Supercharged Honda Elise 135R
Discussion
After a couple of years driving a stock 2008 factory-supercharged Elise, mostly as my only car and including a handful of trackdays and runs to the Alps, I found I'd got used to the performance. I spent a few months pondering whether to dump some cash into improving the handling side, but was wary of ruining a fantastic all-rounder and still not being excited by it.
I'd originally gone for the fastest, latest, standard car I could afford, out of reliability and build-quality fears. Aside from stone-related damage (two spot lights, one windscreen, one radiator and a smattering of stonechips) I did 20,000 miles without issue and now have a little more confidence in the Elise platform. This got me pondering what other versions were out there that might tick my boxes.
Way back in 2007, in my very early twenties, I took my Suzuki Cappuccino on my first Euro tour with a wonderful group of car nuts. One of the organisers was a certain Gruffy who, due to a chain of events, was driving a borrowed Elise with a supercharged Honda engine. He waxed lyrical about that car, and the seed was planted in my mind. Cut to this month and that seed was a groaning giant redwood, leaving me with no other option.
A little looking and a couple of recommendations later, I ended up looking at a couple of examples. One relatively high mileage but cared-for Elise S2, with Exige bodywork, Porsche Riviera blue paintwork and a loud exhaust, and one low mileage Elise 135R, with boring silver paintwork and all-round more sensible. The former was the obvious choice. Until I test drove them both. The 135R was one of the tightest-feeling, best-screwed-together Lotuses I've been in, despite being 13 years old. The gearshift (notoriously a bit s
t in these) was far better and despite having half the mileage of the other car, it looked and felt like it had tenth. Even the boring silver paint looked fantastic in person. A deal was quickly done and an achingly-long week followed while it was prepped for me.
The spec is massive, but the juicy bits include:
I'd originally gone for the fastest, latest, standard car I could afford, out of reliability and build-quality fears. Aside from stone-related damage (two spot lights, one windscreen, one radiator and a smattering of stonechips) I did 20,000 miles without issue and now have a little more confidence in the Elise platform. This got me pondering what other versions were out there that might tick my boxes.
Way back in 2007, in my very early twenties, I took my Suzuki Cappuccino on my first Euro tour with a wonderful group of car nuts. One of the organisers was a certain Gruffy who, due to a chain of events, was driving a borrowed Elise with a supercharged Honda engine. He waxed lyrical about that car, and the seed was planted in my mind. Cut to this month and that seed was a groaning giant redwood, leaving me with no other option.
A little looking and a couple of recommendations later, I ended up looking at a couple of examples. One relatively high mileage but cared-for Elise S2, with Exige bodywork, Porsche Riviera blue paintwork and a loud exhaust, and one low mileage Elise 135R, with boring silver paintwork and all-round more sensible. The former was the obvious choice. Until I test drove them both. The 135R was one of the tightest-feeling, best-screwed-together Lotuses I've been in, despite being 13 years old. The gearshift (notoriously a bit s
t in these) was far better and despite having half the mileage of the other car, it looked and felt like it had tenth. Even the boring silver paint looked fantastic in person. A deal was quickly done and an achingly-long week followed while it was prepped for me.The spec is massive, but the juicy bits include:
- Elise 135R (stiffer height-adjustable suspension, adjustable ARB, Exige wheel/tyre size, blue Alcantara interior, “Mica Silver” paint)
- 310hp and 200lbft (170lbft from 3,000rpm) at the wheels
- Sinclaire (now Essex Autosport) Honda K20 conversion, rebuilt by Clockwisemotion in 2014
- Jackson Racing supercharger
- Air-water chargecooler
- JDM cams
- Hondata K-Pro ECU
- Clockwisemotion baffled sump
- 2Bular GT3 exhaust
- Quaife LSD with 4.4 final drive (makes first gear vaguely useful)
- Lightweight flywheel
- Maidstone Sportscars “Waspy Fast Road” geo (340R road geo with 135R-spec front toe, apparently)
- EliseParts aluminium-belled brake discs
- Pagid RS-42 pads
Having come from the creature comforts of a 2008 car with a rock solid Really Light Stuff phone mount, I'm missing having sat nav and music on-hand. This will be important for a trip to Italy I have in a couple of months, otherwise who knows where I'll end up.
I couldn't find anything specific for my car, and the universal suction/sticky mounts always fall off and look crap. I figured there was something that could be done in more of a Lotus mindset, with some extruded aluminium.
There are two screws here, I wonder if they could be piggybacked onto…
Seems like a good place for it.
Take some measurements and figure out how to do this thing.
Assemble the materials: 60x20x2mm aluminium box section, 0.4mm gasket paper, Brodit iPhone 6 mount.
As it turns out, taking photos through box section is fun.
Marked up ready for cutting. This length will form the height of the mount.
Trial fit to check the length is correct.
Part way through tidying up the ends.
Dash screw holes marked and centre-punched.
And drilled.
And a light countsink to take the edge off.
Now of course the problem is you can't get in straight to screw the thing on.
Two holes in the opposite face, wide enough to get the Torx bit in.
Deburring the inside of the screw holes, showing how the screws will be done up.
Trial fit.
Tape off and ready for surface finishing.
Sandpaper clamped down with a baton to run the mount against in a straight line.
After a few minutes with rough then medium grit paper, you end up with a reasonable brushed style finish. Without paying for anodising to match the dash, this is about as good as I'll manage.
A piece of gasket paper cut to size, to protect the dash panel from any scratches.
Final fit.
Brodit mount stuck on with a double-sided foam pad. I didn't go for the stickiest I could find, I'd rather have that fail then my dash be pulled off.
6" Belkin Lightning cable into the stereo.
All mounted up and music playing.
Ta-da!
I think it turned out rather well. It feels very solid, doesn't look too out of place and falls easily to hand without leaning, so could be operated with harnesses on.
Fingers crossed it doesn't fall off after five minutes
I couldn't find anything specific for my car, and the universal suction/sticky mounts always fall off and look crap. I figured there was something that could be done in more of a Lotus mindset, with some extruded aluminium.
There are two screws here, I wonder if they could be piggybacked onto…
Seems like a good place for it.
Take some measurements and figure out how to do this thing.
Assemble the materials: 60x20x2mm aluminium box section, 0.4mm gasket paper, Brodit iPhone 6 mount.
As it turns out, taking photos through box section is fun.
Marked up ready for cutting. This length will form the height of the mount.
Trial fit to check the length is correct.
Part way through tidying up the ends.
Dash screw holes marked and centre-punched.
And drilled.
And a light countsink to take the edge off.
Now of course the problem is you can't get in straight to screw the thing on.
Two holes in the opposite face, wide enough to get the Torx bit in.
Deburring the inside of the screw holes, showing how the screws will be done up.
Trial fit.
Tape off and ready for surface finishing.
Sandpaper clamped down with a baton to run the mount against in a straight line.
After a few minutes with rough then medium grit paper, you end up with a reasonable brushed style finish. Without paying for anodising to match the dash, this is about as good as I'll manage.
A piece of gasket paper cut to size, to protect the dash panel from any scratches.
Final fit.
Brodit mount stuck on with a double-sided foam pad. I didn't go for the stickiest I could find, I'd rather have that fail then my dash be pulled off.
6" Belkin Lightning cable into the stereo.
All mounted up and music playing.
Ta-da!
I think it turned out rather well. It feels very solid, doesn't look too out of place and falls easily to hand without leaning, so could be operated with harnesses on.
Fingers crossed it doesn't fall off after five minutes
Nezquick, it's not slow! No idea of real-world figures, but 0-60 should be comfortably sub-4s.
As for photos of the engine bay…
Jackson Racing supercharger
70mm throttle body
There's a charge cooler in there somewhere
The Nimbus heat shielding does a spectacular job, keeps the boot nice and tepid, rather than cooking everything in there like they normally do
Decent hardware used, in general
As for photos of the engine bay…
Jackson Racing supercharger
70mm throttle body
There's a charge cooler in there somewhere
The Nimbus heat shielding does a spectacular job, keeps the boot nice and tepid, rather than cooking everything in there like they normally do
Decent hardware used, in general
Are you running KPro (I assume you are using KPro) version 4? You can connect via Bluetooth and have gauges on your phone screen.
I'm running a rotrex super charger on my K20 (civic) and without an intercooler or chargecooler the temps are close to 90 degrees. I've got a chargecooler being fitted this week.
I'm running a rotrex super charger on my K20 (civic) and without an intercooler or chargecooler the temps are close to 90 degrees. I've got a chargecooler being fitted this week.
It's running a K-Pro, but I'm not familiar with them and not sure of the version. If the hardware varies, I suspect it's an older version, as I believe the ECU was fitted with the original conversion back in 2006. If I get the app will it just show up as a Bluetooth device if it has the capability, or would it need configuring via USB first?
I took the car on track for the first time under my ownership today, at Blyton Park. Aside from the silencer making a bid for freedom at the start of the day and melting itself onto a reflector, it all went swimmingly 
It was quickly pushed back into place, the clamp tightened up and was fine for the rest of the day, so I can only assume the clamp was loose beforehand. Anyhow, new reflector needed!
I learnt a lot about how the car handles and behaves on track, the three main takeaways being:
That doesn't look right…
Tucked up back at home after a day of abuse
It was a Lotus on Track day, though the handful of Lotuses there were swamped with GT86s. We had great weather, not many cars and a brilliant crowd of people with no egos; by far the best trackday I've done in terms of atmosphere, fun and friendliness. Also, it turns out the owner of Blyton Park is a wonderful character, riding round the paddock on his scooter and spanking his McLaren 570S round during lunch because “I'm sprinting tomorrow and want to run it lower on fuel”. Top notch.
I edited a couple of vaguely interesting bits of video from the day together: https://youtu.be/XorV6NEcKuo
It was quickly pushed back into place, the clamp tightened up and was fine for the rest of the day, so I can only assume the clamp was loose beforehand. Anyhow, new reflector needed!I learnt a lot about how the car handles and behaves on track, the three main takeaways being:
- With this setup it really doesn't understeer. I need to improve my driving a lot to get the best from it!
- You don't need many gears. I'm sure it would be faster using 2nd and 5th as well, but just 3rd and 4th were plenty for me.
- It needs harnesses. I used to rattle around inside my previous Elise, but the limits are so much higher I spent half my energy bracing with my knees.
That doesn't look right…
Tucked up back at home after a day of abuse
It was a Lotus on Track day, though the handful of Lotuses there were swamped with GT86s. We had great weather, not many cars and a brilliant crowd of people with no egos; by far the best trackday I've done in terms of atmosphere, fun and friendliness. Also, it turns out the owner of Blyton Park is a wonderful character, riding round the paddock on his scooter and spanking his McLaren 570S round during lunch because “I'm sprinting tomorrow and want to run it lower on fuel”. Top notch.
I edited a couple of vaguely interesting bits of video from the day together: https://youtu.be/XorV6NEcKuo
The car already has a harness bar and fittings for the lap belts. However, the seats don't have harness slots and I'm not overly keen on using them without as it raises the potential for some nasty injuries if the worst were to happen. It's easily sorted by swapping the seats out, the Exige seats are comfier too, but the interior is quite nice as it stands. I'll need to weigh it up.
Good excuse to upgrade to the later rear LED lights; then you can remove the reflectors near the exhaust (no longer MOT requirement).
jaik said:
The car already has a harness bar and fittings for the lap belts. However, the seats don't have harness slots and I'm not overly keen on using them without as it raises the potential for some nasty injuries if the worst were to happen. It's easily sorted by swapping the seats out, the Exige seats are comfier too, but the interior is quite nice as it stands. I'll need to weigh it up.
Glad you've picked on this, Ive seen quite a few people use the standard seats or mod them with harness grommets; its not safe. There's some other choices WRT seats: Tillet B5, Tillet B6F and Corbeau LE-PRO. The Tillets dont have much trim but you could have them trimmed. They all come in GRP or carbon/kevlar variants.Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff