Scottish Elises

Hi!

Moved this thread into Technical after introducing myself. Picked up my 98S Elise week before xmas, nice present to myself, and have been smiling all through the holidays! Looking forward to meeting up with fellow owners to pick up lots of hints and tips! Got two early questions already!

Firstly, I'm look for a new set of tyres for the back wheels as i have 2 different 'clown' tyres on at the moment. Found some good prices online but was wondering if anyone had a good place in Glasgow for fitting, or possibly supply as well? Drivers at Charing X has been mentioned for fitting?

Secondly, my alarm doesnt work as the interior motion sensor (if thats what is called) is missing. Just have the remnemts of a piece of velcro and a lonely wire/plug. Does anyone know where i could pick one of these up? New/used/different car etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanking you all in advance!



Steven

hi mate - welcome!

Tyres depend on your budget to be honest.
If you are looking for a set to get you through winter and a wet spring, id recommend TOYO T1Rs.
I run them on my S1 all year round and a couple of trackdays in summer and I find them more than ideal.
If Cumbernauld isnt too far away from you, give Jim dixon's (01236 720205) a call and get your elise round to them for T1R supply & fitting.

Once the dry weather comes in and if you have spare pennies, Id recommend getting either Yokohama Advans or Toyo R888s, but these are very expensive. The Yoko tyres can only be bought from dealers or Eliseparts.com (I think!)
It really depends on what you want to do with the elise...

With reagrds to the alarm sensor, do you have the connector on the end of the cable? If so, it should just be a case of finding one and plugging it in - assuming there's nothing wrong with the circuit/ wiring.
Best bet to find one is on ebay, pistonheads or SELOC (look for someone called JUNKS) - posting wanted threads in classified sections or looking in a elise friendly scrappy.

hope this helps!

Ross

I use Drivers for tyres for both my cars and find them very competitive i am sure you could get them cheaper else where but for the convience and the fact I know they will look after the car, i highly recomend them. They also are also used to working on Elise's plus they will probably also be able to help you out with the alarm.

Tyres wise Murray's (The Lootus dealers) in Edinburgh will give you 10% off a set of Advan Neovas, should be about £400 before fitting and have them delivered to their Glasgow Jeep branch. I wouldn't look by neovas for a road tyre personally.

If the car is going to stay in rainy old Scotland most of the time, T1R is a good choice. Advan Neova (if you can still get them - I thought they were now pushing the C-drive for the S1?) is an excellent tyre, better than T1R in the dry but slightly worse in the wet (in my experience). T1R is cheaper by about 100 quid for a set of 4 IIRC? Wear rates pretty much the same.

If you're planning on tracking the car or taking it to sunny europe then the Neova is the tyre of choice for all round performance.

Probably also worth checking the dampers - if still the reddy/orange Konis they will be well shagged and you might want to save up for yellow S2 bilstein retro-fit kit - if already changed for something else, you're in luck

Cheers,
Robin

P.S. Some people don't like the T1R because it can give a floaty feeling to the steering. To some extent this can be eliminated by playing with tyre pressures and also once the tyre is run in a bit, but it never goes away entirely - that said, I've thrashed T1Rs on an S2 around the ring without any problems, so it's more a feely thing than an outright performance issue.

Cheers guys!

I was going down the TR1 route due to budget and fairly positive reviews about them. Can pick them up online reasonably cheaply, blackcircles and camskill. But if you ask for fitting on Blackcircles they add on around 14 quid a tyre which seems steep to me?

As i said this is an essential now as im way less than happy with the tyres on the back. Will have to start a 888 savings account i think!

Robin - Suspension was something i was well aware when looking and some nice previous owner fitted some nice new shocks with adjustable dampers only 5k miles ago!

I have been searching around for an alarm sensor i i do still have the wire there. obviosly no idea if it work tho which is a pain. I will try posting a wanted add and see what happens, just dont want to buy one then find out something else is goosed!

Cheers

Steven

Turtlepower wrote:Cheers guys!

But if you ask for fitting on Blackcircles they add on around 14 quid a tyre which seems steep to me?
I have been searching around for an alarm sensor i i do still have the wire there. obviosly no idea if it work tho which is a pain. I will try posting a wanted add and see what happens, just dont want to buy one then find out something else is goosed!

CheersSteven

I've used ATS for tyre fitting and balancing £5.00 a corner here in the Burgh so long as your prepared to leave them with them if they're busy, don't need a recipte and talk to they guys doing the work rather than the office Jocky

But your right I was quoted 10-12 a corner from several places in town ~when I gave them another chance to what happened ~many now won't even fit tyres you havent bought from them

I've got an Cobra Ultrasonic interior sensor you can try to see if that gets your alarm working (as the cars off the road at the moment being rebuilt) that way you can check it before splashing out for one
cheers Hamish

Steven

I'm not sure if anyones asked already but what tyres have you got on the front? Mixing different fronts and rears could give you some interesting handling depending on what you've got. If you put something sticky like 888's on you definitely want to do all 4 at once.

Neil

Turtlepower wrote:As i said this is an essential now as im way less than happy with the tyres on the back. Will have to start a 888 savings account i think!

888's are cheap. Think mine were only 360odd for the fronts and rears from Camskill. Only thing is you will have to uprate the rear toe links to run them...you could be lucky and find they've already been done though.

Neil - It has a set of champairos on the front. not great either by any stretch of the imagination but not sure if i def need to change them. I thought, but please correct me if im wrong and about to go through a hedge backwards, if the back was 'grippier' than the front this was okish as it would produce a bit more understeer. As opposed to the other way around which would produce mega oversteer? I know i should really be changing all 4 but not sure if the pennies will allow it this month!

Hamish - Might take you up on that i will let you know, couple of friends in edinburgh, give me an excsue to drive through!

ABZ-Elise - Not sure if toe links will have been done, i have pile of history with the car but dont remember seeing anything for that. If only it wasnt the g/friends birthday on sunday...

Steven

Dan uses Champiros

Pirellis now.

Dan

p.s. They were actually Diamondbacks on the Jag. Fun in the snow.

roadboy wrote:p.s. They were actually Diamondbacks on the Jag. Fun in the snow.

ach close enough, knew they were some make of reconstituted condoms

A full Geo does wonders for the handling aswell

I'm using Pirelli PZero-Nero on the S2 right now - not bad (not really dramatically different to the Advans AD07, except that they have a wider front profile and are cheaper ) - but not available in S1 sizes.

Cheers,
Robin