private racing league called Exos
Club, membership of which would
set you back somewhere in the
region of $1M. But the departure of
Bahar sounded the death knell for the
project and so it was sold on.
Because this project was abandoned
so quickly by Lotus there were only
very few prototypes ever assembled.
Most of these and the contents of
the parts bins were sent to New
Zealand. 'There were lots of carbon
components, all the suspensions and
the engines came with the project;
says Dicker. 'It all came disassembled
and it was put together and painted
here.'
'It basically took about two years to
develop the car properly, to get the
infrastructure working and to get all
the guys understanding the objectives
of the project; Dicker adds. 'Most of
the aerodynamic parts are the same
or very similar to the T125.Most of our
development work concerned refining
the build quality, replacing some
fairly average aluminium parts with
titanium, and just basically finishing it
off. It's still more or less the same car
but we've done a lot of detailed work
on it, because the car we received
hadn't been very well developed at
all. There were all manner of things
that had to be refined and improved
and there were lots of detailed things
that had to be done to make it a
viable proposition as a customer car.'
HP source
The Lotus was originally designed
and built in Italy by HP Composites
and Lotus didn't really have a great
deal to do with it at that stage. It
packs a 675bhp 3.8-litre Cosworth
V8, while the suspension has
now been modified. 'There were
some strange things on the car we
received, like an obscure motocross
damper, which didn't really work, so
we took the opportunity to refresh the
suspension,' says Dicker.
On the advice of Avon, Rodin opted
for some wider front tyres, which
improved the handling immeasurably,
while it also switched from Alcon to
Brembo brake callipers.
TECH SPEC:
RODIN FZED
Engine
Cosworth GPV8; 3.8-litre; 32 valves, naturally-apirated;
135kg; longitudinal mid-mounted; 9O-degree vee;
cast aluminium alloy cylinder block and heads; forged
aluminium pistons; steel crankshaft; Pectel S06 ECU,
dry sump.
Chassis
Carbon composite; Nomex and aluminium core construction;
autoclave cure; carbon composite Nomex
core construction body panels.
Transmission
Ricardo gearbox; longitudinal layout; dog engagement
semi-automatic paddle shift, pneumatic actuation; auto
throttle blip/ignition cut; triple-plate carbon clutch.
Suspension
Double wishbone; springs actuated via pushrod and
rocker arrangements; adjustable ride height and
camber; Ohlins 4-way dampers; front and rear anti-roll
bars with blade type adjustment.
Safety Systems
Cockpit and engine bay nozzle fire system (FIA
approved); 6-point FIA F1 spec harness, quick release
turn buckle; headrest to comply with FIA regulations;
front/rear crash structures and roll hoop designed and
tested to FIA guidelines.
Brakes
Brembo carbon-carbon, split front/rear system; twin
master cylinders with front/rear bias adjustment;
6-piston callipers front and rear.
Weight
609kg.
Dimensions
Length, 4904mm; width, 1900mm; height, 960mm.