So I have been on here a long time (was originally Speedluvver - changed to The hornet as that what one of my kids calls the Exige) - As part of the ‘its a bit quiet’ thread - I have decided to write a retrospective diary of the car to date… it may take a few days or so to do the whole story, so bear with me…
Car was bought from B&C in Summer 2005 at 18 months old with 6k miles - it was Scott Walkers first s2 from Lotus… so it really was one of the first S2’s off the line… My daughter is now almost 21… so its a while ago !!
So, yes… as Andy pointed out - my car has a manual throttle. It was a touring spec car, but it did have twin oil coolers and a pipercross viper air filter which made it sound fab on second cam (but did fur up the throttle body a little as I was later to discover). One very early mod I did have done was to adjust the pedal box to make it easier to heel and toe (which they did anyway on the launch of the S a couple of years later… So I did a few track days with the car pretty much unmodified probably for the first 5 years or so
Feel free to interrupt !! no probs at all… the pedal mod was done by B&C - I think it was well documented at the time… It lowered the brake pedal - worth checking with the previous owner if it was already done or not…
After this my stage 1 Lotus exhaust was just too quiet and in 2009 I spoke to Jim at 2bular (who was always responsive to me) and he designed a bespoke exhaust for me that looked like the Lotus Stage 2 but didn’t drone as much… the picture you can see what I was trying to achieve with the tips pointing downwards…
Not too long after this, I started to get frustrated on track days when I would catch an Exige S under braking and through bends, only for them to pull away down the straight having that extra 30hp or so… so I started to hatch a plan based on stuff I had heard about a supercharger upgrade called ‘Katana’
So the next phase of the cars life is the only time I disliked it for a short time… It seemed from Seloc and other sites, that the katana was a good option… and could give me the extra grunt I wanted that was way cheaper than the Lotus offering at the time and without the intercooler sat on top of the engine acting as a heat soak… so I contacted Essex Autosport who were selling the conversion.
Now - I will be telling the story as it is… it may come across that I am bad mouthing EA, but I will stick to the facts as I see/saw them in order to continue the story…
Be interesting to see, there have always been mixed reviews of both the product and EA over time, as my 220 S was used by EA as a test mule for upgrades like ECU smaller pulleys and so on, it ended up there a lot, but there were a couple of times I wasn’t as pleased as I’d have wanted to be and the costs were not quite as promised.
Also very interested, don’t have any ‘skin in the game’ as such but I researched SC kits for my 111R to within an inch of my life and saw only black and white opinions of the Katana setup, very few shades of grey or details to be spoken of.
So the work was scheduled in to have the car fitted with the Katana kit… also at this time, I decided to add a 2bular manifold, Sportscat and replacement backbox as the previous one in the picture above had spat its sound deadening out. I went for the std Oval tail pipe this time.
I also had engine mount inserts added.
The car was said to be producing around 230hp according to the graphs I have (it never felt that quick and was later proven to be more like 210hp) so I left a happy guy… more power and a supercharger whine - what’s not to like !
However - this didn’t last long as I noticed the car was pinking on light throttle on the motorway… so a trip back to Essex was needed…
Reading with interest - another 2004 Exige owner here, complete with touring pack, twin oil coolers and cable throttle…
…although I have recently added Piper Stage 2 cams, EMU Black ECU, Fidanza flywheel, ACT HDSS clutch, 2bular 4-2-1 manifold and sports cat, plus have the GT3 H2 silencer on order… Lightweight battery too! Currently sitting at ~865KG
So I went back to EA who said they could not hear the pinking - I really could - but connecting an ODB2 reader showed some strange numbers, so we knew something was up… I was 2 days away from travelling to Le Mans for the LoT trip - and there was no way to get the car on a rolling road - only option was to back off the timing so not to damage the engine whilst I was away… this meant of course I was well down on power… To add to that EA had done the service whilst it was there, but had not changed the brake fluid as asked and my fluid overheated ruining my ‘Maison Blanche’ experience… so I came back from France a little pissed off…
After arriving back, the car went back to EA for a full rolling road session (or so I thought at least) and did come back feeling much more healthy with a similar output to be before but with no pinking… some time later - it emerged that likely the rolling road session was not developing a specific map for my car, but trying a number of maps that were available for throttle cable cars - this is not proven… but highly likely based on what I has since been told… in any case - the car felt much better and I went away feeling that the car was closer to what I had expected…
After a track day at Brands later that year I discovered oil splats on the rear of the car - this of course gave me heartburn when I saw it… after investigation it turned out to be a leak from the rerouted dipstick. Lakeside Engineering fixed this for me, changing the setup slightly as the EA way was ‘too reliant on hondaseal’
