S2 Sport 135

[griffter]

I'm looking at a S2 Sport 135 tomorrow.

Any information or advice on what to look for would be gratefully received - particularly in order to ascertain that it is a proper conversion (and not a bitsa from another car).

For exmaple, is there any way of telling from the chassis number whether it was a factory conversion? It's a March 02 long roof so I suspect it could be.

Cheers.

[Scuffers]

not sure what you mean by 'proper converstion'?

the factory 135R's had probably the worse ratio of HGF

[griffter]

Hi and thanks. I guess I mean a genuine Lotus (factory or dealer) conversion as opposed to a non-Lotus '135' plus a set of stickers.

[Scuffers]

griffter said:

Hi and thanks. I guess I mean a genuine Lotus (factory or dealer) conversion as opposed to a non-Lotus '135' plus a set of stickers.

don't think anybody did 'fake' 135R upgrades?

Factory used to sell them, people (and dealers) would fit them, but that did not make the car a 135R as such?

if your looking at one, I would be more concerned with it's HG history, at the time they did the 135R was when Rovers foundery was pushing out the very worst castings...

[griffter]

It's not an 'R', just a Sport 135.

So did factory cars get a CR box? Did all 1.8s in fact? Did dealer fit 135's get the CR box? That's the kind of thing I'm wondering.

Cheers.

[TIPPER]

When you test drive the car keep your eye on the revs: If 40mph = 2k, 60mph = 3k etc in top, then the car has a C/R box. The standard box will give you about 500rpm less at these road speeds.
All boggo (120bhp) K engined Series 2 cars had the C/R box, the S2 the longer legged box. On the S1 it was the other way around. Not sure what box the 135 varients came with but its easy enough to check for yourself when driving the car.
Apart from Scuffers comments above I've read about the 135's being particularly prone to HGF. Maybe the batch of heads that were used were particularly bad?

[Risotto]

The 135R and the Sport 135 were separate models. My Sport 135 was fine in terms of HGF - decent mid-range improvement over the standard S2 too.

The upgrade was basically a series of engine modifications, no other components were involved and the CR box wasn't part of the package. I could have sworn the upgrade also featured steel head-locating dowels (instead of nylon ones or whatever the standard ones were) in order to reduce the liklihood of HGF, but I can't find anything at the moment to back that up - so maybe I'm just imagining it.

I would have thought Lotus would be able to tell you whether or not they fitted the kit if you give them a bell. Similarly, if it has a decent service history, a few calls to the dealers who've looked after it should allow you to establish whether one of them was responsible. I doubt there are many 'home made' Sport 135 cars around - the factory would add the kit to your Elise for as little as a grand at one point. At that price, I can't imagine anyone would bother doing it themselves.

There's an Evo review of the S135 here and some more details from elises.co.uk here if you haven't already seen them.

Edited by Risotto on Saturday 1st November 22:55

[Scuffers]

Risotto said:

The upgrade was basically a series of engine modifications, no other components were involved and the CR box wasn't part of the package. I could have sworn the upgrade also featured steel head-locating dowels (instead of nylon ones or whatever the standard ones were) in order to reduce the liklihood of HGF, but I can't find anything at the moment to back that up - so maybe I'm just imagining it.

135 kit was just a ported head.

the problem was the heads that were used seem to suffer the worste of Rovers foundry issues, resulting in quite a few being porous, no amount of steel dowels/HG's etc is going to fix this, lot's were changed out.

the upside to all this is that looking at a car now, if it had this problem, it would have already been sorted by now...

[Risotto]

Scuffers said:

135 kit was just a ported head.

Fair enough, I though there was a different inlet system too but I can't honestly remember.

[Lawrence5]

135 is a nice conversion freeing up the engine a bit as Simon says is just the head (not to be confused wit 135r which has the large throttle body etc). 135 will have the c/r box as do all std s2 (which 135 was based on) only s2-111s got a different set of ratios.

Lotus gave away the conversion to drum up business in late 2002 so don't pay too much extra for it. The kit was always in the Lotus Performance catalogue so could be some dealer fitted kits but doesn't matter who fitted..... just do your usual checks to make sure you are happy with the car. factory may have records but trust your eyes and judgement of the seller........


Drive a standard car too just to make sure it feels quicker - be a shame to pay for a performance premium and just get a set of stickers

Good luck

[Scuffers]

Risotto said:

Scuffers said:

135 kit was just a ported head.

Fair enough, I though there was a different inlet system too but I can't honestly remember.

some came with the cast Ali inlet manifold (ala. VVC) too, not sure what the default was with the S2's...

you can spot 135 heads as they are all engraved with a number on the corner of the head, like 135/xxx (usually hard to read) eg.

Edited by Scuffers on Sunday 2nd November 14:10

[griffter]

Thanks to all.
It was a no go - sill cracked and underfloor tray hanging down a bit where there was a bolt missing.
The search continues...

[S Works]

griffter said:

Thanks to all.
It was a no go - sill cracked and underfloor tray hanging down a bit where there was a bolt missing.
The search continues...

Sill repair's not 'that' expensive, and undertray bolt missing is all of a few pence to fix. Was it mechanically sound?

[miro]

S Works said:

griffter said:

Thanks to all.
It was a no go - sill cracked and underfloor tray hanging down a bit where there was a bolt missing.
The search continues...

Sill repair's not 'that' expensive, and undertray bolt missing is all of a few pence to fix. Was it mechanically sound?

sounds rather unloved tbh. but if it were mechanicaly sound then good point to haggle over

[griffter]

S Works said:

griffter said:

Thanks to all.
It was a no go - sill cracked and underfloor tray hanging down a bit where there was a bolt missing.
The search continues...

Sill repair's not 'that' expensive, and undertray bolt missing is all of a few pence to fix. Was it mechanically sound?

I think so, but 50k miles. To be fair the dealer tried hard, but in this climate and with me being in no hurry it just wasn't persuasive. I decided not to take the risk that the damage extended beyond what was visible (as IME it almost always does) and wait for the next car. The hole in the undertray looked oval and didn't look like it would line up with the threaded hole in the chassis (which also looked oval). It wasn't a no-no on its own, but the dealer wouldn't fix it and I didn't want the risk. Maybe I'll regret it in time, but I haven't yet seen enough to know!

[lee111s]

You won't regret not buying it mate. The choice you have is mahoosive, and don't buy untill you're sure it's the one. I looked at 9 elise's before I bought my s1 111s. I just knew it felt right.

Had it about 5 weeks now and not one bit of bother so far so looking good for now.

Good luck in your persuit!

[S Works]

griffter said:

S Works said:

griffter said:

Thanks to all.
It was a no go - sill cracked and underfloor tray hanging down a bit where there was a bolt missing.
The search continues...

Sill repair's not 'that' expensive, and undertray bolt missing is all of a few pence to fix. Was it mechanically sound?

I think so, but 50k miles. To be fair the dealer tried hard, but in this climate and with me being in no hurry it just wasn't persuasive. I decided not to take the risk that the damage extended beyond what was visible (as IME it almost always does) and wait for the next car. The hole in the undertray looked oval and didn't look like it would line up with the threaded hole in the chassis (which also looked oval). It wasn't a no-no on its own, but the dealer wouldn't fix it and I didn't want the risk. Maybe I'll regret it in time, but I haven't yet seen enough to know!

Fair enough. What I would say is that if you are buying a car you don't know much about, then you would be well served to have any potential purchase checked over by a reputable Lotus Specialist, not the AA, nor the RAC, nor some dealer who will give you a 3 month warranty that's not worth the paper it's written on.

Even better, buy an enthusiast owned car, do a private sale, and anyone selling who know's their car's not a pup will be more than happy to help you arrange that.