I hear you on the V6 Exige… I so very nearly bought a 410 a couple of years ago when mine was going wrong… but my wife reminded me that just because I’d be going faster, doesn’t mean I’d be having more fun… plus she also mentioned that fixing it is half the experience, and the V6 would likely need less fixing 
Plus, the S2 is oh so pretty!!!
It really is. Lotus don’t really make an ugly car, but the S2 proportions are just gorgeous to my eye.
Nothing against the V6 at all, fantastic car but I’m just starting to feel like the S2 is moving around underneath me the way I want it. From a driving development perspective I’m not ready to move on yet.
Still nothing is off the table, I’m just trying to organise things in my head. Getting the car back running and in a condition to be saleable or driveable is step 1.
That’s what I like to hear! It’s always so demoralising when they’re in bits/broken… Get it saleable/driveable and see how you feel at that point… Fortunately, even when it’s broken, it’s great to look at
Why not turn the current car back to 275ish, standard gearbox. Strip weight out, perspex windows, dash, sound deadening, etc etc and turn her into a light weight track weapon/project?
Nothing is off the table 
For any Exige S owners reading, 275/280 in these cars is massive fun. 300 is a bit more, in hindsight it’s not worth the added risk to the gearbox. I’ve spoken to many specialists in both the Toyota and Lotus worlds now and everyone agrees I’ve been extremely unlucky with this, but still. If I could wind back the clock I’d leave the car at ~280bhp and enjoy it for much longer.
The diagram I did on my kitchen whiteboard immediately following Cadwell turned out to be fairly accurate.
I’ve spent the last week or so mainly staring at the car, but my neighbour (he’s literally the second most experienced person I know at swapping 2zz gearboxes out) pushed me into getting a move on and mounting the new box. No photos because I’m sick of this as much as you are, but we have our technique refined now and it was in fairly easily.
Just prior to the install, I fitted some new Toyota output seals.
I spent another few hours on mounts, ancillaries, etc. The only change of note is that I put studs in the forward facing engine mount to make reinstallation easier (it was).
I fully disconnected the gearbox oil cooler to fully flush it out (in case it ended up with some shrapnel in it, despite not being running at the time) which meant dumping a load more coolant on the garage floor, so today I got the car idling on the ramp and rebled/refilled the coolant. I had some cheap and cheerful Halfords gearbox oil in the new box because I knew it had been sat for a while, and just wanted to clear out any dust/crud that had formed within it.
With the car and box up to temp and fully bled, I switched off and drained £30 of Halfords goodness down the drain. (not literally, EA).
All that’s left now is to buy and fill the box with MT90, rebleed the cooler and then give the car a cursory geometry check. (lots of suspension components disconnected for a box change).
Oh, and decide what I’m going to do. At 300bhp the standard box may survive, it may not. It could last 5 years or 5 laps. Feeling how I’m feeling, I’d rather take the edge off of the car a bit so I intend to fit the standard pulley back on and give the map a little tweak and try to build some confidence back up.
Standard pulley made 280bhp last time I had it on a dyno, it’s not quite as easy for me to revert to that map because I’ve made some fuelling changes I’d rather not undo because they add some good engine/surge protection mechanisms. This means I’ll have to ‘fix forward’, the WBO feedback should keep fuelling in check but I think my timing will be a bit on the low side, meaning power may be lower than 280. Still, safety first. I’ll hopefully survive Croft next Friday and then take things from there.
sorry to hear about you gearbox/drive issues.Now you have me panicking about the H111 kit i am getting fitted to mine, i cant afford a g/box issues 
!!!
Don’t panic. I think Kyle’s box disaster was a freak.
Indeed, H111 280 kit is on the safe side of power (realistically I would expect somewhere around 260) and as you only use on the road you won’t be putting the box under anywhere near as much stress.
phew good hear ,cheers
With the annual LoT Croft trackday quickly approaching I had to get a move on buttoning up the car.
I threw some more rear discs on because the originals had lipped heavily and was starting to mess up my pads. In hindsight I should have done this over winter when the new pads went in.
It might change, but I really need to decide what I want going forward. The S3 didn’t make me want to immediately part with another 30 or 40k (on top of the value of mine!) and as corny as it sounds, being around a massive bunch of mates at the LoT trackday made me really want to stick to the brand… so options are limited.Oh and a complete non event was going back to an open differential.
I was expecting to really miss it in the hairpin but I just didn’t.
Surprised, I thought I’d be winging about a lack of LSD for months but it really wasn’t noticeable. In the wet it’ll be another story, adding a diff turned my car from deathtrap to something I could have fun with so it will still suck to lose that.
My opinion of LSD in a Lotus is firmly “not worth dropping your box just to fit one, but there’s zero downsides to adding one if your box happens to be out”
What a predicament you are in!
I know, poor Kyle doesn’t like his perfectly good toy car anymore. Such problems 
Have you thought about going the other way? You could build a supercharged k20 S1/S2? Or go a similar route to HPE and throttle body them.
That could give you the S2 light on its feet feel that you are talking about with hopefully a bit more reliability.
Obviously I’m not biased to a k20 or anything 
Yes it’s certainly one of my (many) ideas floating around. Converting a Toyota car doesn’t make much sense, but I’ve often watched other S1/early S2 Honda projects through jealous eyes and it’s certainly got appeal. Rebuild what I have today (at least aesthetically) but with a power plant capable of a bit more, with a more competitive aftermarket scene.
Knowing me though, all I’d do is push a K20 to it’s limits of reliability and then complain it keeps breaking
Well I took this idea and took it a bit far.
The Exige now has a stablemate, I’d love to say I can keep them both and keep the Exige as a practical road/all-weather car but my garage can’t really accomodate both long term. Plus I need the cash for a trailer
2-Eleven thread will appear soon if andybond allows me to post non-Exige content. 
What the hecky-decky??? Awesome!!! 
Excellent! I’m looking forward to hearing about the 2-eleven and your adventures with it! 
Well, this is a turn up for the books…
