Cheers Andy, yeah I saw those weird Russian links (other eastern european countries are also available) and they all say 255.
The description “Cup car” could apply to 240, 255 or 260 though as far as I’m aware, but the fact they’re all listed as 255 is intriguing. Obviously 255 is not much difference to 260 in terms of the headline figure, from what I’ve read over the years it was a much worse map - for varying reasons so this would be good to explore further.
Its another curious tale of LotusChangeIt
Why have one ECU model number when you can have 11?
From reading and I am sure you know this, the 2007 cup 255 yield 252 bhp at 8000 rpm and a torque figure of approximately 179 lb-ft at 7000 rpm
Do you know what throttle opening the 255 ecu had? To me your car appears to have a case of a 240 map with the additional low charge temps of the pro alloy cooler yielding 255. Its only a 6% gain so well within the realms of possibility.
Do you have your AFR traces handy? Curious as to what is acceptable on the 2ZZ.
Yes there are part numbers all over the shop, it gets quite confusing - especially when at some point in history Lotus dealers were handing out “260 upgrades” like sweets. Christopher Neils now Oakmere seemed to be the biggest name in this arena, reflashing 220 ECUs on site (I think?) to the 260 upgrade… it was a good time to be an S2 Exige owner I reckon!
I can’t find any info on the 255 throttle open position, that may narrow down my possibilities if I could find that out… Jon Seal has just sold a 255 Cup as it happens and I’m sort of in touch with the new owner… so might send him on an ODB mission when he collects it!!
I guess my scenarios are this:
1- I’ve got a 260 ECU and it’s making “fine” power. Car is healthy, has shown a nice torque increase, happy days.
2- I’ve got a 240 ECU and the charge cooler has made impressive gains (but still with in the realms of possibility, as you say)
3- I’ve got a 255 ECU and it was either under performing before the CC, or the CC has added nothing to its peak power
I’m still quite convinced I’m looking at scenario #1… but i’m still interested to follow through to a conclusion.
Just seen your edits on AFR, no those were not logged - Dan just monitored with an external gauge. He was very happy though - I want to say they were between 11 and 12 during WOT when I watched… but could have been between 12 and 13… getting hazy now…
It leaned out like crazy at one point, but then we found the probe had disconnected and launched across the room.
Just to jumble things a bit more , dont forget that lotus realeased each iteration as a PS figure not HP.
260PS 256.4BHP.
I am unsure if Lotus were optimistic or pessimistic dyno operators as well.
Sorry to muddy the waters. I cant help but stick my oar in!
AFR edit : I would expect 11-12 rather than 12-13. Ill email him now 
Yes true, always got to remember the PS/BHP conversion.
From what I’ve heard/read over the years - the proper 260 map was always quite responsive to certain modifications, certainly intercooling upgrades and in some cases people were able to run slightly smaller pulley’s and get good results from the standard map.
The 255 map I understand to have been a bit optimistic and in some cases was not much (if any) of an upgrade over the 240 map, I think the contemporary 2-11 owners suffered this mainly and were all quick to switch up to the 260 map when it came available. It also had drive-ability issues in terms of a weak idle and flatspots in the power delivery… not sure if I can honestly say I’ve experienced that with mine.
It would be a lot easier if we could just dump your map and take a peek. Any comments I am making are not to try and discredit what you have done / doing. I am just trying to understand !
That’s effectively what Paul @ Oakmere has offered to do. They seemed to be “the guys” for 260 upgrades back in the day, but now he explains they can’t (won’t?) flash maps anymore, instead a new ECU with the 260 map needs buying direct from the factory… sounds like that would make my eyes water.
Core, thats a trek. If they are open on a saturday we could take a run over there ?
They are open saturdays but I’ve already tried that one on, the person/team/department to check my ECU can only do mon-fri!
I shall make time for it soon, this Corona Virus panic is filling up my work diary nicely…
Fascinating but unintelligible to the uninitiated . . . Still enjoying this enormously.
All the hard work is done by the people making the Torque app to be fair, this is data logging for idiots 
Slight update, but not entirely sure that I know what it means…
I have a good friend local to me with an Exige 220 running standard intercooler etc. He’s kindly been out and logged for me and returned the following data:
The summary with the throttle position is that his peaked at 55% according to ODB. That doesn’t really tell me much about my car other than the following facts:
Subtle hint is subtle!
Only tiny bit of “maybe” progress, talked to [mention]junks[/mention] (didn’t realise he lurked these parts until today!) and he could confirm that the hand-written part number on my ECU does indeed tie up with the 260 Cup map from Lotus, but still nothing to say the ECU isn’t mislabelled. I’ve done a bit of background reading on ODB throttle % readings from various non-Lotus/toyota cars and there’s starting to be a recurring pattern of throttles never reading higher than 80%… so it could just have been a red herring, only the coincidence of me seeing a (single) reference to 78% specifically is what keeps the curiosity tingling.
Seeing the throttle % of a known 260 car would obviously put this to bed completely, as would a trip over to Oakmere. I’ve got a day freed up later in the month but at this rate I might not be allowed in!
Strange night last night, bed early after the baby refused to let us get more than 10mins into a film and then the nest thermostat in the house went mental at around 01:30 and tried to cook us in our sleep. Once I woke up to sort it, I couldn’t get back to sleep at all… Boris’ words and the thoughts of my village pub being closed for potentially months really making the Corona situation start to feel a bit real (I’m a slow learner). What would the ethical or social implications of doing stuff like trackdays or leisure drives out into the country in the coming weeks and months?
As I laid there staring at the ceiling, I made a vow to get out and use the car fairly soon on a proper decent drive with no other goal than to take in some of the glory of North Yorkshire, enjoy the car and essentially shake it down for real. I’m guilty of using the car a lot for short/mundane journeys, using a bit of power on the same slip roads/roundabouts day in and day out which makes the car feel predictable and tame.
3 hours later and the Cockerel in the farm behind our house was at full chat, which then woke up the Peacock which in turn started yelping… sleep wasn’t happening now so I tiptoed down to the garage…
After loading the car with my packup (bag of crisps and a cereal bar if you’re wondering) I got a route sorted. Not intended to be the worlds best driving route, but a route I know fairly well and gives a good balance of roads and scenery.
At 5am on the nose(ish) I cranked the car… nothing. Immobiliser wasn’t going off, looks like battery has died in my key fob. Had a brief thought about going back to bed, but no - spare key came out and the car creaked into life.
The first leg of the journey was to head towards Bridlington, a route I’ve done many times but normally in bank holiday traffic like a total mug. Today I had pretty much the entire route to myself, the route soon gets quite hilly but is brilliantly sighted and has some nice quick flowing sections. It was still dark when I set off but daylight was creeping in, got to see loads of Owls on this leg of the journey, not sure if they’re breeding or what at the moment but they seemed to be in pairs being a bit playful with each other.
After a few miles the fizzing and buzzing of the cheap interior plastics and creaking of the surrounding fibreglass seem to silence themselves, almost as if the car “settles in” once the body and chassis has flexed a bit. Although these cars will never be truly “nice places to be” the car just felt so much nicer when it all settled in and quietened down. I think much of this is the hard top, there’s clearly a bit of marginal flex in the bodywork which you only hear once a hardtop is bolted down. Eventually through lots of minor adjustments and getting the torque on the fixings “just right” you can get it silenced, but this normally takes a few journeys following a hardtop removal/reinstallation. Either way, after a few miles I had silence from the interior so perhaps it’s settled on its own.
As soon as the sun made an appearance, I pulled over for a quick photo.
Shortly after this photo op I came to a roundabout, nicely open and my first exit made for a nice 90 left which I could carry a fair bit of (legal) speed through but I’d approached it a bit too slowly due to being distracted (probably by some more frisky owls) so I changed down into second and made up for it on exit, woops - bit of a wake-up call as the T/C made a half hearted attempt to cut power but only after I’d done the hard work and arrested the car back into submission. On we go…
Before getting to Bridlington I peeled off and headed for Scarborough a little further North, I preferred it there and knew where to find a public toilet (for 40p!!) which was becoming a requirement. I arrived at the North beach to be greeted with a lovely bit of sun.
40p toilets were closed… uh oh.
I had my packup and a little walk up and down the beach and then headed off for my next leg. This bit of road connected Scarborough and Whitby via a village called Ruswarp. We’re regulars to Ruswarp as our ex-pub landlords now run a pub there instead so we make visits occasionally to stop over. The road to get there is fantastic, I didn’t get many photos because the weather had come over a bit and it smelled like rain so I wanted to cover the ground in the dry as quickly as I could. I did get one quick stop in though.
There’s actually a pair of Deer hidden away in that photo, they stood out more to me as they were hopping along the field behind but they’re very hard to pick out in the photo. The Deer did have the same effect as a passing traffic cam van would have though and reminded me to keep things in check…
Can see how the new ride height sits in this shot. Aesthetically I’d want it raising at the front a bit, but can’t argue with science - and I’ve had no clearance issues with it yet either.
Through Ruswarp and the rain hit, only very light but enough to slow things down coming back into the NY Moors via Fylingdales. Again no photos, but I did snap a few here last Easter so you can scroll back in the thread if you’re so desperate.
I made my next stop at the Hole of Horcum, quick walk to stretch the legs and considered using the facilities (squatting behind a tree). Passing Police van made me reconsider, but this did mean that I needed to make a fairly direct route home 
The road between Horcum and Malton was still pretty good even though the scenery of the NY Moors is largely behind you, car was feeling really, really good at this leg of the journey - just seemed to have an urgency about it and would quickly achieve some silly speeds if allowed to do so. The suspension was set far too soft really for an enthusiastic drive, but I know I’ve got loads of adjustment to make (currently 17 clicks from hard out of a total of 20…). I’ll make an adjustment to stiffen things up closer to half way, but will leave the front slightly softer than the rear to try and improve turn-in a bit.
Due to the bathroom situation I made a call to get onto the A64 as soon as I could and just beelined it home, well - via Screwfix as I had a toilet to fix when I got home.
I did 148 miles in total and was 3 hours 10mins door to door. Considering a quick walk on the beach and a few photo stops… not a bad rate of progress. If I’d not gone and locked myself out I could have sneaked back into the house and back into bed without the wife even noticing! As it happened I needed her to come let me in, not a popular start to the day.
Only real snagging list on the car is:
Car felt really really good, when you’re not out driving it your mind starts wandering about modifications, chasing more power and performance, etc- but then when out on the road like this morning it really does feel more than fast enough - but with quarantine on our doorstep and weeks or months of staring at the internet, I’m sure the bug to keep modifying will be back soon…
Sounds brilliant!
Other than lightness I am not sure there are a lot of cost effective places to go with these cars
Superb! Great write-up. I should get out early sometime. Problem is I’ll probably be over the drink drive limit. Should have done it in Dry January
Yes that is a concern, and I do get bored so I always need something to work towards but I think I’ve got enough stuff to cover the next two winters at least…
The Gearbox is the big thing on my mind, probably is on yours too! If there was a decent solution I wouldn’t mind putting cash aside towards it but it just seems to be a never ending pit that still doesn’t offer any guarantees. Fix 3rd/4th, need final drive. Fix final drive, needs cooling, fix cooling and then synchros are probably next… fix those and then input shafts start snapping. 
That said, I’m never going to want to push for big power (like K20 SC) in this car, I honestly don’t think it’s appropriate for my usage as I’m always going to aim for 6 or more trackdays per year and I can’t be doing that in a setup which is extremely highly strung or more to the point - difficult to drive 
What I do want to do with the gearbox is stick a diff in it, I feel like the car could really use one on track now as I’m spinning inside wheels a bit (though new suspension might help) so if I get to the end of this year with the gearbox intact it’ll be coming out anyway for clutch, flywheel and LSD. What I may do is open up a discussion here to see if there’s an intermediate option I could go to which would add a BIT of protection, but I can’t justify going the whole hog. Maybe just stick the SSC gears in for example, they’re helical cut and so won’t be AS noisy as the Jubu ones.
Aside from outright power, there’s still plenty I can do to increase enjoyment of the car and teach me something new. Thinking of a bit of interior trim, LSD/clutch, suspension refurb and maybe some tarty bodywork.
At one point I’m sure somebody was looking at a conversion kit to stick a K20 gearbox in alongside the 2ZZ… wonder what ever happened to that.
I have a diff in mine but not the gears. You are welcome to drive
