500bhp lotus S1 Exige build...

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absinthe said:

I was thinking it was Ford Tangerine Dream.

It's ford tangerine scream.

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annettej said:

Wow - this car was our first ever Exige, we had it from new but the throttle kept jamming and eventually Lotus took it back and replaced it after it tried to kill me one too may times. Amazing to see what it has become, it's fab!!

(Have to say I loved the original Nautilus Blue colour though - more than the orange ...)

Interesting, I bought it from a guy called Damian Murray at the end of 2008.

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Well it's been a while but progress will (hopefully) soon be made, new engine parts have landed....





Darren will be sorting the block, the head will be left with ian at clockwise to sort.

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stevebroad said:

Beautiful work, I think that I am going to crawl away and hide under a rock.

You just need to get rid of some of that excessive weight :-)

Edited by stevebroad on Sunday 12th February 11:11

I could ditch darren, but then it would never get finished

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Small update, Darrens new unit was finally at a stage where I could move the car from my mums.

Hopefully now we can start (slowly) to make some progress, I'll be popping over when I can to start putting the clams back together with new lights and seals etc.... Darren will when he can start work on the engine and new billet CC, the gear shift mech will be swapped out for the newer version and colour coded.

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Now that Darren's unit is finally finished I found a spare weekend to at least start screwing things back together....

Clam off....



Lights in....



New driving lights and brackets...



Splitter refitted....



New door seals....



Doors finished, wing mirrors fitted...



Canards refitted and clam on.....



New LED rear lights, I'm going to change the decals to black, the grey just looks washed out....



Couldn't get the extended front splitter and side cills fitted as the air jack system is not currently operating, job for the next visit, hoping the engine will be ready by mid October.

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So had a day on the car at the weekend, stickers changed to black and fitted the stone guards.


Getting the new grille to fit was an absolute pig, lots of fettling the mount brackets for the driving lights to get everything centred.



Then final job of the day was removal of the subframe...





This will be powder coated along with the longerons, I have a pair of new ones as well in case they look crap black.

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Finally got the back end back together...

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Unfortunately this project stalled a little due to work commitments from both me and darren

I have however been collecting various parts including new lotus carbon seats....



However before they were even fitted these came up for sale and with the yellow stitching they were deemed a better match ...



Darren finally found time to fit the liners into the block and last Friday the engine finally is on its way to Automek to be built up....



The main reason it’s not been close to completion is that I decided to rip out the omex and dash2, will now be the wired with a full motec installation, fingers crossed the engine will be back early January and things will start to come together a little quicker!

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Well it's been a while but we finally found some free time to get the engine installed!
With a bit of luck darren can start fabricating new bits required, I'll still need to find a chunk of money to get the wiring done though

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Darrens been busy designing the new shifter, this version will fit below a standard shroud. Cant wait to see one in the car.

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Dan4578 said:

Shifter looks great. Will these be available to buy? Been looking for an original AliTech one for ages!

Edited by Dan4578 on Tuesday 3rd December 12:47

Yes it will be available to buy

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Finally got some new seats that fit without any fettling !!

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Darrens designed a neat solution to mount the nitron remote reservoir....

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Not much to report, but the new monoblock shifter is finally nearing production, first one in the CNC machine today....

https://www.instagram.com/p/B9RUXoGnJ9O/?igshid=18...

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Well that was quick....

https://www.instagram.com/p/B9UomJqHQOQ/?igshid=av...

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Thank you for the compliments, i can't take any of the credit though really, it's all down to Darrens expertise!
Hopefully in the next few months Darren can find some time to finish off the bits required so we can get the new electronics installed.

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Out of the cnc....

Edited by EX51GE R on Saturday 7th March 20:37

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Test fit of the new mono block shifter.

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Escy said:

That looks awesome. The billet block you start with must cost a fair bit.

It's a fair hunk of metal!