I thought I would share details of my DIY conversion in my S1 Elise as I have been hanging around on here for a while.
B16 Honda engine, steel rods, 8:1 SRP forged pistons, lightweight flywheel, civic 1.8vti gearbox with standard lsd.
El cheapo T3T4 turbo mounted on an extension to the standard manifold on the opposite side of the engine to the exhaust output which is a bit crazy but seems to work ok. external wastegate all plumbed through a large single 3 inch silencer. Chargecooler is also a cheapo item with homemade header tank, and front mounted radiator made from an aircon radiator. The two inline water pumps are from an audi 1.8t motor. 1000cc RC low impedance injectors feed the motor and are driven by a semi homemade PWM injector driver to make them open and close fast so idle is good. Fuel is fed from the standard pump filling a 2 litre swirl pot then through a bosch motorsport pump.
The ECU is a standard Honda OBD1 item which is pretty much totally mappable with a few simple components added. It can also be realtime programmed with the addition of a few other clever bits (http://www.moates.net/hondaacura-preobd2-c-69.html OR www.pgmfi.org if you are interested)
It has never been on a dyno yet as I had a series of problems which caused a bent conrod, broken cylinder bore and blown headgasket. The fault was finally found by accident stripping the fuel rail from the car. A special type of banjo was fitted on the end of the fuel rail which was basically restricting the fuel flow to a pitiful amount because i put it on backwards! How it ran at all is amazing never mind ran for two trackdays. For some reason this did not show clearly on the wideband readings which is pretty disturbing.
After a trackday at Croft two weeks ago I am now confident I have fixed it. I only managed an hour of mapping with rediculously rich values and very aggressive timing retard to try to keep it together with no mapping time. Next time out I should have significantly more power with much less boost.
The engine mounts, gear linkage, wiring loom, piping, exhaust are all hand made by me which took quite a bit of messing around and frustration here and there. The B series engine spins backwards compared to the later honda engines so sits on the opposite side of the car to all other conversions in the Elise which also caused several clearance issues but potentially gives a better weight balance. (yet to be confirmed)
The chassis has been mildly uprated with gaz gold pro shocks which make the car feel pretty planted and confidence inspiring. They only cost me �440 almost new. I have previously driven 3 Nitron equipped cars and really i can only say they feel different. Geo was set by Martin at Lotuspower.
The conversion is still very much in development, it started out pretty scruffy but it is gradually getting neater and better as time permits.
I will try and get some photos hosted somewhere later to share.
Mapping the fuelling for the 1000cc injectors has only been a problem with starting and only when the battery voltage has been low. This was because the battery voltage compensation table was way out causing it to flood the engine. Otherwise it has not been an issue.
I got the mapping pretty good before i rebuilt the engine then changed the map sensor, fuel pressure and the ecu coding etc. Infact it was quicker at less than 10psi than it was last time out running over 15psi.
pretty ragged driving second session clips at Croft two weeks ago:
I could of just done with more than about 80bhp in the afternoon!
The car got progressively slower and slower throughout the day.
I had to remove the engine over the weekend to replace an oil seal so i had to throw it back together ready for monday. Whilst testing it seems an engine mount failed… snapped the alternator belt which snapped the wired to the alternator so it was not charging. This caused the engine to misfire and i ended up with a car with 4500rpm rev limit for most of the afternoon. If you saw / heard me driving around with a constant backfire and flames out of the exhaust that was why… I still managed to pass the white M3 and countless other cars with no vtec and 4500rpm limit.
