to the factory urethane adhesive. Not much of a hold up but interesting. Then carefully unplug the defroster plugs and tuck them into the channel in the fiberglass hatch (they fit under the carbon piece.)

Cutting that strut out removes some torsional rigidity with the glass out, but the hatch is perfectly rigid once you put the carbon panel back in. The glass shop carefully applied black primer everywhere to cover the adhesion points and any exposed raw fiberglass, then using the high-strength, long-cure urethane carefully set the carbon in.

The carbon piece wasn’t perfectly straight, which is normal for something coming out of a mold, but a little bit of weight made it set flat. The way it is designed, it sets right in to the factory channels. Hard to explain but it’s a quality piece. Good installation is obviously a must.

Also an important note-the bottom doesn’t have anything really to adhere to because of how the hatch is designed. So to add extra strength the installer built up about a 1” bead of the urethane, let it cure a bit, then put the wet urethane bead on top and applied the carbon panel to get a good bond. Worked like a charm.

Again, to get a nice flush install I can’t emphasize enough how important a good installer is!

I was surprised but the weight difference didn’t seem to be much. You definitely save a few pounds, but not a ton as the factory glass really isn’t terribly heavy. My guess is overall probably a 4-5 pound weight savings.

For the wing I did some research. At the time a carbon version of the Lotus Racing/Cosworth designed piece wasn’t available (and even now, more than I wanted to spend.) I knew I wanted semi-custom because I did NOT want to add anything that required drilling holes on my decklid/quarter panels. This led me to APR again. As referenced in various threads on this forum, and by some of our resident expert aero guys, the GTC series of wings aren’t the best, but not being a total track hound, I figured they are decent, adjustable, required for some of the race series out there as a spec wing, and are available ordered in custom widths.

I deicded on the 60” wide GTC-200 vice the wider 300 as this would put the end plates just over the haunches, which was the look I wanted. Additionally, the curve appeared to match nicely to the Evora rear profile.

I removed the wing and used blue painters tape stretched across to get the measurements for the factory bolt holes. They are staggered, so it was important to get the measurements right to ensure the angles on the GTC-200 were correct. So I measured and measured and measured til I was happy with the consistency.

Sent these off and got the wing back. I went for the regular uprights (didn’t buy the extensions) as I wanted the wing relatively low since the channel for the factory wing added some height. I didn’t have much of a choice on endplates despite me asking as they sent me some squared off ones that I was not a big fan of either.

I knew I was going to have to sort out a proper way to mount the wing, so once it arrived I got the wing test assembled and brought it out to the car.

The wing itself is much lighter than factory, with the uprights and endplates maybe a touch heavier, but more or less a wash.

Unfortunately, although they spaced the uprights properly at the wing itself, the threaded insets and the upright brackets that mount to the wing were at a point on the wing that caused them to curve out. So with the uprights mounted, the bases were about 2” splayed out and obviously weren’t going to work.

 

[invictusmaneo]

So with MUCHO trial and error and minor bending and tweaking, I was able to bend both the bottom and top brackets in order to allow the uprights and bases to align with the factory wing locations, and still allow for adjustability of the wing.

The APR wing uses 2 or 3 depending on preference threaded studs to mount. The factory wing has the two holes, so what I ended up doing was use the factory front hole, and drilling an additional hole at the rear, so now there are three underneath the factory wing. Then on the bottom side, I used the factory metal bracket and drilled a corresponding extra hole, then used washers and lockbolts and bolted it down. If I ever go back to the factory wing the extra holes will be covered and I can easily put a plug of silicon in it if necessary.

I made custom baseplates by ordering some 2mm carbon fiber sheets and cutting them to fit. Unfortunately the APR upright brackets are a bit longer than the factory wing mounting locations, so I get a bit of overhang on the back and the front as it is. On the front it is just one corner and negligible. At the rear it is square but hangs off about ½”. I don’t care cosmetically as both are hardly noticeable, but one thing that is noticeable is that at speed, the new wing pushes the rubber bumpstops down enough to put a slight (bout 1/8” square and 1/8” deep) mark in the paint on both sides, niehter of which get through the primer.

Carbon plate used for the baseplates-3k but not the same weave unfortunately but actually neat looking

I also reused the factory black rubber piece that goes under the wing underneath the carbon base plate. The carbon base plates more or less match the counter of the factory mounting position.

Sorry I will try to get better pics of them when I get my car back.

For angle of attack I set it at a relatively neutral position to start, so that I can tweak as needed. I may reshape the bottom brackets to prevent rubbing and overhang at some point, but then I will have to send them off to powdercoat and as is I’m pretty happy.
As I mentioned earlier I really wasn’t happy with the endplates they sent me, so I decided to reshape them on my own. I also didn’t like the fact that the APR logo was painted on, under neath the clear coat layer which meant I couldn’t hide it. So first I made black posterboard templates of various new endplate shapes and test fit them to the wing until I found one I liked. I did a few different versions, then narrowed it down to two, then a finalist. I ended up with one that would work within the constraints of the endplate I already had, the shape of the wing on profile, and looked decent. I still may tweak at a later date. I reshaped using the template I made, blue painters tape to protect the finish on the carbon and my belt/disc sander and some experience shaping items from knife making. I also hand rounded the edges and repolished with jeweler’s rouge and a muslin wheel.

Original endplates:

New endplates

After reshaping, I inverted the logo so it appeared on the inside (at this point it was half gone due to the reshaping) and coated the inside with black plastidip. Then I remounted the endplates.

I am very happy. Once nice perk was the shape of the GTC-200 nicely matches the curve on the rear of the Evora

And lastly-my diffuser. I knew I wanted a Difflow for durability and cost’s sake, and that they would make custom shapes. I wanted pretty aggressive, but different, and wasn’t totally happy with the shapes they already had for the Evora.

So I got a hold of Glenn and we talked through some things. I wanted more elements, so I decided on 7. But I didn’t want the elements to angle rearward like the existing 7 element, so we decided on the shape of the 5 element. And I wanted it to stick out far enough to match my exhaust tips. So We pushed it out a bit more on the top. Finished product I love

While I was at it, I also deleted the rear mesh off of the diffuser section.

So my overall assessment of the car now. With the wing set relatively conservative, it tracks like dead nails. The first time I brought it up to freeway speeds I was blown away at how planted it felt. I know that word is clichéd and overused, but seriously. The car just tracks. I can let go of the wheel and it just sticks. At double highway speeds, it is totally planted, not remotely nervous, and expectionally smooth even under heavy braking. TO BE CLEAR-I cannot vouch for on trakc performance (and after my recent clutch issues I’m sorta glad actually right now) at speed, but will report back when I can. I have done some spirited driving and plenty of high speed on-ramp sweepers and it feels great, but I am no aero expert and certainly made some aero exceptions with some of my choices. I have a feeling understeer may be an issue and I will reattack that as it comes up after a track day (hopefully this spring.)

Anyways I am happy. It definitely was aesthetically influenced but I tried to keep it realistically effective and adjustable as needed. And it is different and custom 
I will add more as time comes. Maybe carbon a pillars. Definitely the tecnocraft carbon sail panel. Definitely wheels at some point. Hopefully the motorsports front bumper eventually (and I’ll lose the splitter.)


Oh and I lied. Im out of patience right now, so I’ll do the brakes and tires later.

 

[squidward]

Hey man... Amazing job. You've done all the things I wanted to do but failed to over the summer. I have the parts but don't know when I'll actually get around to it.. Anyway I just wanna thank you for sharing this in great detail. I'm sure this thread will be my starting reference point when I decide to install diy side sills and rear louvers... I don't yet have a wing chosen but your example has definitely given me some insight into the challenges in a custom DIY job. I may just blow a few grand for the oem GTE wing.

I wish I could check out your car up close one of these days.

 

[invictusmaneo]

I appreciate the feedback. My goal in the thread is to give some rudder steer to those who decide to start doing things to their car, and to show that the beauty of this car is you can do soooo much on it yourself. So maybe this will be a jumping off point for other owners. Even if they go a different route, some helpful stuff will hopefully be found here.

I still have a few things I want to do to the car, but as it is right now took a long time to plan, design, lay out, order, receive, modify, install, etc. And I am still fine tuning the engine side with the latest tune, so that'll be another few weeks.

 

[Notorious]

Very cool. Didn't know you were such the audiophile!