Ultimate Elise for sale
Discussion
Scuffers said:
kambites said:
Is there any reason that one shouldn't down-tune one of these to Esprit power levels and use it as a daily driver? 
what? appart from it not being road leagal in any sence of the word?It has covered wheels, mirrors, no obviously dangerous sharp edges, an engine which has been type approved for road use in a different state of tune... I wonder how much work it would be to get it through an SVA.
ETA: In fact it looks as if there was even a road car made.
Edited by kambites on Thursday 28th August 08:24
kambites said:
Scuffers said:
kambites said:
Is there any reason that one shouldn't down-tune one of these to Esprit power levels and use it as a daily driver?
what? appart from it not being road leagal in any sence of the word?It has covered wheels, mirrors, no obviously dangerous sharp edges, an engine which has been type approved for road use in a different state of tune... I wonder how much work it would be to get it through an SVA.
ETA: In fact it looks as if there was even a road car made.
the road car as never SVA'ed and is not the same - it just shares the look and layout, it was done to homologate the car for what was GT-1 at the time.
although I don't agree with the colour scheme on that one 
Scuffers said:
you would never get that car though SVA without spending a small fortume on it, and to do so would wreck it.
Which bits do you think would cause problems for SVA? Given that the cockpit section is basically standard Elise, stuff like visibility, interior projections etc. will all be fine.I'm fairly familiar with SVA regs, and I see nothing that rings immediate alarm bells... If you can get something like the Westfield Eleven or Suffolk SS100 through SVA and leave it looking authentic afterwards, the Elise GT1 would be a piece of cake.
Sam_68 said:
Scuffers said:
you would never get that car though SVA without spending a small fortume on it, and to do so would wreck it.
Which bits do you think would cause problems for SVA? Given that the cockpit section is basically standard Elise, stuff like visibility, interior projections etc. will all be fine.I'm fairly familiar with SVA regs, and I see nothing that rings immediate alarm bells... If you can get something like the Westfield Eleven or Suffolk SS100 through SVA and leave it looking authentic afterwards, the Elise GT1 would be a piece of cake.
look at the pics of the cockpit...
then consider it's designed for s 40mm ride hight, has a Hewland race car box (ie. no syncro's, straight cut sequential, multi-plate race clutch (would last aprox 1 hill start), lights which are below legal min hights and width possitioning, etc etc etc..
like I said, by the time you have got it SVA passable and actually drivable on the road, you will have wrecked it and spent a fortune.
Scuffers said:
your joking right?
No, I'm not joking. Are you familiar with SVA?
...The cockpit would need an SVA friendly switch panel and steering wheel, but these could be temporary items that you swapped back to the originals the instant you drove out of the test centre. I cant see anything else that would be a problem, from the photo.
...There is no requirement for ride height under SVA, but if there was, you'd just need to screw up the suspension for the duration of the test.
...If you check my profile, you'll see that I drive a fully road legal car (designed by the same guy who designed the Elise GT1, coincidentally) fitted with a Hewland dog/straight cut race transaxle. It's noisy and a bit clonky in traffic, but perfectly manageable (manageable enough for me to have taken the car on a 460 mile round trip in one day, back to meet it's designer earlier this year).
...Multi-plate race clutch can easily be changed to a road friendly item. It's not rocket science and wouldn't 'ruin' the car.
...lights could be dealt with by (a) screwing up the ride height for the duration of the test or (b) fitting temporary 'frog eye' housings, as Westfield does with the Eleven (which has lower lights than the GT1).
Bear in mind that it's possible to SVA cars like the Radical, Ultima and Westfield XTR without too much trouble. There are also several road legal Porsche 962 Le Mans cars in the UK (one of them for sale on Pistonheads at the moment) the Elise GT1 almost certainly presents fewer issues and if you can afford to buy the thing in the first place, the cost will hardly be 'a fortune' to you...
There is already a GT1 in existence that is road legal and road driveable, and having seen the car in question, I can tell you that it hasn't been 'ruined' by the process.
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