111S mods / upgrades need advice

[Shabs]

Hi All,

Hopefully the powers of PH can help a bit here. As you know I am trying to figure out which lotus to buy next year and I am sort of comming to the conclusion that a 111S with modifications will suit me better than a standard 111R. I want a car that I can really enjoy to it's full potential, I currently have a TVR and find it annoying that I can really only floor it for 2 seconds before I am way above reasonable speeds and it is trying to kill me. SO, can anybody comment on what mods you would make to a 111S to make it the most chuckable car possible? I am after a true Lotus experience, laugh out loud fun at not that license losing speeds and possibly an introduction to the track

My thoughts so far:

Brakes

Not sure here - do I need new discs and pads? It seems EBC seem popular, are there other alternatives? What is recommended? Do you need to do front and back?

- Will be getting somebody else to fit these, if I go for braided hoses, is it expensive labour wise?

Suspension

Nitrons (£1,200)
Anything else? What typically needs to be refreshed on a 2003/4 car?

- I plan to fit these myself

Wheels & Tyres
Team dynamics Pro race 1.2 (£500 for 4 I think)- do they fit the rover engined cars?
R888s (£700 for 4 I think)

- Where is the best place for these? What offset am I looking for / tyre size is best?

Exhaust

Hurricane induction (£160)
Larani CS + Decat (£600)

- I will fit this myself

Gearbox

Shortshift kit and upgrade linkage (£150 guess)

- Is this hard to fit / should I pay somebody to fit this? Roughly how much is labour?


Thanks for any advice on anything else I may have missed. This will really help me when looking for a car and also pricing a car that may have some of these mods already attached!

Shabs

[21TonyK]

Sounds like you have aplan and in the absence of anyone else heres a few thoughts.

Brakes: Just change the pads unless the discs and shot in which case elise parts do them for about £250 a pair. This is a very simple job and one you should be more than able to do if you intend to change the shocks and other bits yourself. Really is a few minutes work. As for braided lines, again pretty simple on a non-ABS car. As to the pads, up to you, so many (too many!) options. You need to weight that one up proeprly.

Suspension: £1200(!!) That gets you some very nice shocks. Nitron do a street series for half that which are getting great reviews on various forums. A full set of Randy spec nitrons are about a grand, remember to budget a couple of hundred for a propper geo afterwards though. Also changing the bushes over, maybe a couple of hundred and toe links, again a couple of hundred if needed.

Tyres: 888's can be had for less than £700 a set. Last time I bought a full set they were about £550 for an Exige so maybe fractionally less for an Elise from camskill.co.uk Wheels, no idea.

The rest is a bit Elise specific and I'm not that familiar but plenty of thers on here are.

[Stephanie Plum]

Take yourself over to www.seloc.org and have a good look through the techwiki, and search the technical discussion forum. All of these mods, and many many more, have been discussed there - and still are every day!

I have an S2111S - they are great cars. Worth considering at some point is a conversation with Dave Andrews (DVA Power) for some fairy dust for the engine.

I would suggest starting out on the standard wheels and putting AD07s on if the car comes with Bridgestones - wait until the Bridgies are knackered though! Learn to drive the car that way before going for stickies and new wheels - especially if you are only just starting tracking.

Suspension - again depends on how heavily you get into tracking it - lots of options but the standard billies are a perfectly good shock. Brakes - people generally suggest Mintex 1144s, Pagid RS42s or Yellowstuffs - avoid Greenstuffs. Carbon Lorraines are also getting a good rep. Don't replace discs until they're knackered - as already said.

And may I be the first to say driver training - www.carlimits.com - the best £200 upgrade money can buy - for the driver

[Shabs]

great advice thanks guys - I spent the day looking through techwiki which has a huge amount of info! Also on the driver training, yes, SWAMBO is getting me that for Xmas for when I get the car.

On the S2 111S, can you fit a CR gearbox? The links from the techwiki seem to not work / the places that they point to don't do them anymore. Any advice on where I could hunt around for prices on these?

When buying the car, is there anything that *MUST* have been done to it when I look through the receipts? For example, you are basically suicidal if you buy a TVR and don't check for regular fuel line changes and chassis treatment etc. a 5 - 6 year old 111S should have had what major things done?

[Stephanie Plum]

Find out of it's had HGF and if yes who fixed it. If it wasn't done well it'll go again though it isn't the end of the world so don't stress on it. Dave Andrews is yet again your friend here. If it goes send it to him for a fix and get an upgrade done while he's at it.

Apart from that they don't do anything particularly heinous on the going wrong front - little niggles but all can be easily fixed - it's only a little Rover engine after all. If it comes with sticky tyres already fitted, check the toe links have been upgraded - if they haven't been - get them done.

Yes you can fit a CR gearbox and/or short shift - again search on seloc and you should find the answers - if you can't whack a thread in technical. I had a short shift fitted (tho no c/r) when I bought mine and the supplying dealer fitted it - it wasn't expensive tho iirc.

[tertius]

whereabouts are you?

I'm in SW London and have an S2 111S with all the mods you describe (plus a few more) very happy to show it to you, go for a drive and have a natter some time.

Its not for sale though so no point getting ideas ...

http://www.tertius.me.uk/pages/Elise_111S/index.ht...

[griffter]

I moved from a griffith to a s2 111s last year. My car has a hurricane and b&c clubsport exhaust ( very similar to larini). Ditching the cat will make it very noisy and can reputedly be problematic on 111s (check seloc). Plus youll have to swap it back in every mot. Suspension geo and proper tyre pressures will be enough to begin with, certainly an improvement over the TVR. I have ebc see stuff pads and discs all round which are superb. Most important is to bleed and check free movement, for pin sharp feel.

[Shabs]

Tertius, that looks beautiful - especially the seats I live in the extreme SW London (ie Woking) and would love to meet up to have a chat, ride, look around. I'll PM you

Shabs

[Scuffers]

Shabs said:

Brakes

Not sure here - do I need new discs and pads? It seems EBC seem popular, are there other alternatives? What is recommended? Do you need to do front and back?

- Will be getting somebody else to fit these, if I go for braided hoses, is it expensive labour wise?

std disks are fine for road use, pads are ste though, avoid EBC like the plague,
go with some Mintex 1144
then change the flexible hoses

Shabs said:

Suspension

Nitrons (£1,200)
Anything else? What typically needs to be refreshed on a 2003/4 car?

- I plan to fit these myself

bit OTT but nothing wrong with them if that's what you really want to do, there are cheaper more road orientated options though.

Shabs said:

Wheels & Tyres
Team dynamics Pro race 1.2 (£500 for 4 I think)- do they fit the rover engined cars?
R888s (£700 for 4 I think)

- Where is the best place for these? What offset am I looking for / tyre size is best?

Not sure they do the required offsets for Rover engined cars (at the rear), you need ~ET17 - (you can go lower to ~ET10 but not higher)

Shabs said:

Exhaust

Hurricane induction (£160)
Larani CS + Decat (£600)

- I will fit this myself

Gearbox

Shortshift kit and upgrade linkage (£150 guess)

- Is this hard to fit / should I pay somebody to fit this? Roughly how much is labour?

probably would not bother with either of these unless the orriginals are knackered.

[Shabs]

Thanks guys,

Scuffers - what other more road biased shocks would be recommended? Something like Gaz Golds? I know it is very lame of me, but ride hight adjustment is important because I love the look of the car just slightly (like an inch) lowered.

I will look into the Team Dynamics - I have seen S1's with them, but not sure about S2's... I really don't want to shell out for OZ even though they look

Shabs

[Scuffers]

Shabs said:

Thanks guys,

Scuffers - what other more road biased shocks would be recommended? Something like Gaz Golds? I know it is very lame of me, but ride hight adjustment is important because I love the look of the car just slightly (like an inch) lowered.

I will look into the Team Dynamics - I have seen S1's with them, but not sure about S2's... I really don't want to shell out for OZ even though they look

Shabs

ride height adjustment is more down to specing the right damper/brackets in the first place, you can't just throw an 'adjustable' damper on and hope it will work.

also saying 1" lower does not really help much as without knowing where it's starting in the first place?

that said, yours should have Bilstien dampers on from new, quickest/easiest way is to get lowering damper brackets, but be aware that you will also have other issues to contend with (bump-steer/geometry etc). This is all do-able stuff, but it needs to be worked out properly.

as for Gaz Golds, personally I would not go there, twin-tube dampers are a step back from the std monotube shocks they come with as std.

[Shabs]

agree, I intend to get the Geo / hight etc set up properly - no point buying a Lotus and making it handle like crap

ETA: There is an S2 Rover in the calssifieds with TD race pro's, also the techwiki says it will work, I'll call Demontweeks to check

Edited by Shabs on Wednesday 16th December 14:18