Are Elises too slow?

[RobM77]

Mark B said:

I knew I shouldn't have posted...

What I was trying to get at was the original post of are Elises fast enough.. I seriously doubt the majority of like for like Caterhams and Elises are that different in pure power acceleration throughout the speed range...... Power to weight is one thing, out right acceleration with aero/gearing/traction being taken into account is very different..

Don't worry Mark - post away! I'm a fellow Lotus enthusiast and Elise lover! I totally agree with you that Elises are 'fast enough' for what we use them for. The Elise is my perfect road car! I never intend to sell it All I was saying is that Caterhams are !*%$ing fast, which is a different matter altogether. A Caterham R400 for instance has 440bhp/tonne and an Exige has less than half that at 200bhp/tonne. I've driven both, and believe me - you feel the difference!! Especially once you get rolling on the in-gear times, as the Exige has a big advantage off the line due to greater traction. Above 30mph the Caterham fires off like a rocket.

[RobM77]

LRdriver II said:

But, but... a caterham has a solid rear axle!! just like a yank tank.
How can that possibly be quicker than Hethels finest

Yes, you certainly get a more exciting ride over the bumps on the power in a Caterham! The Elise/Exige ride and handling is a work of pure genius. Caterhams are pretty good though - they certainly get the power down better than most BMWs or RWD jap cars I've driven. A Caterham certainly feels more nervous than an Exige or Elise, but if you're gentle with it and sympathetic to the car they're very fast indeed. On a smooth track there's no question at all.

[luckyb]

tricky 100 said:

Tam said:

9-5 Aero (low pressure high output turbo)

But thats got a 0-60 time of 6.5 secs and a top end of 155 compared to 4.9 and 150 top end , so not really in the same leaque im afaid .Tons of cars get 6-7 secs but not many get below the 6 sec mark let alone 5 seconds.

I got a Viggen turbo convertible running 250bhp, and it is nowhere near as fast or as much fun, but I can get the kids in the back, and if they make too much noise, I put the roof down and drive faster!

[RobM77]

luckyb said:

tricky 100 said:

Tam said:

9-5 Aero (low pressure high output turbo)

But thats got a 0-60 time of 6.5 secs and a top end of 155 compared to 4.9 and 150 top end , so not really in the same leaque im afaid .Tons of cars get 6-7 secs but not many get below the 6 sec mark let alone 5 seconds.

I got a Viggen turbo convertible running 250bhp, and it is nowhere near as fast or as much fun, but I can get the kids in the back, and if they make too much noise, I put the roof down and drive faster!

From the point of view of 0-60s bear in mind that the Saab is front wheel drive. FWD cars rarely make it below 6.5 seconds to 60 because when a car accelerates all the grip comes off the front wheels and goes to the back ones The other thing is that FWD cars rarely go above 200-250bhp because it isn't really practical and driveable, and with a modern four seater car weighing 1300-1500kg (most FWDs are four seater), you'd need over 250bhp to get below 6 seconds to 60. Ergo, FWD cars are kinda stuck at 0-60 in around 6 to 6.5 seconds. We're talking production road cars here of course, a touring car is much faster (but very hard to drive!).

[Scuffers]

LRdriver II said:

But, but... a caterham has a solid rear axle!! just like a yank tank.
How can that possibly be quicker than Hethels finest

LOL!

no it does not have a solid axle as you put it, it had de-dion rear end, ie. it's a beam but the diff is mounted to the chassis, with drive shafts to each wheel.

many have argued that independant rear setup would work better, but Westfield have had that for years are are nothing close to Caterham's handling perfomance. De-Dion is the lightest setup as it requires no beefing up of the chassis to mantain camber comtrol, no heavy uprights, etc.

[Scuffers]

RobM77 said:

kinetic said:

Na!! 1.12.6 is pathetically slow round silverstone national if we are talking about the very same circuit it is today. I'm certain a MK1 Exige 190 will go around there in 1.09 in my hands so what David Leslie was playing at I don't know? the 190 sport is a pretty quick track car in relative terms and should not be far off a match for a Caterham superlight R in 120hp guise.

The Superlight R has 190bhp (same engine as the 190 Exige), it was my roadsport that has 120bhp. I don't have figures, but I seriously doubt that an Exige with half the power to weight ratio of the SLR would get near the SLR's time. Consider that at the time, the SLR was the fastest road car in the world around the Nurburgring (7:50 I think?) - I'm sure Lotus would have done development work there and if the time it set was quick we'd know about it in Ring folklore. If it got under 8 minutes I'm sure we'd know about it in fact! In the Autocar test the only other road car to get under 1:10 was a Ferrari 550.

he's right...

never did understand that time for a stock Sport 190. At the time, I had just started racing with mine, and in my very first race there was lapping in a 1:07 flat (and consider that I subsiquently discovered that my engine was actually more like a sport 177!)

[RobM77]

Scuffers said:

RobM77 said:

kinetic said:

Na!! 1.12.6 is pathetically slow round silverstone national if we are talking about the very same circuit it is today. I'm certain a MK1 Exige 190 will go around there in 1.09 in my hands so what David Leslie was playing at I don't know? the 190 sport is a pretty quick track car in relative terms and should not be far off a match for a Caterham superlight R in 120hp guise.

The Superlight R has 190bhp (same engine as the 190 Exige), it was my roadsport that has 120bhp. I don't have figures, but I seriously doubt that an Exige with half the power to weight ratio of the SLR would get near the SLR's time. Consider that at the time, the SLR was the fastest road car in the world around the Nurburgring (7:50 I think?) - I'm sure Lotus would have done development work there and if the time it set was quick we'd know about it in Ring folklore. If it got under 8 minutes I'm sure we'd know about it in fact! In the Autocar test the only other road car to get under 1:10 was a Ferrari 550.

he's right...

never did understand that time for a stock Sport 190. At the time, I had just started racing with mine, and in my very first race there was lapping in a 1:07 flat (and consider that I subsiquently discovered that my engine was actually more like a sport 177!)

Mmm. Maybe that time is a bit suspect for the Caterham Superlight R as well? My 120bhp roadsport can do a high 1:08/ low 1:09 around there, so maybe the Superlight should be going much faster than Leslie's time of 1:06? It has double the power to weight ratio of my Caterham!

Either way, I think we have to look at the relative difference between the two cars as being realistic, as the temperature, driver and track conditions were identical for both laps.

Don't get me wrong, the grip and balance that the Elise generates means that it will always go faster for an equivalent power to weight ratio - it is simply a more modern and more advanced chassis. However, Caterhams have such high power to weight ratios that they will invariably usually be quicker than an Elise. Do remember as well that in the S1 Sport 190 we are talking about a pretty extreme Elise compared with the 111S and 111R that this thread was primarily discussing. Additionally, my original comment was regarding purely the straight line performance of a Caterham (in fact, this whole thread is about straight line performance), and don't forget that the R500 EVO held the world record for 0-100-0, and in this feat was quicker than the fastest of superbikes at the time! (record now held by an Ultima GTR).

Edited by RobM77 on Monday 21st May 09:54

[pasthim]

Blimey! is this still going then???

Just exercised my 111R against an Impreza STi. 0-40 I was faster although helped I think by the Elise being easier off the line, after that he pulled 50 yards and then I held him.

[997s]

That was a read...I've just read all 11 pages to get up to speed (excuse the pun). This is most informative as I'm looking for a Elise / VXT to compete in hill climbs, sprints and the occasional track day.

What I can gather from the VXT / 111R /111S discussion is that the VXT is quicker and has a flatter torque curve but due to the extra weight it does not handle very well. (I've noticed quite a few Cat C & D VXT's around and not many Elises) This extra weight may be the clams or the engine.

Due to the low-end torque, I've been considering a VXT to help me out of bends on hill climbs, but the handling is a concern.

This leads to the question of how heavy is the Audi engine that is used in the Elise conversion and how would an Elise handle with the VXT engine (thus removing the extra weight of the clams)?

Edited by 997s on Sunday 27th May 09:17

[shangani]

The clams on the VX are very heavy - a VX rear clam weighs as much as an elise entire bodyshell incl doors. There is currently no reliable way to put the VX engine in the elise as the rear subframe is different. The Audi elise conversions add around 35-40kg and the hondas more like 20kg (but many with lighter engine mounts etc etc, the weight does not change very much. The VX's that have been in the LoTRDC race series, including one with 320 bhp, all supported by a full team, have not set the track on fire.

The honda elises have been far quicker. They seem to handle extremely well - 1st 4 places at Oulton. There hasn't been an Audi conversion in the series yet, but Steve Gugliemi has a 380 bhp elise that is staggeringly quick on track - 3rd place in time attack att Donington, against cars with 1000 bhp!

Even the NA honda conversion is very very quick. The SC honda lays waste to even the race prepped Ferrari 360 CS and Porsche GT3's. Quick enough?

[bogie]

997s said:

That was a read...I've just read all 11 pages to get up to speed (excuse the pun). This is most informative as I'm looking for a Elise / VXT to compete in hill climbs, sprints and the occasional track day.

What I can gather from the VXT / 111R /111S discussion is that the VXT is quicker and has a flatter torque curve but due to the extra weight it does not handle very well. (I've noticed quite a few Cat C & D VXT's around and not many Elises) This extra weight may be the clams or the engine.

Due to the low-end torque, I've been considering a VXT to help me out of bends on hill climbs, but the handling is a concern.

This leads to the question of how heavy is the Audi engine that is used in the Elise conversion and how would an Elise handle with the VXT engine (thus removing the extra weight of the clams)?

I do a sprint series in my Honda Elise ...one thing to bear in mind, is that Elises dont run in std production classes (as they beat everything) ...so std Elises get lumped in with Cat 7 style cars. You can be competitive against these if you have a high power variant - Exige S, or S1 Sport 190 etc

If you change the engine block you have to run in Sports Libre class "anything goes" nearly...which can be good or bad depending on which series you enter. I have an SC Honda Elise, and can mostly get into the top 10-15 places out of 130 entrants...(beating all other road going cars), but then im like 5th in class against single seaters on slicks

So if you actually want to be competitive then stick with an unchanged Engine block...Id try to get a Sport 190 series 1 Elise, mod it a bit and you will be sorted.

If its just for fun and you intend to do a lot of road miles/trackdays and stuff and want reliablity then you cant go far wrong in an S1 Honda engined car...occasionally you see them up for sale on here or SELOC (cheapest way to get one) ..if you wanted to put your own together from an early S1 then you are looking at about £20K for a sorted car.

Edited by 997s on Sunday 27th May 09:17

[997s]

Thanks for your help guys.

I think the Elise is the way forward..

[cyberface]

997s said:

Thanks for your help guys.

I think the Elise is the way forward..

Just to add to the confusion, I'm guessing from your username that you have owned 911s... the VXT handles more like a 911 than an Elise due to the extreme rear weight bias. If you're happy with quick-911 track driving techniques (weight transfer, trail braking etc.) then you may find the VXT fits you like a glove. I certainly found that out myself The Elise is more neutral and requires different technique.

As to the cat C / D VXTs, remember that there are two types of VXT owners - people who have owned Elises and got pissed off with quality and didn't like the engines offered, and guys coming from Z20LET Novas thinking it's a 'racing vauxhall'... the latter group tend to bin them at the first sign of rain. And the tyre situation for VXTs is nowhere near as advanced as for the Lotuses, therefore the first thing you need to do is put Elise size front wheels on the VXT...

If you want to be fast though, the Honda Elises are pretty much the daddy. I love my VXT and its interesting handling traits, but won't try to kid anyone that it's as fast as a proper fast Elise. (of course, once I've got the chargecooler, AP brakes and 330 bhp I'll try it on against anyone at trackdays, just to find out, yer know )