What You've Done, why you did it..

GregR · Post by **GregR** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 1:27 pm

I was reading through Shug's conversion thread and I thought starting this thread would be a good idea. I've been thinking of some engine mods, so I thought it would be a good place to post what you've done yourself (or a link to a thread that contains it) to give an idea of what you did, why, and the benefits.

Case in point would be DTH TB's - costs, benefits? PITA factor (or recommend paying someone to do it)

If all you've done is whack on a hurricane & a zorst, chances are you wanted more noise, so I know the answer to that one

Other query - Sanj has a VVC plenum - I'm curious as to the benefits; did you need to uprate the cams or verniers? What are the benefits (actual and claimed!) Other things I'm curious about are porting the head, re-mapping the ECU, upgrading cams, PTP kits (especially the PITA factor there)

The reason for the thread is I've looked at the DVA page, and it's all quite confusing, with this thread, you can identify someone that's done a mod you're tempted by, chat to them, and see it in the flesh!

Cheers guys,

Greg

mac · Post by **mac** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 1:39 pm

I've done the full PTP kit. Head & plenium, exhaust & sports cat, ITG induction.

PITA value - not great for round town driving in the S2 guise - have heard the S1 is a lot better. Also sails close to the limit for S2 emissions too - it needs to be red hot to pass.

Fitment - It's not a DIYer job unless you know what your doing and even then it's handy to have a knowledgeable checker around at the critical points.

Bang for the buck - cost me around £3k and you don't get a remappable ecu - that aside I think it's on the money!

Just think, with all those extra horses Greg, how much further into the gravel you could get

Mac

Gareth · Post by **Gareth** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 2:05 pm

mac wrote:
Just think, with all those extra horses Greg, how much further into the gravel you could get

Mac

Uh oh!
You asked the same question I asked a year ago and I was told not to be stupid as I had not got all I could out of the car. In hindsight they (Mac and co) were right but I don't think they realised how talented I actually am!

Get an larini or equivalent and a hurricane. There is a 2nd hand one on SELOC at the moment! You will at least feel like you're going faster

Upgrade the suspension, S2 set up I think would suit you. Nitrons are a little hard.

mac · Post by **mac** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 2:13 pm

Gareth wrote:
mac wrote:
Just think, with all those extra horses Greg, how much further into the gravel you could get

Mac
In hindsight they (Mac and co) were right but I don't think they realised how talented I actually am!

Gareth - You'll be calling yourself 3mm next

Mac

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 3:11 pm

mac wrote:
Just think, with all those extra horses Greg, how much further into the gravel you could get

Mac

Any further in and we'd have been in the rubber walls

MacK · Post by **MacK** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 3:56 pm

mac wrote: exhaust & sports cat, ITG induction.

Hi Mac,

You got a sport cat rather than a cat replacement?

Is it as good as a replacement, but saves MoT hassles?

Considering this as my first car mod. Any recommendations?

John

mac · Post by **mac** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 4:09 pm

I think it's a good half way house.

Probably more restrictive than a CRP, but it's quieter and I don't need to worry at MOT times.

Personally - I'd get a loud exhaust first - standard cars sound like sewing machines

The_Rossatron · Post by **The_Rossatron** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 4:15 pm

I'd like a Sports Cat as my CRP was just too damn loud. It was to the point where I couldn't drive the thing with any 'sprititedness' without drawing ridiculous amounts of attention. Sports exhaust and induction kit make plenty enough noise for me.

edit: When I bought the car it had a CRP and I stuck the cat back on.

mckeann · Post by **mckeann** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 5:10 pm

DVA 160 kit. excellent fun to drive, and plenty quick enough for your first 2-3 years in the elise. without wanting to cause arguments, i found it much nicer to drive than the equivelant ptp kit. although to be fair, those ptp kits are still running at the moment, mines is not. (i should really repeat that last sentence 3 times

)

Air filter and exhaust. total waste of money unless you just want it to sound nice. so do it

Nitron suspension. excellent. although if you dont do trackdays, the S2 stuff is pretty darm close for half the price

Brakes. changed from MMC brakes to ali-belled steel discs and pagids. Much prefer the feel of them, although dont like the fact i added weight.

HONDA. tell you monday

Sanjøy · Post by **Sanjøy** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 7:24 pm

My engine went bang in 2003 and I bought my new one from Plans Motorsport (the ones on the Top Gears track).
It was a "mildy fettled" Mike Satur engine that came with the VVC plenum.
Feels faster than the old one but the car was off the road for a couple of months so hard to compare back to back. Coupled with the NAF, Janspeed SS and CRP it is loud and plenty fast for me at the moment.

Lifted from PTP site.

Designed for the use with our SPORT and RT SPORT engine upgrades, the modified VVC style inlet manifold is internally modified to increase plenum volume capacity, this in return maximises airflow to the engine for high speed performance. The kit can be fitted as a separate item to ALL MK1 Lotus Elise models. The kit comes complete including O.E. quality fuel pipe rail, blanking plate, gaskets, support strut and all fixings needed for installation to the vehicle.

Lifted from Sands Museum

The 135 Sport contained another Lotus modification to the K series engine, using a midly ported standard head with a VVC plenum. The head did not have variable valve timing. Lotus marketed it as having135bhp but actually haing about 145 bhp.

"The 135 has more torque than either the standard car or the 111S and pulls like a train all through the rev range - i.e. a much more useable car and what the Elise should have been all along." David Mousely, owner[/i]

offshorematt · Post by **offshorematt** » Tue Apr 11, 2006 6:08 pm

Gareth wrote: Nitrons are a little hard.

You kept that awful quiet when you sold me yours...

Post by **Shug** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 2:35 pm

My old engine was a standard bottom end with a ported head (by Stu) complete with larger valves (29.5/26mm - largest that fit in the standard inserts) Piper 285H cams, colisboro guides, verners etc.

Ran Jenvey direct to head throttle bodies with an Emerald ECU and Piper 421 zorst manifold CRP and racing silencer of dubious lineage.

Cost was around the £3.5k mark all in.

Pros - bloody quick, revved like a race engine (cos it was) idled like a swiss watch (throttle bodies/Emerald combo) and was tinkerable with. Also blew flames like a goodun, which amused me

Cons - finding a K series head which wasn't swiss cheese! If I actually paid Stu full rate for all of the work he did, I'd have been looking at a bill over twice what I paid (the first head went porus inside 600 miles). Also, the most obvious con is that it does stress the standard components more than they should be - hence it's recently given up the ghost. Also - that spec gave good top-end power, but the cams/TB combo didn't give much (if any) more torque and pushed it further up the rev range. Ideally, it needs a CR gearbox to keep it on cam.

If I had the money again, I'd buy a VVC engine and strip the VVC mech, whack in solid cams and a CR box, with the TB & Emerald setup. Would give more power for less money - but hindsight is a wonderful thing. I'd never advise anybody to modify a standard K head any more - lots of money and the standard ports/valve sizes are much better on the VVC anyway....

Post by **Shug** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 2:47 pm

Oh, to add - the only time I had it dynoed was just run-in without trumpets on the TBs (hadn't arrived) and restrictive individual filters on each throttle (as the airbox hadn't arrived) Car was also not mapped properly and was running very rich.

Gave 167bhp. Extrapolating the hole in the torque curve (trumpets) and the other factors, it should have comfortably been in the middle 180s.

The engine that is going in now is a standard VVC (with light porting on the exhaust side) which has given 167bhp on the standard ECU and plenum. With the bits I'm bolting on (Janspeed manifold, DTH TB's and Emerald) Dave Andrews predicts a good 180-190bhp, with better torque curve than the old engine (thanks to the VVC gubbins being intact)

No brainer, really....

Post by **ironside** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 4:35 pm

Shug wrote:the first head went porus inside 600 miles

That just *keeps* coming up doesn't it? My head survived my recent HGF, it didn't go porous, it was just a gasket failure. I'm back on the road again.

I started with a Quicksilver exhaust (supplied by MMC as a Lotus Sports exhaust as they didn't do the Janspeeds anymore and my original standard exhaust had rotted away) and a CRP as I had destroyed my catalyst because I had a leaky hose connected to the MAP sensor.

I added a K&N 57i kit later (I still have this in the garage if anyone wants it) which upped the decibel level considerably (much more than the exhaust did.) Big grin factor, who cares about whether it sucks in hot air or not.

This setup gave about 125-130bhp flywheel on the rolling road (the one near Glasgow airport, which as I later found out gave comparable, within 5ish bhp, figures to Emerald's r/road.) There were a few people on the list at the time who agreed it seemed like a "quick" standard engine. But everyone says this about their standard engines!

I got cylinder head stuff about the same time as 4mil and Shug. Similar spec to Shug's head but with milder cams as I retained the plastic inlet manifold. All fettled, built and fitted by Stu & co. Mine still lives!

26/29.5mm Ivey Valves
Colisbro guides
Piper BP2705H '633' grind cams
Verniers
Standard plastic inlet manifold (flashing removed)
Standard exhaust manifold (weld clagging removed)
Emerald ECU
Standard bottom end

The K&N then became very very loud, obviously from all the extra air being gulped in because Stu did such a good job. I changed this for an ITG Maxogen kit to shut it up a bit.

On the Emerald ECU this gave about 155bhp on the 'Glagow airport' rollers. A very wobbly power curve though!

If you decide to do mods that require an Emerald ECU, I recommend you budget the £230+travel etc to get it mapped at Emerald. It made a big difference to my car. Although I had no more peak power, the curve was much smoother all the way up and I ended up with 151bhp and 145lbft on Emerald's rollers and a much more drivable car. IMHO it was money well spent.

There is no problem with emissions with the cat on and a suitable leaner map loaded. 0% CO 0ppm HC.

I managed to wreck my bottom end by allowing it to run low on oil on a track day. Do not allow this to happen to you, 1L of oil is much much cheaper than a rebuild. Stu lightened a flywheel for me while the engine was apart and I got an AP Clutch fitted at the same time.

To be honest I noticed little difference with the flywheel, it makes heel toeing easier because the engine revs up quicker in neutral but it makes little/no difference to driving in gear. I don't notice much of a difference in the "grab" of the AP clutch either, but a few other people driving my car do.

The downsides are a lumpy idle and less power below 3k rpm, which can give you kangarooing etc at low rpm while pootling. It's great fun 3k-7k rpm though

) It's also fun to spit flames. I sometimes have difficulty with (very) cold starts on the Emerald and resort to starting on the MEMS and letting it warm up before swapping back to the Emerald. I could of course sort cold starting rather than swap ECUs.

Before the cylinder head stuff I changed my brakes for an Eliseparts/Pagid RS4-2 combo after one of my MMC disks sheared on track. These are much better than my MMCs ever were, though I realise this is at odds with the MMC fans' opinion.

I also changed the Konis for Nitrons which I believe was the best single upgrade I have ever made. I would strongly advise anyone considering going down the slipper slope of throwing money at the car to start with these. Especially if you use it on track. You will do your astonished face much more with Nitrons than you do with similar engine mods to mine. This may be different if you jump straight for jap power of course!

From seeing what happened to Neil & Shug's head I wouldn't advise anyone to go down the route of modifying a standard cylinder head. Fit a VVC/VHPD/Vulcan head instead, a PTP kit or a VVC engine. The heads are a much better design anyway.

GregR · Post by **GregR** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 4:57 pm

Cracking updates guys - very useful info there

PS Simon, were you the one helping me to top up my oil at the last Brunty day at KH? If so