So, now i've got myself an Exige, how do i drive it??
Discussion
It's a wonerful little thing, but does feel so different after over 10 years of TVR!
The lightness at the front is a little scary. Do i need to drive it very differently from a TVR?
From just a couple of hours in the car, it feels like the front would want to push wide on corners, & i'm not sure whether i need to adopt a different driving style, bearing in mind please that i'm no driving god!
I'll be keen to track this car, but can anyone recommend any driving courses that will give me the best tuition for on-the-limit handling??
Cheers as ever
The lightness at the front is a little scary. Do i need to drive it very differently from a TVR?
From just a couple of hours in the car, it feels like the front would want to push wide on corners, & i'm not sure whether i need to adopt a different driving style, bearing in mind please that i'm no driving god!
I'll be keen to track this car, but can anyone recommend any driving courses that will give me the best tuition for on-the-limit handling??
Cheers as ever
Check out carlimits.com ... what he doesn't know about driving an elise/exige isn't worth knowing.
Not sure how you drove your TVR, but driving a lotus requires more brain than brawn... the lighter your control inputs, the better/faster you will be.
Oh and be very careful jumping off the throttle when taking corners at speed... the back can come round on you bloody quick!
Not sure how you drove your TVR, but driving a lotus requires more brain than brawn... the lighter your control inputs, the better/faster you will be.
Oh and be very careful jumping off the throttle when taking corners at speed... the back can come round on you bloody quick!
Hi
Are you running AO48 tyres?
If so, on the road you ll virtually never get them up to optimum temperature. Only by driving like a nutter or on track will they get enough heat in to come alive and eradicate the understeer.
But when they do the car is transformed and you really begin to understand what it can do, it makes all the difference. I was slack jawed the first time I experienced it - car just hooks up and flows with you gripping and handling perfectly.
Adrian
Are you running AO48 tyres?
If so, on the road you ll virtually never get them up to optimum temperature. Only by driving like a nutter or on track will they get enough heat in to come alive and eradicate the understeer.
But when they do the car is transformed and you really begin to understand what it can do, it makes all the difference. I was slack jawed the first time I experienced it - car just hooks up and flows with you gripping and handling perfectly.
Adrian
cirvy said:
Cheers guys, i've sent off an enquiry to Carlimits
I take it this would be a better avenue than the driving courses at Hethel run by Lotus??
Hi MateI take it this would be a better avenue than the driving courses at Hethel run by Lotus??
I see your still worried about the GT3, leaving you behind
I've done a car limits course very good. Let me know if you book and I mite come along.
Jon C
cirvy said:
Cheers Carl.
How do you fancy having a go too, might be fun??
I'll give you a call over the next week or so, i need a Lotus cup of tea with you
Hi Si. Definately up for this - I've been on one of the Seloc arranged activity days with Walshy and it was great fun! Speak soon.How do you fancy having a go too, might be fun??
I'll give you a call over the next week or so, i need a Lotus cup of tea with you
Fair play to cirvy for being unusually honest about his driving ability. The vast majority of clueless drivers think think they're hot shoes behind the wheel and a drivers ego is the number one hurdle in the way of improving.
I think the perfect lap is a lifelong quest. And there are very, very few people who couldn't benefit from some further driver training.
Until you get some tips from a master, yes you will need to adjust your style from driving a TVR.
The short of it is you need to be on the power, more often, to get the best out of it.
The long of it is all cars generate more grip on the power (providing you don't use so much power you overwhelm the grip from the driving wheels). It's all about weight distribution which is something a driver has to constantly manage when driving quickly, due to the car being suspended on springs, weight flows forward and back even with quite small throttle movements. That's why the smoothness of your inputs becomes more important the faster you go. It happens even on go karts with no suspension at all but putting a car on springs exaggerates it enormously. People used to very slow cars often aren't aware of this because it doesn't really upset the balance of the car at slow speeds or when there isn't much power. As a result they learn to use the throttle like a switch. On or off. With a fast car you have to learn to be progressive with the throttle to help manage this flow of weight from front to back and side to side. No doubt your TVR has taught you this already!
Go into a corner too fast and back off the throttle (which is instinctive, so what we all do unless trained to do otherwise) and the weight will pour on to the outside front tyre. Stand on the brakes and it gets worse still. You're pretty much relying on one tyre to slow the car and steer it round the corner. You're also relying on the car being of naturally benign balance to let you get away with it. In something that's naturally rear biased in terms of weight like a 'mid-engined' car such as the Exige or worse a rear engined car like a 911, the rear will become unstable because they are set up to work properly on the throttle, which keeps the weight on the usually wider rear tyres. This means the penalty for being off the throttle is greater than for a car with same tyres front to rear, ie you lose a greater proportion of your overall grip. You are now much more likely to slide. The rear biased weight of the engine will want to move the rear of the car out and now you've got 'lift-off oversteer' to deal with. This is something few front engined cars do, so hot hatch drivers tend not to be very well equipped to deal with it (I know, 205 gti's used to do it).
The bottom line is your Exige is set up to work best on the power, that keeps weight to the rear and the car more balanced in the corners. Being mid-engined it offers good traction and has relatively low power compared to a TVR so you should really be hard on the power from the apex of a corner onwards. It's not easy to make an Exige power oversteer in the dry, unlike a TVR which has less weight over the rear wheels. Equally, too much power too early in a TVR can easily create oversteer and the reaction to back off the throttle (not jump off it, but progressively ease back) and add opposite lock is the correct remedy. With the Exige you are often better off keeping your foot down. But there are no absolute rules to every situation it's just a general rule of thumb due to the different placement of the engines (which are the single biggest lumps of weight in the car (unless you're a serious jabba!)).
But here's where things get more complicated, because your Exige offers a handling masterclass and appears to defy some of the laws of physics! It's got quite a heavy rear bias to the weight distribution and the engine is placed quite high. Somehow Lotus have made it very neutral and benign on the limit. It's layout should and offer traction, grip, and turn-in benefits versus a front engined TVR but it should come at the expense of ultimate balance on the limit. A car with such a huge appetite for corners can only turn in really fast by being unstable. It's up to the driver to manage that and up to the engineers to find a compromise.
But half the fun is learning your new car. Take it easy and take your time getting to know how it responds. Then get some training and take it to a track where you can explore the car's considerable limits in greater safety.
I think the perfect lap is a lifelong quest. And there are very, very few people who couldn't benefit from some further driver training.
Until you get some tips from a master, yes you will need to adjust your style from driving a TVR.
The short of it is you need to be on the power, more often, to get the best out of it.
The long of it is all cars generate more grip on the power (providing you don't use so much power you overwhelm the grip from the driving wheels). It's all about weight distribution which is something a driver has to constantly manage when driving quickly, due to the car being suspended on springs, weight flows forward and back even with quite small throttle movements. That's why the smoothness of your inputs becomes more important the faster you go. It happens even on go karts with no suspension at all but putting a car on springs exaggerates it enormously. People used to very slow cars often aren't aware of this because it doesn't really upset the balance of the car at slow speeds or when there isn't much power. As a result they learn to use the throttle like a switch. On or off. With a fast car you have to learn to be progressive with the throttle to help manage this flow of weight from front to back and side to side. No doubt your TVR has taught you this already!
Go into a corner too fast and back off the throttle (which is instinctive, so what we all do unless trained to do otherwise) and the weight will pour on to the outside front tyre. Stand on the brakes and it gets worse still. You're pretty much relying on one tyre to slow the car and steer it round the corner. You're also relying on the car being of naturally benign balance to let you get away with it. In something that's naturally rear biased in terms of weight like a 'mid-engined' car such as the Exige or worse a rear engined car like a 911, the rear will become unstable because they are set up to work properly on the throttle, which keeps the weight on the usually wider rear tyres. This means the penalty for being off the throttle is greater than for a car with same tyres front to rear, ie you lose a greater proportion of your overall grip. You are now much more likely to slide. The rear biased weight of the engine will want to move the rear of the car out and now you've got 'lift-off oversteer' to deal with. This is something few front engined cars do, so hot hatch drivers tend not to be very well equipped to deal with it (I know, 205 gti's used to do it).
The bottom line is your Exige is set up to work best on the power, that keeps weight to the rear and the car more balanced in the corners. Being mid-engined it offers good traction and has relatively low power compared to a TVR so you should really be hard on the power from the apex of a corner onwards. It's not easy to make an Exige power oversteer in the dry, unlike a TVR which has less weight over the rear wheels. Equally, too much power too early in a TVR can easily create oversteer and the reaction to back off the throttle (not jump off it, but progressively ease back) and add opposite lock is the correct remedy. With the Exige you are often better off keeping your foot down. But there are no absolute rules to every situation it's just a general rule of thumb due to the different placement of the engines (which are the single biggest lumps of weight in the car (unless you're a serious jabba!)).
But here's where things get more complicated, because your Exige offers a handling masterclass and appears to defy some of the laws of physics! It's got quite a heavy rear bias to the weight distribution and the engine is placed quite high. Somehow Lotus have made it very neutral and benign on the limit. It's layout should and offer traction, grip, and turn-in benefits versus a front engined TVR but it should come at the expense of ultimate balance on the limit. A car with such a huge appetite for corners can only turn in really fast by being unstable. It's up to the driver to manage that and up to the engineers to find a compromise.
But half the fun is learning your new car. Take it easy and take your time getting to know how it responds. Then get some training and take it to a track where you can explore the car's considerable limits in greater safety.
What a great post Mr Pits, many thanks I enjoyed reading that.
I'm certainly going to get some tuition, but I may well take it round Donny first, just to get the hang of it. The lightness of the front is a bit unsettling for me in these early days, so I'm keen to take it round some proper corners.
Thanks again
I'm certainly going to get some tuition, but I may well take it round Donny first, just to get the hang of it. The lightness of the front is a bit unsettling for me in these early days, so I'm keen to take it round some proper corners.
Thanks again
A key difference to a front engined car is that for slower corners, you need to turn in under braking so that there is some weight on the front wheels to allow them to grip. Otherwise the front feels like it will always wash out at surprisingly low speeds, like you've noticed.
It's best done smoothly, though, i.e. gently coming off the brakes as you are turning in (as opposed to suddenly lifting your foot off the pedal).
Enjoy getting to know the car!
It's best done smoothly, though, i.e. gently coming off the brakes as you are turning in (as opposed to suddenly lifting your foot off the pedal).
Enjoy getting to know the car!
indeed, you can add weight to a light nose by using the brakes or lifting off the throttle.
the exige has actually been designed to be driven quite hard compared to most road cars, it actually works quite well on the track straight out of the box. many things will only start making sense as yo drive harder. Things like heel and toe are difficult to do until you start braking harder. Equally harder braking will get rid of that light nose feeling. But really that's only compared to the TVR with it's naturally heavy nose. You'll soon get used to the way the lotus feels and start to recognise it as a precision instrument, light and responsive at the front, planted and grippy at the rear.
the exige has actually been designed to be driven quite hard compared to most road cars, it actually works quite well on the track straight out of the box. many things will only start making sense as yo drive harder. Things like heel and toe are difficult to do until you start braking harder. Equally harder braking will get rid of that light nose feeling. But really that's only compared to the TVR with it's naturally heavy nose. You'll soon get used to the way the lotus feels and start to recognise it as a precision instrument, light and responsive at the front, planted and grippy at the rear.
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