US Elise engine chosen
Discussion
quote:
Don't forget that top speed wise all these cars, bar the MR2, would murder it. It has a relatively high Cd for its size and does tend to struggle above 100mph even with the higher power engine. The drag can be usefully turned into to downforce though and would obviously improve 'high' speed handling.
Cd is the drag coeficient of the shape, it is independant of size. The Elise is small so although it has a high Cd it's drag shouldn't be that bad compared to something of normal height. What's the fastest anyone has got out of an Elise fitted with a real engine with gearing changed to match?
While downforce does usually lead to increased drag you can't magically convert drag into downforce. Besides, lots of downforce means either lots of suspension compression at high speed (bad) or very hard springs (also bad). And there's always the problem of the dirty air behind oncoming traffic screwing up your downforce as you're cornering.
Downforce - good on tracks, should be limited on road cars.
My car has Km not miles, and a Honda drivetrain with peak power at 8300rpm, and cruising at 120km (75mph) is 4000rpm.
The speedo goes to 240Km/h, and the tach goes to 8000 (the needle goes off the end :-)
Fastest I've been is off the end of the tach in 4th gear which was about 190km/h or 115mph and it was still pulling hard.
That was on the road, unfortunately all the long straights at Laguna Seca are hill climbs, so its hard to get over 100 on the track day I did so far.
In 5th if it went to the power peak it would be off the end of the tach and off the end of the speedo if it went over 150mph
I'll have to take a road trip to the bonneville salt flats to find out
The 1.8L toyota VVTL-i engine is a good candidate, but it has it's problems. I have a 2000 toyota celica GT-S and have had it since feb. 2000. I've done many mod's to the call and take it to the track as often as possible. The engine has some problems, it seems to revolve around the oil system (mainly the pump and oil tempeture) and the valves (which we think is a symtom of the oil problem). We've seen in Japan some after market oil pumps and oil cooling systems come out. I haven't been able to get my hands on one yet (despite trying) so I don't know if it helps.
I've blown 1 engine so far that, and it was replaced by toyota under warrenty. I was at the track on a hot day going down the back straight shifting from 3rd to 4th and right before I shifted the engine let go. When toyota looked at it the oil pump was broke into 2 pieces and majority of the valves were bent. With the variable valve timing and lift being controlled by oil pressure, when the oil pump went the system lost pressure and went out of timing/lift range for 8200 rpm's and knocked most of the valves on the pistons.
Now I avoid long tracks and any events that require you to lap several times before coming in. I'm not going into those events until I know I have my oil system upto the task. The engine is also hard to do forced unduction with since it has a 11.5:1 compression ratio. But with better breathing and exhaust we are seeing 10 to 15 extra wheel HP. And the people that have ventured to F/I have seen good results of 250 hp to the wheels on 6 psi of boost. There also have been companies like EIP that have new sleaves, pistons, and connecting rods to go with their F/I application and have seen 330+ hp to the wheels on 16 psi. But all of these F/I are very $$$ and there have been lots of engines let go. Also there are presently no aftermarket cam shafts as the high and low cam lobes are made of different metals and the aftermarket cam shops are not able to recreate these. If you want an ferther explination of the cam situation I can go into more detail just ask.
I'm guessing that Lotus will not put anything over 2 liters in the USA version and as I see it right now there are only these engines that presently meet the emissions and would go into the Elise;
1) Toyota 2zz-ge 1.8L VVTL-i (180 Hp in USA)
2) Toyota 1zz-fe 1.8L VVT-i (140 Hp in USA)
3) Honda/Acura V-Tec-i 2.0L (RSX)
4) Honda/Acura V-Tec-i 1.7L (Civic)
5) Mazada 2.0L VVT (Miata)
Nissan makes a really nice 2.5 L engine but I can't see them using that. The Honda/Acura B-series engines were discontiuned in the US because of new emission standard (or atleast thats of offical word) so they can't use any of those engines.
Hope I helped to shed some light on this, and am enjoying reading all of the info that you guys are posting
WAR
'00 Celica GT-S
I've blown 1 engine so far that, and it was replaced by toyota under warrenty. I was at the track on a hot day going down the back straight shifting from 3rd to 4th and right before I shifted the engine let go. When toyota looked at it the oil pump was broke into 2 pieces and majority of the valves were bent. With the variable valve timing and lift being controlled by oil pressure, when the oil pump went the system lost pressure and went out of timing/lift range for 8200 rpm's and knocked most of the valves on the pistons.
Now I avoid long tracks and any events that require you to lap several times before coming in. I'm not going into those events until I know I have my oil system upto the task. The engine is also hard to do forced unduction with since it has a 11.5:1 compression ratio. But with better breathing and exhaust we are seeing 10 to 15 extra wheel HP. And the people that have ventured to F/I have seen good results of 250 hp to the wheels on 6 psi of boost. There also have been companies like EIP that have new sleaves, pistons, and connecting rods to go with their F/I application and have seen 330+ hp to the wheels on 16 psi. But all of these F/I are very $$$ and there have been lots of engines let go. Also there are presently no aftermarket cam shafts as the high and low cam lobes are made of different metals and the aftermarket cam shops are not able to recreate these. If you want an ferther explination of the cam situation I can go into more detail just ask.
I'm guessing that Lotus will not put anything over 2 liters in the USA version and as I see it right now there are only these engines that presently meet the emissions and would go into the Elise;
1) Toyota 2zz-ge 1.8L VVTL-i (180 Hp in USA)
2) Toyota 1zz-fe 1.8L VVT-i (140 Hp in USA)
3) Honda/Acura V-Tec-i 2.0L (RSX)
4) Honda/Acura V-Tec-i 1.7L (Civic)
5) Mazada 2.0L VVT (Miata)
Nissan makes a really nice 2.5 L engine but I can't see them using that. The Honda/Acura B-series engines were discontiuned in the US because of new emission standard (or atleast thats of offical word) so they can't use any of those engines.
Hope I helped to shed some light on this, and am enjoying reading all of the info that you guys are posting
WAR
'00 Celica GT-S
Its a pity the Honda B18C is no longer available, I spent last weekend thrashing my car and it ran just fine.
I drove my Elise (sunspeed Honda conversion) from San Jose to Los Angeles last week, wandered around a bit giving friends rides then spent both Saturday and Sunday at Willow Springs Raceway, north of LA towards the Mohave desert. It claims to be the fastest racetrack in the west, and I was doing over 120mph at the end of the straight. I was also hitting my rev limiter (9100rpm) far too often, but with no ill-effects!
I was on street Pzero tires which kept my cornering speeds down and I did a 1:50.9 as my fastest lap. It was only my second track day, and I *really* wanted to be able to drive the car home afterwards, so I was over-braking....
There was a 340R at the track with an experienced driver, doing times in the 1:30's and pulling much higher speeds through the turns, although I could catch him on the straight with my extra power and better aerodynamics.
Afterwards I drove back to LA (I convoyed up there with an XJ220 and back with a Renault 5 Turbo :-) and all the way back to San Jose. Thats about 1500 road miles and over 200 track miles (I lost count).
Good fun, I gave lots of people rides and they all thought the Elise was very cool. The event was the Euro Tuner Fest, and was very well organized. (www.eurotunerfest.com)
Next time I'll have Yoko 038's (like the 340R)
Looking for that R5 Turbo?
www.sunspeed.com/
I too followed him(or another one) back from Laguna Seca Vintage races last year. Great sounding car.
www.sunspeed.com/
I too followed him(or another one) back from Laguna Seca Vintage races last year. Great sounding car.
quote:
Renault 5 Turbo in the US?
How? Why?
Sun International did the import and federalised them years ago.
This R5 turbo is for sale, I think $24K but I'm sure they will take offers. Its a "maxi" homolgation special with 185bhp and extra alloy bits. Red with very nice paint, low milage. At the www.sunspeed.com URL mentioned above. I had a ride around the track in it in one of the low-speed touring sessions and its a fun car.
englishman in LA said: Presumably thats the engine in the Vauxhall elise...
Anybody have figures on it including weight? it would be nioce to know whether I now have to start saving up for a visit to prototype racing...
Steve
Performance would be indentical to the VX220/Speedster i.e. very similar to the standard Elise.
clanger said:Don't knock the ol' K tho' its a superb engine - matches any of 'em - I just luv it, as KK would say.
I hope that's a very unfunny joke, the K-Series should have been replaced yonks ago. As for comparing it to the Toyota and Honda engines - the K-Series is not in the same league as these!!
100bhp/litre is no effort for the Japanese powerplants yet the K-Series struggles to manage just over half of that in standard form.
It is hard to believe that the US Elise would be introduced with a 140 bhp GM engine. How about the supercharged 2.2 version?
Autoweek: "The Saturn Sky has a supercharged 2.2-liter four-cylinder engine making 180 hp with a five-speed manual transmission". Others claim that this engine will do 200 hp.
Autoweek: "The Saturn Sky has a supercharged 2.2-liter four-cylinder engine making 180 hp with a five-speed manual transmission". Others claim that this engine will do 200 hp.
I honestly hope the whole GM thing was a very bad joke by Autoweek. I wouldn't feel good at all about having a GM engine in my Elise. Putting them in a saturn is one thing - but after seeing how many problems my friends have had with their saturns and other GM vehicles, I think I might go as far as to cancel my spot on the waiting list for the Elise if this engine were to be decided upon. On the other hand, I would be extremely happy if they were to decide upon the Toyota or Honda engines 
>> Edited by MikeAR303 on Tuesday 5th November 23:07
>> Edited by MikeAR303 on Tuesday 5th November 23:07
I can tell you now I would not be surprised if Lotus did actually launch it with only 140bhp. Why launch with such low power? Well, because Lotus did exactly the same thing with the K-Series when they launched the 'all new' S2 Elise.
They build us up with higher power model and then bring out the untuned stock engine in a redesigned body. Maybe if you guys did threaten Lotus with your deposits then they wouldn't consider the idea. Get to it!
They build us up with higher power model and then bring out the untuned stock engine in a redesigned body. Maybe if you guys did threaten Lotus with your deposits then they wouldn't consider the idea. Get to it!
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