Elise engine history/types

[200bhp]

Greetings from down under!

A colleague and I are looking at options for building our own car, similar to an Atom. I'm a mechanical engineer and he's a welding engineer so its not that much of a crazy idea

When considering engine options, we've been talking about existing mid and rear engine cars, trying to find the best source of donor parts for our car. During this process we've found the Elise. Whilst we would never find a suitably cheap/wrecked Elise here in Western Australia, we're interested in the car that Lotus also used as their "donor"

A quick look on Wikipedia shows the Toyota 2GR-FE engine from the Camry has been used is a variety of Elise type Lotus, but just how "standard" was/is that engine?

There are hundreds of wrecked Camry available locally so finding a decent engine shouldn't be hard.

Also, somewhere in the back of my mind I think some people fit Honda engines to older Elise? What's the benefit in doing that? reliability or tune-ability?

Does the Elise use anything else from the Camry parts bin or is it engine only?

Thanks.

[200bhp]

Thanks for all the useful information, guys. Engine choice down here is a little different to the UK, I dont think I've ever seen a Civic Type R on the road let alone ina breakers yard so that's not likely to be an option. Bike engines aren't allowed in cars as they dont pass car emission tests We have to use an engine that was originally fitted to a standard road registered car, including OEM ECU. Many many cars here are V8 or V6 and its not unusual for a teenager's first car to be a Commodore V8 (think Vauxhall monaro). This means there are a lot of broken V8s around and a distinct lack of small lightweight engines with any power.

[200bhp]

will_968 said:

I live in Hong Kong and have raced a few times in Aus, so know your cars.

How about the 2.3 engine in the Mazda3 (turbo, or non-turbo)? It's an MZR engine and sold as a Duratec when fitted to Fords. I know you've a good supply of those down there. I looked at a hail damaged Mazda3 MPS from a Pickles salvage auction a while ago when looking to build an endurance car; went for about $1,500 AUD for a 4-5 year old car with very few miles on it. Stat write-offs are where you need to start.

Edited by will_968 on Tuesday 12th July 16:57

Oooo... now that's a car I'd not thought of. There a few of them around and usually driven by idiots so there must be a few wrecks!