98/99 S1 - Potential Purchase

[Icarus_]

Seriously considering an early S1 as a daily driver. So hard top a must ;-) Used to use a Chimaera as the daily car so no worries with regards knowing what to expect.

Idealy after a standard car, will add an RS140 upgrade to it and a shiny exhaust but thats it engine wise. Maybe an Emerald at a later date to allow me to run it on E85.

Have done a bit with S1's in the past and would be doing all maintanence myself. Are EliseParts still the best chaps for spares?

Anyone know of a reasonable Cat D Repaired car about at the moment? Would be seeing around 12k a year with a fair bit of track use so a stone chipped, ex write off would be the ideal subject for my attentions

TIA.

[TIPPER]

Can't help re the buying of the car but Eliseparts and Eliseshop are the best people for sparesetc. Also worth a look on Hanger111 and Bell and Colville's sites.
Re power improvements have a look on the DVAPower site. You can probably do better for more or less the same money as the PTP RS140 kit. Or talk to kiwirog at Sabreheads for reasonably priced (so I believe) porting work.

[Mr_B]

I have a 98 S1 as a daily driver.I bought it at the end of last summer and thought a hard top would be one of the first things I would buy,but I haven't bought one and now probably won't. If you can adjust the glass to hood fit, it really shouldn't be that bad. Given that a secondhand one is around £650 plus painting, I thng I'd rather spend the £800 on other areas.
Depends what you are needing re EliseParts. Their basic service stuff is not cheap and eBay can save you some money. Most other stuff is fairly priced though.
If you buy a 98 car ,make sure if doesn't have the black mats in the footwells....

[ganglandboss]

Mr_B said:

If you buy a 98 car ,make sure if doesn't have the black mats in the footwells....

Why's that?

[Icarus_]

ganglandboss said:

Mr_B said:

If you buy a 98 car ,make sure if doesn't have the black mats in the footwells....

Why's that?

Because the adhesive securing them to the floor reacts with the ally floor and causes corrosion. I'd be more than happy to find a 98 car with black mats and a really corroded floor. No one else would buy it and it'd be a cheapy as a result. Floor isn't structural and its very easy to simply treat it and bond some suitable ally into the floor over the top to fully hide it. Costs about a kilo in weight.

Tipper - I don't really want to get into ported heads etc. as I want to maintain cheap and easily replaceable engines. Cams tend to survive pretty well whereas its a bit too easy to knacker a head. Plus time wise its a lot quicker to lob a couple of cams in a spare engine and time it up than it is to swap heads. Daily driver so I plan to keep an eye out for a cheap low mileage K 1.8 and keep it as a spare. Only a day to swap engines then if it does ever let me down. One of the reasons I'm keen on moving to an elise is the fact an engine is 300 quid

Thanks for the info re: parts and hard top. Much appreciated.

Edited by Icarus_ on Monday 9th June 20:38

[Mr_B]

Icarus_ said:

ganglandboss said:

Mr_B said:

If you buy a 98 car ,make sure if doesn't have the black mats in the footwells....

Why's that?

Because the adhesive securing them to the floor reacts with the ally floor and causes corrosion. I'd be more than happy to find a 98 car with black mats and a really corroded floor. No one else would buy it and it'd be a cheapy as a result. Floor isn't structural and its very easy to simply treat it and bond some suitable ally into the floor over the top to fully hide it. Costs about a kilo in weight.

That's not quite 100% right. The adhesive doesn't cause the problem as such, it's more to do with water being trapped under the mats which causes the floor corrosion. The area where the adhesive strip is usually in near perfect condition,it's just the area inside of that which is the problem. Worth checking on any purchase,dealer fix is two sheets of ally bonded over the affected area if serious corrosion has set in at around £500 inc a carpet set.

[Icarus_]

Mr_B said:

Icarus_ said:

ganglandboss said:

Mr_B said:

If you buy a 98 car ,make sure if doesn't have the black mats in the footwells....

Why's that?

Because the adhesive securing them to the floor reacts with the ally floor and causes corrosion. I'd be more than happy to find a 98 car with black mats and a really corroded floor. No one else would buy it and it'd be a cheapy as a result. Floor isn't structural and its very easy to simply treat it and bond some suitable ally into the floor over the top to fully hide it. Costs about a kilo in weight.

That's not quite 100% right. The adhesive doesn't cause the problem as such, it's more to do with water being trapped under the mats which causes the floor corrosion. The area where the adhesive strip is usually in near perfect condition,it's just the area inside of that which is the problem. Worth checking on any purchase,dealer fix is two sheets of ally bonded over the affected area if serious corrosion has set in at around £500 inc a carpet set.

Interesting the only one I've seen that was corroded had gone where the drivers side mat bonded to the floor the rest of the ally under the mat just a bit 'discoloured'. Strangely the pas side was fine. Must have been a one off, or maybe the adhesive had lifted at that spot and trapped the water even more effectively than the mat?

How wide spread is the problem? Theres a nice BRG S1 near me that gets used very often, still has the rubber mats and still appears to be fairly spot on.

Cheers
M

[Mr_B]

I'm no expert , but everything I've read and the pictures I've seen of the floor corrosion, is inside of the bonded edges of the mat.Everytime you can see the bonded area is near perfect,but inside of this is the problem. I wouldn't now buy any car that has these mats still fitted. If the vendor agreed to pull the mats, then maybe. Cars with mats still fitted and that have corrosion are usually given away by lumps under the mat. You could be lucky and just find very light surface corrosion, or it could be more serious - you won't know until you remove the mat.

[Icarus_]

Like I said I've only seen one so am sure you are right. As its such an easy repair and such a good bargaining point I'd have no qualms about buying one, but then for someone after a mint car its a big turn off.