My 300+hp Lotus Elise Project

[Cody D]

Over winter I decided it was time to change some things on my Elise, the car is a blast to drive but from the factory it's not overly fast. I weighed the car in stock form, it was 1910lbs, I would like to get that down to mid 1800's. The car from factory came with 190hp and I wanted over 300.

My first real modification was the exhaust, the stock one is fairly heavy (28lbs) and quiet, I went with the BOE Quarter Stick which weighs (8lbs) and sounds a lot better.

[Cody D]

Since it's a mid engined car I wanted to have an easier way of accessing the engine for work so I ordered a clam hinge kit from BOE Fabrication, in a couple of minutes I can have the rear clam completely out of the way. I needed to replace the heavy stock battery (30lbs) with a new one, I bought an Odyssey battery (11lbs) and the clam hinge kit came with all the parts needed for relocation to the engine bay.



I had to pull the interior out in order to remove the rear clam shell.



Then the rear engine lid.



Then I was able to remove the rear clam shell.

[captain134]

Cool project. Good work!

[Kloubek]

Just out of curiosity, is the Elise capable of handling a TRD supercharger? If so, I wonder if that is a better route to increase the power as opposed to putting in tiny batteries, etc.

[Cody D]

My garage was quickly getting full of parts.





I then got the clam refitted on the new hinges, making sure the clam was aligned properly was the hardest part. Getting used to the movement of the hinges when you are lifting takes some getting used to.

[Cody D]

Originally posted by captain134
Cool project. Good work!

Thanks man.

Originally posted by Kloubek
Just out of curiosity, is the Elise capable of handling a TRD supercharger? If so, I wonder if that is a better route to increase the power as opposed to putting in tiny batteries, etc.

Just wait, I've got more to post. The TRD is not the best way to go, I wanted more than the low to mid 200hp that most get with it.

[Cody D]

Now comes the fun part, I ordered a supercharger kit. It's called the Revolution 310 kit it's made by BOE Fabrication, the same company that made the clam hinge and the exhaust. It is from what I've read the most power you can safely go without opening the engine. I should now have 310hp at the crank.

Yay parts.



Here is the lettering on the new intake manifold.



Lots of parts.

[Unknown303]

Wow, looks good. Want some incar video when this is done.

[Cody D]

Here is the Eaton M62, I love superchargers.





Starting to disassemble the intake, wiring, manifold etc.





I had to strip the wrapping around the wiring for the injectors and COP. The new manifold and supercharger meant I had to route the wiring differently than stock.

[Cody D]

Originally posted by Unknown303
Wow, looks good. Want some incar video when this is done.

I need to find a way to do it without going to jail, haha.

[Toma]

Pretty cool!!

[Twin_Cam_Turbo]

You are building my dream car.

[Toma]

Is the kit intercooled? How much boost? What compression is the car stock? ECU? Water injection?

[Cody D]

The rest of my pictures are all from my cell phone because I was just trying to get it done before the weather got nice.

Mounting the intake manifold and blower was fairly easy, the biggest problems I had was getting the new manifold studs into the head without stripping the threads and fitting the blower where the alternator used to be, there was about a millimeter of room between the relocated alternator and the blower snout.





The kit came with an air to water intercooler setup, the intercooler itself is built into the intake manifold, this little radiator is used to cool the fluid. The two fans are pretty noisy but that's okay.



I had to pressurize both coolant systems when I was done, the engine coolant system I actually just blew into it with the bleed screws open, the intercooler coolant system has a pump to move the coolant, we had to cycle the key for about half an hour letting the air out.

The kit came with everything I needed, new colder plugs, a Walbro 255 fuel pump, new injectors, all the hoses and wires. Taking my time and doing things right I installed it over a month and a half, if I had all the parts and wasn't working I think I could have done it in 2 to 3 days.

The car started up great, besides one little issue with a fuel line that I hadn't secured properly the car has been running awesome. It is way faster than it was, 310hp in a ~1900lb car has a great power to weight ratio.

Here is the first start.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWtLHb_8TrY

[blackpeople]

Cody everytime i see "clam shell" i giggle a lil.
Car looks awesome man. Keep up the great work. You have to come to race city at least one secret street.

[Cody D]

Originally posted by Toma
Pretty cool!!

Thanks, I now need to bring it to you to see how much power I actually have.

Originally posted by Twin_Cam_Turbo
You are building my dream car.

Haha, mine too.

Originally posted by Toma
Is the kit intercooled? How much boost? What compression is the car stock? ECU? Water injection?

This kit is intercooled, you can get a blower kit from them without an intercooler but it has about half the power gain. It's bad but I actually don't know what the boost level is, a boost gauge and a wideband A/F gauge are my next two purchases. The compression is 11.5:1. There were two options, a stand alone or a reflashed factory ECU, I went with the reflash. No water injection, that is a good idea though.

[Cody D]

Originally posted by blackpeople
Cody everytime i see "clam shell" i giggle a lil.
Car looks awesome man. Keep up the great work. You have to come to race city at least one secret street.

Haha, I don't know what else to call it. I probably will break down and bring it to secret streets, on the Gtech I got 12.7 @ 112mph, if that's close to accurate I would be happy.

[Cody D]

Here is a picture from BOE that better shows the intercooler.

[blackpeople]

Dam that thing should be a lil monster, Can t wait to see it

[Kloubek]

I guess you *did* say you wanted 300hp. Ain't gonna get that out of the 1.8l without forced induction.

Very cool - looking forward to seeing the finished build!