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.