Honda K24 Swapped 2015 BRZ Ship of Thesus (NASA TT5)

[Pat]

Niiiice. Love those cars. Wish I fit in them.

[jflogerzi]

Who did your cage? Local in AZ?

[RedReplicant]

Originally Posted by jflogerzi

Who did your cage? Local in AZ?

It was done by TC Design (https://www.tcdesignfab.com/) up in the San Jose, CA area. It looks really, really well done and it was a big part of why I bought the car in the first place. I'll be at the Chuckwalla event this weekend, you're welcome to take a look at it. The fitment is top notch.

Originally Posted by Pat

Niiiice. Love those cars. Wish I fit in them.

You might be surprised, this one was built by VSA and their tall driver cage was developed in it. The previous owner was 6'3" and fit fine, I on the other hand can't even reach the pedals when I sit in the seat


After a super long weekend the Lotus is back home and in the garage, also took two TT5 first places and dropped the Podium Club CW a half second to a 1:43.074. Shoulda been in the 1:42s but I couldn't get the car to exit onto the main straight correctly (driver problem).

[jflogerzi]

Originally Posted by RedReplicant

It was done by TC Design (https://www.tcdesignfab.com/) up in the San Jose, CA area. It looks really, really well done and it was a big part of why I bought the car in the first place. I'll be at the Chuckwalla event this weekend, you're welcome to take a look at it. The fitment is top notch.



You might be surprised, this one was built by VSA and their tall driver cage was developed in it. The previous owner was 6'3" and fit fine, I on the other hand can't even reach the pedals when I sit in the seat


After a super long weekend the Lotus is back home and in the garage, also took two TT5 first places and dropped the Podium Club CW a half second to a 1:43.074. Shoulda been in the 1:42s but I couldn't get the car to exit onto the main straight correctly (driver problem).

Will take you up on the offer for sure! I am 6ft 1ish

[RedReplicant]

I had a bunch of fun at the 86Cup event - it was nice to dice it up in traffic a bit, met some people from Discord, took a couple of passengers, and was able to donate my spare CV shaft to a fellow 86Cup person so they could wrap the day up.

One of the sessions I took a passenger they got the real swap car experience. First flying lap the MAP sensor decided to pop the bead of RTV retaining it and strand us just off track after the double left (turn 6 counting cw).

I ran the car on RE71RS and the ~220whp high power tune since I could, but I left a bit on the table in terms of driving and how hard I was pushing since there was nothing to win. Couple of laps here, a 1:57:3 and a 1:57:4 while chasing a new M2 and a 991 GT3 Cup. I can do the same lap time on the 200whp tune and RC1s, but it was easier in that I could leave more on the table for the same lap time.

Car feels dialed. On the RE71RS side of things I got to form a bit of an opinion:
* Out lap and first flying lap on a cold track they're sketchy
* Maybe half way through the first flying lap they start coming in
* I got two or three good push laps before I'd get one big slide which was the sign to back off like 30%. Before I figured this out I had some ridiculous full lock oversteer in places I've never had oversteer in my life like the right as you go up the hill after the bowl and the following left before it goes downhill.
* They've got a sharper grip plateau than RC1, the RC1 is easier to drive
* They need less camber than the RC1 by a decent amount

Basically, the RC1 gets pushy and slow when you overheat it. The RE71RS gets greasy and snappy.

[Pat]

Thanks, Joe. Tell us more about camber requirements for them. The most camber I plan on having for my car is -3.4* in front. I felt like I had to run the RE71RS at 40 PSI to prevent excessive outer shoulder wear. I know it's not ideal, but do you have a favorite 200 TW tire for a low-camber setup?

[RedReplicant]

Originally Posted by Pat

Thanks, Joe. Tell us more about camber requirements for them. The most camber I plan on having for my car is -3.4* in front. I felt like I had to run the RE71RS at 40 PSI to prevent excessive outer shoulder wear. I know it's not ideal, but do you have a favorite 200 TW tire for a low-camber setup?

Thanks, Pat. It is hard for me to quantify without doing a bit more testing, but I'm getting I could pull half a degree or a bit more out of the front and they'd be fine.... so like -4.25 area? Wild guess.

This is actually my first time running something other than an RC1 on any track car in like four years, so unfortunately I can't really say anything for the current crop of 200tw tires. I'd love to try the V730 as a lapping tire though, it seems like there are a lot of people happy with them.

Also, spoke to Haltech support. The ECU is supposed to fall back to predictive MAP if the MAP sensor fails, unfortunately through some firmware bug that functionality doesn't exist on the Elite right now - it is Nexus only. Hopefully they fix that.

[Pat]

I have a set of V730s mounted up, but haven't tried them yet. Will likely do that Saturday.

[RedReplicant]

Originally Posted by Pat

I have a set of V730s mounted up, but haven't tried them yet. Will likely do that Saturday.

Nice! Really curious to hear your feedback on them, especially compared to the RE71RS

[justinco]

Originally Posted by RedReplicant

Nice! Really curious to hear your feedback on them, especially compared to the RE71RS

I have a set in the garage as well. I'll probably mount them up soon since I now have one nearly bald RE71RS.

Sent from my SM-S926U1 using Tapatalk

[RedReplicant]

Lotus has needed a lot of little things sorted.

I had to redo the entire cockpit layout in terms of seat, seat mount, moving the shifter, lowering the steering column, etc since it was set up for a 6'3" driver which apparently required a lot of custom stuff.

Figured out that the ABS wasn't working so I went down a rabbit hole of troubleshooting that, fixing a sensor, adding an ABS failure light since the car doesn't have a stock cluster anymore, etc.

Shift cables were trash so I had to replace those, steering wheel quick release had play so that got replaced, etc.

Anyway, I got to drive it for the first time over the weekend. Despite there being some wicked feedback in the steering whenever the front is loaded up the car drives better than I could ever have believed and actual slicks are a dumb cheat code.

They're Hankook F200 medium compounds in 16" 205 / 17" 235 sizes or something and it was the first time I've ever been able to run a 30 minute sessions and not feel the tires really fall off much at all.

I think it makes 170whp, weighs probably 2000lb with me in it, and has no aero other than some kind of non-OEM diffuser. I was in the low 1:46 area taking it easy since it has a dead starter so I didn't want to spin and get stranded -- looking at data in comparison to the BRZ it has a 1:44 as it sits just from me figuring out how to brake and enter a corner with the car, and there is clearly time on top past that. Kinda disgusting.

Anyway, I think the car is going to both be great and also dumb expensive to build to what I want it to be. I also drove a K24 Elise turned down to 190whp for TT4 at the event and I've driven my other friend's TT2 Exige when it was 285whp on the supercharged Toyota motor.... the K24 felt faster so I can't imagine a sorted and uncorked K version.

Next BRZ days are at Inde Motorsports Ranch with NASA AZ on May 4-5, should be nice to get back there since it happens maybe once every other year or so.

[redlined600]

Are you building the Elise to a class or just for fun?

[RedReplicant]

Originally Posted by redlined600

Are you building the Elise to a class or just for fun?

I told myself it was for fun but we all know that's a lie.

I weighed it a few days ago and it came out lighter than I expected by about a hundred pounds, and there is another 50lb to easily come out of it. This is with 5gal of 91 in it but no 180lb me. 16xx with some fuel is looking pretty realistic.



I'd like to have a K24 in it by the end of the year.